Hurt & Anger at the Hotel del Ardid

I am in total control right here. I've played everyone and everything to get this influx of feeling, and what a feeling it is. To describe the brain massaging effects of sex is the folly of a narrator. The type of pleasure that's better the more ineffable it gets. The unknowingness of this ecstasy laid on top of me, letting me drink from its fruits. Just know that it feels physically good, mentally good and emotionally good. The holy trinity if there ever was one.

Yet something else enters my brain, something that now stops me from fully enjoying this. I realize I don't know this person. This is a situation of my own devising, to her, the reality is much different. I in part had created the very things that I am reacting to. I don't know who she is, had I really gamed her? For all I know she could be the one who wanted this. To cheat on her douche boyfriend with a guy who at least feints at emotional maturity.

I realize that the idea of this pure and unsullied being is an illusion on my part. Fuck, she was here with a boyfriend. I don't know how many guys she's been with or how she really acts. This could just be a surface level act on her part. I've shown that she can be seduced by such a horrible man such as myself. What innocence really lies in her? I just want her to be untainted. To show that salvation lies in reach of my selfish grasp, but what salvation really lies in her?

I've corrupted her. The moment I had her I corrupted her. I'm a creep, that makes sense though. A creep is just a guy who became what he's most afraid of. That fits me to a tee. Fear, oh god, so much fear. There will be no satisfaction after this is over, only more emptiness. I will be left alone with myself. Not that asshole.

My thoughts often get in the way of the mindless pleasure that we've come to expect. The desire to lose ourselves in the embrace of another in such a carnal and intimate manner. But I'm still me. I don't go anywhere. I bring myself along with every occasion, even sex. Yep, no losing myself in the ethereal for me.

The pleasure that was fueling me only goes halfway now. It feels good but the desire to bond or get closer has vanished into nihility. What is supposedly an act of consummation on the behalf of two people has turned into little more than masturbation, with a human girl substituted as the sex toy. It feels good but the emptiness hangs over it like a dark cloud that's about to rain, and not the kind of rain that washes away all of my sins either. Just the kind that makes me wet, cold and uncomfortable.

So if there's any hope of still getting the sexual arousal that most of you probably came here for, you're going to have to find it in a wholly physical description of the act. There will be no transcendence for me here. Just the warm wet embrace of her insides stroking my dick as it goes in and out of her. The warm wet pleasure that evolution has told us to ignore all morality and personal integrity to obtain is still in full effect.

If I could turn off my brain, not lose myself to this act but purposefully make me not think, then I could enjoy it more. Don't think, just feel. Shhhh, none of the angst surrounds you anymore, just physical pleasure. Dumb yourself down, just focus on the repetitious stroke, how the warm wetness of her inner being envelops you, and how good it feels when you add traction to the mix. Just focus on that, let the myopia of pure carnal pleasure assuage you.

And that's how I get through it, by flipping every switch off in my brain that won't result in complete decay. Limit my reach and ambitions to just feeling good, allowing physical pleasure to be the sole focus of my ongoing efforts. The emotional empathy that allows us to build on top of and with each other is just a distant dream that's long passed.

But let us finally put this act to rest. Come on orgasm, you can do it. Free me from the spell you have over me, at least for a little while. Just give me one less thing to worry about before you come knocking again, making your problems my own once more.

And so I do it, eventually, the physical stimulation becomes enough for me to unload this weight. Through no help of my own mental process, the climax comes through. No overwhelming myself with past memories as they have all turned to shit. And so I feel the requisite brain overload, do my pumping, clean up and whatnot. An ignoble end to an ignoble act.

I roll off of her and lie down next to her in complete silence. The act of copulation had awakened no further intimacy between the two of us. It certainly did not make good on the promise of complete kinship that I had promised her earlier. I know that no matter what that we are over. Even if I hadn't planned on abandoning her tomorrow she would surely have shown me the door after the emotional deficit coitus I had shown her.

