Does the care in caregiver ever really stop?

The phone buzzed beside me. Glancing at the screen I saw the caller.

New West eyes.

Tears pricked in my eyes as I answered the call.

They were calling about a surgery cancelation at the end of May. They started the call with a simple enough question.

Is Allyssa there?

I took down the information, I sent her the text. I told her to take care of herself, to not let it go longer then need be so she doesn’t risk the little vision she has left.

And then, I just sat still. Waiting for my breath to stop shaking, for my eyes to not be clouded with tears.

I wanted the sadness to change to annoyance, but it never did. It rarely does.

The hardest part of this is making myself no longer care. I seem to fail at it over and over. And I guess in some ways the caregiver in me will always care, just not give.

I remember the multiple surgeries she went through with me beside her. How small and scared and lost she was in the hospital, and once again my heart hurts. That she has to go through it alone, jolt from her sleep with the night terrors I used to hold her through, go through the pain alone.

I want to help, but all I can do is relay the message. I’m sure some wouldn’t even do that. I mean, they have her number, they called her first. I could have corrected the question.

Is Allyssa there?

Instead I relay the message…swallow down more pain…finish the rest of my shift…put on a brave face…tell her to be well.

What else can I do?

Skin

I folded my hands together today and my finger brushed my ring finger.

I was once again jolted to the absence of you. Once again felt the all to familiar feeling of something missing.

I wonder if your hand goes to your neck and feels the same lacking. Do your fingers still trace the ghost of what once housed your flesh?

These things held so much promise. The protection of a collar, the pride of your ring. Now nothing is left but the memory of their shape, the weight of them, the phantom sensation of metal.

Replaced by air. The emptiness that took your place. It’s now what houses this gap you left me with.

Here in my heart.

Here in my bed.

Here on my finger. Where the promise of your ring once kissed my skin.

Relentless waves

I have a dick in each hand. They take me back to back. I cum twice, and again with my toy before I sleep.

It’s not the same. It hurts, I’m dry, my eyes don’t roll back.

Has she broken sex for me as well?

I wonder this as my last orgasm comes from my hand accompanied by thoughts of her. I admit this to the boys while laying in the dark and I hate myself a little for it.

The morning comes and I’m quieter then normal, more inward. I get this way when I get lost to thoughts of her. I can feel myself getting pulled under as I lay in silence.

The boy try’s to play with me but my body doesn’t respond. Eventually he stops and lays beside me not saying much.

“I wish I knew what she did to get me so wet all the time?” I say this nonchalantly as if I don’t know how much it stings us all, yet my head and my mouth seem to want to be plotting against my logic.

I ask the question even though I know the answers. Even though I can picture every motion with clarity, as I had the night prior.

“She ate you out,” daddy tosses it out like he is talking about paint drying.

I say nothing as my mind goes to her mouth wrapped around my clit taking it like it’s a tiny cock, how she bobbed her head, the sounds we made….

Tears prickle in the backs of my eyes.

The boy leaves to make coffee and daddy pulls me in to his arms.

“What if she has broken sex for me too,” I say and the tears begin to fall. “I keep trying to feel the way I used to with her with others, I know they are trying, and I just can’t make myself. What if I can’t again?”

My words are blurry now, a mess of tears and self annoyance and frustration.

“I know I shouldn’t, but I still miss her. I still wish she would come home. It’s not even about the sex or the service. It’s just her. I miss her.”

It hangs in the air heavy. I wish I could not feel this part, that I could just bulldoze past it. Yet these feelings are relentless in how they come in unexpected waves.

He strokes my hair as the tears slide down my cheeks and he talks softly. “Sometimes the best way to get past it is to enjoy the things you couldn’t do when you were in it.”

I cry harder. Being polly isn’t exactly something about me the boy handles well. The thrill of the “Chase” and the fun of the flirting and getting to know someone is always permeated by the guilt I feel when I see how uncomfortable it makes him, and then I’m right back to remembering how I made her feel these things just by being myself.

“I keep trying,” I say. I’m standing now, having made myself get out of bed. I knew if I didn’t get up it would have been a day in my head beating myself up. As I walk to the bathroom the tears continue to fall down my cheeks, but when I walk out they are once again dry.

This will pass eventually, but today is a hard day.