I will be combining chapters because the system, for some unknown reason, refused to recognize some chapters as "revived" and as a result, was disorganizing the whole book. I was told by management the only way to fix the problem was to disable those chapters the system was seeing as "new" postings - they weren't, and I paid to post each one, but I had no recourse. To continue to post, I had to disable those chapters, which is discouraging/confusing to anyone trying to follow the story. Those chapters won't be paying (again - they were paying until disabled), so please do not worry about reviewing. I am adding them only as a courtesy to my kind followers.

Chapter 4
Revelations
 
I am positively humming with happiness. There's fear mixed in too, though, because I worry I could say the wrong thing, give the wrong impression, mess up if he happens to call sometime I'm in one of my 'fugue' states. It wasn't the same prior to admitting how I felt--if I messed up then it was just two good friends--I could just apologize for being an idiot.
 
But he needs to know everything there is to know about me. David is open and trusting, and deserves my complete honesty, even those things I've never shared with another human being, besides family, of course. They always knew my secrets.
 
I think about it, and I realize that I am robbing myself of the joy I should be feeling, worrying as I am. Considering the man of my dreams has finally shown an interest in me as more than just a cyber-buddy, I have to have some faith, some trust in him. He is bright, and so intuitive, but he is also sensitive, yet forgiving.
 
The whole thing with Mitch seems to be forgotten, for example.
 
I have to work on my self-esteem. I can't allow fear to sully this magic. I am who I am and no matter what, these scars don't fade, my past won't rub off, nor will the gift.
 
But will he still feel the same when he learns my secret?
<><><> 
 
 
 
~ Know Me ~
 
Dark-hued and wild as windswept cliffs
that overlook an ocean's tempest-tossed waves -
long and wild and untethered
it blows in the breeze.
Tresses I inherited from my father
and I refuse to bind them
as I refuse to be bound by anything
but passion for living...
 
Love me with everything you have or not at all.
 
Green as the Emerald Isle my ancestors called home
and able to see within,
my eyes pierce deep - into the secrets of your heart.
Uncanny, but
 
If your soul is pure, I will offer you mine.
 
Beware of the Celtic temper that controls me,
should betrayal present itself.
As pale as lily-of-the-valley
or a cloud in the sky
my skin is uncommonly thin
when it comes to
lies...
 
I will fight for truth to the death.
 
Time's passing has added silver threads
to these unruly tresses
and in equal measure, my face shows pain;
the pain of others, but mine as well.
 
This diminutive stature
and seemingly blossoming weakness
cannot affect my spine,
for I believe dignity is tempered steel,
and I am dignified while knowing...
 
no 'one' is above another...
 
I will laugh with you, never at you.
 
Of all that I can offer, my greatest gift is undying loyalty.
I will never stray, and never leave you.
 
I value loyalty in everyone I let close to me.
 
Yet I can forgive --
can you?
 
Here is my secret:
 
 
I can share others' burdens.
 
I am a seer, a psychic, an empath...
 
a gift from my ancestors I can't return.
 
<><><> 
 
~Lingering Fear~
 
A meeting of minds, a touching of souls -
love's gentle mystery sweetly unfolds.
Paradise birds carry wishes on wings.
This is love's music - intangible things.
 
Real as a raindrop, this prism of light,
sent on a rainbow to brighten dark night.
Joy in acceptance of love's binding twine -
pledging forever, his love to be mine.
 
Tender first touch, like baby's soft cheek -
fragile the heart when two lovers will seek
a lasting, harmonious, symphony's song.
In sharing life's journey, will fear linger long?
 
<><><> 
 
What will I do if he can't accept who I am? Worse--if he thinks I'm mad?  Pushing aside my laptop for a moment, I head to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. I need sustenance, too, before I pen the next poem, but I'm so eager to record all of this I can barely make myself stop long enough to slap a sandwich together.
 
 
~ Angel ~
 
An angel stole my heart today,
not one from high above -
a real and earthbound spirit
full of warm and gentle love.
 
