nirbhao

Have you ever heard the phrase, "pain is weakness leaving the body"?

Considering that I've only ever heard it in reference to things like how many pull-ups a person can do, I never took it too seriously.

Over the course of the past few months, I've started reclaiming myself. After rape, molestation, and rampant promiscuity, I found myself in what I considered a position that I had no control over: I felt as if I could not have sex.

I left him in January because he needed to heal. His demons were as deep, difficult, and demanding as mine. I loved him, and ending the relationship cut like glass. But his bed was open to me, and my legs to him.

The progression was slow. His healing required abstinence, and somehow that meant I could not have sex, either. I still shared his bed. "Give me some armpit," I would tease him, and he would hold me safely, even though he confessed that his arm often fell asleep long before I did.

After realizing that I was turning down other potential lovers, it occurred to me that despite all the promises I had made to wait for him, I was, in fact, abstinent of my own accord. The meaning we had shared was valuable enough to me that the purely physical no longer held interest. This presented me with a bizarre new question: Because I had previously defined relationships by sex, it was easy to say this wasn't one. Now that I was willing to accept the possibility of a relationship without sex, what would define the difference between a true romantic relationship and what we had, except that he called it, 'just friends'?

I had to save something, reserve something, take something just for a partner. Considering our emotional and spiritual intimacy, there was very little to take back. All that was left, really, was the physical. I stopped spending the night.

It backfired completely. He offered that I could move in (as a friend, of course). He told me that I was kowtowing to heterosexist societal standards. He conceded, as long as it was what I needed to resist temptation. More often than not, he tried to drive me back to his place. Once I considered pretending to be asleep. Once I had to call a cab to get home because he just went ahead and went to sleep with me there.

There's nothing quite like that ache while waiting for the taxi when I could have just as easily rested my head on his shoulder and played with his hair.

The worst part, the absolute worst, is that he draws me close, he traces the curve of my hip with his finger tips, and even though what he finally said was, "give me a hug," I know that was not what he was thinking.

I am tired of crumbling like cornstarch over a slap on the ass. The tension between us is constant and palpable and I'm not obsessed it's just unresolved. We've got the friendship bit down, and because of that, it just tends to fade into the background.

But he is a good friend, and he is one of the first to come to mind when I have good news to share. He's also one of the most supportive when I need a hand.

Who knew it could hurt so badly to do the right thing?

We both are still healing. Neither of us is ready for a relationship. And I cannot be just a friend.

I can't stop crying