Liberty

Well, Vanessa finally had her wish. I experienced my first accompanied taste of carnal pleasure in years, and although cut short, it was excruciatingly delightful. Had I really broken my commitment?

As consequential and disastrous as my interpretation might have been, the event had passed. I decided it was not reasonable to agonize over the technical termination of my abstinence, especially under such unholy circumstances. According to the plethora of false testimony online, I was already involved in other insidious acts on a semi-regular basis. Besides, no evidence existed more incriminating than the video from the doctor's office, and that hadn't prompted the end of the known universe...

I finished showering, walked back to my room, got dressed, and hauled my big bag of books over to the library.

I hunkered down in a new secret space among the stacks.

For the first morning in weeks I was able to concentrate on my studies. I spent the next several hours engaged in productive learning with no distraction physical or mental. I became entranced in a frenzy of inspiration. The words seemed to fly from the pages, arranging themselves neatly in elegant patterns.

Completing my assigned coursework I tried to resist, but could not tear myself from great literature. I finished by indulging in Emerson's essay, Self Reliance, one of my favorites...it pushed me over the edge. Its luscious candor, brilliance, and shamelessness never fails to release pleasure orders of magnitude more decadent than anything I had experienced in the shower that morning.

It brought me back to the sudden moment of consciousness...the moment I decided they would stop. Awful is the space between these lips. I realized that the girls, I, we all need to make assumptions about our desires, and the desires of others. They assumed that I wanted them to assault me in the shower. They wished to do it. They believed our desires mutual. At that point, it became my responsibility to communicate their error. I realized that I made the most dangerous assumption of all. I assumed that they would refuse to stop at my request. This was my error. They followed my wishes exactly the moment I told them to stop. (At first they interpreted the method, next, correctly, the entire event. I was also in error for being weak and unclear in my first request).

We must acknowledge our desires, our loves, our feelings. We must communicate them. We must truly believe in them. This is not an option, this is the human responsibility. In doing these things, we become free. By failing, we become slaves. Our chains must be broken, our passions revealed, or the scourge of falsehood multiplies, warping our desires into perverse pits of inhuman depravity. Such is the power of our desires.

"This is my reward," I decided.

This was liberty.