Michael

It's Saturday. I coerce myself awake and get my morning grooming done, from years of military life I'm an early riser despite the excitement and drunkenness of the previous night.

I go to the mosque first thing. Not just to worship but for fellowship and peace. There is no such peace as can be had amongst people fulfilled with their god, content, sure, satisfied knowing their place in the divine nature of the universe. Being with these wise men is comforting to me somehow. And I don't refer to them as worldly-wise, in fact, most of them are downright fools when it comes to everyday things. But their closeness to God makes them wise in another way.

Whether it be imagined closeness or actual closeness to an entity that could fit the idea of a god, I don't know. What I do know is their devotion edifies them in a way most of the world lacks. Whether it be spiritual health or anything I don't know, but in this way they are more than the rest of us.

After an hour at the mosque, I go for my physical at the private clinic with Dr. Foxworthy. A pretty woman in her 40's with captivating eyes.

''You're looking particularly beautiful today Doc,''

''My favourite patient,'' she says with a smile.

I grin, ''I bet you say that to all the boys but I'll take it none the less. Especially if it gets me a chance to have your attentive hands on me.'' I flirt with her shamelessly knowing I'm all bark and no bite.

Her knowing my prognosis liberates me to be crus with her a little but I'm mostly sweet and charming lest I forget myself. I know she doesn't take me seriously, she can't take me seriously knowing I'll never walk again.

From there its an hour of physio with Henry, then a massage at the parlour. By now they know me here and most of them don't mind massaging unresponsive practically dead legs and gluts, practically sacs of meat. But I try to keep good circulation going none the less, at least as good as I can get without actually walking. I look behind me as a roller is used, just to make sure there aren't any embarrassing surprises there I haven't scented.

I keep myself clean though, I'm very particular about that. I especially keep myself clean when I know another person is going to have to touch me, I'm here every Saturday. Plus I have a nurse that comes once a week to give me a deep clean. None of that sponge bath shit.

From the parlour I usually see Alice for our chats. I text her instead today, just to say 'hi', nothing major.

Edgar and I head out for burgers instead. Have small talk, hang out. After that it's off to yoga for me. I have a personal trainer that's paid to assist me but most of the moves are impossible for me anyways.

I try though, yoga is great for stress and loosening the body. And its also been important on my journey through self-discovery. My interest in yoga with my condition has prompted Candice the instructor to look into classes for disabled people. I told her I'd drag all the guys from the V.A if she was willing to try.

She approaches me after the class as I return from a quick bath at the disabled bath only I use.

We make small talk as she tells me about how she's been researching the topic of yoga therapy for disabilities with a physiotherapist and her spiritual adviser. I lift an eyebrow at that.

"Who's your spiritual adviser?" I ask, she doesn't seem like the type. More of a weed-smoking tree-hugging sludge drinking hippie than a spiritualist by my opinion but what do I know.

"Master Yoshi, why do you ask? Do you know people that are into this kind of stuff?" She asks a bit sheepishly. I'm new to some of this but it's been great," She quickly adds.

"I know a few people in the community yeah. How did you get introduced?"

We end up talking for a while.

She tells me about doing a particular sequence of yoga that is as much a ritual as it is an exercise. About sigils that are supposed to help centre spiritual energies during meditations and prayer that she's been reading about.

She is very much into the topic and we have a thoroughly stimulating conversation. I even dismissed Edgar for two hours to do his own shit. Plus Candice is hot, toned and flexible. Its probably every man's fantasy that has ever been to a yoga class to bone their instructor but yeah... The attention itself is nice though. I'd be all over that if I could.

We end up speaking about chakra, acupuncture and the invisible energy points within and around the body.

"I've been to acupuncture a few times, I've tried almost everything there is to try these past five years to edify myself, mentally and spiritually, with my body limiting me physically." I no longer pity myself but some days are better than others.

"And has any of it been working for you?"

"Oh definitely, I probably would have given up on life if it wasn't for my spiritual awakening. I wish while I could walk I was the man I am now, with the lessons I've learnt through life and my disability. I can almost say I've never been happier or more fulfilled."

