She sits back, giving the idea space.
“What would happen,” she says, “if you took sex off the table for a while?”
I stare at her.
“I’m sorry, what?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Temporarily.”
I laugh. It bursts out of me, sharp and disbelieving. “You’re aware of why I’m here, yes?”
“Very much so,” she says calmly. “This is precisely why I’m suggesting it.”
I shake my head. “That feels counterintuitive at best.”
“Right now,” she says, “sex is loaded. It’s carrying performance, expectation, identity, and fear of failure. That’s a lot to ask of anyone’s nervous system.”
I rub a hand over my face. “And your solution is… no sex.”
“My suggestion,” she says, “is that you learn how to connect without using sex as the shortcut.”
Shortcut. That stings.
“You don’t really know yet,” she continues, “how to build the closeness you admire in your brothers’ relationships. You’ve skipped straight to the part that used to work and hoped the rest would follow.”
I think of dinners that didn’t matter. Beds I left quietly. The way intimacy has always been something I did, not something I stayed for.
“That’s uncomfortably accurate,” I say.
She smiles. “I’m good at my job.”
“So what?” I say, “I go on dates and… what? Hold hands?”
“Talk,” she says. “Listen. Be curious. Let someone see you without the distraction of sex.”
“And how long am I meant to do this?”
She considers. “Long enough that it stops feeling like deprivation and starts feeling like choice.”
I sit with that. My brain is already trying to turn it into something manageable. Something with edges.
“A ban,” I say.
She blinks. “I wouldn’t use that word.”
“I would,” I say, because suddenly it makes sense. “Temporary. Clear. No ambiguity.”
She studies me. “You like rules.”
“I like knowing where the lines are,” I say.
“And what would you call this rule?” she asks, curious now.
I huff a laugh. “The Bedroom Ban.”
She smiles slowly. “Catchy.”
“And the point,” I confirm, “is to actually get to know someone. Without pressure. Without… expectations.”
