Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. <!--ADULTSONLY--> You must be a minimum of eighteen years of age or higher if the locality in which you reside requires it to access adult material to legally read the following story. If you are not of correct legal age to view adultsonly material, you are required by law to read no further and leave this page and this website immediately, no exceptions. By continuing further you swear and affirm under penalty of perjury that you are of legal age to access the following material, wish to do so, and are not a law enforcement official acting in their official capacity in any way, form or fashion + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + After fifteen or more years of having this in my archive I'm still not sure what to think of PlanetDweller's very iconoclastic work below; "Polly's Cave". When I tried to talk about it with him in the past he really didn't want to. All he would say is that he wrote it for a friend and leave it at that, so that's what I'm going to do too, leave it at that. I will say despite its somewhat out of character for PD subject matter it's still worth the quick less than five minute read, it will make at least a moderate positive impression if nothing else and will get you thinking about a lot of things, which is why I think he actually wrote and didn't want say that explicitly. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ AlphaBettaFish, curator of PlanetDweller's story archive + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + ~~~ A terminally ill cancer-stricken woman contemplating suicide remembers her lovers and her loves; honest, almost brutal in its reflections, but not self-pitying or too remorseful, and not really all that depressing, very touching to most that read it, in fact ~~~ Polly's Cave (F solo, mast, MF and FF in memoir, not graphic, terminal illness, cancer, suicide) By PlanetDweller I hated putting Mr. Wiggins, my old and faithful feline friend of the past fifteen years, to sleep more than I disliked the thought of putting my own self to sleep, but it was and is time for both of us to pass on. We both were and are old and useless and way past our prime, not that being just fifty-four is past one's prime even when you're an old postmenopausal hag but yes it is so when the sight of the pain in your face from multiple terminal cancers including the latest one, fullblown stage four pancreatic cancer, makes even those that had loved you turn away in revulsion. Revulsion not from you, but from the fact that this suck-ass reality of the imperfection of genetics and the perfection of God's plan however seemingly warped and twisted could just as easily be them. {{{Yates Emory, everyone used to call him "Yeller". He was my first boyfriend. My first real kiss. My first, second, third bases, and the summer of '61, I gave up my homerun ball to him. His cock was thin like a whip, uncircumcised and long and tapered and with it he whipped my devotion to him almost daily into a foamy froth, until mother caught us in our basement, his pants to his knees and my dress over my head, coal dust suspended in midair as was her disbelief. I wanted to marry him but Viet Nam wanted him more. Ten years ago, as my cancer was first diagnosed, I made a trip to "The Wall" to say good-bye to him, saving his name in a rubbing from it that I kept as a bookmark inside my bible. I hope he's there to greet me soon, when I'm permitted to cross over shortly, I hope .}}} Touching. I don't know why the doctors don't ever tell you the full truth about what's going to happen to you, like my skin so dry now from all the fucking chemo that anything but mild pressure can cause it to split open along tiny fissures and bleed major out like there was any blood inside me left to do so. Touching. Yeah, I know why doctors don't tell you the entire truth. They don't want the guilt on their hands of you placing your head on the railroad tracks or sticking it into the oven (just make sure it's gas and not electric, Dearie!) or swallowing a half bottle of old Malathion after they actually have some guts to tell you. {{{Betty Jean. My first girlfriend of just two. Second year of college at Meredith. Her boyfriend had gotten her pregnant and then made a pass at me the following week after the then-still-illegal abortion had almost killed her and she couldn't get out of bed for a month. We had sworn off men after the truth of how scummy men are had finally hit us simultaneously after that jerk, can't even remember his name, seemingly had made us lesbians for life. We had the courage of our fingers and tongues, but didn't have the courage of our hearts, which still beat that straight 4/4 time for men not women despite our best efforts to love each other and other women and never men again. Yeah, right. You go back in time and try to even think about being a lesbian in 1964. I think she's still a schoolteacher down in Morehead City in Craven County. I need to write her a good-bye note and mail it before things proceed further. No, I don't.}}} Gulp. The first pill of regulated last regimen of thirty, one every five minutes for two hours, the last six saved as final coup de grace for when Jim would come by, on time as usual. Thirty heavily-regulated morphine sulphate pills carefully saved, not like I couldn't get a hundred of them if I really wanted them. Just covering my bases. Gulp. My hands so brittle as to almost break at the touch of my breasts feeling myself, comforting myself, one last time. No one here to touch me, for me. Alone, except for God, and God doesn't care if an old woman touches herself one last time. No one here to touch me now, to kiss me good-bye. I shall not miss this place, this life at all. {{{Foster, then Karen, then together. What a time we had. Foster, who never married not even to this day after I told him I loved him but wasn't in love with him. He still is a bachelor after all these years, still pines for me even now. Big mistake getting involved with Karen even though he not only knew but encouraged me to keep exploring my "bi" side with her. Bigger mistake still letting us three wind up in bed together one time which became a never-ending string of times three together which begat a never-ending string of fights, heartaches, accusations and recrimination I vowed never to go through again. Foster, my love, do not cry when you get my note. You may curse me when you get my note in tomorrow's mail. But please, do not cry. Karen, the love of my life, thank you for teaching me that in the end, treating others as you wish to be treated and trying for your own happiness within that balance is all that matters. Karen, my love, when you get my note tomorrow, please do cry. Please don't curse me, but yes, when you get my note if you haven't heard by then, please do cry. My love for you is eternal.