Her heart was solid steel, cold and heavy and impenetrable. She prided herself on this. Right from the very beginning of her sexuality, she had never truly allowed anyone to penetrate those deep locked layers. Nothing about her was soft and warm. She would never be controlled, and she was proud of this too. She had spent her whole life watching the women around her fall, one by one, fall into the dark depth of slavery by men. Her mother, her sisters, her cousins and friends, one by one they all fell to the domination of men. She would never take that road, even if it meant an eternity of solitude. There were a few that attempted to winde their way around her heart, but she always snuffed them out. Emotionless, cold, strong and determined, she walked this life a strong, proud woman without fear of the world around her.

She was not passionless, quite the opposite, she fucked with a fire that scorched any man inside of her at the time. She opened herself to the animal that raged inside her very soul, sucking the force from every man that entered her. They could never get enough, even when she would suck them dry. They always came back for more until she would cut the cord that dragged them along. Maybe she was wrong for this, maybe she was just as bad as those men who had imprisioned all the women she had loved, but she didn't care. She was just giving them a little taste of their own medicine.

It was her dreams that started all the trouble though. She was a constant dreamer as a child. Bright, vivid dreams that swam in her memories, locking themselves in her mind. She never forgot those dreams, even as she aged. She remembered nightmares she had as a child, twisted images that still sometimes haunted her. She could remember dreams she had playing with other spirits, and she held them close to her, never letting them fade from her mind. Her dreams were important to her, she saw them as messages, signs as to when she was on the right path in her life, so when her dreams stopped, she felt as if she has lost a part of herself. It was almost as if she were walking through this life alone, without the guidance of God. She felt as if he had turned his back on her, leaving her to wander aimlessly, alone, the spirits that played with her soul as her body rested had left her. It broke her to lose such an important piece of her, she didn't feel real anymore. Seven years now since her last real dream. Once in a while a dream would come to her, but they were usually dark, frantic nightmares that would sit in her head, weighing on her mind and thoughts.

The rarity of her dreams continued, but the nightmares surfaced fewer and fewer as the months and years went on, she still had the endless, torturing nightmares, but every once in a while a friend would come to play with her. It was different from when she was smaller, and the setting was always the same, but she didn't complain. She was happy with her scarce, chance meetings.

When he first appeared to her, it was in one of those rare moments in her head. He did not look as he did in person, but he loved her upon seeing her. She never let that leave her head, she hung on to him, but she never allowed her thoughts to wander to him. She simply locked him away in the deep corners of her subconscience. When she met him in person, she did not immediatly recgonize him. Just as in her dreams though, he loved her upon seeing her. He was tall and dark, just as she liked them, but he had a tenderness she had never allowed herself to experience before. He fucked her with a passion that equaled hers, and she felt the fire grow between them. She had never found that passion with anyone, that eternal flame that intensified to it's peak. But it was his understanding and openness that surprised her, and when she found herself falling for him, she pushed those feelings as far away from her as she could.

He seemed to effect her right from the beginning. The dreams that ran throught her now were intense and seemingly endless. Always, always he was there with her while she slept. Telling her the dark secrets of his heart, and it saddened her to wake every morning. She wanted to stay in her dreams, dreams that she had lost for so long, that were beginning to come back, dreams that he was leading back to her.

It didn't really come as a shock when he told her he was married. What was so surprising to her was how disapointed she was. As the words slipped between his lips, she felt her heart sink deeper and deeper inside her, falling, sliding out of her body. It didn't so much anger her the secret he told her, in fact, she was almost impressed at his honesty, what angered her was the way her feeling reached out past her to him. She didn't want to care about him. She didn't want to have feelings like this, she was so used to throwing men away, using them for sex, then laughing at them behind their backs, just as most men did to women, but she found her thoughts wandering to him more and more, longing for him. Every second that passed she hoped for him to be near her. She wanted him, and she hated herself for it.

She had ripped herself in half, and it was so frusterating to her to let a man take so much control over her thoughts, but the more she tried to deny them, the stronger those feelings became. They pulsed inside her, and she could not deny them any longer. The ice that coated her insides had melted, leaving her with a pounding in her heart, and she knew that beating was for him. So she let him in. Fearful of how he would take her, but comfortable when he was around. He calmed her. He made her feel safe, not contained. She felt free and liberated with him, not controlled as her mother and sisters were, and as her mind so constantly drifted to him, she knew she had waited her whole life for him.

As she laid there with him one night, wrapped in his arms, she knew she loved him. He ran his finger through her hair, whispering in her ear how he had always pictured her this way, curled next to him naked with her hair falling in her eyes. Telling her that he could not let go of her. Telling her everything, opening himself to her, and she took him in. Time had stopped for her that night, and whenever her mind went to him after that, she always went to this night. This night was theirs forever in the deep chambers of that cold steel heart. This night when she had him all to herself, when they both came to a common ground, and for once in her life, she was on the same level with another. He filled her, and she almost liked that about him. The connection between them was pure. There was no pride or greed or condesending, it was simply pure, and it was something neither one of them could deny.

