You can read a transcript of our interview by clicking the icon that looks like a page with writing on it, to the left of the closed captions.

Follow Jazmine on her Substack newsletter, Living Room, and at @jazmine.becerra.green on Instagram.

Read Jazmine’s essay on domestic abuse, “How to Shatter a Marriage,” here:

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At the veterinary hospital, I learn how to be your mother. All around it is hot and July, and the air bends and thickens; the white vets’ office is glowing. How strange, this square building at the edge of town. How odd to think it’ll heal you.

Both of us have had a myriad of health scares in the past couple of years. Last February, I discovered a cyst in my ovaries. It made my period irregular for months; every pair of underwear was spotted with blood. To combat the pain, I downed ibuprofen, and in time, I healed.

In June, the cyst on your thigh was found to be malignant. You got surgery, and for weeks, you wore a cone around your head to prevent you from gnawing at the stitchwork. The cone was obtrusive; I watched you struggle up the stairs. In time, you stopped eating.

Pulling into the lot, I tell you to “be good.” I don’t expect you to understand. If that were possible then we would have been spared several chaotic evening walks. My father might not have had to go to court and account for your misbehavior—secret rage. Part of me wants you to understand the grief you’ve given me, if only to make your life easier.

So I say, “Be good,” and you stare back, round-eyed, peeking from behind overgrown curls. Wagging your tail, you look like you are smiling, and I’m suddenly overcome with love for you.

It’s true; you are good. In the waiting room, you weave between my legs and sit. You don’t bark at the wrinkly, presumptuous pug side-eyeing you. Finally, the ponytailed nurse with the large rectangular glasses calls us in. You look at me before we go; I think my mother will be very proud of you.

I don’t remember what the fight was about, but even then, I don’t think it mattered.

7:50 in the morning in early February, and we were pouring coffee in silence. Actually, I was pouring coffee; my mother was cutting back on her caffeine consumption, stirring a hot matcha. My father was still asleep on the couch, arm hanging over the side. My brother had left for school. The dogs were outside; I could hear you chasing each other through the frosted grass.

My mother and I brushed shoulders. We refused to apologize.

I’ve always been told that my mother and I look the same, but I never saw it until I became a woman. As a baby, I looked more like my father—round-faced, serious expression. Now I have long hair with hidden whites, like hers. The skin on my fingers is raw from picking, like hers. When we are angry, like we were then, our brows furrow in the same way.

In the car, the silent treatment persisted. I usually enjoyed our shared commute; it was the only time of day we were actually alone together. We liked discussing our upcoming workdays and angst over the political climate. This particular morning, however, we listened to the radio, hosting a sort-of-famous podcast. I didn’t care for it, but I also couldn’t change it, as that would’ve required me to move.

Looking out the window, I wondered if this was the most distant my mother and I had ever been. When I was a child, and older people told me that my young adult years were for fighting with her, I chose not to believe it. I was content to think that I’d run into her arms, crawl into her bed, and ask to be spooned for the rest of my life. Suddenly I was nineteen and found this unthinkable.

The car stopped at a red light. The woman on the radio laughed.

“As a mom,” she told her cohost, “I think we ought to leave our children be. Don’t do everything for them, you know? Let them figure it out for themselves.”

I stared at the bold lettering at the front of a CVS. My mother cleared her throat.

Asked, “Do you think that’s true?”

“I don’t know.”

We arrived at my workplace, a Catholic prep school. I left the car, entered the cold.

Underneath a portrait of the Virgin Mary, I scrolled around an empty Google document and wondered if I was being unfair. I knew, at that moment, my mother was sitting at her own desk at the local college, where she would be working for eight hours. Then she’d come home and scarf down reheated rice before driving to my grandmother’s rehab center. There, she’d sit by the blue hospital bed, occasionally grabbing yogurt or helping her own mother to the toilet. Sometimes I forget how many things she takes care of. And yet, completely aware of this fact, I was still angry. I wanted to be angry forever.

We ended up apologizing later that evening, in the car. My mother told me that she hated it when we fought, and she pulled me into her chest. I allowed it but didn’t reciprocate. Through the gaps in her arms, I looked up at our house.

You were waiting by the window.

The vets make you stand on a metal table, and you bow your head. It dips below your shoulder blades, which have grown more gaunt since the last time we were here. You look older and smaller, hiding behind yourself.

“She hasn’t been eating,” I say for the third time.

I wish you didn’t look so sad. You’re usually happy-faced; you have an energy I’ve only seen matched by toddlers. And like a human child, it gets you into trouble.

I remember being angry with you in August, on the corner of Highland Avenue. You had lost your mind, barking and pulling at your leash until the palms of my hands were burning. A man started yelling at me; I wanted to scream back at him, tell him you’d never bite. But how could I? You looked so cruel.

I scolded you that night, begged you, somehow, to control your rage. You were curled up at the end of my bed, nose tucked under your leg, and I realized you didn’t know why you were so angry.

Now, I forget ever being upset with you, and I want to tell the vets that you’ve never been this still. Secretly, you’re fiery, athletic. If you had it your way, you wouldn’t wear a leash; you’d take off and lunge down Parker Avenue, exhausting your legs completely. This version of you—emaciated, with your head down—isn’t real.

“She’s not usually like this. She hasn’t been eating.”

They nod and continue, running their hands over pink cysts, their fingers buried in curls. All I can do is stand at your side, rubbing your ears and the bridge of your nose, gently murmuring, “I love you, baby girl. I love you so much.”

The day after Valentine’s Day, I was rushed to NYU Langone Hospital, ten minutes from Bay Ridge. I laid on a wheeled bed with an IV in my arm, and around me, people were having the worst days of their lives. [1] N, my boyfriend, was there, sitting right next to a bin of urine-soaked towels, staring at a text thread titled “Scarlett Updates.”

“We r ready to come,” my mother had messaged him. “Just tell us when.”

I had been staying at his Brooklyn apartment for the past few days. I liked this place, stowed away, above the Citibank, because there, I pretended I was an adult. At the kitchen table, I drank white wine while N smoked on the roof. I took the R into Manhattan; a girlfriend of mine costumed an off-Broadway show. I had sex on a twin-sized mattress on the floor and fell asleep wearing nothing. I didn’t bother my mother.

Days had passed since the fight, and we were speaking pleasantly again. I texted her photos of the city from the view of the apartment window; she responded that they were beautiful. I knew that our rift wasn’t resolved, but my next semester was about to begin, and confrontation wasn’t worth it; the best course of action was to keep things surface-level until I left for Vermont. I couldn’t predict what was about to happen.

We don’t know what caused it. I felt normal in the morning. We had gotten breakfast at this lovely diner at the far end of the block, taken a stroll around the suburban neighborhood. Only after we’d gotten back to the apartment, my stomach began to seize, and within the hour, I was keeled over the bathroom toilet. Then, a missed train, a phone call, an assessment, an ambulance ride.

Leaning over the rim of my bed, knuckles dry, N asked, “Do you want me to tell them to come?” The family text thread was still open on this phone.

Truthfully, I didn’t want my parents there. I didn’t want them to see the IV injection site, or the bed, or the red in my face. Every emotional vulnerability inside of me had become tangible. The thought of my family witnessing these things made me want to pull my skin off.

I am not usually like this. I am secretly full of rage.

Then I looked at N, face wrought with worry, and I surrendered.

“You can call.”

Over the next hour, I received a CT scan, shed tears during an ultrasound. I was injected with an unknown dosage of morphine, and in my inebriated state, I thought of my mother.

She arrived at the hospital at 6:20, after fighting Jersey-NYC weekend traffic. Finally, I saw her, moving through the congested hallway, past the rolling beds and the urine towels. I saw her black hair with the silver strands, her rectangular glasses, and her hands, covered in cuts and scratch marks.

My mother was here, and I wasn’t worried anymore.

Suddenly I was not at the hospital. Instead, I was a kid, standing in her bedroom doorframe. The hallway light spilled in, and I could see half her face gently painted in it. Her glasses were folded on the side table. I told her I was scared. Drowsy and wordless, she moved over, and I crawled into the empty space, warmed by her body, and fell asleep to the sound of the cars.

We sat for hours, holding hands, while the doctor prepared my ultrasound results. We watched the racing nurses and listened to the sound of a small baby crying. Staring into the action, I thought of my grandmother’s rehab center, and I wondered if, for my mother, hospital settings had begun to feel routine. Then I was hit with a wave of nausea and vomited into a plastic bag.

Lifting my head, I told her I was scared. She nodded, running her roughed-up thumb over the back of my hand. She knew.

In the car, I wait for the vets to complete your X-ray. The operation is going to be expensive; we’ll be down $800 by the time it’s done. Still, the family agrees that it’s worth the loss. It’s for you, after all.

Reclined in the driver’s seat, I’m listening to a Libby recording of Watership Down. The book was an N recommendation; he appreciated the mastery of the storytelling, the timelessness of the prose. He gets angry with me whenever I refer to the rabbit characters as “cute.”

“It’s demeaning,” he says, folding his arms. I laugh and apologize for how I’ve offended them.

I’ve always loved animal stories; there’s something so universal about them. One of my first writing pieces was a picture book titled Nighttime Little Doggie, which followed a mother farm dog and her puppy, seeking out a comfortable place to sleep. It had a distinct rhythm. The mother would say:

“Nighttime little doggie, time to go to sleep.”

And the puppy would respond:

“Wait a second, Mommy, I want to sleep with sheep.” The two of them would then scurry to another corner of the barn, puppy in front, mother following, and the dialogue pattern would repeat in some slightly altered way.

I was seven when I wrote this book, and I didn’t think much of it. My parents, however, referenced it with frequency. They scanned the illustrations, formatted the whole thing on Adobe InDesign. “It’s funny,” my father told me, “You just wanted to write about dogs, I’m sure, but you actually started to write about motherhood.” I sat at the kitchen table and thought this over, scanning the printout of my book for hints of what he was talking about.

What is motherhood? Sure, it’s the act of keeping a child alive, but what more? I have never raised my own child, of course, but neither has the brand-new mother, wrapped in blankets, holding her peanut-sized baby for the very first time. What does she do?

Well, here are some things my own mother has taught me:

1. To mother is to give up bedspace.

2. To mother is to hold secret rage.

3. To mother is to forgive.

4. To mother is to care for your own mother.

5. To mother is to drive into Brooklyn so you can hold your daughter’s hand while she tells you she is sorry.

They release you from the X-ray 45 minutes later. Upon seeing you, I’m overcome with unconditional love, and soon I’m on my knees, in front of everyone in this tiny veterinary waiting room, holding you, loving you.

We arrived home from the Brooklyn hospital at 10 p.m., and the family dispersed into their different rooms, except my mother, who sat at the end of the couch where I slept. An ovarian cyst, the ultrasound revealed.

She gave me her sweatpants. On a wooden stool, she also left a glass of water, a sleeve of saltines, and a bottle of ibuprofen. These three gifts sat next to her folded glasses. Quietly, she murmured, “I love you.”

I said, “I love you too.” She went upstairs then.

The evening was cold. I could hear February against the window. Inside the living room, however, everything was orange, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see you.

My dying dog daughter. Gray curls, Oreo cookie eyes. Locally infamous for losing your mind. You, with the cysts on your body and fury in your heart, born from unknown places. Wet nose, dry paws, matted belly fur. My baby.

You approached me slowly; you knew there was something wrong. For a moment, we looked at each other’s faces and saw our shared bodily pain. And then you climbed up, cradled your curly self in the gaps of me. Your sick body next to my sick body. I held you like this for a very long time.

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Scarlett Sarang Choi is a Korean writer based in New Jersey. Her writing can be found in Make Noise Today’s “Letters To” exhibition, Syris the Zine, and Orion Literary. She is also one of three recipients of the 2026 Ben Belitt Undergraduate Writing Prize. Outside of writing, her album, “Liminal Space,” is on all streaming platforms, and she is the editor of the independent literary magazine, “Broken Record.”

When your face appeared on my laptop screen, I blinked. My mouth went dry. A LinkedIn notification showed that you visited my profile, even though we hadn’t spoken in more than twenty years.

Your last name had changed, but you didn’t look much different from how I remembered you in the photograph that hung on our refrigerator all those years ago. In the picture taken on my twenty-first birthday, you grinned as you fed me cake, a row of piercings lining your ear.

The shutter caught me faux-protesting, gently pushing against your arm, draped with a bracelet of wooden Buddhist beads. A child’s plastic barrette held wisps of newly cropped and dyed blond hair out of my eyes, which were framed by wild smudges of black eyeliner.

I wouldn’t have become the woman in the snapshot if we hadn’t been accidental roommates in college. You introduced me to punk shows, vegan restaurants, and Riot Grrrl zines. The only thing I remember offering you that semester was flashcards for our Brit Lit final.

More than two decades later, between back-to-back meetings at the PR firm where I spent nine-hour days talking clients down from unrealistic demands, I stared at the screen. Did you mean to click my name, or did your finger slip, forgetting that LinkedIn lists every profile viewer?

I typed your name into Google and learned you were married with two children, living a few towns away from the apartment we shared in our early twenties.

***

You had convinced me to move to New Jersey shortly after I graduated. “Come live with me. We’ll find an apartment near the train to New York,” you said when I bemoaned my life as a clothing store employee. I packed my things within weeks.

I needed to be close to you, believing proximity could make me more like you. Do you remember how, during Finals Week, when I was sad over some guy, you ran into the Boston Public Garden, ignored the “No Trespassing” signs, and plucked a yellow tulip, saying I deserved something pretty? I wished I could simply take action like that without always overthinking.

I had also hoped proximity to the city would bring big things: an editorial assistant job at a glossy magazine, enough money for rent and Chanel Vamp nail polish. Maybe I’d even date a hot guy in a band.

That summer, the air in the apartment swelled from blistering heat. We sought refuge in the living room under the window AC, napping together on the futon, limbs intertwined like kittens, or reading Anaïs Nin aloud, searching for clues on how to become women.

Other nights, we layered our lips with crimson and descended into darkened clubs. A circle of guys, acquaintances, gathered close. I watched them watching you as you tucked a tendril of your pixie-cut brown hair behind one ear, then smoothed the front of your plaid skirt. Their bodies shifted from stiff stances to softened figures, arching like willows down to your ear to say hello.

I wanted them to look at me that way. No matter how much weight I lost after college or how I tried to replicate your style, I couldn’t conjure your confidence, like how you winked at onlookers that night as if casting a spell.

You hated the attention; at least, that’s what you said. Maybe that’s why you reached for my waist, finding the space between my babydoll T-shirt and worn jeans, your fingers echoing the beat of the bass on my overheated skin. I wrapped my arms around you and melted into the reassuring warmth of your touch, which gave me a shot of courage. Knowing you were an arm’s length away, I could run off in dark corners and kiss guys whose names I’d never know.

For Christmas, you made me a journal with hand-painted pages and Nin quotes, telling me every writer needed one. I wasn’t a writer, but a waitress. The glossy magazine job never materialized, and the mailbox bulged with rejection letters. My mother suggested I take an admin job; you circled writing jobs in The Village Voice classifieds and left notes of assurance around the apartment.

Do you remember how we draped fairy lights on the porch, sharing clove cigarettes under the canopy of a giant maple? Between crackling drags, we mused about the future where we’d be middle-aged neighbors, babysitting each other’s children, and bringing the other leftovers for lunch.

No one had ever been that present in my life. On Saturday nights, you’d be waiting for me, curled up on the futon under dimmed lights, when I got home from work. “I can’t sleep when you’re not here,” you’d whisper.

My attraction to you terrified me. So did my fear of destroying the most important friendship I’d ever had. I took double shifts, hoping that avoidance would solve the problem.

You noticed, and asked me to spend time with you and your new boyfriend — a guy in a band.

“Come out with us. I miss you.”

“I can’t go on dates with you.”

“It’s not a date. We’re just hanging out with his friends. I feel more comfortable when you’re there. Pleeeeeease.”

Later that night, I sat on the edge of your bed. My heart raced as I looked past you.

“I’m in love with you. I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve been lying to you.”

Had you asked why I chose that night, I couldn’t have given you an answer. Today, I understand. I feared that you were becoming his, not mine.

“You’re terrible at hiding your feelings. I’ve known for a while,” you said, holding my gaze until I looked away first.

I exhaled with relief that you didn’t make it weird, and I could go on living without being crushed by embarrassment.

Then you kissed me. Just as quickly as your lips met mine, you pulled away. I don’t know what I expected. I assumed we’d talk it out like we did everything else and laugh about it years later. You weren’t supposed to kiss me.

“I love you. I need you in my life, but we don’t love each other the way you think we do,” you said with a steady voice while my hands shook.

The person I am today would have asked you why you kissed me. That night, I had run out of words. I stared at the pile of CDs on the floor, Tori Amos floating in a cloud of shards. How many times had we left the album on repeat for hours?

Maybe you said something important. All I could hear was music that wasn’t playing.

I ran up the narrow stairs to my attic bedroom and scribbled ramblings in the pages of the handmade journal until dawn.

We never talked about it again. Did it keep you up at night weeks later, as it did me?

A few months passed, and I found a job in New York City editing corporate press releases. It wasn’t the job I wanted, but I hoped it would lead to something better.

Work and commuting took up most of the day. With more space between us, we returned to a familiar rhythm: movies on the futon, basement shows, and occasionally you met me after work for veggie burgers on St. Mark’s Place. While people-watching punks with Manic Panic purple hair, you cackled about your weird coffee shop customers, and I dished about my office crush.

Except it hadn’t returned to the way it was before, had it?

Does the night I stood at the counter, chopping tomatoes for veggie chili, haunt you the same way it haunts me? You tucked your arms beneath my baggy overalls and hugged my waist. The intensity of your squeeze was as tender as it was cruel. Do you know your fingertips left invisible imprints on my skin, even years later?

