qos: (True Love   icon by confiteminicons)
[personal profile] qos
I was on Whidbey Island, the summer of 1977, when I started writing the story in which my daimon appeared.

During all the years later, I wrote theme and variation on that lover, my daimon: not the actor, but the guardian on the threshold, the initiator and challenger, the warrior, the prince, the fierce, passionate lover. I dreamed of a man who I did not believe could possibly exist. I loved many men, and when none of them matched the dream lover in my mind, I told myself – quite sensibly – that I would be foolish to think that any man could live up to my fantasies. And so I loved the mortal men in my life, appreciated them for who and what they were -- but I continued to dream of my daimon, and to write about him.

I was on Whidbey Island, the summer of 2007, in the middle of a labyrinth, when I met my daimon.

I can’t tell the whole back story here. It would be too long and complicated. It’s only important that you know that although we had not met directly, Lohain and I had heard much of each other before that day, and he had been reading my LiveJournal for as long as [livejournal.com profile] _storyteller_ had. In fact, he’d been reading over [livejournal.com profile] storyteller’s shoulder the first time the latter read and commented on one of my entries -- the day that eHarmony.com told me there was no man in the world who matched my profile.

I can’t begin to explain how I got to the center of the labyrinth, and how I stood there, with Bryant’s hands on my shoulders and my eyes closed, waiting for Lohain to come meet me. I was excited and a bit nervous. I had heard so much about him from other members of their circle: his intensity, his violent past (he had extensive combat experience), his alpha energy. Everyone loved to tell stories about him, so he had always seemed present even when he wasn’t there. They poked at him with their stories, but it was like kids poking a lion through the bars of the cage. I always felt that they wouldn’t be quite so bold if he were actually present.



It seemed to take forever, but finally I felt the hands on my shoulders shift, felt Bryant withdraw. I was alone with the stranger. I started to shift, to turn, but the hands tightened on my shoulders, stopping me. So I waited, eyes open now, my breath starting to betray my nerves.

Finally I heard a voice: quiet, growly-gravely. "My name is Lohain M___."

I did my best to keep my voice steady. "Hello. I've been looking forward to meeting you." The next few seconds are blurred in my memory. He may have laughed softly and ironically at my statement, knowing my nervousness. Then he turned me to face him.

Later I sometimes thought of him as a Viking lumberjack: strongly built, longish blonde hair, stubble. He was wearing blue jeans, a t-shirt, and a sturdy tan overshirt. Now that he wasn’t holding my shoulders, he stood with his hands just behind his hips, a lazily arrogant pose and regarded me with an edged smile. Later I would understand just how nervous he had been. Then, all I saw was a bully trying to over-awe me with his presence.

The one thing I was sure of in those first moments and minutes was that I could not quail or flinch in his presence. This was a man who was used to running over others, to having them react with fear or diffidence. I stood my ground and did my best to not let him see how nervous he made me. I wasn't scared of him, not afraid of him doing something bad to me, but he was so clearly dangerous: perilous in the old sense of the world.

Then he grabbed me, pulled me into a hard embrace, and started kissing me like he owned me: a hard, deep, passionate kiss that went on and on.

I was startled – but somehow it felt inevitable. I hadn't expected him to kiss me like that, but I was not the least bit surprised either. And I knew, I knew, that I had to accept his kiss and not be bulldozed by it: take it, enjoy it, and defy him at the same time. I also knew that if anyone else in my life had done this, my reaction would have been furious anger.

Somehow I did accept, enjoy and defy all at once, all of them authentic. And when he finally released me, and I took a step back (head spinning slightly), I grounded myself as never before in my life, and gave him my best Am-I-Supposed-to-be-Impressed? look. Which seemed at the time to both impress and amuse him. “You’re interesting,” he said with a grin at some point shortly thereafter.

I don't remember how long we stood there in the middle of the labyrinth. It wasn't very long, but it was like ritual time/timelessness. Maybe we were still in the center when he said, "When we step out of the labyrinth, I'm going to ask the hardest thing I could ever ask of you." I got unnerved all over again. I could just imagine all the hard things this man might ask of me. I only nodded, not promising anything.

When we started our way back out through the spiral, Lohain took my arm (like a gentleman) and said he wanted to walk out together, side-by-side, matching steps. The path wasn’t wide, but we managed. We had only taken a few steps when he said, not looking at me, "Wise women are invaluable."

The words startled me as much as his kiss had. They seemed to have an almost ritual significance. At the time, I think I guessed that they were intended as a reassurance of his regard for me, and/or half an apology for his initial roughness. He wanted to let me know he respected me, even if his kiss didn't necessarily indicate that. Later, I came to wonder if it was something he used to tell me in previous lives together.

When we reached the last steps of the labyrinth, he stopped, turned me to him again. "The hardest thing I'm going to ask you is this: When we step out of here, forget everything you've ever heard about me."

Forget all the stories of his anger, his arrogance, his sometimes fraught relationship with [livejournal.com profile] _storyteller_. . . ?? I didn't know if it was possible. I don't know what I said then, but it was probably along the lines of "I don't know if I can, but I'll do my best." He nodded, accepting. Then we emerged from the labyrinth together.


Photobucket
Our Labyrinth


Lohain was by my side for the rest of the afternoon and evening, and it was like having a tiger around: a powerful, dangerous, unpredictable -- but compellingly beautiful -- creature a breath away. I kept telling myself that I was nuts, that it was dangerous to trust him. . . . but I was intoxicated by his presence. He wasn't easy to be around. He was provocative in his speech -- not sexually explicit, but with a tendency to goad, to test. I had to keep grounding myself, telling myself to keep my cool. On the ferry back across the Sound, he and I went as far forward as we could on the car deck, where he kissed me again several times. I welcomed it, all the while feeling like I was in a dream, wondering if I was being utterly foolish, utterly entranced by him.

A week or so later, he wrote me an email telling me what the kiss had been like from his side.

When I told you I was there, standing behind you, I gave you a moment to accept it. Then I kissed you. You responded by both resisting and opening up. It was amazing. I cannot remember ever being able to receive a kiss like that. You took control of me there, in those first moments. You became my wise woman and I knew I would be by your side.

The Lohain I met that day was very different when he moved to town a few months later to be with me, after months of phone calls and email in which we explored the incredible depth and complexity of the attraction and resonances between us. He was always an alpha, but his hard-edged, aggressive energy had gentled. He never lost any of his intensity – and he kissed me like that until the very minute of his death – but he no longer needed to growl and lash out. The beast-mask dropped away and he was revealed as the king he was meant to be. And with the king spirit came all the other qualities of my daimon: the initiator and challenger, the warrior-guardian, the lover -- and one I hadn't expected: father to my Wolfling (although never trying to take the place of her actual father).

Later, he told me that he had been looking for me all his life. And I’ve come to believe that all those years I wrote stories about impossible men, I wrote about him. Long before this life we loved and lived together, more than once, and I carried that love and the memory of him into this life without realizing what I was drawing from.




I have loved half a dozen men truly, and been loved truly in return.

I have known only one true love.

(no subject)

Date: 2008-06-03 02:31 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] qos.livejournal.com
Thank you for reading all the different things that you have. One of my griefs is that so few people knew him, so your comment means a great deal.
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