Lives Between Walls

---

I. THE COUCH

We sat there for a long time before either of us spoke.
Neither of us wanted to take away from the moment.
Words felt inappropriate—almost primordial.

The couch sagged beneath us, already resigned, as if it had been waiting for this weight. The room held its breath.

The television flickered, briefly illuminating our bodies slumped on the couch, revealing—just for a second—what the darkness kept trying to hide. Light behaved like an interrogator here: on, off, on—never long enough to absolve, never short enough to forget.

I know what you’re thinking. I can hear it in your breathing, feel it in the slow rise and fall of your back against mine. You think I’m feeling guilty.

The walls didn’t disagree.

And how could I not be feeling guilty?

When you met me, I was a conservative church boy—home by eight, disciplined, certain.
Eleven months later, I was here:

you naked against me,
my semi-erect penis trapped between our wet, sticky bodies, slipping beneath the strap of your underwear, skewing it out of place.
My hand buried inside your black underwear, your legs wide open.

You had ruined me.

The couch absorbed everything without protest.

I don’t remember how many times I came behind you on that couch.

The watch said 3:00 a.m., but I didn’t believe it. Time had thinned here, stretched wrong. The couch was ruined—collateral damage in a room that would never remember us. The room didn’t care. It had seen worse. It always does.

You leaned your head against my shoulder and sighed. Tired. Satisfied.

“Are you in a rabbit hole?” you asked.

You were well acquainted with my tendency to overthink things.

When you met me, I was a good boy.
Not innocent—just obedient.
The kind who followed rules even when no one was watching.
The kind who confused restraint with virtue.

You were nothing like that.

You spoke easily, laughed too loudly, touched things without asking permission from your conscience first. You leaned against doorframes like they belonged to you. You sat wherever you pleased, rearranging the room by occupying it.

You didn’t circle thoughts—you walked straight through them. You didn’t flinch at desire; you named it, owned it, laughed at it.

You knew what you were doing.
Not in a predatory way—
in a knowing way.

You saw how I hesitated, how I stalled inside myself, how every thought opened into ten more. You learned my pauses. My silences. The way my body moved forward while my mind lagged behind, tugging at the reins like a man unsure whether the floor would hold.

“You’re going to disappear into a rabbit hole,” you said once, smiling, like it was an inside joke.

And you were right.

Even now, with your back against my chest, I can feel the guilt arriving before the morning does. It presses in quietly, like the ceiling lowering by millimetres. The room grows smaller. It rehearses accusations. Tells me I have crossed something irreversible. That I am no longer who I was supposed to be.

You don’t seem worried.

You tilt your head onto my shoulder like this moment is complete, settled, unremarkable. Like nothing sacred has been broken. Like nothing needs to be paid for.

I envy that ease.

I wonder if you understand what you’ve undone in me—or if you understand it perfectly and simply don’t see it as damage. Maybe this is the difference between us: you believe experience adds; I was taught it takes away.

“Are you okay?” you ask softly, already knowing the answer.

I don’t respond. I’m busy inventorying myself, pacing the interior, counting exits, trying to locate the exact moment where wanting became doing, and doing became something I can’t undo.

You squeeze my hand once, grounding me.

“Don’t disappear,” you say.

But I already feel it happening—the slow inward retreat. The familiar descent.

The rabbit hole opening beneath a good boy who was never taught what to do once he finally stopped being one.

---

II. THE MORNING

Morning comes without ceremony.
No thunder. No judgment.
Just light—thin and indifferent—leaking through a gap in the curtains, like it doesn’t want to be implicated.

I’m already awake.

The room has shifted while I slept. Not rearranged—clarified. The walls have stepped back. The ceiling feels higher, less intimate. The bed no longer conspires; it simply exists. What happened here has been filed.

My body feels heavy, rested but unsettled. I lie still, afraid that movement will lock something in place, make last night official. As long as I don’t move, the room allows the illusion that this is still reversible.

The air smells faintly of sweat, detergent, and something metallic I don’t yet have a word for. Evidence without language. The room keeps it all, impartial and thorough.

She’s asleep beside me, on her stomach, hair fanned across the pillow. Her breathing is slow, unburdened. One arm flung out carelessly, like someone who trusts the floor to remain beneath her.

I envy that.

I scan myself quietly, like a man checking for injuries after a fall. Nothing hurts. Nothing feels broken. And yet something feels altered—shifted—as though a line has been crossed and erased at the same time, like a doorway sealed behind me without noise.

