Letters from the Marquise de Merteuil

Dark Stranger,

I apologize for writing you again especially when you told me to wait. Ever since I have come across the message boards, I have been trembling with eagerness and anticipation as if I've found myself in one of those vintage neighborhood chocolate shops where they make the chocolate taffy by the window and I want a taste of each and every delicious morsel on the display counter in front of me. I have lost sleep over it. And even if there is work to be done, articles to be submitted, I cannot think of anything else. Yes, deadlines be damned.

Yet again, I have found another obsession that consumes me. It is my weakness, I know, but the call to succumb and surrender to the chaotic and unpredictable is one that I often fail to resist especially since the rest of my wakefulness is infused with the organized, the rational, the practical and the sterile. I long for warmth, for softness, for intensity -- the heights and the depths, if you will.

So far, the only remedy I've found to these obsessions of mine was to ride it out. Get it out of my system. Indulge in it as much as I can until it no longer amuses me or it consumes be beyond redemption in which case the challenge to rise from my ashes like the Phoenix and be reborn will be another challenge that will tickle my fancy for a long time. As you can see, patience is not one of my virtues. It is an ongoing lesson for me especially since long-term seductions are now on my agenda.

The twist in the counterseduction of my rake is that he doesn't know that the pampered royal in me has found her rightful seducer. That's one thing. Despite my penchant for deliberately getting into situations that I knowingly will not take root in, I think I have found someone who will actually get me to keep still, to a point. But he's a busy man and I need a diversion.

The other thing is that I have doubts that my Rake is a worthy victim. He has succeeded in engaging my emotions, I'll give him that but rake though he may be, he has failed to engage my mind and I doubt that he's skills as a lover are such that he would be able to keep my suspension of disbelief at bay. Although making him fall for me would seem like a prize, if and when he does, what then? I already know that a shared life with him that had any semblance of the banal and the everyday would just ruin us both. We live in totally different worlds and although I could strive for that moment of perfection where east meets west and there is a blinding integration, like you said in your posts, this cannot be maintained. If ever I keep on with this, it will be purely for love of the game.

For someone who is truly seeking redemption, I am at a quandary. I know I am ruined and what I know, what I have seen, and the games that I've played will keep me from truly being swept off my feet. That is my tragedy. However, spinning little webs is second nature to me. The ultimate irony from an arachnophobe. That, on the other hand, is my challenge.

So tell me, should I go on and seek more verdant pastures? I will defer to your wisdom and experience barring any streak of stubborness that might get in the way, haha. Let me know.

M.