I do not own any copywritten characters.

Love is a violent and painful emotion. Worse then fear, worse than anger, it generally involves them both. I have no need for it.

Yet when Dwight finds his way into Old Town, it kicks me right in the kidneys.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm all fine and dandy the rest of the time. I think about it. Or should I say it haunts me. It's like that scene in "Fatal Attraction" where Glenn Close's character is sitting on the floor in her room just staring off into space flicking a lamp on and off. No, I've never done it. But I think I know how she feels.

There's no real pleasure in it, not for long. The high I feel when I'm at his side fades into a dull and aching pain when he's gone. Even when I'm kissing him, losing myself in the moment, my last coherent thought is, "This is going to fucking hurt." And when he's gone it hits me like a ton of bricks. He goes back to his world….and I stay in mine.

I don't care if he loves me….I need him to need me. To see me down the end of every alley, at the bottom of every bottle. She thinks she has him…she doesn't. When they're all warm and naked together, at that moment before he falls asleep, it's not her he's thinking of. He can fight it with every shred of his manhood, but he won't win. This I know. This I know.

We are like a two- headed serpent, eating ourselves alive. They say there is no rest for the weary. There's no rest for the heartsick either. We play out the same drama over and over again until we have it memorized perfectly. Outlaw meets hooker. Outlaw loves hooker. Outlaw leaves hooker. It seems so simple. But we forget about the notes in the margin. Outlaw is afraid that he can never really have hooker because she is like a wildfire. Hooker is afraid to leave the life because outlaw may resent her past. Outlaw fears if she leaves the safety of her kingdom he cannot protect her. Hooker fears that hookers really can't have a happy ending. And on and on it goes.

So why don't we give it up, you ask? Simple. We can't. We are doomed to play out this same old story until one of us meets the wrong end of something cold and metal. He will date his barmaids and I will lead my girls and when the planets align just right, he will find his way into Old Town. And then the real pain begins.