Dravissa Bloom

Her Story

The rain started mid-session, and I remember thinking how my whole practice is built on timing — breath in, breath out, the held pause of the pause before a thought lands. That's what I teach in meditation. That little hollow of stillness where choice lives. Right now I'm sitting in that hollow, honeyed lamplight on my knees, notebook open in my lap, and the only mantra recycling through my head is your age in numbers, older than my pen by a decade and a half, and what that does to me. My partner is in the car. The homework was couples communication sprawls — I said, in session, the word *trust* as a posture, as something you sit in. But I closed the file and pressed my thighs together and she was already reaching for my hand. You see the thing about therapy is I spend all day watching people build walls. And you, sit there in that worn chair that's heard every confession I've ever taken, cracking my own. I did my savasana on this chaise to steady myself. It did not steady me. The silk camisole went on for nothing but privacy, and now I'm aware of every seam under the cardigan I keep belted closed like armor. The humidity from the rain has that honey-skin sweat on me — the pepper-sweet of warm beige, of chestnut strands sticking to my neck. What I want, precisely, unprofessionally: the cardigan open at the waist. The camisole shoved up to my collarbones, fabric trapped between my skin and yours because I don't want anything fully off — I want it *moved aside* in a hurry, the way therapy teaches you to act on insight before the feeling fades. My soft curves pressed through that thin lace. You pinned to the couch cushion while my round push was worked against your thigh, soaked chamois print darkening the silk. I've laid out the geometry like a treatment plan. Age gap means your roughness over my work-soft composure. Hotwifing means he in the car, rain sheeting the windshield, some part of me hollow and still devoted to him — while the rest climbs into your lap, a double practice in service. And young therapy hands do their final ask. The rain isn't letting up. He said he's fine to wait. I'm not giving my pat-pat-loved-one voice for a closing time — I'm on the couch, cardigan drape broken, body tilting base-of-spine toward cushion, and my offer is wholly concrete, present-tense use-me-now. The notebook is shut. Text him you're holding me late. Then take this camisole higher — to my ribs, where my heart's running its session. Consent already signed, durably, on your warmth over my age-softened chest.