Letting Him Stay
It had been nine months. Not since the divorce was finalized, she hated that she’d memorized that date, but since anyone had touched her without calculation.
The men before had all felt like negotiations. Even her ex. Especially him. Sex had been something to endure, to schedule, to clean up after. She remembered the last time with him not because it was significant, but because she’d reached for her phone mid-way through, just to see if her sister had texted back.
This man was someone she’d met through a friend. Not a setup. Just one of those incidental introductions over coffee. She’d barely noticed him at first. But there was something about the way he watched her. Not greedy, not eager. Curious. Like she was a book he didn’t expect to like but couldn’t stop reading.
The first time he touched her, it wasn’t at all how she imagined. They were on her couch. A movie was playing, something neither of them cared about. She was mid-sentence when his hand rested on her leg. Light, without insistence.
She didn’t flinch. Not immediately.
But something inside her locked up. A tiny breath held too long. Not because she didn’t want him to. But because it had been so long since someone touched her without need. Without expectation. Without selfishness.
He didn’t move his hand. Didn’t squeeze or trace circles or escalate. He just left it there, warm, waiting.
That, somehow, was worse.
Because now she had to decide.
She moved. Not away. Just to test herself. To see if her body would remember something that didn’t feel like failure.
It did.
But her mind didn’t.
He leaned in an hour later, not aggressively, just enough for her to smell him. Nothing cologne-heavy. Something cotton and manly and sleep. When he kissed her, it wasn’t soft. It wasn’t rough. It just… was. The kind of kiss that didn’t ask for response, only recognition.
And she froze.
Not visibly. She kept kissing him. But inside, something rigid and cold said, don’t believe this.
He pulled back. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. Then said “No.”
That surprised both of them.
He didn’t push. Didn’t ask what was wrong. Just nodded once and sat back. She turned off the movie. He reached for his coat.
“You don’t have to leave,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “But I want to.”
That night she lay in bed and hated herself for not letting it happen. And hated herself more for wanting it to.
He texted the next morning. Just a sentence: I meant it. Not leaving because of you. Just trying to do it right.
She read it ten times.
That weekend, she invited him back.
She was ready, she thought. She wore her old perfume. Cleaned her bathroom. Lit candles she used to reserve for company. But when he kissed her again, when they finally moved to the bed, something inside her twisted. Not fear. Not guilt.
Grief.
She didn’t expect that.
He touched her stomach. That’s when she started crying. Not sobbing. Just a single tear, then two, before her body shook. He pulled back immediately, sat up.
“Say the word,” he said, not touching her. “Anything.”
“Don’t go,” she said.
He stayed. Fully clothed. Back against the headboard. She pressed against him like she used to with her ex before things soured. She didn’t speak for a long time.
He didn’t either.
When she finally undressed, it wasn’t ceremony. It was tired. Slow. Necessary. She didn’t seduce. She allowed. And he followed. Mouth on her breast. Hand on her thigh. A silence between them that felt almost easy, not because of what they were doing, but because of what they weren’t faking.
She didn’t climax.
She didn’t even ask him to.
She just lay back, legs open, his hand in hers, letting her body remember that this was possible.
Not love.
Not forever.
Just something that didn’t need to be survived.