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Last Rites

The old man woke slowly, wondering whether he really wanted to bother. His ears were assaulted with the sound of rain falling outside his window, its harsh insistent pounding implying the beginning of another miserable day. He was aware that the heat had diminished in his tiny basement apartment suite to a point that was somewhat less than comfortable. The warmth of his bed felt good on his tired frame, and he was in no hurry to leave it for the chill that awaited him, should he decide to get up. He’d lived here for more decades than he cared to admit. At seventy years old almost, he was tired, not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually, as well.

Rod Shore had lived an interesting life, or so he had been told. Like every life, his had been a patchwork-like conglomeration of high points and low ones. At one time, the high points had dominated his memories, but as the years had passed, there were fewer and fewer of those events. Now, it was a struggle just to remember what had happened yesterday, and many mornings, he had trouble discerning where one day ended and the next one began. Lying in the warmth of his bed, he was visited by some of the memories of his life.

Roger had been married, once. The relationship had started out like a fairy tale, with all the warmth, love, and intimacy that his dreams had been made from. They were young, in love, and had their whole lives ahead of them. He had his ambitions that he thought they’d pursue together, building a life one success on another. He’d started a small business, in hopes of working his way towards an acceptable level of financial independence. That would allow him to give his new wife the kind of life he believed she deserved, and one that he’d dreamed of through most of his youth. Most days were spent building that dream, followed by evenings of passionate lovemaking with his new bride.

But she had her own ideas and agenda. For her, marriage was all about having babies that would grow up to be her support in her old age. She truly believed that this was her destiny, and that Rod was merely a means to that end. Within the first year of their married life, she was pregnant, and their intimacy diminished, much to his chagrin, and became something that only occurred whenever she wanted it, which wasn’t more than once or twice a month. Rod found himself becoming more involved in his first-born son’s growth and development than he was in the role of a husband. Once the baby celebrated his second birthday, it wasn’t uncommon for him to spend his day looking after the needs of a toddler, and his nights working to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. His wife had taken to pursuing her own interests outside the home. With the feelings of a sense of duty, Rod would do whatever was needed to make her little world comfortable for her, even at the expense of his own personal dreams and aspirations.

It was in the third year of their marriage that he found out his wife had cheated on him. She had confessed, her attitude one of disinterest for the effects of her transgressions, rather than remorse or a plea for forgiveness. It had seemed almost surreal to Rod that such a thing could happen in his life. But he had forgiven her, and took her back. Years later, he would wonder why he’d bothered. At the time, though, it seemed like the right thing to do.

To compensate for her claim that it was loneliness that had driven her to seek sexual adventure outside the marriage, Rod began to spend more time at home, both looking after his son, and making himself available to relieve his wife’s sexual needs and desires. Many nights, she’d stimulate him until his body was sufficiently aroused for her purposes, then avail herself of his cock until she had an acceptable orgasm. Once she’d cum, though, she was finished. If he climaxed, that became a bonus, but most nights, she wouldn’t give a damn if he did or not. As a result, he’d leave their bed after she was finished with him, and go to another room to relieve his sexual tensions. It became part of a regular routine, and his interest in sex slowly deteriorated to simply satisfying the animal-like demands of his body.

The next year found Rod spending more and more time with his son, or by himself. He’d lost interest in his business, and as a result, it failed. In his mind, that failure was just another notch in the tally. First his marriage, then his business, then . . . probably his whole life. When his wife informed him that she was pregnant again, he questioned whether or not he was the actual father. The probabilities were about fifty-fifty, and he accepted that he’d raise this next child, too.

Over the next four years there were two more children added to the brood. He knew he was the father of the third child, his second daughter, and both her and her older sister became the lights of his life. There was still a strong bond between him and his son, giving him some hope that maybe he was the only family failure. He was also very aware that it was impossible that he was the father of the fourth, another son. The resentments began to grow right from the day the child was born, and Rod refused to acknowledge that his wife’s additional burden on his strained resources was connected to the child’s legitimate birthright. Over the ensuing years, neither father nor son would have much to do with each other, and the boy grew up wild and undisciplined. Rod found himself admitting that he really didn’t give a damn, quite content to let the last offspring struggle alone.