“If you lose any more weight, I won’t have anything to hold onto,” you said as you raised your voice an octave, the way you did when you attempted to cloak any seriousness. You started to say something more. Stopped.

I wanted to ask what was on your mind. Instead, suffocating from the cloying smell of vanilla and hazelnut coffee syrup on your work shirt, I stared at the porch door, willing it to open and release a rush of air.

If you knew how much I needed your friendship and approval, would you have done anything differently?

A few years later, I shared this with a guy I was dating.

“Don’t you think your approval was as important to her?” he asked.

Back then, I never considered that you needed anything from me.

Maybe that’s why I left, transferring to the Boston office as soon as a position opened.

I wasn’t sure how to break the news. Instead of taking my place on the futon next to you, I retreated to the wicker chair, unable to make eye contact, and clutched a pillow to my waist.

Your face drained of color when I told you.

“How can you do this to me?” you asked, tugging at the beads around your wrist.

“I’ll visit. Help you find a new roommate. We’ll still go to shows together. I’m not leaving you, just moving.”

“I don’t want a new roommate. If you leave, we aren’t friends anymore.” Your voice cracked, then lowered into a sharp, accusing staccato.

Blood beat at my temples, drowning out whatever you said next.

“You’re selfish and deserve to be alone,” I said. I wasn’t sure where the words had come from, but in that moment, hurting you was my intention.

Neither of us spoke another word that night; instead, we withdrew to our rooms.

In those final weeks, doors creaked, shower knobs turned, and the refrigerator with our picture opened and closed. We remained silent.

***

After I left New Jersey, you disappeared from my life for two decades, until LinkedIn showed me you had found my profile. I wondered if I’d see a message pop up in the sidebar asking, “How are you?” Or if you would confess that over the years, you had thought of reaching out, but it never seemed like the right time.

That’s the answer I would have given had you asked. But neither of us ever messaged the other.

A few months later, after a breakup, increasing work demands, and too many afternoons crying in the office bathroom because I felt trapped in a career I never wanted, I quit my job to pursue freelance travel writing. My savings bought me a one-way ticket to Europe and a new journal. In a fit of anger years ago, I burned yours, but I never stopped writing or carrying a notebook with me everywhere I went. You taught me that.

Seeing your face on the screen didn’t cause me to quit. It reminded me how, during a summer so hot our dresses clung to our curves, I believed you could do anything, and you believed that about me.

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Kristin Amico is writing a memoir about finding the courage to quit a career she never wanted and backpack solo around the globe in her forties. Her work has appeared in Off Assignment, Sundog Lit, HuffPost, and The Toronto Star, among others. She spends her weekends offering typewriter poetry on the streets of New York and other cities. Find her at www.travelingtypewriterpoet.com.

My husband and I decided on our safe word.

Watermelon.

I shaved my legs, my pits, and my bits.

I waved goodbye to our three-year-old and my parents, who’d ferried over to babysit, texted our teen who was working at the froyo shop that we’d be out for a few hours. As we began to reverse out of our housing co-op driveway, the homeschooled neighbor child rushed up to my passenger-side window. “Where are you going? What are you doing?” She always wanted to know about my life. I mumbled something about a work dinner for my husband. Why did I feel so guilty lying to this eight-year-old, when lying to my kids and parents came so easily?

Bridge traffic into town was heavier than usual, and I started to worry I’d ruin this most important night out because I’d signed up late for the “sexy sauna party” and still hadn’t received the email with the address of the event’s secret location.

I needed a reset. An escape from domestic life, even for a few hours. I needed to check my “mom hat” at the door and be anonymous. Not a mother, not a wife. Not a yoga teacher. If I had to sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” for my kids’ yoga classes while balancing on my sit-bones in Navasana one more time, I was going to lose it.

My husband had less riding on this night out. His business was finally launching, and I was thrilled, even though it required him to travel almost half the month. He’d call me from Oslo or Austin, and tell me about some great meal or some new band he’d discovered, while all I had to talk about was our eye-rolly fourteen-year-old who was still pissed that I’d had another child, that the dog had diarrhea—again, that our cat kept bringing me half-dead mice, and my peri-menopause symptoms: night sweats, brain fog, and frozen shoulder were getting worse.

I had become obsessed with the idea of strangers seeing me fuck and get fucked. I wanted men…and women. I needed to forget kids’ birthday parties and lunches and pet hair and the Sisyphean effort of rolling that damn boulder uphill just to have it crash onto me again and again. I wanted orgasms to crash over me, not parent-teacher conferences.

My husband, bless his heart, found us a “lifestyle” society that hosted monthly sex positive events and the mandatory orientation night happened to be beside the Costco we went to. We could do our weekly shop, and sign waivers and disclaimers. Win win.

Ping! Just as I thought the night wasn’t going to happen for us, the email with the location of the sexy party arrived in my inbox. The basement of the oldest steam bath in the city. At over a century old, it was practically a historical landmark.

My husband and I had visited the upstairs private saunas a few times. For forty dollars you could buy yourself two hours to shower, sweat, and attempt to awkwardly mess around on the single bed with the crinkly paper cover, but I’d long been curious about the men’s-only basement. I’d seen men enter and exit, which made me wonder why men got to have bathhouses for quick anonymous hookups, but not women. Are we wired that differently? Was there something wrong with me for wanting what I was looking for this evening?

The basement locker room sported frayed, threadbare carpet. An old TV console playing some kind of fuzzy porn. Once undressed, our clothes folded neatly inside the metal locker, my husband and I entered the communal steam and sauna, with its cracked tiles and exposed ceiling pipes, and walked into what appeared to be a jubilant game of ring toss. A woman was bent over with some kind of long-handled butt plug protruding from her ass, onto which the group of about two dozen were to toss rubber rings. This was less Eyes Wide Shut and more community theatre with nudity, but I told myself to stop being so judgy. Things would get more erotic.

Next up was the “human carwash.” Men and women divided into opposite sides of the communal shower and when the emcee blew her whistle the two groups were to run toward one another like the opening rush of a dodgeball game and wriggle and writhe against one another while the emcee stood on a chair above us and squeezed neon pink shower gel all over us. I lost track of my husband and paired up with a dark-haired woman with soft lips and while this was titillating, all I could think was: I am so going to get a UTI from this shower gel.

Before the next game began, my husband and I ducked into one of the two cedar saunas, hoping this might be where the serious action was happening. Unfortunately, it was empty, but we thought, Fuck it. We’ve come to get kinky, so we may as well get to it. He got down between my legs, but my mind kept wandering.

Did our little one cooperate with the teeth brushing? Was she snuggled on the sofa watching Toopy and Binoo?

Should I be on the sofa watching Toopy and Binoo?

Then, the sauna door opened and two women entered. Someone to cheer me on, even if just from the sidelines.

But no. They sat on the bench opposite us, acted as if we were invisible, and proceeded to complain about public transit, their exes, and co-parenting issues. Groceries! What? Here we were, in an underground sex chamber, where we could do what we wanted, and these women were acting as if we were fully dressed, standing at school pick-up. Where was the erotic?

I noticed one of them was holding a bottle of whipped cream, so, hoping to entice them, I asked if they’d pass it to me. They handed it over casually, like we were fully clothed at some backyard BBQ and I was asking for the mustard for my hot dog. I sprayed the whipped cream all over my breasts and urged my husband to lick it off while trying to make eye contact with those women, but…nothing. I couldn’t believe it. Here we were, hot and willing, and they were going on about the traffic? What was even happening? Perhaps I’d set my sights too high. This wasn’t Paris or Barcelona. But still.

Finally, when it became obvious that our fantasies weren’t going to be fulfilled, I called “watermelon.” I’d put so much emotional energy into this night. I’d thought our risqué adventure would somehow cleave me open and free my dormant sex goddess, but my tailbone hurt from the wooden bench, we were both overheating, and neither of us was going to get off.

We made up an excuse as to why we needed to leave early, but the emcee told me to sit down on the locker room bench. “You can’t leave without your party gift.”

While my husband got dressed, a tall woman with long, thin breasts approached and stood behind me. She draped her boobs over my head and onto my face. Her nipples practically touched my mouth. Then, she proceeded to hum the national anthem.

“Congratulations,” the emcee announced with a laugh. “You’ve earned your boob hat!”

En route home, we stopped for a cup of tea and a piece of dry cheesecake and made a pact never to speak of this night again. Then our teen daughter called. Business was slow at the froyo shop. She was being cut early. Could we pick her up?

As the three of us got out of the car back at the co-op, my neighbor rushed out in her pajamas, hungry for news from the outside world.

How was your night? Did you go downtown? What did you eat?

I mumbled some neutral answer and told her to go back home to bed. As I closed the door behind me, my daughter asked, “Why is she always so curious about you? It’s not like you ever do anything interesting.”

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Dhana Musil is a Canadian writer whose work has appeared in Grain, The Ex-Puritan, Tahoma Literary Review, and elsewhere. She writes personal essays and narrative nonfiction that explore memory, place, and interesting subcultures. She lives in British Columbia.

Most of my friends aren’t aware I took a job as a stripper right out of high school, or that the women I’d worked in the adult entertainment industry nurtured me back to life.

My relationships with women have forged me into the person I am.

Broken women have scarred me indelibly. From being left on the doorstep of the welfare office by my mother when I was 4 to being kicked out of the house by my step-grandma at 16, the blows of rejection hammered at my self-worth. Their inability to recover continued the cycle of generational maternal abandonment.

Strong women have loved me, from teaching me I had value beyond my body and service to standing by me during my most challenging moments. Their unyielding acceptance provided the surrogate family I’d always needed.

My life experiences kept me walking a tightrope for much of my adolescence. Though I hid the turmoil at home, most of the adults I knew had considered me one of the “good kids” throughout my childhood and teen years. I worked 30 hours a week during high school to buy my own clothes and pay for my entertainment. An honor student throughout my education, I also served on school committees, as a teacher aide, and as class treasurer. I didn’t do drugs and had only lightly experimented with alcohol. Before high school classes, once a week I attended early morning Bible study with other teens.

Everything changed when I was 16. The night I had to leave my home with a black trash bag filled with a few belongings, I lost my connection with my school friends—and myself. Even a “good kid” can’t control everything. That moment marked the end of my childhood and the beginning of years I’ve rarely spoken about—years that would shape me in ways I never expected.

The three-year period I spent taking my clothes off for money behind a peepshow window after high school is an experience I’ve hidden in shame for decades. I locked those memories in a box, fearful of how others would judge me. I hid the truth from my childhood friends, my family, and even myself, choosing to put my energy into being the best wife, mother, co-worker, and friend I could be—leaving no room to dwell on my past. It took years before I could face those memories without my stomach turning, but today, I understand how pivotal they were in shaping the person I’ve become.

My first step inside the doorway of the adult bookstore I worked in remains vivid in my memory. I’d found an ad in the local newspaper: “Exotic Dancers Needed. Make up to $500 a week.” Bells chimed when I stepped in, announcing my entrance. My heart pounding, I moved forward with my printed résumé in hand. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, my ears took notice of the pulsating music emanating from the hallway to my right. Distant moaning echoed from behind a wood-paneled wall toward the rear of the building. My cheeks flushed as I pretended not to hear. The “powder fresh scent” of my Love’s Baby Soft perfume clashed with the incense and cigarette smoke assaulting my senses. A soft fluorescent glow cast a neon haze over the room.

“Can I help ya’ find something?” A tall woman stepped up from behind a glass countertop. Her name tag read, “Harmony.”

I fumbled for my words, acting cool despite my nerves. “Hello, my name is Michele. I’m here about the exotic dancer position. Are you still hiring?” I even extended my hand, trying to maintain some semblance of professionalism, though my insides were mush.

My gaze darted around, taking in the unfamiliar objects on display. Glossy magazine covers reflected men and women in provocative poses. Glass display cases showcased latex objects of various sizes, shapes, and colors. Colorful bottles of lotions and potions stacked neatly on the shelves featured edible body butters and flavored warming gels in every shade of the rainbow.

In contrast, imposing black leather, spiky chains, and rubber balls filled the case below. Rows of XXX-rated movies lined the wall, their titles like Debbie Does Dallas, Talk Dirty to Me, and Tracy Takes Tokyo competing for attention. Clothing racks held scanty fabrics in red and black lace, while a vintage cigarette machine stood beside a dollar bill changer in the corner. On the cusp of adulthood, I didn’t know all the intimate parts of my body and certainly had never seen male parts as shown in the latex models in the cases before me.

Looking back, I’m surprised by how composed I tried to be in such an unfamiliar place. Despite the pounding in my chest, I resisted the urge to gawk or let my mouth hang open. Stay cool, Michele. Don’t act like a little kid. “Fake it until you make it,” was a mantra that helped me survive all the tumultuous situations I’d experienced in my life so far. Turning my attention to the clerk, I stood tall, took a deep breath, and steadied my voice. “I brought my résumé.”

Harmony didn’t laugh, though I was clearly out of my depth. She led me to the back room to show me the peepshow stage. The mirrors, the dark booths, the $5 deposits for a dance—the setting was nothing like I had imagined. I’d pictured a glamorous Madonna straddling a chair with her fishnet stockings and heels behind a window in her 1986 “Open Your Heart” video and convinced myself I could be as cool as her. That was the first night of many I spent backstage with the other women trying to make ends meet.

Inside that world, I found unexpected connection and support among the women I worked with. Our shared intimacy on the job created a unique environment of belonging and trust, which allowed us to bond over our lives and struggles and dispelled any preconceived notions I had about working with strippers. They shared their costumes, their makeup tips, and even advice on relationships and finances. When I cut my leg on a broken stage mirror, one of them took a risk to use her health insurance for me. When I became a single mom out of wedlock at 19, they threw me a baby shower, providing everything I needed to welcome my child into the world.

Through them, I began to recognize my value. They showed me that nurturing relationships, both giving and receiving care, were essential to happiness and well-being. Acceptance was a ghost I’d spent my life chasing, and with them I found a sense of belonging.

Then there was Alex.

What began as fear for the owner of the adult bookstore eventually transformed into admiration. When I’d first heard of the boss, I felt intimidated. Harmony handed me the shift schedule and warned me about Alex. “Don’t miss your shift or Alex will fine you.” Others had told me she was tough, her rules strict, and she wouldn’t hesitate to fire anyone who broke them. “Alex doesn’t like strippers,” one had stated. “No, Alex doesn’t like bullshit,” another quickly corrected. I worked hard not to bring any bullshit.

As a woman, Alex was a rarity in an industry primarily dominated by men. She owned and managed five different adult bookstores across several states, navigating the politics and purity culture of the 80s and 90s with a steely resolve. Dealing with picketers, death threats, and even a bomb at one of her shops, she persisted and adapted to each situation. The safe working environment she provided for the women in her employment exceeded all expectations.

What I didn’t expect from her was the quiet wisdom and steady guidance she would provide directly to me in the three years I spent in her world. Over time, she recognized something in me I had long lost—my belief in my value and potential. As I gained her trust, she gave me more responsibilities, entrusting me with her cash register and business operations when I accepted a salaried position as a desk clerk. The steady paycheck proved more valuable than the fluctuation of tips on the stage.

When Alex noticed my doodling on the end-of-day cash envelopes, she purchased supplies from a local art store and encouraged me to continue. She sent my art to magazines that featured it on their covers and entered my work into competitions. My framed art hung on the walls of her home. Through her, I learned to believe in my own artistic ability.

An owner and breeder of purebred Alaskan Malamutes, she introduced me to the world of the American Kennel Club. We traveled together to dog shows and dog-sledding events, sharing hours of conversation and building our friendship. She reignited my love for the outdoors when we backpacked together with our dogs. Side-by-side with Nitro, the beloved dog she gifted me, I learned perseverance.

When she purchased a home and rented it to me under the guise of “needing an investment,” she provided my son and me with a safe place to live. If I came up short on rent, she was flexible. When my car stopped running, she offered me one of her extras. Honestly, if I needed anything, she was there. As her friend, I never lacked diapers, food, or shelter.

Her guidance went well beyond giving me things. Her inspiration as a single mother, fiercely protective of her son, showed me how to be a better mother. I didn’t have that example in my family and needed someone to model it for me.

When I could no longer reconcile being a mother with working in the adult entertainment industry, she showed me a way out. Watching her go back to college in her forties inspired me to enroll in parenting and art courses, eventually graduating with honors with three natural resources degrees from a local community college.

Shortly after graduation, I accepted a job with the U.S. Forest Service and moved to Montana with my son to start a new life. The first summer, I worked harder than I ever had, hiking 200 miles on trails, carrying heavy loads that included chainsaws, hand tools, and a backpack filled with supplies. With each drop of sweat I shed, I found my strength, washed away my past, and fashioned a new identity for myself.

But because of my lingering personal shame, I ditched my old life and all the people I’d met during those years. I abandoned my friendship with Alex. Without notice, I moved out of the house I rented from her. With a new phone number and address, she couldn’t contact me. I vanished. Because I perceived that period of my life as a stain on my identity, I stuffed the experiences away in a back closet and moved on, making new friends and reconnecting with those from my childhood who I had lost track of. New life. New me.

The memories never really left me, and sometimes they visited me in dreams. As my children grew and I reflected on my mothering abilities, I remembered all Alex had done for me. 15 years after leaving her behind, I reached out to Alex in a letter—a Mother’s Day acknowledgement and words of gratitude for believing in me in such a powerful way. A few weeks later, she replied with her own letter and caught me up on her life. With no mention of my disappearance, she included old photos of us to remind me of the memories we’d shared. Her forgiving me gave me permission to forgive myself. For all of it.

Now, my life looks very different. At 54, I’m an experienced information technology professional making a good salary. I’m building a community that supports my writing efforts. Married to my best friend, we are empty nesters with a lovely family and an inspiring circle of friends. I’ve served on school and non-profit boards, worked for the government, in education, in healthcare, and in the legal sector. By many measures, I’m successful, much of which I owe to her.

