Blown Away

His battalion commander saw him and his beautiful wife almost as soon as they walked in and he left his office to greet them and welcome him home.

"I'm so glad to see you back, Kyle," the lieutenant colonel told him. "I'm sure Kayleigh's even happier than I am—for very different reasons."

Kayleigh would have normally laughed and made some kind of off-color remark, but this time she smiled a kind of wry smile and didn't say a word. Kyle laughed politely and thanked his commanding officer for all of his support.

"Just let me know if I can do anything at all," the commander said. "We'll be awarding your purple heart once your unit is back, Lt. Randall. Same for your young driver who's now learning to use an artificial leg. By comparison you made it through the blast relatively unscathed, right?"

Kayleigh glowered at him which really took the man aback while Kyle manned up and said, "Yes, sir. Lucky me," in a cheerful tone of voice.

His commander clapped him on the shoulder and reiterated his willingness to help out in any way. Kyle couldn't help but think, "Can I borrow your dick a couple of times a week, sir?" as he thanked him again.

He filed his travel claim then walked down to the 'Alpha Company' office and saw his good buddy, Jeff, sitting at his desk.

"Don't you ever take a day off?" Kyle said when he saw him.

"Hey, man!" Jeff said almost jumping up from behind his desk. He gave his best friend a genuine hug of thanksgiving and said, "Jesus. It's good to see you, dude! How's everything? You doin' okay? Can you sit down and talk?"

Kayleigh nodded but Kyle knew she didn't want to stay long or so much as mention their 'problem.'

"Yeah, sure," Kyle said.

"So all we heard was you took a piece of shrapnel. Is it true you took it...up the ass?"

Jeff smiled and laughed but Kayleigh gave him a look of death just like she had the battalion commander. Kyle laughed just to ease the tension.

"Yep. Right up the old poop shoot," he said knowing it really would have been funny had there not been any other damage.

"I'd say 'shit' but...or butt...however, neither one of those would be very funny, would they?"

"Kyle? We should be going," Kayleigh said with a strong hint of annoyance in her voice.

"Oh, sure. Um...Jeff, we've got a lot of stuff to take care of. I just wanted to stop in and see who was here."

"Well, I'm glad you did. It's great seeing you. You too, Kayleigh," he told her.

He thought about saying something humorous where 'seeing her' was involved, but Jeff could tell something was really bothering her and didn't want to risk getting another icy stare—or worse.

Kyle shook hands with his friend as he stood up then said, "Go home. Take some time off."

"I would if I had a beautiful wife to go home to like you do, bro," Jeff said making sure to smile at Kayleigh. She not only didn't smile back she just bored a hole into him with those pretty blue eyes of hers. Jeff cleared his throat then wished them both well.

In the car Kyle said, "I know things are strained right now, but did you have to be like that with Jeff or the battalion commander? For Christ's sake, K. Can't you at least be civil?"

That was probably the closest thing they'd ever had to a fight and Kyle felt awful as soon as he said it. He looked over and saw Kayleigh tearing up.

"Oh, God. I'm so sorry, honey," he said. He reached over to wipe away her tear and when she pulled away from him it hurt him to the core.

Not sure what to do or say, Kyle put the car in gear and headed home. Neither of them said a word the entire way.

When Kyle parked the car he finally looked over at Kayleigh and asked her, "What can I do? How can I make this better?"

His beautiful wife just shook her head before saying quietly. "Nothing. There's nothing you can do. Absolutely nothing."

She paused then said quietly, "And that's the problem."

The rest of the day also passed in silence as they realized there might never be any sex again, and it didn't take a genius to figure out why Kayleigh was so upset. It didn't matter that none of this was Kyle's fault. All that mattered was that his amazing, loving wife had needs he could no longer meet, and that realization was killing him. And yet short of some sort of medical miracle, what could he do to help her meet them? If oral and digital stimulation weren't enough... That thought was even more frightening.

Kyle was almost afraid of going to bed with his wife for the first time ever. She'd just finished brushing her teeth and her hair when he went into the bathroom to pee. She didn't even look at him as he stood next to her but she did finally speak.

"It's interesting that everything works when it comes to peeing, but doesn't when it comes to...you know."

Relieved just to hear her voice Kyle said, "It's all about nerve endings, honey. There aren't any involved when it comes to urinating. But getting the big guy to fill with blood when needed is a very different situation."

