Two months later, I’m laying in his arms, running my fingers over his chest. I am tripping over the words dancing on my tongue. He’s waiting for me to say it. “Read my mind..” I murmur into his neck.

He lifts my chin… “I love you.”

We both know how this will end. In two weeks I’m going to be 1,880 miles away, back near my hometown to heal from my hysterectomy, and reconnect with my community. He will be back to his life, and his girlfriend. I will be back to my love, and trying to build a new career. The benefits of sexual freedom are bittersweet sometimes. When love is dynamic, the changes can take time. It hurts to adjust.

We’re drifting towards an event horizon instead of orbiting a sun eternally. We will shatter. The time will come. Things that might have mattered don’t matter. Our politics are less than parallel. But he likes it when I tease, and I like it when he draws the line. We enjoy the moments. He makes me laugh when I’m nursing my wounds. “Babe, stop making me laugh, it hurts.”

“I’m sorry… Dead babies,”

I died.

There’s not many people who can live in the darkness I reach. Deep sea divers exploring monsters. We bare our teeth in laughter.

He understood me. I want to remember those moments.

Sex was great therapy. Two weeks into my recovery period, I can't have PIV (penis in vagina) sex, but my partner is a master at oral and super gentle with me. I've been a pampered princess lately too, so it also made me feel good to give something back. I love bringing pleasure to other people. Our foreplay included coloring, and putting Star Wars stickers on his face. Also I have a chain fetish the way other people love rope, so just hearing the sound and having him run the cold metal against my skin was exciting.

Someone asked me if I was having sex already. The answer is yes. Just not in the way everyone has been conditioned by patriarchy to believe what sex is. PIV won't be possible for a few more weeks, but I'm so grateful I have partners that understand how therapeutic dopamine and oxytocin and other pleasure induced brain chemicals can be, and that BDSM play can be sweet and nurturing, and not all about pain and subjugation.

I’m lying in his arms, his hand at my throat, and I’m trying to capture the moment on my iPhone. I close my eyes and think about what our dynamic might be had we time to keep going on the path we’re on, if there wasn’t an end to the space and time we could share. Photo flashes of what might have been, our life in growth of what was just budding. I was enraptured.