Oh Baby .. How Does Your Garden Grow?

I am not an easy man. I am not full of niceties that feed and nurture a woman's inner seed of growth. I forget things on a regular basis. Get consumed with events and problems that enrage my thought processes and make a woman feel as if she is not there ... in it with me.

I do not allow women to stand beside me in my trials. I never have. That is not where a woman belongs. She belongs in a safe place .. away from the battle. I do not need to worry about her safety in the middle of all I am trying to do. I have time and energy for one .. that would be me. If I am to survive it .. I need to know she is somewhere taken care of. I do not go to war with women at my side. If she shows up .. chances are I am going to take her bodily and throw her somewhere to get her out of the fray. And take that as literally or figuratively as you please.

I am a man of temper. Frustrations that are taller than I am. Bigger than I am ... and sometimes they take control of me believing that they keep me safe. Believing that they defend me. When in truth they usually destroy. Which is the purpose of a weapon I suppose.

The closer you get to me .. the worse that is. Logical. The increased potential for hurt gets you up close and personal to the defense system. Raven has tasted this a little. She usually gets very good and very gone fast. Bell? Bell got a good swallow of my temper. Once more I destroyed someone close to me. Enough she asked to be released from me. How can I refuse someone that space? I have trouble being close to me... I can only imagine someone else.

Bell has been the one woman to get the closest to me. Is it any wonder I kept my eye on her? I have seen her doing well. Thriving. Growing. Yet I have seen something in her that I saw the first day I freed her.

So when she came to speak to me .. when she gave me her thoughts ... I simply asked her if she found it within her to be free. The feelings and emotions she gave me on the subject centered mostly around me. Something I tune out from her now .. to an extent. Something I do not completely believe from her at this point. Time will reveal more to me .. allow me to learn again. But for now I am too angry.

I kissed her before I took her collar off. I do not know if it was a kiss of goodbye or a kiss of hello. Bell ... or I should say ... Leonette .. has been and is on her own path. A path that takes her away from me. I do not know where this path leads or if it will return ... I do not know if it is me that has driven her away or if it is simply the nature of the path itself that she must follow.

I seem to have been needed by the Fates here and there to lend my power to further this path. Such as now .. giving a slave freedom. Something I am not known for. And each step away from me seems to add the breath to her wings. I do not know what that means .. there is a wall of red hot anger between us .. between me and my thoughts of her .. my belief in her. It is no longer physical in its manifestations ... but it is still there. Perhaps she can reach me better from the safety of her freed position.

What I do know is that it looks good on her. This freedom. What I do know is that those who care about her have accepted this like it always was there. Which makes me feel comfortable that I made the right decision for her best interests. For her well being. And the future will just have to take care of itself.