The smell of the cedar sauna is still stuck in the back of my throat, thick as woodsmoke and just as blinding.
23 min read·4,495 words·11 views
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Elias,
I’m writing this on the back of the ‘Daily Mindfulness’ schedule they left on my nightstand because I can’t sleep and the blue light of the dawn is just starting to bleed over the ridge of the Smokies like a bruise and if I don’t put these words somewhere they are going to burn a hole right through my chest, I can still feel the way your thumb pressed into that soft dip of my hip when you corrected my stance in the gym yesterday afternoon, you thought you were being professional and maybe you were but I saw the way your throat moved when you swallowed and I know you felt the heat radiating off me through my leggings because the air between us didn’t just feel like a fitness retreat in the mountains it felt like a summer storm about to break over the valley, heavy and thick and tasting of ozone.
I’m sitting here now with my feet tucked under me on this stiff wooden chair and the floorboards are cold, so cold they make my toes ache but the rest of me is still humming with the memory of you, the way you looked in that charcoal-grey shirt that was too tight across your shoulders, the way you moved through the weight room like you owned the gravity there, and when you walked over to me while I was struggling with those kettlebells I didn’t even see you coming until your shadow fell over me and the smell of you—cedar and something like salt and expensive soap—hit me square in the face.
'Keep your back flat,' you said, and your voice was a low-register vibration that I felt in my teeth, 'don't let the weight pull your shoulders out of the socket,' and then you did it, you reached out and your hand was so large and so warm even through the fabric of my tank top as you placed it right between my shoulder blades to guide me down, and I swear to God I forgot how to breathe for three whole seconds because your touch wasn't just a correction it was a claim, a physical anchoring that made my blood run like a river in flood stage, and when I looked up at you through my hair I saw that look in your eyes, that split second where the professional mask slipped and I saw the man underneath who was just as hungry as I was.
It’s 5:24 now and a bird just started up outside, some kind of thrush I think, singing into the fog, and it sounds like the way my heart was beating when the sun went down and the main lodge went quiet and I found myself walking toward the spa area even though I told myself I was just going for a soak to help my muscles recover but I knew, I knew you’d be there because we’d spent the whole day circling each other like two animals in a clearing, and when I pushed open the heavy oak door to the sauna room the steam was so thick I could barely see the benches but I could hear your breath, slow and steady and deep, and when the door clicked shut behind me it felt like the rest of the world just ceased to exist.
You were sitting on the top bench with a towel draped over your lap and nothing else, your skin slick with sweat that caught the dim amber light of the heater, and you didn't look surprised to see me, you just watched me stand there in my robe with the steam curling around my ankles and I felt like a song that was being written in real time, every nerve ending in my body tuned to the frequency of you.
'You're late,' you said, and the words were barely a whisper but they filled the whole room, 'the heat’s already at its peak,' and I didn't say anything, I couldn't, I just let my robe hit the floor and stepped up onto the wood, my bare skin suddenly exposed to the hundred-and-eighty-degree air and the even hotter intensity of your gaze as it moved over me, tracing the line of my collarbone and the curve of my breasts and the damp hair clinging to my neck, and when I sat down next to you I could feel the heat radiating off your thigh, a physical wall of warmth that made my head spin.
I’m looking out at the pines now and they’re just dark shapes against the grey but in my head I’m back in that cedar box with you and the smell of the hot wood is overwhelming, and I remember how you didn't move at first, you just let the silence stretch out until it was a physical weight between us, and then you reached out and took my hand, your palm calloused and rough from years of lifting iron, and you didn't pull me toward you, you just held it, your thumb tracing the map of my knuckles while the sweat dripped off my chin and onto my chest, and I realized that I’ve spent my whole life being careful and here I was, three thousand feet up in the air with a man I barely knew, feeling more alive than I ever have in a Nashville recording booth or a crowded bar.
'Your heart is racing,' you whispered, and you moved your hand from my fingers to my wrist, pressing your thumb against the pulse there, and I leaned into you because I couldn't help it, the gravity of you was too strong, and when my shoulder brushed yours it felt like an electric shock, a live wire touching water, and I turned my head and you were right there, your face inches from mine, the steam making your eyelashes wet and your mouth—God, your mouth—was set in this hard, desperate line like you were trying to talk yourself out of what was coming next but your body was already saying yes, it was already screaming it.
I can still feel the way your breath felt on my lips, hot and tasting of the mint tea you’d been drinking, and when you finally kissed me it wasn't some gentle, tentative thing, it was a collision, a frantic reaching for something we both knew was dangerous, your tongue sliding against mine and your hands finally, finally coming up to cup my face, your fingers buried in my wet hair as you pulled me in so close I could feel the hard, rhythmic thud of your heart against my own ribs.
