Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

~John Donne~

Clients come and clients go. But why they sometimes take their leave without so much a fare-thee-well, cheerio, or even a little goodbye kiss is beyond me. Particularly the ones for whom I’ve gone the extra mile. Which, by the way, just about includes the entire bushel and a peck.

I don’t fret too much about it. After all, tastes (i.e. fetishes, kinks) fluctuate, circumstances change, wives move back home and all that jazz. Sooner or later, they usually show-up again none the worse for the wear, telling vivid tales of phone-sex-gone awry or life-gone-topsy-turvy.

Most of the time I don’t believe them, but let it slide.  I figure if they can suspend belief for the duration of the call to imagine me as a 50 Foot Woman or lactating and pregnant hermaphrodite, I can certainly return the favor.

But once upon a time, before I started my own PhoneSex business and was working for The Man, a valued client went MIA. Those were the prehistoric days, before The Internet exploded (5 years ago), and we followed up our calls with mail courtesy of the United States Post Office. (Remember them?)

So I sent a Missing You letter, decorated with curley-Q writing and heart stickers, out to Mr. X. And waited. And waited. A month later the letter came back unopened and stamped: deceased.

If you think that didn’t shake me up, that I didn’t grieve, well then you don’t know much about me. And the repercussions were long lasting. Because every time a guy ups and disappears, a little piece of me remembers Mr. X. And remembers all the things I never said.

I never got to tell him goodbye. Or that I saw beyond the fetish and appreciated his generous, open heart. Or that he taught me things. Or that he was one of my favorite callers. Or that he inspired me to take a college course I would have never taken otherwise.

It’s so much easier when they just show up again with a bigger and better hard-on.

And easier still when they tell me that they are going before they go.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006 at 10:34 pm and is filed under Rhetorically Yours. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.