Love Heals

"Oh god Brian, I am so sorry." Jill said in a whisper. I looked up at her through my tears and tried to smile. Her own face glistened with tears.

"So Jill, you must understand that for me to help you I must love you. Love in many ways is a voluntary choice. I need not love you as deeply as your husband, but I must find something to love about you, and to make it worse it must be romantic love, not the love of a friend. I have learned this over time as well.

This is why I can't help men or children. I tried with men, but could never even try with children. This is why there is such a cost for me to help you. I must give you my heart knowing that as soon as you are healed that you will be gone. Then I will suffer alone, through the pain again. I will do this for the next woman too, and the next, until I can stand it no longer."

My tears had stopped as I spoke these last words and I looked up at the beautiful woman in front of me. Her face was pained, and her hand warm on my arm. I could feel the cancer inside her head eating away at her. My heart already ached for her, such a kind soul. It would not be hard to fall in love with her, but it would hurt all the more then afterwards. As I said to myself earlier, easier and harder with this one.

"What do I have to do?" Jill asked. I began to speak and my voice took on the sing song quality of someone repeating something they have said many times before. I did not look her in the eye as I spoke.

"I will need to spend some time with you, alone. A few days, a few weeks, a month, whatever it takes for me to fall in love with you. You should try to encourage that in whatever way you can. You need not be in love with me for it to work.

We need have no physical contact until I feel the connection with you, though I find that some amount of snuggling, or touching or kissing speeds up the process. However, this is not necessary if you are not comfortable with it. Most women with husbands or partners are not. You will at all times set the boundaries of what kind of intimacy we have.

After you are healed I may ask you to meet with someone else to help them understand how I helped you. This makes this painful process easier for me to go through because you will pave the way, as the ones who met with you did. Some people choose to do this more then once, that is up to you.

I ask that you keep all of our interactions and my gift a secret. If you have someone you think I can help, you can contact me by email, and I will arrange to be near them to see if they need my help.

Oh, and one last thing. You must explain all this to your husband. I have nearly been killed by jealous men in the past, and I don't wish to repeat that experience. Do you have any questions?" As I finished, I looked up into her face. There were fresh tears streaking down her face and she looked pained. She leaned forward and threw her arms around me and hugged me fiercely.

I could feel the wetness of her cheek against my neck. I hugged her back this time with a need I could not contain. For long moments she held me, and when I felt her arms loosen I reluctantly let go of my hold on her and she pulled back to look me in the face once more. She took both my hands in hers as she spoke to me.

"You poor beautiful man. Thank you for helping me, thank you for all the women you have helped. I am so sorry that I can't love you and try to be the one to endure this with you. I love my husband, I want my life with him, but I promise you I will do everything in my power to try to make this easier for you. I'm so sorry for your pain, for the pain I will have to cause you to live, but I want to live Brian, I so want to live."

I nodded and in her face I could see she spoke truly. I could see my pain reflected in her eyes at my dilemma, and it made me begin to love her right there on that bench. We talked some more, and she said she would email after she had spoken with her husband.

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The drive home from Jill's was the worst I had ever experienced. She was true to her word to try to share with me the burden of this gift. I had spent a week with her at her home while her husband stayed at a friend's. She was affectionate, kind, gentle, and even passionate.

We had sex the first night I was there, and every night after. I told her I was not ready and she took me to bed anyway. She showed me more kindness and compassion then any woman I have helped. At the end of the week, when I made love to her and I felt the healing pour into her I found myself torn like I was so many times before, but with an intensity that was crippling.

I was overjoyed that this person I loved was healed, that they would live. But I was also in the depths of despair knowing that they would pass out of my life. Jill had told me she could love me, she said this as consolation, but it only made the pain worse.

Many of the women I helped were not ones I would choose to have a relationship with. They are not people I would want to love. But as I told Jill in our meeting, love is often a matter of choice. You can choose to open you heart to someone, to find in them something to love.

