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Alchymical Romance
by Lee Battersby
Nigredo
The problem was, he had never loved her. They both knew it, even in those moments after orgasm, when they leaned into each other and persuaded themselves that it meant more than shared sweat and another notch on a mental bedpost. Another boast for his mates, if only he had any.
Now she was gone, and it wasn't her absence that kept him from re-entering the world. The thought of it wearied him before he started. The long, dreary process of nightclubs, and blind dates, and turning up for dinners with colleagues to find an extra female present and the only empty chair directly opposite. The whole thing was such a drudge, and she'd have to be a sexual athlete of Olympic proportions to make up for the love he wouldn't feel for her. Too much trouble for the few weeks before her presence began to drain him of everything he held dear. Then she'd be gone, and the bar would be raised another notch for whomever came next, and where would it all lead him? A woman with superhuman flexibility and the perverse nature of an Indian God, perhaps. A woman made of fingertips and tongues, with no sense of shame.
And he still wouldn't love her.
He sat at his kitchen table, sipped coffee, and stared over his newspaper at the busy street beyond his window. There was no way around it. He couldn't face the real world. He had lived too long with reality. He raised a hand to his neck and ran fingertips along the network of tiny puncture marks criss-crossing the skin at the base of his jaw. He would have to visit Sir Million.
He plucked a set of keys from the hook by the phone and rubbed his thumb ac