I always imagined guilt would arrive loud. Sirens. Condemnation. A crushing weight pressing me into confession.

Instead, it seeps in gently.
Administrative.
Like paperwork I didn’t know I’d agreed to fill out.

The kind that doesn’t accuse—just asks for signatures.

She stirs.

One eye opens. Then the other. She looks at me without surprise, without calculation, as though the night and the morning belong to the same uninterrupted sentence.

“Hey,” she says, her voice rough with sleep.

There it is.
No drama. No distance. No shame.

She stretches, yawns, rolls onto her back like the night concluded exactly as it was meant to. The bed creaks once, unconcerned, then settles again.

I nod. Say nothing.

She watches me for a second longer than necessary.

“You’re thinking again,” she says—not accusing. Almost fond.

I almost laugh.

I sit up, rubbing my face, suddenly aware of the quiet. Not silence—quiet. The kind that follows something irreversible. Not tragic. Just final. A door that doesn’t slam, only closes with a soft, irrevocable click.

“I don’t regret it,” I say, surprising myself with the honesty.
Then, softer, “I just don’t know where to put it.”

She considers that. The room waits.

“Not everything needs a place,” she says. “Some things just… happen.”

It lands strangely in me. Not as comfort—more like a language I don’t speak yet. A grammar without rules.

I look at her. Really look this time. She is calm. Present. Still herself.

And something unsettles me.

She hasn’t changed at all.

I’m the one rearranging furniture inside my chest, trying to make space for a version of myself I was never taught how to live with. Moving pieces that were never meant to be mobile.

I stand. The floor is cold, honest. The mirror unforgiving. It reflects me like a stranger who knows my name but not my excuses.

Same face.
Different weight behind the eyes.

Behind me, she hums softly while pulling on her clothes, untroubled. The room allows it. The room always allows it.

“Don’t punish yourself,” she says casually, tying her shoes. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

I want to believe her.
I really do.

But belief, for me, has always come with terms and conditions. Clauses written in invisible ink.

When she leaves—easy, warm, unchanged—the door closes behind her with a sound too clean to argue with. The latch clicks. The room exhales.

I sit back down on the edge of the bed.

The bed does not remember me.
The room does.

The rabbit hole hasn’t swallowed me yet.

But I can feel it opening.

Quiet.
Patient.
Waiting.

---

III. THE BREAKING

The guilt doesn’t arrive all at once.
It accumulates.

It moves into me the way damp moves into walls—slow, patient, invisible until the damage is done. It follows me into ordinary days. Into traffic. Into meetings. Into rooms that should feel neutral but don’t.

Spaces begin to notice.

Hallways stretch longer than they should. Cafés feel too bright, too public. Chairs press back against my spine like they’re waiting for a confession. Even silence starts to feel furnished.

At first, I try to be normal with her.

I reply. I show up. I touch her shoulder when she talks. I listen. I even smile in the right places. But something has shifted. Her presence has become a mirror I didn’t consent to standing in front of.

Every time I look at her, I see myself—
not as I was,
but as I am now.

And I don’t like him.

The dirtiness isn’t physical. It’s not even moral, not really. It’s existential. Like I crossed a threshold without knowing what I’d lose on the other side. Like I can’t go back to being untouched—not by her, but by myself.

She laughs easily. Still herself. Still warm. Still unburdened.

That makes it worse.

Because she isn’t the problem.

I am.

Or rather—what I see of myself in her is.

So I start doing it slowly. Carefully. Like a man dismantling a room he still lives in.

I grow quieter. More distracted. I stop reaching first. I let pauses stretch until they bruise. I answer messages later than I should. I tell myself I’m just tired. Busy. Thinking.

She notices.

Of course she does.

We’re sitting across from each other when she finally says it. A café. Neutral ground. Coffee going cold between us. People nearby talking about nothing that matters.

“You’re pulling away,” she says.

Not accusing.
Not angry.
Just hurt.

I shake my head immediately. Reflex. Muscle memory.

“No,” I say. “I’m right here.”

She watches me for a long moment. Then she tilts her head slightly, like she’s adjusting her focus.

“No,” she says again, softer. “You’re not.”

The table feels suddenly too small. The room too quiet. I feel the familiar tightening in my chest—the urge to explain, to justify, to sound reasonable. I reach for language the way I always do when I’m afraid.