Alex was more than a boss, more than a mentor. She was a mother figure, a friend, and a role model. No single label could encompass the roles she played in my life. Her influence helped me rediscover my worth, set me on a path of growth, and ultimately, my rebirth.

I’m grateful for all the women who shaped me—the broken ones who hurt me out of their own pain, and the strong ones who showed me my worth and lit the path to healing. Each played a part in the forging of my identity.

But I will always hold the deepest gratitude for the woman who saw something in me when I saw nothing in myself—the one who, without obligation, mothered me back to life.

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Michele Peters writes from the heart with a goal of bringing light into dark places. She lives in the Pacific Northwest, USA, and discovered the power of her voice and stories when she read live for the nationally syndicated show Listen to Your Mother in Spokane, Washington in 2022. Her work appears in So God Made a Grandma (March 2025) and The Loss of a Lifetime: Grieving Siblings Share Stories of Love, Loss, and Hope (June 2025). Michele is currently writing a coming-of-age memoir and regularly shares nonfiction essays at Light into Dark Places on Substack.

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

I recognized the look on his face. I’d seen it two years earlier when he was a healthy long-distance runner. This time, my husband lay on a gurney just outside the operating room, waiting for emergency surgery.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” I assured him. He was confused, smiling and unable to grasp the severity of the situation. “A hematoma developed on your spine after yesterday’s surgery. It has to be removed. I’ll be here waiting.” I squeezed his hand, though the hematoma meant he had no feeling below his neck. “I love you.”

Kevin looked at me with that same far-away, vacant grin I’d seen before, dazed and immobile, oblivious to nurses working around him. “You’re my one true love,” he said as I rubbed his chemo-bald head. “And you’re mine,” I replied.

“Oh, that’s good to hear. Sometimes I’ve wondered.”

The first time I saw that look was at the finish line of the Twin Cities Marathon in 2007. It had been his obsessive goal for years, and Kevin undertook a rigorous training regimen, leaving our house by 5 a.m. every weekday morning, 8 a.m. on Saturdays, with runs becoming increasingly longer until he was gone for hours at a time.

But even that training hadn’t prepared him to run 26 miles in 85-degree heat. Waiting at the finish line, I watched a woman receive oxygen; another was rushed past on a stretcher, being intubated. Kevin barely made it across, collapsing into a chair, confused this time about where he was. I have a photo of him in that chair with his brother, a better-trained runner. In it, Kevin has the same innocent yet distant smile I’d see years later in the hospital. His body, overheated and deprived of oxygen, had begun to fail. Thankful that he survived, I felt the resentment I’d built up during his training dissipate.

In the time since my husband’s death from squamous cell carcinoma, I’ve come to realize that I was his caregiver for many years before his cancer diagnosis. The year after the marathon, just before cancer, we began couples counseling, hoping to stop a possible separation. The imbalance of emotional effort took an intolerable toll on our relationship. I felt isolated in my marriage, knowing that something was off, tired of being the nagging wife, yet unable to fix it. I knew we loved each other, but our inability to understand how differently we each processed information was painful. It kept us in our separate corners, waiting for the next round, frustrated by the other’s actions and inactions. As a young, newly married couple in the mid-80s, neurodivergence wasn’t in our vocabulary; it never occurred to us that we did indeed process information, including how we handled the things we loved to do and the things we had to do, in vastly different ways.

Kevin’s intelligence was a big part of his attraction. But his persistent inability to remember simple directives or complete a to-do list was maddening for me. At first, I wrote it off as him being the “absent-minded professor” and even found it endearing. He’d spent his life being told he was bright but lazy, ultimately a loser who’d amount to nothing. I still remember the disbelief I felt when he told me stories of nuns in his Catholic school who punished him and wanted him held back. Through our early dates where we discussed everything from the comedic timing of the Three Stooges to Central American politics, to the economic instability caused by trickle-down schemes, to the musical genius of Joe Strummer and The Clash, I only knew him as one of the smartest and most articulate men I’d dated.

My belief in him, my naïve unconditional love, and his ability to brilliantly compensate, all allowed him to become successful, overcoming some of that earlier emotional damage. Though he rarely spoke of feeling he was different from other people he encountered, he clearly knew he had what I came to think of as struggles with memory and social cues. He developed an elaborate calendar system and constantly carried a spiral notebook, writing notes of conversations and to-do lists. When the Franklin Planner became ubiquitous in the 90s, he was an early adopter, having used a similar homemade version for many years.

Kevin worked in supply-chain management for automotive companies and, when you’re responsible for getting thousands of parts to multiple locations exactly on time—not a day early and certainly not a day late—it was imperative that he never forget details. He knew he wasn’t like his counterparts who simply remembered deadlines, meetings, and pricing quotes. He knew he needed workarounds and coping mechanisms.

Those mechanisms came at a cost. Undoing childhood trauma and constantly reinforcing new ways of thinking was hard work. Functioning without a diagnosis—since no one really knew what was happening to him in the 80s—we constantly teetered on the edge of arguments. Once we married, I felt an even greater sense of responsibility. I wanted him to be successful so that we could be successful. Yet our differences in thought processes and communication felt like a constant and wide breach between us. I would ask him on Monday to do something on Thursday and, by Thursday, not only was the plan ignored, he often had no recollection of our conversation. I wondered if my friends received such frequent apologies from their partners.

Having children added to the frustration, especially when I saw so much of Kevin in our son. Though ADHD became a better-understood diagnosis around this time, we never considered our son to be neurodivergent because he would quietly play for hours with Legos, or curl up and read a book for most of the day. Because we misinterpreted the “hyperactivity” part of ADHD, we overlooked the entire possibility. Just as I started thinking about ending our marriage, our son received his ADHD diagnosis, one that came along with a diagnosis for his father. “You know, ADHD is genetic, often from the father,” the psychologist said, answering many questions I’d had since meeting Kevin, and giving us a reason to work on our marriage again. We bought books like Driven to Distraction and Taking Charge of ADHD. Kevin read them and found himself within their pages. Finally, things began to make sense for all of us.

One of the biggest similarities between my husband and son was hyperfocus. It compelled them to spend hours doing what they loved. Yet doing homework or housework was nearly impossible for them. In getting Kevin’s diagnosis, I saw how differently he had always approached activities he loved, versus tasks he had to complete.

I came to understand that, rather than hobbies, Kevin had obsessions.

He dove into each new pursuit as they took up space in our home (a home we’d extensively renovated during his construction phase). They removed him from our relationship and day-to-day tasks. His attention to individual pursuits and inability to understand my frustration often left me feeling ignored.

Interests would result in stacks of books, equipment, and groups to join. He tracked the mileage rates of our cars, keeping a detailed log of every gas purchase and oil change. There were several degrees—first his double-major BA, then an MBA, then plans for a PhD, then gardening and food preserving, then beer brewing, and, for all the years I knew him, running.

Waking up from his alarm, he’d change into gear, toss pajamas onto the floor (see Monday-Thursday conversation above), then go for a 2.5-miler around the neighborhood. Every day, regardless of whether I had early work meetings, or our kids needed help with school projects, or the dog was sick, his focus was only on getting out the door for his run. It was a big part of what drove us to therapy. How could he be oblivious to all that needed to be accomplished on a given day? How could he always choose hobbies over his family? Why was he so selfish? One of the earliest and biggest lessons for me was understanding that ADHD isn’t personal. Kevin wasn’t doing these things to anger me.

My current therapist recently asked if I wanted that divorce we were heading toward many years ago. “No,” I replied. “I wanted Kevin to recognize my feelings and fix things. Then I realized it wasn’t a matter of fixing but of understanding, for both of us.” We created spreadsheets of tasks; he took on grocery shopping and paying bills, handling both tasks very differently than I did, something I also had to accept. I returned to school to achieve my dream of writing and staked out time to pursue things other than housekeeping. We each worked at being more empathetic.

One of Kevin’s greatest moments of understanding came in our couples counselor’s office when he vocalized his frustration with our son’s behavior. “How can he forget what we remind him of every day? Why does he challenge everything we ask of him? I’m sure he’s been untruthful,” he said, incredulous.

“Do you not understand that I’ve been asking myself those questions about you for the past 20 years?” I responded.

I watched his reaction and saw the pain come over his face. No, he had never realized how, for me, this was round two of raising a neurodivergent person to adulthood. Even harder was knowing that a lack of understanding through his childhood had strained family relationships and done significant damage to Kevin’s self-confidence. Seeing this damage, I felt it imperative to make our child feel supported. My own confession in the therapist’s office was when I admitted, “I’m not a good ADHD wife, and I’m a worse ADHD mom.” But we committed to keep trying.

Then Kevin found a lymph node in his neck that felt like a marble. A biopsy was followed by surgery, then eight weeks of chemotherapy and six weeks of daily radiation. Nine months later, it returned to a sinus cavity. From there, it spread to his lungs and spine. In the midst of repairing, the irreparable happened.

The isolation and frustration I felt as a caregiver to a partner with undiagnosed spectrum challenges paled compared to cleaning vomit, administering injections, and holding him while he shook and wept. The former was frustrating yet manageable; the latter was heartbreaking and terminal. Just as we began to make our marriage balanced, to recommit, understand, and accept each other, I became a different kind of caregiver, this time knowingly and willingly. Eradicating cancer became our collective obsession, our mutual marathon. Yet it returned the scales of our marriage into this uneven space.

When Kevin looked at me from that gurney outside the OR (a situation from which he would never recover, the surgery prolonging his life but leaving him quadriplegic) and admitted that he had doubted my love, I understood how the roles we’d settled into for 25 years had permeated our marriage, leaving me feeling estranged and him feeling responsible for challenges that disappointed me. I also knew we were running out of time to fix it.

One of Kevin’s favorite books was What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. In it, the writer Haruki Murakami posits that writing and running are obsessive solitary pursuits that drive their practitioners to do more, win a race, or finish a manuscript. As Murakami completes his first 26-mile run from Athens to Marathon, Greece (like Kevin, in potentially fatal heat), he falters and feels his mind shift from anticipating success to fighting against certain failure.

At the end, he feels only relief that it’s over. After running marathons, he realizes that his mind will always feel this way, an indication of the toll on the human body. Eventually I understood that Kevin’s daily run was a way to ensure he got started each day despite his ADHD. “Without that first step, I’d never get out of bed,” he once told me. Seeing how he had successfully coped without a diagnosis, creating his own ways to level the playing field, I came to have a true sense of admiration for all he had endured.

Kevin read and re-read Murakami, highlighting passages, relating to the commitment to daily practice, but struggling to understand the connection to writing—my love. He didn’t realize that having dedicated time to write was the same as feeling compelled to improve one’s race time. I read the book and understood: I process life through writing and need regular practice to improve my skill, just as he did. And yes, I resented that I had to eke out time to write because I couldn’t ignore the responsibilities that never appeared on his radar. Finally, having an ADHD diagnosis and learning what it meant to both of our lives allowed us to begin a relationship that focused on equality for each of us to pursue what we loved. If we’d just had more time.

Could our marriage have survived when we wanted to pursue our individual, solitary interests along with navigating our neurological differences? Kevin’s death four months after the surgery left that question unanswered. I believe the caregiving I provided throughout his illness erased doubts he had about his being my one true love. Yet we never had the opportunity to fully understand what it means to make and support commitments to ourselves, our marriage, and each other, equally, despite our different approaches to day-to-day living. Just as we came to understand what it would take to get past the challenges that had infused our marriage, we faced a challenge that was insurmountable.

Now, 14 years after Kevin’s passing, I still feel cheated out of the time we could have spent understanding and valuing each other’s differences and mitigating the challenges from our marriage. I know it wouldn’t have always been easy, but I believe we were getting it right. Today, watching our son flourish and seeing the ways in which neurodiversity is better understood and accepted, I wish again that Kevin was here, no longer feeling the weight of the idea that he was “different” but fully embracing and being celebrated for his unique approach to life.

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Lori Tucker-Sullivan’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Salon, Brevity, The Sun, as well as anthologies: Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook, and 100 Words of Solitude: Writers on the Pandemic. Her essays, “Detroit, 2015” and “Time, Touch, and a Whale’s Grief,” were nominated for a Pushcart Prize. “Detroit, 2015” was a Notable Essay in Best American Essays. Her book, I Can’t Remember If I Cried: Rock Widows on Life, Love and Legacy, released in 2024 (Backbeat/Bloomsbury), profiles widows of rock stars and what they taught her about grief. She is currently writing a memoir of her marriage amidst home renovation, ADHD, and cancer.

by Kate Manning

“Do you ever get distracted?”

His email lingered on my BlackBerry. I knew what he was asking. I wasn’t sure I wanted to answer.

We hadn’t seen each other for a year when I ran into him. I was at a bookstore event with an author I was collaborating with. He was shopping for Mother’s Day gifts. When I saw him, I instinctively kissed him on the cheek— a fatal mistake.

Me: “If you mean do I get distracted by work, yes, of course I do. Doesn’t everyone?”

Him: “That’s not what I mean.”

The first time we met, we were in a conference room. I had just returned from maternity leave and wasn’t accustomed to my larger, changed body. It never crossed my mind that another man would find the postpartum version of me attractive. When our eyes connected, it felt as if his deep blue eyes reached out and pulled me in. I was hooked, but I thought an innocent crush would eventually fade.

Him: “I meant, do you ever get distracted from your marriage?”

As a new mother, I completely got distracted from my marriage by my infant son. That wasn’t the response he was looking for.

Me: “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a crush on you.”

My chest tightened.

Him: “That makes me happy.”

Thoughts swirled around my head. His words were a riptide pulling me out to sea. There was no going back to shore.

Me: “Why does that make you happy?”

Him: “Because all I’ve wanted to do since we met is kiss you.”

I inhaled sharply, and my heartbeat sped up. I felt like I was about to jump off a cliff, free-falling into something I couldn’t control.

Me: “I’ve wanted to kiss you, too.”

Suddenly, we found ourselves in a bubble rising above the noise of everyday life. Spouses, kids, and jobs no longer mattered. There was no sense of time. It was just the two of us, and it felt good.

Him: “I want to know what you’re like outside of being a mother and wife. I want to see the sexy, seductive you.”

His words wrapped around me like a cozy blanket on a chilly day.

Me: “What are we going to do about this?”

Him: “What do you want to do about it?”

Part of me wanted to end the conversation and return to my routine: work, my son, my husband. The other part of me wanted to jump through my BlackBerry and kiss the person sending me emails. In that moment, right and wrong didn’t exist. Lust had come for a visit and didn’t plan on leaving anytime soon.

Me: “We should meet for a drink. I’m free tomorrow night.”

Him: “It’s a date.”

Me: “It’s not a date.”

I wasn’t free the following night. I was scheduled to meet two bartenders and test a few cocktails for an upcoming party. I figured having a couple of drinks before seeing him would make me less nervous.

The next day, as I got ready for work, I carefully selected a flattering dress that accentuated my new curves. I ignored the voice in my head telling me this was a bad idea and applied makeup, wondering if my husband would notice that I was dressed up. He didn’t.

I was sitting at my desk in the office when a message appeared.

Him: “What are you wearing?”

Me: “A black sleeveless dress with a V-neck and heels.”

Him: “What about underneath?”

Me: “Black lace.”

Him: “Oh. My. God.”

I smiled to myself, happy with the tease I had given him. It had been years since any man cared about what I was wearing underneath my clothes. I enjoyed the attention.

Me: “I’m so nervous. Aren’t you nervous? What will happen when we see each other?”

Him: “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”

I had no idea what he meant, but I decided to trust him.

The meeting with the bartenders started with a hibiscus cocktail. It was deliciously potent, just like his messages to me.

By cocktail number three, I turned to a colleague and said I had a dinner meeting. We agreed that she’d handle the bartenders from there.

I didn’t realize how tipsy I was until I was walking down Hudson Street in New York City. It was July, and the warm breeze felt good as it hit my flushed cheeks. We decided to meet at a swanky restaurant near my office. I sat at the bar, ordered a glass of white wine, and waited. I was an actress in my own life, about to play a role I never aimed for: The Mistress.

He appeared as I turned my head toward the entrance. I could feel my smile grow wider as he walked up to me. He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.

Him: “Hi.”

Me: “Well, hello.”

I ran my index finger up the stem of my wine glass. He ordered a rum and Coke.

Me: “I’m so nervous.”

He sat close to me and put his hand on my knee.

Him: “Nothing to be nervous about. It’s just us.”

Just us. Married to other people. Flirting with each other, wanting so much more.

As he started rubbing my leg, I lost my train of thought, and any will I had to resist him.

Him: “Let’s get out of here.”

I nodded, collected my belongings, and followed him. We walked and talked, and when we reached Spring Street, it happened. He grabbed my hand, pulled me into him, and kissed me. I kissed him back, and in that moment, my nervousness melted away. The sidewalk was busy, but it didn’t matter. The want overpowered me, and I didn’t care who saw us. When we came up for air, he whispered a question.

Him: “Want to go for a ride?”

Me: “A ride? In New York City? Um. Okay.”

We walked to where he’d parked his car. He opened the passenger side for me, and I got in, but I started feeling confused. What was I doing? Why was I doing it? Who was I? When he sat in the driver’s seat, he leaned over and kissed me. It felt so good that I stopped overthinking and started kissing him more intensely.

Him: “Let’s go to a hotel. The Marriott Marquis in Times Square. I have points.”

I laughed and thought, “Who mentions points when they start an affair?” I knew committing to the hotel meant more lines would be crossed, and there would be no turning back. Once it happened, I’d have to compartmentalize it. Besides, I thought this was a one-night stand. A sort of “get it out of my system” rendezvous.

Me: “Okay. Yes.”

He smiled and drove uptown. We left his car with the valet at the hotel, and I sat in the lobby while he checked in. I was doing a good job of pretending my other life didn’t exist.