But for now, she's asleep while I lie next to her sleepless. The paths I can take from here have all come to be seen as dead-ends in my mind's eye. All those possible scenarios would just end up with me being me, there's no escaping me. I can't sleep with such a gaping abyss dangling above me. I get up and get dressed, moving to the main area that unites these bedrooms.

Yet I am not alone in this main area, for the other bros are already there. Probably coming back from their conquests of their own from what I can assume. Using each other as the emotional identification that they are wont to find in their own relationships. Accepting each other instead of looking for recognition in their respective girlfriends.

"Hey man, how was it?" One of them asks. "Cause I know Josh could hardly get it in. Don't get us wrong, we would've totally defended Josh if our girls weren't at the table. Didn't want to do anything that would've hurt our chances of getting laid. Don't worry, we and Josh are cool. I mean he's probably going to be pissed now that you took his girl but that's not on us, and you could always just bail. It's summer after all."

It hit me that these are the people I am mirroring. These are the people who I purposely modeled myself after. The people who are enjoying their own shallow heyday without giving any thought to the future. People whose confidence came from having so large a safety net that they would never have anything to worry about. People whose natural inclination is the above-it-all assurance that I had spent so much time practicing.

This will not do, I need to reclaim the pathos in me. Fuck summer, time for fall. I go to the computer hooked up to a speaker and play myself a song on one of those streaming services. One can only go without emotional connection for so long. I must reconvene with the sadness that I have ignored. I choose the song "Take Me With You" by the band Morphine. The grunge music with jazz instrumentation that they are known for is exactly what I need.

"You want to begin again.

Pretend you're innocent..."

"Hey man, that's a little dark," one of the bros says. Yes, I have brought melancholy into the ideals of summer. This will not do. I will be expelled soon

"...Take me with you when you go now.

Don't leave me alone.

I can't live without you.

Take me with you, take me with you when you go..."

"Come on, just don't," one of the bros says.

"I'M FUCKING LISTENING TO THIS SONG AND THAT'S FINAL!" I yell at them.

Pause. "All right, you need to leave," one of them says.

"I will once this song is over. I'm not going anywhere until then," I tell them to their silence. They're now hoping I'm telling the truth because they think I'm crazy.

"...You say you want my help?

I can't help myself.

You want my help?

I can't help myself."

And then the song is over. Wordlessly I go to the coffee machine and make myself a cup of hotel coffee. I have expunged myself from my sleeping quarters. I'm going to need all the caffeine I can get my hands on to last the night. Coffee myself sideways so to speak. Once that's done I exit the suite door never to return.

Alone in the empty halls that characterize a hotel at night, I go. No souls around and so many directions to go, all of them leading me nowhere. I choose one that leads me to a stairwell that goes to a locked door by the conference rooms. I grab ahold of an empty glass and a pitcher of water.

I sit down on the stairs, pour myself a glass of water and drink it. After that's done I pour myself another. Once the pitcher is empty I go to a water refill station and fill it up. If I need to use the restroom I use it. This continues for a good hour or so, as if I believe that if I drink enough water I can wash away all the sins, pain and trespasses I've committed.

I may be done with summer but summer is not done with me. Even though I may have experienced all I needed to experience, the time has not run out for me. The rest of the time is for my own penance, self-rumination. I must do what I planned to do and stay here until Sunday morning.

I thought I could be above it all, to go through the same doors as all the rest of these people and find my way to a place above them. To experience and understand without getting myself contaminated. Yet in the end, the lines between me and the rest of the guests here have blurred optically. We were all seeking the same thing, I was just a tad bit more self-aware and dickish than the rest. Good lot that self-awareness did me, it still leads me to come face to face with my mirror reflection, and I did not much like what I saw. I thought I could withstand any I saw but I misjudged my limits.