That last child wasn’t even a year old when Rod had come back to the house one morning after his twelve-hour shift to find it empty and gutted of everything except his remaining wardrobe. No occupants, no furniture, nothing. Not even a note of explanation. The only indications that the building had ever been lived in were the marks on the wall where pictures had once hung, and the various signs of damage that constituted daily wear and tear. With a final realization of his defeat and failure, he carefully packed the remaining items left to him, gave the walls and floors a haphazard washing, then loaded his meagre possessions into his car. Taking a last look around, Rod locked the doors, then slipped the key through the mail slot, signifying the closing of a chapter in his life.

For the next few weeks, Rod lived out of his car. His wife had cleaned out their bank account, leaving him with no financial resources to start all over again. At the ripe old age of thirty-three, he had absolutely nothing except the clothes on his back. He tried to conduct himself as though nothing were wrong, even convincing himself that the departure of his wife was a blessing. But he did miss his oldest son and both daughters. Especially the girls, and he cried himself to sleep every night. By the end of a month, his performance at work had suffered sufficiently that he was terminated. The only saving grace was that he’d accumulated just enough money to survive for another month, and maybe a little longer, if he was careful. After that, he didn’t know, and really didn’t care. Death by starvation wasn’t an appealing end to his existence, but living with the memories of his failures revolted him even more.

Some hidden spark inside Rod induced him to at least attempt to survive. He found himself a job that kept him away from the memories, and provided him with just enough to feed himself and keep him warm during the cold winter months. Again, his life became a blur of disconnected events, one day seeming very much like the previous. The days of the week no longer mattered. Every one was the same, and he poured his energies into his job, working until he was exhausted, then sleeping only long enough to regain sufficient strength to initiate another round. The appeal of food had completely disappeared from his survival drives. He ate irregularly, often not eating for several days at a time. Within three months, he’d lost over thirty-five pounds, and a good percentage of his muscle tone and body mass. At five-foot six, his ideal weight had been calculated at one hundred and sixty pounds. At one hundred and twenty-five, his body ran out of stored reserves to maintain his health. Plagued by illness after illness, he retreated from the world into a small basement apartment, convinced that this hovel would be his final resting place. His only regret was that someone else would have to clean up after him. But he’d be dead, so it really wouldn’t matter.

Somewhere in the third month of living in his new residence, a public health official had come to check on him. They’d pounded on his door, yelling his name and demanding he open it. He’d tried to ignore them in the hopes they’d go away and leave him to die in peace and quiet, but they’d broken the door down anyway. Despite his loud protests, he’d been removed from his bed and taken to some antiseptic facility, supposedly for his own good. He’d blacked out long before the gurney had been wheeled out the doorway, only to wake in an unfamiliar room painted a cold colour of light green, attached to various machines and monitors, tubes running from intravenous bags to somewhere on his body. They sedated him through one of those liquid solutions coursing through his system, for he fell back into a dreamless sleep almost immediately.

Once again, time lost all meaning. Rod drifted in and out of consciousness, usually at the behest of some person asking him questions for which he had no answers. At first, he’d tried to communicate, but his lips wouldn’t form the words he wanted, and his answers never satisfied the inquisitor anyway. It wasn’t long before he stopped trying, stopped speaking, and began to resent the intrusions. All he was interested in was the comforting isolation of unconsciousness, the peace and silence of that existence becoming like a haven for his tortured soul, and a way to ignore the growing list of perceived failures. How long he’d be kept under these conditions, he couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter to him anyway, for to him, he was comatose enough to almost be dead, and any recognition of this clinical world they’d stuck him in didn’t really register. There were now only two states of his being; conscious long enough to understand that he wasn’t dead yet, and unconscious, where he was spared from his thoughts.

He’d been in the ward for almost a year when he was finally released. The Health authority assigned someone to check on him twice a week, although he really didn’t feel that he was worth the effort or expense. But twice a week, once on Wednesday and again on Saturday, there was a woman that knocked on his door, demanding that she be granted entrance, then testing him and measuring all his vital signs. At first, he resented the intrusion, but over the months, he slowly began to accept, then look forward to the human contact she represented. She prescribed a diet that he followed, if only to keep her from nagging him about his weight and general condition. As time went on, he actually gained some weight, eventually tipping the scales at one hundred and thirty five pounds, although his muscle tone still left something to be desired.

