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content/draft/004.md

@@ -105,3 +105,63 @@ No, because her limits were reinforced. For every victory, there was a reminder
 She, too, understands dialectics, do not get me wrong. She, too, knows that these reassurances of boundaries also come with the discoveries that she made, all of the green papaya salads and savory Artemisian treats that Warmth In Fire and its ilk had set on the market that she fell in love with. But always before her was the goal of joy, and while she would count her successes, she would also count her failures — no, no, do not contradict her, she saw them as failures and there is now no changing of her mind, not these many years later, not as she is now — and cluck her tongue and shake her head and go home and lay down in her bed and take one of those naps that she was so good at.
 
 There was joy, yes, but it was not a complete joy. Her hedonism with food was a lovely hedonism and she cherished it, but it was not the hedonism she needed for this task.
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+There was no simple way to approach this next form of joy for The Woman.
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+There had been times within her life where she struggled with touch, for when one is too much oneself, every touch is all that much more intense. When one is full to overflowing, each touch runs the risk of oversaturating sensation, pushing a gentle caress into the grating drag of sand over skin.
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+And yet touch remained important to her. It remains important to all of us! Even I who surrounds myself in words, constructs blankets of ink to wrap myself up in, even I relish my time spent with my cocladists and with my friends. I relish the time I spend with My Friend and how, on occasion, we will go for a walk and she will take my paw in her hand in companionship. Touch remained important to her and, to her, those moments when she was able to accept a hug from her friend shined bright in her memories when she hunted for this next form of joy.
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+"If," she reasoned to Her Friend over their mochas, "if so many have found joy in touch and sensuality and sexuality, might not I?"
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+"You may very well, yes," ey said, smiling. "What do you think you will do?"
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+"I am not sure where to start. Perhaps I shall work my way up from simple to complex, yes?"
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+Her Friend brightened, nodded. "If you are feeling like a skunk that day, I have an aesthetician I can recommend."
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+My hastier readers may be wondering: why does The Woman not simply fork herself groomed? Or perhaps: why does The Woman not get a massage or some similar form of touch that does not involve dragging a comb through fur?
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+The answer to this, at least from your humble narrator's limited point of view, is that there is loveliness in the touch, yes, but there is loveliness also in the way that one might ensure that another is well groomed. It is a way of coming closer. It is a way of sharing, and understanding that one is not alone. That is what I feel, at least, and I like that I can feel not alone at times, even if at other times I all but demand it.
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+And so it was that The Woman began simply, waiting until she was quite firmly a skunk before going to visit this contact Her Friend had given her.
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+The Aesthetician who greeted her at the door looked to be more than a hundred years old — more than a thousand! — and yet they moved with a sprightliness that surprised The Woman. They all but pranced around her as they guided her to a comfortably padded table, something that could just as easily be molded down into a seat or some more complicated contraption.
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+"A skunk! An Odist!" they chirped. "You were sent by No Hesitation?"
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+The Woman tamped down the burgeoning sense of overstimulation and bowed. "Yes. End Of Endings of the Ode clade."
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+"Lovely lovely lovely. Please, please come in and lay down. I do love grooming you and yours."
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+And so The Woman went inside and lay down and let The Aesthetician work through her mane and over her tail and through all the little nooks and crannies around her neck and limbs. All the while, they chatted quietly — for an aesthetician such as this reads their clients well and knew how to modulate their attitude that they not overwhelm someone such as The Woman. The brushing was calm and peaceful and felt lovely and delightful in all those ways that she appreciated when she was able to do it herself, and yet it came with a sense of companionship and camaraderie that left her feeling fulfilled and, yes, joyful. Joyful! The Woman and The Aesthetician talked and talked, and The Woman spoke more freely to her than she ever did to Her Therapist and, without being able to explain just how, she knew that the words she spoke would be kept in as close a confidence.
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+The Woman left refreshed, renewed, reinvigorated, and with this eye she set to looking into the escalation that she promised Her Friend.
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+We have seen such success already, have we not? We have seen the ways in which The Woman — she who does not have many friends — enjoys the touch of hugs or a paw rested atop hers. It is a sometimes food, yes? But then, it is for all of us. I do not always want to be hugged or touched — I do not now, here on the edge of overflow — and there are forms of touch I do not like at all! The woman here is considering intimacy, yes? Sensuality and sexuality? Those are not things that I do not like. I like *that* they exist, I am glad that they do, and I even like writing about them — see, here! I am even about to do so! — but they are things that I hold at a distance from myself.