Sometimes this is easy, the people match you in spirit and interests, other times they may only fulfill one deep need in you. I had become an expert at loving. At giving myself over to it in the face of the destruction I knew would follow. Jill had been easy to fall in love with, such a kind and generous soul she was.

When I stumbled into my home that night I walked straight to my desk, and pulled the revolver from the locked bottom drawer. I placed it on the desk as I had so many times before.

The same arguments as always raced through my mind. "I had a great gift, how many lives had I saved? How many families had not lost a mother, or a sister? Could I throw it all away from my own selfish pain? But how much was any man to endure? What was the limit to the load we are supposed to suffer under in this life?"

I picked up the gun, the light shinning on the oil of the barrel, the jet black metal reflecting the overhead lights. I pulled the hammer back, watching the smooth operation of the machine in my hand with detachment.

At that moment my computer chimed in front of me, the signal that I had received mail. It was a trivial thing, a sound I had heard a thousand times, but at that moment it was like cold water in my face. I reached out and set the gun down, the hammer still cocked. My hand brushed the mouse, my movements more from habit then desire.

Hello. I got your email address from the woman at the coffee shop. I have been looking for you for a long time. Can we meet? Please?

Sasha

I sat rereading the mail several times as my numb mind tried to engage. Another woman who needed my help. Then I remembered the sick woman outside the Bum, the one with no specifics about her illness. I looked down at the gun above the keyboard tray. Slowly I picked it up, un-cocked the hammer and replaced it in the drawer.

Sasha,

Why do you want to meet me? How do you know about me?

Brian

I typed the email slowly, rechecking it twice before sending it. I stood to go to the kitchen to grab a drink, the adrenalin from my evening and my subsequent meltdown had left me shaky and drained. I had barely made it across the room when the new mail chime sounded on the computer again.

I finished pouring myself a large glass of ice tea before heading back to my desk. On the way I took long deep draughts of the cold tea. My mind was slowly beginning to come back online as the tea settled in my stomach. I looked at the email; it was a reply from Sasha. She must be online right now.

Brian,

As I said I have been looking for you for a long time. I have searched the internet, natural healing blogs and magazines, paranormal sites, health and new age fairs, temples, shrines, and anything else I could think of to find you. At least I think to find you.

I want to meet you because if you are what I think you are, maybe we can help each other. I mean you no harm. I only want to meet you. Please.

Sasha

A tingling started at the base of my spine and moved up my back making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. This was not the usual drill. This woman seemed to be aware of what I was, and she was holding all the cards. I reviewed what I knew about her.

She was sick, that much I knew, though how badly remained a mystery. This in itself intrigued, puzzled and worried me all at once. I had never not known what was wrong with someone. Perhaps this woman had an illness that was as mysterious as my ability to heal. Perhaps her illness was spiritual, or something that her only chance for healing would have to come from someone like me.

In the past I probably would not have agree to meet this woman at all. The situation was too strange, and the interaction too atypical. You see one of my great fears would be that one day my curse would be made public, and in addition to having to go through what I do to help, I would also be barraged with many more requests for help then I could ever deal with.

Still, I was at a low like none I had ever felt. I figured that if this was a trap, or someone out to do me harm then perhaps I would even welcome that. Maybe it would be the meeting that would finally make me put that gun to my head and pull the trigger.

I wrote Sasha back, asked her where she wanted to meet. She said she was staying in a trailer she towed behind her truck in a RV pack outside of town. She gave me directions, a phone number for a cell phone, and a time for the next day. I printed the email out, and then went to my room to fall into a dark and troubled sleep.

***********************************************

I had driven by the RV park a thousand times probably over the course of my life, but had never really paid any attention to it. For one, I didn't own an RV, and second who pays attention to places that travelers use when they are in their home town.

It was a nice park really, shaded by a number of giant cottonwood trees, and with enough spacing between the parking hook-ups that there was a small amount of privacy. It was the off season this early in the spring, and the park was not crowded. I found a green pickup truck parked in front of a small silver Airstream trailer in the spot number she had indicated.

