Quick math: my two groups plus Jeremy’s two equaled approximately twenty people who would know when we went dutch on dinner, gave each other house keys, or had sex during my period. I balked and held up my hands. “Whoa. Hold up. Won’t weekly play-by-plays to every-goddamn-person take the zing out of the relationship.”
“My suggestion is no secrets,” Dr. Rosen repeated.
“Your suggestion sucks.”
“How well has it worked to do it your way?”
On our third date, Jeremy and I babysat Marnie’s daughter, Landyn, for a few hours so she and Pat could go out for an anniversary dinner. As the baby slept in my arms, Jeremy peeked in the cabinets, stared at Clare’s dishes, and stood on the balcony admiring the view.
After Marnie and Pat retrieved Landyn, I suggested to Jeremy that we join Clare and Steven at a bar on Belmont for some live music. When he agreed, I was dumbstruck. Could it really be this easy? All I had to do was ask?
“Do you want to pack a bag so you can stay over?” he asked.
I couldn’t hide my giddiness. I raced around the room stuffing contact lens solution and a fresh sweater into a bag.
The bar was not exactly Jeremy’s scene—a cavern full of fraternity boys and aging Cubs fans sloshing drinks out of plastic cups. After the first set, Jeremy whispered that he was ready to go. My whole body trilled. I drove through red lights and rolled through stop signs. I couldn’t wait to press my body against his.
I sat on his bed in the dark while he fed Mr. Bourgeois. When he sat next to me, I leaned into him. He pressed his lips against mine. “Is that okay?” he whispered. I nodded and pulled him toward me. I pressed my body against his, and he held me tight as he kissed me, harder and deeper.
He pushed me off gently and rolled onto his back. “I’m not ready for sex,” he said. A simple admission—five words I’d never heard anyone, including myself, say. Was it a prescription?
“It’s okay.” And it was. What I wanted was a chance to be close to someone. It didn’t have to be sex, not tonight.
As soon as he said sex was off the table, my body relaxed further into him, the bed, the moment. For tonight, kissing would be where it began and ended. He rolled toward me and held me close—chest to chest, belly to belly, thigh to thigh.
“Maybe we could just sleep,” he said.
“Of course.”
We settled into each other, our breathing deepened.
“Do you always sleep with this many clothes on?” he whispered into my neck.
I still had on my jeans and T-shirt. The only article I’d removed was a light wool sweater.
“Yes.” I actually always slept in my bra. I had since ninth grade when my breasts exploded from buds to D’s. I liked sleeping with my breasts bound, tucked into the underwire and lace. With past boyfriends, I would slip out of my bra when we were having sex, but when it was time to sleep, I put it back on. I’d never been with a man who noticed, or who was willing to ask me about it.
The next morning, shards of light sliced through the edge of Jeremy’s blackout curtains, and Mr. Bourgeois sat on the edge of the bed considering me. I padded into the living room and found Jeremy at the little table in his darkened kitchen, typing on his computer.
“Hey.” I stepped into the foot of space between the fridge and the metal shelves he used as a pantry. I crossed my arms and hugged myself.
An awkward silence gathered between us. I cleared my throat. “What are your plans for the day?” Would we brunch and walk down the street swaddled in the gauzy intimacy of the night before? Would we go back to bed?
He turned most of his body back to the computer. I crossed my right leg over my left.
“Catching up on stuff. AA meeting tonight. What about you?”
“Some reading for my cyber law class. Clare and I might see an early movie.” I paused. Was I supposed to invite him? He looked at the computer screen, where a grid of pound signs, dots, and percentage symbols lit up a black background. “What’s that?”
“It’s an ASCII video game called NetHack.” He blushed and looked at his feet. “It’s a bit of a preoccupation.”
Video game? Preoccupation?
“No judgment here.” I smiled at him. But a frisson of warning shot through me. A grown-ass man sitting in a darkened room playing a video game? The claustrophobic image made my throat constrict.
“You say that now. But I literally might play this all day—” His green eyes were not filled with levity, but something shadowy I recognized. Shame.
“If it brings you joy, what’s the harm?” My voice was shrill with false cheer. His face relaxed, but then I hugged myself tighter, aware of an urge to flee. “I think I’ll get going soon.”
When I pulled into my parking spot at home, I dialed Rory’s number.
“I’m not sure about him,” I said.
“Honey, he just got out of a relationship. Bring it all to group.”
On Tuesday morning, Patrice, Rory, Marty, Ed, and Dr. Rosen cheered Jeremy for being explicit about his sexual boundaries. When I was with Jeremy, I’d felt comforted by his admission that he wasn’t ready for sex, but now their cheers felt infantilizing—they were adults entitled to regular hot sex, and we were children who were stuck with kissing and cuddling. I hated their gaiety, and I hated myself for agreeing to disclose everything to my groups.
There were no pep rallies in the afternoon group. Marnie thought his sexual reticence signaled that he wasn’t ready for a relationship. “I don’t like it,” she said, shaking her head. Nan and Emily wondered why he didn’t offer me breakfast. Mary wondered why he didn’t have a proper pantry. I shrugged my shoulders and swallowed lump after lump of shame.
“Dr. Rosen, morning group loves
