Sugar and spice and everything nice, that’s what the Nursery Rhyme tells us girls are made of. Tits and ass and everything crass, that’s what Krystal is made of. Regrettably, there is the truth and what we wish were true. We never actually know our composition until our mettle is truly tested. My trial by fire came in the form of ovarian cancer, that blackened curse of the gods that incinerates you from the inside, destroys your body, and rends your soul. The life-altering news came to me just before the Holidays. As the divine that is nature has its own style, not beholden to the whims of us mere mortals, The Goddess, or whatever you choose to call it, gave the test first and the lesson later. I failed the test but learned the lesson.
I’m not telling you this for sympathy; I’m all better now, due, in large part, to the support I received from my friends, both online and in real life. I shall be forever thankful to all of you, and I’ll probably never find the proper words of gratitude. I’m telling you this because if I hadn’t gone through it, I’d probably have never gained the personal fortitude to confess my actions in context.
I’m not the first, nor shall I be the last person to deal with the “Big-C.” Unlike them, who stood strong against the horror and kept their morale up, I fell to miserable, little pieces. Anyone that knows me will agree that I’d probably been headed, full speed, toward a mental break. I didn’t just have an emotional fracture, my soul shattered.
Around others, never once denying that I had good and bad moments, I tried to act cheery, nonplussed, and optimistic. I amplified my slutty, sexual demeanor; latched onto anyone that would give me the time of day, aggressively flirting; and I couldn’t stand to be alone. Having an idle second to myself was the absolute worst; that was when the dark demons of doubt came to gnaw at my heart. I alienated my husband and friends, annoyed those that didn’t run away screaming, and I made a complete and utter fool of myself. All of that was simply me begging, “please pay attention to me.”
The cancer was removed in a highly successful surgery, my surgeon calling it “baby cancer.” The only baby was me. I didn’t feel heroic or amazing, although everyone told me I was. All I did was worry and then lie there while the doctor did her work. I’m great at worrying, and even better in bed. I can sleep for hours! Despite a couple of later scares and a follow-up removal of some more junk in my body, I was physically fine.
Mentally, I was in anguish. Post-surgery, I was almost unable to move and was ordered to rest and do nothing for weeks. That’s when reality, in the form of introspection, crept into my psyche. I tried to stay mentally busy and chatted with everyone constantly, annoying them to no end. But the sad and bitter truth is that having cancer fucked up my head, and I was looking for diversions. It screwed up my emotions even more than they already were. I mulled over my life, especially my recent behavior, and realized that I’d lost my sense of identity. I was no longer certain of or confident about who I am.
Who am I? That’s the question that burns. Subjectively, I always viewed myself as the accursed woman of your every fantasy. I definitely play that part, and I play it well. I’m old enough to know exactly what I want and to strive for it without shame. I’ve escaped the clutches of time and gravity, looking, feeling, and acting half my age. I’m sexually wild and promiscuous, and I live a romance-novel life. As a saving grace, I’m blessed with just enough self-awareness to know how over the top I am and have just enough self-loathing to not take myself seriously.
If you want a sexy redhead with a fiery attitude who’s constantly horny and not only willing to try anything sexually, but who is the one that suggests it, then I’m your girl. If you want a woman that would rather watch Game of Thrones or Star Wars than The Notebook, guess who? I’m a horny geek that will drain you and still be wanting more. But, as a true, pagan child of nature, I am all things, both good and bad. Along with that insatiable sex drive and amicable personality, I am also dark, morose, and in constant need of validation.
Those five words, “please pay attention to me,” ruled every facet of my life. Sexual attention, especially when you’re an attractive redhead, is the easiest sort of attention to get. The epiphany that I’d structured my entire identity around my sexuality destroyed me a thousand times more than cancer could have. I am sex? Having weathered the slings and arrows of great misfortune, I found myself laid bare before me, and the mental fracturing was complete.
By inches and millimeters, I clawed my way out of the self-pitying pit of despair. Still, though, my behavior was forced. I found myself referring to the idea of me to dictate my responses and actions. “What would Krystal do,” governed my behavior, not my heart, mind, or soul. Devastation such as this can either define or destroy you. The aftermath did both for me. The constant, needy, sexual arousal that warms my core began to reemerge. At first, a trickle of desire, then a tiny flow of lust, and my entire core was eventually flooded with ocean-like depths of horny passion.
My surgeon, and I think she’s a sadist because of this, disallowed any sexual activity on my part for six weeks. That meant no making love, no sex, and no fucking. I wasn’t even allowed to suck off a hard cock, lest my internal sutures rip. Being unable to do something makes us crave it a hundred times more than choosing to not do it.
