Page 3 of Body Language
“Did she ever tell you she was proud of you?”
Silence. Breath. Then a soft, “Not really.”
I leaned back in the chair, let the salt breeze hit my skin, and whispered,
“That’s probably why you work so hard. You’re still trying to earn something you should’ve been given.”
He didn’t say a word. So I kept going.
“You ever wonder what version of you would’ve existed if you were just… loved without expectation?”
That man exhaled like I’d just baptized him.
And when I said,
“You were a little boy who wanted to be enough for a tired woman,”
I swear I heard his trauma unzip itself and take a seat next to him.
I don’t flirt. I listen.
And every “Mmm,” every “I get it,” every “Have you ever told anybody that before?” wrapped around him like warm bandages over wounds he forgot he had.
He started telling me things. About how he used to sit on the porch, waiting for his dad to come back. About how he used to show his mom his report cards, hoping it would make her smile. About how every woman since then has felt like a test he was trying to pass.
And I just felt like a safe place.
But inside, I was focused, strategic, but still on my vacation.
Because here’s the truth:
I don’t care.Not like that.
I mean, I care enough to make him think I do.
Enough to let him be the vulnerable version of himself no other woman gets to see.
But I’m not here to fix him. I’m here to finesse him.
Men like that… the ones with scars they dress in designer and trauma they mistake for drive…. They just want to be seen.
So I look. Not at his body, but at the parts of him that never got held right.
And I hold them. With words. With tone. With silence.
He said, “You’re so different.”
I said, “Baby, I’m just paying attention.”
Then he asked if I needed anything.
Anything.
So I smiled and said, “You know, I’m working on something. Something for women like me. Taking care of siblings and an addict mom is hard… and sometimes the funding feels like a fight.”
I wasn’t working on shit, but that man wired me $5,000 before our call ended.
No titty pic.
