Damian Ch. 03: READY, FIRE, AIM

On the way, she notices the unisex bathroom that's there for the, uh, third-gender patrons. She stops, looks around conspiratorially, grabs my shirt collar and quickly pulls me in, locking the door.

Inside, she turns and backs me to the door playfully. I can see the gears turning in her brain. She's trying to evaluate what the right next move is. Does she do something teasing, slow and erotic? Does she use the privacy to counsel me on something? She's looking into my eyes like she's looking into my soul to determine how far and how fast. I note the sweat on her face and the way her nipples show starkly in her sweat-soaked t-shirt.

"It makes me so HOT to see all those gorgeous women who want you and to know I get you." She's still reading me deeply, and there it is: her hand is on my crotch, staring into my eyes. She sees, and feels, that this is working for me and, faster than I can believe, but more importantly, faster than I can overthink, my shorts are on the floor and my cock is in her mouth.

I'm confused, trying to decide how I should be thinking, but she licks my frenulum: that sensitive spot under my glans and grabs my balls and massages them. With her other hand, she starts to rub my taint. She doesn't give me a chance to think: instead, she's playing the nuclear card.

She purrs "that's my good boy!" Then as she puts her mouth over my cock, I quickly learn she can deep throat. I guess it's a professional requirement? I want to laugh at my little joke but I'm totally caught up now. I've never been throated: it feels so wrong and so right. She's both soft and there are places in there that're rough and contracting. She makes gagging noises and says something about me being too big. I think she's humming something as she takes me deep, when suddenly I feel her finger probing my anus. When did she wet it? And I just stop thinking and give in to the feelings. I'm an animal in rut being used and I love it. She takes my dick out of her mouth long enough to say authoritatively "be a good boy and give me all your cum. Do it now!" then deep throats me again, sticking her finger more into my asshole. My rational brain is trying not to make noise with my back slamming against the door but I don't fucking care. I unload a three-month dry spell into her throat with enough velocity that I imagine it shooting halfway to her stomach.

"Fuuuck!" It is mind-blowing. I swear the world flashed and there was buzzing in my ears like a flash-bang just went off in here. My entire lower half is pulsing like a tsunami as I realize that I just checked about ten new things off my sexual bucket-list all at once, I broke a three-month dry spell and challenged a feeling of complete emasculation I thought would never break. I want to thank her so much.

As I'm recovering, she leans back onto the sink counter and sheds her shorts. She grabs my hair, pulls me to my knees in front of her and smashes my face between her legs. "Now do me. Do me good. Use me. Make me cum hard." Part of me wonders why she thinks she can be this bold, but I remember that I told her I loved to see my playmates cum and I had willingly licked her pussy juice off her fingers after all. Again, she reads me. And I don't care. I just want to please this goddess' pussy. I want to thank her.

I remember this game. I want to show her what I can do and how skilled I am. So, I lick around, tentatively, exploring her labia, her opening, her inner labia. I want my lover aroused before I head to ground zero. I want her to WANT it. But she's having none of that and pulls back the hood from her pierced clitoris and says "today, I'm so horny for you that I could fuck a log! Just do me!" In my befuddled state, I realize that her labia is already swollen, she is already engorged and her clit is erect and she's dripping wet. I didn't need to play good lover. God, this is so primal... so raw! I shove two fingers into her saturated pussy and do the "come hither" thing to find her g-spot. She jerks and moans confirmation that I nailed it, so I keep that up and then work on her clit with my tongue. She's moving around like it's too much, but holding my head to her by my hair, confirming that that's really what she wants, so I go for it with gusto.

"NNNNNGGGGAAAHHH!!!" She shoves her forearm in her mouth to try to stay quiet, then looks at me like a feral animal. She won't break eye contact. And she cums. She cums hard, her juices squeezed onto my chin. She jerks and keeps cumming, shaking. I take the grip she has on my hair as instruction and I give it to her when she commands and how she commands. I swear: her orgasm must've lasted ten minutes, but it was probably just fifteen intense seconds. Her face is red, her mouth in an ahegao "O" and her lips are twitching. It's adorable. When she finally relaxes and releases my hair, panting, I want to thank her, to show her how much I appreciate this. I have no words, so I just look in her eyes and scrape her pussy juices off my chin with the same fingers I used to do her g-spot, then suck them clean, smiling. The look she gives me says that she got the message.

