I Only Wanted You Pt. 02

She groaned and gasped and said something along the lines of "Oh Rob, you..." except drawn out over at least ten seconds, long enough that she had to take a breath in the middle to get it all out. Clearly, my words had done the trick, and I was delighted, lying there grinning like a horny guy who had just had sex, which was almost accurate. I wondered what she was going to say, if she had managed to ever finish her sentence. We both panted and said nothing for a while, regaining our composure.

"Having you gone," she said, pausing to breathe deeply, "has been... well, I don't want to say a good thing, but it forced us to change the way we interact. I don't think I would have ever bought a vibrator, or used it to have an orgasm, and we definitely wouldn't have done all this stuff over the phone."

"How're you doing?" I asked, taking a risk. She hadn't mentioned her inhibitions or hang ups for a while.

"The thoughts and tendencies are still there, but it's easy to ignore them, even after the fact, which is when they would usually flare up so bad. Remember that?"

"Yeah, I do." I remembered her fighting off tears after giving me a handjob.

"I finally feel like I'm on the tail end of it. I mean, it's almost exactly like an injury, mostly healed, but I still get a few twinges here and there."

"Can you think directly about it, or does that cause issues?"

"Some of the thoughts I still try to avoid, but it's a lot better. Others, I can think directly about and it's totally fine. I can be objective about them."

"Sounds like you've decoupled the emotional response from those, then."

She paused. "You look that up or something?"

"Yeah." She didn't say anything for a while, so I asked, "Is that okay?"

I heard her sigh. "It's both frustrating and gratifying to have people care about me so much. If that makes any sense."

"It's hard to see someone you care about struggling with something," I said. "My natural instinct is to try to help, but I didn't know how."

"I love you, Rob," she said, her voice a little shaky with emotion.

"I love you, too."

We talked of easier things for a while, lightening the mood. Eventually, it was time to hit the sack.

"I can't wait to see you in a few days," I said, reluctant to end the phone call.

"I'm ready," she said softly. "I need you. We need to have sex."

"Agreed," I said, and we laughed together, enjoying the best company we could have at the moment.