Torum Jot - Manysi Mahum!

It happened faster than expected. I clearly looked miserable when I got home. Tide looked at me and asked me, pressed me: "What's wrong?" She knew all along; she never said it out loud herself though. Perhaps she was hoping that she wouldn't be right.

"I don't feel that this is working between us..."

"Then end it!"

"OK..."

A long talk about how to make the split happen, looking back at what went wrong, some crying about the hope and the home she is losing. We ended it peacefully though.

Now I'm free... Sophie and Sait, I see you both preying on me like vultures ready to push me into Angel's arms or beyond. I'm back at square one: a bit nervous, a bit excited, a bit sad.

I don't think things could be more confusing for me. I don't know what I want: I think I do, both Sait and Sophie say or even shout the same to me: "Angel!" - lust and love have met in her. I have no idea though whether these would be reciprocated, I have no idea if they should be. If I were to define fair it would look as follows:

1. Tide gives up on me and gets into a happier relationship with someone who sees a real future with her,

2. Angel finds true love, someone to make her happy to,

3. I am left alone and grow miserable...

Sait, you know full well what I mean. I know you do. You hate that I do this, though. You hate that I feel like I deserve to be punished. I am causing so much pain though and I wish I wouldn't, I so very much wish I wouldn't. Why is Tide trying so hard to stay with me? Why does she not see that what we have is not going anywhere?

I want to forget Angel, get her completely out of my head and think about my relationship with Tide in that light. I more than want to do it, I have to do it. But how do I erase someone from my head? Someone I don't want to erase, someone I spend so much time thinking about, someone who actually sits right next to me at work. It's not true that I want to forget her, it's that I need to.

Sait and Sophie, I look to you for advice and even solice; but where I am now, I need something different, something more and I don't know where to get it. Perhaps I need strength and courage to face up to what I have done and even what I am doing now. I am causing pain and I am going to be causing more. That's the reality now. Neither of you is equipped to help me handle that. I will be heading to Siberia in two months time and I hope to be coming back with clarity on my side and ready to live once again between your innocent grasps, Sait and Sophie, struggling almost hedonistically between lust and love and far, far away from causing pain.

It's ending with Tide. She went to bed without saying a word to me. I feel so bad, so guilty. As much as I like to say that there is no such thing as right or wrong, I cannot deny the existence of pain. I cannot deny my ability to cause it. I cannot deny how I hate causing pain, how it literally pains me to see the suffering I cause. I cannot deny any of it - I like to say and believe that right and wrong or good and bad are simply concepts we make up that do not exist outside us humans. I cannot deny though, that I feel bad, horrible even, for the pain I am causing Tide.

I want the pain to end, her life to go down the path it is destined for and mine to continue meandering senselessly with Sophie and Sait's voices whispering their virtues and vices in my ears. I love Tide - I love her; but I don't think I'm in love with her anymore: I don't know if I can be, eventhough I feel I need to be, I need to try harder.

It pains me to cause pain, yet I do it over and over again.

- That's why I say what I say, why I ask you to drop the emotions and enjoy pure passion and lust.

Sophie, I hear you; I understand you. But Sophie, my resolve is weaker than my heart and my heart cannot be held under lock and key.

- Which is why I tell you not to listen to Sophie, you are an emotional beast, you need to follow your heart...

And Sait, how can you not see that following your advice is what brings on pain and suffering?

- Pain and suffering are part of love and part of life, you cannot get the good without the bad and your emotions will always get the better of you. You cannot pretend to be able to live the life that Sophie wants for you. You can fantasize about it, dream about it; but you cannot live it.

But Sait, what if I don't want what you propose either? I want to have something that works and that lasts - my emotions skip and jump and lead only to pain. I exaggerate, they lead to love, too, but the suffering is so painful that it blinds me, it leaves me unable to see hope. It's not only the suffering that makes me unable to see hope though, Sait, it's in fact my past that kills all hope. I look back and see me killing one bond after the next: I get closer and closer and then leave my lover alone and naked, stripped of all emotional defences. I cannot keep doing this: it pains me too much and hurts her too much. This is what makes me want to listen to Sophie and follow her.

Sait and Sophie, I need to find a third path. I cannot strip myself of my emotions; but I cannot either keep on causing so much pain and suffering...

- I don't know what to do

- You don't know what you want...

- That I do, I want to be with Angel

- But you're full of uncertainties about her, you have certainty and true love from Tide

- ... and I still want to be with Angel...

