It wasn't the sex I missed. It was touch. I missed touching her–breathing in the air she recycled from her mouth and making it mine. I missed waking up in the middle of the night to smell the hair on the top of her head right where the part divided her skull into two hemispheres.
The world was different now. I drifted through planes of altered reality only to find myself lost in the space of the you that was missing.
The fat, old ladies at the senior center told me I wasn't fun anymore. They noticed I stopped singing. I used to sing.
I played ping pong there daily. They remembered my smile–now faded. They remembered my song–now silent. That was the worst thing anyone had ever said to me.
They told me I should dance. I didn't want to–didn't know how. I didn't want to dance with the fat ladies. But one day I did and they saved my life–those ladies and the night I danced.
After you, I didn't want to live. But to touch again, Francine. Even if it wasn't you. To feel a stranger's pulse flowing like rivers underneath my trembling, uneasy hands. To hold another life in mine, even if it was one of the fat, old lady's hands.
It wasn't the sex I missed. It was touch.
Based on...
-Milton, Lyft driver. February 2, 2017. 3:24am. The first (and last) two lines are his words as is the story.