This is a weird one because I’m writing it while the subject is in the next room. Sitting in his pyjamas, frowning at the mysterious black box of web code while he does magical things with his fingers that make the internet happen.

When we’re together, we watch TV. We paint walls, we count pennies, we laugh. And, of course, we fuck.

He’s good at touching me. He touches me all the time – playful slaps on the arse when we’re making dinner, a casual grope while we catch up on Game of Thrones, kisses and sly strokes that end with his hand down the back of my knickers, warm and soft against my arse.

If I wanted to, I could walk through into the next room to touch him right now. But I won’t.

I’m crap at affection

Despite being a filthy girl, keen to be used and abused, I’m not so great at touching. While I’ll happily sit and stroke someone for a while, or get comfy in the crook of their shoulder as we watch TV, I reject casual affection the way you’d swat away a mosquito.

Fuck off, I’m busy.
Don’t touch me, I’m eating.
Cooking.
Doing the washing up.
Just… get your hands off me. I feel trapped.

Because I associate hugs and affection with a certain kind of choking panic, I anticipate that every hug I enter into could end up siphoning five minutes of otherwise productive time out of my day. I’m an idiot, of course – if affection and touching were as terrifying as my knee-jerk reaction tells me it is I wouldn’t have spent half my life in bed with guys who make me cry with orgasmic joy.

And yet I look for escape routes. I watch the clock over his shoulder. I forget that, actually, I do really enjoy this when I can just shut my brain up for five minutes and settle into it.

The hotness helps my brain do exactly that. A cuddle for the sake of a cuddle brings on trembling and twitching – an unnecessary and irrational this-isn’t-getting-the-bills-paid panic. But a sly hand down the back of my jeans, cupping one of my arse cheeks and pushing two fingers’ worth of knickers into the crack of my crotch? That’s distracting. That’s fun. That’s the button I need pushed before I can sigh relief and hug back with enthusiasm.

An absence of affection

As I say, I could touch him now if I wanted to. I could wander into the next room, strip to my underwear, and slide his laptop off his knee. I could straddle and fuck him on the squeaky sofa, pushing my nipples into his face and reveling in his delighted moans.

But I’m not going to do that, because the anxiety tells me that I shouldn’t be fucking, I should be working, and affection can wait until later. It can probably wait until tonight, when we’ve both clocked off. Sadly then I might not be in the same hungry-horny mood: the waves will have subsided and I’ll be back to pushing him away, twitching at his deliciously warm hands teasing my cunt while I’m trying to cook dinner. At the time I won’t regret it – I’ll see myself as the sensible one, She Who Shan’t Be Distracted, who Gets Things Done.

It doesn’t really matter today, when he’s nearby, but when this blog goes live on Sunday, I’ll be far away. Creeping hands and playful slaps will be replaced with curt texts and joky emails, and all the ‘Miss you’s and ‘Love you’s that I forget to say when he’s around. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and it also makes the brain realise what an incomparable prick it can be when it has everything at its fingertips.

I won’t be able to walk through to the next room to touch him. I won’t be able to bury my face in his stomach and tell him he’s delicious. I’ll feel, but be pathetically unable to articulate, just how fucking stupid I am for knocking him back day after day. His hands won’t be on me, and I’ll have all the time and space and independence I am usually crying out for.

And because I’ll have it, I will hate it. And I will miss him.