I pulled up parking my car, and saw a curtain drop back into place in the trailer. I got out walking to the door and smelled the scent of incense on the air coming through the open window on the trailer. The door opened before I even reached it, and I stood looking at the woman I had passed on the street outside the Bum.

I could feel the sickness in her as I had before, but this time I allowed myself to look at her. She was small, maybe four eleven or so, and very slender. She wore a long tye-died sundress over her small frame. She had large breasts for her size, and the faint outlines of her nipples could be seen through the thin material.

Though her figure was attractive, it was her face that was truly beautiful. Her skin was very white and smooth without a blemish. She looked to be in her late twenties. Her eyes were the palest of blue over a cute button nose and a small mouth now smiling one of those soul revealing smiles that lights up a person's face. Her hair was black, and cut to frame her pretty face. Through the open door I could hear the sounds of the Grateful Dead softly playing in the background. When she spoke, her voice was soft and deeper then one would expect from such a small person.

"Hello Brian, thanks for coming. Would you come in? It is small, but you can take the chair, I'll sit on the bed." She backed into the trailer as she spoke and I followed her in.

"Sure, sounds fine." I said

It was small, but very cozy. A small built-in chair was beside a table that folded out from the wall right across from the bed. I walked over and sat down, Sasha closing the door behind me and taking two steps to bounce onto the bed. I realized I felt both at home with her, and very uneasy. The tingling in my spine was back, stronger then before.

She situated herself on the bed and looked at me, her smile dropping from her face. When she wasn't smiling she was still quite beautiful, but it was as though the sun had gone behind a cloud. I found myself wanting her to smile again, and wanting to make her smile. Instead my inane practicality won out when I spoke.

"Sasha I am sorry to be blunt, but why am I here?" I asked with raised eyebrows. She studied me intently for a moment, and when she spoke her voice was barely over a whisper.

"Brian, can you heal people?" After she spoke she stared at me with such intensity I found I could not tear my eyes away from her. She sat completely unmoving, as if her entire being waited for my answer. Then, as if against my will I answered her, and I felt that the only thing I could offer was the truth.

"Yes. Though not people really, only adult women. Though it is not that simple..." I said and she began to smile again. It was as though a fire had been kindled in her, and the heat and radiance of it shown through her face. It both alarmed me and captivated me.

"You have to love them." She said this with a firm voice, as a statement, not a question. I found myself floored, much as I had been with Jill a week ago. I sat with my mouth hanging open, and only managed a brief nod of affirmation. Her smile beamed at me, and then she began to speak in her low melodious voice.

"When I was 14 I got my period for the first time. After that, whenever I passed near someone I could feel if they were sick, but only if they were gravely sick. It drove me crazy. I tried to kill myself twice before I turned 18, but apparently it is really hard for me to die."

I could feel a tremendous power of emotion building up in me. As she spoke inside me something took fire, and began to grow like light in the darkness.

"When I was at college I still wanted to die, so I started going steady with a boy who had AIDS. He didn't know he had it, and I had unprotected sex with him a lot. I never caught it though. Eventually through his kindness, I came to love him. Then one night when we made love I took his sickness into me."

The room was shifting under me. My lungs felt tight, the air sweet and rich. I wanted to yell, to take her in my arms and swing her around in joy. She could understand, in fact she did understand.

"He got well. I got sick but it passed with time. In time I came to realize that if I loved a man, and made love to him I could take his disease from him. It never kills me, though I am sick all the time now. I thought that if I did it enough it might kill me, but instead I just live on with the sickness. That doesn't bother me though. What bothers me is..."

"Being alone." I said cutting her off. She looked at me with that same radiance in her face and nodded.

"Yes Brian, being alone. That is why you are here; I'm tired of being alone. Aren't you?" she said in a whisper.

I stood then and took her in my arms in a fierce hug, unable to stop myself from being propelled forward by the force of my emotions. She embraced me back with an unexpected strength for such a small body.