Over time, Rod actually began to look forward to the therapy sessions, and his contact with the woman that tried to help him. Her visits kindled a flame inside him, gave him a reason to carry on, to maybe even look forward to another day. In short, she was the spark that ignited his will to live again. Their therapy sessions stretched from the prescribed three months to almost two years. Many times, the therapist visited him on her own time, enjoying his company almost as much as he enjoyed hers. At first, they were merely acquaintances, but with time, they became friends. There were many days when they spent time together just for the magic of sharing.

Rod began to believe that he might be falling in love again. The days seemed brighter, the sun warmer, the nights a little less lonely. She would cook for him, and he loved every bite she fed him. She would do his laundry, and he began to take more pride in his appearance. She’d ask him to do little things for her, and he felt like there was a purpose to his life again. She even hugged him a few times, and he never wanted to let her go.

But like all good things, it came to an end. He had suffered spinal damage that threatened to leave him paralysed. He struggles to learn the use of crutches at first, then graduated to a single walking cane. There were days when he could even walk unaided, as long as he remained on a level surface. He truly believed that she was the woman he’d always dreamed of when he was younger.

Then one day, she didn’t show up at their usual time. Rod waited and waited all that day, telling himself that she’d merely been delayed, and that she would come eventually. But that day became another one, then turned into a week, and finally stretched to a full month. There was no explanations, no contact, nothing that he could grasp in his desperate bid for understanding. With her departure, so too departed all that he had gained. He reverted back to not eating, not exercising, and not caring whether he lived or died. Slowly but surely, he became a mere shell of a man again. And once again, the public health people invaded his lowly refuge. They returned him to that hated institution, ran medical test after medical test on him, and subjected him to interview after interview. Rod fought to escape the mindless searching that they inflicted upon him, determined to once again find that state of catatonic indifference that gave him relief from the memories, from the frustrations, from the realization of the truth of his failures, and from life.

And so, on this cold, miserable, and rainy day, Rod jumped when there was an unexpected knock on his door. He feared that the public health people might have returned, bound and determined to torture him some more. He felt the tears begin to well up inside him, and for the first time in more years than he cared to remember, he desperately wanted to cry, to let the pain out, to find some inner peace for his tormented soul. He wanted to, but found he couldn’t. All those years of denying his feelings, of stifling his pain inside him were now keeping him from the one activity that might give him relief.

His screams were just about to launch themselves from his throat when he remembered the public health people. Any noise from him would let them know that he was inside the small suite, that he was conscious, and even that he was alive still. The confusion of his dilemma eroded a little more of his slowly deteriorating logic centres. A part of him wanted to answer the door out of curiosity, while another part wanted nothing more than to yell at the intruder to go away, irrespective of how futile such an exercise might be. A third possibility entered his mind, to ignore the demands in silence, his hopes being that whoever it was would give up and leave. But the continuous pounding only became more and more insistent, ceasing only when a key was inserted into the lock and turned. A middle-aged woman invaded his sanctuary, addressing him by name.

“Mr. Shore? My name’s Lynn Askew. I’m here to make sure you’re alright, and to see if I can help you in any way.“

“I don’t need any help!” Rod snapped back. “Go away, and leave me alone!” He rolled over so that his back was to her, every joint in his body protesting the movements, even as he resumed a fetal position under the blankets of his bed.

“I can’t do that, Mr. Shore,” she told him, her tone indicating that her decree was not open for discussion or debate, “but we do have to talk. Can you sit up for a minute and look at me, please? What I have to say is very important.”

Rod struggled to roll over again, his joints protesting every movement and his atrophying muscles begrudging his brain’s commands. She saw him wince at the effort, understanding his situation better than he did himself. In that one moment, her clinical attitudes and training disappeared, as she connected to this lonely old man as a fellow human being. Her heart went out to him silently, as she found herself genuinely wishing that she could make his pain go away, knowing that it was impossible. He stared at her wordlessly, waiting for the next round of lectures and inquiries that would surely follow.

“Mr. Shore, there’s no easy way to put this, so can I be blunt and straightforward?” the woman wanted to know.

“Whatever” he grunted, his indifference saturating his reply.

