Monday, August 19, 2013

A caretaker

The way, the way he held me, the way, the way he looked at me, or not looked at me.

With that, I drifted to sleep.

I found him the way I found a rock in the creek. I was just skipping and something shiny caught my eye. I went up close and it was a marble looking rock. So I picked it up and put it in my pocket and walked away. I occasionally played with it, but most of the time, I left it alone.

He was that rock that caught my attention at that very moment, and then I forgot all about him. Until I was looking for a rock, something shiny and smooth and perfect for skipping on the water.

I laid next to him, my head on his tummy, flat, toned tummy. I complained about his belly being too hard and not soft, big, like a typical Midwesterner. He ate very little. He ate sunflower seeds and nachos, some cherry tomatoes or cookies if he got his hands on them. But mostly he just ate sunflower seeds, like a bird.

He was a very thin man, with lovely curly hair. He had big hazel eyes and prominent nose. He had a perfect profile view. I once enjoyed looking at his face. But now I just liked to cuddle up to him like a kid with her papa. I always told him that I had father issues. He was a fatherly figure. He called me "monkey". He called me "cutie pie" and "baby." I wrapped my arm around him when I was down and I would let him pet me like a dog or a cat. He always wanted a cat. He always treated me like his pet. He could not do emotions. I scared him. His feelings for me, scared him. He began to care. He began to look forward to my next visit, he began to feel obligated to write, to tell me everything, he did not want to lie, he told me that he couldn't be with me physically anymore, it was too intense for him, but he needed me in his life nonetheless, he wanted me to visit and he wanted to spend time with me. I just wanted to cry. I felt betrayed and not loved and abandoned, but he adored me still and he held me the same way he used to hold me, and I just rested my head, my face and my body against every part of his body, with clothes full on, with no exchange of kisses. He just held me, his hand folded into mine, as I rested, and he held me in that position and watched the TV with me like he always did.

Two could play this game. I was becoming distant also. I was becoming more natural when I was with him when sex was out of the picture. I couldn't have sex with him, it felt forbidden and unnatural, like having an incestuous relationship, even though that in and of itself, incest turned me on. I didn't want him to give me the pleasure because I was practicing sexual abstinence.  It worked for me, and it was my opportunity to become good, clean and wholesome.

Sometimes I felt like the wicked witch of the west on a new year resolution . . . "I want to be good, I want to be wholesome, and I want no more shenanigans. I could do this, I would do this. I was good as new. . ."

I felt like chanting and I felt like a fraud. I missed sex more than anything else in the world. I was a nymphomaniac. I  could have sex, all day and all night long, I wanted sex more than I wanted air. Yet in my life, I had no sex to speak of. No one I cared to be with, wanted me for sex.

I was left to my own device. I had nothing but a broken dream.

So in his embrace, I felt nothing. I didn't want to revisit our topic, I didn't want him to feel that I was forcing the topic. Instead, I just sat next to him, like we often did, there was no love making nor sexual innuendos.

He found my hand. He grabbed hold of my hand. He touched it. He let me clinging onto his like a child. My face was buried in his tummy, then his crotch. I did not feel any sexual arousal. I just cuddled like he was my father, a father I never had.  He moved his hand onto my thighs. I held his hand, it felt natural and non-sexual.

He examined my bruises. He was sad to see me hurt. He thought that he hurt me. I did not correct his belief.

I couldn't be hurt by him if I never felt that strongly by him.

My hurt remained with my ex. The person who often disappeared and the person who did not care about me.

The world was going to be complicated place. But I had deconstructed it for myself.

It was good and new, it was safe and sound.

I needed him to be there, to hold me and to watch over me.

I needed him like Annis Ninn needed her father, so that she could commit incest.

Except we tried that and we stopped. Now I was just someone he cared about, and he was my caretaker.

Sometimes, we could live without a lover, but we could not live without a caretaker.

At the end of the day, we just wanted to be taken care of.

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