July 2025

I knew, with a bone-weary certainty, that I was exhausted. Days bled into nights beneath the tyrannical glare of a July sun, scorching and sovereign in the sky. Laboring beneath its merciless blaze left every muscle strung taut, every breath laden with the sultry oppression of summer. No reprieve. No sanctuary. Even the tender rites of motherhood gave no quarter: the careful preparation of meals, the watchful vigilance, the ceaseless ballet of beloved duty.

Then came the workdays, unfolding like grim theatre. An arduous stage where irate clients clashed with a sales troupe maddened by ambition, and where I toiled to untangle a decade-old snarl of projects that gnawed at my spirit, with spreadsheets that rendered my vision cross-eyed and my endurance and stoicism threadbare.

I scoffed, tightening my stays, squaring my shoulders as though donning invisible armor. I had weathered storms far more debilitating. This, this was but a trifling tempest. In the Spring, I had managed a full college course load, a thriving social calendar, the ever-present weight of motherhood, and more. This season should have been gentler, verdant, perhaps, or at least forgiving. Yet balance eluded me, and I found myself fumbling. The rhythm I had once orchestrated with ease now slipped through my fingers like a silken thread.

I was becoming irritable, like a dragon disturbed from her hoard, snappish, brittle, and strange to myself. But I had always been steadfast. I held the things. All of them. I proved it, again and again. Still, I sighed. Summer had never been kind to me, its heat a creeping poison, grinding my spirit to dust.

So when an innocuous, well-meaning question, “Are you okay?”, met my ears, they struck like barbed arrows. A flare of annoyed impatience, foreign and sharp, bloomed in my chest. I didn’t need mothering, nor an overabundance of care. I was a strong, independent woman. I wanted to be left alone. My spirit felt like butter spread over too much bread. I was fraying. I could feel it. After all, I had declined, with a strange vehemence, the idea of hosting an orgy.

Me.

It wasn’t the orgy that undid me; it was the word hosting. That implied planning, orchestrating, and caretaking. It conjured chaos, demanded authority, and my mind recoiled. My breath came shallow. My lungs clutched at the air, seized in the vice of panic. 

But no, still, I was me. I had survived far worse. All I needed was a night stolen from the relentless grind, perhaps a secret boat ride beneath the stars.

That evening, Jack and I promised ourselves a quiet reprieve. Just us.

My ritual began at dawn, with meticulous reverence paid to my weary, womanly form. The morning water poured in molten cascades, steam curling like ghostly fingers around my thighs. Each droplet a benediction. My razor glided over skin, tracing paths until I was gossamer-soft, newly revealed. A short dress of white Muslim lace, with eyelet ruffles layered like an unattainable dream. My heels, ruby, resplendent, wrapped my ankles in silken ribbons of crimson, a viperous susurration of sin. 

I admired my reflection. A portrait of composure. A seductress carved of porcelain and alchemy. Ready to reclaim an evening of softness, of desire, of being seen.

I guarded my workday with fierce determination, refusing to let the pettiness of others gnaw at my resolve. The thought of rapping knuckles with a wooden ruler, an old-school reprimand, danced mockingly in my mind. If only, I thought, some deserved the smart sting.

The journey to Jack was no less fraught than any through the city’s chaotic arteries. Three red lights in a row, a frantic swerve into the grass to avoid calamity, mundane obstacles on a Thursday afternoon.

Parking in my usual spot, I gathered my things, work bag, weekend bag, and made the short trek to the door. The ten feet felt like miles, my skin slick with a sheen of sweat, the summer’s merciless attention branding me anew. This weather was malevolent and unforgiving.

Jack greeted me with his usual smile, though his eyes searched mine with the care of a tender lover. We were slightly askew, tense, but not broken. My prickly mood met his gentle nudge of concern. I steeled my resolve, knowing that the balm of physical closeness was my remedy.

Still on the threshold, the heavy door clicked closed behind me. I paused upon the rug, setting my bags aside. With a playful glint in my eye, I met Jack’s gaze and sedately bent, unbuckling first one ruby heel, then the other, then released a small sigh of relief as my feet grounded on the marbled stone. He stood a few paces away, silent, watching, not predatory, but curious. Appraising.