“Sir, I’ve been contacted by the public health authority. They’ve analysed your latest test results, and I’m here to discuss those results with you. You’ll have to make some choices, eventually. I’d like to be able to talk about those choices, and their consequences. We can start now, or I can come back tomorrow. But I’ll be back every day, until you understand the seriousness of the situation. Which is it, today, tomorrow, or for as long as it takes me to get the message across to you?” There was still a demanding tone to her voice, but laced with something that Rod hadn’t experienced for more years than he cared to remember. Compassion seemed to be as good a label as anything else. He became aware that this new intrusion wouldn’t cease unless he heard her out, but for once, he also didn’t feel threatened. The decision to listen to her slipped into his mind softly, quietly, and without the usual fight for civility.

“If you have something to say,” he growled, “then say it. The sooner you finish, the sooner I can go back to doing what I was doing before you came barging in here.” The woman just sat beside him on a chair she’d pulled up, waiting for either his undivided attention or for the courage to do what she came here to do. He didn’t know which it was, and didn’t care. All Rod knew was that the sooner she was finished, the better.

“Mr. Shore,” she began, “there’s no easy way to put this. The hospital tests indicate that you have cancer. They also indicate that you’ve left it too long to be treated. Do you understand what I just said?”

Rod knew that he should be concerned, or scared, or worried, at the very least. But he wasn’t. In truth, he didn’t give a shit. That one piece of information helped him fill in a couple of the blanks in his mind. He now knew who would die, had a good idea of where, what the cause would be, and how his life would end. All that was left was to find out was when, not that it mattered much. Tomorrow would be as good a day as any other, he told himself.

“What you’re saying is that I’m going to die, right?” he threw out at this woman that was, for him, the bearer of good news. “We all die sometime, somewhere, and because of something. I’ve known that most of my life. Big fucking deal! Now you burst in here to tell me something we both already know? Fuck off, and let me die in peace!” he cursed.

“As I said, I can’t do that. The powers that be insist that you be aware of what’s happening to you, and what you’ll have to go through. It’s a painful death, unfortunately, and it’s my job to try and reduce the pain as much as I can. Would you consider going to the hospital, so we can administer pain killers?”

“No!” He was adamant about that. His life had become a series of medical interruptions over the last thirty-something years, and he hated them for that. This . . . creature . . . was just another member of a legion of self-serving medical interventionists, in his opinion. But if she wanted to sit by his bed and watch him finally expire, it was no sweat off his balls.

“Look, lady,” he began to expound for her benefit, “I came into this world alone. Even my own mother abandoned me, so I spent most of my early life either in a foster home or an orphanage. I’ll die alone, too. It’s kind of ironic that for the sixty-something years I’ve been alive, no one gave a fuck, and now that the end is here, I’m being bombarded by people that say they care? What a load of horse-shit! You don’t give a rat’s ass, one way or the other. You know it, and I know it. So why are you here?”

“Actually, Mr. Shore, I do give a shit, as you put it. I was taken away from my own father when I was just a little girl, and ever since, I’ve always wondered what happened to him, how he’s doing, whether he’s happy, or even if he’s still alive. That’s what made me take this job in the first place, and I’ve been doing it for almost thirty years. In that time, I’ve met some very special people, and they’ve helped me learn something about myself. I can’t take away their hurt, their pain, or their suffering. I can’t right all the wrongs they’ve gone through. But there’s something that I can give them, and maybe it’s the only thing I can give them, but it means a whole lot more to me than most people understand. I seem to have an affinity for making their last days a little more comfortable, a little less lonely, and every once in a while, a little less scary. For reasons that I’m not about to go into, I’d like to be able to do that for you, too. You can say no, and that’s your right. But wouldn’t it feel better, when the end finally arrives, to know that you mattered to at least one human being? To finally discover that your life wasn’t a total waste after all? To find that there’ll be at least one person left behind whose life you touched, and you made a difference because of it?”

Rod thought about what she’d just told him, and that tiny flicker of hope made itself known to his existence again. He hadn’t felt that sensation for so very long, and now that it had reappeared, it was about to be taken away from him again? Something inside him screamed at the irony of it all, even as he resigned himself to his fate.

“How long?” was his only question, not that the answer was particularly important any more.

“Maybe a day or two” she quietly whispered to him. “But not a full week, I’m afraid.”

“And you’ll be around until . . . until I go?” he queried.

