Locked Entry: The one with Sebastian’s birthday.
I'm not a sentimental man. I don’t subscribe to testaments of “love”. I’ve been told most my life that love doesn’t touch me. I’m not benefitted by it’s proposed gifts. I’m not keen on meeting it, shaking it’s hand and settling in with it for tea.
Yet here I am, sitting next to a man on the couch, in comfortable silence while I do a bit of work. Sebastian entertains himself. He sustains himself, supports himself. He has investments and hobbies. He has a life, a house, his dogs. He is only here because I ask him to be, yes, but also simply because he wants to be. He doesn’t need me. That intrigues me, it fascinates me. He could walk away at any time and move on with his life. Part of me thinks he should. It’s a new feeling, I confess. Maybe it’s something like love that makes me feel that he’d be better off doing so.
All the while I think things like that, though, my inherent and unrepentant selfishness is quietly appalled by it. I find myself worrying over his intentions. I find myself pondering the amount of me he can take before he feels like it isn’t worth it anymore. I ponder my reactions to what feels like that inevitability, both bad and worse.
The last time I felt true jealousy was over my brother’s nick name, Jamie. He went by Jamie, I went by James. But I became possessive over the name and it enraged me when anyone besides myself called him that. Because of that, he formally took up James and I took Jim. I’ve been Jim ever since. Jamie is too sacred for anyone but me to use, still to this day. And even then I pick and choose my moments to use it.
Do I love Sebastian Moran? What are my true, unselfish capabilities in that department. Infatuation, obsession, those can be mistaken for love -- they are all the time. But this feels different. He feels different. It could be lust, but even to me that word offends in regards to him. He is so much more than that. He’s more than I’m afraid I will never be ready to acknowledge, more than I’m ready to know. So instead, my life sits at an ever evolving crossroads. And instead of him being with me at every split in the road, he’s holding the street signs; one with him pointing to everything we’ve become comfortable with, and the other with him pointing into an unknown with fog so dense, I can’t see at all where the path leads.
I ask myself: What would I do?
I also ask: What would Sebastian do?
Sebastian would wink with his elegant, boysih grin before nodding to the hidden path. He would arch his brow in question and already I know my answer.
I’m lost without him. He’s my crutch. He’s my diametric. He’s the calm in my storm and the obsession I can no longer deny and shake off.
And so into the unknown we go. I choose my path and with him in front of me, for once I follow, waiting for hell to swallow us whole. Here we are, he and I, always together, two devils in designer clothes, lighting cigarettes on the scalding hot sulfur flames.
He and I, in general.
Us.
Would I take a bullet for you, Sebastian? We had the conversation once. I told you I didn’t want to know if you would, because I knew what it meant. You said to ask again if I ever want to know.
I want to know the answer now.
I would fall with your knife, Sebastian. Happy Birthday. (I’m glad you liked the time piece. x )