Art by Jenny Holzer

For four years he has been refuge and that is what I miss. Not the romance, not the two best dates ever (Bouley/Avenue Q was one), not the sex, the thrills, the submission, not the semi-lucid dream state fucking over the hotel bathroom counter in Columbus watching my own face and his over my shoulder in the mirror, kneeling in the doorway in Tampa while he fucks my mouth, curling in a dim dorm room at the scholarly conference with his fingers in my ass, calling him texting him later I’m still bleeding...but refuge.

I am Husband’s refuge, and now my own shelter is filled, rain running down my collar as I’m edged out by someone else cuter, smaller, the new baby the new kitten able by birth or design to be more helpless, more in need, a greater claim. If I turn there now, try to make a place a little further from the fire, it’s whining, crowding, no longer a safe place once they don’t love you any more. I wake in the night, I would call him, I would text him, but that’s her place now, be soothed by his sleepy voice in the dark.

Before dawn, earlier still for him in another time, I text: So difficult to know when to call and when not…you are still partly filed under ‘refuge’.

His reply: Have a safe flight!

By the time Do you need refuge? comes through, I have already observed the fasten seatbelts sign and all electronic devices are turned off and stowed. By the time I read it, I am again sane enough to call, in quick succession, Beautiful Girl, Secret Scientist, Be-My-Real-Friend (try replacing your habit with another, less harmful behavior). I have just enough brain, enough self-respect left to not text back, yes.