Sometimes when I see a man in a suit, my mind betrays me. It replays a memory. Like when you eat something really pungent and you taste it in the back of your mouth every few hours. It repeats on you, and it’s just unpleasant enough to make you cringe, but not so unpleasant as to derail your entire day. Suits are supposed to symbolise power and dominance. They have come to mean the opposite to me. They have come to symbolise vulnerability.

He was a lawyer traveling to Cape Town from the states for a short while. He posted an advert in a local fetish group, looking for a woman to indulge his CFnm fetish. He was willing to pay for the privilege of just spending time in a room with a clothed woman, while he was naked. I wasn’t interested in the money, but I was interested in someone who would pay for something so seemingly banal. I proposed meeting for a drink to chat about it. I was intrigued, and my curiosity lead me by the nose (as it often does).

He was half an hour late. Just as I was about to leave, he arrived. Very American, he looked and spoke just like Robin Williams. Very smiley. Middle aged. Through our conversation he revealed some information about how he came to be a lawyer and how competitive the industry was, etc. He was more cagey about his love life, but I suspect that it was because there was not much to tell. He’d hinted at having been in two brief relationships. He hadn’t had sex for a long time, it seemed. He didn’t seem particularly interested in my life, which made me feel both objectified and safe.

I wasn’t particularly charmed by him. But he had this strange disposition that invited both sympathy and nurturing that kept me in the bar despite my drink having been empty for some time. He anxiously twiddled his thumbs. Kept his head low like a dog who had suffered one too many beatings. There was an agony in his submissiveness that I found captivating. A morbid curiosity was awakened, I suppose.

He anxiously asked if I would come up to his hotel room. I was reluctant. He’s a man, stronger than me. He could have easily overpowered me. But, again, that bloody insatiable curiosity of mine… combined with his nervousness and the multitude of security cameras lining the walls of the hotel made me follow him to his room.

Once there, I plopped myself onto his bed and watched him anxiously pace around. When I could no longer bare it, I got up and hugged him rather awkwardly. It melted into a sincere embrace and I said, “it’s okay. You’re okay….” When he exhaled a long, sturdy breath, I said “Good. Now, take off your pants.”

I had no idea where that surge of dominance came from, I could not place the well within me from where it had risen up. But I was rolling with it. Eventually he was down to his underwear. Fleshy, pale body. Brown neck. Wooly pelt. Cherise nipples. Frightened schoolboy stance. Hands pink and covering his sweating face. Trembling.

By this time I was back on the bed. “Hey, you’re okay. You can take those off now.”
“I don’t know if I can,” he all but whispered.
“Yes, you can. But will you?”
“I will if you insist.”
“I insist.”

He took them off and was oozing. I made him lay at the foot of the bed and contemplated him for a while. He was squirming. Quivering like a moth. He wilted under my gaze as it lingered uncomfortably long. Assessing. Scrutinising.

Eventually I reached out to touch him. Burning skin. A gasp. As I swept my hand across his side, the look of horror on his face was replaced by one of comfort. He wilted one more, melted into contentment. I realised then that what he really wanted was intimacy. Someone to touch him and stroke his skin. Innocence.

I retracted my hand and he opened his eyes, anxiety filling them once more.
“Kiss my feet”.
He did so, sweetly. He kissed up my stocking clad legs with devotion and allowed his head to rest in my lap. He looked up at me so innocently. So childishly. I stroked his hair and looked into his eyes, trying to find in them the reasons for this interaction.

I decided to give him what he needed – a full embrace – and pulled him up to my chest and held him. He stroked the length of me and held on so tightly, as though we were on a ship that was about to capsize. He gripped my body with his entirety, maximising the surface area of contact. I stroked his cheek and his ears. He eased into me and quickly fell asleep on my chest, snoring into me.

I started feeling really, really sad. Sad for this lonely man, who just needed to be touched. Sad for myself – feeling ashamed for even being in this hotel room, ashamed for allowing a man to use my body for comfort, ashamed that I was letting him. Ashamed for enjoying the power I had over him. Ashamed for the power my curiosity has over me.

I discovered the bristly hairs on his ear as I was feeling these things. They were hard, like beard hairs. Kind of gross but also strangely endearing. They became a metaphor of the entire experience for me.

When I could no longer keep the shame at bay, I woke him and told him I had to leave. He reached for his wallet.

