I met Richard the first time he came with his family to meet my cousin. It was an arranged introduction, the kind of meeting that should have settled into memory and disappeared. But Richard didn’t fold into the background the way everyone else did.

He cut through the room like a low, steady rhythm: dusky skin, careless stubble, clothes that sat on him as if they had been made to know him. When he smiled, it was small and private, as if a joke lived behind his teeth, and for reasons I could not have explained then, that private smile lodged itself in my chest and refused to leave.

He was supposed to belong to someone else. He was supposed to be a neutral island of goodwill, a new husband for my cousin, someone I helped arrange with small kindnesses—gift ideas, favourite foods, times when he planned a surprise. Instead, he became a presence in my life like a constant low hum. Every time my phone lit up with his name, a small electric thrill ran along my arms. I told myself it was harmless—friendship, familial warmth—but the truth settled like dust: it was something more. It was attention that felt like oxygen.

We began with messages—memes, jokes, trivialities that should have meant nothing. They became a rhythm. He’d check in to ask if my cousin liked a certain song or if a certain dish would make her smile. He’d ask about little practical things, and I would answer, and each exchange folded me tighter into his orbit.

When others were not around, we hugged longer than we should. We teased, pinched cheeks and pretended, but inside, something was rewriting itself. I would leave those embraces with the taste of him in my mouth—an imagined aftertaste of cologne and proximity—and later, alone, I would replay the world where his fingers lingered an inch longer.

If we are travelling somewhere, I would usually go with Richard on his bike. The truth was, I was drawn to Richard in a way I could no longer ignore. I would be lying if I said that I’ve never fantasised about Richard while touching myself.

The rides on his bike became small rituals. I would climb on, arms wrapped around him, and the world would narrow to his warmth and the press of him against my back. The wind would play at my hair, but it couldn’t steal my attention from him. I memorized the way his jacket creased over his shoulder, how the light on a streetlamp made the stubble at his jaw glint.

Each of those rides etched a map of desire into my memory—roads that always led back to him. I told myself it was only a crush. I told myself I was being dramatic. But I kept returning to the same thought, like a prayer whispered into the dark: I needed him. I needed him. I needed him.

Five years into their marriage, we were supposed to attend a family dinner. Since my cousin was at our place that week, Richard came to our place as we were going to go to the venue together. It was a weekday, and I got a bit late from the office. My cousin left with my parents, so Richard stayed back for me, which I got to know only after reaching home. As always, we hugged tightly, and kissed each other on the cheeks. However, that day, Richard held on to me tighter and longer while hugging, to which I reciprocated.

Before letting me go, he kissed me on my neck. The kiss and his stubble brushing my neck gave me goosebumps. I asked him to wait for a while and rushed into my room to change, as we were already late. After shutting the door, I immediately switched on the air conditioner. After a few minutes, I slightly opened the door of my room silently, in hopes of something more happening.

I was wearing a solid black loose top with a wide neck and a printed black and red full-length skirt. To accompany my attire, I was wearing silver oxidised jewellery with tiny bells in it, a necklace, long earrings, a bracelet, and anklets. I had my almost waist-length highlighted hair roughly combed with my fingers and resting on my right shoulder and breast. My nails were painted black, and I was wearing a wine-coloured lipstick.

I stood at the dressing table and looked at my reflection. I wondered how long I could keep pretending. I dressed in a loose top and a long skirt and put my hair up because I thought—foolishly—that changing could change my pulse. I cracked the door, a small, stupid hope that he would appear. I did not expect him to.

He did not knock. He did not ask to come in. He walked into the room. The quiet in the room swallowed my breath. Just as I sat at the dressing table to remove my makeup, Richard entered my room. My heart started racing as our eyes met through the mirror. Without saying a word, he stood behind me and kissed me on my head as he rested his hands on my neck.

He went on kissing my forehead, placing a few kisses on my left cheek. As he lowered his hands to my shoulders, he began licking my back, slowly and steadily. While leaving trails of kisses on my neck, he further lowered his hands and placed them on my breasts. I could feel his dick harden on my back.

Our lips finally greeted each other. While we were passionately kissing, I could feel him pushing his tool on my back and his hands fondling my breasts. I wanted to give in to whatever Richard was willing to do; however, I still felt whatever was happening was wrong. As he squeezed my breasts hard, I released an unconscious moan. As he continued kissing my neck, moving gradually towards my cleavage, he slid his hands under my top, while still standing behind me. At this moment, all I wanted was for him to suck on my already hard nipples.

Everything after that moved on rails already laid. His mouth found the soft places around my throat. He let the stubble brush my skin in a way that felt like a signature. He kissed my forehead, my cheek, the line of my collarbone, and each of these diminutive acts became a proclamation. I felt both guilt and surrender. “This is wrong,” I said in the small, steady inner voice that belonged to conscience, but there was another voice, intrusive and urgent, that answered: This is right. This is all I have been waiting for.