As the intensity grew between them, and they bagan to see eachother more and more, she could not help the guilt that began to creep inside her. The calls and messages from his wife became more and more constant, and she found herself with a heavy dread that began to swim inside of her. She regreted what she felt for him, especially for what it was doing to his family, but she could not let him go, and for the second time since knowing him, she had ripped herself in half. She could not deny what she had with him, but she could also not deny what he had waiting for him at home. It began to eat away at her, and the more she tried to push him away, the tighter he held on.

But her mind was troubled. She still dreamed of him, every night he was there with her, stepping throught that distant deminsion of dreams. She knew it was all in her head, but she felt him, there with her. He had brought this to her, he had given her back to her dreams, and there was nothing more powerful than that.

She had waited for the peak. The point when all this would start to fall off, but it never came. As the intensity between them mounted, she feared that she was in too deep. Trouble. For the first time in her life she had lost control of the situation, and she knew she was in trouble. She was in love with something she could never have. She was in the grip of what she had always secretly wanted, something true and pure and without bias, but it was an unreachable goal, and she knew she wouldn't be able to get out. She spent her time weighing what was in front of her, and in the end, she knew what she had to do. She had to let go. She had to give up the one thing in her world that meant something to her, the one thing that actually had debth, but she had to do it. She was tormented, but she would never be able to live with herself if this continued.

But he was still there with her every night. Daytime was more than just a walking dream to her, because he was there too. Her mind raced, always going back to the night they had together, lying naked in the dark, nothing between them, nothing against them. Just the purest, deepest truth. The night was calming as she pressed herself against him, feeling his heart beat. She would live in that moment forever, seeing him for what he really was. She went back to that moment when there was no time, no worries, no obligations or guilt, just them together, wrapped in a blanket of twilight and air. Her dreams danced again as he penetrated every inch of her mind, and every night they were together. This mileage that distanced them was nothing while they played together in her dreams.

She went back and forth. She was ripped right down the middle, and she was carrying each half around with her, each weighing on her soul. Her mind was still racing, asleep and awake, but now there were threads of her old nightmares again, and slowly they began to consume her. Some nights he would come to her and the nighmare would end, but other nights her would be standing above her as she slipped from his grip. She would fall, he would let her fall, so when she went to him, she expected it to be easy, she expected to tell him it was over and simply walk away, but the words would not come out. She stammered in her speach, and when she felt her eyes begin to fill, she had to turn from him, barely able to see where she was going.

She thought that would be the end, but he was there with her every night, and it was as they always were. Their bodies laced together, locked in eachothers embrace, he told her he would be there with her always, but these were just dreams, stupid dreams she had to keep telling herself, but she knew she wasn't fooling anyone. Her dreams were too heavy for her to push aside, and her mind still raced with him. Over and over again she saw that one night they had, it haunted her, and when her sadness and longing for him did not fade, she felt the cold sting of lonliness. She wondered secretly what he was doing, who he was with, if he was thinking about her. She locked herself away inside her mind, burning for one last touch.

She was suprised again when he did come to her, late one night, pounding on the door. There was no need, she was up, but she did not expect what was waiting for her on the other side of the door. He told her he loved her, he wanted her, his need for her was too strong for him to live with, and deep in her heart she felt the same. He kissed her and that flame ignighted more powerful than ever before, but she had to push him away. She told him everything, her feelings for him spilled out of her and she was unable to stop the tears when they came, but she knew what they had could never be. She knew she could not tear apart a family, to become what she had always hated, she couldn't. Her heart broke seeing him standing there, pleading with her, but it was a pain she knew she would have to live with. They parted, both empty, and she had no dreams that night, or the next. When her dreams finally did come back, they were feeble, weak, not the powerful, intense dreams she had with him, but once in a while he would come to her, and they would have those precious few moments in her dreams where they could be together, untouched, happy.

The sand was warm as she laid on it, the sun baking her skin, filling her with a warmth that he brought to her so long ago. That warmth had died out, and now only the intensity of those distant rays could warm her surface. It never seeped into her core, but it as close as she could get. Her neices and nephews running around her, screaming in happiness and excitement, she rose, grabing the small green floatie that sat gently on the sand next to her. As she walked into the water, the waves crashing over her legs, then her theighs, her hips, her sholders, her mind went to him, after all this time, her thoughts still went to him. She floated there in the water as she heard distantly the children splashing all around her, she knew that what she had lost would never be found again. He was gone, no thoughts or dreams would ever be able to replace what she had let go. She floated on the surface of the water, adrift in her own empty thoughts, an empty shell, having lost that one piece of her she was always looking for, knowing it was gone forever.