Living Orpheus has left me with fond memories of his eagerness to devour me whole. The last piece of me lingers on his tongue, no matter who lives or dies. I never felt such complete desire and sincere longing from anyone else in my life. I can only hope that if I were the one gone now, he’d say the same had come from me to him.
Truthfully, I worry that I will not feel such a depth of yearning for complete union from another ever again. Either because such depth comes only once in a lifetime or because, in my adamant grief, I won’t allow it to reach me again. How could I, when I feel Orpheus waiting for me at the edge of the beyond? Erect in his precision to ignite my psychic attention. My body aches for him each night, even after more than three years without his physical touch. Sometimes I sense him caught in the neither-neither, pulling me toward him but also pushing me back into the realm of the living because he knows love requires selflessness.
The mutual devotion between Orpheus and I that transcends the grave is an anachronistic view since we humans now live in a consume-or-be-consumed world, where catching feelings equates to weakness. Contemporary American society is a myopia, where sex is meant for the loveless, and pleasure has no place for those with hearts. Orpheus and I were meant to break that curse of separation. Love and pleasure can co-exist and co-arise, and we prove that equation to be true. The illusory destruction of love-pleasure interdependence is one and not the only reason today is so filled with violence, ignorance, and avarice.
But, enough of cyclical global issues. Orpheus and I have our own problems. Like how there’s no way we can message incessantly now that he’s ashes and light. And that’s the sad thing about long-distance relationships: the lack of physical contact. It’s also the sad thing about losing your lover to death. When he was alive, all too often, communication between Orpheus and I was a constant stream of messaging on Facebook.
"A relationship reduced to texts," I used to lament at the nadir of our affair.
This is probably one of the reasons I’ve grown to loathe that insipid platform that gave birth to my connection with Orpheus but also delivered the news of his death and foreshadowed it months earlier. If I could chat with Dead Orpheus now, Facebook could get back into my good graces. You’d better get on that, Zuck!
And since this data lives online somewhere anyway, I’ll tell you of one of the wildest moments we shared while texting on Facebook Messenger, when Orpheus was at work late at night.
The fridge had collapsed inside the shelter/hostel. Food had spilled all over the linoleum. Old milk, moldy noodles, and half-drained Capri Suns, I imagine. If he had anything in there, it was a salad or a sandwich, maybe an orange or Persian cucumbers. That same day, someone had broken his car window. Needless to say, he was rather stressed. While texting me about his horrid day, he remained in good spirits. That was his nature...he’d laugh off the onslaught of annoyances and sheer absurdity and not get caught up in the frustration of it all. The musical laugh of Orpheus could transform Satan himself back into an angel of light.
After telling me all this awful news, I told Orpheus I’d rub his whole body when he got home from such a hellish day if I were there...at least in the same country as him, but obviously, the same city would be better. Right now, the same realm and same form would be best. You can’t really massage the subtle body, and reaching all the way to Hades from here, would take a lot more magick than I know how to do.
Then, Orpheus wrote to me: "OK, so imagine for a moment that I walked through your door right this minute—tell me everything that happens after I walk in the door..."
"Fuuuuck," I responded.
"Kinda says it all," he joked.
"Even though I’d want to run and tackle you, I’d walk toward you slowly, with a giant smile and wide eyes. I’d wrap my arms around you like we were the last people on Earth. I’d look up at you, and you’d kiss me more deeply and passionately than I’ve ever been kissed. Our eyes would lock, and everything we’ve talked about would just be there, surging through our bodies like primordial firepower, and we’d see it in each other’s eyes, despite its intangible invisibility. Each touch sends electricity through every cell...and desire just grows and flows through us until we’re not sure who is who. In the delicious madness of it all, we crawl toward the bed. I pull away and stand before you..."
"Holy fuck, this is intense," he replied as he slipped into the washroom at work.
We sexted for the next thirty minutes. How he got away with it, I have no idea. I guess that’s the advantage of working a graveyard.
"I very slowly remove all of my clothes to keep the tension alive—my shirt over my head. Then I unbutton and unzip my pants...pull them down...unclip my bra, and throw it across the room. Then, I get too impatient and rip off my panties and climb on top of you to tear off your clothes as fast as humanly possible! Finally, you grab me, kiss me and look into my eyes, and rub and squeeze my body, and I push my body against yours..."
"Oh my god... I’m so close already, and we aren’t even fucking yet, hahaha."
The rest is too sexy for sharing. But, I will say that my favorite part of this sextcapade was after he finished and confessed that he had never done anything like that before. The same goes for me. That sums up the essence of our relationship. It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, which is why I was so eager to drink him up until the very last drop.
