Soap Bubbles

A trail of soap bubbles trickled toward my navel as he dragged the washcloth over my breasts. I smiled, more to myself than at him, luxuriating in the feeling of being bathed. Of being bathed by him. Something about how tenderly he cared for me in the most intimate of ways. Standing in the shower, surrounded by drifts of steam, it felt like it was just the two of us. We didn’t even have to speak; he just nudged whatever body part he wanted or needed me to move. He pulled me against him, scrubbing my back in circles. If we’d been anywhere but the shower, the move might have been the beginning of a sexual interlude. But our showers were sacred, time we took just to appreciate each other’s bodies outside of sex.
I looked down at the top of his head as he kneeled to wash my nether regions. I literally felt my love for him washing over me, warmer, thicker, richer, and stronger that the water that rinsed me as he washed. I felt his words before he began to speak. “Lai.” He made my name sound like a question, and the lack of surety caught my attention. I hummed a response, maintaining my peace. “I think we should… pull back for a while.” I kept my face neutral as I felt the first pinch of pain. I hoped my voice was steadier than it felt, “Any particular reason?”

I couldn’t figure out what puling back might entail considering our current, uh, arrangement. We weren’t even dating casually. We were, however, having very serious, very frequent, very exclusive sex.

Too much time was trailing between my question and his answer. For a moment I wondered if I’d even asked it out loud. “No,” he finally answered, “I just thought we’d try something. That ok?”

It wasn’t, but I nodded my assent, anyway. He stood and hugged me, our skin slipping and sliding against the sudsy water between us. I leaned my head back to look at him as he murmured, “Don’t worry. We’re just trying something.” I wasn’t sure which of us he was trying to reassure, but I didn’t bother asking, either. He kissed my forehead, the tip of my nose, my lips and my chin in the way he knew I loved. I smiled for him, just for him, and turned to rinse myself off, then him. That was the last shower we shared.

Three weeks later, he ended what we had and what we didn’t have. I cried for an eternity. Taking a shower could bring on a fresh batch of tears and launch me into a crying jag that could last for hours. I sometimes look back and ask myself what I’d done wrong. Had I loved him too hard, causing him to slip away rather than burst like a caught balloon? Was I too compliant, too willing to do whatever it took to keep us happy? Did I demand too little, offering my all and accepting the tiniest bit of him in return? Even now I find myself wondering these things. He long since moved on. Became attached to a woman he found more worthy of what he had to give, a woman I wanted to hate. And I, the believer in eternal endings and glorious goodbyes, hoped foolish hopes. Spent my time watching, waiting, dreaming, and thinking about soap bubbles.