She's nodding like she gets me. "You have such depth of character,'' she says seriously with her hand on my arm now and again for support, encouragement or just because she likes it as we talk. Frequent but light touches, it's nice, have me leaning towards her almost subconsciously.

I walk her to her place, which is practically around the corner from the yoga studio. We talk Yoshi and what a pain he could be. She makes tea, I make sure everything is clean in the toilet before continuing our conversation.

We have a lot in common we discuss over a joint after I order Chinese takeout over the phone. She lights red scented candles as we eat and prays over the food. Surprising me after our pagan talk and practices all day. I ask her about it.

"The spiritual realm is a dangerous place Michael and we all need guidance and protection when venturing into it."

"I totally agree, in fact you should come to church service with me tomorrow," I say spontaneously.

"You go to church? A man with many surprises," She says with a smile.

"I'm multi-facetted yes," I say with a slick grin as we continue our meal. This is nice, I text Edgar.

I make sure to empty the urine bag and replace it. I honestly have no idea why I'm so nervous as the night becomes deep, well I do know. Its that look Candice is giving me, that look that a woman gives a man she's having a good time with and expects to take home. Shit!

When I return she is in an almost sheer gown that allows me to see pieces of skin and her nipples clearly. I know she isn't wearing anything under that, in my mind I'm horny, but I'm also ashamed because physically I'm not.

She lights a sage candle and is suddenly in my lap touching my chest and neck. I touch her as well, touch a woman as she is meant to be touched by a man for the first time in five years.

We kiss and I forget most of my apprehension in that kiss. We kiss deep and hard. Eating each other's faces in a controlled passion that leaves us both breathless.

She lifts the hem of my shirt and I lift my arms to give her access. She kisses my chest, my nipples. Licks me and I sigh in pleasure while holding her head close. She isn't shy about exploring me with hands, tasting me all over with sweet lips.

I eventually scoop out of my chair and onto the carpeted floor. At this point I'm just letting everything happen on its own. Maybe she thinks I'm one of those guys with spinal injuries but can still get it up, I don't know. I know I want to please her, taste her. The apprehension is there but clouded in a fog of desperation.

I'm either too far gone or too ashamed to stop now anyway, so I let things progress. I let her ungown herself to reveal her full naked body. I let her pull my pants off to the sight of my flaccid dick.

I finger her to her first climax and I let her sit on my face as I get to work on her pussy as diligently as I can. I don't think I've ever eaten pussy better in my life, I'm compensating for a huge fucken' flaw.

But she climaxes again and again on my face and eventually falls asleep on me in a heap. I again feel great, amazed at myself before getting dressed and getting out of there.

"You smell like sex." Is the first thing Edgar says to me as I get into the car at 11:46 pm at night. I give him a grin and we drive home. Me home, him wherever he plans to go to on a Saturday night.

I get to the house and head straight for the fridge. I know Grace left me diner as she almost always does. I warm it up and head upstairs on the elevator.

I still have a lot of energy so I browse the internet and research sex with disabled people. There are whole communities of people into this shit it turns out. Something to think about.

I eventually look at the journal Yoshi got me and open it. Reading everything I wrote just two days back. Its seems so long ago though, I'm so far removed from some of the things I felt then that it's almost like reading the voice of another person altogether.

Someone's internal monologue with himself that has nothing to do with me. Or maybe it's just the weed giving me a different perspective.

I take a pen and begin writing on a fresh page. Wanting to record the person I am now so that I can read this later and see how well I relate to myself.

*

I met Alice when I was 24 in Peru being a tourist for the first time in my life. Enjoying that trust-fund I always felt too guilty to fully utilize before.

We were both lost Americans in a foreign country, somehow trying to articulate our needs to different cab drivers using hand signals and enunciating English words slowly as though that would make the drivers understand better.

The rain was starting to pour and I couldn't pronounce anything in the travel guide, even with those little words in brackets that are supposed to be how the word sounds when spoken.

I eventually gave up, and as I walked away when I came across another American doing the same thing I was doing. Watching her I realized how stupid I must have looked and couldn't resist taking a picture.

