𝔒𝔫𝔩𝔶 𝔊𝔬𝔡 ℭ𝔞𝔫 𝔖𝔞𝔳𝔢 𝔐𝔢 𝔉𝔯𝔬𝔪 𝔐𝔶𝔰𝔢𝔩𝔣

We’ve had a few sleepovers before. It’s mostly been spooning and a few cute kisses, an occasional dry hump like we were in 8th grade again, but last night was different. Last night we did the thing.

I arrive at midnight, the prime hour for a booty call, but with him, it feels ok, there's a confidence that I mean more than that. He tells me he’s been lying in bed reading, and I tell him I packed my book as well. I curl up next to him, both with our novels in hand, and we spend the next 30 minutes reading in silence side by side as though we’ve been married 30 years and this is the part of the evening we don’t exchange words.

He gets up to go pee, and when he comes back, he plants a kiss. It’s the perfect amount of tongue and just enough saliva to be hot, but not sloppy. I could almost sense this was the night we’d go all the way. He makes his way to my neck, my breasts, my stomach. Finally, he reaches the holy grail. He goes around my panties as though my pink lace is some sort of chastity belt, knowing full well if they come off, we’re doing the thing. I’m not sure if he’s not sure, so I take them off myself. He moved close, almost reverent. In this moment, I feel both respect and pleasure, ease and ecstasy. Soon enough, I utter the words “Do you have a condom?” It’s sweet. His arms wrapped around my shoulders, close, private, meaningful. He gets the job done, and I tell him he’s “efficient.” We laugh and intertwine our naked bodies.

An immense sense of guilt comes over me, as though I’ve just stolen a piece of his goodness. I lay my head on his bare chest and think of men before him: Men who didn’t bother to ask if I wanted to use a condom, men who got off on aggressive thrusts from the back, men I lay next to counting the hours until we’d never speak again. The careless ones, the selfish ones, the ones who never asked, who made me feel like a placeholder in their stories. He wasn’t like them.

I feel irresponsible with his emotions, but I don’t want to assign myself that much power. I turn away, facing the wall where a framed image of the crown of thorns hangs above his bed.

I don’t know which is more uncomfortable — being the woman lying here now, feeling like I’ve stolen a good man’s innocence, knowing he’s softer, and after all, a few years younger — or remembering the woman I’ve been, the one who wanted love so badly she mistook proximity for promise, lying beside men who would forget her by morning.

I’m in my mid-thirties. Isn’t this the kind of person I should be pursuing? I think about how I don’t even want to live in this country; it could never work. The self-sabotage is clear, abundant, ever-present. This feeling of fleeing something pure is familiar and unflinching I look up at the crown of thorns. Only God can save me from myself.

Paige [Vreede] is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles. After years in music journalism, she now focuses on personal storytelling and the lessons she’s learned the hard way on her Substack. When she’s not writing, she’s probably impulsively buying a plane ticket out of the country, filming baking videos, or writing songs that may never be released.