What if he can't imagine
just how deeply I can see?
And yet I know so simply,
it's best left to destiny...
 
Unwavering is my belief
that heaven sends a mate,
and if your heart is open,
you will meet your destined fate,
 
that every soul deserves a match.
Perhaps there's more than one!
I only know that when we meet
I'll be in brightest sun!
 
His light is so magnificent
all others seem too dim.
I'll cast my gaze around me,
but all I'll see is him.
 
I've always been a cautious one -
suspicion is my guide,
but somehow when I talk with him
there's not one thing to hide.
 
His openness astounds me!
Or maybe it's my own
once-limited belief in men
instinctively that's grown...
 
Whatever is the reason,
of one thing I am sure -
this love I have to offer him
is unconstrained and pure. 
 ~~~~~
 
Chapter 5
Dreaming
 
It's been weeks and I haven't heard from David again.
 
I hate anticipating or looking forward to anything. I used to believe it was the best part, like the added bonus of an additional gift, just imagining how wonderful it was going to be.
 
That is, until I was left waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and the eventual truth arrived--a promise never to reach fruition. It's happened many times in my life.
 
I'm not saying that is the case right now--in fact I'm pretty sure it isn't. But there is always the unknown factor, that one thing that rarely gets figured into the equation--that's the thing that causes me to mistrust. That's the baggage I carry from past relationships.
 
My psychic abilities aren't something I treat lightly, and I rarely use them for my own benefit, and even when I do, I do my utmost to respect the privacy of others. It's not as if I can just call up anything I want to know, either. What I learn comes in the form of a dream, or a premonition, and it's seldom about me or my life unless I have purposely focused all my energy on whatever it is I need to know. But I was taught that doing such a thing can be very dangerous--that I should never do it.
 
I thought David and I would have spoken a dozen times by now. All the other stuff that hurts me I've learned to manage. Being an empath isn't easy, but I rarely repeat mistakes and I've learned how to reabsorb the planet's energy to replenish my own when I am drained.
 
If I've been unreasonably let down by someone, or over-taxed, I simply don't allow myself to be used anymore.
 
I pause in my ruminations long enough to scribble a note to stick on the refrigerator. My memory isn't so great these days, and I'm sure it has everything to do with stress and worry, but I want to remember to slip over to the health food store and pick up some ginseng. It's good for a whole lot of things, but the number one thing it's good for is energy--mine seems badly depleted these days.
 
Fate, ah, now there's another aspect entirely to the whole anticipation thing, to looking forward to something. I've been pretty lucky in life, but fate has also been cruel far too many times to ignore.
 
So I worry--a complete waste of energy, but a leopard can't change its spots.
 
David didn't ask if he could call again, and I don't want to call him. I posted that news for all the world to see and I'm beginning to think it was a huge mistake. Maybe I've scared him off. After all, most people are pretty skeptical about psychics and anything extra-sensory.
 
I don't understand the skepticism--we're surrounded by the unexplained--if we discount extra-sensory perception, psychic ability or the supernatural, nothing makes any sense.
 
I guess it's easy for me, though, because I know the truth. Anyway, I'm not just worried, I'm feeling terribly hurt, and I'm awfully tempted to try to find out why he hasn't called. But surely if something was wrong other than he just doesn't like me anymore I'd know! Otherwise, my gift is becoming more of a curse than it is a blessing!
 
But instead of telling him when we were on the phone that I'm an empath, I took the coward's way out, telling him in that posting. And now our many friends have read it, no doubt. He could be bothered by that, even if he does believe me--he might be afraid others would judge him, say he was taking up with a crackpot.
 
I should have told him, and only him, first--privately. But it was our first-ever telephone call! I didn't want to spoil it! While I've been taught since I was a little girl that my feyness is a gift, there are some very unpleasant times--things that happen that are completely out of my control. That, too, could be a consideration for him, if he knows anything about it.
 
Maybe I should re-think this whole infatuation.
 
