It was winter break. We grabbed some food and headed to her friend’s room in a shared house in Venice. Her friend was out of town, so all bets were off. We snuck in through a window — my ex was given the wrong key. Inside was dreamy, with soft purple light, sweet perfume, pink satin sheets, and pillows galore. We both leaned in to sip from the same straw at the same time, so I kissed her lips and undid our separation. We only broke up because I left for college in September and wanted the freedom to frolic, flirt, and fuck with my coeds, but none of that ever really happened. I was living under a veil of malaise, too stoned and too stone faced to ever get laid. I was too emotionally brittle to admit that I missed her, too stubborn to reach out. Now, back together, we lived the love we had lost. We went to $6 movie Tuesdays and held hands. We shot the shit and lamented my decision to call things off. I got a tattoo on my ass at her behest. It was a fun way for me to apologize for ghosting her. It was supposed to be her initials inscribed in a heart, but instead we went with “kiss me” — a valentine’s candy heart. She drove me back up the coast and we fucked on the floor at our friend’s place in Santa Cruz. She took me up the 5, back to my dorm room, and we fucked while my roommate was in the shower. We fucked around my college town until it was time for her to go and then we broke up again. This time for real. Neither of us were the type to make long distance work. We cried in the parking lot to every single song that we queued up. Never before had the lyrics made such perfect sense. She drove home and we stayed in touch. As friends.

            A year passed. Our friendship was stronger than ever. We texted back and forth, we called sometimes. We understood each other. We both had frequent flare-ups of main character syndrome and shared doubts that anything at all was actually Real. We talked about our love interests, our goals, our disillusionment, and fatigue. Once Covid lockdowns started and social isolation really set in, we started video chatting a lot more. Before long, we’d run out of things to talk about. We’d get hot and bothered and her top would come off and I’d salivate and finish before she was even halfway through a striptease. One time, I lasted long enough to watch two fingers go in. She’d call me easy, a horndog, a slut. All things that I liked to hear. She drove up with her friend to visit me in July. I let the two of them sleep in my bed while I took the couch. We were being good. But then she told me to put it in. I obliged, of course, and we watched it go in and out. Once in the shower. Once on the bed, in the morning, while her friend walked the dog. We weren’t making out or cuddling, though. No PDA. We kept things buttoned up. She drove me back down to LA and we kept video chatting. Most of our calls were horny by then. Her flesh was fresh in my mind. And, to make matters worse, I was flush with cash thanks to the EDD’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. I got an additional $800 per paycheck on top of the wages from my on-campus job... We hadn’t eloped since returning to LA... Pandemic pussy was making me crazy... I had to spoil my ex.

            I bought one of those fucking gas station rhino pills. The guy behind the counter looked disappointed in me. He rolled his eyes when I commented on the price. He had every right to. After all, I was about to pay $500 to fuck my ex. She had on a silk robe and garter belt fishnets laced with rhinestones. She poured me a shot of tequila. I could feel the effects of the pill — that is to say, the side effects. The back of my throat was dry, nausea burbled, and a headache loomed. I should have bought the pill that says “NO HEADACHE” on the packaging. Surprise, surprise, the pill made my performance worse. That, or the fact that I Zelled her before we hooked up. She didn’t want to kiss. It was all too weird. We fucked on her couch and I felt myself getting sick after the first round. I paid her for sex because it was a fun little joke — a “why not?” type of thing — but I wish she had demanded it from me. I wish she had seduced me, assailed me, tied me up, and maxed my credit card while I writhed and begged at the foot of her bed. Maybe that’s why we didn’t work out. We’re both submissive. I had to get my money’s worth, so we fucked one more time and I played my best dominant and spat in her mouth. It was gross. We hated it. I woke up sick the next day and, a few days later, she went to urgent care for a tonsil infection right where my saliva landed. Our sultry, secret rendezvous turned painful, clumsy embarrassment. It was doomed the moment I took that dick pill. I owed her. Big time.

            I was quick to pay up the next time we fucked. She ended up spending most of the money from the first time at urgent care, anyways. I bought her some lingerie, too, but that Victoria’s Secret exposé mini-series came out a few weeks before and that ruined the gift. I moved back to LA after graduating. We went back to being friends and we talked more than ever. She’d call me every day with nothing to talk about and we enjoyed each other’s company. I went on a few first dates and she started talking to this guy with a J name. She’d talk shit about him and it made me feel important. He ended up treating her really badly and it wasn’t long before we were back entangled. I hit her Venmo for old time’s sake. We had sex a few more times, sans donation, but things were confusing and icky. We stopped going raw. We never kissed. I felt my life shrinking into guarded intimacy and half enthusiasm. We were both AuDHD in our own ways. Her rejection sensitivity and my people pleasing made for anxious attachment to one another. Neither of us were meeting anyone new. She’d call me every day with nothing to talk about and then get mad at me because I never called her with anything to talk about. My rejection sensitivity and commitment-phobia turned her into an object of lust. I’d lose interest in what she was saying unless there was something in it for me. At this point we were off again. No sex, just friends, and I couldn’t set a boundary to save my life. I knew that we were codependent, limiting each other’s growth, and that some actual time apart would do us well. Like any maladapted man, I had to convince her of this through shitty behavior, not communication. I tried communicating this, but did I? Really?

            We left a friend’s birthday party together — she drove my car home. An Uber was already on the way to pick her up, but I was drunk and listless. My mouth was running. I kept joking about fucking. About how we couldn’t be around each other without falling into this pattern. No matter where we went, we always left together. We might as well fuck one more time, go back to being friends, and then do it again. It was exhausting and prohibitive of anything meaningful. I wanted out. She would have had me if I were ready. I knew that. If I could have committed to loving her back, I was hers. But I missed the window. It never felt just right and then it all felt so wrong. We stopped talking after that night. I apologized to her a year later, at that same friend’s birthday party, but we haven’t spoken since then. I got my time apart, my separation, my space to grow, but I’ve been fraught and unfuckable ever since.