What Healing Feels Like

Disclaimer: This is an adult story, meaning you shouldn't read it unless you are old enough to read stories like this. It contains explicit sex, so you shouldn't read it unless you want to read stories with explicit sex. This story is copyrighted by Conjugate , and all rights are reserved. This story may be transmitted via Usenet, archived at any _free_ archival site, and passed on to others as long as this header remains intact and no fee is charged for it.

It was, Phil reflected, a sort of ironic justice. For years, he had been the "attached" one, whose friends had always been struggling to find dates, to make a relationship work, and to get together...well, not really get *together*. Just to get *laid*, really. As the years passed, the old gang had slowly settled down, and gotten married, and had joined him in wedded bliss or an acceptable approximation thereto, and then Gloria had left him. Now, years later, when he was out of practice at dating, he was single again, and he wasn't sure he knew how to do it. All those friends whom he'd felt sorry for when they were single now no doubt felt sorry for him.

"Poor Phil," he imagined them thinking. "Isn't it about time he found himself a nice gal and settled down?" Just the sort of thing he and Gloria had said about Tom and Jack and Larry. Just thinking about the things he and Gloria used to talk about made his heart ache. It even seemed as though his nervous system had grown into the other side of the bed, and the empty side of the bed ached in him. And then he'd seen the ad.

"Better than personal ads," it had said, and that was good, for he had read many personal ads, and had always thought they were for losers. Besides, when he looked at a personal ad nowadays, it seemed all of them from women specified a range of acceptable ages, and it seemed that all the ages that were acceptable were ones he'd left behind long before. No, personal ads were not the answer. But a "dating service," Phil thought, had a ring of class to it. Surely it wouldn't be a collection of people too peculiar and desperate to find mates on their own, would it?

So he tried one. He didn't tell his old friends about it, as he didn't think he could stand the pity. He just wandered in, trying hard to look as though he were lost and about to ask directions. It didn't fool the girl behind the counter for an instant; probably, he thought, most of the people who came in here looked that way. So he got over his embarrassment and made a deal. They took his check and his picture, and made him write out a personal statement. He went home after that with a feeling that perhaps something was going to work right.

In a short while, he'd gotten a call. The dating service had found something. That was how they'd put it: they'd found "something" for him. Even as he was wondering who had taught the young lady behind the counter tact, he was wondering who (what?) they'd found. So, another day's work behind him, he found himself wandering over to the service, and wandering in as though lost, and then making a beeline for the counter.

He left with a manila envelope. The service had made up a package for her consisting of a copy of his picture and personal statement, and he got a package with her picture and personal statement; if (and _only_ if) both of them agreed, the service would set them up with a meeting and they could see if they wanted to see each other after that.

It looked so good at first. Her picture made her look young, pretty, desirable; so much so it made him wish he'd shaved and put on a fresh shirt and combed his hair before the people at the service had taken his picture. All he'd been able to glean from her personal statement was that she was interested in the environment and civil rights, and had gotten a Master's degree in English Literature a few years back. But he thought she might be worth a try, so he let the agency know that he was interested in this one, and sat back and waited to see.

Within a few days, the service called back; she wanted a date with him. Since he'd told them he was interested in her, it wasn't long until they had set up a time for them to see each other, and spend an evening together. At last, he thought, the end of the long drought. I'm going to be attached again. The idea of being part of a couple was so nice, so seductive, so reassuring, that the intervening days seem to whirl by in a haze. It felt too good to be true.

It seemed even more too good to be true when he finally met her, the woman from the photograph. Her name was Estelle. They had gone to a show, and discovered to their mutual delight that they both knew almost all the lyrics to every Gilbert and Sullivan opera in existence. They had laughed throughout the show at the same places, thus each confirming the other's opinion of great perceptiveness and intelligence. They'd found that they both admired and enjoyed Walt Kelly's comic strip _Pogo_ even though it was gone these many years. Then, at dinner, he found that his favorite restaurant was one of her favorites, too, and that the waiters knew them both. It seemed perfect.

Usually, when something seems perfect, nature, or a vindictive God, or perhaps a perversity of probability, is all too eager to point out the imperfection in the most painfully obvious way, and so it proved in this case. They had decided together that a wonderful evening should be followed by a wonderful night, and they had wound up at her place. He was careful not to drink anything with alcohol, since he didn't want the evening to fall flat, as it were, and when Estelle put on something a little more comfortable, Phil knew from the tightness in his slacks that he had not drunk too much.

She took him by the hand, and then she took him to her room, and then she took him. Or at least that was the plan. As it happened, he was thrilled when he stood her in front of the big bed in her room, and turned out the lights so that the only illumination was a pair of candles, and their reflections in the mirrors on either side of the bed flickered like stars. Estelle illumined in starlight. The "something comfortable" that she'd slipped into slithered right off, and Phil found himself being slowly undressed by a beautiful nude woman whose body gleamed gold in the candlelight. His manhood hardened, and stood out stiff and firm as she slid his pants and shorts off, and he obligingly stepped out of them while she took off his shoes. He removed his shirt and tie, and they moved to the big bed. Estelle's eyes never left his, though her hands moved down to caress his stomach lightly, then tickled his pubic hair, slid along his cock delightfully, and then swirled the hair around his scrotum with a gentle delicate touch. His already hard erection hardened further, and he knew that if it had not been for the dim light, he could have seen the helmet of his cockhead gleaming shiny and smooth, a drop of pre-cum at the tip. He felt he hadn't been this hard in years. She laid herself down on the bed, extending one leg straight and raising the other leg straight up. Her eyes sparkled in the candlelight as she smiled invitingly at him, and he moved to sit near her shoulder, then leaned back to lay his head on her thigh. He could smell the musky, clean aroma of her crotch, and he blew a thin jet of air experimentally at the dark triangle. She responded by blowing a jet of air at his cockhead. He could feel the cold sensation where the pre-cum had formed a wet rivulet down the side. He licked; she sucked. He kissed; she stroked gently. It was clear that he could not take much more of this, so he pulled his hips back and began to tongue her, gently at first, then more rapidly, and he felt her begin to respond, and heard her breath soon grow short.