We had barely entered the hotel room before we started ripping each other’s clothes off. There was an urgency between us: We had to do this right now, or it might never happen.

Him: “I want you.”

Me: “Take me.”

I had forgotten how the newness of someone could strip away my vulnerabilities. Suddenly, I wasn’t self-conscious about my naked body. He looked me up and down.

Him: “You’re beautiful.”

Twenty years later, I long to hear those words again.'

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Kate Manning works in the publishing industry.

I’m sitting in a parking lot listening to Trevor Hall’s “great storm clouds” on repeat as I cry into my steering wheel like it’s a microphone. Behind me is the shopping plaza where the Tijuana Flats I worked at in high school used to be. It’s been nearly two decades since I parked in this lot to serve tacos and cookie dough flautas for $7.55/hour. While my hometown and my hourly rate have drastically changed, one thing remains the same: I’m just a girl, crying over a boy, wondering if I’ll ever be loved.

I’m back in the place I grew up, but I still don’t feel like a grown-up. Maybe it’s because in my head, I think a true grown-up is married, has children, a joint savings account, and a cheesy family Christmas card. Instead, I’ve spent the last few years living abroad, coming back “home” for a few months each winter.

I left the U.S. a few years ago for many reasons (I’m sure you can guess at a few), but the main reason was that I was searching for love. I’m a hopeless romantic, you see, and I would cross oceans to find the thing that had eluded me stateside. But four years in, it continued to elude me. And a year after finally saying out loud how tired I was of being single, I’m still here.

So I would pour myself into new places to fill the gap in my heart. I drank rosé in Malta overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, hiked in Lucerne with cowbells twinkling in the distance, and stared up at the stars from a yurt in the Agafay Desert. I’ve seen and done many beautiful things, but I’ve had no one to turn to and say, “Isn’t this amazing?” So I’d post it to my Instagram story, write about it in my journal, and send a photo to my mother.

I used travel as a way to fill me up, and it always worked—for a while. But my heart had holes. No matter how much I poured in, I could never hold onto the fullness.

Like today, as I sit ugly crying in this parking lot.

Earlier in the day, a new guy I’d been seeing told me he was “too busy” for anything serious. I was disappointed, but less about him than about starting over—again—before anything had really begun. It was a familiar place, and I was tired of visiting it.

Then I found myself at a baby shower. Now, I love baby showers. And weddings. And kids’ birthday parties. Give me a place to celebrate someone I love, and I’ll be there. After all, I have a lot of excess love to give.

But there’s one thing I don’t like about these events, which has gotten more pronounced over the last few years. I’m always bound to run into someone I haven’t seen in a while and hear them say, “I’m so jealous of your travels.” They’ll tell me how they wish they’d done more before they got married or had a family. They’ll tell me I’m brave, courageous. I smile and nod graciously, because I understand it’s a privilege to have designed a life this way.

But what I really want to tell them is that, as much as I love traveling, I’m tired of doing it alone. More than that, I’m tired of having no one to come home to after.

I want to tell them what it was like to travel, not to Capri or Crete, but to an IVF clinic in Prague to freeze my eggs—and sit alone in the waiting room, surrounded by couples—so that, one day, I too might get a baby shower like this one.

I want to tell them about the emptiness I feel when I return to an empty apartment. Or the rejection I felt being told the table I reserved in Nice was only for parties of two . “Just you?” Yes, just me—always.

I want to tell them about the loneliness of traveling through life without a plus one.

A part of me sees what they see, though. I’m grateful for the places I’ve gone, the people I’ve gotten to know, and the postcard realities I’ve experienced. And I’m proud as hell that I’ve built a life that allows for this. But I’m also sad as hell to not have someone to share it with.

You see, I may be well-traveled. But I’m still waiting to be well-loved.

So as I sit crying in this parking lot hours later, I’m reevaluating my bucket list.

Because where I really want to travel is…

To an anniversary instead of two decades of first dates.

To have someone to ask me how I am at the end of the day.

To trying on wedding dresses rather than my eighth bridesmaid dress.

To a table for two, across from someone whose laugh lines I’ve memorized.

To a loud kitchen filled with life and loved ones to share morning coffee with.

To introducing someone I love to my 85-year-old grandmother.

To the aisle where I get to walk toward someone who chose me.

To the moment when my emergency contact isn’t my mother.

To the OB-GYN to hear our baby’s heartbeat for the first time.

To my newborn’s bedroom with its freshly stenciled walls.

To first steps, first words, and first birthdays, not just first dates.

And yes, to the airport—but with a full row. Where I have a hand to hold when turbulence hits (yes, I’m still nervous after all these years), or a small one reaching for mine as I put on a brave face just for them.

Because as much as I still dream of hiking in New Zealand, eating my way through Japan, and island-hopping across Greece, the real dream is to have someone to visit these places with. To see the world through their eyes. And to give my kids this gift of travel, the way my parents did.

For now, I back out of the parking lot and start the drive I’ve done a thousand times. Back to my childhood bedroom. Back to the diaries of a little girl dreaming of true love. Back to falling asleep and waking up alone on repeat.

Still, I drive. As I wipe off the tears and shake off the sadness, I know I’ll continue to see the world, continue to celebrate love—even when it isn’t my own—and, above all else, keep packing hope into my carry-on.

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Sonya Matejko is a writer, poet, and marketer whose work stretches across work, health, and the human experience. Written with her signature warmth and candor, her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Forbes, HuffPost, Open Secrets, Yoga Journal, and more. Her debut poetry collection, Everlasting Spring, was released in January 2025. Find her at www.nurturednarratives.com.

The buck-naked auburn-bearded mountain guide turned local strip club bouncer roused me out of sleep when he rolled out of my bed at approximately 3 a.m. “I’m leaving,” Sean declared.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. The numbing effects of the three glasses of tempranillo had begun to wear off leaving, behind an intense pulse in my head.

“You know you can’t control me,” said the man I’d been on four dates with. Sean and I had both sexually pleasured one another that night, but not in the complete sense he later texted me he’d wanted: sexual intercourse.

After dating for over two decades as a late-in-life virgin, Sean wasn’t the first male to call me controlling or selfish. But he was the first to get up out of bed in the middle of the night and walk out. Pissed.

That night, at 39 years old, I felt like a whorish virgin past her prime guilty of disappointing yet another man. Sean was my type: tall, ripped, smart, adventurous, elusive, and (self-pronounced) unavailable.

The next morning, I texted Sean, “What did I do wrong? Can you help me understand what happened last night?”

His lack of response was the excruciating rejection I’d grown used to enduring.

The religious vow of celibacy I’d taken in high school had taken a beating as I’d navigated the secular world of hookups in my twenties, trying to maintain being both desirable and “good” at the same time. In a sex-positive dating world where nothing felt sacred anymore and connections were ambiguous (at best), I wanted something to matter. As a perfectionist and endurance runner, I was hell-bent on reserving sexual intercourse until I was in a committed and loving relationship—no matter how long the journey took.

But I continually self-sabotaged by putting myself in situationships with men who weren’t interested in commitment and made me feel discardable. I’d fall into limerence (rumination on an idealized love interest) with these avoidant men I saw as flawless and invest a ridiculous amount of mental energy imagining “us” in the future together. It was a well-worn path I kept trudging, trying to convince new men of my worth, trying to win their love.

I was a house blend of limerence, sexual anorexia, and a love addiction.

Nationally known psychologist and sexual addiction expert Patrick Carnes describes sexual anorexia as “an obsessive state in which the physical, mental and emotional task of avoiding sex dominates one’s life. Like self-starvation with food, deprivation with sex can make one feel powerful and defended against all hurts.”

The conquest element of love addiction satisfied the athletic drive in me that thrived on the chase. The anticipation element of limerence fed my ADHD brain the drip of dopamine it desired. And the controlling aspect of sexual anorexia kept me feeling safe. At the core of all of these “issues” was the belief that I was unlovable, but that finding love was my most important need.

Sexual anorexics are described by Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (S.L.A.A.) as having addictive obsessions with unavailable people. They admit to issues with perfectionism and loneliness. They fear entering or exiting a relationship, intimacy of connection with others, suffocation or loss of self. I read this description aghast: This was me. By remaining in control of who I had sex with I could feel like I had some control of my life when all else felt uncertain.

Curious, I did what any linguist would do: I looked up the etymology of the word “anorexia,” which was coined by a male physician in 1873. According to etymology.com, “anorexia: can be broken down through a Greek lens: an- “without” + orexis “appetite, desire,” from oregein “long for,” literally “reach out (one’s hand)” (from Proto-Indo-European root *reg- “move in a straight line”) + abstract noun ending -ia.

But when I’ve spoken with friends who have struggled with the eating disorder anorexia, they are not lacking an appetite. They long for the food they restrict themselves from having, sometimes even imagining an elaborate meal they hunger for but won’t enjoy. I wasn’t lacking desire. I fantasized about sex with men I wasn’t having.

Whether with food or sex, anorexics fear getting their needs met, and somewhere buried in that fear is a lack of trust. In my case, I neither trusted myself to make the right decision nor trusted men wouldn’t leave me. This fear and lack of trust were tightly woven into my nervous system at birth.

My mother disappeared after my birth, even if for only three weeks. During delivery, she had a cerebral hemorrhage which resulted in two grand mal seizures. Miraculously, doctors say, she recovered to come home to me, still hopped up on pain meds. When I would ask her as a teen about my birth story, she’d jokingly attribute her stroke to my indecisiveness (not her holding her breath, as she later told me). “You kept going in and out of the birth canal. You couldn’t make up your mind then. Can’t make it up now,” she’d tell me.

Because of this, I distanced myself from the very people who might love and commit to me—because I might hurt them too.

I didn’t owe Sean, or any of the situationships, anything. However, I did owe myself the pleasure of spending time with someone who would respect and care for me. But that required me believing I was worthy of love.

After dating over 100 men over 25 years (and spending those last two years with a somatic therapist), a switch flipped. When Dave showed up in my life during my 40th year with genuine curiosity, care, and vulnerability, I didn’t run. I trusted him in all his imperfections and trusted him with my own. At first, receiving his love felt irritating, like wool on my skin. But slowly, with time, I softened and melted into his arms that now embrace both our daughter and myself.

Leave a comment by February 28, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. ET to win a copy of When Yearning Becomes Your Lover by Amanda McCracken (U.S. only). Winner will be chosen at random and notified via Substack DM.

Join Open Secrets for a Q&A with Amanda McCracken on being a late-in-life virgin and her memoir When Longing Becomes Your Lover on February 18 at 8:30 p.m. ET on Substack Live.

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Amanda McCracken is an award-winning journalist passionate about experiences that highlight the intersection of wellness, travel, and relationships. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Vogue, National Geographic, Elle, NPR, Outside, ESPN, SELF, Runner’s World, and many others. McCracken is the author of the memoir-plus When Longing Becomes Your Lover: Breaking from Infatuation, Rejection and Perfectionism to Find Authentic Love: A True Story of Overcoming Limerence. She published her first article about longing in 2013, which led to additional articles featuring personal anecdotes and deep research and interviews with the BBC and Katie Couric. She is now considered a “limerence expert” and intimacy advocate. Her 2023 TED Talk, “How Longing Keeps Us From Healthy Relationships,” and her podcast, The Longing Lab, highlight how longing can become self sabotaging and shares how to change our patterns of longing. McCracken is also a part-time university instructor, massage therapist, triathlon coach, and competitive athlete. Raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, McCracken put down roots with her husband and daughter in Boulder, Colorado, after a trip around the world aboard the Peace Boat.

I’m a dreamer—always have been, always will be. I can’t help it. And I make an effort to turn my dreams into reality.

For instance, when I was applying to college, I didn’t get into my first choice. In fact, I didn’t get into any good choices. So I went to community college for two years, raised my grades, applied again, then got an acceptance from my first choice.

Or how I wanted to travel the world. I learned about the site StudentUniverse, where there were discounts on flights, and sometimes other deals. Plus, since my student ID expired a few years after I graduated, I exploited it for as long as I could.

But my dating life is very lackluster, to say the least, but this essay isn’t really about that. This is about the lie of manifesting shit, making things happen as if by magic. I suspected it was all a con, but I had my hopes up, especially since the believers in manifesting were so smug. It didn’t last long for them. Let me back up a bit.

Since January 2020 (oh yes, there is a story there, for another time), I have been a nomad. There are a few Facebook Groups dedicated to nomads, especially for women. I remember a girl posted about how she felt lonely and tired of the dating apps and decided to write a list, manifesting her dream man. This is the part that I specifically recall: “I wrote what I could bring to the table. I wrote what I wanted in a man. And then I washed my hands and said, ‘Universe, I leave it to you!’”

The girl continued on that a week later, in Lisbon, she walked into a bar, met a handsome man, and they’d been together for three years since. “So ladies, manifest your dream man!”

I rolled my eyes. This blonde, Barbie in real life woman—of course it worked out for her. But I secretly always wanted to try it. Three years after reading that damn post, I was stuck in a subway station in New York, one of my favorite cities, but my life wasn’t going anywhere near what I had hoped for. Not professionally or personally. So I thought, well, I’m stuck in the subway, might as well write this manifest idea down.

I wanted someone I could talk to—that I would be excited to talk to. I rarely went out on dates, partly because of the insecurities brought on by unsolicited comments and advice from relatives about my physical appeal. It’s a real mind fuck. Another reason is that while I’m an extrovert, when it came down to it, no guy really grabbed my interest to the point where, as many describe it, I had “butterflies in my stomach.”

Whenever a date texted me, I would be annoyed. “What do they want from me now?” I’d groan and my roommate would point out that if I felt that way, the guy wasn’t worth my time or theirs. I was supposed to look forward to speaking and texting with them. I never had that, so I was curious see if this fucking manifest list could bring that.

I wrote a few other things in there about personality and priorities. Then I thought, “Fuck it, if it’s a manifest list, what’s it going to hurt?” I added what I really wanted: An EU Schengen passport. For a U.S. passport, you get 90 days visa free in the EU Schengen parts (i.e. France, Germany, Italy, Greece). But then you have to be out of the EU Schengen parts for 180 days before you can re-enter. I go to Europe often and mostly to Schengen countries, so I’m tired of having to do the damn math, I wanted to be able to go in and out, however long I please. And I wanted him to be hot, like stupid hot.

I’ve had a lot of mixed feelings around my own hotness level. I have naturally long eyelashes, I’m tall, but I’ve had weight issues. I was a 90s kid and aughts teen, which means there was no such thing as body positivity. Family members and society told me that if I lost weight, I would be gorgeous and could get any man I wanted. That is obviously not true, but tell that to a girl going through puberty to well into her twenties; it messes with your self-esteem and worth a lot.

It didn’t matter that I was working hard on my grades to get into my dream school. It didn’t matter that I wanted to live abroad (which I eventually did, numerous times). It mattered how I looked like. There’s definitely lasting damage I’m sure many others can relate to. But the point is, this is what led me to think, if this is a manifest list, let’s make the man of my dreams so fucking hot, you drool.

Now, of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And looks are definitely not everything. Trust me, I know, but again, I was thinking, This shit doesn’t actually work, so let’s have some fun.

A couple weeks later, I decided to try out a few upcoming conferences in marketing and podcasting, which are my two main concentrations in the States, England, and Spain. I went to a marketing conference in Spain. The sessions were split into two rooms and I began in one of them, taking notes. When the next talk started, about breaking into the Chinese market, I thought, “Well, that’s not my market,” so I decided to sneak out and go to the next room.

In the next room, the discussion was about influencer marketing and the speaker was a man the gods must have carved out of hot marble. Tattooed, accent I couldn’t quite place, charming, and vulnerable enough to share that this was his first time presenting for the company and at this conference, so he was nervous. We all were left drooling and couldn’t take our eyes off him—I mean, his presentation. The talk after his was about Meta ads, which are still a damn mystery to me. I needed to stay but he was taking off.

I legitimately had a question for him, so I quickly went up to him and said I wanted to ask him something but had to stay for the next talk. He said, “I’ll wait for you in the back.” Be still my beating heart! He would wait for me. I was giddy. Of course, several others, mostly women, were surrounding him as the next speaker prepared.

After the Meta ads talk, I went to the back and sure enough, Hottie McHottie was there, waiting for me patiently. He looked up from his phone and smiled at me. I thanked him for waiting and asked my question. He had some good points and case studies to help. “Email me and I’ll be sure to send you the case studies.” He gave me his work email.

Then we chatted for a bit. He was Greek and German but lived in Spain now. He’d studied in Chicago, where I’m from, and loved Michael Jordan. So I told him a story about my three degrees of separation from Jordan (most people from Chicago will have at least one story; I have multiple). He loved it and I said, “I have more but we still have the conference to go to.” If we were to meet up again, I had to have something else to talk about, like my stories with Michael Jordan. I thanked him for his time.

We chatted for a good 45 minutes, and it was easy. I was myself, I learned about his background, and I really enjoyed my time with him. I noticed he left the conference after our talk and emailed him soon after the next session ended. The next morning, he replied and shared the case studies but also asked how the rest of the conference went since he had to leave early.

It suddenly hit me: He was easy to talk to, I looked forward to hearing from him, he had not one but two EU Schengen passports, and he was the hottest man I had seen in person. Holy shit. Did the manifest list work?! No, it couldn’t be! But he also asked me a question that would seemingly require me to answer back.

I needed some perspective. I shared what had occurred to a straight couple I’m friends with, because I wanted a straight man’s perspective. He said, “You already know the answer. If it was just business, he wouldn’t ask a follow-up question.” I had a photo from Hottie’s presentation so I shared it with them and even the guy friend said, “Is that a Greek God?!” But I thought, no, this is too good to be true. This doesn’t happen to someone like me! He wants to sell me on his business or he was just being nice.

