Voices unheard

I find myself listening to GWA a lot, late at night, nowadays, eyes shut against the reality of my room. If I can turn up my earbuds enough, slow my breathing enough, I can imagine someone saying these things to me.

I have to imagine someone saying those things to me, kind things, hot things. Sexy things. Dirty things. Because I won't hear them again, not in real life, not from a real man, certainly not from my husband.

Perhaps I'm not worth it; it seems silly to worry about it now, at my age, and with Claire and all the issues motherhood and her issues have brought. I should be glad to have a coparent, at least, a partner in this, and be done with it. I should not miss the escape of fantasy, the frivolity of feeling, however fleetingly, like a woman who could indulge in sex and her womanliness, even if it was only temporary and even if it was a lie.

I have excised that part of me, I tell myself, and it is like a phantom limb; I can remember the flex and stretch of my sexuality, the joy of its use, even alone -- always alone. Now it is a dull ache, something that pangs at night, when I would have enjoyed it. I listen in vain most nights, imagining what it would be like to have such directed at me. And then I switch off the phone, feeling the quiet envelop me in the only arms I will know.