It’s 5:35 and the sky is turning a pale, sickly yellow and I’m shaking as I write this because the memory of what happened next is so vivid I can feel the phantom weight of your hands moving down my body, sliding over the sweat-slicked curves of my waist and pulling me onto your lap so I was straddling you on that rough cedar bench, the heat of the wood and the heat of your skin blurring together until I didn't know where I ended and you began, and when you groaned into my neck, a sound so raw and low it felt like it came from the center of the earth, I felt my whole world tilt on its axis.
You moved one hand to the back of my thigh, squeezing the muscle there with a grip that I know will leave bruises and I don't even care, I want them, I want the proof that this wasn't a fever dream brought on by the altitude and the exhaustion, and when you shifted under me I felt the solid, undeniable length of you pressing against my center, separated only by that thin towel which was already soaked through, and I started to move, just a slow, rhythmic grind that made you catch your breath and grip my hips so hard your knuckles went white.
'Maya,' you said, and it was the first time you’d used my name all weekend, and the way you said it—like a prayer or a curse—made me ache in places I’d forgotten I had, and I leaned back, my hands flat against your chest, feeling the way your muscles jumped under my touch, and I watched your eyes go dark, the pupils swallowing the iris until they were just two black holes I wanted to fall into, and I realized then that you weren't just the instructor and I wasn't just the student, we were just two people who had found the exact right frequency to shatter each other.
The steam was so thick it was hard to see your face clearly but I could feel everything, the way your teeth grazed my earlobe, the way your breath hitched when I slid my hand down between us, fingers fumbling with the damp fabric of the towel until I found you, hot and velvet-hard and pulsing with a life of its own, and the sound you made then—a jagged, broken thing—is the only thing I can hear right now over the sound of the wind in the trees.
You’re probably still asleep in the staff cabin three buildings down, or maybe you’re awake too, staring at the same ridge, wondering if you should have stopped it before it got this far, before we were both half-crazed and dripping in that dark room with the temperature climbing and the door locked from the inside, but I don't regret a single second of it, I don't regret the way I arched my back when you took my nipple into your mouth, the rough scrape of your stubble against my sensitive skin making me cry out into the empty air of the spa, the sound echoing off the tiles and the glass and the stone.
I remember the way you looked at me then, pulling back just enough to see my face, your eyes searching mine for any sign of hesitation and finding only the same desperate, clawing need that was written all over you, and you reached down and discarded the towel entirely, letting it fall to the floor like a white flag, and then it was just us, skin on skin, the friction of our bodies creating a different kind of heat that had nothing to do with the stove in the corner, and when you lifted me up just a few inches and guided yourself into me, it felt like the missing piece of a melody finally falling into place, a resolution that made my whole body tremble with the sheer, overwhelming rightness of it.
I’m running out of room on this paper and the ink is starting to smudge where my hand is sweating but I can’t stop, I have to tell you how it felt when you started to move, that deep, deliberate thrusting that felt like you were trying to reach my soul through my skin, your hands anchored on my hips, thumbs digging into my pelvic bones as you drove yourself into me again and again, each movement a question and an answer all at once, and I wrapped my legs around your waist, pulling you deeper, wanting to consume you, wanting to be consumed by you until there was nothing left but the smell of cedar and the sound of our breathing and the frantic, wet slapping of our skin in the dark.
You whispered things into my hair, words I couldn't quite catch but I felt them, I felt the urgency in your voice and the way your body was winding tighter and tighter like a guitar string tuned past its limit, and I was right there with you, the tension building in my lower belly until it was almost painful, a humming, vibrating pressure that was seconds away from snapping, and I buried my face in your shoulder, biting down on the muscle there to keep from screaming as the first waves of it started to hit me, the world turning into a blurred smear of amber light and white steam.
I stopped writing for a second because I heard a door slam somewhere in the hallway and my heart nearly jumped out of my throat thinking it might be you, thinking you might be coming to find me before the morning session starts at seven, but the hallway is quiet again and the light is getting stronger, the mountains turning that deep, sharp green that only happens right after a rain, and I’m still here, sitting in the wreckage of yesterday, trying to figure out how I’m supposed to walk into that gym in two hours and pretend that I don’t know exactly how you taste or the way your hands feel when they’re possessive instead of professional.