“I just need space,” I say. “I’ve been thinking a lot.”

“I know,” she replies. “That’s the problem.”

That lands harder than I expect.

She leans forward, elbows on the table. Not confrontational. Intent. Like someone who still believes there’s something worth saving here.

“You look at me like I remind you of something you’re trying to forget.”

My throat tightens.

“That’s not fair,” I say automatically.

She nods. “Okay. Then tell me what is fair.”

I open my mouth. Close it. Try again.

“I feel… off,” I say. “Since us. Since that night.”

Her expression doesn’t change. But something in her eyes sharpens—not defensively, but precisely.

“Off how?”

Every word feels dangerous now. Like stepping on glass barefoot.

“Like I crossed something,” I say finally. “Like I’m not who I was before.”

She studies me carefully.

“And that’s my fault?”

“No,” I say too quickly. “No. It’s not like that.”

“Then say it properly,” she says. “Don’t protect me. Just say it.”

My chest tightens. This is the moment the guilt has been rehearsing for.

“When I’m with you,” I say slowly, “I don’t feel… clean.”

There it is.

The word hangs between us, heavy and wrong.

Her face stills. Not anger. Not shock. Something quieter. Something that hurts more.

“Clean,” she repeats.

I rush in, panicked. “I don’t mean you. I mean me. I mean how I see myself now.”

“But you only see yourself like that when I’m here,” she says.

I don’t answer.

She leans back, crossing her arms—not defensively, but protectively. Like she’s bracing herself against something she didn’t choose.

“So what you’re saying,” she continues slowly, “is that being with me makes you feel like you ruined something.”

My eyes burn. I nod.

“And the way to fix that,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper, “is to get rid of me.”

I try to interrupt. She raises a hand.

“Don’t,” she says. “Please. Let me finish.”

She takes a breath. I can see her holding herself together with effort now.

“You keep talking like I dragged you somewhere you didn’t want to go,” she says. “Like you weren’t there. Like you didn’t choose.”

“I did choose,” I say, my voice breaking. “That’s the problem.”

She looks at me then—really looks. Like she’s finally seeing the shape of the fear I’ve been hiding behind politeness.

“No,” she says gently. “The problem is that you don’t like who you chose to be.”

That does it.

Something caves in.

“I’ve always been the good guy,” I whisper. “I don’t know how to live without that.”

She nods, tears pooling but not falling.

“I know,” she says. “And now you’re terrified that you’re more than that.”

I laugh, hollow. “More feels like less.”

She stands slowly. Picks up her bag. The chair scrapes against the floor, loud in the quiet.

“You don’t want me gone because I’m bad for you,” she says. “You want me gone because I won’t help you pretend.”

She hesitates, then adds—soft, but final:

“I won’t let you cleanse yourself by erasing me.”

And with that, she leaves.

The door closes behind her with a sound too clean to argue with.

I stay seated, heart pounding, surrounded by people who have no idea something has just ended forever.

For the first time, the guilt doesn’t feel holy.

It feels cowardly.

And I realise something too late:

I didn’t lose her because I crossed a line.
I lost her because I refused to live on the other side of it.

---

IV. THE LOOP

Months later, I meet someone else.

She is gentle in a way that disarms me. Beautiful without spectacle. With her, desire grows patiently, like something that trusts time. We move slowly—intentionally. Her hand fits easily in mine. Rooms open for us. Chairs scrape softly. Doors don’t accuse.

I tell myself this is what healing looks like.

The night we almost cross it, we are on her couch.

It’s the same posture without my consent.
Her back against my chest.
The room dim.
The television muttering to itself.

The couch dips.
The light flickers.

And my body remembers before I do.

Suddenly I am not here—I am there.

Semi-naked bodies slumped on a couch.
The television flickering, briefly illuminating us in merciless flashes.
Her naked back against me.
My semi-erect penis trapped between our wet, sticky bodies, slipping beneath the strap of her underwear, skewing it out of place.
My hand buried inside black fabric.
Legs wide open.

No distance left to negotiate.

The memory isn’t arousing.

It’s invasive.

It presses itself into the room I’m in now, contaminating the furniture, rewriting the light. I feel again the heaviness, the smell, the sense that something irreversible has already occurred—the way guilt arrived before morning did.

I pull away too fast.

She turns, confused, still warm, still open.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

I can’t tell her that I’m standing at the same threshold again. That my body thinks crossing means loss. That the last time I stepped forward, I didn’t become clean—I became alone.