The couple encouraged me to reply right away since it was Friday and in Europe, if you hit the weekend, they won’t check their work email until Monday and by then, I would be in England for the next conference. Good point, but I was so nervous! I ended up writing him back Friday in the late afternoon and sure enough, by mid-morning on Monday, he replied, hoping I enjoyed my time in Spain. By then, I’d made it to England. Meanwhile, I did of course check for him on social media, only finding him on LinkedIn, where he accepted my request to connect. He “hearted” my recap, which I was giddy about but then I noticed, he hearted pretty much everyone’s content. Damn it.

While in England, I was staying with a friend. I told her the story and she said it was a good move that I didn’t ask him out right away. Later, I had to go do some analytics for social media for clients. Since I had their platforms up, I decided, well why not go for a bit of a dig? I tried different variations of his name. Hot McHottie. Hottie McHottie. Hottie McHottie Germany and Greece, etc.

I already knew about LinkedIn, but Instagram, nothing. X/Twitter, nothing, TikTok, nothing, on and on and on. Finally, on Facebook, there was a photo of a man and woman in a black and white photo, hugging. The woman was tagged, and her profile wasn’t private. She was married with a daughter, from Holland, and had moved to Spain with her husband, who was wearing sleeves. I kept digging because there was something about this man, even though I could only see his profile.

Finally, I find a photo of her and her husband with his sleeves rolled up, showing off his muscles and tattoos, holding a little girl, their daughter.

I shared the photo with my friend, who looked at it, and her face fell. “Maybe it’s his sister.”

It wasn’t his sister. Oddly, I felt vindicated. I knew manifesting was bullshit.

Listen, he did nothing wrong. He wasn’t wearing a ring, but he wasn’t overtly flirting. I think he was just being nice, maybe making business connections with his email correspondence. He was easy to talk to, and very easy on the eyes. Of course he was taken!

It’s been a couple of years since that time. Sometimes I’m tempted to write a new list, but I also have a theory that’s proving true for me: The secret to success isn’t about manifesting. It’s about doing. I got into the college I wanted by working hard. I lost weight because I had to and wanted to; there was no manifesting that shit. Hottie was taken, but I’m proud that I wasn’t afraid to talk to him. He wasn’t the man of my dreams, and that’s okay. I need to work on my own confidence, worth, and seeing who’s out there. Maybe that’s how I will find a partner. Manifesting may be bullshit, but trying my best isn’t.

Editor’s note: A sentence has been changed post-publication.

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Tara Jabbari is a seasoned producer and coordinator, creating meaningful professional connections that turn ideas into reality. She works with creatives, businesses, & organizations to become recognized experts and excels at creating content that educates and entertains, from documentaries to podcasting to social media. She started Safe Passages on Substack about travel and digital wellness. She also has The Recomp Journey Substack about fitness and nutrition. 95% of her work is remote, so she can continue to live and work from wherever she wants. #SorryNotSorry

by Ainsley Cunningham

When I was 16, my boyfriend sat me down and told me I needed to have sex with him or, at the very least, give him a blow job. Otherwise, he’d be forced to break up with me and find a girlfriend who could meet his needs.

I told him I’d have to think about it. I was getting ready to leave on vacation, and I said I’d give him my answer when I got back. I felt proud of myself for handling things so maturely.

In hindsight, there shouldn’t have been much for me to think about because, first of all, I didn’t want to have sex with him. I didn’t feel ready mentally, emotionally, and maybe even physically. I enjoyed making out with him, which we did often and for great lengths of time, but at that age I didn’t feel the desire to go any further. As for the blow job suggestion, it didn’t sound pleasant to me at all.

The ultimatum itself should have been enough for me to break up with him. But I didn’t. I’d been conditioned by media and culture and everything else to be a nice girl who considered other people’s needs before my own. I’d also been taught by TV and movies that boys needed sex, and that girls had the impossible but important task of figuring out how to not be a slut but also not be a prude.

So yes, it was a lot for young me to think about. He was, at the time, my dream boy: a tall, handsome skateboarder who liked all the same punk bands that I did. We laughed together. He had his own car. We made a good-looking couple at junior prom.

While on vacation, I wrote my thoughts and feelings to him in an embarrassingly long letter. I don’t remember what exactly I wrote, but I recall the overall sentiment. I liked him so much, I said, and I wanted to make him happy, and so if that meant doing sex stuff, I was nervous, but I was open to it. We could discuss more when I got home. I mailed the letter, feeling good about my decision. I was willing to make compromises—wasn’t that what real relationships were about?

I never found out if he received my letter because as soon as I got back from vacation, several friends called me, all with the same news: My boyfriend had cheated on me. He’d had sex with another girl at a party while I was out of town.

I called him to ask if the rumors were true (yes, he said sheepishly), and then—not yelling, not crying, being diplomatic and calm—I said something like, “Well… I guess maybe we should break up?”

I think I was hoping he’d say no. That he’d say he’d made a mistake and he still really liked me. He wouldn’t cheat on me again, and we’d figure out this sex conundrum together. Maybe he’d even ask what I needed, what he could do to make me happy.

“Yeah,” he said, “I guess we probably should.”

One year later, in 1999, American Pie was released, a movie in which the heroes, four teenage boys, set out on a “noble” quest to lose their virginities. I saw it in the theater with friends and didn’t realize at the time, but now I do: If the goal is for the male protagonists to have sex, then the girls “withholding” sex are either the antagonists or, at the very least, they’re obstacles to be overpowered.

The incident with my high school boyfriend is indicative of so much that came later in my life. It showcases the way I’ve always put other people’s needs and desires above my own (“Of course I can work late again,” “I can skip my yoga class to watch the kids,” “Where does everyone else want to go for dinner?”), and the way I’ve always been willing to give more than I receive when it comes to my body, my time, my energy, my compassion—a trait that hasn’t been trained out of us women on purpose because it comes in oh-so-handy when we become mothers.

I always thought of myself as open-minded, extremely willing to compromise. But it’s not a compromise if I’m simply doing what the other person wants me to do. Finally, somewhere in my early thirties, I realized I wasn’t diplomatic and open to compromise. I was a doormat. And then the shame spiral began. I didn’t blame the men who pushed and manipulated me into doing things I didn’t want to do. Instead, I blamed myself for not having the confidence to say no. I blamed myself for not staying true to my own desires.

Part of the problem was that I didn’t even know what my own desires were. Millennial women like myself were completely mind-fucked by the media and culture of the 90s and early aughts: We were instructed to look and act sexy but also remain virginal. Don’t be a frigid bitch and don’t be a cock-tease, but if you have sex, or too much sex, or if you seem to like sex too much, then you’re a dirty slut who deserves to be shamed.

When it came to looking and acting sexy, the desired result only had the male gaze in mind. A woman’s goal, according to the magazines I read and music videos I couldn’t escape, was to please men. Being wanted by men was so important it left no space to learn what we actually wanted. It seemed to me that sex was a performance, a bargaining chip. It was the only thing I had of value, and my only power was to decide when to give it away. It was back to that old balancing act: Give in too quicky and you’re a slut; wait too long and you’re a prude.

Now I’m in my mid-forties, and, like many of the friends I’ve discussed this with, I have very little idea, at least when it comes to sex, what it is I truly want. I have so little practice at putting my own needs and desires first. What if my needs and desires conflict with my partner’s? What then? Cosmo, with all its blow job tips and calorie-burning sex moves, never prepared me for that.

When I was in my early thirties, after a more than a decade of dating and many bad experiences with men who seemed stuck in an American Pie mentality—men who went on dates not to get to know me but to get in my pants—a man contacted me on an online dating site. I had recently moved and had forgotten to change my location. I told him, “Oh, sorry, I don’t live in the area anymore,” and he said that was okay, maybe we could just be pen pals.

We started writing to each other. He was funny and weird and smart (just my type!), and soon we were writing two or three emails a day. After months of pen-palling, I drove the eight hours to visit him. A month later, he flew to visit me. Thus began our long-distance relationship. By that point, I already knew this relationship would be different from so many of the others. He had been perfectly willing to write to me with no expectations of ever meeting in person. He wasn’t interested in me for my body alone. He was interested in me for my mind, my personality, (my writing, even!). We’ve now been married for over ten years. During this time, we’ve been figuring out “sex stuff” together.

Sometimes he still gets frustrated with me because of my baggage when it comes to sex. Too often I resort to my old ways of trying to figure out what it is he wants in order to make him happy. I’m still conditioned to disregard any desires of my own except the desire to please others. “I wish you’d just tell me what you want,” he’ll say, and I’ll respond, teary-eyed, “That’s the problem. I don’t know.”

Recently he said to me, “I’ve come to realize that my role is to be here for you. To put my own needs aside for now and reassure you that I’m not going anywhere. So you can take your time to figure out what it is you want.”

Wow. His comment begs the question: What do I want? I don’t have a simple shorthand, a turn-on cheat sheet to hand over. Even now in middle-age, the damage from my high school boyfriend (and all the men who followed) flares up whenever I try to truly inhabit my body. Figuring out what I want is more complicated than it sounds. So I told my husband what I told my high school boyfriend: I’d have to think about it.

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Ainsley Cunningham is a SAT/ACT tutor, yoga instructor, and aspiring novelist. She lives in Virginia with her husband, two kids, and two cats.

My first experience of public sex was my junior year of high school. I was seventeen, performing onstage in my high school’s production of Spring Awakening. The sex was simulated, mostly implied—as much as seventeen-year-olds can legally suggest in a public school in Florida. I suppose it wasn’t exactly public sex, but it was certainly my first time presenting anything sexual for public consumption.

If you’re not familiar, Spring Awakening is the story of Wendla, a teenager in 1891 Germany who asks her mother where babies come from. Her mother balks, saying babies happen “when a man and woman love each other very much,” omitting all facts around conception. Wendla becomes romantically entangled with Melchior, a boy from her school. In a hayloft—the infamous scene—Wendla consents to have sex with Melchior, without a full understanding of what they are doing. In the second act her mother realizes she’s pregnant and takes her to a back-alley abortionist. Wendla dies during the procedure, and Melchior weeps at her grave.

There is much to be dissected when it comes to Spring Awakening regarding sex education, consent, bodily autonomy, abortions, or even the fact that we as teenagers were trusted with this material in what was (at the time) a conservative-leaning state. But my focus lingers on my most profound memory of this experience, an interaction with an audience member I didn’t know:

“You were wonderful.” A woman stopped me in the lobby after the performance. Her grey hair was spun about on top of her head and secured with a jeweled clip. I didn’t recognize her.

“Thank you,” I answered, offering something about how much I enjoyed singing the score.

“It really got me thinking,” she said. “I need to talk to my children more. About this. About this subject. It’s difficult, you know.”

“In what way?”

“Well, the…the sex of it all. I didn’t really discuss it with my children. I should. Or I should have. That girl in the play, she says that line about the parents…”

I quoted: “How will we know what to do if our parents don’t tell us?”

“Yes. That’s the one. Wow. It really got me thinking. I need to talk to my children. Thank you.”

I have often attributed this interaction as a formative moment in my decision to pursue theatre. In hindsight, this experience could’ve gone horribly wrong: parents furious over the subject matter, roaring controversy around the production, a feeling of shame for participating. Instead, it became a positive core memory. It was evidence of the power of theatre, concrete proof that art could invoke meaningful change in the world around me. Now, many years into a theatre career, I would amend my statement: This was also formative in my decision to pursue work as a sex educator.

Fast-forward a decade after Spring Awakening, and I’ve gone viral for sharing my syphilis diagnosis on TikTok. I made a parody “A Day in My Life” vlog in 2022 where I learned I tested positive for syphilis, received a penicillin shot the same day, and all was fine. It garnered millions of views. People flooded to my comments section, unaware syphilis was 1) still around, and 2) treatable. To this day I receive messages from people exhibiting symptoms and pursuing proper care. “I didn’t know any of this!” is their most common remark.

This viral moment was built on years of online advocacy around bodily autonomy and reproductive justice. I’d worked with major organizations like Planned Parenthood, the Brigid Alliance, Repro Legal Defense Fund, and The San Francisco AIDS Foundation. I began to include stories from my personal life—documenting sex parties, orgies, STI screenings, Syphilis included. Activist and educator Ericka Hart talks frequently about sex education as a liberatory politic, which inspired me to continue. The more I learned, the more I shared. The more I shared, the more others learned. Empowerment through education in pursuit of liberation.

Not everyone in my life shares this opinion. A family member of mine, a self-proclaimed feminist and lifetime Planned Parenthood donor, called me last year:

“It’s embarrassing, you know.”

“What is?” I was bewildered, packing for a flight. This was uncharacteristic of her.

“You’re making videos about going to orgies! My God, can’t you keep any information to yourself?”

“I don’t see value in keeping this to myself. Conservatives are propagandizing the public to believe transgender people are unlovable or sterile or incapable of living fulfilling lives. My videos are actively rebuking these false notions! Besides, anyone who doesn’t like what I’m doing doesn’t have to watch my content.”

“There are things you shouldn’t talk about. It’s shameful.”

“Why shouldn’t I talk about this? Who am I harming by having consensual sex with other consenting adults? Or making informational videos on STI testing? Anyone who’s ashamed of sex education is….” I trailed off. I left her with these final words:

“Their shame is not mine to carry. I set mine down long ago.”

If we recall Ericka Hart’s message about sex education as a liberatory politic, it’s fascinating to consider how well-meaning family members end up reinforcing the opposite. Wendla’s mother fails to educate her, resulting in a tragic and untimely death. My relative is so preoccupied with shame and embarrassment, she can’t see the positive outcomes of my work. They have become footsoldiers for the regime, silencing and shaming those of us on a quest to practice liberatory politics.

The conservative revolution has effectively waged war on sex education: gutting teen pregnancy prevention programs, threatening funding for trans-inclusive curricula, banning books with sexual content. The only value of sex education on this administration’s slip-and-slide to fascism seems to be to bolster the “domestic supply of infants,” a eugenicist dogwhistle suggesting people with the capacity for pregnancy should be incubators, nothing more. Traditional, patriarchal values are supreme. Recall the chilling line from the play: “How will we know what to do if our parents don’t tell us?”

It’s even more fascinating to consider this question in the historical context of Spring Awakening: If Wendla and her friends are teenagers in 1890s Germany, they become the generation that breeds and raises the Nazi Party. The parallels to today’s America are stark. They beg the question: Which position are you in? That of Wendla? Her mother? My relative? The woman in the audience? Me?

My latest foray into accidental-sex-education is my memoir, sorry i keep crying during sex. I write of healing from sexual violence and embarking on a litany of hookups-gone-wrong. There are late-night Grindr meets, a rendezvous in the backseat of a car, public cruising, shower sex, and an epic orgy, among others. I wrote each of these as earnest attempts to demonstrate the emotional architecture of a fractured, post-trauma psyche. I hoped readers would laugh with me, cry with me, feel seen, and feel held. Ridiculous as it sounds, I had never considered the memoir to be educational. Yet the result has been messages, comments, reviews from readers and book clubs galore, all saying, “I learned so much about sex.”

It’s as if I’m back in the lobby of my high school theater all over again. Now, the lesson is clear: if I’m willing to put myself on display, sex transcends shame and becomes an educational tool. The more we know about our bodies, of sex, the better equipped we are to fight the rise of fascism. To me, this is worth the angry relatives, the hate comments, the naysayers, even the political attacks. We all deserve so much better than this.

Spring Awakening ends with the cast singing “The Song of Purple Summer,” about how conservative adults still hold power, but the seeds are being planted for a new, open-minded generation. By my interpretation, this requires the process of setting down shame. Empowerment through education in pursuit of liberation. They sing:

And all shall know the wonder

I will sing the song of purple summer

All shall know the wonder of purple summer

I find it enchanting.

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sorry i keep crying during sex is our March 2026 Open Secrets Book Club selection. Join us on March 24 at 7 p.m. ET for a Substack Live video Q&A with Jesse James Rose, and bring your questions! Read an excerpt about a sauna sex hookup here.

Jesse James Rose (she/they) is a transgender actor, writer, and content creator based in New York City. Every president who has attacked her in the media has been shot at. Rose holds degrees from NYU in music theatre and child psychology, as well as a certificate in diversity, equity, and inclusion from Cornell University. As an actress, Jesse has starred in productions of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Cabaret, The Fantasticks, and won Best Actor at the Berlin Indie Film festival for the short film “Barstool.” In 2025 she became the first openly transgender woman elected to the national council of the Actors Equity Union, specializing in policymaking that combats harassment and hostile work environments. Jesse’s work lives largely on social media, where she writes (& yaps) about gender, queerness, survivorship, mental health, her feelings, and her exes on Instagram & TikTok (@jamesissmiling).

It was a sunny Saturday morning when I called my husband on FaceTime from Mexico, where I was studying Spanish for two months. I’d just looked at our credit card bill online. What I’d seen had made my heart freeze up.

“Did you buy another gun?” I asked, as soon as he appeared on the screen. When I first dialed, I had a faint hope that the $1,500 charge from Wade’s Gun Shop was a mistake. Despite our marital problems, I thought we were still a team. My husband would never buy a gun without my agreeing to it.

“Yeah! A Glock pistol!” he exclaimed.

The world warped. My heart sped up. “I can’t believe you did that without asking me.” Before I left for Mexico, I’d reluctantly agreed to his purchase of an AR-15 rifle for target shooting—a negotiation that had taken months.

“I knew you would say no.”

“So, the answer is just to do it behind my back?”

“It’ll always be in the safe when you’re at home. You won’t have to see it.”

Safe or not, he knew I’d say no to a handgun because we’d already discussed it. Mere seconds after I’d agreed to the rifle purchase, he’d dismayed me by telling me he wanted a pistol too. I’d put my foot down. No way I would allow two guns in the house.

Some marriages, no doubt, happily support a full armory. But I didn’t think mine could. I just hated guns too much.