“No, thank you” I said. I couldn’t allow him to pay me for tenderness.

I miss you. I miss the way your nose wrinkles when you laugh. I miss the way you used to bite your lip at me. I miss the way you used to say, “okay, so here’s what we’re gonna do…” before we’d make plans for an evening. I miss holding you as you slept, and stroking your hair. I miss your bones. I miss the way you used to watch me dress in the morning. I miss the way we used to have sex, with me sitting in your lap. I miss getting high with you. I miss your smell and your presence.

Polyamorous, feminist, vegetarian, pansexual, gluten intolerant, genderqueer, kinky, autistic, “allergic” to nightshades… you are all kinds of otherwise, possibly as a reaction to being a white Afrikaans male. Possibly so that you don’t have to admit to being entitled. Possibly because you genuinely are all of these things.

You came over to do some massage with me. I was apprehensive while we were making arrangements. I told you before you arrived that I didn’t want to have sex with you. I didn’t tell you that it was because I found you entirely unattractive. You assured me, very long-windedly (you have a great love affair with your own words) that you did not have “intentions”. Relief. I, the eager student, you, the eager teacher. You must have loved that dynamic.

Your touch is intuitive and adoring. You are really quite talented. You gasped at my nakedness, as I positioned myself face down on the bed. You said I was the most beautiful woman you had touched. This made me very uncomfortable. My discomfort dissipated as you touched me, however. I eased into your touch entirely. You worshiped my body with your hands.

When I was sufficiently pliable, you turned me around and pulled me into your lap. You sat against the wall, with your legs around me and massaged my chest. This action elicited an overwhelming emotional response from me, an uncontrollable and irrepressible urge to weep, terrifying in its intensity. I wept. And wept. And wept.

Wept.

You held me very tightly, whispering “I’ve got you”. Terrifying. I was fine, content even, and then I crumbled when you held me in this way. I thought of my father, of One. Of how unseen I felt generally. Naked. Vulnerable in the extreme.

When I emerged from this overwhelmed space, I kissed you. I felt the urge to, and so I did. Not unlike the way in which a child kisses an uncle. It very soon became sexual. Because I was embarrassed at having exposed myself. Because I feel power in my sexuality. Confidence. I told you to massage my cunt. You obliged, and did so expertly. The urge to weep subsided and I came, grinding on your oiled hand.

“Please fuck me. I need you to fuck me.” I heard myself say.

You pulled a latex-free condom out of your pocket. Are you fucking kidding me? Latex fucking free.

You entered me in the missionary position, and I ground my hips in time with your thrusts.

“Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.” you said, over and over. Almost chanting as I fucked you from underneath. You closed your eyes, looked intensely uncomfortable, came through gritted teeth, exhaling in short bursts. I like it when men lose control of themselves over me.

You collapsed on top of me, most theatrically. Made a point of “not apologising for coming too soon,” which in itself is an admission. I patted your head, trailed my fingers along your back, felt you soften in me. Once you had recovered, you rolled over and held me tightly. I felt my awkwardness returning. I wanted you to leave. You remained super chatty. I found myself complacently mmhmm-ing at whatever you said.

“I love you”, you said after a while.

The complacency was replaced by internal incredulity and external skepticism. “That’s ridiculous and you know it. Perhaps you have an entirely different definition of love to me?”

“I see your insides and know that they are good. That’s what I mean.”

I felt so ashamed that I had misrepresented the way I felt about you. I was embarrassed, and fucked you to regain my strength. You must have interpreted this as passion, or affection, or gratitude. My insides didn’t feel good. They felt slick, oily and pasty.

You slept over, without prior arrangement, or asking. My guilt over deceiving you kept me in your sticky embrace the whole night, sleepless. Subjected to snoring. Angry with myself.

In the morning you blocked my toilet with your ablutions.

Only you understand the joy I feel when a word fits a meaning

snugly

It is the only joy I feel, unmarred by a tiny sadness, or regret.

It is pure.

In this way, know that when I say I

love

you,

I am not referring to infatuation

or sexual desire

or immersion

or ownership.

I am referring to how my soul seeks out yours

and finds it,

touches it without shrugging away.

I am referring to how I recognise something golden, molten.

Burgeoning and oozing

from your cracks.

Goodness.

Goldenness,

the likes of which I have only known in myself.