- So you have to leave Tide then, leave her, everything she is, everything she is willing to give you, behind.

- Yes. Yes, but I don't know how to do it - she loves me so. I will again look like a fool for abandoning someone who is willing to give me her all. I am the fool in all this, no doubt about it. If Angel would choose not to be with me and I leave Tide, then that's a fate I will accept. If Angel didn't exist though, I would find solice in Tide and I cannot do this to her. I cannot make Tide second, I cannot make a fool of her any more than I already have. I must leave Tide.

- ... and what if this is only a wave? What if what's happening is simply a fad and you will get back on track to loving Tide as you would like to?

- I will still have made a fool of her and be unable to look in the mirror.

- Then you must end it with Tide.

- If I must, then why do I try so hard to make her believe everything is alright? Why do I keep on doing things to reassure her? I'm afraid of hurting her, yes; but I think I'm also afraid of losing her and jumping into the unknown. I can see myself already now regretting losing someone like her who gave me her heart so fully. I can also see the pain I would be causing her if I were to do so. Only yesterday, she burst out in tears during love-making and later she told me that she adores me and that she adores me much more than I do her. I sat there, I asked her why she said that. She said "just" and I didn't deny it, just looked at her saddened. Was I sad because of what I thought was going through her head? Was I sad maybe because I was unable to love her as much as she does me? Or was it simply that I was sad because I knew our love affair was slowly dwindling to an end before both our eyes... Sad because of regret for what was to come.

- Do you want to reciprocate? Do you want to love her as much as she loves you?

- I do; but I also want to be with Angel.

- You can't do both: you have to choose.

- I know - my brain tells me that I have a sure thing with Tide, that I should stay with her, work on it. My heart tells me that I want to be with Angel; my heart also tells me that I cannot hurt Tide. Tide has found her way into my world and is accepted by friends and family alike. Cutting those ties, building new ones is not something I want to do. Angel is someone I've known for five years now and had fun with for five years. She's full of life and can give my life meaning and joy. She's also passionate and able to get upset and angry with me barely twitching... I don't know what I want.

- You do know what you want.

- Yes, I do. I know what I want. I just don't want to do what I need to get it.

- You can choose to do it or choose to let time go by and hope that the situation resolves itself.

- I also sit here thinking that what I want will change.

- It very well could. It probably will: you can choose not to follow your heart, not to follow what you want. You can choose to try to fight your desires that are shaping your will. That is the real choice you have to make. At some point you have to decide, "this is it: I will do everything in my power to keep this going, because I know in the end, that it's what I want and it's worth it." How you will know that you are at that point, only you can tell. Be aware though, even at that point, desires will come in to blur your vision and you will need to stand your ground. One thing I can see with certainty though is that these changes pain you and you are indeed seeking something that will last for the rest of your life.

Sait, I think I understand now - you know full-well that I am incapable of separating lust from love. Angel's hug and touch meant as much to me as the passionate moments in bed together. While Sophie encourages me to embrace my lust and let it take me wherever it may, she feels I am capable of doing so without emotional baggage.

You, on the other hand, tell me to follow my heart... although you recognise that lust and love are intertwined.

Before I manage to open the door myself, Tide opens it. She greets me with a large and loving smile, happy to see me home from my work trip. She asks how it was, what happened since we spoke last night. There was a party; there was drinking and dancing; I went to sleep after sunrise. This much I tell her, this much she knew.

What she doesn't know: Angel and I left the party. We admitted to each other that ever since the ominous events of eighteen months ago, we've both been struggling to find a way to get over the other. This is the first time we talk about it. We're both in relationships now - on my part, I tell her I'm in a happy relationship with Tide. I've also however been fantasizing about Angel: she sits right next to me at work, we clearly enjoy each others' company. It turns out that she too feels the same lust I do between us. Sait was so hoping that it would not be mutual, that I would find out that train had gone and I could finally get over her. It wasn't Sait however that drove me to her, to talk about this, it was very much Sophie.

Sophie had said back then and was happy to repeat it: relationships are dangerous, lust, desire and 'do no harm' should be your drivers. Now, she continues, you can't avoid doing harm - you either harm yourself by forcefully closing the door on lust and desire or harm Tide by leaving it open. Of course Sait is the one who is really concerned about the harm to Tide. Coming home to Tide, I had no problem getting back into her arms enthralling myself in some passionate love-making. Sophie, however, had encouraged me to spend hours doing the same just the night before with Angel - and I so enjoyed that too.