He knew she knew all of that as a registered nurse, he just felt like he had to say something.

He shook Mr. Happy a couple of times then flushed the toilet. As he washed his hands in the other sink, Kayleigh put her toothbrush up then went behind Kyle and put her arms around him.

"I'm sorry for being such a bitch today. I'm just struggling with this so much."

Kyle went to speak but she cut him off.

"I know how childish and immature it is and that just makes it all the more difficult. I didn't get hurt. I wasn't in a vehicle that got blown up. One of my soldiers didn't lose a leg."

Kyle smiled wryly and said, "Um...he kinda did."

When Kayleigh realized he was referring to his 'third leg' she laughed for the first time all day.

"Okay. Touché," she said. "I just wanted to apologize and tell you how much I love you. I...I don't know what else to say, but please forgive me for..."

Kyle turned around and put his arms around his wife.

"You don't have to say anything, and you don't owe me an apology. We're both being affected by this and it...it kills me to know you're hurting and even worse to admit I have no idea what to do."

"I know," she said. "I can only imagine how you feel. We have this really great sex life when so many of our friends talk about theirs being bland or non-existent after just a few years of being married. I couldn't even imagine what that would be like."

"And now you're living through something ever worse," he said with genuine understanding. He put his hand on her face and told her, "I'd do anything to change this. You know that, right?"

Kayleigh snuggled up next to him and Kyle asked if she wanted to fool around like they had before and she quietly said, "That's fine. We can just lay here like this tonight if that's okay."

Kyle wanted to tell her he knew that wasn't okay for her, but then again, what more could he do? Instead, he pulled her head onto his chest and just held her.

"Honey?" she said just above a whisper. "What if it never gets better?"

Kayleigh had just said out loud what he'd been thinking since he first learned about what happened to him, and he still had no answer.

"I honestly don't know, baby," he told her. "I wish I had something comforting to say but I just don't."

"That's okay," she replied softly as her fingers played with the little tuft of hair in the middle of his muscled chest. "I...I love you no matter what."

Initially, the only possible solution Kyle could come up with was a hand-held device. The word 'dildo' was so stupid-sounding he had a hard time even saying it. Kayleigh could use her vibrator and he could manually provide the 'filling' sensation she craved. Once she stopped crying he pitched the idea to her.

"You'd do that?" she said grateful for his willingness to try.

"Yeah. Sure. Of course I would. I...I just hope it'll be enough," he said almost wistfully.

"It will be," Kayleigh said trying to sound confident. She didn't say it out loud, but she thinking, "It will be because it'll have to be."

And for a couple of months it was enough. Kyle would use all of his other body parts the way he always had to give his wife a first orgasm and then he would lay beside her with his face over hers as he 'fucked' her with the um...device.

As long as she could convince herself that was satisfactory, it worked reasonably well. But as Kayleigh soon knew, and as Kyle suspected, in the long run there simply wasn't a substitute for the real thing.

Shortly after that realization hit her, Kayleigh feigned being too tired for the first time ever. The next time, she lied again and told Kyle she had a headache.

His suspicions were on high alert, but he accepted her excuses until the third time when she broke down again and cried so hard it scared him.

It took her a long time to stop, and when she finally died, she was very shaky in his arms.

"Honey, I'm so, so sorry. I just don't know what else to do."

"Yeah. Me, either, Kayleigh. Me, either," he said as he held her.

The next few weeks were the worst of their marriage as they tried to adapt to what was fast becoming their 'new normal'—a sexless marriage for both of them. Kyle was back at work and Jeff was the first to notice something was off.

He invited Kyle to have lunch with him at the Post Officer's Club and the two first lieutenants found a quiet table in an isolated area.

"So what's going on, dude?" Jeff asked point blank. "I know how good you are and since we got back from Afghanistan, your performance is off. I don't know who else has noticed, but I have and I know you have to be aware of it. So...what's up?"

Kyle shook his head and said, "I can't talk about this."

"Whoa! Is it that personal?"

"Oh, yeah. You have no idea how personal."

"Is it...Kayleigh? Is she..."

"What? Fooling around? No way!"

"Then...what the fuck is going on?" Jeff asked more directly.

"What the fuck. Now that's funny," Kyle said sarcastically.

"Why? What's so funny about that?"

