the first casualty, the L, the goddess, and a cuckolding edict

A thief should always be prepared for the worst of outcomes and so I will offer you no great sympathies - life merely matched expectation, and we will let it go at that. And may there be another leg to your journey, another realm (as you always insisted) that welcomes your kind without bias. I am told your collection was tossed to the five winds, scattered into mist, and this before you moved your lips for the last time - surely a pain greater than the thrust of the dagger, the tearing of flesh.  A regrettable execution of a clear directive.

Nature abhors a vacuum, as does a narrative. Out with the old and in with the new. For the time being we will call you, dear dalliance: L [the lady, the lover of lover, the lord (lady) of ledgers, the liquid, the limitless]. And if you object to this involvement foisted upon you? I will remind (so gently): did you not travel great lengths from the north to the center, then navigate the maze and contrary arrows, traverse the countless circles to the top (do not forget the gates), only to then choose the elevator to the room of labels? Signs everywhere, my lovely. You are here now: let us see if you prove interesting.

We did not languish and we did not echo (in the room of lit candles and vibrations) and thus I am compelled to call it a disappointment. And so I will. But when you said, Care to go back now, or is there something else I've said that you'd like to argue with first, and of course you said that with the even tone of one who views words as salve not sword, and because I did not look, to contextualize the comment of course, then I am now left to fill in blanks: so we will put a small smile on your face, call it rueful. And I will hold to my version: space was being bent, stapled, bridged, my (argumentative?) words my only currency, don't you see?

It should be obvious but if not: the woman is not sufficient, the man must be involved. Of course the greater the involvement the greater the victory. And I will say that his bed and then later sipping his whiskey is a damn fine start. You should leave the smell of a good pipe behind, or, at least, a decent cigar. Scatter a few ashes even. Nothing too obvious - where's the sport in that? And then, incremental escalation.