Now though, I have to live a cowardly lie or courageously face the consequences of my actions - I've chosen the first with the caveat that one day I will come clean, because I know I have to.

"Did you really expect me to tell you what my answer to her was?" - of course Tide and I both knew that she wouldn't tell me, but how could I not ask after she brought. I knew if I were asked the same question, I would probably try to avoid answering it. I wouldn't want to give a foolish answer, at the same time, I can't pretend that I'm not thinking what I'm thinking or that I'm not feeling what I'm feeling. I can't lie to myself and I've got a hunch that Tide is feeling the same...

Honestly, I don't know what she answered: maybe it's best that I not know and that I imagine the answer I feel would best suit me. I know I too would be caught off-guard if my friend would ask me two weeks after I got together with someone "are you in love?" - At the same time I'm pretty sure is yes.

Tide, when I'm not with you, I miss you.

Sophie, you and I think the same. You and I think the same; but you don't feel... and you give me such compelling arguments to do the same. You're the master of logic, the winner of any debate - not listening to you, not following you, it's like not following who I am. When I talk to you, Sophie, everything you say makes sense - you might as well be simply repeating on and on again that "two and two is four". You drew me into the house, you made me follow desire, explaining how easy it would be: desire is a component of me, it serves a need. I should follow it and satisfy it. I will be happy once done. Emotional attachment to others, now that, you explained on and on again, would eventually cause pain and harm and is to be avoided at all costs - very wise once again.

Yes, but Sophie you and I both always saw Sait in the background. You dismissed her as nonsensical, whimsical, fearless and foolish. What you did though, Sophie, is you unwittingly instilled fear in me. Fear of my emotions, fear of love: the ultimate joy. Sait trains me, coaches me to do what you would ultimately consider foolish. Sait sees my guards up and breaks down the walls, the barriers - Sait is pushing me to do everything you oppose. With Sait I know I can be happy; with you, Sophie, I know I can be safe.

In following my desires, Sophie, you asked me to ignore one: the desire for love. I've now chosen to follow my heart, I've chosen to follow Sait.

- I'll be missing you...

- But it's 3 am and you'll be seeing me tomorrow evening?

- I know, Tide, I'll be missing you until then.

She smiles and says that she doesn't want to say something that makes her sound stupid - I draw it out of her: "I'll be missing you, too."

It now looks as though my adventure with care-free hedonism was set to be short-lived. I had put thought into it, I had made a very clear decision at the time of my break-up five weeks ago about not getting into relationships, at least not for a while. The image before me was of months or even years without a relationship, a time during which I would hook up every now and then with someone who caught my eye, someone who desired me as I did her.

It was all quite elaborate, it all made complete sense. It was all wrong. It was a decision made in another state of mind. Making my first steps into hedonism, I was nervous and almost lonely getting into this new world. Now that I've left it, I'm happy again. My heart longs for being loved and it needs to be able to love. I will now let it go free, be an optimist and free myself of the chains of fear.

I've decided to let down my defences, to let myself fall in love with Tide.

I'm staring out the window, feeling nervous again, but this time from inside the building looking out. I've made it in this home of desire and I want to stay in. I feel, however, the weight of Sait's stare from behind me on my shoulders. "You are not simply a man of desire, don't fool yourself: you feel longing, you feel love, and you fear it." Yes, I fear it: It comes to me like an exilirating tidal wave, picking me up out of nowhere and carrying me with amazing force. I can't resist it, but I try hard not to let it carry me and in my struggle find more misery than joy in the experience, fearing the inevitable abandonment of love at the end. Abandoned by the tidal wave, I'm left alone - alone with a woman I no longer love.

Sait allows wisdom to get the better of her: "You need not fear it, you need not fear hurting people either - if love is to abandon you, then so be it: it has done so countless times before throughout history. Your fear is of the pain you will cause and the misery you will feel: the fear of causing pain making you choose to stay with misery, until it's simply too much. The path for you is one in which you learn to accept that you cause pain." I can't accept that and Sait knows that.

Sophie reassures me that the buidling still holds a lot of promise for me. She encourages me to look deep inside and fight what I feel, remove myself from the window. "The longing, she says, is dangerous" and she knows I agree. Just look at the scenario Sait put forth. To be fair Sophie never excludes the possibility of leaving the building, but she insists it only be even considered when the object of my desire fully meets a certain number of yet to be fully defined criteria. Sophie is easy to agree with, she speaks my mind. Sait encourages me to look at the beauty out there, "Take a risk! Close your eyes and enjoy love!"

