Heartbreak And Phone Sex

Me: I'm not very good at humiliating people, and there are dozens of listings who advertise that. Why do you want me to try?
Him: Most of them are skinny bitches. I want... like... gentle humiliation. From someone who... I thought you might...
Me: I might understand what it's like to be fat.
Him (quietly): Yes.
Me: I might understand what it's like to sit down at a fast food restaurant and feel my flesh hanging off the seat, and wonder if the people behind me are making fun of me.
Him: (gasps, pauses, starts to cry). Yes.
Me: I might understand how waiters seem to judge you when you order dessert.
Him: Yes.
Me: I might understand how you spend a plane flight knowing the people next to you hate you for crowding their space.
Him. Yes. (crying harder) Why... why does this turn me on?
Me: (with a laugh under my breath): I don't know, sweetheart. Nobody knows why things turn them on. But I know how it feels to talk with someone attractive, and to have them not even see you, as if you are wrapped in a cloak of invisibility instead of layer of fat.
Him: Oh my God, yes.

And we continued. Quietly, calmly, I let him know I understood what it was like to be fat. Or that I could imagine it. And that, as baffling as it might be for me, it was okay for him to be turned on by it. He climaxed, violently, choking on his own tears, and thanking me profusely.

I said goodbye, hung up, logged out, and wept. From a place deep within my gut. It's been weeks since that call, and I still can't unravel all the reasons why I cried like that.

Once I finally composed myself, I told my husband about it, and his eyes welled up with tears as well. He wrapped me in his arms and said, "I hope it helped him, baby. I'm proud of you, of what can you do sometimes."

I understand that I need to protect myself emotionally if I'm going to do this job over the long haul. I can't let my heart break like that every day, or I'd be exhausted. And I understand that I'm not a therapist, that I'm neither trained nor qualified to help people in deep emotional pain.

And yet, there is a human being on your side of the line. And a human being on my side of the line. And sometimes, human beings connect in surprising ways when they let themselves. My Twitter post that day was, "Advice that perhaps I should care less about the people who call me is, so far, going unheeded."

Maybe I'll need to close off more. Maybe I'll end up less available emotionally. Maybe I'll harden. But right now, I'm okay with some heartbreak if it means I get to keep partaking of this incredibly rich experience of life.