I pulled back to look into those pale blue eyes again, so that I might see that radiant smile. Instead I was met by her warm lips pressing against mine with a hunger and passion I felt reflected in my own heart. I kissed her back, the fire of emotion in me blazing against my chest, the need for connection overwhelming the strictures of society and practicality.

She pulled me toward her as she lay slowly back on the bed. I followed her descent down with my own body, still kissing her full red lips, looking into her open ice blue eyes. Every ounce of my soul cried out to this woman, to this soul who alone could understand me, who alone carried the same burden I carried.

As I kissed her she pulled my shirt un-tucked from my trousers, and yanked it over my head. Her slim soft hands caressed my back sent chills of pleasure through me as I probed her sweet mouth with my tongue, her own dancing across mine.

My hand found her firm breasts through her dress and her nipples were hard through the thin material. I pulled at her dress and she lifted her hips to wiggle it up her legs and then her torso, and finally over her head. We broke our kiss for only a moment as she pulled it off. Her naked body was beautiful and pale, and her skin as soft as silk.

I pulled my mouth from hers to take one of her large hard nipples in my mouth. She moaned and arched her back pushing her breast to my hot mouth. Her hands worked at my belt and pants, releasing them and pushing them and my boxers down with urgency.

My hard cock sprang forth bouncing with the beat of my heart, the tip coated with a thick stream of pre-cum. I worked my pants down and off, letting them pull my loafers off with them. Her small hand circled my large cock, stroking it gently as I sucked first one nipple then the other. Her low moans of pleasure were like a song to my ears.

Every fiber of my being wanted this woman. Every part of me needed to be with her, to keep her close, to have her always around to share my pain and loneliness with. My desire for her body was nothing compared for my desire for her heart and soul.

I slid down her body kissing her belly and pierced belly button. Her pussy was shaved, and her large pussy lips stood out glistening wet and swollen from her own need. I took them in my mouth with no teasing, so intense was my desire.

I sucked her lips into my mouth and gently flicked my tongue back and forth across her swollen lips directly above her hidden clitoris. Her hips bucked and swayed as I sucked her, and I could hear her panting for breath.

She grabbed my hips and pulled my cock towards her face. I slid around not taking my mouth off her pussy so that I could straddle her face. She took my cock in her mouth with the same abandon that I had taken her pussy into mine. The pleasure of her hot mouth on me made my cock twitch and jump with the intensity of the sensation.

We stayed locked in this embrace of pleasure for long minutes each of us near to release. At last I could take no more, and I tore myself free and turned to mount her, and once again look into her pale shining eyes. For a moment I paused, nestled between her legs looking into those eyes, my cock resting against the heat of her sex.

Her eyes shown with tears, and I realized mine too were filling with the joy of this meeting. Gently I lowered myself onto her, and as our mouths met for a long kiss my hard cock slid slowly into her swollen pussy. I could feel the exhale of pleasure into my mouth from her as I sunk into her.

We began to move together then; a slow and passionate lovemaking that seemed to go on and on. Our bodies grew sweaty and slid on one another as our passion and pleasure grew. We kept our eyes open and fixed looking deeply into the others. It was as though I could see the years of pain of my life reflected in her eyes, and in the understanding of each other both of us were healed.

Finally, we both began to shutter and shake as our climaxes approached. It was not a physical climax only that we rode, but a spiritual and emotional one as well. Years of life spent in loneliness, in desperation, and in need dissolved away.

I felt the rush of my climax race through my body as the first jet of my cum shot into her, and I felt her tremble and moan into my mouth as I kissed her in her release. Wave after wave of pleasure rocked us both.

I felt every ache and pain in my body vanish, I felt energy and vitality through every limb of me. Then, in my mind I felt the sickness in her retreat and vanish as I had felt it banished so many times before. Tears spilled down my face to mingle with hers, and as our bodies slowly stilled, I heard the deep silence around me.