"That's what I can't talk about," Kyle told him. "It's just too...fucking personal."

He smiled wryly when he said it then took a bite of the sandwich he'd ordered for lunch.

"Okay. If you say so. I'm the company XO but I'm not your boss. I am however, your friend, and if you ever feel like talking about this, well, my door is always open."

"Thanks, Jeff. I just don't see myself ever discussing this with anyone," Kyle replied.

Jeff sat there and stared at his friend then said, "You can tell me to fuck off—and you probably will—but does this have anything to do with your um...love life?"

"Fuck off," Kyle said immediately. He wasn't being mean about it, he just didn't want to discuss it.

"I just realized where you took that piece of shrapnel, and the fact that you won't talk to me about it after we talked about every fucking thing under the sun down range tells me I'm onto something," Jeff mused.

"Then get the fuck off it, soldier," Kyle spat back.

"That's it, isn't it? Jesus, dude. Listen. You know I won't say a word to anyone and I mean anyone. Okay?"

Kyle raised his eyebrows but didn't speak.

"If that's it, I get it. I can only imagine how difficult this would be to deal with let alone tell someone else about."

Kyle snorted, took a bite of the pickle that came with the sandwich, crunched it a couple of times then said, "At least you said 'difficult' instead of 'hard'."

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! That is it, isn't it? Jesus fuck. I...I don't know what to say."

"That's why I didn't want to talk about it. There's nothing to say. We've seen the best docs at the hospital, and now it's a waiting game. I may or may not ever regain use of my um...tool."

"But it is possible, right?" Jeff asked.

"Yeah, sure. It's possible. The nerve endings could regenerate and I could regain partial or even full use, but what might happen months or even years from now does nothing for us today."

"Mind if I ask how Kayleigh's dealing with it?"

"Fuck off," Kyle said again although not as seriously this time. "About like you'd think. It's pretty much tearing us both apart. I can almost live with my end of this, but not being able to...deliver for my wife...that's killing me."

"Thanks for trusting me enough to share all that. I swear to God I won't breathe a word of this to anyone."

"Good thing because I swear to God I'd kill you myself if you did," Kyle told him only half joking.

"Lunch is on me today," Jeff said as they headed out.

"That's okay. Only my dick is broke," Kyle quipped as he paid for his own meal.

As with Jeff, it didn't take Kayleigh long that evening to realize something was bothering her husband. They were still speaking and doing so civilly, but there was a constant, unspoken tension between them.

"What's going on, Kyle?" she finally asked just before bedtime.

He was staring out into space and it took a few seconds for her words to register.

"Huh? Oh, sorry. Nothing. Everything's okay."

"No, everything isn't okay and we both know that. But we're at least talking to each other. So please don't shut me out."

Kyle drew a deep breath then exhaled slowly.

"I had lunch with Jeff today at the club."

"Okay. And...?"

"I um...I kind of blew it," Kyle said quietly as he turned toward her. "Jeff knew something was wrong and..."

"You told him? Oh, my God! Kyle! How could you?" she said, her voice getting louder with each word.

"Jeff won't talk to anyone about it. You know that."

Kayleigh wanted to be furious, but she knew Kyle was right. Jeff could keep a secret like no one else. Her need to be angry stemmed from the deeper issue, not from Kyle having shared their deepest, darkest secret with someone else.

"You're right," Kayleigh said after churning the new information over for a few seconds. "I'd trust Jeff with my life."

"I have," Kyle said. He smiled then added, "Literally. And more than once."

"How about you, honey? Have you talked to anyone at all? Your mom? Your sister?" he asked.

"No, not in so many words. I did let my mom know your um...war injury...was causing some problems."

"That's an understatement," he said with a wry smile.

He sat next to her and pulled her head onto his shoulder.

"Honey? Tell me something honestly, okay? No matter how much you think it might hurt, tell me the truth."

"Okay," she said quietly.

"Promise me," Kyle told her.

She looked up then said, "I promise."

"If this never does get better, will you stay with me?"

Kayleigh had somehow stuffed all of the potential future consequences somewhere deep inside her and vowed to never give them room to rear their ugly head. And now her husband was dredging them up and forcing her to confront her greatest fears.

"I...I don't know," she said sullenly. "I do love you. I love you very much. You know that, right?" she said, her eyes open wide.

"Yes. I do know that. And you know I love you, too."

