Consumed with one another, rivals are.
Seeing each other in their every dream, and tormenting each other in every nightmare.
Thinking of one another as they wake, and obsessing in silence just the same as each woman lives out their days, and then again as each night they drift off to sleep.
Each driven by the other to wear more makeup, and clothing less substantial, intent on both matching and outdoing she who dares think themselves an equal.
Do you not see then, how very natural and nearly unavoidable it is for women that hate in such a way – for women that have found themselves so inescapably vexed and bedeviled by one another, to fall prey to lust and victim to desire? Not because their feud was merely a ruse meant to ensnare, or because their loathing was feigned, displayed solely for the sake of others. No, it is because this person, this woman, whoever she is, and whatever it is that she has done, has been all that her rival has thought about for weeks, months, or even years. A companion, even when absent and unaware – present for every moment from meeting till resolution, silently occupying both mind and heart – providing both paradigm and prism for the world that her enemy sees.
And so in that moment, when finally they have one another in hand, clinging to one another, with eyes of fire locked in gaze. When finally all roads have come to an end, at a crossroads of violence and passion, how each could not fall? How could each not need more than vengeance and submission – regret and apology? How could such a minor and insignificant rewards satisfy and explain all they have felt? How could all the time, energy, and worry spent lead only to such a sudden and purposeless end, with no more? But just as such questions are asked, and such fears are felt, like a siren’s song it calls to them, offering not just peace, but release – from hatred, from anxiety, from a boiling cauldron of emotions neither can understand or even admit.
It could be theirs! All of it! She! Victory, of a sort. Absolution. Understanding. Pleasure. A cessation of pain and humiliation. And all that must be done is to turn hard to soft. Squeeze to stroke. And bite to kiss. Some resist. Some never feel such a pull at all. But many, many find its promises too tempting, and its offer of more too glorious to resist.
