“I miss having sex with you,”

I confess,

My fingers tracing the screen in the hush of a dim room,

The clock was nearing 11 p.m.

Days had passed like whispers.

Before his message finally arrived:

He was back in Cape Town,

returning from the pull of Johannesburg

And all the work that took him away.

His hand finds the curve of my thigh;

seeking not just skin,

But a release from the weight of distance.

It’s a different kind of touch now.

Not casual.

Not rehearsed.

Something in it feels like a memory.

Like longing folded into pressure.

Almost a year had slipped between us,

Yet time had done nothing

to ease the ache of wanting.

His shirt was half-tucked.

A tie hung loose around his neck.

He looked like he was trying not to look like he cared.

But beneath the undone buttons

was a quiet sorrow.

A kind of emotional gravity

woven into the slow notes of his favourite song;

a melody that clung to the room

and to our silence.

His fingers, featherlight now,

traced the same skin with more gentleness than lust.

His eyes weren’t really on me.

They stared past me;

out towards some private, invisible ache.

I reached out,

my palm resting softly on the back of his head.

And I felt it.

The weight.

The storm.

My presence became a kind of sanctuary;

Not a cure, but a stillness he could collapse into.

In the depths of his eyes,

There were shadows. A plea without words.

Then, for one fleeting second,

He turned.

Met my gaze.

And something passed between us;

unspoken,

tender,

true.

A flicker of clarity.

A pause

In the ache.

As if, somehow,

everything would be okay.

~ Shantey Moabelo