Angel shut the door and told me that her feelings for me are not about her trying to make up for any misery she feels in her current relationship, that I should not feel that she is using me to any such end. I was confused and aroused.

A week earlier, we were out drinking, just the two of us. She blurted, after a few too many drinks, that she wouldn't be here with me if she wasn't crazy about bald guys... Then we faced the facts: she is attracted to me and me to her. Two people attracted to each other, even aroused by each other - of course there was the complication of her current relationship of 8 years. As if that in itself weren't enough though, she and I share an office, actually our desks are physically connected and most of the day we are literally next to each other.

So the coming out happened and she was convinced that we would no longer be able to work together - I reassured her and I was proven right. We spent a whole week not mentioning the ominously arousing day, and did so going out to lunch together, talking about anything and everything during work hours, as if nothing had changed. Until she shut the door. It's now clear, it wasn't the alcohol talking in her.

Five hours straight! I cannot believe this for the life of me - I just spent five hours straight making sensual and passionate love to Tide. Sting playing in the background, I couldn't get my hands off her, and seeing the passionate stare from her large blue eyes I couldn't hold back. She gave herself to me, her body was mine, such a beautiful body, such a beautiful woman. It felt so good...

We're done for the night, daybreak is around the corner and we have an agreement: this is purely physical. She gets dressed, we head to the car - I drive her home, we kiss one last time as she gets out.

This is the third time in less than a week that we're together, the third time we spend a full night all over each other. I didn't know that I was able to do it once, let alone three times.

Now the moment of awkwardness - Tide and I work together, she runs a place for which I am part owner. If the others found out heads might role. We agreed, Tide and I, that we're both adults, that we know what we're getting into and we can handle it like adults. I don't really know who we were kidding, we had lust hanging over us during our talk - she argued we can handle it, I figured that if she thinks so, then she must be right. So I agreed.

This is the first time I am in a 'purely physical' agreement. I'm learning the ropes here, but I am aware of one thing, coming out of my previous relationship, I don't feel like I should be going into another for a while. I have physical needs though. During our talk 10 days ago, Tide explained that she's in a similar situation. This realisation lead to one logical conclusion and then the next and eventually last night.

Now though I'm feeling something I don't quite understand. It's as if I miss her or just want her by my side. The love-making was amazing, but it felt just as good to have her fall asleep in my arms just before the break of dawn this morning, fall asleep after she threatened to go home because she thought I was falling asleep. I don't know what 'purely physical' means, I don't know if TLC is part of it or if that is falling in love, being infatuated. My physical needs and my desires are pulling me towards her - but my heart might be tagging along and I truly fear the consequences of yet another relationship.

I don't think I feel love, and I don't even know when I last truly felt love; I'm not sure I understand anymore the meaning of the word. I do feel the wanting though, the wanting that goes with being in love.

I stand nervously staring at this building - should I knock? I've come this far, my desires drawing me here like some great magnetic force, my ethics and morals pulling me back. Sophie, the great tormentor who follows me in my head, intervenes confirming first that I'm right to follow my ethics and morals and next to tell me that I need not do so, that ethics are social constructs, they're flexible, and my desires are not wrong - they do not harm the central tenet of my being: "do not harm others". "Actually, says Sophie, you are doing yourself a favour if you enter, the notion of do no harm is best guarded if you avoid getting in situations that cause pain, avoid relationships..." And Sophie is right, if I am not able to stay in love for the long-haul, I do more harm by getting into relationships and then breaking hearts. And this building, home of pleasure, of care-free lust, passion and sensuality is where I should be.

I read the sign by the door:

"Follow your desire as long as you shall live. Fulfill your needs upon earth after the command of your heart. Behold, it is not given to man to take his property with him. Behold, there is not one who departs who comes back again, as Yury does'."

A thought crosses my mind - I guess they meant Carpe Diem and I'm not sure why they couldn't just write that, I get annoyed with snob-like excesses in wording. The building is non-descript, I start to think that when they designed it, they were making every effort to compensate for the excesses taking place within. Sophie whispers to me "Stop calling them excesses, doing so will make you think it's wrong - this is about following your desires. Unwritten social contracts have made you believe that these are excesses. Here those contracts have been re-written." She is right.

I knock on the door. As I do so, I feel a tap on my back from Sait, reminding me that she too, like Sophie, is here to advise - but it's too late, the door opens.