For 72 hours, I knew love. For 72 hours, I knew safety and comfort. For 72 hours, I knew passion and pleasure. Yet, for the other hours that make up a week, a month… a lifetime, my reality is different. It’s not necessarily a bad reality, because I love and I’m loved. But, for 72 hours, that love was a deeper, more connected, electrifying type of love.

I didn’t expect this to be the case when I took off on the weekend retreat, but life is full of unexpected moments and puzzling feelings. It started at our first dinner, when I spilled my drink down the front of my off-the-rack, pretend-it’s-designer formal wear. He was the first one to jump up from his seat, offering me his coat jacket to keep my sheer top of revealing my flat chest and pasty white skin. I was mortified.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he said, as he walked me to his hotel room. Grabbing the hair dryer from the neatly organized bathroom.. (to be finished)