"What a good big boy." She smiles as she catches her breath.

Later, we laugh about the expression of the young woman at the front desk when she saw us leave the bathroom together and was not really sure what to do. We went in our separate showers. I stopped at the men's sauna and wondered if I could sneak her in, but it was too risky, and besides, I was still in refractory and so decided to leave perfect-enough alone. Still, quietly, I confess that little fantasy to her as we walk and she says, smiling, "I would've come." Or did she say, "...cum?" Regardless, my little buddy liked that reply and reminded me of his presence.

We go for a little walk in the park, holding hands. There's something intimate about holding hands that, in an emotional way, feels deeper than sex. I'm in a quiet revelry.

But then I see Cara, one of Cass' casual friends, coming the opposite way on the wooded path. Shit! I try to divert us, but it's too late... I've caught Cara's eye. I so don't want to talk to her, but she and I feel socially obligated. I put on my big boy face. She asks very superficial questions as do I. She's trying to be sensitive to me, making sure that she doesn't say the wrong thing in front of Tara, assuming she's a girlfriend. That's a kindness, but I can see she's intensely interested and wanting to ask other things. I don't give her an introduction to Tara: the boy scout in me doesn't know how to introduce her. My 'girlfriend' is presumptuous and a lie. My 'therapist' is just weird. 'Sex surrogate' is out of the question. 'Friend' is also a lie.... Or is it? I give myself the "don't get attached" lecture. But my conversation with Cara ends before the conversation with myself and she excuses herself and moves on. I'm sure she thinks I avoided the introduction when in fact, I just stumbled around it.

Tara senses my mood - it's almost creepy how empathic she is - and brightens the chatter by talking about how much she loves "Cobalt Blue," new music group I'd never heard of and promises to play them for me. I totally forget the encounter with Cara.

I take her out to a sushi restaurant and have her eat the sashimi, extolling the virtues of protein after a workout and the omegas in fish. Then we wander to my apartment and quickly, we're nudists again. I like this casual intimacy: it had never occurred to Cass and me and my times with Lily were either spent furtively pretending we were just friends or otherwise engaged in raw sex. This is just another whole new thing and something I share with Tara and Tara alone.

Don't get attached.

She keeps rubbing her shoulders and I take the hint, offering her the full body massage that I'd cheated her out of last week. Her eyes light up and she doesn't have to say how strongly her "yes" is "yes." She grabs me by the hair again - what is it with this woman? - and pulls me to the bedroom. Then she looks at me over her shoulder with a provocative look as if she'd been a fashion model doing that all her life and then lays down on the bed demurely. The oil is still on the nightstand so I start again. This time, she doesn't talk, leaving me to my thoughts, but I remember what she likes and provide it. And she moans generously. I feel myself getting hard again.

As I grind my fists into her glutes, she shivers: I think that's very sexual for her and she soon confirms it by moaning "keep doing that and I'm gonna cum..." So, of course, I keep doing it! With a huge grin on my face. She sticks her ass up and spreads her legs, inviting my touch so, sure, I go for it: I diddle her and she's already wet, dripping down onto her sex. Again. She's engorged and ready, not requiring teasing stimulation. Does she always start in fourth gear? I rub the hard bead of her engorged clit, especially stimulated as the ring in her piercing moves around in my fingers. I wonder if I'm doing it right, never having encountered one, but I must be doing something right because she jerks suddenly and is having another moaning orgasm. As she's thrashing on the bed, I wonder if it's an act or if the woman really can be this sexual; but as her juices are forced into my palm, I realize both that there's something there and also that she's capable of just about anything. She could be faking the extremity of her orgasm, but not that she's having one.

As I finish massaging her thighs and feet, it suddenly strikes me like a freight train. I saw it. The last time I saw Cass' cunt as she stripped in the sex club, she had gotten a piercing too. That was so weird: another sign of Cass' transformation to a whole 'nother person. But it made me immensely sad that I didn't get to share that with her. The excitement of getting the piercing. The teasing as it healed and finally, learning how to use it to give her better orgasms. I didn't even know exactly what she'd had pierced: her hood? Her labia? Her clit? And I never would.