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+Ah, but my words are wandering. This touch, even the grooming, is a sometimes food for The Woman, and yet she had held herself at such a distance from such for who knows what reason. I do not think she knew, herself, my friends, for she is as we all are. She is a woman who craves touch and deserves touch and does not, on an intellectual level, wish that she were not touched. It is emotional, perhaps, or psychic, or spiritual, or on some other level than the intellectual desire to touch and be touched, or the physical need for fulfillment.
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+And so it was that The Woman began her slow climb up the ladder of escalation. She met once more with Her Friend and asked, kindly, perhaps a bit nervously, for a hug and for the chance to hold hands and paws — for she was a human that day, and Her Friend a skunk as ever — and well it took something of a force of will to let such touch linger, it was a pleasant sensation and a pleasant conversation that followed, an exploration — between friends, for Her Friend was always careful to specifically *not* be The Woman's therapist — of meanings and boundaries.
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+And so it was that The Woman sought out those who she knew, those who might have some affection for her beyond simple conversational friendship, those who had been sensual of old, partners and almost-partners from centuries ago who remained still on the System. She thought back through the years and years and years, and Her Lover was the one who leapt most readily to mind.
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+*"My dear, it has been some time since we have spoken,"* she sent over a sensorium message. *"For which I do apologize, much of that is on me. I did wish to reconnect, though; would you be amenable to that?"*
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+The response was immediate. *"End Of Endings! Oh my god! You have no idea how happy I am to hear from you! I heard there were losses in your clade and was so worried I didn't even want to check if one of them was you."*
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+*"Not me, no. Should We Forget and No Longer Myself are no more, though."*
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+There was a long moment silence on the other end of the connection, though the sense of it lingering remained. *"I am sorry, love,"* Her Lover said at last. *"I haven't forgotten you, though, or my fondness, so yeah, I'd love to reconnect."*
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+If my more recently uploaded friends feel some sense of curiosity about how it is that someone with whom one has let contact language for decades might still feel fondness after so long, or how one might not forget, you must remember that those who live sys-side remain functionally immortal. If one leans into such a fact, then decades spent away may as well be a blink of an eye, yes? If one leans into the everlasting memory with which we are blessed or cursed or which is simply bestowed upon us without further thought, then a past lover away from whom one has simply drifted amicably is just as easily recalled.
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+We are very old, you see. Why, at this point, I am 323 years old! And The Woman is of the same clade, so the same is naturally true of her. To us, we remember being mortal as only some distant thing from so long ago. We have our identity as those who may live life slowly. Things may still come at us quickly, yes, but we can deal with them in parallel, can we not? I could get a note from my dear up-tree stating that it is lonely or bored or simply hungry and wants someone to eat with, and so I may continue writing while joining em in this simple pleasure. I did that just earlier today, when she mentioned wanting to eat something good, some comforting food she learned from eir own friend, so that good memories may also be cherished. When I did join it for a simple meal of *ciorbă de praz* and *ardei umpluți* — for you see, its friend was Romanian, and taught em so many dishes that she now loves — I sat and listened and remembered and talked and ate and perhaps also fretted over stepping away from work, but I allowed myself to take some slowness, too. Even I am allowed such things, yes? Even the terminally busy may let one self stay busy while the other comforts and is comforted by those they are close to.
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+Ah, dear readers, I am sorry that I cannot keep my thoughts from wandering an letting my pen trail after them like an eager puppy — yes, just like The Woman's rituals — and that such interrupts the story I am trying to tell!
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+All of this to say that The Woman and Her Lover spent some years together back in the first century of the System, back after secession but before she had fallen into her gentle stasis, before the goal of processing trauma was subsumed by the trauma itself. They had met — and you will not believe this, friends! — they had met at the very same cafe where The Woman and Her Friend met only days before. They had stumbled across each other in the most romantic way possible: by ordering the same coffees at the counter. They both asked for the same mocha with extra whipped cream, gave each other a strange look, and then fell into laughter.
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