She Blamed It on My PTSD Pt. 02

Copyright Catcher 22 all right's reserved.

Second in a series

https://literotica.com/s/she-blamed-it-on-my-ptsd

In part one a young married sailor returning early from pre-cruise (Carrier Qualifications for pilots) as part of an Attack Squadron (A-7B) aboard the USS Oriskany CV-34 to discovered his young wife getting fucked in their tiny duplex an affair of some duration. He banishes her and he attends college and finally meets another beautiful woman only to discover that he was the instrument of a woman's premarital fling. He is successful financially, but in no other way.

Just a note about PTSD generally and then specifically to the story. There is a part of everyone's brain called the Amygdala (A-mig-du-la) a small part of your brain that processes emotions, memories and learning. It also links to other brain areas that control fear, aggression, reward and social communication. People that have PTSD, have a misfiring Amygdala as if it is overloaded. The memories and their pain are ever present during conscious states as well as dreams. The pain of loss never abates. There is hope and the VA is using as treatment a therapy called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy treatment that is designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories. I can attest that is as close to miraculous as I'm likely to see. Simply the pain is gone. It is now standard use in many cases with Veteran's Administration.

The character's specific trauma relates to unrelenting physical abuse as a child, difficulties around his marriage and other relationships, homelessness and finally intense shame around his involvement with nuclear weapons. The character had not had any therapy that helped.

Comments on writing style: I am trying to evoke some stream of consciousness style for first person efforts. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey and Dharma Bums and On The Road both by Jack Kerouac. It's not an affect or bad editing per se, rather when people talk or think under stress it's not like a first grade primary book See dick cum. See cum on Jane's face. That said, I will try to execute better. Thanks for the helpful remarks and to the others thanks for reading.

Thanks Catcher78

Living in Boston was fruitful. My career flourished. I was not a recluse. I dated, if you could call hook ups with high end escorts taking to Christmas parties and restaurants, to avoid the gossip about being gay (I have queer friends so no homophobic slights meant).

More commonly massage therapists would come to my townhouse most weekends. I had two or three regulars who would make my tows curl. Late summer there was a small place on Cape Cod, where for two weeks, recently divorced woman (grandmother had the kids for a couple of weeks. If I was lucky the wife of a colleague who was cheating on his wife overseas. One gal especially liked being seeing on my arm in Hyannis at Spanky's Clam Shack.

She would wear a sun dress every night, commando and no bra. She would couples from the bank and she would delight in cuckolding her ass of a husband. The saloon had a little band and we'd go and dance and she'd dance with her friend's husbands and grind on them. We'd return to the cabin and she'd annihilate me, ride me until I was drained, then sit on my face until she could not take any more.

I quit that, because I felt that helping a woman cheat again, the same thing that had caused me such pain. But in that moment, it was the rare thing that caused my pain and despair to expiate. I whimsically said to her,

"If only my dick was a dildo, with feelings."

The last thing, she said to me was, "Oh honey, I'll get you married up with a perfect wife."

It was shortly after that that I moved my work overseas. Britain, was full of adult cheaters and other sexual deviants. The establishment kids were put into schools that by the time all of them were in the equivalent of our high school they were all bi-sexual and a lesser percentage were used to being caned and loved it.

It was early August and I woke up with that wonderful slept in until noon feeling you get when you're fifteen. I took a fairly long shower letting the too hot water scald me almost. I used this handheld palm held trimmer to run it through my hair. Non-electric trimmer and in ten minutes my hair was the same length it was when I was playing ball. That is to say short.

I put on some old ratty dirt bag sweatpants and even older high school, long sleeved shirt worn under the jersey. I laced up some red pro ked tennis shoes and walked towards the Pike Place market for a late breakfast lunch combo. I hate the word brunch, quirk I guess.

I was astounded to find that Lowell's was open. The last thing I'd done with my mom and brother that had passed was to go there the summer before she passed. He died fifteen months after her. Then we had fresh cantaloupe with vanilla ice cream where the seeds had been removed, oh and dark heavy roast coffee.

Today I had a Hang town fry, which was an oyster omelet with bacon and hash browns, double order of rye toast. Finally two orders of fried calamaries.

The waitress wrote down the order and looked at me and said, "Is someone joining you?"

I smiled at her and said, "Nope, just a homecoming of sorts. I have not been here since I was a sophomore in high school, last time I went anywhere with my mom and older brother. My grandmother Lola took me here when I was a squirt, she passed on July 4, 1963. Lots of coffee please."

