The Hallow Space

The apartment was quiet, the air still buzzing with the lingering scent of expensive perfume and the echo of the night’s artificial laughter. After they took turns showering, Lily stepped out onto the small, dark balcony. The stars were sharp and distant, mirroring the coldness starting to settled in her bones. She leaned against the railing, trying to find the woman who had felt so proud on the ballroom floor only hours ago.

A pair of arms wrapped around her waist from behind. Thomas pressed his chest to her back, his skin still warm from the shower. He leaned down, his lips trailing hot, lingering kisses across the back of her neck and over the curve of her shoulders.

“Come to bed,” he murmured into her skin, his voice a low, suggestive vibration. “I want to try something tonight.”

Lily felt a flutter of hope. This is it, she thought. The real reunion. When they entered the bedroom, she noticed her laptop was already open on the duvet, the screen glowing like a clinical eye in the dim room. Thomas sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her toward him. “Find something spicy for us to watch,” he directed, his eyes fixed on the blank browser tab. “Something… intense.”

Heat crawled up Lily’s neck. She had never been comfortable with these types of videos; her upbringing had taught her they were something to be whispered about, not shared. But she didn't want to be the "boring" partner. She didn't want to give him a reason to think of Monica’s efficiency apartment again. With trembling fingers, she did as he asked.

The discomfort deepened as the video started. Thomas began foreplay, but to Lily’s confusion, his focus was entirely internal. He didn't reach for her. He didn't look at her. He was a man in his own world, using the screen as a map.

Wanting to bridge the gap, Lily reached out, her hand trembling as she initiated contact, desperate for him to acknowledge she was there. But Thomas didn't lean into her touch. Instead, he reached for the laptop, his brow furrowed in concentration, and clicked onto a different video—one with imagery so blunt and aggressive it made Lily’s stomach turn.

Before she could speak, he moved. He turned her over, away from him, his eyes never leaving the flickering blue light of the screen. As he moved through the motions, Lily realized with a sickening jolt that he was keeping as much distance as possible. Aside from the mechanical necessity of the act, their skin didn't touch. There was no embrace, no shared breath, no whispered words. He was using her body as a prop for the fantasy on the screen.

Everytime the video buffered, he lost his desire and Lily had to help him get it back orally. He got frustrated with the final buffer and attempted to correct it while manually stimulating Lily. It didn’t feel good. Lily knew that men’s egos are tied to their manhood and didn’t want to make the situation worse by saying anything. So she pretended to enjoy him, even faking a climax to stroke his ego. She hoped that would give him confidence to engage further. But it had the opposite effect and he did not regain his passion.

When it was over, he didn't pull her into his arms. He didn't even check to see if she was okay. He simply rolled over, and within minutes, his breathing slowed into the heavy rhythm of sleep.

The silence in the room was louder than the laptop had been. Beside her, Thomas was a silhouette of indifference, his back a literal wall between them. Lily stared at the ceiling, the blue light of the laptop still burned into her retinas.

"He’s asleep," she thought, the words feeling like lead in her chest. "He just closed the screen and fell out. No 'Are you okay?' No 'I missed you.' Just the mechanical click of the laptop and then... this."

She shifted slightly, looking at the back of his head.

"I know what desire feels like. I remember the heat of a hand that can't stay still, the way someone looks at you when they’re consumed with desire. This wasn't that. This was a performance."

A cold, hollow ache settled behind her ribs as the pieces clicked together.

"He didn't want me. He wanted the girl in the video. Or maybe he just wanted the distraction. He used that screen to force himself to go through the motions because, without it, he couldn't even look at me. I’m not his partner; I’m just the breathing prop he needed to make the fantasy real."

She looked at her own hands in the dim moonlight filtering through the curtains.

"Ten years. I sacrificed a decade for a man who has to trick himself into touching me. I've never felt more invisible than I do right now, lying three inches away from him. How could I be so blind? How could I not see what I knew deep down to he true? I am not good enough to be by his side."

Lily turned her face into the pillow, the fabric soaking up the first hot tear.

"He’s not attracted to me. Why won't he just admit it and let me go? At least that would be respectful. How could he lie to me all these years? How can he fake such emotions so well but not fake this well? "

Lily lay in the dark, the silence of the room feeling like a physical weight on her chest. A wave of profound shame washed over her, thick and suffocating. She felt vile, like something discarded after use. She looked at her own hands in the moonlight and felt unattractive, unworthy of even a glance from the man she had sacrificed a decade for.

She turned her face into the pillow to stifle the sound of her sobbing, crying herself to sleep in the hollow space he had left between them.