But how can I tell my heart to stop loving him?
 
<><><> 
 
~ The Empty Glass ~
 
I'll always feel this thirst inside,
this longing for your touch,
but I just can't go on this way -
my yearning proves too much.
 
The glass is drained, and stripped of hope,
bereft of one last sip.
I risked it all, the last there was,
now courage slips my grip.
 
I have to leave these thoughts behind -
my prayers and dreams have failed,
for though my faith will always live,
my agony prevails.
 
I've tried, I truly have, my friend,
to hold onto a dream,
but when you don't respond to me,
inside my soul, I scream.
 
<><><> 
 
I had a dream, a really awful dream last night. A dream so real, I was lost for a few minutes after awakening, not really sure where I was, if I was still sleeping or just confused...
 
In it, there was no explaining how I could be watching myself and David, yet that is exactly what I was doing. I stood outside of the dream somehow--outside of myself!
 
It's left me with a terrible feeling of doom.
 
Premonitions are not as uncommon or as strange as people think--even telepathy. We all experience it, although physics 'see' much more, and much more vividly. It is usually explained away, like slapping a name on it--deja vu, for example--so common, and much more comfortable an explanation for the average person. Or the phone rings, and you just know, somehow, who's on the other end calling.
 
True psychic experiences are a bit like deja vu, only much stronger. They vary, of course, presenting in different ways--visions while the person is awake, dreams while sleeping, sometimes even just an uncomfortable feeling. I know it sounds wacky, but believe me, it happens.
 
It's just that humankind has almost over-evolved in some ways--we no longer trust our instincts as we once did.
 
Anyway, I'm still feeling off balance from that dream, like I'm not really myself, and not having heard anything from David, I'm becoming convinced it's a bad omen.
 
But Mitch called. I wasn't very happy to hear from him, but it's probably best because I had to face him at some point. We left a lot unsaid that night at his place, and I know he's been hoping I'd call, want to see him.


The storyline is that David and Dawn became friends on a writing site (like this one) and communicated online for two years. David finally called her after Dawn confessed her feelings for him on their website (as they had been doing all communication to each other that way, with poetry and short stories, and through an occasional email.) 

We left off with Dawn saying that Mitch called...


Chapter 6
The Fool I've Been
 
"Hello?"

"Hey, you."

"Mitch."

"Well, don’t sound so enthusiastic. Were you expecting someone else?"

"Actually, now that you mention it--"

"Don't say it. Are you trying to piss me off again?"

"Mitch, listen, it's not going to work out."

"No kidding, Momma. You were the Ice Queen."

"No, Mitch, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant between us--at all. I already apologized about not responding. But you were rough, Mitch, rough and pushy."

"What did you expect, Dawn? After making me wait so long--"

"I expected consideration, Mitch, gentleness." I sighed. "Respect." This was going to take a while to resolve, and it would require no small amount of tact. "Please, just listen, okay?" Something in my voice must have got through to him because his cockiness disappeared. Instead, his voice took on the appealing tone that he'd used before the night our planned affair fell apart. It should have sounded smarmy, but it never had, and it wasn't now.

"Alright, sexy lady, I'm listening." He said it quietly, and my heart lurched.

"Don't call me that." Mitch had been exceptionally good for an ego that had withered dramatically, but I had to be up front with him now, try to make him understand that things had changed.

However, I have a bad temper when I feel like someone is disrespecting me—I’m sure it’s the Irish in me. What's troubling me is this: is David disrespecting me too, just in a different way?

In a way, I can’t blame Mitch for what happened. He is who he is, and I had gone along with him, thrown caution to the winds, not expecting the winds to blow debris into my face. If I'm completely honest with myself, on some level I think I had hoped an affair with Mitch might have developed into something more, because nothing seemed to be happening with David. Yes, David had opened sexual floodgates, but he had also made me realize I'd been lonely for a long, long time and I just hadn't admitted it to myself. I yearned for David before he ever yearned for me, or at least before I knew for certain he had feelings for me too.