She smiled and scurried away, I swear there was coffee in under two minutes. Old off white porcelain mug, with steaming dark coffee.

It was so hot, but I blew on it and took a drink. It was so damn good, dark with flavorful. People don't know how good coffee really tastes better.

She was back with a clear coffee pot, "More?".

I nodded yes and held the cup up.

'Set it down please, I don't want to burn your leg."

I did. When full I looked at her and said, "This is so fucking good," shaking my head in delight.

She said, "It sure as fuck is, you betcha, " with a twinkle in her eye walking away with a little sway in her giddyap.

There are maybe two million people of Scandinavian descent in and around Seattle.

"Ya sure, you betcha" is their anthem cry. Close to thirty years since I last heard it. I was part Norwegian and Finnish.

She came with my order balanced on her left arm. It was so steaming hot. I cut a piece of the oyster omelet and put it on a piece of the toast. When I put it in my mouth, I slowly chewed it and closed my eyes It was unbelievably good. For a second I sat there with my eyes closed.

"Are you ok?

I looked at her, my eyes opened and said, "This might be the best food in the world."

She said, "Honey, get to eating before it cools off."

I did. I finished the Omelet first. Then the calamari which had parsley and olive oil over the top of them.

She came by with coffee and I asked if they had peanut butter and marmalade.

She took off and was back with a cup full of peanut butter and some peach marmalade. I had most of the toast left and I spread it with the peanut butter with the marmalade on top. I savored the toast. No peanut butter in England. I was almost done and she sat down.

"Good?"

I rolled my eyes and said, "I've been away far too long. Best oysters in the world, squid. Sweet Jesus, I missed this. I flew from London, two days ago, didn't eat much the day before."

"Where'd you go to school?"

"Queen Anne High on the hilltop! Home of the Grizzlies."

She smiled and said, "I went to Blanchette, grew up in Ballard. My name is Carri-Anne, " stared into my soul with deep green eyes.

"I'm Teddy Benedict. "Umm, are there any good restaurants in Ballard, " my heart was pounding and I stared back into this so very real beautiful woman's eyes.

"My boys and I like Oaxaca Mexican food. Tom, Mark and Phillip are their names. Pick us up at six, " she handed me a slip of paper with her name and number.

"I'm a widow, cancer. Tom was his name, a good man, we still miss him, but it's been

over four years. Are you married?"

I shook my head no vigorously, "Caught her cheating, in my bed. Long term affair while I was out to sea in the Navy. I got close to one other person, but I was her pre-marital fling, except I didn't know. Made me feel dirty. One more question Carrie-Anne, okay?"

She nodded yes.

"You are without a doubt the most beautiful woman alive, what are you doing to me?"

"Do you like baseball," she took the conversation over taking me by surprise.

"I played four years college baseball at Long Beach State."

"Tom's a catcher, but he's struggling with hitting curveballs."

"That's easily fixable. Take me about ten minutes to teach and then some soft toss reps. I could come over at five, do you have a screen, or a nearby park?"

"Screen and five is fine. Wear jeans okay?"

She stood up to go and I stood up and I hugged her and she hugged back.

She patted my backside and said, "See you soon, hon."

I stood there until I heard some chuckles coming from the direction of the kitchen and started walking towards the entrance. I stopped and I could hear the hustle bustle of the vendors hawking salmon and fresh tomatoes from the other direction.

I felt like I'd just been run over by a freight train. Her face my God, green eyes, some freckles, red hair in a ponytail and her demeanor.

I had to go back to my hotel and change. I had to turn in the rental car and get something for five. I found a place in South Lake Union, where I could buy a mitt and some baseballs. I didn't really know if we're talking little league, babe ruth or high school or all three. Well I'd have to adjust.

Growing up we were dead poor, my mom did not work, dad tried to sell insurance to virtually everyone the city of Seattle and was mostly a failure. Two grandmothers injected money plus my maternal grandmother, built B-17s at Boeing. She lived with us before she passed, but we got her surplus card. There were stores, where you could giant bags of puffed rice and puffed wheat, that were eight or nine years old. Mystery meat in a tin, that was purple. My dad said it was mutton. In contrast Spam was pink and good fried. This stuff not so much. Mom would put it through a meat grinder and add some hamburger and uncooked oatmeal. It kind of smelled like old roadkill to us boys, back of the mouth gag inducing taste.

