disjointed

The greater my feeling of broken emptiness grows, the more profound my mournful desire to fall into gentle, loving arms...to be held inside someone's body for an hour or two at a time. There is a faint, constant ache around my shoulders and neck, that nothing but a rub every day or two could fix. But there's a contradiction at work...the more hurt and needful you are, the more off-balance you become. The more off-balance, the less you have something good to offer another human being.
So though i would reach out to some who might love me, the protector inside me shouts me away from those i might hurt.
And the core of my wound carries with it an anti-social aspect...wanting nothing to do with fools and ungentle souls.
We are all of us, in varying degrees, fools and ungentle souls.
So another barrier goes up. The fact that i have one foot out the door of this glistening metropolis might also affect the mindset of any woman who might take a fancy to me.
There are three women i think of. There is the woman whose checkout line i always gravitate to at the local grocery. We have a nice connection...our eye contect is long, and there are moments when our talk threatens to break social constraints. I sense that she and i could be lovers in a short time. She lives in my neighborhood, and i intuit that we would not wear condoms...compelling factors. My physical attraction is not profound though (i'm a fan of moles, but she has one that hits me the wrong way), and i have no idea whether we have any deep personality compatibility. The kind of woman i need is one who has the rare ability to live in the moment, not using love as a negotiation. If this woman is not one such (and almost none are), then she could end up being hurt.
But i want a lover so badly, the wounded part of me sees her through the eyes of a predator (as most men always do, plus a good number of women).
The second woman is an acquaintance i had one semi-romantic night with, years ago. We've kept in very occasional e-mail contact since, initiated by her. If my physical attraction had been more profound, i'd have made more time for her long since. She might have the non-negotiative mindset i require...indeed, it's even possible that i would be the one who is too conservative. She's into sex clubs and hardcore porn. She loves George Harrison though, so we'd have that that going for us.
The third woman is an old friend. There has always been a sexual element between us, never fully explored. Were my attraction more profound, that wouldn't be the case. I have little doubt she could live in the moment. We have similar philosophies, and enjoy each other's company.
With all these women though, there's the inescapable feeling that intimacy wouldn't banish the demons of emptiness.
So i hold back, waiting...
In moments of emptiness, i almost seriously think about masseuses and prostitutes for the first time in my life.
I mean, why not? Feeling ever more isolated from conventional avenues of physical connection...why not?
Perhaps i shouldn't kid myself...if i ever did hire a whore, i might be fated to be one of those "i just want to hold you" johns. As much as i hate money, i sometimes think about how delightful i'd be as a rich person. I think i would walk the streets (or stroll the cyber-realm) and show up in the lives of prostitutes and others in financial servitude. For a whirlwind moment, i'd take them to a place where they can be whatever they want, with nothing demanded of them.
Sometimes i feel i'm hanging on to my integrity with my teeth.