It made me perfect prey. And Mitch is a very proud man, with a very fragile ego.Thank God our hearts protect us, even when our minds are confused. But it was time to level with Mitch about why it happened the way it did, and to make him see his treatment of me was appalling that night.

My hands are trembling at the thought of telling Mitch about David, but I don't see that it's fair to continue to lead him on. I just hope we can continue to be friends. God knows I need all I can get right now.

I’ve confessed to David in that poem I posted, and I thought he’d forgiven me—in fact, I thought he’d called because he figured he would lose me if he didn’t step up his game.

And he might have, except that Mitch had not been at all what I expected. Mitch and I had been friends a good while, but he was a different person when he thought I’d sleep with him. Taking a deep breath, and punching the phone's speakerphone so that I could lay it down and walk away, I began:

"I debated with myself over telling you any of this, Mitch, whether I should or leave it alone, just leave you with your pride, but the truth is, the best lies are the ones that never stray far from the truth, and I'm betting you're lying to yourself, as well as having lied to me."

"What the hell are you talking about? I never lied to you. I was straight up with you, right from the start. I made it very clear I didn't want a serious relationship."  

I could hear the anger in his voice, and for a moment, I wondered if it was worth it--if he was worth it.

"Yes, Mitch, you did say that, but you said a lot of other things too, things that confused me, like wanting to be 'good friends'--do you remember that?"

"Of course I said that--with the way you were behaving, I had to."

"But that's my point, exactly. It was misleading. Just like saying you wanted to have long talks, and you didn't want someone else. You also said that it wasn't all about sex, remember?"

I tried to slow my racing pulse at that point, but I'd needed to say this for days. It had been circling in my brain until I was dizzy with it, sick about it. He didn't say anything, so I went on.

"Maybe I shouldn't have called it lying, but I truly think you aren't being honest--with yourself, Mitch, not only with me. Do you remember when we first started having our phone and text conversations, how you asked me what I wanted? You agreed with my answer. My exact words were that I wanted the whole enchilada."

"Dawn, I didn't mean I wanted anything more than friends with benefits. I said that more than once to you--directly, too, didn't I?" I could tell he was trying to control his temper, and that's part of the problem I'd discovered that night. Mitch has a short fuse, in addition to over-compensating, not that his self image being what it is isn't understandable. His parents practically left him to raise himself, foisting him off on anybody who’d take him, which turned out to be a rather indifferent and somewhat cruel neighbour.

Yes, he’d had a rough start in life. Jamaica is one of the poorest countries in the West Indies, and his entire childhood was spent scrounging for anything decent to wear, continually hungry, and unable to attend school until he was almost eleven years old.

"Well, first of all, that never works anyway, but secondly, you described things that only a man who does want a serious relationship would do. Hell, Mitch, that first night at your place you massaged my feet--kissed them. Now that's love-making, not ‘give over, woman’! What happened the next time we met was anything but gentle persuasion."

"Dawn--"

"No wait. I've got plenty more examples of things that would make any woman believe you wanted a lot more than you were willing to say. Even that first kiss you stole, right in public, at your place of work. I should have bloody well slapped your face!  But we’d had so many great conversations, such a good rapport. Come on, Mitch, be honest. You treated me like a damn booty call after that, and you did lead me on at first."

"You're looking for something I'm not, Dawn, and I've told you that. Why is it so important to you to have a serious relationship anyway? I didn't lead you on at all, I just went along with your crazy idea that we needed to spend more time together before we had sex. There's nothing wrong with two adults consenting to a physical relationship, Dawn. We're not kids. We've talked about this."

"As soon as you thought you were going to get lucky, you didn't bother with any of the romantic things we'd talked about. I told you over and over again that I needed that romance, that I needed you to slow down, too, to let us get to know each other well."

