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Where To Stand
People still noticed Emily. I noticed that lately—the way I came into focus beside her, as if attention were something that could be reassigned. By then, being with her no longer had the same effect. Saying it that way felt like authorization.
I picked up the vocabulary. Ethical. Expansive. The words came easily, which I took as evidence that I was using them correctly. I was careful how I framed it to Emily—the unfairness of expecting one body to absorb every need. She just nodded. Her questions were logistical. What time things could happen, how it would fit.
I took longer than I expected setting up a profile. I weighed which interests to foreground and chose photos where I looked like myself. The one with Emily next to me at the beach felt useful, so I left it in. When I finished, it all seemed accurate enough to stand on its own.
When I told her I started looking, she said she was going to wait before making a profile. I could feel the extra room opening and began to think of it as mine. At first, nothing changed. After a while, I found myself checking my phone less often. My part of the story hadn’t arrived yet. That’s what patience meant.
It surprised me how quickly Emily met Dave, but the details felt familiar enough. A lawyer, married, about our age. The most notable thing was how little his profile actually said. A few interests, none of them asking to be elaborated. His photos looked like someone who hadn’t spent much time deciding how to be seen.
?
Emily told me what time she thought she’d be home. By now, I had adjusted to that being an estimate.
I sat on the couch without turning anything on. The kids were asleep and I opened my laptop as if I might work.
Instead, I wondered if she could feel me waiting while she was out.
I thought about texting her something — a joke, maybe, my name lighting up her phone like a reminder. Instead, I rehearsed what to say when she got home. How neutral I’ll sound.
I heard her keys first, then the soft sound of her shoes being set aside. When she stepped into the living room, she looked at me the way you look at someone who’s been waiting—aware, as if something else was still moving.
“Hey,” she said.
I stood, then sat back down, as if caught mid-decision. “How was it?”
Too soon.
“It was fine.”
“That’s it?” I aimed for amused, curious — anything but invested.
She set her bag down with more care than necessary, then sat in the chair opposite me. She ran a hand through her hair, adjusting her ponytail.
“I don’t think you actually want me to answer that.”
“I thought the point was honesty.” I heard the edge in my voice, but it didn’t stop me. “Transparency. That’s what we agreed to, right?”
She nodded slowly. “We also said we wouldn’t hurt each other on purpose.”
She waited for me to let it end there. Instead, I leaned forward.
“I’m not asking for details,” I said. “Just… how it felt. For you.”
She studied my face, longer than the question warrants.
“I think you’re disappointed,” she said. “And trying to turn that into something else.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then stopped. I didn’t like how calmly she said it, as if the matter were settled.
“I need to understand.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, the pause stretching long enough that I looked for something else to say.
When she spoke, it was as if arranging something fragile out of sight.
It wasn’t personal. That mattered to her. With him, it came more easily. She didn’t have to hold herself so tightly. She could let go.
“With you,” she said slowly, “everything has to matter.”
Of course it had to matter. But matter how. The word seemed to refer less to any single thing than to a constraint I couldn’t quite isolate. I looked at her hands, the way she had folded them in her lap.
I needed something to hold it in place.
“So—you’re submissive,” I say. “With him.” I felt the pull of it and cut the thought off. The word sat between us, as if it explained something.
“If that’s what you want to call it,” she said after a moment, already reaching for her coat.
The word didn’t do what I thought. I expected it to organize something, one way or the other. Instead, it stayed where I’d put it, between us.
?
Lately I was aware of Emily in a way I hadn’t been before—alert to a part of her I hadn’t fully imagined. Not jealousy, exactly. The sense that a door had always been there and I’d simply been standing in front of the wrong one.
It began to make sense. I told myself it wasn’t me, or Dave. Just conditions. It was almost reassuring to see it so clearly. I noticed the way she pulled my attention. When it happened, it felt like standing close to a furnace you forgot was running.
When I finally said it, I paused, forcing myself to look at her as a stranger would. I didn’t feel any need to soften it.
“I want to watch,” I said. “To see you that way. With him.”
It seemed worse to leave it unsaid.
“No,” she said immediately. “That’s not a good idea.” She said it with care.
I moved to sit beside her. “I think not being there is worse.”
She shook her head slightly. “You think that now.”
“I’ve been thinking it for a while,” I said. “It’s always been there.” I waited for her to look at me.
“I just want to be near it.”
Her voice was still even, with effort now. “This would hurt you. And once it does, I can’t undo it.”
Hurt compared to what. I imagined discomfort, something you could choose. Or something brief, then passing. Then something sharper surfaced—not what I’d planned.
“That’s not what this is,” I said. “You don’t want me to see you that way.”
She looked at me for a long second, like she was reassessing what she’d thought this conversation was about.
“Oh,” she said. “That’s what you think I’m protecting?”
She shook her head once. “No. I was trying to keep you from taking something on you don’t have to.”
I opened my mouth. She didn’t give me the space.
“But if you’re determined to see it that way,” she continued, her voice sharper now, “then, fine.”
I nodded, waiting for something.
She stayed still. “I’ll talk to Dave.”
?
Nothing happened right away. We moved through the house like always. I felt relief when she brushed by without flinching. I didn’t bring it up.
When she finally said it, it was on a weekday evening, ordinary enough that I wasn’t waiting for it. She leaned against the counter, scrolling on her phone.
“I talked to Dave.”
I turned off the water and turned toward her. “Okay.”
She put the phone down.
“I need to say something before we talk about whether this happens at all,” she said. “You need to hear it the way I mean it — not the way you want to.”
I nodded again, careful.
“This can’t turn into something you’re part of,” she said. Not sharply. Just clearly.
I started to speak, but she continued.
“That means you can’t try to respond your way into it.” She watched my face as she spoke.
I took a step closer, put my hand on the counter. I nodded while she spoke.
“If you’re there,” she said, “you stay where you are. Don’t look to me to orient yourself.”
I’d said that myself, hadn’t I? Watching. It didn’t feel like the same thing. Still, my mind kept adjusting the wording. Not part of it, but involved. Not involved, included. Not included—adjacent. Close to it. But not in anyone’s way. I kept trying to locate myself without changing where anything else was.
She spoke about logistics. Dave’s schedule —this Friday worked. The tone was the same one she used when coordinating childcare or travel—calm, precise, already accounting for contingencies. She never looked at me to check if I was following.
It didn’t interfere with anything already scheduled that weekend. “Okay. Yeah. I can do that.”
I suddenly considered what I’d do with myself once it started. I tried to imagine where I would stand. Or sit. The thought startled me. Something tightened as I followed it. It didn’t lead anywhere; it just widened.
She shifted her weight, reached for her bag, and slid the strap onto her shoulder before she spoke. “I’m not going to talk about it after. Whatever comes up, I’m not part of that.”
Part of what, I wondered. I tried to inventory it—not jealousy. Arousal, maybe, but that wasn’t the point. Clarity, but what kind. For what. It was set for this Friday, and I couldn’t locate myself in it.
When I didn’t say anything, she nodded once, and stood to get a glass of water.
“Okay,” I said, and then waited for something else to follow it.
I stayed where I was, rehearsing sentences that kept falling apart, with nowhere to put them.
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