For one thing, I grew up in a liberal city where no one I knew had them but that didn’t make my hatred of them any less potent. For another, I took after my pacifist mom, who’d been a draft counselor during Vietnam, and who’d had, among her old treasures, a pendant with the 70s slogan “War is not healthy for children and other living things.”

I loved that pendant as a kid, probably more for its groovy flower than the slogan. Still, I absorbed my mom’s longing for a non-violent world (she always put a dove on top of our Christmas tree instead of a star) and along with that, a deep revulsion towards guns. It was based largely on unfamiliarity with them, but that didn’t make it any less potent.

My husband, on the other hand, had gone target shooting and hunting with his dad as a kid. But it wasn’t until 2016, when we’d been together for nearly 10 years, that he announced he wanted the AR-15. By then my childhood hatred of firearms had crystallized into a white-hot loathing thanks to school massacres like Columbine and Sandy Hook.

My husband kept insisting, though. Eventually I caved, hoping that a big compromise on my part might help our ailing marriage.

It didn’t. The moment the rifle arrived, it felt to me like an unpredictable live creature had come into our house. Even when it was in its safe in the garage, I could sense it there lurking. When he took the AR-15 out for target shooting and I actually had to see it, my skin crawled and my adrenaline spiked. We fought more than ever before.

And now, thanks to the arrival of this pistol while I was in Mexico, we were fighting again.

“I can’t believe you would disrespect me that way!” I shouted at him over FaceTime. My voice was high-pitched. Quivering.

“Like you show me so much respect,” he threw back. The argument went downhill from there. It became not just about the pistol but about everything that was wrong with our marriage. His pot smoking, which I perceived as excessive. My two-month trip to Mexico, which he perceived as abandonment. Our lack of financial partnership, which we mostly ignored. And so on.

Up until this fight, I’d told myself that this Mexico sojourn had been good for our marriage. The month before I’d left had been tense. We were both reeling from being rejected as foster-to-adopt parents by social workers who could see our fault lines more clearly than we could.

As devastating as this rejection was, I knew the adoption agency had made the right decision—the one I hadn’t been brave enough to make. Soon after, I left for Puebla, Mexico, to study Spanish. I’d had this trip planned for a while. Originally, it was going to be my last fling with freedom before we became foster parents. Now I wasn’t sure what it was, exactly.

At first, the distance seemed to lead to good things. Under the bright central Mexican sun, I unfurled like a flower. I shed most of my cares just like I shed my bulky Seattle coats for halter tops and sundresses. I was studying Spanish six hours a day, making new friends, and enjoying the hospitality of my Mexican hostess, in whose sparkling house I didn’t have to lift a finger to cook or clean.

I’d also taken off my wedding ring (temporarily, I told myself), put in its place a new turquoise ring, and had a crush on a charming Spanish instructor half my age. Soon I was feeling more carefree than I had in years. In my newly optimistic state, the denial mechanisms kicked back in.

When I get home, we’ll find a different therapist (never mind that our most recent attempts at therapy had ended with my husband refusing go back). Things will finally turn around for us. Maybe we’ll even be able to consider adoption again.

Then, about a month into my Mexico stay, the pistol reared its ugly muzzle.

“You return that thing or we’re done!” I yelled at my husband.

“Fine, then we’re done!” The screen went dark. But we still had plans on the books to meet up in Mexico City in a week’s time. Tickets bought, hotel reserved. After that, I was planning to go back to Seattle with my husband.

I spent the day after our blowout half hoping, half fearing that we really were done. We’d been together nine years and married for four. But it felt like the giddy moment we’d said “I do” represented the height of our happiness. Ever since then, we’d been in a downward spiral that couples counseling couldn’t stop.

For the last two years, as we’d been trying to adopt, ambivalence about our volatile relationship had been consuming me. Even as the hard times had gotten harder, there were still so many good things that bound us together. Cuddling on the couch with our two pugs and Netflix. Playing guitars and singing Grateful Dead songs in our living room. Eating Sunday dinners with my mother-in-law, who was like a second mom.

Which was why, within a couple days of the blowout, we were talking again, pretending nothing was wrong (an art we had mastered). In Mexico City, we ate too much, strolled through museums, and momentarily reconnected in the hotel room’s one and only queen-sized bed. I stuffed my marital worries away and tried to enjoy myself (an art I had mastered).

What I didn’t admit to him, or even to myself, was that it felt better being in Puebla than in our house, where we were now accumulating deadly weapons rather than kids, where the smell of pot permeated the air, and where we had been sleeping in separate rooms for over a year, pretending it was no big deal.

At the end of the week, though, I didn’t go back to Seattle with him. Instead, I told him that I wanted to stay in Puebla for another month to continue studying Spanish. He was surprised and a little disappointed, but probably also relieved. From a distance, it was easier to keep pretending.

During that next month, it got harder. I couldn’t suppress my disgust when I would FaceTime with him and see a gun on the coffee table, as if it were just an everyday item like a mug or a remote control. True, I wasn’t at home, so the guns didn’t technically have to be in the safe. But he must have known that seeing them there would upset me.

Nor could I deny how dismissive it felt when he’d text me messages like, “As deeply as you hate guns, I value them (400 years of American blood in me).”

His status as a defiant gun owner made him seem like a different person than the kind, empathetic one with whom I’d fallen in love. He still radiated warmth towards others—the vendors of the homeless newspaper he routinely stopped to chat with, the Latino immigrants he taught English classes to—but with me, he was becoming increasingly cold, especially when it related to his new hobby.

Not that I was a fount of warmth either, especially since we’d been rejected for the adoption.

As my new return date to Seattle loomed, I started to dread going home. In Puebla, with the layers of worry peeled back, I’d become a more youthful, lighthearted version of myself. I knew that as soon as I returned, uncertainty about my marriage would eat me up again.

By the time I got back, glowing from my positive experiences abroad, only a tenuous thread still connected me to my husband. Part of me knew that we were beyond repair, but part of me wondered if we had a chance anyway.

I got my answer sooner than I thought.

About a week after my return, I woke up in the middle of the night and tiptoed downstairs in search of a snack.

I could see the dark shape of my husband sleeping on the couch with the two pugs. They were all snoring lightly. Even after my extended absence, we still weren’t sleeping in the same bed. In fact, we’d barely even touched, kissed, or spent any time together.

I was about to go into the kitchen when something unfamiliar caught my eye on the coffee table. I moved closer, holding my breath.

“You’ll never even have to see it,” he’d said that morning when I’d called him after seeing the Glock on the credit card bill. “It will always be in the safe when you’re at home.”

But there it was on the coffee table, the one that been the repository for so many take-out boxes, dinner plates, sheet music. The place where we’d piled the mountains of adoption paperwork as we were filling them out.

What item doesn’t belong here?

I stumbled backward as if slapped. My heart thudded. My legs trembled.

Later, my husband would tell me that it had been unloaded. But unloaded or not, its message to me there in the dark was unmistakable: It’s you who doesn’t belong here anymore.

I stared down at the gun. I wanted to laugh, cry, yell. Wake my husband up and demand that he put it away; rail against him about how dangerous this was; invoke his promise to always have it in the safe when I was home.

That’s what the old me would have done, anyway.

But this time, I let the message sink in. I’d been waiting for it since I’d gotten back from Mexico, after all.

A few minutes passed. My heart stopped racing. My legs grew steady again. I took a deep breath in, and when I let it out, I could feel all the fight and the resistance finally drain away. When it did, my body felt light, insubstantial, but also free.

I turned around and walked back upstairs to pack, this time for good.

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Rebecca Agiewich is the author of BreakupBabe: A Novel. She writes The Ambivalent Part-Time Expat, which won a humor-writing award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Find her portfolio here.

Author note: Part of SORRY I KEEP CRYING DURING SEX chronicles my healing from sexual assault and a torrid breakup through a myriad of hookups. In pursuit of a safe place to fall apart I found myself in the sauna…with Hookup #32.

#32
1:15 p.m.
32^nd Hookup After

I’m in the sauna at the gym and I’m definitely not looking at the ­Daddy next to me.

He is doing the Straight Man thing where he can’t complete a Figure 4 stretch and I am doing the Gay Whore thing where the corner of my towel barely covers the tip of my cock. Both of our towels splayed so our bare hip flesh is locked in the staring contest our eyes ­can’t have. His body hair forests down the side of his thighs—massive slabs of muscle, the watermelon-crushing kind. If I look at them any longer the blood will rush down and pop the towel off my tip. I avert my gaze.

#32 is sweating profusely, and I’m waiting for him to gather the towel from his lap and wipe his face so I can see underneath where the forest thickens. He’s bald like Vin Diesel and cut like George Clooney and I’m ready to have his children. There’s another man in the sauna, some dudebro listening to a podcast in a pair of swim trunks. If only #32 would wipe his face.

You might think this is invasive to look at #32 this way, but you have to understand there are signals:

· Open towels

· Splayed legs

· Sparse cock coverage

· A quick ball pull with eye contact

· Excessive body rubbing and touching

· Stretching that exposes yourself

· Stretching that allows you an excuse to look at someone ­ else

· Even looking around more than usual

· Mirroring the other’s actions, affirmatively coded as YES,

· I AM GAY TOO show me the goods

So far #32 has displayed two of them. Well, technically one and a half. His towel is only half open, and while he is stretching, I can’t tell if he’s stretching to stretch (straight) or stretching to give me a better look (gay as hell). Usually I need at least three items from the list to confirm, but if I’ve gotten one and a half signals and haven’t given him one, he’ll have no incentive to continue. I offer him Mirroring the Other’s Actions by sliding my right ankle over my left knee and folding effortlessly, hoping he’ll take my limberness as proxy for eagerness. He glances over; his eyes are hotter than the sauna stones. He counters by switching the legs of his stretch.

That’s a full two signals, so it’s my turn. Dudebro in the swim trunks has his eyes closed, oblivious to the homosexual mating ritual taking place before him, so I’m free to respond. If I Mirror again and switch my own legs I’ll expose my too hard dick and then I’m in dangerous territory.

Instead I choose to add a spinal twist to my Figure 4, employing Stretching That Allows You an Excuse to Look at Someone Else. #32 responds by shifting in his seat and hiking up his towel. Is this a third signal or a comfort movement? He begins to twist away from me when I see it: his shaft snaking out, peeking onto the wooden bench. It twitches, and to my delight I watch it harden and lift back into the forest. Stretching That Exposes Yourself. Third signal. Booyah.

By some miracle (one I absolutely deserve!!) dudebro in the swim trunks stands with all too much noise and leaves. Now it’s down to me and my not-so-straight Vin-Diesel-Clooney-Forest-Daddy. He looks over again, this time for longer. I try to smile but I can’t hold his gaze. Was he staring me down (hot) or scaring me off (comp het)?

I readjust my towel. Abandon ship. He flicks yet another glance, so fast his eyelashes barely move. Ok, maybe not. I take a leap of faith and go in for the Ball Pull (sans eye contact). In my periphery he reciprocates, pulling his own. Oh, hell yeah. Unmistakably, Diesel-Clooney Daddy and I are gonna fuck.

We begin to fool around in the sauna, which is always a fright because the risk of interruption (or banishment, humiliation, jail) is high. Any sexual activity is a workout, but even the CrossFit world champions would have to train for aerobic fucking inside the swelter of the sauna. I, defending champion, have stolen a few grabs at his cock, he’s moaned, he’s called me “good boy,” which I’m deciding is not gendered because that’s convenient right now and I am more worried about whether he’s gonna have a sexuality crisis and bolt.

He does stand, but instead of bolting he turns to me.

“Fuck, baby,” he whispers, despite the sauna being nearly soundproof. He keeps staring. I keep being hot. “I want you.”

Thank god. “I want you too.”

He closes his hand around my throat, and I assume he’s ­ going to push my head down between his legs (where I belong!!!) but instead he picks me up by the neck.

“Come with me.”

He’s taking me to the shower where I will have his children. The shower stalls in this gym have dark blue curtains, which is ideal for cruising because you can’t see who’s inside. The first shower could be dudebro, the second vacant, the third a business executive rinsing off, the fourth where #32 has me pushed against a wall with his hand pulling the bun on the back of my head.

In that same fourth stall #32 has pushed the shower nozzle away from us, the water lukewarm. I imagine this is because he is also a climate activist who doesn’t want to waste (1) water and (2) time not pleasuring me.

And pleasure me he does. I am returning the favor, crouched underneath him when he shoots into my mouth. A rope of semen splatters into what I think is my eye, and I am about to reach for the nozzle to wash it out when the sting of pain never comes. In fact, as I move, the semen splatter moves with it and I discover, to my horror, that I am wearing my glasses.

“Fuck, baby boy, that was hot.” he bites me on the chin, hard.

“I can’t believe I was wearing my glasses this ­ whole time,” I joke, and he grins.

“That’s why I ­ didn’t turn the ­ water on hot.”

“Huh?”

“That’s why I ­ didn’t turn the wat—”

“No, I heard you, what did you mean?”

#32 nips at my ear and slides a hand around to grab my butt. “I didn’t want your glasses to fog up.” He pats a cheek, and slips out of the stall.

I collapse on the bench, semen gobbed on the corner of my mouth, and wonder why this is the nicest thing a man has done for me since I can’t remember when. That probably explains the tears that come. At least, I hope it does. I want to run after him and ask for his phone number and his address and if he has a dog and whether the second shelf of his medicine cabinet is spoken for already, but instead I grab the shower handle and twist it past the bright red temperature strip. Within seconds steam fills the stall, clouding my lenses, holding me in a fog of warm loneliness. I cry and pretend I am sweating instead.

Excerpted from SORRY I KEEP CRYING DURING SEX: A MEMOIR. Copyright © 2025 by Jesse James Rose. Published and reprinted by permission of Abrams Press, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved.

We’re thrilled to announce that SORRY I KEEP CRYING DURING SEX is our March 2026 Open Secrets Book Club pick! You can purchase it at Bookshop to support us and independent bookstores or wherever you buy books. Watch our interview with on March 24 at 7 pm ET on Substack Live and stay tuned for a book club discussion chat.

Jesse James Rose (she/they) is a transgender actor, writer, and content creator based in New York City. Every president who has attacked her in the media has been shot at. Rose holds degrees from NYU in music theatre and child and adolescent mental health studies, as well as a certificate in diversity, equity, and inclusion from Cornell University. As an actress, Rose made queer theater history as the youngest openly nonbinary professional performer to take on the title role in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The same year they co-starred in the indie film Adelphe, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. They are perhaps most known as a transgender activist attacked by Donald Trump, as covered by Rolling Stone and THEM. Their work lives largely on social media, where Rose writes about gender, queerness, survivorship, mental health, their feelings, and their exes on Instagram & TikTok (@jamesissmiling).

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Camille and I met in the spring of 2010 as designers at a textile studio in New York City, an airy space where we bonded over a shared love of color, texture, and pattern. She was French, raised in the picturesque countryside, and I’m Guyanese-Indian from a New Jersey suburb. Despite the differences in our origin stories, we connected. We both had difficult relationships with our fathers and creative careers our families didn’t understand. We dreamt of life beyond our day jobs, and brainstormed business ideas we didn’t have the time or money to start. We were both five feet tall, in our late twenties, and on the brink of transformation.

Like everyone in the office, I was enchanted by Camille’s French cachet and international circle of friends. Her wardrobe was filled with brands I couldn’t pronounce, and her unfussy yet elegant look was impossible to emulate. She was self-deprecating about her English, but I was too busy enjoying her accent to notice any gaps in her grammar.

Over the next four years, I learned that she was a New Age mystic who loved yoga, health food, and tarot. She was the only person I knew who consumed kefir, kombucha, and fermented vegetables. Camille believed she was clairvoyant and took classes to hone her skills. I would’ve judged these interests in anyone else. But in her, they were charming. In a city full of skeptics, she was a shameless believer.

Knowing her trust in fate, I wasn’t entirely shocked by her sudden marriage to a man she’d only known for two weeks. By then, she’d returned to France, and we’d become long distance friends, emailing and Skyping as often as we could. She was on holiday in New York when she met the Writer, as we called him. In those days, all her new beaus got nicknames. I remember rolling my eyes when she told me he was 20 years older.

The situation seemed harmless, another chapter in the exciting life of a single friend. But days later, an email arrived with the subject line “Big News.” The message described an urban legend: a first date that lasted for hours, a deep spiritual connection, a whirlwind proposal, and City Hall ceremony. There would be a party in the fall, and she hoped my husband and I could make it. She’d always said weddings were an American craze, and that marriage wasn’t a priority for the French. The Writer had clearly made a convincing grand gesture.

While I was happy to have Camille back in the city, my gut reaction was fear. He was a stranger old enough to be her father. She was in her mid-thirties and had always wanted children. The situation seemed more like a Woody Allen script than the life I’d imagined for a dear friend.

Camille was talented, gorgeous, and magnetic. I’d seen many men fall in love with her over the years, but this proposal was well-timed. The marriage would allow her to remain stateside, start her company, and follow the dreams we had talked about so often. I focused on these tangible outcomes as I sent her my congratulations, praying she remained as wildly happy as she claimed to be.

About two months into the marriage, Camille and I met for lunch before Labor Day weekend. I thought we would discuss the details of her wedding celebration, which was a few weeks away. But the conversation that ensued wasn’t about dresses or table settings.

Over plates of endive salad, I watched her features crumple as Camille admitted that things were not what they had seemed. We had cried in front of each other countless times. But this was different. There was real fear in her voice. I offered for her to stay in my apartment while my husband and I visited his parents for the long weekend. She was hesitant but agreed to take some space and consider what she wanted to do next.

I felt like we were in a movie as we left the restaurant and headed to SoHo. While she ran upstairs to collect her belongings, I was on the lookout for the Writer, a middle-aged white man I’d only seen via Google image search. I had no idea what to do if I encountered him. Block him from entering the building? Punch him in the nose? I had no framework for this scenario.

