A Very Long Day

The Musician is with me wherever I go.

This is not a problem. I do not wish to run or hide from his presence. At times, however, acknowledging him and explaining the role he plays in my life can be taxing.

At these times, I usually know to end my day after any such conversations.

Except yesterday when I didn't.

My best friend was in town and wanted to meet Doc. So, the three of us had dinner Thursday night. Friday morning, I met up with her for breakfast. After which, I had coffee with the pastor of the church I've been attending and which I have been serving in the capacities in which I am able.

This pastor wanted to know as much of my story as I was comfortable sharing. His interest had been piqued when I extended my tearful apology and turned down the offer to read the morning scripture one Sunday a few weeks back. "The latter half of Mark 5 is the one scripture I cannot read," I told him.

So, this pastor and I spent a couple of hours in a loud coffee shop talking about the life and direction of the church, talking about my story and how it intersects with Mark 5, talking about my interests and how I can get more involved with the community in the future as time permits.

Then, I had lunch with my best friend before she began her 4 hour drive home. I had a relatively terrible lunch with her in an extremely loud restaurant that left my body feeling gross. I am convinced that something I ate had been cross-contaminated. Blech.

After lunch I headed to one grocery store because they had a decent price on whole, boneless, New York strip and I wanted one. I returned to Doc's, got the steak put away, started a crossword puzzle and put on a kettle for tea, hoping to settle my stomach.

Then, Doc and I headed out to a couple of other grocery stores for things that cannot be found elsewhere. The first store was loud and crowded. The second more so. I also needed to mail a package to Ichthy and buy a book of stamps.

While we made our way through the store, I took hold of Doc's shirt tail. He asked if I was okay, and I explained that while I was fine, I was feeling a bit anxious and would likely be a bit more physically engaged while we shopped, if he was okay with that. He indicated he was.

At the check-out, I looked at the Customer Service desk and groaned with resignation and increased anxiety at the length of the line. Doc suggested I head that way and he would take care of getting the groceries so that we could make our escape as quickly as possible.

I stood in line, occasionally checking on Doc's progress. When it was my turn at Customer Service, I told the woman what I needed. She weighed the package and grabbed a book of stamps. While she attended to that, I looked back at the check-out. Doc was nowhere to be seen.

I began to panic, searching frantically for him. It is not that I was afraid Doc had left and forgotten me. It was that I was afraid I would be swallowed whole by the anxiety I was feeling, and Doc was the one solid thing I could look to and touch and know that I was still on stable ground.

With a deep sigh of relief, I saw him standing to the side of the Customer Service counter patiently waiting for me. I paid for my stamps and we left.

Once back at Doc's house, we put away the groceries we would not be using that night and I began dinner: mushroom risotto with crispy bacon. God help me, it was a miracle.

As we sat down to dinner, I stopped. Everything seemed to hit me at once. I was exhausted. Worn out. Done for the day. I wanted to skip dinner, curl up in bed and cry into my pillow.

Doc asked if I was okay.

This seems like a relatively easy question. It seems pretty straightforward. It seems like the kind of question that has a pretty simple answer: either a person is okay or they are not.

The question and its answer are infinitely more difficult than a simple yes or no.

I had had a long day. I was exhausted. I had talked about The Musician and been incredibly vulnerable with a new person in my life.

I had had a long day. I was exhausted. My mind was full of thoughts and I was feeling a lot of things, many of which I could not get a clear idea of and which I could not understand because I had had a long day and I was exhausted.

But apart from all of that, I was fine. There was nothing wrong. I was experiencing feelings and having thoughts.

I do not value feelings as much as most people I know. Feelings give us neither truth nor knowledge. They are fickle and insignificant most of the time. Feelings come at the behest of our thoughts and are unreliable as anything other than signposts.

I knew that all of things I was feeling and could not put words to were largely a result of thoughts I was thinking and could not clearly organize because I had had a long day and I was exhausted.

I knew as well that many of things I was feeling were amplified by exhaustion and anxiety and were a result of distorted thoughts I could not immediately correct because I had had a long day and I was exhausted.

And because I knew all of this and because I knew that in reality, outside of my unclear and disorganized thoughts which were feeding mysterious and hard to classify feelings, I was perfectly safe and content and quite happy, I spoke the truest words I could find in response to Doc's question: I'm fine.

And then I asked him why he had queried.

"You're very quiet and you have an incredibly pensive look on your face."

Doc scored extra points for his use of the word pensive.