We were so loud, Elias, I don’t know how no one heard us, how the night didn't just split wide open from the sheer force of what we were doing, you had me pinned against the cedar wall, my legs shaking and my breath coming in ragged, broken gasps while you buried yourself in me one last time, your head back and your throat tight as you finally let go, the heat of you flooding me and making my knees buckle, and for a minute we just stayed like that, tangled together in the dying heat of the sauna, our hearts beating against each other in a rhythm that felt more honest than anything I’ve ever said out loud.
But then the timer on the wall dinged, that sharp, mechanical sound cutting through the silence like a knife, and the reality of the retreat and the rules and the people sleeping just yards away came crashing back in, and I saw the way your expression changed, the way you pulled back and the wall went back up, even though your hands were still shaking as you reached for your towel, and the look you gave me before you walked out that door, leaving me alone in the steam, was enough to make me want to follow you through the dark and enough to make me stay exactly where I was.
I’m staring at the 'Mindfulness' header on this page and it feels like a joke because there is nothing mindful about the way I want you right now, there is nothing calm or centered about the way my skin feels like it’s too tight for my body, and I don’t know what happens when the sun finally clears the trees, I don’t know if we’re supposed to go back to being instructor and student, back to 'keep your back flat' and 'watch your form' when all I can think about is the form of you pressed into me in the dark.
I can still feel you inside me, that heavy, lingering ache that feels like a promise or a warning, and the coffee I’m drinking is cold and bitter but I can’t stop looking at the door, half-expecting you to walk through it and tell me that it was a mistake or that it was the only thing that’s ever made sense in this hollowed-out life of mine...
...and the truth is, Elias, I stayed on that bench for twenty minutes after you left, my skin prickling as the temperature started to drop, listening to the wood groan as it cooled, feeling the way my own body was still vibrating with the ghost of you, and when I finally stood up my legs were so weak I had to lean my forehead against the cool tile of the shower wall for a long time before I could even turn the handle. I’m looking at the clock now, it’s 5:42, and the memory of you pulling my hips down onto you is so sharp it feels like a physical weight in the room, I remember the way the sweat made it hard for you to keep your grip on me until you wrapped your arms all the way around my waist and hauled me flush against your chest, burying your face in the crook of my neck while you drove upward, that steady, heavy rhythm that felt like a kick drum hitting right in the solar plexus, and I can still hear the wet, sliding sound of us, the friction of my thighs against yours, the way the steam seemed to trap the sound of my moans and press them back into my skin.
You didn't say much while you were inside me, just these low, guttural sounds that made my stomach flip, but at one point you pulled back just an inch and looked me right in the eyes and said *look at me*, and when I did, I saw the way your jaw was clamped shut, the tendons in your neck standing out like corded rope, and I knew then that you weren't just some stoic professional playing a part, you were losing your mind right along with me. I reached down and gripped the edges of the bench until my fingernails left marks in the cedar, arching my back to give you more room, wanting every bit of you, wanting to feel the way you stretched me out, and when you shifted your weight and tilted my pelvis back I thought I was going to shatter, the sensation of you hitting that one specific spot inside me over and over was like a fever that wouldn't break, a rising heat that had nothing to do with the stones in the corner.
It’s 5:50 and I just caught a glimpse of myself in the vanity mirror, my hair is a wild, tangled mess and my lips are still swollen from the way you bit them, and I look like a woman who has been through a storm and I guess I have, a storm that started the second you walked into that gym on Friday and looked at my name on the clipboard. I remember the way you used your thumb to spread me open right before you came, a slow, deliberate movement that made me gasp and try to pull you closer, and the way you watched it happen, watched the way my body reacted to you, that raw look of pride and hunger in your eyes that made me feel like I was the only woman in the world who mattered. You were so thick inside me I felt like I was full of liquid lead, a heavy, grounding heat that anchored me to that wooden bench, and when you finally let go, your whole body went rigid, your fingers digging into the meat of my ass so hard I know I’ll have to wear a long shirt to the pool today, and the sound you made—that long, broken exhale that turned into my name—is going to stay with me until the day I die.
I’m sitting here now, 5:58, and the first ray of actual sunlight is hitting the top of the dresser and it’s gold, the kind of gold you only see in the mountains in October, and it reminds me of the way your skin looked when you finally stood up and grabbed that towel, the steam swirling around your broad shoulders and the way you didn't look back until you were at the door. You left me there in the silence and the fading heat, and for a second I hated you for it, for being able to just walk away and put the mask back on while I was still sitting there with my heart trying to beat its way out of my ribs, but then I saw the way your hand lingered on the doorframe, the way your fingers trembled just for a split second before you pushed it open, and I knew you were just as wrecked as I was.