Once she had taken her pleasure, he stopped to let her collect herself; it struck him that since they'd gotten to her apartment neither of them had spoken a word. He didn't want to spoil the mood by speaking, so he waited until she was no longer gasping. Perhaps she felt the same way; instead of asking him, she merely gestured lightly to indicate that she wanted him to turn around.

He brought his face to hers, and found himself surprised when she kissed him, licking her own juices from his face as eagerly as if they had been buttermilk. She reached down, found his erection still strong, and with her tongue tantalizing his, managed to unroll a condom over it. This was another surprise; he hadn't even felt her reach for a condom. She pulled herself onto him with a slick squish, and slowly they began to move together. Her hands ran lightly along his back, so that only the tips of the nails touched his skin in the lightest possible way as he began to get into the rhythm.

_Gloria used to do that,_ he thought, and the thought of his quondam spouse was a disaster. The great hole in his life that he thought had begun to heal seemed torn open again. He felt another sharp pain in the empty side of the bed in his apartment across town. Estelle, holding him, could tell something was wrong, or perhaps he'd pushed her away. She turned on the bedside light, and looked at him with concern in her eyes. "What is it? Did I do something wrong?"

He couldn't answer for a moment, and glanced down at his erection, but it wasn't there. Instead, he could see his shriveled tool curled pathetically up inside a sadly twisted latex sheath, and he felt a horrible shame he hadn't felt in more years than he wanted to remember. Part of him felt as though he'd been punched in the stomach. He tried hard to keep his hands from trembling as he pulled the condom from his penis, angry at its apostasy, and discarded the condom in the little wastebasket beside the bed. Later, he found he couldn't quite remember everything that happened next; he found himself clothed, and driving back to his apartment, and shaking.

At home, he found it hard not to cry. He had not felt like this in years. The one thing he'd never worried about was erection problems, and that was the thing that had killed his first date in years. He imagined Estelle going back to the service, and jeering about it to the girl behind the counter. He couldn't face her again, and ask her for another manila envelope, and see the hint of a concealed smirk on her face. He couldn't tell his friends about this, he couldn't ... dear God, he couldn't go back to his old restaurant. For a moment he felt as though he'd have to change his name and move to another state, or spend the rest of his life swimming in a sea of schadenfreude, pretending not to notice as everyone smiled behind his back at the impotent old man who'd been stupid enough to think he could still find love. The hole in his heart where Gloria had been ached. He was as archaic as a skate-key in a Rollerblade(TM) world. He had a vision of himself as an old man, wearing a bathrobe all day, smelling funny and talking about things nobody else thought was important or relevant, subject to the foul fustigation of former, and false, friends. There is, he thought sadly, no fool like an old fool.

He was well along on that uniquely miserable form of the ego-trip that is self-pity when the telephone rang. His first impulse was to ignore it, and get back to the bittersweet pleasure of coming to terms with his absolute and irredeemable inadequacy. However, the thought that it might be important pulled him out of it for the moment. After all, he thought morbidly, it might be somebody wanting to sell him a burial plot, and perhaps he should start thinking about that. After all, he was nearly fifty.

Estelle's voice came as a surprise to him. Even more of a surprise was its tone; not jeering, not angry or disgusted. Worried. "Are you all right?" she asked.

It took him a moment to find his voice. After a few false starts, he managed it. "Yes," he lied.

"Well, the way you took out of here, I was worried. I didn't know if it was... well, I didn't know..." As her voice trailed off, he suddenly realized something. She was worried that it was her! It was a revelation. He tried again to speak.

"Oh, no. It was, well, I'm sorry. It was just, well, I'm, oh, God,..." and he took a long, ragged breath. "Look, it's just that my ex-wife, well, she used to," that's it, blame your impotence on Gloria, Mr. Flaccid, he thought. But her response to this not- quite-finished thought astounded him.

"Oh," he heard her say. "I did something that reminded you of Gloria. Of course that upset you. I'm sorry, I didn't know. If we try another date later, will you give me another chance? I should have expected something like this; Liz warned me."

Liz. He knew a Liz. She knew Gloria. Who was Liz? "Liz..." he began. God, he thought, he hadn't completed a sentence in five minutes. His side of this conversation would embarrass a moron. "Uh, how do you know Liz?" Who the Hell was Liz? He knew a Liz, it was a familiar name, he knew Liz and Larry...that was it. My God, Liz was Larry's wife!

"Oh, Liz and I work together. I thought she or Larry would have mentioned me to you." Of course, he thought, that was Larry and Liz's favorite restaurant, that's how I found out about it. He felt much better. Even as he figured this out, he was saying something to her, but he wasn't quite sure what. He stopped chasing his thoughts in circles, and listened. She had started speaking again, responding to whatever he'd babbled.

"Of _course_ I'd like to go out with you again. I'm just sorry I didn't realize what was happening. When will you be free?"

As he mentally began running through his calendar, he felt the hole in his heart again. Instead of aching quite so much, though, he felt something different. Perhaps, he thought, that's what healing feels like.