But the anxiety only increased now that I was doing nothing and though the risotto was delicious and though hot, creamy, delicious, homemade and blissfully gluten-free food made my stomach feel better, I had a hard time getting through dinner because I was having an incredibly difficult time just swallowing.

After dinner, Doc and I sat down to watch a bit of television. Because of some technical difficulties, we popped in season 2 of Buffy. About 8 minutes in, I asked if he could pause for a bit. My anxiety had simply continued to build in intensity and I was beginning to feel as though I had shards of glass embedded in my knuckles.

I asked if it was okay to take a shower. Sometimes running water helps. I sat on the shower floor, knees drawn to my chest, arms crossed on my knees, head on my forearms and cried and cried and cried while the water saturated my hair and ran down my back. When I could not cry anymore, I sat another moment, waiting for the shaking in my core to subside.

I got out of the shower, toweled off, threw on a several-sizes-too-large t-shirt and returned to Doc's side. After making sure I was feeling better, Doc turned Buffy back on and we finished the episode.

Technical problems now resolved, after Buffy, we watched John Oliver. In the midst of the episode I asked Doc if we could fuck when it over. He said yes.

So, after John Oliver, we headed to bed. I brushed my teeth. I flossed. I crawled naked into my side of the bed and waited while Doc brushed and flossed as well.

When Doc returned, we kissed. He touched me. But I was closed tight.

Doc kissed me and touched me and I couldn't accept it. I had nothing to offer in return. I did not want him to stop. I did not want to have sex with Doc. I wanted Doc to do sex to me. This was, quite evidently, not going to be satisfactory to Doc.

I could have said, "No." I could have asked him to stop at any point. Doc would have. He would not have been angry. He would not have even been disappointed. I would have cried and cried and cried. And Doc would have held me and cradled me and cared for me in that moment.

"Are you sure you're okay," Doc asked.

"Yes," I told him. Because really, I was. "Why do you ask?"

"You're reticent," he answered.

"You're really scoring big vocab points tonight," I told him.

"Because I'm using trisyllabic words?" he asked.

"Yes." And I kissed him and tried to invite him into my space. But my space was small and closed.

I tried but I could not get to the place or the moment where Doc existed. I tried to focus on the ways Doc touched me, caressed me, stroked me, kissed me. It was exactly what I wanted, it was exactly what I needed, and it was too far a distance between my brain and my skin - a chasm that could not be crossed.

I asked Doc if he wanted to fuck me and he said yes, but that he was would wait. I didn't want him to wait and invited him into my body.

He turned me over and took me from behind.

And I was in the wrong place. I began to cry.

Doc stopped. "Are you okay?" he asked again.

"I'm fine. It's okay," I said, my voice hitching.

"What's wrong?" Doc asked.

"Nothing," I told him. How could I explain?

Doc has read my vanilla blog. When we first started dating, I told a friend of mine how it was we met and how the relationship was going. I explained about how respectful Doc had been in regards to what he'd learned when read my vanilla blog.

My friend responded:

I pray this will continue in absolutely the right direction and that the H[oly] S[pirit] will keep your heart protected and your mind absolutely clear. I only say that because crazy cautious New Yorker-me has seen a few too many lovely people deceived by the person of their dreams, or so they thought. And this guy will know exactly which buttons to press with you because he has read everything.

How could I explain that as he fucked me last night all I could think was how wrong my friend had been? Because the fact is the only reason to press button and take advantage is because you have something to gain. And I? I have nothing to offer.

I expected Doc to slice me open and carve away the rind of inner self and to find Casu Marzu beneath. I have nothing left which is desirable or worthy. I expected Doc to cut me open and recoil in horror at what lay within.

Doc, however, said, "I want to keep fucking you. God, I want to keep fucking you, but only if you're in the right head space."

I tried, desperately, to keep my voice level and even as I asked Doc to keep fucking me.

He stopped, turned me over so that I was, once again, on my back. Doc looked at me and entered me and touched me and kissed me. He did not cut me open. He did not tear me apart at the seams as I had sought to do to myself earlier in my attempts to make space for him in the place of me that had retreated and shut down and closed off entirely.

Doc, instead, shone warmth and light into the terrified and hurting places. He reached out softly and gently. He invited me to come forth. He brought light and warmth and passion; in doing so, Doc unfurled the layers of protection and allowed me breathe into a new space of welcome and safety.

Feelings give us neither truth nor knowledge. I do not care how people feel about me. I care how they treat me.

Doc treats me with care, kindness, and compassion.

And when he fucks me, he makes certain it is not something he is doing to me, but something he is doing with me.

And we do it so well.