Hurriedly, we loaded her things into the trunk of a cab. As we sped up the West Side Highway, Camille called her husband to tell him she was leaving. I didn’t think this was a good idea, but she wanted him to know. His rage reverberated from her cell phone into the backseat. Her face was flushed as she begged for him to calm down and listen. If my blood was pumping, I could only imagine the pace of her heartbeat. My whole body was tense as I tried to shut out their fraught exchange. As wind whipped through the open windows, I focused on the outline of the George Washington Bridge in the distance, a sign that we were almost to safety.

After Camille was settled at my apartment uptown, I boarded a plane at JFK feeling hopeful. Her marriage had been impulsive, but it wasn’t too late to undo. I imagined us in the not-too-distant future, laughing about the whole disaster over glasses of Côtes du Rhône. But he texted and called all weekend, ensuring she had no peace or emotional distance.

On Monday morning, they met in a park downtown to talk. I can only imagine what he said, the promises he made. It had taken my own mother two tries to leave my father; he too had been loving and persuasive when he needed to be. In both cases, I could only observe from the outside, waiting and hoping. But by the time I got home, she was gone.

The wedding celebration was canceled, but somehow, the marriage endured. After Camille moved back in with her husband, we continued to see each other, but I began to dread our visits. Even if we weren’t speaking about him directly, his dark shadow was always present. There was no place for banter about food, design or music. We no longer took turns venting, offering solace, and making each other laugh. Outwardly, she was unchanged, but I could hear in her voice and see in her eyes—the lightness was gone. Camille was contorting to fit the hard, incongruent edges of her marriage, shape-shifting for her own survival.

As a kid, I’d watched my mother mute herself, keeping her opinions and desires quiet so as not to upset my father. But she could never make herself small enough; he only found more obscure reasons to be angry. It was painful to witness Camille undergo a similar transformation.

One of the last times I saw her was in the winter of 2015. We met at a patisserie near the studio where we had once been coworkers, which felt like another lifetime. Over mugs of herbal tea, she spoke about ending her life, her gray-blue eyes distant. I didn’t know what to say. I had helped her escape once, but only she could help herself now. Worse still, I had my own news to share, news I’d been holding for months, never finding the right moment. Before we parted, I finally told Camille I was pregnant with my first child, the boy she had once predicted.

“I figured,” she said.

Her cold reaction stung. I missed the friend who would’ve hugged me and asked how I was feeling. The friend who would’ve taught me French lullabies and taken me shopping for block-printed onesies and handmade quilts. When she declined the invite to my baby shower, I felt guilty for being upset, knowing her situation. The truth was, I welcomed motherhood, but I too was scared of the future I had chosen. Like her, I needed support. But that was something she couldn’t give.

About a year after our fateful lunch, I saw Camille crossing the intersection of Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street. In a crowd of pedestrians, I recognized her long sandy hair and graceful stride. Part of me wanted to wave and call her name, to have a five-minute conversation on the street corner, to sit for a cup of tea. I wanted to chat with her like we used to in the airy studio, imagining our futures. But we weren’t those young women anymore. I was a mother now, my life crowded with new love and new worries. My heart made a quick calculation, and my body kept moving. I walked north, and she walked south. We passed each other as strangers.

A few years later, Camille emailed to tell me she was getting a divorce. By then, the only signs of her in my life were, appropriately, two pieces of kantha-style hand embroidery she’d brought me back from a trip to India.

Her message arrived like a shock wave through my own stress and exhaustion, bringing me back to that time in our lives. She asked me to write a letter of support summarizing the day I had tried to help her leave her husband.

“Our friendship waned during the course of her marriage,” I wrote. “But I was aware of her many challenges in trying to make it work. She tried her best, but it was not a feasible long-term relationship.”

I had the letter notarized at a bank near my office in Midtown and mailed it to her new address on the other side of the country. I would never know how she survived her marriage, or what finally empowered her to leave. Our friendship was over, but closure came with knowing that years after that cab ride up the West Side Highway, she was finally free.

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Sumitra Mattai is a writer, storyteller and textile designer based in New York City. She holds a BFA in Textile Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. Her essays have been shared in Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, and Lit Magazine, among others. For more information, visit her website, www.sumitramattai.com, find her on Instagram @sumitramattai, or check out her newsletter, Clothbound, about textiles in art, design and everyday life.

Last winter, I was deep in my hookup era. You know the one—where you’re not looking for anything serious, you’re just cavorting, and collecting stories for the group chat. My dating profiles were clear about my intentions: “Not looking for a relationship. Just good company, good sex, and good vibes.”

Enter: Feeld. The app for people who want to be honest about wanting to be a little slutty. I met this man, let’s call him Key Guy, who was on the same page. He was cute, said all the right things, and our chat had the right mix of flirty and funny. After a couple of days of messaging back and forth, we decided to meet up.

The plan was simple: grab drinks at a bar, see if we vibed, and if we did, go back to his place. Totally standard logistics when you’re a seasoned New York dater with a healthy respect for late night subway schedules and post-sex exhaustion.

So I packed my “just in case we vibe” bag charger, makeup wipes, condoms, lube, and a change of clothes for the next day. Responsible slutting, you know?

The date was great. The conversation flowed, the drinks were good, and he was even cuter in person. We went back to his place, which was cozy, and he had an adorable cat. We had a great night. Mission accomplished.

Boom, the next morning, over bagels and coffee, he asked what my plans were for the day. I told him I had a few work calls to make and was planning to hit a coworking space before meeting a friend for lunch. That’s when things started to get weird.

He offered to let me stay at his apartment to work. Now, at first, the suggestion didn’t sound that strange. Except he was leaving for work. Meaning: This man I had met less than 24 hours ago was offering to leave me alone in his apartment. Alone. With his cat.

I don’t know what kind of energy I was giving off that said “trustworthy enough not to steal your cat and your TV,” but I wasn’t about to question it too hard. Coworking spaces cost money, and I’m not above a free desk and Wi-Fi in this economy. So I said yes. As he was getting ready to head out, he realized—oops—there was no way for me to lock up when I left without his keys. And before I could even say, “Oh no, that’s okay, I’ll just pack my things and go,” he pressed a spare set of keys into my hand like it was no big deal.

Now, I’ve lived in New York for over 30 years. I don’t hand my keys to anyone I’ve known for less than a week, let alone someone I’ve just slept with. I asked him three times if he was sure, and he just smiled and said, “It’s fine! It’s not like I’m not going to see you again.”

Mm-hmm. Famous last words.

I did my work, played with the cat, and when I left, I locked up, slid the keys into my bag, and went on with my day, completely unaware that those keys were about to become the main character in one of the strangest dating stories of my life.

Fast forward a month later. We’d texted a few times after that night, but it was clear he wasn’t interested in a round two. Which was fine, honestly. I wasn’t heartbroken. But there was one small problem: I still had his keys. So I texted him, reminding him that I had them and asking how he wanted to get them back. His response? He was going out of town for a week and asked if I’d mind cat sitting.

THE AUDACITY.

Not only was this man slow ghosting me, but he was also trying to turn me into his last-minute pet care solution. I politely declined. I was also heading out of town, so we agreed we’d reconnect to exchange the keys when we both got back. Except we didn’t.

Weeks passed. The keys were still in my bag, clanking around like a tiny reminder of this ridiculous man. Finally, I did what any chaotic Xennial woman would do: I took the story to Instagram. I told my followers about Key Guy, the one-night stand who trusted me with his home security, ghosted me, and then tried to get free cat care out of the deal. I asked what I should do with the keys.

The responses were chef’s kiss—half chaos, half common sense. Some said to mail them back. Others said to text him again, just to make it clear I wasn’t trying to rekindle anything, I just wanted to give him his keys. Most people, though, said to toss them and move on.

But here’s the thing: I’m a firm believer in karma. I couldn’t just throw them away without at least trying one more time to do the right thing. So I crafted one last polite-but-pointed text.

I offered him three options:

1. I could mail them back if he Venmo’d me the postage.

2. I could drop them off at his workplace when he wasn’t around.

3. I could leave them at my job, where we often hold keys for neighbors. Easy, safe, no contact required.

Three days later, he finally replied. “Wow, you’re really trying hard to return my keys.”

Duh. They’re your house keys.

He said he’d pick them up from my job sometime in the next week. And shock of shocks, he never showed up. At that point, I texted him one final time: “Hey, just letting you know your keys are getting evicted into the garbage next time I’m at work.” No response. And that was that.

But here’s the thing: I couldn’t just quietly toss them. This wasn’t your average ghosting. This ghost was a man who trusted me with his home, then disappeared, and left me with the physical embodiment of his poor decisions.

No, no, no. A disappearing act of this magnitude deserved a little ceremony—a little flair. A little razzle dazzle. So I channeled all of my chaotic Xennial energy into a project. I made a tiny cardboard coffin, placed the keys inside, and held a funeral for them in my Instagram stories. Complete with a Sarah McLachlan-serenaded walk to the garbage.

I’d like to think I learn a little something from every date gone wrong. In this case, I learned never to take possession of someone’s keys unless I’m very sure I’ll be seeing them again. If nothing else, I’m always going to have a good time with an awkward situation, and that may be the true lesson here. Sometimes people ghost you. Sometimes you spend way too much time making a tiny key coffin out of cardboard. But if you can laugh about it and spin it into a wild story, you’ll live to date another day.

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Dirty Lola is an award-winning sex educator, dildo slinger, storyteller, and host of the podcast So You Want To Try, known for smashing stigma, spreading joy, and turning awkward dating moments into laugh-out-loud wisdom.

When my husband smashed the table, this is what I did: nothing. Well, not nothing. I turned my face into a plate, made clean of all scraps. No emotion leftovers. I made “all gone.” Eyes clear, like bone china moons.

I was quiet when I took the chunks and splinters and placed them in the alley trash bin. I was quiet when he left that night. I was quiet when he returned the next day. Sliced apples into a bowl and drizzled honey in wide zigzags over them.

I had bought the table at a yard sale a few blocks away. It had a checkerboard top and a drawer for keeping game pieces. I thought it was charming, with its spindle legs. I imagined it had lived a long life of chess games, and I wanted it to live a little longer. Maybe I would teach my kids how to play checkers, and later, my husband could teach them how to play chess.

My husband said he wished he’d thrown it at the television and shattered that too. Maybe then I would have understood how angry he really was. Maybe then, he said, he would have made his point. He said this the next day when the sun was up and the kids were awake. After he returned home from wherever he went to cool down.

Three years later, we live in a different house in a different city. We are preparing for Shabbat dinner. An out-of-town guest arrives early to help. Together, they get high in our bedroom before the food prep begins. I open the windows to let in the California sunset.

My husband likes to host big, elaborate meals with lots of side dishes. Nothing is simple. No four-ingredient salads, no roasted veggies. He presents a spread that takes a whole afternoon to prepare. He comes home from the market loaded with herbs and fresh meats wrapped in paper. He measures the spices into tiny glass dishes, as if he were hosting a cooking show.

I don’t help with the meals. This is one of a million tiny spoken and unspoken choices I make to keep myself away from his anger. I’m in charge of tablecloths, flowers, candles, and music. I make things beautiful. When guests arrive, they say, What a beautiful home! That response is perfect. That’s exactly what I want them to see. A beautiful home filled with beautiful flowers in beautiful vases.

Our guest is slicing tiny tomatoes right across the center of their plump red and yellow bellies. Every half dozen, she scoops them up off the wooden board with her clean hands and plops them into a bowl. It’s such a rustic act—slice, scoop, plop. It feels wholesome.

They start talking about Judaism. My husband explains Shabbat, the way Jews treat it like a holiday, call the day a “bride,” and bow when she enters as the sun tucks behind the hills. The way Jews wear white to reflect the light of the world, the light we welcome into our homes and hearts when we pray over matching white candles.

I’m only half listening, as I snatch up small socks and stuffies strewn about the living room. I look out the front window. The view from this house is so beautiful. It’s more than I ever dared to hope for. From here, I can see the hospital where I was born. I imagine an invisible loop traced from that day, following me all the way to Chicago and back, closing the gap right under my bare feet.

“I’ve always wondered, why do Jews smash a glass at weddings?” I hear our friend ask. The conversation has traveled from Shabbat rituals to other Jewish traditions. I remember choosing the glass we would break after our own vows. My mother took a scrap of cream satin left over from my wedding dress and hemmed a large square kerchief in which to wrap the glass before my husband’s foot would stomp down upon it.

“It’s a symbol,” he replied, “that what is broken can also be beautiful.”

At this, I pause. Because, no. That isn’t it at all.

I know exactly what it symbolizes. Because as a conversion Jew, I studied this. I spent months planning the kind of Jewish wedding that would welcome our non-Jewish friends and family into the traditions, not alienate them. I wanted each choice to be intentional, full of meaning, and accessible to all. I even created a wedding program so guests would fully understand the reason behind each choice.

The program explained everything with headlines like, What is a chuppah and why do people get married under it? and Why do men wear yarmulkes?

So I knew the answer to the question, Why do Jews smash a glass at the end of the ceremony? I knew because I crafted the answer. In the program, I wrote about the destruction of the Temples and the Holocaust. I wrote, “Being torn apart encourages us to grow and gives us the opportunity to come back together, stronger and more resilient than before. We break a glass as a symbol of this natural process.”

But here is what I didn’t write: Some couples keep the shards and turn them into mezuzahs to hang on a doorframe or Shabbat candle holders. They want to keep the broken glass as a reminder of their vows.

But I think the real reason is this: Glass can break so easily—a careless bump of the elbow, flick of the wrist, and a goblet will shatter. You could, of course, take every tiny shard and piece it back together. You could, with a lot of patience and effort, create a glass again. But you can never make the cracks disappear. You can put a thing back together, you can say sorry, you can work really hard to make sure it never breaks again. But you can never forget that carelessness shattered a thing that was once whole.

I didn’t write any of those things in our program. So maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that my husband didn’t know. After the ceremony, I threw the glass away.

I move back toward the kitchen and begin to set the table. I want to correct him. Maybe I do. Maybe I add my two cents to the conversation. Or maybe I’m quiet as I set folded napkins and polished glassware on the table. I don’t remember.

Should I have bound the splintered table back together? Maybe filled the cracks with gold, like some Japanese artisans do to preserve the history of an item? Sealed each splinter with glitter glue, perhaps? Maybe a constant reminder set beside the sofa would have stopped my husband from breaking things. Maybe if he set his morning coffee on its mended checkerboard after each sip, he wouldn’t forget what he did. Couldn’t forget the history of the object, the way he held it above his head before driving it into the ground with his whole self.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that he forgot.

I could draw a new loop starting at the exact place under the chuppah where my husband’s shoe smashed the glass and closed the circle at the moment I left him. Within these two curved lines, maybe I could keep his rage and all the things he broke at a safe distance. When people ask what happened, I say our marriage broke. A hundred tiny fractures and a one good whack, and it shattered.

Join us on May 18 at 8:30 p.m. ET for a Q&A with Jazmine Becerra Green on Invisible Marital Abuse: When “It Wasn’t That Bad” is a Lie. Link to get a reminder or visit Open Secrets in the Substack app. Subscribers will be notified when we go live.

If you're struggling with intimate partner violence or know someone who is, help is available. In the United States, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 or text BEGIN to 88788. Outside the United States, see the NO MORE Global Directory.

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Jazmine Becerra Green is a Pushcart Prize-nominated queer, Chicanx writer and poet. Her work has been published in The Boston Globe, Bust, and Hypertext, among others. She writes a Substack newsletter called Living Room, where she publishes essays on coming out later in life with children. Jazmine is working on a hybrid memoir and lives in Los Angeles with her partner and wildlings. You can find more of her work at jazminebecerragreen.com or jazminebecerragreen.substack.com. Pronouns: she/her.

“You two should have a fancy dinner by the water. Make everybody else go to Taco Bell.”

My boss was clearly not over the fifteen thousand dollars he’d spent on his quaint vineyard wedding. And my plan to drop an even more ludicrous amount of money on my waterfront nuptials seemed to trigger him.

But it was really important for me to get married by the water. My dad was cremated, and we spread his ashes in the ocean. Getting married by the water would symbolize my dad walking me down the aisle.

Yes, I know it’s not the same. No, it doesn’t really make sense. Yes, I’m sentimental. No, I can’t help it.

“Then only the people who actually care would come to the ceremony,” he added.

His suggestion was actually quite brilliant. Until I realized that I didn’t want to have a fancy dinner in my fancy white dress in a fancy hotel overlooking the water with my soon-to-be husband. I wanted to be at Taco Bell with everybody else—and I don’t even like Taco Bell.

When I left, I told my ex-fiancé the truth. That I couldn’t marry him. Because he wasn’t the one. Because he wasn’t my best friend.

I left my three-stone engagement ring on the nightstand, on the last Polaroid photo we’d taken together. My ex, my best friend and I had our arms around each other on a seaside cliff on our last road trip together—the sun was setting behind us. I bet he wanted to burn that picture. Maybe he did. I hope he did. I’ve heard that anger is healthy. Better than sadness.

“I ended it,” I told my best friend over the phone. “Can we please go on a drive?”

He told me that he didn’t feel like it, because he thought it was his fault that my ex and I broke up.

Just a few nights before, I called to tell him how I couldn’t love his best friend, the man I was about to marry, in the ways that I should.And how I loved him—my best friend—instead, in all the ways that I shouldn’t.

So, he wasn’t wrong, but at the same time, it really wasn’t his fault. If I never said a word, none of this would’ve happened.

He picked me up anyway, and we went to a Taco Bell drive-through. He ordered a Crunchwrap Supreme and a Baja Blast for himself and a chicken quesadilla for me. We ate while sitting on the tailgate of his car in the parking lot. There were cars parked sparsely around us, but it was dead quiet.

When I looked up at the sky, I was met with the garish brightness of Taco Bell’s neon sign and the tall, equally spaced lights in the parking lot. I couldn’t see a single star. Good. It would’ve been offensive on a night like this.

