We take the call in the library room with those tall windows that frame the gray water beyond the cliffs.The laptop sits on the broad oak desk beside the kettle I carried in because I don’t trust myself without something to pour.Barret sits cross-legged on the Persian rug, back against the shelves of first editions.His hair is still damp from a too-quick shower.My shirt is yesterday’s.We look like people who collapsed exactly where the night left us.We kind of did.
Dr.Park appears on screen in a square of soft light.
“Thanks for meeting us today,” I say.
Barret nods in agreement.
I don’t know any other way to start.We have one rule—this is about us.Not Cleo.We can talk about how she affects the two of us later, but right now it’s about our relationship and whether there’s a future.Though that’s not what we should say to the doctor, should we?
“Where would you like to start?”Dr.Park asks.“It can be as simple as telling me how you’re feeling today?—”
“I’m not feeling,” I blurt.“I didn’t sleep shit.Day ...who the fuck knows.I lost count.”
“Yep, we barely slept,” Barret says.I can’t tell if he’s agreeing or softening my complaint.
“You know what would help me rest?”I blurt.“Sex.”
The room is quiet.I don’t know why I said it.Maybe my body is louder than my head.
Maybe it’s precisely what I meant.
I’m a sexual man and I haven’t had sex since ...I turn to look at Barret, and the memory breaks in two: four months?The weekend after I told him about Cleo, we fought and then spent the whole weekend together having sex.
He regretted it later and went on a retreat to try to salvage his sobriety, first blaming me and then ...well, here we are, trying to coexist, save our girl, and not lose what we have because it matters.At least he didn’t give me the finger and disappear.Hooray for small miracles.
“Okay,” Dr.Park says, like I’ve pointed out an object on a table.“Then why don’t we discuss that?Every healthy, loving relationship should include a healthy sexual life.Tell me what sex would look like tonight.”
“There’s no sex,” Barret cuts in, sharp as a truth.“We can’t just jump into bed without fixing us.”
Dr.Park looks at me.“How would you respond, Edgar?What do you think you need?”
“Sleep,” I say.“Regulation.Proof I’m not failing him.”I want to say her too, but right now is all about us.
Barret exhales, a long, thin sound that trembles at the edge of his words.“I guess we’re trying to connect at night,” he says, and it comes out like a question he’s been afraid to ask.“And regulation.And—if I’m being honest—permission.I want to feel chosen, not managed.”
The sentence settles under my ribs and refuses to move.Sometimes I’ve been more of a manager than a lover in bed.Years of caretaking slid into choreography: I booked his doctors, timed his calls, told him when to sleep and when to eat, primed the world so his fragility could keep functioning.I convinced myself direction was love until it felt like we were reciting a script; we’d stopped checking for consent.
He handed me control once, and I took it because he asked.It was trust, not dependence.I never asked whether he still wanted me to hold those reins or whether he wanted to take them back and drive.
What he just named—wanting to be chosen—unspools into sex.He doesn’t want me to use him like a sedative, to shove my panic into his mouth and then call it intimacy.He wants to be wanted in a loud and specific way: someone who strips away my schedules and asks, “Do you want this?”and means it.
“And what scares you about sex right now?”Dr.Park asks.
“That we’ll use it as a sedative,” I say.“That it’ll be a shortcut instead of a bridge.When I was using, sex braided with escape.I don’t want to go back to that.”
Barret watches me.“Sex with him used to mean letting him decide for me—letting him manage me.But withholding to ‘be good’ feels like punishing us for being human.”
“I’ve been withholding because I’m terrified I’ll make it about me,” I admit.“Or use him like a grounding tool instead of loving him.Some stupid part of me still thinks penance will fix things.”I laugh, brittle.“It doesn’t.”
Dr.Park leans forward, patient and precise.“You’ve both treated abstinence like safety and discovered it becomes deprivation.Your system is starving for closeness and terrified of it.That’s not unusual.We’re not choosing between no sex and reckless sex.We’re designing attuned sex: scheduled windows, named intentions, explicit consent—touch as a language you both speak on purpose.”
Barret’s fingers find a guitar pick in his pocket and turn it over.“Give us a blueprint,” he says.“We—mostly him—are better with charts.”
“All right,” she says, a smile in her tone.“First, a check-in script.Before anything sexual, you ask: ‘Is this for connection or numbing?’Both of you answer out loud.If either one says ‘numbing,’ you pivot to nonsexual regulation—breathing, shower, music, holding—no shame.Second, a traffic-light system.Green means ‘yes and yes’; yellow means ‘slow, verbal, no surprises’; red means ‘hold me, not sex.’Third ...have you thought about a safe word?”
“Static,” Barret says.
“Good.Use it.Fourth, differentiate touches.Choose a comfort touch that never slides sexually—say, foreheads or palms.And a sexual bid that always requires a verbal yes—say, a thumb at the waistband.No crossing streams.You’ll build trust by keeping categories clean.”