I approached the stunning blond holding a little red umbrella, and I like to think I saved her of ten more minutes of a pointless one-sided conversation. But knowing her as I do now, she probably would have gotten her ride somehow.

After introducing myself and expressing my understanding and sympathy for her plight we landed in a sort of coffee shop talking the night away.

"That's what happens when you don't stick to the recommended travel paths," I remember saying to her at some point. To her laughter, and quaky, "You get drivers that can't speak English," response. ''Tourist never fully experience a place though, every path on those guides is too sanitised for my tastes.''

We had immediate chemistry and had a great time. Even eventually catching a ride to the hotel areas and we ended up at her hotel room. I think she insisted on hers just to ensure I wasn't a sex trafficker trying to kidnap her.

There was immediate sex at her hotel because why not? Two young unattached people that have so much in common with each other in a city where everyone around them is a stranger. Experiencing the same issues with travelling and having the same feeling of loneliness yet surrounded by thousands of people. A feeling I knew well.

It was the perfect romance in a foreign country. Though we knew very little about each other's lives back home we knew each other's personal information and basic likes and dislikes from small talk. Otherwise we were the perfect strangers to one another.

No history together or preconceptions, no baggage from the 'real world'. But I still quickly had an impression of her, you can't spend all that time with someone and not know them intimately.

She was beautiful, her family was wealthy I gathered from her clothes, the way she carried herself and the way she spoke. I could smell the posh off her, but she wasn't a snob, annoying or overbearing in any way.

For five days we spent almost every waking moment together in her hotel room. Exploring each other both body and mind. And by the end of those five days, when we came out for air, I knew every nook and cranny on her body, every spot that affects her during passion.

And I was glowing with the mother of all afterglows. Grinning like an idiot I know from pictures we took at the time. We explored the city a lot more thoroughly then after, only having sex a few hours a day like any old married couple.

Everything we did was better for being done together. From exploring the cuisine to the architecture, the galleries, the clubs, the museums. Everything was fresh, new, brighter for experiencing it myself and through her perspective.

I got into a fight in one of our club-hopping trips with two guys. Destroying both of them quickly before the bouncers came to throw us all out. That night we had some of the wildest sex I ever remember having.

I don't care how passive women say they like their men, the sight of testosterone-fueled grown men beating each other up for her makes any woman wet. After three weeks of bliss we exchanged contact information and parted ways.

I eventually returned home Stateside, spending a few days at home before shipping off to join my platoon back in sunny Kandahar. I had a few pictures I had developed that would help me through the next few months of duty.

Three months later I received a call from mother asking me about the girl I got pregnant overseas. My heart seized in worry for a moment having a flashback of a prostitute I had slept with my first year in the army. But how the fuck would she know who I am let alone contact my mother. Plus, I used a condom and it didn't break, I remember because I took it with me when I left in a tissue.

"I don't know what you're talking about mom," Is what I said still trying to calm myself down.

"And I suppose you don't know this Alice Bordou person either," she said and I remember everything clicking as I looked up at a picture of Alice and myself stuck to the tent, and I remember smiling.

"Yes, mom. I know Alice, I know her well."

I think even then I knew that I loved her. That I would always love her, and I had trapped her with a pregnancy. and her pregnancy gave us a chance to fully know each other.

We got married a month before James was born in her ancestral home in France.

*

I look at my watch, its 2 am in the morning and I'm super tired. The day finally having caught up with me.

I try to centre myself but I'm just too tired to meditate so I pray softly.

"Dear God, thank you for this day you've given me. For the time you've given me on this Earth and the lives you've allowed me to touch positively and that have touched me. I am blessed to have a son and to have had Alice. Bless them both and all of my family. And even in my many fumblings to find you, get to know you and to know myself at a deeper level may I not offend you. For I am a flawed person and will stumble continuously. Your Word admonishes that though everything is permissible, not everything is beneficial. I pray to be guided in things that may be beneficial to me and those you give me to love. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen."

With that, I make sure everything is clean and fall into bed.