Dearest Myra,

I have been possessed of the want to write you for some time now. I fear what I may set in motion, should I send this letter, so I shall not. I find myself unable to adequately tell my story, in any case. I will write you these letters, even so. Someday, I will give them to you in the hope you may forgive the unusual long-winded quality of my thoughts.

There is a lost feeling to Rhy'din. To live in this place is to live at the edge of a cliff; no railing, no harness, no failsafe to ensure that while you may walk the edge, you must truly try to fall. The fact that you may tumble over at any moment seems to me to weigh on the air, the only counterbalance being that death appears sometimes transient, and those that love you may form a harness all their own.

That would make Rhy'din appear, at first glance, a vastly different shade of civilization than is to be found in our country, but it is not. It is far more intellectually honest about a universal fact of living. It strips away the illusion we indulge ourselves with that we have some manner of control over what life shall bring. It leaves us with all we ever truly have when one strips bare the moment one person stands against the chaos of the universe: force of will and the instruments through which we would maintain the right when the universe would insist, against any man-made rule or regulation, upon a wrong.

Rhy'din does not fool itself into believing it may impress upon people more civilization than they truly possess. The law has its place. It may guide us, it may assist us when wrong has already been done, but it does not live for us. In this world, its place is marginal, and justice must attend largely to itself.

I have yet to decide how I feel about this.

One feels this perspective should bother a police officer more than it does, in tatters though I have left that particular costume of myself. I suppose 'lost' may be at times another word for 'free'.

If nothing else, it matches my disposition of late. I am lost, Myra, and in my case it is no freedom at all. I find myself at another impasse in my life whereupon facts entrenched in my realm of understanding come into question.

I often believe I have gone mad.

It is almost Christmas, Myra. I wish that you were here. I wish there was more work this time of year. I wander while Ray works, searching for someplace to offer my hand so that I may not be so useless as to allow him to take care of me. Those days when I find nothing I simply wander.

For a realm bordering lawlessness, Rhy'din has a way of taking care of itself. There are abandoned buildings in abundance, many left as a kind of public domain, a necessity born of the transience of people. Now and again I reconsider the possibility of opening diplomatic relations with Canada. I have located a small building. It is pretty, and appears to have been a home as well as a business of some sort once, long ago. The facade is covered in some sort of evergreen ivy, and there is a large tree in front of it. Perhaps the shade would make summer sentry duty some measure more bearable.

It is a fantasy, I know. Childish. It always was, even on Bellcaire. It kept me in a perpetual stage of consular duty. It kept me from having to remember missing something else. Still, I have begun clearing debris away from the front path.

Perhaps it is a metaphor for something, but the shape of it escapes me.

I love you. I miss you.

All my love.

Renfield

((Mature subject matter.))


Dearest Myra,

I have considered writing this to you simply as a mental exercise before removing it from the stack. It is, after all, an attempt to collect my thoughts, far more than it is a letter. However, you have never made me feel as though I could not discuss these matters with you; much of the very point of what I'm about to write is that there isn't shame to be found in the subject, so perhaps it would be counter-intuitive to remove it.

I have, of late, been on something of a learning curve when it comes to sex.

Not simply the act of lovemaking, but indeed my concepts of the very definition and perception of scale when it comes to orientation, roles and gender have been brought to my immediate examination.

Very recently I was asked by an apparently genderless, blind being whether I was male. My answer was tantamount to yes, and no. I could only tell the being that I was female when I want to be. My own answer has intrigued me for days, and I believe I was incorrect. The answer is most emphatically yes; however, I am most emphatically female, as well. My erroneous assumption was that in order to be in part female, I had to excise some part of me that is male in order to make room. This was foolish. I am both, when I choose to be, and I know now that I need no reason to feel what it is that I am, beyond the want to do so. There is no masculinity lost in the facets of me that are feminine, and conversely, no femininity lost when I feel male. These are definitions placed upon us by the expectations of others. I am no more bound by them than I am bound by the expectations society places upon two men who are in love.

I have come to the very recent understanding that I need no reason to be whatever it is that I am. Even so, the very fact that I must consider these things tells me I am in more possession of these gender and orientational expectations than I would consciously choose to be.

