Driving need.

This is so formidable.

To want the rituals so deeply, so intensely that I tremble with the raw desire of it, and then hold the small ones close as I tell them that no one will ever force them to do those things again. And then they ask why my voice is shaking, they ask why I am sweating. They ask why I am pacing so often. I cannot tell them. Their eyes search me, knowing that I am holding something back. Wondering if they can trust me, or if I have gone mad yet again.

I wonder, even if it is even my own heart that wants this. To be honest I hated it, but I forced myself to accept it. Someone could be leaking; Zillah is prone to such things, especially after her moments with Malcolm. But that would be too easy to explain away.

This caustic voracity that cannot be sated, this lust that overcomes me…it is haunting, and no less than absolutely excruciating.