I really hate you, Chris. For real.

I absolutely hate you for making me relive that afternoon.

Do I remember? How could I forget? It was the single most erotic experience of my life. I’d expected you to be well-endowed, having obviously noticed the size of your hands, which are large enough to engulf mine almost completely. But I was in no way prepared for the reality. I was stunned stupid, TBH. I hadn’t intended to suck you off, actually; that was a shock for both of us. Once I got my hands around your big beautiful cock, I couldn’t stop. It was like…I don’t even know. Magical? Addicting? I wanted to have sex with you, that’s what I wanted. I wanted to come. I wanted you to touch me too. But then I touched your cock and I couldn’t stop. It was just so soft and warm and hard and big and you were groaning, making these rumbly bear-like sounds and your eyes wouldn’t stay open, and you just watched me touch you like it was the most amazing thing you’d ever felt, but all I was doing was touching you with my hand.

When I went to my knees, that was a spur of the moment thing, totally unplanned, because I realized at that last second that you were about to come, and I wanted to make you feel even better than I already had. When you came in my mouth, I nearly orgasmed myself. It was so fucking sexy, your groans, the way your hips flexed, the way you felt in my mouth, the way you looked at me.

God, I’m horny now. Which is why I hate you for bringing it up in the first place. Because I’m horny and I’m alone, and you know how much I hate masturbating. I hate you for being able to turn me on even now, from Mexico, via email. I hate you for not being here to touch me. I hate you for knowing exactly how to turn me on, how to make me forget how much I hate you—at least long enough to daydream about you, and touch myself while thinking about you.

Darcy must think I’m crazy. He’s sitting at the end of the couch watching me. I’m sitting here on the other end, my laptop on my legs, and I’ve got my fingers between my thighs. I’m stopping every few seconds to type a little, to tease myself, to draw this out, and then I put my hand back down there. I think about you. I think about all the times I would lay on our bed, checking emails and FB notifications from my phone while you showered, and I’d always stop and watch you as you got out and dried off. I’d watch the way your thick hard muscles shifted under your skin as you wiped yourself dry with the towel, and I’d watch you ruffle your blondish-brown hair and you’d scrub your junk a little, and I’d bite my lip when you did that, because I’ve always been so insanely attracted to you, always, always, always. The attraction never let up. I never took that for granted, or got used to how hot you are.

And sometimes, you’d catch my eye, see me looking, see the expression on my face, and you’d prowl from the bathroom to our bed, and you’d climb up and crawl over me, and you’d tug the sheet and blanket down. You’d be hard by then, because you know I always sleep naked. The moment you looked at me, from the bathroom, it was over. I was going to have you. It was always inevitable, from that first look.

The moment I met you, on the quad at Miami, I saw you tossing a Frisbee to some bro, your hair was all messy and perfect, and you had these amazing laugh lines and you were so tan and weathered, not like some douchey country club bro, but the tan and weathered lines of a man who has spent countless hours and days squinting into the sun, being blasted by the wind, and weathering rainstorms and who knows what else. That moment, that very instant I saw you, I wanted you. If you had walked over to me then and asked me to blow you, I would have. No questions asked. I would have fucked you, right then. That’s how bad I wanted you, instantly. And then you really did come over and say hi. You said your name was Christian, and did I want to go out with you. So hot, so confident. Rugged. You were wearing khaki cut-off shorts and a tank top, barefoot, no shoes anywhere to be seen. It was instant lust.

That has not abated a single iota since that day on the quad at Miami. Not a bit. Not during pregnancy or after, not during Henry’s illness and death, and not after.

I just…I’ve lost myself.

I was trapped, Christian; I am trapped, still.

And I have a question:

What happened to you? When did you become so pretentious and artsy-fartsy? Since when do you prance around the subject, use flowery language and use words like “missive” and “panties” and “seed”?

What happened to you? You used to be this man who was so different from anyone I’d ever met. You were practical, down to earth, a man who appreciated simplicity, a man who was present in the moment and enjoyed every second of life for what it was. You used to be a man who didn’t really give much of a shit about possessions. You were this guy who’d seen the world. You’d been to all these exotic places…Tortuga, Madagascar, Jakarta, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Tierra del Fuego, Rio de Janeiro. You talked about those places with authority because you’d been there. You would describe such amazing sights. Like when the pod of whales porpoised next to your boat for an hour. Or when the volcano erupted not half a mile away. You were truly worldly, in the realest sense of the word. Yet you were also educated. There was a hint of a Midwestern accent. You drove a Bronco you’d restored yourself. And by restored, I mean you rebuilt the engine and left the rest alone, so it was a squeaky, rusty, cracked-pleather, smelled like cigarettes, old ass piece of shit…which could haul some serious ass.

You would talk about Arthur Miller and Hemingway and Homer and Archimedes just as easily as you would chill on the beach drinking Natty Ice by the case. You rarely wore shoes. You would show up to class barefoot, and the professors would have to remind you to put on a shirt at least half the time. You would discuss Heisenberg with physics majors and some obscure biology principle with the biology students, and you would have long winding passionate discussions of Degas and Dali and Van Gogh and Pollack with the art majors, and you would gleefully geek out over Herbert and Clarke and Asimov and Heinlein. And then you’d go play Frisbee with the jocks and drink a shitload of beer with the frat boys and sorority bitches, and you never thought any of it was at all strange. You fit in everywhere, and you were effortlessly cool.

And us?

We would go out for coffee and end up at a bar six hours later, and we never ran out of things to talk about. We’ve never lacked for conversation, though, have we? Even up until recently, we could talk for hours.

Do you remember the conversations we’d have while I was pregnant? We’d go to our favorite little Italian place, and salads and pasta would turn into three desserts and you’d drink cup after cup after cup of coffee, and we would just talk and talk and talk for hours. What did we talk about? I can’t even recall the conversations, the subjects we discussed. Everything, right? Sex, politics, movies, books. You’d tell me about your books and I’d tell you about the stupid comment threads on my blog and Facebook group. You’d bitch about how slow the editing process is. It wasn’t a conversation, like one and then another, day after day. It was one conversation, interrupted.

And now?

You write melodramatic faux-suicide goodbye notes on personalized stationery with a $500 fountain pen. You drive a Range Rover and wear $600 sunglasses and $2000 watches and iron your Armani shirts to go grocery shopping for designer kale at Whole Foods. You’ve lost that adorable hint of an Illinois accent and you haven’t touched a Frisbee in years, or had a rambling conversation with a stranger about some obscure particulate of history or science or art.

You write in purple prose and speak in arch, pat phrases like a modern-day aristocrat.

We stopped talking, at some point.

I bet you felt proud of your dirty little email, and using words like cock or panties.

Never say “panties.” Never write “panties.” It’s a nasty, ugly, horrible word. Just as an FYI.

I bet you couldn’t write a dirty email without making it all flowery and eloquent. You’d try to make it a Pulitzer Prize winning piece of ART.

You used to write for the love of words, for the love of telling a story.

Who are you, now, Christian?

I want the old you back.

Also, xoxo? Really?

No. Just…no. You don’t get to xoxo me, not when you left me to go gallivanting about the Caribbean.

A.