A need to be in the modern mainstream with no ability to connect with it in had been my downfall. Nothing I wanted to be a part of, just on top of. That coupled with the death of a fantasy regarding a female mate with nothing to replace it with had caused me to try and take a deep dive into the lowest of my urges. All this laid on a man who may have been just a little damaged by the prose of Hunter S. Thompson.

I could do with a little acceptance. That's not going to happen though in today's climate where there is too much power in moral judgment and righteous indignation. People can't pass up the opportunity to prop themselves up. On far too many an occasion in which if a person has the chance to weaponize a lack of empathy for me then they've done exactly that.

Me, I no longer subscribed to the quasi-Christian morality that we're all indoctrinated with. Any sense of that mistranslation and misinterpreted testimony of god's judgment has gone out with Great Benjamin's Kite. I've sacrificed all morality to get where I am. I don't even judge myself, I just do what I do and that's that.

And I had been accepted, into people's rooms, into people's most intimate areas, some even knowing full well that I was not a carrier of intentions ever so pure. Just as long as I tamped down the melancholy inside of me. Once that was unleashed all bets were off. No connection will be found in a place like this, not that I even expected such.

So what did I expect? That learning would be a joyful process. That I would be excited to be parceled out the lessons I've been handed. Instead, I've begun dreading whatever new information that comes my way. Wanting to close myself off to whatever horrors and disillusionments in other's interior lives that people have to bestow on me. Retreat further and further into myself and build walls around me to protect me from the irrationality that comes my way.

Had I been seduced myself? The hope and elation that is usually associated with the seduction process was and is not currently in me. But my actions feel not entirely my own. No, it was the welcoming of hurt and anger and the warm feeling that comes with accepting those two emotions while expelling their hotheaded tendencies that have driven me this weekend. The best of both worlds so they say, though I do not particularly like the intersection I find myself living in.

Maybe it all comes back to one of the problems of seduction. Most people are frightened of strangers, don't want to share their innermost secrets with them. They feel like they're constantly being evaluated and judged while they're sharing, for good reason too. Yet it is precisely this sharing that gives birth to intimacy in the first place. I, however, have to position myself as a self-sustaining force who will not be affected by anything they do. They can say anything or do anything they want to without me judging them. That gives them a sense of comfort that which, unfortunately, limits the amount that I can be connected to them.

Another problem is the level of self-delusion most people harbor. You can't get to know someone who doesn't know themselves. If you do all that happens is that the illusion of who you thought they were falls in front of your disbelieving eyes. You feel the self-abasement that comes with not being able to see that the person you loved has just been a fantasy they believed in. A fantasy that had not been properly tested by their encounters with reality. And then there's me, living among these people, not knowing who among them is willfully blind to who they are or who I can snuggle up and get close to in an image right out of a Christmastime storybook.

They won't let me share my pain or trauma either, I have to act as if I have an unblemished life. As if all the comfort I have come from not experiencing pain in the first place instead of overcoming it. Positioning myself as a fantasy that's in part who they wish I could be and hoping a bit of it rubs off on them. A fantasy that would hurt them in the long run, as no one can hope to end up like such a pure distillation as the one I've presented myself as.

It's sad because I kind of liked the me that was a little bit pathetic. I identified for that guy, I felt for him. I wanted him to find some solace that didn't involve pushing down the sadness in him and instead invoking the spite and rage that was inside him. I had hoped that the pain made him enduring as if he had experienced something that had made him closer to the human race. Instead, the pain had made everyone want nothing to do with him. The poor soul.

But maybe the real problem lies in trying to find a connection in companionship in which a vast power imbalance is actively encouraged. Or maybe it's trying to find intimacy with a man who is already resentful over having to sacrifice so much to get you into the generic hole they're expected to have filled. We can add that another problem lies in expecting someone to make you feel a certain way that you have no hope of making yourself feel in the first place. So many ways for love, attraction, you name the term to go wrong.