I widened my grin, sly, impish, as I slipped one lithe strap from my shoulder, then the other. My sundress slithered down to rest at the generous curve of my hips, clinging for just a breath before surrendering. My arms folded behind me, fingers fumbling at the damp clasp of my brassiere, the sweat slick along my spine making the task feel almost laughable. I muttered as my grip slipped again, the spell of seduction wilting beneath the remorseless breath of July.

At last, the clasp yielded with a sigh. Cool air rushed in, kissing skin that had been tightly sheathed all day. I exhaled, tension melting from my frame, relief flowing like a balm.

One step toward Jack, and I stopped.

My expression faltered, replaced by honest dismay.

 “I’m sorry,” I said, shegrrined. “I can’t… I just need to rinse off.”

Sticky, glistening from nature’s embrace, I was in no condition to press my skin to the cool, inviting breadth of his chest. I could not, would not, spoil the sanctity of that moment with salt and sweat and self-consciousness.

There was no judgment in him. Only understanding. With a simple sweep of his arm toward the en suite, he offered me the sanctuary I needed. No sigh. No hesitation. Just kindness, quiet and absolute.

I slipped away, shedding my remaining layers, tossing them aside, and let the water envelope me. Silken bubbles burbled over my skin, the scent of acadian berries and amber rising with the steam. My sapphire hair, twisted into a loose, high knot, remained dry, pinned with hasty grace. I lingered just long enough to feel human again.

When I returned, fresh, bare, toes whispering across the wooden floor, Jack had already turned back the sheets. A discreet waterproof blanket, woven of soft fleece blanket lay atop it. I raised a brow, amused.

“I wasn’t sure,” he said with a sheepish half-grin, “but I thought I’d be ready… just in case. No pressure.”

My smile quirked, not for the towel, but for him. “Of course, I do!” I murmured. 

Then hurried to reassure him before he could misread the tone. “You’re not a task to be completed. I want you. We are still a little off, I’m a little off, and I want that connection with you.”

I lay back against the cool blanket, the softness yielding beneath me, exhaustion pulsing faintly at the edges of my vision. My blink lasted just a breath too long.

Then Jack was there.

He prowled over me with a power that stirred the air itself. A kiss to the side of my neck made my head tilt, begging, yearning for more, and I wrapped my arms around his chest instinctively. His bronzed skin slid along mine, all sinew and heat and masculine weight, reassuring, heavy, delicious. I parted my thighs, welcoming him.

He was already hard. Granite Hard.

I bit back a smirk and let a quiet laugh ghost against his shoulder, half amusement, half triumph. The man was always ready for me. Like his body had no tolerance for pretense, no interest in subtlety. It didn’t matter where we were, what had been said, or how long it had been. His body simply responded, as though it belonged to me more than to him.

And maybe it did.

At first, there was that salacious brush, just the tip of him gliding along the damp petals of my apex. It should have made me groan at the connection. But I was startled instead, annoyed to find my usual abundance of desire had either evaporated in the heat or been rinsed away entirely beneath the lavender lather of my bath. No matter.

Without ceremony, I reached for the opaque vial on the nightstand, fingers slicking the familiar elixir over myself with a practiced ease, dipping slightly within, coaxing it over myself in measured, deliberate strokes. I dipped slightly within, just enough. I would be ready for every inch of him, every slow drag, every stretch. Not for his sake.

For mine.

Jack returned, positioning himself over me, his body a weapon of comfort and conquest alike. I found his length and stroked him, coating him in the remnants of my own preparation. He groaned low in his throat, the sound unraveling something wicked in me. Without a word, without the poetry of asking, I guided him to me.

And as he entered, assured, tectonic, inevitable, I closed my eyes, not in retreat, but in triumph.

I clutched at his shoulders, bracing for the devastation that usually followed. I waited for that blessed cataclysm to overtake me the moment he pressed inside. Inch after inch disappeared within my sanctuary. I should’ve been unraveling already. My body weeping at the fullness. I should have felt split open by now, undone. I should have felt the stretch, the sacred sting, the firecrackers already ignited and bursting behind my eyelids. 

But instead… nothing?!

No rush of molten heat. No electric tightening in my thighs. No helpless gasp rending its way out of my throat.

Not that he felt wrong. Not that I didn’t want it. Want us. There was just a terrible stillness where once there had been wildfire, like lightning striking sand that refused to turn to glass.

