New Start

Dear Reader: One of the things our returning troops rarely talk about is the effects of PTSD, one of which is Sexual dysfunction. It is present in up to 33% of our diagnosed troops, contractors, NGO's, and war journo's. Let's not forget their sacrifices.

Dear Karl,

I hope everything is going well with you, and that you are safe. I hate your job, and what it asks of us both. Sometimes, I think I should leave you, and save myself from this abject terror I feel when you leave. I worry so much when you have to go to Kabul-- anything could happen, and I don't want to lose you now that things are finally "coming" together.

You are probably sitting on the plane right now, maybe you are even sleeping. I hope so. I know that sleep has been elusive for you, interrupted by nightmares and intrusive recollections of all you've seen. Sometimes, when you wake at night, sweating, shaking, stolen from our bed into a foreign world, I want to put my arms around you and hold you like a child. You never let me. But I understand the need to keep it all in; the need to never let any of it out. It can seem like the crack in the dam; ready to burst at the first opportunity.

It may seem strange that I am writing to you so soon after you left, but I needed to get my thoughts down on paper before they evaporated, like so much water from the pavement after a summer rain. My thoughts are often elusive in that way, and the farther from morning I get, the more untenable my waking thoughts seem.

This morning, when you finally took me, I cried. It had been a long time of waiting and wondering. Would it ever happen? I had started to wonder. I know it is normal, and I would have spent the rest of my life without consummating our relationship, but I am relieved nonetheless.

Months of me taking my pleasure from you, of you giving so freely of your body, and never being able to feel your own release in turn has made me feel guilty. As you touch me, taste me, torment me, I want so badly to be able to please you in return. You have made me feel things I never imagined existed, and I have wanted to worship all the parts of you that, until now, have been out of my reach.

You have always made me come, but there was something different last night. The world felt strange and unreal all about us. As though we were alone, and safe. I know you felt it too.

You were tender and demanding. You were gentle and pleading. The air around us felt heavy and caressed my skin as your mouth left damp trails down my body. My nipples stung as you teased them between your teeth; you sent pleasure, like lightning shooting through me and down into the soft flesh between my legs.

Last night, as you began to taste me, I writhed beneath you. Your tongue exploring my folds; your mouth drinking from my grail; your lips pulling my sensitive, swollen nub into your mouth made me come as never before. Your eyes were truly open to me for the first time, and I glimpsed your darkness, your pain; and more amazingly, you let me.

I felt you getting hard against me, and I was suddenly afraid for you, for me, for us. And when I saw the realization finally dawn on you, I pulled your face to mine saying "don't think about it, just kiss me." I couldn't think about it either; I didn't want to jinx it.

As you drove yourself into me, I felt torn in two. I wasn't ready for you, but the pain was mingled with relief. I felt your hardness inside of me for the first time, I was full of you in the most intimate moment we had ever shared. Your length touched my womb in a vicious kiss, over and over. I know that I wriggled as though to escape, but I am not sure what I was trying to escape from.

Each time you slammed yourself against me, my body would scream for release, and I found myself climbing higher and higher, wanting these few moments to last for eternity, but unsure I could take more of your intensity. Your need called to mine, and I felt your release deep inside me, and my own echoing liberation. My walls closed around you, still hard and thrusting, desperate to cling to those last precious seconds of ecstasy.

I have never felt closer to you than I do at this moment, and I feel the need to touch myself at the memory. I am slick with the thought of you within me.

If it never happens again, the memory will warm my heart, my soul, my center of pleasure, and we will be fine, but I hope, for your sake, that this is the beginning of your true recovery.

I am here, waiting and worrying.

All my love,

Kathryn