The mistaken myth that true connection, someone who accepts you for who you are, could be found in a place where striving and fantasy to get one's inhumanely dream partner is the word of the day. And there's absolutely no self-reflection over what one really wants and what they expect. That's all gone by the wayside in favor of giving precedence to one's impulses, hormones and whatever allows the human race to propagate through delusion and then calling it love

That such kind connection can come from a place where many men have already poisoned the notion of love through kindness by whispering sweet nothings into a girl that came from a place of deceit only. The trust between men and women was been shattered even before I began my forays into the opposite sex. Leaving me to pick up all the pieces after being indoctrinated by the most damaging fantasies of love that the entertainment industry can create. Some ruins I have to sift through, huh?

And yet even after all of this rumination, when I think about what would make me the most serene the answer still conjures up the visage of a girl. Maybe she got lost on the way to her room, was just wandering around or whatever hairbrained backstory you want to insert. Curiosity would strike her or a sense of instant kinship that she would like to follow up on. And so we would get to talking,

We'd hit it off and keep talking. We'd overlap in all the right places as if our instant relatability is a breath of fresh air in a world where isolation and alienation are all too commonplace. Something to cherish by staying with one another for a bit, talking, and not going out to try and find greener pastures.

The enjoyment of each other's company would seep through into our very beings with each word uttered. With every sound that passes the comfort we feel in each other's presence would rise and rise, with no intention on my part. It would be pure and natural intimacy, without me having to raise a finger to sustain it.

Yet maybe my sleep deprivation gives way and I slump over in a rather noticeable manner. She would ask me what's wrong and, knowing that the stronger I appear on the outside the more pathetic I am on the inside, I would finally fess up for once tell her that I'm too tired to drive. However, instead of this being an imposition that sends her to find the arms of a man who can support her, she'd still be of a completely understanding mindset. She would bear the burden of driving me to my place of residence knowing full well that the service would be reimbursed in full without either of us needing to be keeping track of points. She would not like me because of my faults or in spite of them, she would just accept that they are a part of my being and move on.

From this, our relationship would blossom and yes sexuality would play a part in our relationship. Even in my dreams of salvation, my sexual needs are still a primary point of concern. But they would not be a burden, just a focal point for how we get closer to one another.

I can imagine it now, her and me together in a secluded room with a bed, nothing else more would be needed. Me looking at her, her looking at me, gratified yet listless due to the necessary tension of who will make the first move. Whoever it is doesn't matter, it's only a matter of time before the two of us come together to ignite things with a kiss. The organizing principle that most lovers use to commence their descent into more intimate acts.

But first, the barrier of clothes would need to be disseminated before we could thoroughly reach one another. There and gone. It would not be a hard act to follow through on. For we both know it would lead to the outcome where we could see one another in a state that was once vulnerable but is now brimming with fortitude and possibilities.

Possibilities we both very much want to dive into. We would throw ourselves fully into the revelry of our ancestors, leaving both inhibition and suppression behind as we hop into one another's warm, naked embrace. Holding, kissing and touching each other, reminding ourselves of the terrain we've already explored so many times before because in this case, it's good to be reminded.

It would be the kind of rejuvenating type of lovemaking, where both souls are healed due to their exposure to the altruistic pleasure they didn't know could come from an act that before was sought by them in their most solipsistic mindsets. We would show our self-minded pasts the joy that they were really missing. The kind of intercourse that makes her more into a woman and me a man. Regressing into the logical conclusion of our gender roles. We look into each other's eyes and see some mild confusion as to what's happening but know that as long as we're together it can't be all bad.

Sex would become the physical and emotional meeting ground in which a man and a woman such as ourselves could find some semblance of equality. These two attributes would fit and blend between the two of us until neither one of us were sure what belonged to whom. And yet in the confusion a type of bliss would be achieved, a surrender of the sanctity of our identities. We would instead celebrate the strength of our reciprocity, allowing us to erase who we were before we met the other and experience the world in a state irrevocably contaminated by the other.