In which I use too many metaphors. (NSFW)

I ate up my last girlfriend piece by piece.

She was only the second girl I’d slept with; the first was gentle, anemic, hadn’t even liked to tongue kiss. I ran my hands up and down her back like we were in a PG-13 novel. But Polly —

I had never had sex like I had with Polly. With Polly, we broke things. (A $150 toy; each other’s bodies, a little bit). I couldn’t get enough of her. I couldn’t get her close enough to me. I wanted her to rip me open and turn me inside out. With Polly, I finally got the vampire metaphor. To possess, to be possessed — to, in some small way, destroy and be destroyed. With Polly, among other things, I rediscovered biting.

I once bit her so hard on the shoulder when she was inside me that the cluster of bruises lasted a month and a half. She told people a softball had hit her.

I had never been a screamer before. When the weather was temperate and our windows were open, I felt sorry for my neighbors.

Really, the whole relationship was a way to be obliterated. Sure, she liked me, but as long as I was her constant companion, I didn’t have to be myself. In bed, we destroyed each other. Out of bed, we stayed up late, drinking, dancing, playing video games, always on to the next thing. There was no room for my usual quiet contemplation. It was like doing drugs. It was pure and unadulterated escapism, masquerading as a normal life.

She didn’t like feelings. She called them “feels” and refused to talk about them. What kind of 29 year old can’t even say the word “feelings?”

It was doomed from the start. But you know that going in. You can’t ride the high forever. You stand in line to ride the roller coaster, you strap yourself in, and you know it will only last for two and a half minutes. But the ride…sometimes, the ride is still worth it.

Desire, with Polly, was a swarm of locusts. It ate up everything in its path. With others, I’m sure, it will look different. But as I reinvent the wheel (no man I ever slept with ignited anything in me like the women have), these things are worth taking note of. Every person I connect with will leave a different footprint. They will all mean something. I will file them into their place, and move on, until I meet the one that I can’t live without.

But I really miss the biting.