That left me in a mental quandary. I wasn’t happy with the way I’d conducted my life, and having faced the potential end of it really put things into perspective. However, my body was screaming for sex; my mind was solely focused on passion, and my eyes saw only things I could fuck, hump, and grind against until I exploded in orgasmic rapture.
Slowly, imperceptibly, as sexual desire slowly filled my essence, I saw the barest glimmer of that piece of myself that was cut away along with my cancer. In my youth, I quested to be normal, to see things as either/or, not all things at once. Craving acceptance, thus the mote root of my constant attention-seeking, I mirrored the attitudes of my peers to my folly. While six weeks of lying about, getting fat, and doing nothing may sound like a dream to some, for me, it was torture.
As my libido came back, on overdrive no less, the inability to quench those lusty fires only made them burn all the hotter. On top of that, my body grew weak from inactivity and my lithe, toned, sexy figure ballooned out with nearly twenty pounds of gained weight from being forced into a sedentary lifestyle. If at least some of it had expanded my too-small, not-quite C-cup breasts, I wouldn’t have minded so much. My taut stomach with that muscular line down the center became a tummy. Those slim, well-shaped pillars of lust that were my thighs became wide pipes of flab. I no longer looked or felt like myself.
Regardless, second by second, I grew into a shadow of my former self, albeit a larger shadow. My focus slowly changed from not trying to die to learning how to live once more. The realization that I am not just sex crept back into my mind. I am a business owner with lots of friends that appreciate me for more than my traffic-stopping ass. Well, at least they pretend to tolerate me when I’m around. Constricting myself to being only sex when I’m like nature—all things, all at once—was simply my own self-doubt being the last demon to be exorcised.
However, having been through the trials and tribulations of despair, I realized that it wasn’t that I doubted who I was; I was simply terrified to face my true nature. I knew what I had to do to reclaim my identity. Announcing it with all the fanfare and pageantry I could muster, I became determined to plunge myself off the cliffs of insanity and right into the lusty rocks of passion below. As soon as the last second of my surgeon-imposed sexual exile ticked off the clock, I was going to embark on a sexual journey of rediscovery and fuck and suck until I was fully myself once more.
Still uncertain if I could continue upon the path I’d blazed for myself, the first leg of my journey, my descent back into the world of horny debauchery, was walked alone. My friends were with me in spirit, of that I am certain. It’s impossible to keep yourself down when everyone around you is lifting you up and cheering you on. Regardless, I was faced with the choice of either embracing my true nature or eschewing it. I tried denying myself in my past and spent decades in misery; I’d had enough despair to last a lifetime.
The night before, the moon of the Spring Equinox growing to fullness, I conducted a sex ritual of sorts. My chest of sex toys, having been locked in case I was tempted to give in to the temptations of desire, was finally opened. Each and every toy, my dildos, my vibrators, my grinders, my anal toys, and my high-tech gadgets that synced to smart devices or live sounds, were lovingly cleaned and sanitized. My self-love accessories that had batteries were fully charged, causing a rolling blackout across my locale. Massaged to sleep by my loving husband, I awoke the next morning to sunshine, bird calls, and that sweetness in the air that only a nascent Spring brings.
Nude, I sat in bed, eating my breakfast that is always awaiting my awakening, and reading the supportive, thoughtful love note that always accompanies my morning repast. Heading to the bathroom, further delight washed over me. My husband had cleaned the entire house, paying special attention to the tub. Everything sparkled with cleanliness, and soft towels, some waterproof toys that I prefer, and a large jar of fresh rose petals had been set aside for my leisure. He’d even cleaned the stray strands out of my hairbrush.
Having taken the day off work, which I can do whenever I want because I'm the boss, I brushed out my hair, the soft, wavy curls of the previous day uncoiling into straightness, and decided to walk outside to finish my coffee. Nude, clad only by the sky, I traipsed through the mud, steaming mug in hand, and sat on the wooden bench of my gazebo.
The miracle of life filled my soul, birds dancing in the sky just for my pleasure. Clouds morphed into sexual imagery in my mind’s eye as I sipped my java and took a retrospective moment of meditation. I hadn’t beaten cancer; I lucked out, and it was discovered and hacked out of me, an ovary along with, it before it could destroy me. The months-long mental journey had sunk me into Hell, but I clawed my way back out. The only thing left was the lingering fear that I could no longer function sexually, the inability to be the person I so recently was.