I am referring to the desire for that gold to mix with yours

eternally.

For what is partitioned, measured out into two bodies, to reunify.

I was sitting in your lap as you lay down, gently rubbing my pelvis against yours. I stopped to scratch your chest – a tickle-scratch – very lightly. I told you in my pensive, dreamy voice, the one reserved for when what I’m about to say feels profound, “this is the way my mother used to scratch me when I was a child, with her long nails…”

You opened your eyes, smiled for not even a second before allowing your face to return to a grave, earnest expression and replied with the wonder of a small child, “I think we live in the same world.”

You are my father’s age.

You are my father’s height.

You are not my father, but you carry the same

aged cynicism

and disregard for my thoughts, which you deem childlike.

The first time we had sex, you kissed me like a school boy would, like someone who has never kissed romantically before would do. Your mouth was too puckered, and dry. You pushed your lips far away from your face, grandfatherly instead of inviting. You held my shoulders when you did it, as though you were kissing one of your nephews good night.

I realised I’d prefer to be your nephew than your lover.

Your kissing was frantic, and not sexy at all. It did not produce the tingling in my pussy I had hoped it would. I hadn’t felt that surge of blood, that pulsating wave of urgency in a while and I wanted it badly. You were trembling.

For some reason I persisted despite not being aroused.

Curiosity on the surface… Guilt beneath.

You paused occasionally to laugh quietly and say, “this is so WILD!”

I removed your shirt and found that the skin on your back was soft and membranous, like my grandmother’s. Like when you stretch the sinew in a cut of meat into a delicate web. I thought that this was quite beautiful, and poetic. I followed you up the stairs after our make out session on your couch. I had the confidence of someone with power over another, despite the residual awkwardness dictated by my personality. I flopped down onto your bed; you trembled your way over to me after closing the door. We kissed a little longer. I got your pants off and discovered that you had shaved the pubic hair around your shaft and testicles in a neat square. There was still pubic hair on the perimeter of the square, like a hedge planted around a tree. I thought it looked ridiculous.

You took my panties off, but warned me with a serious expression that you “don’t do” oral sex. I was relieved. I replied with “do you have a condom? And maybe some lube…” You appeared with both. I smeared the lube on myself, trying to coax my labia into puffyness while you fumbled with the condom. Your penis is long, and girthy, and the moan that I emitted as you penetrated me was genuine, albeit one of surprise.

You fucked me at a reasonable pace in the missionary position for a minute or two before developing a panic-stricken look, apologising and retracting your member. You muttered something inaudible and ambled off to the bathroom, where you urinated loudly. You appeared again in the doorway to the bedroom, clapped your hands and rubbed them together and announced “round two!” You had obviously enlisted some chemical help.

I smiled innocently, but had decided I would not subject myself to the sadness of fucking you again. I made you lie down and close your eyes. I asked you to breathe. I stroked your body in long sweeps with my right hand as I knelt beside you. I caressed your shoulders and arms, discovering that the muscles were firm and undulating under your finespun skin. I discovered a little tuft of black hair below your suprasternal notch, and none elsewhere on your chest. I smiled at this tuft, and tugged at it. Your eyes closed, you allowed a deep breath and a little half-moan to escape you as I stroked. It was one of the more human and honest utterances of the night. You seemed tranquil, placated and seen.

The next time you touched me, it was with tenderness and calm.

It has been three months since I ended it. We saw each other tonight for the first time in four days. At our last meeting, a coffee in the greenhouse, I told you that the next time I saw you we should both try and be happy.

I came to your house and we reclined together in your bed (your mother’s guest bed – your bed is still in my flat) for the first time in two months. In the time between we broke up and now, I had been trying to create a ditch between myself and anything you. I did this by sleeping with others, moving out your things, seeing you rarely. I thought that I had been successful, that I don’t like you very much anymore, that my love for you is analogous to the love one feels for a family member.

But then we lay down when the lights went out and I was so close to you that I could smell you behind your scent. I looked at you for the first time in months. Your beautiful skin. Your eyelid creases, deserving of worship. Your perfectly composed eye brows. Your deeply set suprasternal notch – I trailed a finger here, across from your collarbones, and began to cry.

I cried because it was so beautiful. And because I had told you before that it was where I would be storing my dreams.

Because I no longer dream of those things.

Memories and sketches. Scenes in the nude.