I Had No Taste For Defeat -

Dreams, Memories, The Sacred--they Are All Alike In That They Are Beyond Our Grasp. Once We Are Even Marginally Separated From What We Can Touch, The Object Is Sanctified; It Acquires The Beauty Of The Unattainable, The Quality Of The Miraculous. Everything, Really, Has This Quality Of Sacredness, But We Can Desecrate It At A Touch. How Strange Man Is! His Touch Defiles And Yet He Contains The Source Of Miracles.

The Purest Evil That Human Efforts Could Attain, In Other Words, Was Probably Achieved By Those Men Who Made Their Wills The Same And Who Made Their Eyes See The World In The Same Way, Men Who Went Against The Pattern Of Life's Diversity, Men Whose Spirits Shattered The Natural Wall Of The Individual Body, Making Nothing Of This Barrier, Set Up To Guard Against Mutual Corrosion, Men Whose Spirit Accomplished What Flesh Could Never Accomplish.

His Conviction Of Having No Purpose In Life Other Than To Act As A Distillation Of Poison Was Part Of The Ego Of An Eighteen-year-old. He Had Resolved That His Beautiful White Hands Would Never Be Soiled Or Calloused. He Wanted To Be Like A Pennant, Dependent On Each Gusting Wind. The Only Thing That Seemed Valid To Him Was To Live For The Emotions--gratuitous And Unstable, Dying Only To Quicken Again, Dwindling And Flaring Without Direction Or Purpose.

I Am One Who Has Always Been Interested Only In The Edges Of The Body And The Spirit, The Outlying Regions Of The Body And The Outlying Regions Of The Spirit. The Depths Hold No Interest For Me; I Leave Them To Others, For They Are Shallow, Commonplace. What Is There, Then, At The Outer Most Edge? Nothing, Perhaps, Save A Few Ribbons, Dangling Down Into The Void.

Abruptly He Thrust His Snow-drenched Leather Gloves Against My Cheeks. I Dodged. A Raw Carnal Feeling Blazed Up Within Me, Branding My Cheeks. I Felt Myself Staring At Him With Crystal Clear Eyes... From That Time On I Was In Love With Omi.