I was the one getting angry now. I knew it was not the way to be heard, so I tried to calm down, but I'd been holding it in since that night. I'd been so patient at his place, so damn sweet, and he'd been a brute! When I'd left, I'd made up my mind I didn't want to see him again, even though he'd tried to back-peddle, acting the gentleman again and wanting to escort me home.

"You see? You do this all the time. There's something not right with you, Dawn. I honestly think you need to talk to somebody, that it's a mental thing." His voice was cold, superior-sounding. He'd collected his 'cool', and I was the little booty-babe he might service if I was lucky.

I wanted to reach through the phone and belt him a good one. I was choking mad. He continued, heaping coals on an already blazing fire.

"First you want me then you don't. And you wonder why I'm confused? You're giving out mixed signals. You're not ready for a relationship with any man. We did take time, Dawn, way more than I wanted to. Our talks were getting very personal, very intimate, too."

"And I did want you, Mitch. But I never expected to lie under you and take orders!” I was almost shouting now.

I could hear him on the other end breathing heavy, like he wanted to smash the phone, just like he'd smashed his fist into the wall when I couldn't respond to his caveman behaviour that night.

I took a deep breath and made a decision. "Listen, this is going nowhere. Let's just call it what it is and agree to disagree. You can call me another time if you want to, okay? We really got off topic anyway. I wanted to tell you--"

"Oh, that's rich! Generous of you, Dawn--thanks!" The call ended abruptly. He'd hung up.

I'd accused him of lying to me and of lying to himself but in fact, he wasn't the only one. Tears began to spill, the emotional stress just too much. I'd made an ass of myself, and on top of it all, I was still carrying my phone with me everywhere, still hoping David would call.

Undoubtedly the real reason I had been unable to respond to Mitch that night was because visions of David had filled my mind, all while Mitch was trying to possess my body.

I'm a wreck. Mitch is right about that, if nothing else. It's only been a few weeks, yet I feel like this has been going on for months, even years. I am so nuts about David, and after just finding out he felt the same as I do, it's seems I've lost him.

But what's worse is, I have lost some of my self-respect, I think. I don't know what I was thinking. I should never have taken up with Mitch. I wasn't in love with him, though I tried to convince myself it didn't matter, that if things worked out between us, I might learn to love him. He is stunningly good-looking.

Desperate, or what? I'm not a shallow person, but David certainly made me see how reclusive I've been without realizing what it's doing to me.

Where is my psychic ability when I need it for me? Where is my common sense?

I've never been so depressed.

<><><> 
 
 
~Only Lust ~
 
What you proposed was devilish, and you should be ashamed,
for making love without a heart is something never named
by ones who seek to find a ‘buddy’ who is willing to ‘put out’ -
not caring even why and if she's suffered a long drought.
 
To those who want such intercourse, a virgin’s easy prey -
sad widows or divorcees really make that scoundrel’s day.
It’s pure and simple lust, my friend, and reaps no great reward.
In fact, if ‘she’ is honest she may tell you she is bored.
 
But even if she doesn’t, there’s no quarter to be gained -
it surely is the forest long before it ever rained -
a hot and dry environment, just begging for a fire.
You should have shown her, 'player', that she is your heart’s desire.
 
<><><> 
 
God, the man infuriates me! I let him get the best of me again.  I intended to tell him about David. But I was going to do it gently, appeal to the man I first met, the kind and infinitely gentle man Mitch was before that kiss. I should never have let him get away with it, but oh, how I longed to be loved! David had truly gotten through to a Dawn I didn’t know existed anymore.

It was like a switch had been thrown after that kiss, as if once Mitch knew I would respond he had to play it so ‘cool’--Mr. Big Shot, I’m all that!

I don’t believe his act for a minute though. And again, if I am honest with myself, I think he was falling for me and I disappointed him. I proved too ready to fall too. Like W.C. Fields, Mitch doesn't want to belong to any club that would have him as a member.

<><><>

To Be Continued...(don't miss the video below...)