Storymania - Algolagnic by E Rocco Caldwell

Algolagnic
E Rocco Caldwell

If a definition of pain was to be written she could provide unequivocally one having only to relax back into her body by releasing her mind. It was a technique she learned as a child when she first learned of the affliction, escaping into the corners of her mind where pain could not reach her. Pain, she would describe, was a living thing neither of form or substance existing in the presence of her joints traveling up and down her spine as fast as the speed of light. Pain attacked her every moment of every day like a mugger or a date rapist. She had overcome the pain achieving her dreams as she walked the college campus sometimes barely making classes often in tears. She lay in her bed racked by the disorder her body provided turning like the world around the burning sun. She shook her fists at God until sleep was more masterful than the pain. She still graduated top in her class because above everything she was a fighter. Pain was something she hated but found a pleasure in because it signified all of her accomplishments. It was the hinge point that swung her into middle management of a major corporation even though she was only in her mid-thirties. She was very pretty woman built on the slightly thick side with a mercurial shape that she carried well. She turned heads of the opposite sex but seemed uninterested in men. It was more that she feared the pain a relationship would cause her. She knew pain and in a way all sorts of pain physical, mental and emotional. In her life sat pain looming over everything she did.
Everyday the confrontation of pain came as she poured out of a slight sleep. She slept maybe four hours and that was a long night. She would sleep during her lunch, another technique she learned over the years. After the years of pain she was convinced that pain grounded her gave her a connection with her frailty and that to her humanity. She was no better than any other person pain taught her that and it was a very good teacher. The sunsets were wonderful when viewing through eyes of pain each tint and hue respected because the thoughts it could be her last moment to see the sunset made her appreciate them more. With pain was the hope of living one-hour pain free what it would be like to have no pain in anyway for just a brief time? She stared down at her body as if she could see the pain traveling just beneath her skin. A hot shower soothed her, a bath did more even relax her for the thirty minute or so she soaked. She dreaded facing the forty-minute drive to work through congested traffic feeling the pain settle in the lumbar of her back, the pain knotting her neck and causing her fingertips to go numb. She touched her breasts with the warm face cloth pushing the contemplation of pain from her mind to enjoy the massaging water from the showerhead against her back and legs.
She had a theory concerning stress and pain, both shaved years off her life and so she figured she would be dead by age fifty-six. She calculated that age based on parameters she only knew and some book on physiology. The commute that day was difficult reflected in her limp as she walked to her office. There was a black man pushing a cart coming the opposite way of her and her prejudices began rise like mist and she tightened her grip on her purse strap over her shoulder even through rationalization argued she had no reason to feel she was in danger. He noticed the changes in her body and only shook his head as he walked pass her but her limp made him stop and ask her if she injured her ankle? His question startled her enough so she lost some of her composure. She stared a moment at him unsure as to why he would ask her concerning her pain no one had before. She wanted to talk about her pain because that grew sympathy and sympathy release endorphins that soothed the pain some so she told him of her chronic illness. When she finished he did something unexpected and touched her on the shoulder were her skin was exposed and then he walked away. She nearly backed away from him when he touched her but as he did the pain in her neck vanished. She couldn't believe it but it was gone she turned to see him turn a corner. Something happened to her at that exact moment but she found herself briefly sexually stimulated by his touch and the results. It embarrassed her feeling so stimulated and she was unsure what she would do or how she appeared so she hurried to her office.
The sexual stimulation lasted for several hours it was intense to the point she thought of leaving for home early to release her self. His touch was still potential on her shoulder like glowing embers in a fire. What had he done to her? The pain was gone only in her shoulder but the rest of her body still held its portions of pain yet the soothing warmth in her shoulder suppressed the regions of pain. She had lost some of the control she prided herself by as she thought of her shoulder and his touch. What was his name she had to talk with him and discover how his touch had done what it did! She had access to the company's personnel files on computer and each file held the photograph of the employee. It didn't take her long before she discovered who he was and summoned him to her office.
The minute he walked into her minute the sexual stimulation increased and it took all of her concentration to keep from attacking him. She explained to him that when he touched her the pain in her shoulder vanished and to her surprise he knew it. He revealed to her that he had always held an ability to remove pain from a person and that was why he touched her. Could he remove all of her pain she wondered and asked he to explain more and he did telling her of how when he was only two years old he grew very sick with pneumonia to the point doctors had given up on is survival. They told her mother to expect the worst but his mother refused to believe them and that night did something she never had before, prayed to God. The events that happened, he shared, were still difficult for him to believe but according to his mother his grandmother, at the time she was still alive, appeared to his mother and told her that the great doctor Jesus was going to heal her son but she had to devote her life to God's cause. His mother agreed and minutes later the hospital called to tell her that a miracle occurred and to come take her completely healed son home. It was from that point he could remove pain from others. Here was her chase to be free from pain all pain! He told her he had to touch the naked areas of her body were the pain existed and that was all over her body. It frightened her to think that he would see her completely naked and touch her in areas no one but a doctor had and there was the intense sexual stimulation that followed. She thanked him and he left her office to ponder what she would do next.
That night she struggled to control the affects of the pain and fell to sleep just a little after one in the morning. It had been difficult reaching the regions of her mind beyond the crest of pain because the release of pain in her shoulder was more real than what her mind provided. Her body yielded to the possibility of liberation and painless nights. It would add years onto her life and she could dare to think of having children. It was a cruel thing his touch had done to her world! It left her mind open-ended and flooding with possibilities a luxury she never had before. The sexual stimulation for him had died on her way home but in all it lasted for over eight hours. To be free of pain though was worth the eventuality of sex with her healer. He was a very handsome man and it was her inhibitions to his race that nagged her. Maybe it was a good thing to allow her self to be involved with a black man so that she could push passes the ignorance of prejudice? That seemed very reasonable but what were her parameters of logic and what motivated those parameters? When she awoke the answer sat on her mind and she knew a painless life was what she always desired and she would allow him to perform his gift on her.
He reiterated that the areas of her body he touched had to be naked when she asked him to complete the healing process. He was sincere in pointing out that she probably would have to be in bra and panties only and did she have a problem? She told him no and the date was set for Saturday. It was a cold Saturday trimmed with rain which seeped into her bones as she waited wearing a bathrobe in her modern kitchen. She sipped a cup of coffee letting its contexts working it palliative effects on her pain stricken body. The rain created some waterfalls off the panes of her windows as she watched the street. Her heart was in her throat and doubt pushed with string at her mind. Maybe it was all in her mind that his touch made the pain in her shoulder vanish? He could be some conman working an angle for whatever gratification? The entire scheme well planned from the first time he saw her walk in pain to timing it when she arrived that day to work? It still didn't explain the pain leaving her shoulder! That was real because she knew pain better than most, how it worked and its properties!
She took another sip of coffee to help focus her keen thinking on the situation about to unfold. What could she do if he did try raping her? He was so strongly built and didn't black men have a propensity to violence? She thought of OJ Simpson and what he had done to his ex-wife! The Time magazine cover showed his true likeness, a craze killer dark and malicious. Everything negative in the English language began with black her mind told her. But her shoulder was pain free she touched it with her free hand. The areas still warm like a glowing ember.

