dear sidney

(note: only devotees of M*A*S*H will understand the title of this post)

Dear Sidney,
An interesting week here in the land-of-barbarians-who-think-they're-not. The most interesting psychological occurrence was the re-appearance of my last lover, in my inbox. We haven't seen each other for the better part of a year. We parted on rocky terms, and it took me a fair while to get over the pain and heaviness that knowing her brought. In moments of harsh loneliness over the past months, i'll sometimes dream of being her lover again. There was always the sense that her issues exploded us before they should have...that we never got the chance to really explore being lovers, or at least give her the chance to accrue some of the psychological benefits that loving me would have opened to her.
And now, she's opened the door to having a "booty call" relationship with me. She says she realizes we (she?) let way too many words get in our way the first time. She says she's gone through changes which have made her less emotionally turbulent.
Am i tempted? Sure. Especially in the moments when i'm alone in the dark with my turgid penis. But the closer i get to making this a reality (our one phone call this week, or discussing plans to meet), i can feel all the fear and painful memories rise up. I remember the emotional tear i felt with her almost from the start, the feeling of not being entirely present when we were most intimate. The further i get in life, the more terrible it is to feel that...or maybe it's just that i feel things more than i used to. Anyway, it's a long time since i felt 100% present with a lover. That might be the thing i'm most afraid of, with this.
The first time she and i were together, i knew i had something good to offer her. Something real. Truthful. Now...i know that purity is gone, and i have my doubts that it could return. It feels like i only have carnality and darkness to offer her. On the eve of the first night we talked about getting together this past week, i had positively dark impulses. Reckless, uncaring. Remembering how my investigation into the sex trade had bothered her, i actually pondered doing one of my non-sexual, physically-intimate investigations with a prostitute that SAME night, right before meeting her. Not that i would tell her where i'd been...but not being one to hide any part of myself, i suppose i knew that if she pursued certain lines of inquiry, she might one day find out i'd been in the arms of a prostitute just hours (or less) before having sex with her.
Not surprisingly to anyone who knows me, i ended up being intimate with neither her nor a prostitute that night. But still...
Has loneliness and sex/touch-deprivation driven me so far that i would risk exposing another human to destructiveness, or exposing myself to the ulcerous state that came of knowing her the first time...just to indulge in humanity's most primal need?
Not that i'm averse to resurrecting the friendship we shared, but...a part of me feels like i wouldn't be able to offer her much more than carnality, at least now.
Strangely, she seems to almost understand that, even though we haven't spoken about it in any depth.
I know you don't like talking about yourself in our little discussions, Sidney. So i'll accept what you can give me, and cherish it.
devotedly,
wrob
P.S. I've been trying to start a house poker game here, and we always end up one player short. Just in case you, y'know, know anyone...
P.P.S. The moment of truth came and went Sidney, and no booty call came with it. Perhaps my greatest fear wasn't that hollow feeling, but the thought of being destructive with someone. If everything else in my world falls apart, that might be the thing i hold on to with my dying breath.