But none of those things happened in either world. The quiet sense of purpose that had emerged within scared a part of me. It was long delayed, yes. And maybe that’s what numbed all resistance. But then again, I had never known myself capable of what I was proceeding to do.
The heart did play its little part in this tale where the flesh assumed the protagonist’s role; as the moment drew closer, it let its discomfort known by thumping madly against its walls. But that was perhaps the only sign: there was absolutely nothing else to suggest I retreat or even reconsider. I might as well have been on my way to watch a picture I had been looking forward to for a few weeks.
Somewhere along that short trip on my bike, it slowly sunk into my psyche that this could be ridiculously easy after all.
In one invisible second, years of reasoning in my mind were overthrown.
In one invisible second, I turned into a stranger to my own past.
In one invisible second, my heart quietened.
I stopped and looked up. From two floors below, I noticed the eyes first. They were of a kind I had never seen before: oddly alluring and deeply mysterious. They took me to some place darkly magical and sinister, and I submissively followed. The door shut behind me, and all light faded into darkness…
The novelty prompted my heart to make one last, desperate effort, but all resistance melted in the heat of the moment. And in a matter of seconds, everything turned into a blur of raw, animal gratification. The pleasure was heavily tainted by a sense of terrible violation, but I was rendered powerless to contain myself by a driving spirit I didn’t recognise as my own.
But it snapped. It snapped suddenly, and I returned to myself.
A calming silence followed before I slowly picked myself up. And as I prepared to leave, I already knew I would never return. But more importantly still, it didn’t occur to me then on the way back that I could never return to where I had started from.
I thought then that christening the encounter a healthy adventure would somehow transform the whole episode into something easier to stomach. To be fair, I never did have a real desire to seek anything remotely close to what it really was. You see, for years, I had rationalised to myself that I was not as unwise as the others who actively sought such indulgences.
That was until then, before the devil convinced me that it was harmless – an innocuous little escapade of stolen bliss, without the promise of any pain. And sooner than I could be wiser about what was happening, the ease and thoughtlessness of it all possessed me.
One horrible mistake followed another, and bad sense was replaced by worse. I slipped into an intoxicating vortex of familiar sin and unfamiliar sinners…
But then the day came when the fireworks went off and showered me with luck, when the touch was gentle and the heart beat with purity – the day I was rescued from the depths of darkness.
