"You, my dear, have the soul of a writer."
I cringed before glancing at him with a scowl. "You mean the soul of a poet?"
"No. God, no. You're the furthest thing from a poet. Whereas a poem has the capability of designing a truth endowed with ribbo...
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THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN ON EARTH AND OTHER SINS
It was luxury, truth be told. His true love in life. He'd be lying if he said that he wasn't a man who enjoyed the finer things; glass castles with ruby finishes, advanced technology made from gaudy titanium and a gold casing, an attire that took decades to envision and create and were envied by all, that unashamed and addictive consumption of absolute unbridled capitalism. He could buy the fucking world, he had a lot of it already.
He didn't feel bad about it. Why would he? He had won with vigorous gains at the game of life, and subsequently completely beat its cheap extension package that was the afterlife. And then some. Anybody could live, but it took one in a billion to fucking own their existence, grab fate by the throat and force her underneath you. Even when he was born onto a straw bed, with nothing but the village chants waning over the night and his mother's screams, he knew he was destined for not only greatness, but to completely overwhelming the world with his presence.
Physically, he was a hard man to miss. Goliath in his six-eight stance, a wall of muscle and arms like tree trunks. Of course, he had trained to get this big for his entire human life—it was the way of things, only the strong survived. He had the face of a god, a type of aggressive beauty that demanded attention and worship, with crystal eyes that seemed almost out of place on a body that foretold so much destruction and terror; the gorgeous allure of a warm hearth, if he wanted to do so, he could make someone forget about the way he burned with little persuasion.
It was only after he died that he looked at his appearance from an attraction standpoint and the power that it could wield—he married the girl that his parents chose before he was even born, had half a dozen kids with a handful even surviving past infancy. Fucked a few of the other females that were in the clan, had a few more kids. It was a primitive Free For All of the finest, most chaotic accord; the world where the only rules were that of survival and reproducing. He never had to worry about wooing anyone, about having to win over a significant other—they were always there, legs open and desperately beckoning.
Everything else he wanted, he took. Easy as that.
Then the world became complicated, a specific dance that one must learn became a new form of self-preservation; muscles and strength never mattered much against guns and atoms, and there were modern, more efficient ways of conquest. After he began to care about the way he presented himself, he learned how much of an advantage that came to just about every aspect in his life—he could get to the most exclusive places with a smile, win people over by promising simple words and fake affection, take over the planet with a playful taunt as though he wasn't serious about doing it, and they'd hand it over to him graciously. Thankfully. Best of all, no one wondered why, because he had the face of a goddamn angel, and it was easier to believe in the divine than face a hideous truth.