“We can’t be friends,” he said.

“I know,” I mumbled to my quesadilla.

He was my ex’s best friend before he was mine, so we knew that we had to part ways. Even if we were to be together, we knew that it couldn’t be now.

And no, “my quesadilla” wasn’t and will never be his pet name.

I threw rolled-up wrappers at him, and he spat ice cubes at me. He dropped me off at home, then he moved two states away. We didn’t laugh or cry or hug.

I got through most nights in my empty apartment by downing a generous shot of whiskey for dinner. Sometimes, I called him in a haze, then deleted his name from my call log just before I fell asleep. When I woke up, I pretended that it was nothing more than a dream. Sometimes, I got drunk enough to tell him that I missed him. He was always sober, and he never said it back.

We saw each other a few times over a couple of years. Each time, we acted like it’d be the last. We spent almost every night driving out of the city, through snaking hills and sometimes, unpaved roads. That’s our thing--scenic drives--even when it’s almost completely dark out, and the only way that we could sense any hint of scenery was through the twists and turns. My ex always used to get nauseous, but it made us feel like we could fly.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he told me that he loved me.

“What?” I gaped at him.

I’d always sensed that he did, but I never expected to hear him say it, or how much I needed to.

On his first birthday that we celebrated as a couple, he insisted that we have Taco Bell. I cancelled the dinner reservation I’d made at the best restaurant in his town and changed back into my loungewear. I could almost hear my bank account breathe a massive sigh of relief.

What? I wasn’t going to let him pay for dinner on his birthday!

He pulled up to the drive-through line and ordered a Crunchwrap Supreme and a Baja Blast for himself and a chicken quesadilla for me. When we got home, he dimmed the lights and set the coffee table, then we ate while watching Before Sunrise. His apartment smelled like fresh laundry, old leather and even older wood, just like the candles I tend to gravitate toward.

It was actually pretty romantic, except for the small inconvenient fact that I don’t like Taco Bell. The food’s sad enough when it’s fresh and warm. It’s even more disappointing at room temperature. But hey, it wasn’t my birthday.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he farted, and it made his place smell more like beans and cheese than the musky candles I like.

“I just farted,” he announced, with pride and giggles, as if there was any doubt that it was him all along.

I thought, I’d marry him in a Taco Bell parking lot.

I didn’t think about the water, or the lack thereof.

Sorry, dad.

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Andrea Lius lives and writes in California. Her words have appeared in Hippocampus, glassworks, and Emerge Literary Journal, among others. Find her on X or Bluesky: @liuswrites.

When I think about my burial, I imagine my body as an empty husk, pillaged of its organs. I’m already missing a few: red-raw, swollen tonsils and adenoids extracted from me as a too-young-to-consent six-year-old (I was promised soothing jelly and ice cream afterward but was given scratchy cornflakes instead); and my scarred and infected gallbladder wrestled from my body forty years later (all I wanted after that was a nice cup of tea).

In just a few short weeks, a surgeon will be back inside my body; this time, my uterus is for the chop. I bargained with the gynecologist over the fate of my cervix. Removing it, he told me, and the resulting vaginal cuff (where they sew up the top of the vagina, creating a stitched tube to nowhere) would be more of an issue if I were having heterosexual penetrative sex.

Oh, I thought, are you assuming that my wife and I don’t fuck? That my sex life is limited solely to outercourse? Or do you mean that a man can’t be trusted with his penis? That a post-operative, cervix-absent vagina is not at risk from penetration per se, but is in danger if there’s an inconsiderate dick in the picture?

The same surgeon had previously freaked me out by suggesting that my uterus, plus the large fibroid attached to it, could be pulled out through my vagina. I checked the relative dimensions online: it would be like giving birth to the head of a full-term baby but without the natural processes of loosening pelvic ligaments and cervix dilation.

On review of my scans, he threw me another curveball: given its still increasing size, the only way to get the fibroid out of me would be via “open extraction.” Or, as I explained in a text message to a friend later that day, “He’s going to cut me open and scoop it all out.”

Did you know that fibroids are measured in fruit units? They range from grape size to strawberry, peach, orange, grapefruit, and watermelon—the mother of all fruity fibroids. That’s a veritable feast taking up home where the sun don’t shine and putting pressure on all the surrounding organs and structures.

“Pressure symptoms” is how the gynecologist described it, refusing to accept my use of the word “pain.”

It’s not just pain; my poor bladder bears the brunt of having a large grapefruit pressing on it at all times. My lower back aches and groans as my body twists to compensate for the extra bulk and weight. My osteopath calls it “hormonal belt pain.” Funny how she has no qualms about using that word.

You’d think I’d be happy to know my fibroid’s days—and, by association, those of my uterus—are numbered. I am grateful that I’ve been able to access treatment (and I acknowledge my privilege of having healthcare professionals on the case) but, mostly, I’m cross.

I’m cross that another part of me is going to be cut out and discarded.

I’m cross that I’m not able to cope with my current daily pain and discomfort.

I’m cross that I can’t go for a walk without the reassurance of a toilet (or several) on my route.

I remember a therapy exercise about peeling back the layer of emotion to uncover what’s underneath. The old, many-layered “onion” metaphor. (At this rate, I’ll have enough produce for a greengrocer’s stall by the end of this essay.)

Beneath my crossness—and for clarity, it’s not anger; I’m irked more than rage-filled—I’m “daunted.” Not scared. Not anxious. Not nervous (yet). But daunted. Unsettled. Uneasy.

My uterus has never been a womb. It’s never carried a baby and I’ve never wanted it to. I’m not attached to it as some emblem of my femininity or womanhood (neither of those terms resonate with me either). I’ve never thought of myself as having a “reproductive system,” but I do very much regard this part of me as sexual.

But despite never having created a “new life,” my uterus is also very much linked to how I experience myself as a creative person. More so, perhaps, because the main outlet for my creativity in my adult years has been through writing erotica.

If I’m being honest, as well as feeling daunted about how I’ll manage the physical recovery from surgery, I’m daunted about how it might impact my sexual self.

I Googled “lesbian hysterectomy support” and I’m pretty sure the SEO on this essay will get me close to the top of the search list, given how little information there is out there for this subset of the population. (Side note: the main story online is about an Irish lesbian being denied a hysterectomy in case she found a husband one day…) (Second side note: I am, however, heartened at the plethora of information for those seeking hysterectomy as gender-affirming care.)

As a Venn diagram, my story would have (onion and grapefruit-sized) circles to show that I’m in my 50s, I identify as a queer and kinky dyke, I’m a multi-published erotic writer, I’m childless by choice, I bruise and scar easily, and my past surgery experiences were problematic. I don’t react well to general anesthetic and, previously, I have woken up inconsolable, sobbing and shaking uncontrollably, with my blood pressure through the floor. Not only that, but also my body felt violated and my energy/aura/psyche punctured and displaced. (Oh yes, add my spiritual beliefs circle to the Venn diagram too.) Mine is maybe not a common intersection, but I very much doubt it’s unique.

The first time my wife and I went to see this gynecologist, we wore professional garb. It felt important to show some kind of power and authority while we met with the man who might one day reach inside me. He was charming and confident. We rushed home to change into comfier clothes and to dissect the conversation.

I’d asked him outright about sexual function after hysterectomy and he’d said that many women find it improves their sex life because the symptoms that led them to surgery (often heavy bleeding) have been resolved. I also asked him about cervix retention and sexual sensation. It depends, he said; with or without hysterectomy, many women find that their pleasure comes mainly from external stimulation. Whether or not the ovaries can be spared is one of the main factors related to libido.

There are potential risks of damage to the bladder, urethra, and bowel during surgery. Plus, the risks associated with any surgery and general anesthetic.

“It’s about quality of life,” my wife reminded me. “We’re like the boiling frog; the changes have been incremental and I don’t think either of us realized just how limiting this would become. It’s time.”

She’s right. Over the last year or so, I’ve become increasingly reluctant and unable to do many of the things I love. Long walks on coastal paths were one of the first to go. We’re still having sex but it’s infrequent and tempered with caution and concern for my “ladyparts.” For my birthday last year, my wife bought me a mini hot water bottle with a belt attached so I can wear it when the pain is bad. We jokingly refer to it as my “strap-on.”

Having decided to go ahead with the hysterectomy, I’m left with a deep need to reconnect with my power as a sexual being. If my sexual self might change, how can I find peace with that? If my creativity might suffer (even if temporarily), how can I be okay with this different version of me?

I asked a friend who does Shamanic work if he would support me in creating a small ritual to honor the loss of my uterus; he agreed. As a uterus-free transman, he knows something about releasing body parts.

I also reached out to other people I know to invite them to share their experiences and Venn diagrams of times when their sex lives have felt disrupted. Sexual awakenings, gender transitions, relationship shifts, illness and disability, becoming a caregiver, bereavement, menopause, and aging all feature.

Many of my friends are writers and we’ve created a book of these stories called Sex Meets Life. Collectively, we are cis, trans, and non-binary, straight, queer, pansexual and everything in between. We are in our twenties through to our seventies. We come from at least four different continents. Some of us live with neurodivergence, chronic illness, and disability, and some do not. Sex Meets Life has turned out to be a celebration of diversity and an offering of hope, showing that “imperfect intimacy” is still valid, and that finding your sex life in a state of flux or transformation is a universal experience.

I take comfort in this.

I also take comfort in reminding myself that “you can’t take it with you when you go.” Who cares if my body is an empty husk by the time it’s lowered into the ground or carried on a slow conveyor belt behind the sliding doors at the crematorium? It won’t matter how many organs I have left (and I hope any healthy ones will have been donated anyway). All that matters is finding ways to enjoy my body—and my creativity—today: turning lemons into lemonade and grapefruits into stories that help us all feel a little more connected.

Postscript:

In the time between writing this essay and its publication, I’ve had my hysterectomy.

It went well (thankfully), and I’m mostly feeling liberated and like my world can open up again—even though there is still a question mark over my sex life.

However, throughout the process of preparing, undergoing, and healing from surgery, I continued to find resources and representation for lesbian and queer folk lacking.

In light of this, I’ve written and created some offerings, including more writing on Substack, a video on YouTube, and a Journal to support others with their healing and recovery. You can find all of these resources on my website.

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Anna Sansom is a writer and a lover. She previously wrote the Sex/Life pages for DIVA Magazine and her erotic short stories can be found in The Big Book of Quickies, Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Volume 10, I Write the Body, and scattered across the internet. Her more-than-a-memoir, Desire Lines, “… gives the reader full permission to be themselves…and explore their sexuality with a sense of joy and wonder” (DIVA Magazine). She currently shares her living experiment of queer desire in midlife on Substack, and she is the curator and editor of Sex Meets Life (personal essays and life-inspired fiction from 18 international authors). She lives with her wife and cat, swims in the sea, and drinks way too much tea.

by Lila Erbemia

I never fantasized about my wedding when I was a kid. I never really felt like a girl, even long before the term nonbinary entered popular culture. Whenever my fellow second-grade classmates, the same ones that said I wasn’t popular enough to be cast as one of the Spice Girls at recess, would gush over their future nuptials, I always zoned out. That, or I had some general medieval/boho/hippie theme prepared to be “on brand” in case they asked me (which they usually didn’t).

Even at the time, I couldn’t fathom their obsession with a single (very expensive) event. Maybe it was because I would start to show signs of my own obsessive-compulsive disorder by middle school, scrubbing my hands multiple times a day until they dried out, cracked, and bled. Maybe it was due to growing up poor in middle-of-nowhere Appalachia, where we relied on family and neighbors for so much and saw the effort that anything took day after day—no dropping thousands of dollars on a wedding planner for us. Maybe it was the fear that I would never be attractive or feminine enough to attract a boy, which seemed like it was a Very Important Priority.

That isn’t to say I hated weddings outright. It felt special to be the flower girl for my uncle, even though I was disappointed that I wasn’t allowed to scatter the flower petals and was only allowed to walk up the aisle holding the basket. I loved being the guest book attendant for my cousin’s wedding because I got to play with a fancy ostrich feather pen and it was another excuse to dress up for fun. And I gained a reputation as an energetic kid for dancing the night away at family wedding receptions, rambunctiously dragging the cousins close to my age to the floor and jumping around to the point of exhaustion.

The thing is, I could never picture myself being the main focus of an event like that. It was so much attention, so much pressure. I was always the one people said was shy, reserved, “backwards” socially. Even before I learned about the deep roots of patriarchy in marriage and the wedding ceremony, I always felt a vague sick feeling of thinking the bride looked sacrificial up on the altar in white, like she was about to lose herself. Even with the smiles, the ceremony felt like a vastly unequal exchange. Needless to say, I’d only been to straight cis Christian weddings in my family and this severely limited my perception of what a wedding and marriage could be.

I spent years avoiding the topic, studying hard, and favoring unrequited crushes to the rare times I dated. Then finally, in my early twenties, I did meet someone who I wanted to stay with for the long term. He wasn’t Catholic or even religious, he suffered from bipolar disorder, and he had multiple piercings and a tattoo. In other words, my mom wasn’t thrilled by my choice and there was a very real possibility of being disowned for the year that I “lived in sin” with him (aka our engagement). But after we actually got married, my mom gradually started to soften because he hadn’t left me (even though I had already told her he wouldn’t).

The wedding planning and ceremony were stressful with the cloud of my mom’s reluctance hanging over them; ironically, we were getting married so soon in large part to appease her. We did everything we could to keep things as cheap as possible and still ended up broke for months afterward. I had just graduated college and my spouse was finding his footing in the job market as someone with chronic health conditions. I guess it was fortunate that I didn’t have any strong pull toward the lavish affair that the wedding industrial complex wanted me to have. We were also privileged to be able to pass as a heteronormative couple even though later we would both come out as bisexual.

I did need something to wear, though, as a minimum piece of the puzzle. I opted for an iridescent purple prom dress that I found for under $100; I liked that it wasn’t the familiar boring plain white. Instead of a veil, I wore a rhinestone tiara with it, to which my mom said, “At least that makes you look a little bit like a bride.” Despite her distaste, I got a lot of compliments on the dress.

Through it all, my maid of honor and bridesmaids helped me immensely. I’m an only child and there’s an age gap between me and my spouse’s sisters, so I looked to my small pool of female friends. For my maid of honor (who I kept accidentally calling my “best maid”), I chose my childhood best friend. The other bridesmaids were my newest best friend from college and two other close friends from high school.

My college bridesmaid was the one who hosted the bachelorette party at her house, helped with most of the planning, and didn’t complain when we baked and decorated a bunch of cupcakes at her place instead of simply buying a cake. I’ve always been reluctant personally to ranking other people in a hierarchy, so the pressure of choosing made things uncomfortable, especially when it looked like I maybe should have reconsidered my choice based on how much more my college bridesmaid did to help out than my childhood friend did. But I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

Since then, all of my bridesmaids but one have been married at least once. My college bridesmaid invited me to her wedding, but I wasn’t in the wedding party and I really regret that I wasn’t able to repay the way she’d gone above and beyond for me. Maybe she did mind the amount of work she’d done to help with my wedding more than she’d let on. While I easily get exhausted by many aspects of weddings, I really wanted to be a bridesmaid as a heartfelt show of thanks to my friends and to support them the way they did for me.

However, it hasn’t worked out that way yet. One bridesmaid simply got the paperwork signed at the courthouse with no ceremony, and the other had a super small (less than ten people) ceremony for her first marriage and for her second, I was invited but not as a bridesmaid. An extra sting added to this was that the former was involved in both weddings of the latter.

My childhood best friend, the one who was my “best maid,” is the only one of us who hasn’t been married yet, although she lived with someone for a long time before they went their separate ways. Sometimes I wonder if I’m selfishly holding out hope that she’ll get married, not only because I think she deserves someone a lot better than her ex, but also because that could be one of the last viable chances I would get to be a bridesmaid. Everyone knows making new friends in your thirties can be difficult and while I have made some new friends, none of the newer friendships have been as deep as the ones with my former bridesmaids.

Despite the feelings of camaraderie I have toward the women I chose as my bridesmaids, I’m also aware that I may have inadvertently hurt some other friends and close acquaintances by not choosing them. There’s always that tricky balance between having a practical cutoff number for a wedding party and the infuriatingly inane feeling of losing a popularity contest that you should have been able to win. Then again, I didn’t have a huge number of close female friends to choose from; I often was the one who didn’t mind the company of boys that I later learned (almost without exception, it seemed) were gay.

I wonder if, not fully out to myself, I was holding back just a little too much and not being fully honest with my friends. Maybe they picked up on that and that’s part of why I was never considered close enough to trust with their own special days. Maybe, in the case of one of my former bridesmaids, they also never felt “feminine” and might also have identified as nonbinary except for the deep distaste they have for any labels. Or maybe I’m continuing to project my own insecurities onto all of them, when their reasons may not have been so personal at all?

In any case, I’m glad I got through what was not exactly the happiest day of my life, but one of the most surreal and stressful. It wasn’t terrible but it also wasn’t a perfect fairytale day either. Like so much in life, my wedding day got muddled somewhere in mediocrity, but that’s okay. I’m grateful for my marriage to the extent that it gave me a chance to reflect on my place within friendships and two families. Even with the hassle, it also allowed me to deepen a relationship with my spouse of over ten years, allowing us the huge social privileges for me to stay with him when he was admitted to the hospital for a night, letting us quietly discover our bisexuality at our own pace without outside scrutiny from our families, and to make the difficult but valuable choice to work on being less codependent with one another and celebrate each others’ personal growth.

Getting married also confirmed that being realistic (or at least starting with low expectations) can sometimes be for the better in a high-pressure event where everyone has strong opinions about how it should be run. The next time I go to a wedding, I’ll try not to roll my eyes too hard at the absurdity of this endlessly repeating, important but also overdone ritual.

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Lila Erbemia (she/they) is a writer and photographer from the Midwest United States.