“Every minute, if you’ll let me be” she offered. He accepted her pledge, not expecting it to happen, but strangely grateful if it were. “What’s the one thing that you’d like me to do for you, to make these last few days the happiest I can make them?” He thought about it for a minute, then whispered in a voice that was barely audible.

“Let me feel real love. It’s been so long since I was truly loved” he replied. She could see the tears welling up in his old and tired eyes, and her heart went out to him. She would grant his request, and feel privileged for the chance. Leaning forward, the woman softly kissed the old man’s forehead, pressing her soft and warm lips to his wrinkled skin for what seemed like an eternity.

“I’d be honoured” she whispered, knowing that he probably hadn’t heard those words from her lips. In the long run, they probably didn’t matter to him anyway.

In the dim light of the small apartment, she stood up and began to slowly unbutton her blouse, removing it to present her voluminous breasts to the man, as they heaved with her every breath. She wore a demi-cup black bra that was barely able to successfully contain her. Carefully folding her garment, she began to unfasten the zipper of her slacks, letting them fall to the floor, leaving her wearing just the bra and a pair of matching full-cut black panties. A twinkle of recognition flickered in his eyes, and she made a conscious mental note of that fact. It had been years, bordering on decades, since he’d beheld the sight of a woman’s body. This young girl proved to be easy on the eyes, even making allowances for her middle-age expansion around the hips, waist, and stomach. Rod felt a smile, caused by something he couldn’t name, begin to spread itself over his face, and an almost forgotten warmth fill his soul.

Silently, the woman peeled back the cover that cradled the man before her, then sat beside him on the bed. Leaning forward once more, she softly kissed his lips, feeling the effects of the years on his skin, and sensing his almost hidden lustful desires just below the surface. She wanted to draw that part of him out, let him remember what it was like to make love to a woman, and gladly share the experience with him. Sitting beside his deteriorating body, she began to unbutton his dirt-encrusted and unwashed shirt, leaving his hair-covered chest exposed to her appreciative hands that she allowed to roam over him. She became aware of the struggling bulge in his pants as his manhood tried to assert itself one more time, and the understanding that she could still elicit that kind of effect on him gave her a feeling of happiness and joy.

With a delicate touch, she continued to undress the old and fragile body beside her, silently inviting him to remove the last of her undergarments. He attempted to oblige her unspoken request, but the strength of his degenerating muscles failed them both. With a tear of sadness in her eye, she finished what he had tried to start, absent-mindedly unclasping and removing her bra, then standing only long enough to slide her panties over her hips, letting them fall to the floor before returning to his side. As she sat, she thought she saw another one of those all-too-infrequent stabs at a smile that failed to establish itself on his face. With a real sense of caring, she gently kissed his lips, her tongue tentatively probing for permission to give herself to him, waiting for him to accept her gift in his own good time. Eventually, he opened himself to her, cautiously taking the offered part of her, and sensuously testing its texture and flexibility. Exerting some more of his dwindling energy, he managed to enfold her in his arms, with the weight of her body pressing on him to a degree that he wasn’t used to, but relished as memories of happier times seeped into his brain. She held him to her lips for an indeterminate length of time, savouring his taste, and wanting desperately to give him something that he seemed to have forgotten how to recognize any more.

It had been a long time since Rod Shore had been this close to another human being, and even longer since he had done so with any joy. He basked in the experience, fighting to remember what it was really like, and struggling to connect this experience with some of the happier ones of his past. As he reminisced over the specialness of being connected to a woman, both physically and emotionally, that small flicker in his soul began to burn just a bit brighter, a bit stronger, a bit more recognizably. It had been almost half a century since he had last felt himself drawn to another person, and there were tears for the empty years that had passed. He ran his hands over the soft, smooth skin of her back, almost mesmerized by the ridges of her spine, and that mysterious hollow at its base that he vaguely remembered as a feminine trait. Her warmth migrated into his rough and wrinkled skin, feeding both the fires of his soul, and of his long-forgotten lust.