I shifted beneath him, trying to tilt the angle, trying to wake something in myself. After all, my body was always loyal, ardently ready to perform. I opened for him. Offered myself the way I always had. And he responded in kind, his rhythm building, driving deep, striking the gates that once burst open for him like arcane floodgates.

But they didn’t shudder. They didn’t open.

They stayed sealed. Watching. Waiting. 

My Inner Goddess remained… silent inside. My body made the sounds, soft moans, breathy gasps, because yes, it felt good.  This wasn’t death. But it wasn’t life either. My Inner Goddess was a hollow echo, a distant shadow of the fire that used to burn me whole.

I searched for my storm-laced seductress and her unholy hunger. But my Inner Goddess was absent. Missing. She had fled, leaving a void where lightning should have torn through the sky.

My mind ran a quiet diagnostic: no headache, no resentment, no lingering barriers between us. Sure, some tiredness, but that was not out of the ordinary. Nothing stood in the way, except the fact that I could feel nothing.

Trying not to alarm him, I shifted us again. My left leg hooked over his right arm, an angle that always summoned rapture. Yes. This was the key. He alone had ever unearthed that secret, forbidden node inside me, the one that could reduce me to ash and resurrection in mere heartbeats. Jack resumed his glorious assault, relentless and true. I clenched my eyes shut, teeth gritted against the onslaught I once welcomed like a sacrament. But even now… even here… nothing.

Still undeterred, still brazen, I crawled onto all fours, offering myself with a feline stretch, back arched in decadent invitation. Every shift of my hips was a summons, every breath a dare. I pressed against his glorious, upright sword, letting the backward press of my body speak a language older than words, a liturgy of pure salacious hunger.

In the mirror’s gleam, I caught sight of us: his hands searing dark brands upon my waist, fingers digging in with fierce possession. His jaw clenched in quiet effort, muscles taut, a living study in raw masculine power, as he drove into me with the relentless force I had always adored.

It was beautiful. We were beautiful. Yet it was a summer sky bereft of storm, a darkened horizon where no lightning dared to strike. No spark ignited the night, no ache stirred the flesh, no luminous unraveling set me ablaze. 

I, a woman who once kept count of 72 divine peaks in a single liaison, felt nothing. How?

Panic bloomed like a dark, poisonous flower. Bile rose in my throat. Anger, cold and sharp, stirred in the depths of my soul.

I was the queen of orgasms. The avatar of sacred carnality. The plaything of the gods. This was mine. This was my realm, my surety amid chaos. How dare my body betray me? How dare my body refuse me? How dare it withhold the exquisite ruin I had always commanded?

Determined, I pressed flat to the bed, adjusting again. Jack followed without hesitation, his hands firm on my lower back, giving me his full weight. My body clenched around him, desperate to summon the fire that once flared so effortlessly, an instinctive blaze I never had to think about. But now… I didn’t know how. I fumbled in the dark, grasping for a language my body had forgotten, searching for a spark that refused to ignite. The pleasure I once summoned with ease was gone, leaving me bewildered and lost.

I thought: “Fine. If I can’t come, at least I’ll make sure he does.”

Not even the faintest breath from my Inner Goddess rose to claim what was hers. No summons to fight for my own rapture, my own divine right to be undone.

But even that felt false. He was not a task to be checked off my never-ending list. He was my closest confidant, the one I could be utterly myself with. I couldn’t pretend, not with him. Not to him.

There was no ecstasy. No sacred reset. No ravishing thunder to help me forget my name.

There was only…nothing.

Despairing, I rose onto my forearms, my head turned to the side like some forlorn Egyptian sphinx, aching for a kiss. Jack bent low, his mouth claiming mine with a tenderness that fractured my composure. My lips parted, and I kissed him back, hungry for connection. For presence. For the piece of myself that had gone missing somewhere in the chaos.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered against his mouth, grief fraying the edges of my voice. “Something’s not working.”

His voice was velvet and grave. “I know, baby. I can tell. This isn’t what you need right now.”

“No,” I argued, panic laced through the honesty. “This is what I need! This is what I want. I just… I don’t know why I’m not there!!”

He slipped from me with one long, agonizing drag, one that, in another time, would have made my Inner Goddess claw to have him back inside. But she was gone. He stretched out beside me, one sculped arm draping over my body, his fingers ghosting along my skin, an unspoken offering: I am still here.

And I was grateful. Grateful in that bitter, self-pitying way.

