„I will never have him."
My thoughts of yearning cloud my brain, shadow my emotions with darkness. My daily prayers to God have turned desperate and wistful. I would give anything to have this suffering end, to erase him from my brain, from my heart. I would never dare to wish to have him love me back: it would be a sin in the eyes of God… and… I would never stand a chance against the beautiful Constance who wrapped him around her fingers.
Even now I am looking at him through the curtain of my hair. He is caressing the cheek of Constance with the back of his hand. Every time his knuckles touch her smooth skin my stomach does a summersault and I have to resist the urge to stand up and run out of the bar. I feel alone when surrounded by the cheeky remarks of my friends at his mushiness; it feels like they stab me every single time, when they tease him. I am jealous of their easiness, I wish I could be just as casual, just as unconcerned. However, till he haunts my dreams every night, either mocking me with my love, or tempting me with his exposed skin, I will never be able to act collected around the love-birds.
I hide my pain by bedding several women. Their faces are a blur in my memory, their scent all washed together, their moans all the same: just bitter ladies whose husbands can't satisfy their needs. I can almost understand them as my needs will never be satisfied.
I kept one of my lovers closer to me as she reminded me of him a bit. The Duchesse de Chevreuse is a willingly lover and financer, who pays me for my job well done. She is also a politically powerful woman, being one of the confidants of the queen. She substitutes him quite well from time to time, especially when my head is clouded by the delicious wine she always serves me; like she knows that I am much more willingly intoxicated.
I will never have him, and I know this. I yearn after him and in my weak moments I even consider getting killed in one of our petty fights with the Cardinal's guardians. But this will never happen. I am too proud to end my life like that, and the sparkle of hope that I get every time he looks at me with those tender eyes of his full of concern gives me the strength to go on, and wait for the time when my pulse will not increase from a brush of a finger.
"God, please end these excruciating emotions of lust."