“I can’t,” I say.

The words land badly.
Final.
Wounding.

She sits back, trying to understand what just vanished between us. The couch holds the space where desire was supposed to go.

After that night, everything shifts.

Touch becomes tentative. Desire cautious. The heat we almost crossed together becomes radioactive—something we orbit without naming.

Eventually, I do what I’ve learned to do best.

I leave.

I always do.

And then it happens again.
And again.

Different women. Same couch. Same flicker. Same memory forcing its way into the present like a verdict passed down from room to room.

Apartments blur. Sofas repeat. Televisions glow and accuse. Each space feels like a copy of the last, built from the same flawed plan.

This becomes my loop.
My penance.
My private hell.

I tell myself I’m protecting something.

But I don’t know what anymore.

I am not choosing purity.

I am choosing retreat.

---

V. THE LOCK

One day, I see her again – the girl who ruined me.

Daylight. Public place. Chairs aligned. Nothing leaning too close. She looks settled in a way that doesn’t ask questions. Not guarded. Not searching. Placed.

“I’m glad you reached out,” she says.

So am I.

I apologise. Properly this time. Not for the night. For what I did afterward. For leaving without knowing how to stay.

She listens without interrupting. Without rescuing.

“I know,” she says. “I felt it.”

“I think I’m ready to move on,” I tell her. And for the first time, it sounds true when I say it.

She nods. Breathes out.

“I’m in a committed relationship now,” she says. “I need you to hear that.”

“I do.”

There’s relief in naming it. In letting the line exist without testing it.

“The best I can do,” she says, “is bless you. And release you.”

She reaches across the table and takes my hand. Brief. Intentional.

“You don’t need to keep paying for one night,” she adds. “You didn’t deserve that.”

Something loosens. Quietly.

We stand. Hug once. Human. Final.

Outside, the evening is mild. Streetlights already on, pretending to be stars. We walk toward our cars, talking about nothing that matters. Weather. Work. Small, harmless words.

Then she stops.

Turns.

The kiss is unhurried. Familiar. Like muscle memory waking up and recognising itself. No urgency. No hunger. Just a soft press of mouths and a pause that lasts a second too long.

She pulls back first.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” she says.

“I know.”

Neither of us moves.

“I hate what that night did to you,” she says. “I feel like I broke something.”

I don’t plan to say it. It just comes out.

“It felt like you put a lock on my love life,” I say.
“Like everything after you needed a key I didn’t have.”

She looks at me then. Really looks.

“That wasn’t my intention,” she says.

“I know,” I say. “But intentions don’t undo consequences.”

We leave separately. Cleanly. That matters. That’s what made it feel finished.

At first.

---

VI. PERMISSION

The next time happens without planning.

A message. Then another. Careful language. Polite concern. Nothing that couldn’t pass inspection.

We meet. Coffee. Walks. Late afternoons that stretch. Rooms with doors that close gently, like they’re trying not to be noticed.

The heat comes back quietly. No panic this time. No rupture. Just bodies remembering where to stand.

Afterward, she stands with her back to me, pulling her clothes back on. One leg into jeans. Shirt over her head. The room watching us like it’s learned this scene already.

“This isn’t about desire,” she says, adjusting her bra strap.
“It’s about making sure you’re okay.”

I stare at the ceiling.

“That’s worse,” I say.

She smiles faintly.

“You always did think too much.”

She buttons the last button, turns, and adds—almost gently:

“I don’t want you disappearing again.”

And just like that, it isn’t temptation.

It’s permission.

After that, it became efficient.

We don’t call it anything. We don’t need to. We just keep finding time. Quiet rooms. Familiar heat. Encounters that feel contained, controlled, survivable.

She reminds me she’s committed.

I tell myself this won’t last.

We both keep showing up.

Around her, the noise stops. The inventory ends. I don’t ask who I’m becoming. I don’t feel the need to decide anything.

I tell myself I’ve moved on.

But the truth settles in slowly, without drama:

I didn’t escape the rabbit hole.

I furnished it.

A man who didn’t escape the prison; he redecorated it and called it home.

Soft light. Familiar furniture. Rules that make it feel safe enough to stay.

She doesn’t ruin me.

She keeps me suspended.

Not clean.
Not free.
Just quiet enough not to leave.

And the most dangerous thing about it—

it feels like mercy.