We spoke for a long while, Jack attentive and listening to every unspoken word. I unraveled, bit by bit, trying to trace the seams of my undoing. Why had my body grown so silent? Why had my Inner Goddess abandoned her beloved throne? 

Sleep had been elusive, but that was hardly a new torment. I was eating more consistently, drinking water with greater care, though I doubted any physician would applaud my reckoning.

The burdens had shifted, too. My college undertaking had been completed with flying colors. That very morning, I had finalized my budget, each bill for the next two months accounted for, down to the penny, without even needing the income yet to come. My son’s surgery had gone well, miraculously well, and he was healing with the joyous distraction of Minecraft and the devoted company of two doting dogs at his father’s home.

Work had not swallowed me whole. I was careful not to overextend myself or absorb the slights of fools. Though I will admit, I still longed to rap imbecilic knuckles with a ruler, like a sharp-eyed schoolmarm from a forgotten age. But there was no such ruler in my Amazon cart.

I had endured crueller chapters. My mind remained keen, sharp as a well-honed blade. I was weary, yes. But I was still myself.

And intimacy… intimacy had always been my refuge, the sacred chamber where I laid down my name, my burdens, the ceaseless litany of thoughts that raked at my mind. It was where I could be not me while being unapologetically me. And now, my body, the very site of that transformation, that sanctuary, had turned traitor in a betrayal too profound for words.

Jack, ever composed, ever maddeningly wise, quietly reminded me: the past four weeks had not simply been tiring, they had edged toward mental, physical, and emotional collapse. There had been no true rest, no sanctuary for the body. Only unrelenting motion.

He named it plainly: not just mental fatigue, as I had weathered before, but something deeper, bleaker. Physical depletion. The kind that scrapes bone. The kind that beckons ambulances and black spots behind the eyes. The summer heat had nearly dragged me under. I’d pushed through, of course, I always did, but he saw what I refused to name: that the body, no matter how defiant, has limits.

My weekends bled into weekdays, bled into motherhood, until all hours wore the same face. There had been no mending. No mercy. Only an unending cycle of go, go, go… break.

I wanted to scoff. To rise with some proud retort. I was strong. I was capable. I had survived worse.

And yet, I felt like butter scraped thin across too much bread. A shimmer of substance stretched to transparency.

I told him I was fine. I almost believed it.

He leaned in and kissed me, tenderly, thoroughly. Lips like balm, like benediction. I exhaled against his mouth, nodded when he offered to make dinner..WITH French fries. Perhaps sustenance could tempt the goddess back from her shadowed hiding place.

When he left, I remained perched at the edge of the bed, as if any movement might shatter the frail architecture of my composure. Slumped. Spent. My limbs hung useless, marionette strings cut. My forehead sank to my breastbone, not in prayer, but defeat.

There were no tears. Not because I’d outgrown them, but because I had nothing left to offer. Not even grief. Just the low, rhythmic pulse of thought twisting tighter and tighter, like a noose of silk drawn inescapably at the throat.

What if I truly am broken?

Not tender. Not tired. Scraped hollow. Emptied beyond repair.

As though some essential thread had been snipped from within me, a surgical undoing I hadn’t noticed until far too late.

Because the next night, it happened again.

And again, I reached. Again, I begged in silence. Again, I failed. No storm. No shudder. Just heat turning to ache turning to…nothing. 

My body was no longer a refuge from the world, an altar for the gods, but was now locked, mute, as though the doors had been sealed from the inside.

Not even a murmur from my Inner Goddess. My boldest self, my riotous conspirator, who had so often seized my hesitant, frozen form and flung it headlong into pleasures I could scarcely wait to recount. Now, it was as if she had never existed, save for the aching hollow she left behind. I could see her still, poised on her velvet chaise, perfectly lacquered nails grazing her bottom lip in lazy provocation. Her absence throbbed like an open wound, raw and gaping, and I felt suddenly, terribly orphaned from my own desire.

It wasn’t merely absence. It was erasure…a merciless obliteration, as though every sigh, every shiver she had ever summoned had been struck from the record of my flesh.

And madness crept in not as hysteria, but as a knowing. A terrible, lucid knowing: Maybe this is who I am now. A cathedral with no song. A chalice that will not spill.

And worse…I must still walk through the day smiling as if all was right in my world.

Until next time, XO. Elsie