I can remember her sitting on the bed fully clothed. That was sobering and saddening. I paid for this hotel room, the food that now sat mulling messily on the cupboard with the TV that faced away from the bed. The roses I bought her lay on the dressing table - only two, the rest were probably freezing and dying in the car.

We spent a good night together. I picked her up on time, she was ready, dressed nicely, she bought dance shoes that day, I drove slowly, didn’t rush, spoke softly, smiled without looking at her, parked, paid, danced, held her at the bar, bought wine, drank with her, fed her, fucked her. But I couldn’t sleep next to her. I knew that no matter how well that night went I had come there, done all of that, to figure out answers to some questions I still hadn’t asked.

Or rather, I had asked them, but under very different circumstances - from afar, over the phone, through email, never face to face, and always with anger or a flurry of distracting thoughts. That’s why I spent so much money on that night. Clarity is priceless, or rather, it spares no expense.

I massaged her body after we had sex the second time, except her feet, I just didn’t think of it, and she would’ve been ticklish, I think. I kissed parts of her body that I had spent a lot of time with, cared for, tended. I began with her back, she has and perhaps will always love the feeling of someone massaging her back, but she has sensitive sides - very prone to tickling.

I turned her over, massaged her shoulders and arms, every finger and both thumbs, kissed her palms, sucked on her nipples a bit and then kissed down her sternum towards her navel. I stopped where her uterus is, I remembered, years ago, being in that same position, with my face in her stomach, in her basement, on her couch.

The lights weren’t on, white sunlight came through the windows. It was the first time (and not the last) that she was pregnant. We talked about how we wanted to have a baby, we were young, she was scared - in her voice, I could hear it. In the darkness there on the couch I spoke to her stomach.

I said, “you know, we love you, and we really want you, but we’re not ready for you to come, yet”. I remember she cried while I spoke to her belly, and I cried a bit too. We lay there together for a while, talked about how we’d go about dealing with it, she said it made her feel better when I spoke to her belly.

I thought of that in the hotel room as I stopped just below her naval. I pressed my face into her stomach, my forehead and eyes, and I kissed it, over and over, then sort of massaged those kisses into that spot.

I moved down to her legs, to her inner thighs, I kissed them both, massaged them, clutched them. I thought of Steinbeck and East of Eden. I thought of how she had read East of Eden after I lent it to her, how she had read Of Mice and Men after and how I never had but owned it and was the one who lent it to her. I lent her a lot of my things, I remember.

As I got to the space behind her knees I looked for the scars I knew were there from the dog leash I couldn’t control, that she hated. It made me remember the time we spent sitting her bosses house and dogs, and how I didn’t help her clean. Our last caring arguments, before I missed her birthday. I kissed both scars, they’ll be there for a while, I think. I moved down to her calves, her shins, but never got to her feet.

When I had finished I sat there, sitting on my legs, and just felt exhausted. She looked at me, she felt good, she said, “is there anything you want?”. I knew she meant physically. I didn’t. I got under the covers next to her, she asked again, I said, “I don’t”.

After a few moments I told her, “I just wanted to say goodbye to your body”. I was looking up at the ceiling of the room lit by the orange side lamp. “Your body used to be mine, but it isn’t anymore, and you want to give it to someone else”. She didn’t reply, she just lay there and looked up at the ceiling.

During the last time we had sex, the third that night, I asked her, while fucking her, if she wanted to see other people, she said, “yes”. I asked, while fucking her, if she wanted to sleep with other people, she said, “yes”. I finished, sat up, and said, “that’s our last fuck”.

That was the end and that was the answer I needed. I needed to treat her nicely, I needed her to be happy, to be comfortable, to not be angry, to be as clear as possible when she said it - that there was no hope. And that was enough for me.

I can remember her sitting on the bed fully clothed. That was sobering and saddening. I sat on a chair facing the bed, fully clothed and ready to go. I stared at her for a few minutes. Here’s the picture:

She’s sitting on the left side of the bed not looking at me, angry as fuck. I had told her I wasn’t going to be driving her home - let’s be real, it would be a terrible idea for us to get into a car together. The lamp that had been on since we arrived was still on. The bed was simply a bed. I hope to never forget that image.