M.L. Rio

One sin, I know, another doth provoke;

Murder’s as near to lust as flame to smoke

Guilt itched like a rash on my skin.

Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.

“You want me to stay?” I asked. I didn’t want to leave him.

“Please,” he said, in a small voice.

I thought, what liars they are, the sky and the water. Still and calm and clear, like everything was fine. It wasn’t fine, and really, it never would be again

He seemed so fragile I was afraid to touch him.

When we first walked through those doors, we did so without knowing that we were now part of some strange fanatic religion where anything could be excused so long as it was offered at the altar of the Muses. Ritual madness, ecstasy, human sacrifice. Were we bewitched? brainwashed? Perhaps.

Old feelings come softly thronging back. Bittersweetness, discord, and confusion

Alexander looked like a mafioso in shimmering charcoal gray, an onyx tiepin glinting on his chest. James, immaculate in deep ink blue, could have been the heir apparent of some small European monarchy. But Richard, in pale pearl gray and a blood-red tie, cut the most impressive figure of us all.

“If he knows how easily he can hurt me, what’s going to make him stop?”