Where did that come from? In my room finally and the phone rang and the front desk was saying there was guy waiting with a Ford Bronco to swap out with my Toyota Camry. After I swapped car keys and showed the guy where the Camry was parked and he pointed out the Bronco, I asked the concierge if there were available computers and there was a business center. I accessed my Hotmail account. There was an email from the realtor in Boston, four potential sales.. I responded, best cash offer.!!!

I had begun trying to work with mindfulness stuff that you could get from an online from San Diego State university. It was supposed to center me through breathing techniques to eliminate pain. It helped me to focus for running and workouts. I had waking awareness, constant awareness of a never ending grief over the deaths I went through, homelessness and my cheating ex-wife. Before the shit happened, her love, not just physical love, but her affection was the best time of my life really.

Now this woman sits down and looks at me and I felt safe and lost in her eyes and I felt vulnerable and exposed and I wanted to feel that way. I had to do this and hope something was finally going to happen that was good for me.

Mostly my life has been juggling market risk, with deals and political reality, twenty four seven. Using inside knowledge, political and business intelligence to protect the firm's clients. In the US, there could be no record of inside knowledge, yet at all times I encountered it, there could be no overt trail from it towards a deal. No outgoing emails or texts or phone calls. Hence the trashing of the hard drives and surreptitious exit home.

Work kept me away from dealing with the shitstorm my life was in my teenage and early twenties that never seemed to leave..

I showered again, black Levis another dirt bag tee shirt. Went to the Athletic Supply store and got the baseballs two new A-2000 catcher's mitts and two more A-2000 fielder's mitts by Wilson and headed out to meet everyone.

She lived on right by Larsen's Danish bakery on twenty fourth Northwest and eightieth. It was an early 1900s brick home, two stories with a gabled roof and a basement. Counting the two stories twenty two hundred square feet, with another one thousand in the unfinished basement. Cozy yard with a little turtle batting cage and a pitcher's screen.

"One of the hardest things to understand as you advance through baseball as a hitter is to know where to look to for the baseball. See ball, hit ball as a theory of hitting sounds, simple, even silly to some. Pete Rose, said that. Bill Lee more credibly said be the ball which gets you back to Zen."

"If it's a right handed pitcher your eyes should Zen like focus above the right shoulder, never blink nor allow any thoughts to come into your head."

I was talking to Tom, Mark and Phil aged sixteen, fifteen and thirteen. Tom and Mark were at least six foot two and what my momma would call lanky. Phil was five foot nine, built like a tank and hugely athletic. All catchers, so I needed to get another mitt.

I stood copying the positioning of a pitcher about to release his pitch with his front foot down the bump, his mitt out in front thumb up, elbow tucked, pitching hand above his shoulder.

"You have to have loaded your hands and gone backwards to go forward. Your front foot is down and you're hitting against that front foot. Head is centered above your nuts. Personally I would suggest your hands are about nipple high and your bat barrel bumping your triceps. Take your hands right at the ball and the barrel will find the ball."

"If you lose the ball visually, it's a fastball, four seam or two seam it doesn't matter. Slider, curve ball, splitter all will pop up out of the guy's hands and you'll see it immediately. If you stride late you're in trouble, because you won't see the ball.

"Boys! Come wash your hands, it's time to go."

She was standing on the porch and her hair was in a loose bun. Hoop earrings and crimson lipstick. She had a bright white, vee neck sweater, that might have been a few sizes too small, those were all natural works of wonder jiggled with every breeze and breath. I was dumbfounded and physically reacting from my breathing to my crotch filling up my right leg in my jeans.

"Teddy, come on, you too. Wash your hands, got to set a good example for the boys, "she turned and her ass is really big and jiggled with each step, "come on, shake a leg baby."

I trotted to the porch and as I came into the kitchen she wrapped one hand around my waste and guided me to the kitchen sink and turned on the water. I could not think straight and was breathing heavy. She grabbed the dish washing liquid and set it on the edge of the sink, then turned on the water. My focus was on her face.

"Carrie-Anne, umm I am out of control and feel like I'm free falling. It's been hours and I'm, I'm, you know me. You smell so good, Jesus, don't...I'd die if, we don't..."

She was drying my hands with a dish towel and I just closed my eyes.

"You're safe baby you've stole home, finally. I told the boys that you were the one. Tom said, when they came in that you did good mom. I felt when I was feeding you the food today that your were close to home but had been lost for so long. Give me a hug honey!"

We hugged and then she kissed me, her lips soft but electric on my lips.

"This food is fantastic tonight, let's get a hop on!"

End Part II

Next Carrie-Anne meets the bitch