The woman broke their kiss, then shifted herself as she offered him one of her slowly-engorging nipples, placing her breast before him such that he couldn’t refuse her, but was under no time constraint to accept her, either. With that choice before him, Rod began to swirl his tongue around the rim of her hardened teat, a sensuous reminder of what it was like to pleasure a woman beginning to resurface inside him. Along with the memory of how much he’d missed being this close to a woman came the remembrance of how the moans of delight had permeated his soul at every occasion he’d been permitted to share. With a growing urgency, he acknowledged his need to be with this woman, to pleasure her, to have her, to make love to her. Forgotten reserves of strength and energy began to flow inside him, and he lost himself in their mutual explorations.

Now her hand was covering his straining erection, the warmth and softness of her fingers drawing both his desire and his want from somewhere inside himself that he’d forgotten even existed. It was all he could do to force an appreciative groan from his chest, but the delighted look on her face made the effort all worthwhile. It had been so long since he’d suffered being pleasured by a woman just for who he was, and he felt like it was a brand new part of life for him, even if that life were drawing quickly to a close. With an urgency that bordered on fear, he extended his hand so that he could reach between her ample thighs, trying to remember how to pass on his message of gratefulness as he lightly slid a tired and wrinkled forefinger along the length of her slit, pressing against her labia’s folds as he sought her clitoris. Like her nipples, that was engorged too, awaiting his touch, welcoming him to that private part of her body. She groaned in happy acknowledgement of his arrival, encouraging him to explore her sex to his heart’s content.

God, she was soft, smooth, and slick! It had been a long, long time since he’d touched a woman there, and he’d forgotten how wonderful, how sensual, and how delicious it felt. Her moisture seemed to beckon and call him like a Siren of ancient Greek mythology. As he continued to surrender himself to her femininity, he became aware of her own need of him, her want of his body, her desire to share and interconnect their souls. Her fingers on his now fully erect cock were magic, drawing a part of him to her that he could no longer consciously recall feeling for too many years. She wanted him, all of him, and he was helpless, both to deny her, and to fully understand the nature of her lust any more. Involuntarily, his hips began to rock in time with her insistent strokes up and down the length of his shaft. There was pain, to be sure, but it was a delicious pain, one that he dimly craved more of, as his lust grew with each passing moment. Then she shifted, leaving him feeling naked, open, vulnerable, and deserted, his stiff cock falling to his lower abdomen as she abandoned her ministrations for whatever reasons.

There was movement on the bed where he lay, but his overtired mind lacked comprehension as to what that activity was supposed to accomplish, and why. Soon, her hand recaptured his straining manhood, returning to caress and protect that vulnerable part of his body, and a sense of relief flooded through him. Then he felt a moist warmth cover his cockhead, and he almost forgot what it was, or why it happened. She slowly eased herself down onto him, taking him inside her, drowning him in feelings and sensations that threatened his very existence, yet made him powerless to fight or overcome them. He felt her wetness being augmented on his cock’s skin with a soft, velvet-like encasing, her vaginal sheath embracing him in a possessive grip, the likes of which he had either never experienced before, or had lost the memories of, over the decades. As she took more and more of him inside her, the heat of her sex migrated to his cock, then down his shaft as it attempted to ignite his entire groin. There came a point where she had him inside her, buried to the hilt, and he lost track of where he ended and she started. He inhaled sharply at th realization that she had taken all of him, and he had given her more than he remembered ever having. She began to rock her hips, massaging his shaft, and leaving him begging for more. The rhythm was slow at first, then built up eventually to a screaming, demanding crescendo, his own hips trying vainly to match her pace and tempo. As she rocked up and down on him,, she groaned with her lust, and he became aware of another forgotten stimulus, the joy of giving a woman pleasure as she took him inside her in an attempt to draw that life-giving fluid from his body.

There was an unfamiliar pressure building in his groin which he didn’t consciously understand, yet it also didn’t make him afraid. In fact, he wanted more of it, wanted to experience it take control of his existence, consume him, become the centre of his comprehension. Those surges that happened at the base of his shaft became more insistent with each passing stroke, and every new moment of this strange experience began to strike him as being addictive. Then it built to a point where he thought he might explode. His breathing became laboured and difficult, his gasps more pronounced, his focus fully on the happenings in his groin. As that ominous pressure built to a point of supreme dominance, he felt as though a part of him was being expelled from his twitching shaft, the feelings becoming almost overwhelming as his inner vision exploded in his head, reducing his cognizance to his own male member, the rapture in his brain, and the connection with this woman that had taken him, possessed him, and was now sending him to a place that he had never been before. In his incoherence of what was happening, he thrust his hips as far forward as he could, and allowed her to drain the very essence of his masculinity from him.