I have a device that allows me to access a variety of media, and it is perhaps the natural thing that one would eventually find oneself seeking media of the erotic flavor. In my case the search was for the purposes of anatomy reference, though I'm certain this sounds like a clear application of 'the lady doth protest too much'. In any case, I find myself paging through various images of human beings, men, women, various configurations of people making love. Smiling, happy faces, often. Laughter. Parted lips, heads thrown back in bliss. Moans. The faces of humanity, unfettered, splashed across a page to be seen for all its honesty, without shame.

I look at them and wonder if it matters, in those moments, what label is given to the participants. In the same way that law is in great part an illusion with which we comfort ourselves, the words and examinations society gives to how, why, with whom and in what configuration we make love with one another seem to me something of an illusion. To what end? For what purpose do we name these things? What control do we feel we must have over our most base natures that inspires us to label it so?

I am a virgin.

This is something I have always known. I have asked myself, of late, why it is I believe this. I have not performed the act of intercourse in my life, in either configuration, so this is the designation I have given myself. Virgin.

Why?

I have made love. I do not feel the acts of love I've shared with Ray, with Scotty, or indeed with Mark, were somehow lessened by the absence of some manner of penetration. They were not faulty in their expressions of love. And yet, a virgin I remain.

Why?

On my PADD now is the image of two rather elegant women embraced in an act of love. They are a beautiful contrast to one another, pale and dark, copper and black hair mingling in the spill of it around one another.

Is their lovemaking lessened for the lack of interconnecting anatomy? Would this woman with pale eyes and red hair consider herself a virgin, if her dark-eyed partner is the only person with whom she has made love in her life?

While I could never presume to speak for this stranger, I don't believe so. Is the label I give myself erroneous, Myra? Should I shed it and accept that it was Mark to whom I gave my virginity? Is it far more a state of mind? Have I given my virginity to Ray already, regardless of whether we've performed a specific act? Or does the mere fact that I appear to want to retain the label legitimize it whether I would apply it to others or not? Why must the term imply a lessening of those acts at all? I cannot deny the level of vulnerability inherent to the act of intercourse, but neither can I accept that what passes between myself and the men that I love is incomplete. I believe it is that implication against which I rebel, against the idea that I would internally perceive it this way, not the label itself.

I believe it is true that we seek to exert power with our labels. I have come to wonder if that needs to be a bad thing. It is true that they create limitation, an ease with which we may sort our fellow human being into one simply packaged difference or another, a convenient bin labeled 'acceptable' or 'unacceptable'. However, many labels we accept with joy. Mother. Sister. Fiance. Boyfriend. Friend. They give us power and definition to our relation to one another without the disservice of stereotyping. Perhaps, like the law, they are merely a guide. I believe in my heart, for myself alone, that I should place 'virgin' among these.

These words enhance what I see, layered in beauty and love in these pictures of people giving pleasure and love to one another. These words are broad, flexible, loving terms for what we do and what we are, that may change and evolve with the individual. Their definitions are as fluid as a given person's application to themselves. What is 'virgin' to me is not to another person; they may apply it in any fashion that feels right.

My thoughts ramble and unfold, and I find myself wondering what you would see, if I sent you these words. You could always see through me, when I'd surrounded myself in grand ideas and perceptions. I do not believe I have, this time. Regardless of the length of this letter, I believe I am slowly letting go of many of them, rather than surrounding myself with more.

I love you. I miss you every day.

All my love,

Renfield

Myra,

I cannot begin to put to paper what it is I have heard in the past several days.

I have tried to write to you many times and failed. This is not the first time I have wondered how I can feel so battered on behalf of someone else.

I feel a great need to gather my family to me. They are fragmented. I cannot touch you, nor my brothers. There is Ray, there is Scotty, there is even Harold, and they are each a treasured, soothing presence. I wish that I could add yours to it. I wish that I could see you breathe and live. Know that you are safe.

My letter could never be adequate for what I have seen. Perhaps I will try again, if I find the heart for it.

I love you. I miss you.

Renfield

Dearest Myra,

I feel no desperate need to document what I have seen the past while, yet. However, for the sake of saying so...

The universe is a very strange place indeed.

I love you.

Renfield