Three Ways of Looking at Love

1.

A poor fisherman was walking home along the river one evening when he came across an injured crane. The bird was slowly pulling itself along the road, an arrow having crippled its wing. The fisherman took pity on the creature, and gently eased the arrow from its wing. The bird shook itself, turned, and without a look back, rose into the darkening sky, and disappeared.

A single drop of blood glistened on the man’s finger. He examined it, then wiped his hands on his pants. It was time to go home, to his shack on the river.

Days later a woman approached the fisherman’s shack and knocked on the door. He answered; they spoke; time passed, and they fell in love, as these things happen. They married and had children, and soon the poor fisherman grew weary of his old shack and of the hours he spent on the riverbank, and all the work of feeding a family. He noticed that his children were clothed in the finest fabrics, and when he asked his wife about this, she agreed to weave for him and the village the finest clothes she could tailor, but only if he agreed to never watch her work.

The poor fisherman agreed to this, and soon he grew rich. The neighboring villages heard tell of the wondrous fabrics created by the fisherman’s wife, and so she wove more and more, faster and faster. The fisherman built a bigger home for his family, and ate only the finest food, and soon quit visiting the river. He did not notice that his wife grew ill, and thin, and sad, as his only thought was of more – more food, more rooms, more fine fabric.

One day the man walked past his wife’s work-room, and thought ‘What harm can come of looking? After all, the labor inside this room has made me rich!’, and he opened the door.

Inside, he saw at the loom a crane, feverishly plucking feathers from her own body and weaving them into silk. Startled at this intrusion, the crane turned from the man, shook the loose feathers from her back, rose through the open window, and disappeared.

The man held one soft feather in his hand as he watched. A single drop of blood dripped to the floor.

2.

Salmacis saw the boy, and she ached for him, the son of Lust. She would have ripped her chest open for him, and let him dine on her heart, if that’s what he wanted. She wanted to rip his chest open and sink her hands in to the wrist. She wanted to pull out his heart and feed it to him, for the joy of watching him bleed and cry. She watched him and her skin rippled for the ache of wanting every inch of him, his eyes and mouth and ass and thighs. But when she came for him he resisted. Though she ran her tongue along the length of him, he resisted more, the son of Pride; and when she wrapped her slim nymph arms and legs around him, he cried. At this she cried out to the gods to give him to her. Her limbs wrapped around his, and she melted into him leg to leg, arm to arm, sex to sex. Violently they both shuddered and long slow orgasm of their entwine began. The boy called out for his mother, but Salmacis covered her mouth with his; soon their tongues tangled into one, and finally, he was quiet.

3.

Once upon a time, I was in bed with a boy. His name is not important. Trust me, I’ve learned this; the more time passes, the less the details matter. I was in a bed, with a boy. I was in love with this boy, in a desperate kind of way.

He never loved me back. I suppose that’s why I was so desperate.

This is one of my favorite memories, simply being in bed with this boy, this one morning. It is the first time I can clearly recall thinking to myself, ‘Do not forget this moment. This will mean something to you, years from now.’

Although he never really loved me, on this morning he pulled me to him and whispered sleepily in my ear, ‘I love you Leah’.

He never really loved me, although he said he did that morning, in my bed. He said my name, and I think that is when I knew to remember this moment.

He never loved me back, although I was desperate for it. Somehow, this doesn’t cheapen my memory. I no longer care that the word ‘love’ was a lie. It is a pretty enough memory that only the sweetness of the moment remains.

Once upon a time.