}}} Swallow. Funny how when you're down to less than 60% of your BMI/body mass index your fingers feel bony on your clit even to yourself. Just gotta laugh. Just gotta swallow that bit of unintentional humor on down. Swallow. Deep breath, touching of skin too sore to touch, spit on flesh lubricating, spit coming from a dry mouth wanting to scream at all to scream at God for letting this happen to me. Scream a dry scream of pleasure kittying my clitty and then swallow. {{{Frank. Franklin Goodhew Matthews. Shall I curse you for all eternity? You gave me enough reasons, between your whore secretaries and your drinking and your whores and your drinking and your more whores. That dose of the clap you gave me was it, was it for our marriage at least though I let it hang on way too long after that. At least you somehow sperm donated enough good sperm for Cheryl and Kenny, who fortunately for the world are nothing like their father, and for that I am grateful to you, though why I don't know. No note to you. Why bother? When you get the call, I know your reaction will be something like "stupid bitch finally did the right thing." Fuck you. Wait until you pass on. I'll be waiting at the gate with the rolling pin you made for me when we first got married. Poetic justice, call it.}}} Breath. Fingers now better lubed with a little Vaseline. What will the coroner think when he's stripping my body of its last shred of dignity? That a terminal cancer patient in her last hours could still have sexual urges? One more pill and then another, chasing. Let me deposit better evidence. Breath. Deep. Fingers, deep, probing at my connection between this world and the eternal, the link between old life and new life, rubbing rubbing rubbing, frigging frigging frigging, deeper deeper deeper, eyes closed, images of past loves and lovers and being loved flashing across the backwall of my cave, Polly's cave, now zipping past me, shadows becoming incubi, real, touching me back as my arms strain to touch my lovers one more time, before. {{{To the pizza guy and the plumber and Gill our old mechanic for so many years, I hope you think I wasn't using you. Well, I was, so I hope you at least enjoyed my revenge fucks against Frank. I hope you still carry the memories of the absolute freedom I fucked your brains out with the best I could, Gill, you especially, letting you in my backdoor which no one ever before or since was given the key to, I hope my genuine screams of passion made you come as hard as you were making me come then. No notes to you guys. You each served a purpose in your own way. My purpose. In the end, Frank didn't care when I told him. But I did. My apologies for making you read about my death in the paper.}}} Gulp, one more pill, then Swallow, then another forbidden Touch, then another Breath. Count them. They're not many left. Gulp, one more pill, then Touch, one more time. Front door opening. It's Jim. It's time. Orgasm through one last time, panties up one last time, new white dress I've chosen for the occasion down, one last time. "You know how much I love you, my friend" he whispered to me as he kissed me on the check, one last time. "Yes, I know" my kissing him back on the cheek and then lightly on the lips ~ one last time. The last of the pills chased down with watered-down orange juice. Then, his hand holding mine, holding it through, his promise, his word, all the way to the end. The last time I shall ever know the touch of a human, the last sensation I shall ever feel. The simple touch of a true friend. No further need for words. The remaining seconds become years. All my life's moments now run around inside my head, inside the theater-in-the-round of my head, the circumferential wall of Polly's cave. All the lies I had told myself, all the truths I had told others. Didn't matter now. It just doesn't matter. Poor old sweet but ineffectual Jim. My body now paralyzed in its last moments but my mind and soul still going, the bag he gently places over my head isn't a standard garbage bag but a large clear plastic one from CompUSA. He does mean so well, but the tiny slits which now serve as the windows to the last thing I'll ever see now can't help but focus on the big red CompUSA logo turned askilter and inside out within the clear plastic covering of the bag. He is such an idiot and moron if he is my best friend, my best friend enough to help me do this, my true best and only friend. You just gotta laugh. {{{"Polly, I'm here." "Is that you?" "Yes, I'm here." "But you're not dead. "No, but you are, and I'm home sick in bed with the flu and to me this is supposed to be a delusion but I know it's not." "Karen, I love you, I love you so much. "I know. I'm still in love with you, too, My Darling." "Why didn't we get married then?" "Because it was a time and place when women didn't marry women." "No, but they did run off together." "To what? Even in San Francisco, to poverty and discrimination?" "Exactly. That's exactly why we didn't marry. The times wouldn't let us." "But I loved you so much. I still am so in love with you." She beamed at me as her form floated in front of the entrance to the tunnel of light. Time to go home. "I've only got about ten more years here on earth and then we'll be together, forever" her form floating to me to kiss me sweetly on the lips before pulling back to the tunnel-oflight's entrance, beaconing me home. Home. "Promise?" "Promise!" her love just calling me to her. Calling me to her and home. Home.}}} "Yes, officers, I found the body just like this." "Did you touch anything, Mr. Oliver?" "Jim, it's Jim. Just the bag, I checked for a pulse, but I knew as soon as I saw her she was dead." "Cancer patient you say?" "Yes, terminal. Had only days to live anyway." "Damn shame. She was one good-looking broad for her age. I'd have asked her out for a date if we had met, her cancer and all. One good-looking woman indeed. Would have banged her brains out if she had wanted me to. God, what a waste." "Well, she was in a lot of pain and was truly terminal." "Well, if she had liked me, I'd have sent her to her Maker happy at least." God, my buddy old pal, sometimes you have one warped sense of humor, indeed. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ~ ~ ~ AlphaBettaFish, curator of PlanetDweller's story archive Please visit my ASSTR Author's Page at: /~Alpha_Betta_Fish/ Please feel free to contact me at: alphabettafish AT Yahoo DOT Com