Woe to the Temptress, and She is Me!

Damn those eyes.

Those swirling chocolate brown irises that strip my soul bare.

You look at me with them, and they’re not even the prettiest eyes I’ve seen.

Yet they have a magnetic effect on me,

Mentally undressing me, and I subconsciously fold my arms over my chest.

I’m wet already and my arms and legs become like putty.

Putty in your hands.

That’s what I was.

That’s all I was.

Putty to prove to yourself you were a man, a man worthy of the wife who left you for multiple men,

The entire month that you stole me from myself, carrying me from ecstasy to ecstasy

In that dominant sort of way, where you demanded in the car I take my panties off

In a low, gruff tone, with only a hint of brokenness that I did not then detect

Breathing labored

So you could finger me and bring me to one of those exquisitely intense orgasms that I’ve always called “salty” instead of “sweet.”

“Salty” meaning there is a certain intensity to the feeling,

Like when you eat something too salty…it leaves an intense taste in your mouth, almost uncomfortable where you grimace .

But this uncomfortable feeling was unbearably delicious.

The look on my face mid-climax was not beautiful.

But it was honest.

The look of my contorted and ugly mid-orgasm face was honest.

And I think you hated it. The honesty. It scared you.

“Sweet” orgasms feel smoother, less edgy, and more comfortable.

They taste like honey, they go down the throat like sweet tea.

Not this one.

This one drove me wild. My eyes widened in an almost fearful curiosity of just how far this would take me.

One hand on the steering wheel with careless ease,

You molded me into your image.

How dare you play God.

I was Rebound Woman; your mistress.

Keep it on the hush-hush.

And I didn’t even mind.

You stole my dignity, my self-worth.

It was a kind of soul rape,

A rape I was all too willing to participate in until after the fact,

When I realized what you’d done. I didn’t agree to these consequences!

Yet you were not responsible for stealing my dignity. I was.

I raped myself. I raped myself because I let you define me.

Who cared that you were a respectable, highly revered man in the community?

Who cared that you were a pastor, preaching against the exact types of things you were doing to me?

Who cared that you’d later tell your daughter never to date someone who would treat her the way you treated me?

Who cared if you were the highest form of a hypocrite I had ever come to know?

I didn’t. Not then.

I was blinded by your maddeningly seductive charm.

“I love you,” I said.

Suddenly your façade crumbled,

And you were just a scared little boy

You disappeared, then you were silent to my desperate pleas for reconciliation.

You broke my heart twice.

The temptation was not sexual. It was never sexual.

The temptation was whether to define my self-worth by what you showed me you believed it to be,

Or to realize my inherent self-worth independent of what you thought of me.

I am the Temptress,

Tempting myself with two opposing destinies.

I can continue raping myself,

Or I can make love to my wounds,

Love my ugly parts, expose them proudly and vulnerably.

Vulnerability is the highest form of courage.

I can take care of me,

Or I can expose the lies I tell myself, my own façade, perverting what vulnerability is intended for.

Christ tells me I am the Temptress, woe to me!

It would be better for a millstone to be tied around my neck,

And me be thrown into the sea,

Than to lead any of these “little ones” astray.

Even if that “little one” is me.

And you, you with the eyes, made me feel so, so small.