Page 118 of Unclench Me Softly

He shrugs, sheepish. “Group bonding symbol. Shared energy. Something to remember this by.”

And my throat is suddenly too tight to answer.

Because somehow, the syrup orgy wasn’t the most intimate part of the morning.

This is.

Bliss-ism #29/z

“Sometimes accountability comes with hot water and five hands on your thighs. That’s just masculine healing, babe.”

Chapter Twenty-Three:

The Lathering of the High Priestess of Emotional Dishware™

I’m still in my robe.

Still sticky in places that weren’t meant to be sticky after brunch.

Still sitting in the soft warmth of my dome, surrounded by empty plates and the faint smell of intentioned syrup, trying to reclaim some small fraction of authority or clarity or, honestly, basic spine function.

It’s not going well.

I have a journal open across my lap. The page is titled“Reflections on Sacred Brunch Ritual: A Case Study in Erotic Carb Transfer.”I have written exactly one sentence.

They fed me until I saw God and then gave me a necklace shaped like commitment.

I stare at it for a long time. Then add a second sentence, just under it: I think I’ve been spiritually married via pancake.

I reach for my phone before I can overthink it.

ME:

brunch turned into a cult ceremony

i was fed five different intention bites by five emotionally unstable men

there was syrup on my collarbone

i might have moaned

everyone clapped.

also there’s a puzzle necklace and i think i got emotionally married again

help.

I toss the phone onto the cushion beside me, flop onto my back, and stare up at the ceiling like it might offer divine post-brunch clarity.

It doesn’t.

Rude.

So I do the only reasonable thing: I decide to shower off the sacred glaze and try to reclaim a single neuron of focus.

I grab a towel, pull my robe tighter around my shoulders, and head toward the shower dome, which we technically call The Aquatic Rebirth Station™, but which mostly just holds a long communal tiled space and too many bottles of shampoo labeled with moon phases.

The door is slightly ajar, and steam drifts out like it’s been conjured by soft-core forest magic and eucalyptus breathwork. It curls around my ankles, warm and thick, and carries with it the unmistakable sounds of something happening inside, something domestic, masculine, and wildly unspiritual.

---