He touched her neck and immediately she felt the surge of heat from his fingertips surround the wounded regions of her neck and all sorts of sensations erupted inside her body. His fingers moved from front to back flooding her with even more stimuli. It was wonderful how his finger felt against her skin and the energy there was some much energy circulating in her body. Se could see the outlines of quasars and orbs of suns as light exploded behind her closed eyelids. Her resolve seemed to melt like an ice cube in a New Orleans's summer day. The revelations of no pain was a dream answered she released anything contraindicative letting his healing power fill her like having sex. That was what stuck in her head, it was like making love it had to me? She could no longer hold back the tidal wave of erogeneity as his fingers touched the back of her ankles she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him to her hungry lips. She surprised herself at the passion of her kiss and the potency of her sexual desire. Make love to me was all she could say but she warned her of the impact. She didn't care and so they made love she in blind passion reaching climax to climax and still the passion spilled over and he perhaps due to his healing ability was able to sustain and the love making went on and on until evening crept inside the living room. Both of them covered in sweat and weary over the hours but the intense emotion she felt for him hadn't died out. It burned like a forest fire now. She needed him, wanted him more than anything in her life. He knew it, slightly surprised by the intensity of her emotions though. His mother's warning hung like a mobile in his head. Every time he touched a person they experienced a deep emotional transformation as if pain was in someway connected to the psyche of humanity! But her emotional attachment was deeper and more mysterious. He couldn't understand it's intensity and it scared him.
She begged him for nearly a week afterwards to move in with her. He felt like he was watching a panhandler on a street asking for something everything to help a brother out! He couldn't say no even though he knew he should have and gave into her pressure. He couldn't stand to see a person in pain. She immediately worked her influence to have him transferred to her department and promoted. It was around this time her work performance began to slip and her perfectly constructed world dissolved forming brand new around him. It took everything ounce of struggle for her to leave him to go to work and even on the road the minutes flew by as she agonized not being by him. People she knew were worried at the new behavior but she didn't care as his fingers touched her body and the light in her mind erupted like flashcubes.
One afternoon she returned from work to find a note left by him. It explained how it was time for him to move on because the relationship was counterproductive. He liked her but it was love. The words stabbed her soul with a pain deeper than any she ever felt. What was this new kind of pain she asked? It was centered in her chest but it's origin not from an illness or bone disorder it came from her heart. She panicked running outside in the pre-dusk seeing the sky bleed into the Puget Sound but that sunset wasn't beautiful. The pain she was in didn't make her appreciate her frailty it made her curse it. She stood there in the autumn cold wishing like a frightened child for him to return. The world moved passed her as if she wasn't even alive, as if she didn't even belong. The pain grew inside her chest as tears formed in her eyes her lips grew numb from the cold. But she knew pain at least she thought she did and it wasn't the sort of pain she could write a definition. It lingered far heavier like London fog and reeked like rotten eggs. Hadn't she given him every bit of her so why had he left? She traveled back to the regions of her mind but the doors were locked she had been away too long. The letter told her what his mother said concerning pain, it helped to ground a person and to keep that person centered. She would have smiled at the revelation but the pain was too intense. She should have held on to a portion of her physical pain instead of ridding herself completely of it. She was in unfamiliar grounds facing an anguish she never in her life ever faced.

Two days later the police found her in her apartment after her employees called worried she had not been into work nor answered any telephone calls. She had removed the light fixture that hung over her dinner table. The wires wrapped so tight around her neck the police thought her head would come off at any minute. The sight broke the stoutest police person's heart but the expression lodged in her round face was undeniable. It seemed so out of place to the officers after such a violent suicide but the expression was peaceful, palliative and conciliatory! The best definition would be in some sort of way death released her like an analgesic would the deepest pain.