I don't know how I’m going to sit through breakfast, I don't know how I’m going to watch you stand at the front of the room and talk about 'functional movement' and 'intentional breathing' when all I can think about is the way your breathing was anything but intentional when you were coming inside me, the way your hands weren't functional they were possessive, they were a map of every place I’ve ever wanted to be touched. I can still feel the slickness of you between my legs, a lingering reminder of the way you didn't hold anything back, the way you took what you wanted and gave me everything in return, and I keep touching the spot on my collarbone where you left a mark, a tiny, dark bloom of color that feels like a secret I’m keeping from the rest of the world.
It’s 6:05 and the house is starting to wake up, I can hear a door clicking down the hall and the distant sound of the industrial coffee maker in the lodge, and I should probably get up and get dressed, I should probably put on my workout gear and tie my hair back and pretend that I’m just another guest at this retreat who’s here to 'find herself,' but the woman who walked into that sauna isn't the one sitting in this chair right now. You didn't just give me an orgasm, Elias, you gave me a reason to stop pretending that I’m okay with the quiet, sterile life I’ve been living back in the city, you reminded me that there is something fierce and wild and unapologetic under all this 'mindfulness' and I don't know what to do with that information now that the sun is up.
I wonder if you’re thinking about the way I tasted, I wonder if you can still smell the cedar and the sweat on your own skin or if you’ve already showered it all away, trying to scrub the memory of me out of your pores before the first session starts. I hope you haven't, I hope it’s still there, I hope you’re standing in your cabin right now looking at your own reflection and feeling the same terrifying, beautiful pull that’s currently making it impossible for me to take a full breath. I remember the way you held me for just a heartbeat after it was over, your face pressed into my wet hair, and you whispered something about *tomorrow* and I didn't ask what you meant because I was too busy trying to keep from crying from the sheer intensity of the release, but now tomorrow is here and I’m terrified of it.
6:12 AM. The birds are louder now and the fog is lifting off the valley floor like a curtain being pulled back on a stage, and I have to decide what to do with this piece of paper, I have to decide if I’m going to leave it here on the nightstand for the maid to find or if I’m going to tuck it into my bag and carry it around like a live coal for the rest of my life. I think about the way you looked at my hands yesterday when I was doing those lifts, the way you noticed the callouses from my guitar strings and asked me what I played, and I should have told you then that I play songs about people who are lost and people who are looking for a way home, but I think you already knew that, I think you saw the holes in me before I even knew they were there.
I’m thinking about the way your chest felt against my back when you finally pulled me up to stand, the heat of you still radiating through me, and the way you ran your hands down my arms all the way to my wrists, squeezing once, hard, like you were trying to make sure I was real, and I wanted to turn around and beg you not to go, I wanted to tell you to lock the door again and let the rest of the world go to hell, but I just stood there and let you leave because that’s what we do, isn't it? We play the game, we follow the schedule, we 'focus on the core' and we ignore the fact that the earth just moved beneath our feet.
6:20. I’m going to get in the shower now, and I’m going to turn the water as hot as I can stand it, and I’m going to try to wash the smell of that sauna off my skin but I know it won't work, I know that for the rest of this weekend, every time I look at you, I’m going to see the way your eyes rolled back in your head when you hit that peak, and every time you speak to me, I’m going to hear the way you groaned into my skin. I’m going to walk into that gym at 7:00 AM and I’m going to stand in my spot and I’m going to listen to you talk, and I’m going to wait for that one second, that one tiny, infinitesimal moment where our eyes meet and you let me see the man from the sauna again, the man who didn't care about form or posture or mindfulness, the man who just wanted to be buried inside me until the world ended.
I’m folding this paper now, folding it small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, and the ink is dry but the words feel like they’re still wet, like they’re still bleeding, and I don't know if I’ll ever have the courage to give this to you or if I’ll just keep it as a record of the night I finally woke up. The sun is fully over the ridge now and it’s blinding, a great, big, uncompromising light that’s showing me everything I’ve been trying to hide, and I’m shaking, Elias, I’m still shaking from the memory of your hands and the way you made me feel like I was a song that you finally knew how to play.
6:28 AM. I can hear the first bell for breakfast, that hollow, metallic ring that sounds like a warning, and I’m putting this pen down because I have to go, I have to put on the mask and the leggings and the smile and I have to go be the woman you think I am, but just know that every time I take a breath today, I’m breathing in the ghost of you, and every time I move, I’m feeling the way you left your mark on me, and if you look closely enough, if you really look at me when I’m standing there in the light of the gym, you’ll see that I’m still in that sauna with you, I’m still straddling you in the dark, and I’m never, ever going to come down from that mountain.
Maya