I think Tara sensed my mood darkening and so begged me to kiss her feet to try to distract me from the attitude. I halfheartedly kissed a little bit, but somehow my heart was no longer in this massage. Maybe at another time, I would've given her what she gave me, but, deflated, I just go through the motions now. Tara rolls onto her back, her full, fuckable body on display, but I am no longer hard. I see in her expression that she knows something is going on, and maybe a little compassion. Maybe a little pity? No: she is too empathetic for that. But the compassion drives me deeper; it's been Cassie who would give me compassion for so long that that was my go-to. Accepting Tara's compassion almost feels like a betrayal. So, I smile bravely and finished her front rub, her arms, her legs. I avoid her sex, though I'm sure it is freely offered. Then I have her sit up and nestle behind her, propping her head on my stomach, her body facing away from me between my legs. I put my fingertips on her head and give her a scalp massage.

And another bolt to my heart: Cassie loved the scalp massages.

Tara moaned through the massage. It was harder not to tangle and pull Tara's hair because of her curly pink locks, but we get through it. Then she props herself up on one arm, looks over her shoulder at me, smiles kindly and asks, "do you want to talk about it?"

My eyes get misty with moisture, but I owe her a better answer this time than the one I gave her last time. "Just... unresolved feelings." I shrug as if they were immaterial, but I know that's such a lie. They are still grinding me up inside. I feel like I have to confess to this wonderful woman before me so I say it, be damned the consequences "I still... love... her."

Tara thinks, leans back into me, snuggles and reaches back to wrap one arm around my neck, stretching to bend it that far backward. "Damian. Love is good. Love is a good thing. It's healthy to love. You had, what? Fifteen years with her..."

I think. "Sixteen..." I interrupt. Let's not minimize it.

"Sixteen and they were mostly good years..."

"They were great years."

"They were great years." She kindly leaves off the bit about the last day of it in this discussion. "You deserve to allow yourself to love her for that. She deserves your love. But... and remember this... love is infinite. You can love other people without having to give up an iota of love for the woman you knew."

Wow. Tara is good. She knows how to melt me. I tear up anyway, but not a feral cry: just a "too much" overflow and she holds me and cries with me which sets me off totally.

"Loss is hard. You've had almost everything taken from you in a... vicious and traumatic way" She turns and makes me look at her "but you deserve love. You deserve to love again and be loved. You are an amazing, wonderful man, Damian Hayes." She admires my body, kindly skipping over the limp dick and smiles again "And hot as fuck!"

She breathes deeply. I sense that she's going to end the session soon: it's been hours. "Damian, I don't know your religious beliefs, but I believe in the Goddess." Tara says 'Goddess' with a capital 'G.' "She teaches us many things. You can accept this as a philosophy without religious connotations, but... I just want to say... Look at it this way... The Goddess is an expert on birth and life. Birth is a miraculous thing, but think about it: when a baby is born, we don't expect them to pop out and have it all right. We don't dress them in a suit and give them the keys to the car and expect them to drive to work the next day. We don't read them philosophy and expect a Master's thesis in response...

"You are being reborn, Damian. Of all people, you need to bless yourself with the right expectations and not expect to... rise from the ashes... instantly a new man. Give yourself time, patience and..." she holds my cheek "...love. Peace to sort out your brain. To clean house. To learn. It's okay, Damian. It's okay... it's okay..."

We hold each other... I feel like I'm grasping a buoy in a stormy harbor. I even think I'm shaking. But it is good. Give myself permission...

Going to sleep that night, my thoughts turn dark again. I get my lollipop and start sucking on it. "Give myself permission..." I'm starting to like the metallic taste and think about giving myself permission. Would it be an act of self-love?

--

Group therapy is interesting. I don't know what I expected... maybe an "AA" meeting, like: "Hi, I'm Damian and I'm a psycho, PTSD-ridden suicidal pervert." Then being expected to gush out my heart and soul in front of a group of strangers. It is nothing like that.