The woman’s clitoris began to tingle, the sensation spreading slowly throughout her body, then possessing every part of her. She vaguely acknowledged the twitching of the man connected to her vagina, but was very aware of her need to take whatever he could offer her. Her vaginal walls expanded and contracted on him, pulling him deeper inside her, demanding the capture of whatever it was that he gave her. She fought to retain a semblance of consciousness, with a varying degree of success. He had sent her soul to a place of pure bliss, and she struggled to share herself with him in this rapture they were both visiting. Somehow, they managed to remain in that little piece of heaven for an indeterminate length of time, knowing that it would eventually release them from its intoxication, and yet wishing it didn’t have to be that way. As their bond slowly release them, she pushed her muscles to keep from falling on top of him, afraid of possibly snuffing out his few remaining hours of life prematurely. There was a closeness through which their spirits flowed as one, a uniting of their souls, a bridge between two independent human creatures. She cherished the privilege of his gift, even as he felt thankful for where she had taken him, even if it might be for the last time in his life.

Their post-coital bliss enveloped the two lovers, and blanketed them both with a peace and tranquillity that Rod had almost forgotten could exist. In that quiet place that only the two of them existed, he let a peaceful sleep take him, rocking and cradling him in ways that he’d never known for as long as he could remember. His soft and gentle breathing told the woman that her lover had found a level of inner peace that was either new to him, or that he hadn’t visited for so long and didn’t recognize. Just being able to give him that sent a thrill of happiness through her system, and she surrendered to that same sleep that had claimed him, and for the same reasons.

It was several hours later when she regained consciousness. The man’s body lay beneath her like a pillow, his arms still wrapped around her, still holding her, still struggling to remain a part of her. But there was something wrong, and it took several minutes for her fuzzy mind to comprehend the difference. With the understanding that seeped into her mind came tears. Some of those tears were ones of happiness for the loving they’d shared, some were for the gratefulness inside her at being a part of their lovemaking. But many of them were tears of loss. The man she lay beside was cold, and white, and no longer breathing. Through the blurred vision of her tear-soaked eyes, she saw a smile of happiness on his frozen face, and she felt her own thrill, knowing that she had been partially responsible for putting that grin there.

Gently and reverently prying her body loose from Rod’s grasp, she made her way over to the telephone. The tears began to flow more profusely, not being hindered in any way. She let them flow down her cheeks and drip onto the floor beneath her feet. The necessary authorities would require her to contact them, to clinically remove the body of a man that no longer existed in this world. With a heavy heart, she dialled the memorized numbers, waiting until there was a connection to the other party that she needed to contact. During that wait, she gazed at the body of the man that had been her lover, even if only for a few short hours. His face became indelibly etched into her memory as a desperate bid to ensure that he would not be completely forgotten by a world that really didn’t care abut him anyway. If she could give him nothing else, she could give him a semblance of temporary immortality for as long as she lived. Her gratitude at the chance swelled a little further.

The line finally opened, and she passed on the necessary information, promising to remain until someone arrived to attend to the body of Rod Shore, a man that she knew almost as well as he himself had. Once the connection was broken, she thoughtfully dressed herself in the clothing spread on the floor, then extended the same courtesy to the body that had once been Rod, allowing him to retain a certain degree of dignity in death, one that he’d been denied in life. All too soon, the ambulance people arrived, and she watched as they transferred his body from the old rickety bed to the impartiality of the gurney, their indifference grating resoundingly on her straining nerves. There were some last-minute details to be taken care of before she left, and she dragged them out in an attempt to further etch him in her mind. At her demanding request, the attendants stood back as she walked over to the not quite covered body, placed her hands over his face, and eased his eyelids closed as he finally found his long-sought-after eternal sleep. Then, with tears still streaming down her face, still unhindered, she softly and quietly spoke the last words she’d ever utter to a man that had made more of a difference in her life than he was ever aware.

“Good-bye, Dad. It took me a long time to find you again. I’m going to miss you, more than you’ll ever know.”
“I love you . . . “

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

“Dedicated to the memory of Robert Graeme Griffiths - December, 1943 – September 2010"

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