The flames licked at his body, petrified, paralyzed. He dared not move, for fear of further burning himself, for fear of intensifying the pain in places that were mildly sore, even if it would relieve the pain in other places momentarily.

Rob moaned and closed his eyes. Memories, dim at first and then rising in his mind's eye and scorching his soul, flickered before him: Callie, Jane, Lisa, Charlotte, Gina...people he'd loved and lost. Vague memories suddenly transformed into gospel truths. He'd lost many more loves than he had truly known he had.

Involuntary motion of his head, a turning aside to avoid the pasts flying at him liked winged monkeys, caused a searing heat to cradle his cheek, making him flush with pain and fear. His hands clenched like the hands of a baby seeing the fear of his parents for the first time; the fear they had for the future, and how to raise a baby boy, a special baby boy, and how to afford him. Rob's mouth opened in a silent scream, and that godawful movie the Fundamental Fascists forced upon decent people everywhere flared in his mind, and the irony of that thought, what with the three abortions he endured with Lisa, was not lost on him, even in this torment he struggled with.

He shuddered, trying to find a second's relief in the flames that engulfed him, and found his wrists fused with seared flesh. With a grimace and a scream, he ripped his arms apart, glimpses of Callie and her domme role-playing whacked his brain like her riding crop. Callie, who declaimed about repression and control from the men around her, who stuck her stiletto deeply into his heart and twisted, managing to avoid any commitment and fruition while tying him up and pinning him down to degradation and meniality in her dubious existence of self-involvement. He serviced her admirably, and he didn't even get a tip for his trouble.

Rob shook his head even harder, and smelled the last fringes of hair char and shrivel.

A small man in a heart-red haze stood watch over Rob. He held something long, with a sharp point. He smirked, and poked Rob. Rob wriggled, and found new flames lapping at his carcass. He thought now of Charlotte, how she hated to be tickled, hated to be stimulated, hated to have to move even an iota to accomodate someone else. Sweet as molasses to most, he found his life with her a hellish game of one-upmanship, who could do the most by doing the least, a conservative philosophy of governance if ever there was one. It was a game a liberal such as he did not play easily, nor with any great skill, and in the end, he let her win by simply not caring anymore. He didn't want his son to end up shouldering all the burden, all the time, and wanted to set an example of domestic life that included the occasional vacuum-cleaning of rugs and taking out of garbage.

The roar was deafening, and threatened to drown out his memories. He could feel the marrow in his bones begin to bubble and boil, magma in a lava tube, flushing this way and then back again, leaving him at once dizzy and exhilarated. He felt this way with Gina, she who had been his, had left him, had come back, and then had thrown him out of her life with her impatience. He could have made a sweet life with Gina if she had been a little more understanding, a little more caring. And if he had been a little quicker on the uptake. She wanted what someone else had. He couldn't move fast enough. Finally, when they broke up, he left feeling numb but relieved but thrilled they had consummated a relationship that had whelped in grade school.

The heat on his back had finally become too much for him, and he rolled over, shielding his manhood with the stubs of his wrists, his fingers long ago burned from touching too many of the wrong places.

A familiar feeling, this placement of his hands on his cock. It was one he enjoyed often, if enjoyment is the word when the situation is forced in a loveless life. It came down to this: was he to live his life to the betterment of others, or was he going to stake (no pun intended) his claim at his own altar? Rob thought of his early, feeble, fumbling attempts with women, bras that didn't unhook easily, some that unhooked too easily, fingernails that should have been trimmed before petting, teeth that found odd ways to express his desire a la Marv Albert, the furtive and mechanical explorations of a woman's body with his meatstick, pushing here, prodding there, the half-hoarse whispered lies that both parties tell-- "Yes, that feels good," "Harder, faster," "Oh your mouth is incredible!"-- rehearsed by watching bad X rated movies with friends, desperate to make mental notes should the situation arise where the plumber turns out to be Vanessa Del Rio or the neighbor Christy Canyon.

He flashed a memory of Barbara. She who could lie without shame or remorse, and when confronted with the truth, could jiggle and make him forget all that she had done. She evaluated him for two years as a lover, and he did all he could to remind himself she had to be lying when the lines of his youth were poured in his ear like the poison to Hamlet pere. The flames died suddenly, and then leaped to arc over him like a gauntlet of swords at a military wedding.

A firming in Rob's loins betrayed his true pain. The red-shrouded man laughed, and stepped forward. He stroked Rob's back with the business end of his shaft, and then jabbed him one last time in the small of the back, between his ribs and hips. Rob grabbed at it, and exposed fresh skin to the inferno directly beneath him.

"So, what do you think, Robbie? Think you might want to spend the rest of eternity in this place?," and the man let out a mocking roar.

"In hell? I don't think I deserve this! I lived a good life. I've loved, and been loved, and never hurt anyone that didn't deserve it!"

"Robbie, we walk a fine line in life, and we walk it quickly. Didn't you learn that, even this late in the game, even after seeing your life laid out once again? We have to move fast, because we are pursued by time, the fire that burns the past behind us, as we burn our own bridges. It stalks us, always creeping closer, like a river of lava, threatening to engulf us, the fire in which we burn. And we walk that tightrope, even though it is burning behind us as we step, because on one side lies the furnace of Hell. This is the other bonfire. Perhaps I didn't introduce myself. My name is Cupid. And you're in Love."

CARL SALONEN, Carl's life doesn't leave him with much time to contemplate what should go into these bios. Visit his home page at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/de_Valois