I'm trying to be a friend to Jay, the alcoholic crack-head I spent two years loving/trying to save. In a way, I did save him. Several times. I also enabled the hell outa him. Live and learn. When he was high, he'd get kinky and crave certain sexual activities that I was happy to provide because I'm more than a fool-in-love; I'm a complete and utter brainless-idiot-in-love. And let's be honest here. In bed, I owned him. It was my only edge and I ran with it.

He's sober 3 months now and doing amazingly well. He's also become weirdly fastidious about his 'stuff'. He showed me his new power bank then did a pull-back (as if I was going for his Junk) when I asked if I could feel how heavy it was. A few days later at his house, he tells me about his car-fund consisting mostly of dollar coins he gets as change from public transport. After asking if he was talking about the Sacajawea coin and getting a blank look, I picked up a coin to confirm. He had a mini meltdown about my touching his money. I felt like telling him that there are certain parts of his body that I know better than he knows himself. And that it's not fair that now that he's sober I can not only no longer touch his person, I can't even touch his coins.

What makes it extra special is the way he touches anything of mine that he pleases, despite my protests. He commandeers my car radio, blithely unplugs my charging phone in order to charge his own, and has actually started the car from the passenger seat because he was ready to go.

I still struggle with Sober Jay; I don't know him like I do Cracky Jay. I don't know if I ever would have fallen in love with the sober guy. But it confuses me because they both come in the same pretty packaging. My hands have muscle memory. Sober or not, my hands still itch to stroke him from head to toe. But I can't. Sober Jay doesn't want or need my ministrations. And it frustrates the heck out of the ultra tactile beauty-revering slut in me.