The leader reminds us that this is confidential, that everything said here is among a group of friends who've mutually agreed to keep each others' secrets so that we can freely share our own as we choose. He makes each of us nod our heads in agreement. Then he starts a discussion. Anne had said we're allowed to intellectualize and talk academically or to personalize... to talk about how the discussion applies to ourselves.

The painful irony is that he starts the discussion by asking us what the pillars of a strong relationship are. Oh, fuck. It was like a hot poker through my brain. He didn't mean anything and couldn't have known the coincidence, but that was the theme of Cassie's humiliation game in her dramatic act at the club - the game that killed me. She'd used "the five pillars" as the skeleton of the game she played with us. No, when she played me intending to rip my heart to shreds.

The other people there start throwing out words. So that I wouldn't choke on my first day, I get all intellectual and dispassionate and blurt out "respect, trust, endurance, openness and loyalty" (why do I remember that so starkly?). The leader looks at me oddly, not expecting a pat answer like that, but then says to us all "yes, everyone is right... all of those things make strong relationships. Does anyone want to share an anecdote about what any of them mean to you...?"

Maybe there aren't just a pat five pillars... Did Cassie make that up?

I feel odd on my first day, but totally off the hook. There are only two other men in the room, the therapist and a gym rat named Aiden. The rest were all women and mostly middle-aged. I felt somewhat reassured that there was at least one other guy here, but still... guys shouldn't need this, do we? We're strong and resilient. We don't need therapy. Then I laugh to myself sardonically, '...and we have guns.'

I listen to the stories. I hear the feelings of betrayal. People fighting for love but getting crap in return. But I start to put myself in each of their respective other person's shoes. I wonder how much is miscommunication. This is just one side of the story. How much is because they didn't just talk out what they were projecting on their partners to see what their partners were actually feeling.

There were stories about revenge affairs that sounded sad and unfulfilling. The Aiden guy got into some twisted sex game with his wife and it destroyed their marriage... He went away to Australia to start over with some revenge relationships but all he got out of it was a learning. He discovered he still loved his wife and came back. But love alone hasn't been enough, yet, to patch things up. It takes more and they're both looking for it.

What did Cassie think of me when she was being tied up in the closet by Lily? I 'get' that she would be hurt: she only heard what we said and knew what we did. But she never ever asked me what I thought, how I was feeling. I feel the sense of betrayal stronger than ever. It was like she wanted our marriage to crash and burn. She wanted the sick humiliation of her relationship with Lily. She wanted to play the victim of a broken marriage. She didn't even try. Instead, she left me naked and wounded.

Everyone is looking at me and I realize the leader had asked me a question "I'm sorry, what? Jeez... I was lost in my thoughts..."

He smiles, "Hey, it's okay. We're here to learn about ourselves and that inner dialogue is part of the process. Because you did that tells us that you're taking this seriously and respectfully. You're working on it. It's okay. It's perfect." He looks around the room expecting assent and everyone nods at me. "I just asked if you have anything to share. We know it's a first day for you, and you don't have to say anything, but don't feel like you have to just listen either. Anything...?"

I stutter, not usually one to be lost for words... "uum... first... thank you for sharing. Maybe I can get the courage to share my story sometime soon..." I chuckle humorlessly, "but you won't believe it. It just... matters... to know you're here. I'm not alone.

"I was just thinking... I really don't know what was going on in her head... my wife. I don't know what she thought was going on in mine. When she broke it off with me..." I choke on my words "she did it suddenly and... brutally. We haven't really talked since... and that was three months ago.

"She texted me over the weekend. She's ready to talk. I'm..." my throat contracts and my eyes blur "...I'm nervous."

They all lean in... I can feel that they feel for me and I appreciate it. I think they can sense my resolve not to cry and stopping this, so they reach out; it's like a web of compassion. They're ready to catch me if I fall.

The facilitator thanks me, seeing my discomfort and concludes the session with some unremarkable housekeeping and a quick prayer (to whatever entity we choose). He catches me on the way out the door to make sure I have a therapist appointment soon. I do. This afternoon. He grabs my shoulders and smiles at me - that "stiff upper lip" guy smile. His gesture is like "I got you." It's appreciated, but the 'guy' part of my brain - the part that could really hear the message emotionally -- died that night along with my cock. I thank him sincerely and move on.