He didn't wait for her to acknowledge that she did, he just kept speaking.

"But sometimes love isn't enough," he said.

"Kyle, don't talk like that," she said holding him close.

"It has to be said. We're both thinking it, so it's time to say it out loud. Love is one thing. But you didn't sign up to be a nun, honey. You're young, healthy, and freakin' gorgeous. You not only deserve more, you need more."

Kayleigh went to interrupt but Kyle stopped her.

"It's completely unreasonable to expect you to be faithful to me forever if I can't satisfy you. And the truth is...I can't. I'm not whining, okay? But I feel like shit knowing I can't. Things were so great with us before and now...well, this is killing us both for very different reasons. It's a slow, painful death, but it is killing us."

"So...so are you saying you want me to leave you?" Kayleigh said, her voice choked with emotion.

"No. No, of course not. I would never ask you to leave me. I'm just acknowledging the truth. The very real, very painful truth."

Kyle exhaled then said, "I'm not only physically impotent, I feel mentally impotent because I can't come up with any way to solve this problem. I think it about it pretty much every waking moment, and I'm no closer now than I was the day it happened."

"Me, too," she said sweetly. "There just isn't a solution."

They set there in silence just holding one another for quite some time before Kyle finally spoke again.

"You know what? Maybe there is. Not a 100% solution, but I want to run something by you."

"Okay," Kayleigh said with hope in her voice.

"I just need a little time to think this through. It just sort of came to me, and I need to work it out in my own mind first."

"Can you at least give me a hint?" she asked desperate for any positive information.

"I need to talk to Jeff," he told her.

"Jeff? How will talking to him help?" she asked now thoroughly confused.

"It might not," Kyle told her. "Then again, it may just be the best option we have."

Kayleigh was every bit as intuitive as her husband and when she thought she understood where he was going she had to chime in.

"Um...are you thinking about some kind of, you know...surrogacy?"

"Surrogacy?" Kyle said when he realized she'd figured it out. "I guess that's an acceptable term for it."

"It sounds nicer than 'cuckolding'," Kayleigh said. "Honey, you can't be serious. I mean, that's insane!"

"No, what's insane is asking you to live without sex for God knows how long if not for the rest of your life. And I can't think of a better, safer, nicer guy than Jeff Walker. Can you?"

Kayleigh shook her head but not because she agreed for the same reason.

"I'm not sleeping with Jeff. Or anyone else in the Army for that matter. Can you imagine if word got around around the battalion? Kyle, please. You're the smartest man I know. So...think!"

She realized she'd come on too strong and immediately apologized.

"Honey? I'm sorry. I know you're only trying to help, but you have a career to think about, too. So thank you for thinking about me, but...that just isn't happening."

"No, you're right. I...I don't know what I was thinking," Kyle said. "And honestly? I'm a little relieved. As much as I like Jeff, I'm not sure I could handle...you know."

Kayleigh put her arms around him and said, "You can't shit in your mess kit, right?"

She really had learned about the Army and she proved it by throwing one of his favorite sayings back at him. Involving another soldier—a fellow officer no less—would indeed be biting the hand that fed him making a bad situation far worse.

"Good point. Guess I'll have to find some stranger to bring home," he said trying to lighten the mood.

"Well, that would give new meaning to the term 'strange', wouldn't it?" Kayleigh said trying not to laugh until she could gauge her husband's reaction.

He smiled and then for the first time in quite a while both of them laughed. It was a real, genuine laugh and it felt so good.

"Come on, I'll let you diddle me," Kayleigh said as she took his hand and led him to the bedroom.

Perhaps it was cutting through the heavy blanket of constant tension, but she had a pretty amazing orgasm considering there was no um...main course.

"That was really nice," she said after her body stopped trembling.

"Nice. I guess 'nice' is about as good as it's gonna get for the foreseeable future," he told her.

"Hey, come on! We're still in this together, right?" she said as she rolled over on top.

"We are," he told her. "When I said 'til death do us part, I meant it. I just didn't realize there was more than one kind of death."

"Don't say that, honey," she told him. "We'll get through this. Together. I promise," she said before kissing him goodnight.

As the days wore on, and there was absolutely no response 'down south' Kyle became more and more depressed. His performance at work was falling off and one Friday afternoon his company commander asked him to come see him to discuss his next formal evaluation.