Confession by Heather

I hardly recognized the face that stared back at me when I looked in the mirror. On some level I was aware that it was my own reflection, but the dark circles under my eyes combined with the lifeless eyes were features I did not recognize. My hair had gotten thinner, I tried to brush a strain of hair away, but it kept falling back into its place.

I needed cold water. I needed to turn this nightmare around. I reached for the tap when I suddenly noticed how different my hands looked. Once upon a time my hands were slender, the skin had been smooth. He told me so. He had said they felt like silk. I saw nothing but wrinkles now. My hands wouldn't stop shaking. On the backside of my hands and arms dark spots had appeared. Aging spots. I despised them.

I looked back at the door. I had to go there eventually, but I wasn't ready. I needed to remember. I needed to feel him. I needed to hear him. I needed him. Without him, I didn't want to exist. He was my whole life.

I couldn't stop staring at my hands. The hands that once were strong enough to make a grown man sink to his knees, as my fingers had a firm grab on his hair. I remembered the look in his eyes, every time he got to kneel by my feet. It was a look of pure pleasure. I closed my eyes and reached out for his face. I wanted to feel him one more time. I wanted to slap that devilish grin of his face, only to have it replaced by a look of pure lust.

 But at 76, my hands wouldn't work with me anymore. At 63 his knees wouldn't work anymore. So when he dropped to the floor, I knew something was wrong.

I looked at the door again, my heart pounding in my chest. I reached for the handle and sighed heavily. I couldn't stand seeing him lay there, with the tube down his throat. I felt angry, that shouldn't be a tube, the only thing stuck in his mouth should be a gag, to shut him up once in a while.

They had gone over it with me a thousand times. There was no other way. It had been three months. It was time. He had gotten old. His once curvy black hair had turned white. He looked so helpless. I wanted to slap him and shout at him, but he wasn't there anymore. There was nothing but an empty shell, or so they kept telling me.

I leaned over and kissed his lips once more before whispering in his ear, "I release you, my boy." As the heart-rate monitor flat lined I wondered where the hell my safe-word was.