Love Hurts
   

She created him in his image, the dream they shared for the perfect person, the ideal companion, the super supplicant. Incubus and succubus and whatever other bus might be needed to cover all the routes of an idyllic life shared in euphoric passion and wonder. It was a dream that became real in the flesh, in the heart, in the time and space they shared. So real to him, or so he thought. Thought.

After a time, immeasurable and finite, it became excrutiatingly clear that it was not real for her. A game she learned in her youth, to use people, especially men. To put on any face, any role, any magical wonderment to bewitch those around her into giving her what she wanted. The mistake he made was believing in her as real and calling her one it, not overtly at first, but subconsciously with natural expectations that two who share intimacy have for each other. To want to feel in return what is given. To want her to do in return what he did.

She didn't. After a while, the actress tired of trying to perfect the role and he wanted the same perfection she created in him. He stopped living up to it, living up to only the level that she would. Osmosis. Balance.

Eventually, she threw him out. For she did not want balance. She broke him. She did not want damaged goods. He wonders if anyone does. They say time heals all wounds. He hopes so.