I wrestled between them, and the second voice, hungrier, won. Richard’s hands were everywhere and nowhere. They remembered the smallest geographies—the dip behind my ear, the hollow beneath my collarbone—and they memorised me as if cataloguing a private collection. He was not clumsy. He was not violent. He was exact, which made his gentleness heavier, more insistent. He made no promises. He made no declarations. He simply did what he had been starving to do: he reached for me.

Richard held my waist and made me stand, as he sat on the bed, beside the dressing table. He lifted my top. Without wasting a moment, I removed my top. While I was at it, he started leaving trails of kisses all over my waist, inviting the goosebumps again. Out of excitement, I held his hair. He placed his hands on my ass and pulled me towards him, and began licking around my navel. I was releasing soft moans as he continued kissing my waistline.

He swiftly pulled down my skirt and pulled me even closer. I climbed on his lap, while he buried his face in my cleavage, kissing and licking it, as he continued squeezing my ass. He slid off my bra’s strap as we locked our lips. While our lips were still locked and our tongues were tasting each other, I unbuttoned his shirt. He raised me and shifted me onto the bed, removed his shirt, and stood up. While he was at it, I unhooked my bra and tossed it away. Richard came closer to me and kissed me on my lips and combed my hair away from my face.

I understood the signal. Without wasting a moment, I tied up my hair into a messy bun and unbuckled his belt. While kissing his waistline, I unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans and pulled it out. He released soft moans while holding my bun, as I placed soft bites around his waist. I could see a mark of pre-cum on his red underwear. I desperately wanted to taste his dick. Without any further ado, I swiftly pulled his underwear down.

His fair dick was right at my eye level, pointing at me, still holding some pre-cum. As I held his baby like clean-shaven balls in my left hand, he took a deep breath. With my right hand, I held his tool and slid the foreskin to expose the bright pink head. Richard released a moan as I began licking the pre-cum off the head. I could feel myself dripping wet. He held his tool and began slapping my cheeks and later my lips. After a few strokes, I opened my mouth and stuck my tongue out and gradually wrapped my lips around his tool. As I slid his dick in my mouth, he released a moan. I began sucking it, with each stroke, Richard continued moaning.

After a few strokes, he opened my hair bun and grabbed all my hair with one hand and began fucking my mouth, gradually increasing the intensity. I could feel my saliva dripping through my mouth. After a while, he swiftly removed his tool from my mouth and slapped it on my cheeks a few times before he spread my legs and pushed me gently to lie down.

He immediately came onto me, with his tool rubbing on my wet panties, he grabbed my breasts with his manly hands and began kissing and licking my cleavage while he rubbed and pinched my nipples. I released a moan out of satisfaction as he placed his lips on my left nipple and began sucking it while he kept fondling my right nipple. He only let go of my nipples once he was satisfied, leaving them sore. Leaving a trail of kisses on my belly and waist. He lowered himself and got on his knees.

I immediately raised my lower body. He grabbed my pants and removed it in one go. He placed several kisses on both of my inner thighs, making me moan and desperately wanting to feel him licking my clit. The first stroke of soft tongue on my sensitive clit almost made me jump. While he licked me clean for several minutes, he also made me fall short of breath. I never wanted this to end.

He asked me to get on my knees on the bed, as he stood up. He slapped my ass a few times, and rubbed his tool’s head on my pussy a few times. Before I knew it, he swiftly pushed his tool inside me in a single stroke. He immediately caught momentum and grabbed my hair. Although the air conditioner was on, I was sweating crazily, while I continued moaning with pleasure, gripping the bed sheet. I could hear his lower waist clapping against my ass, and could feel my breasts jiggling at each stroke.

My own hands found him after a few heartbeats, not because I chose to cross the line but because the line had dissolved beneath our feet. We moved like two pieces pulled toward each other, lips meeting in a way that was both question and answer. I felt him move against me—an assurance of his existence and an invocation of my desire. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” I heard him whisper, the words small and raw.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you either,” I wanted to say, but I closed my mouth and let the sound of him claim the room. Repetition became my religion. I needed him. I needed him. I needed him. I needed him inside my ass. That cock was mine, and mine only.

He removed his tool at once and turned me around while holding me from my waist. Without wasting a moment, he placed both my legs on his shoulders and pushed himself inside me. He gradually increased the intensity as our lips were locked and our tongues were doing the happy dance. Despite this, I couldn’t help but moan. I knew he was close to discharging himself as he lowered the speed of his strokes.

As he removed his dick and stood up, I got up to suck it. However, before I could do so, he held my breasts while squeezing them against each other, after placing his dick between them, and began fucking my breasts. After a few strokes, he gave a final stroke and released thick white warm cum, spraying it on my breasts and chin. We kissed each other before he left the room with his clothes. I locked the room, grabbed the wet napkins to clean myself; however, before cleaning myself, I took some of his cum from my breast and tasted it. It was thick and juicy.

Obsessions are made from repetition. They are less about a single event and more about the thousand tiny echoes that follow it. After that night, every ordinary thing mirrored the extraordinary: the tilt of a cup, the smell of detergent, the sound of someone clearing their throat. My mind returned to the room again and again as if there were a magnet there. I would be in the library, and a thought would appear unbidden—his hands at my waist—and my breath would hitch.

I would be making tea and find myself tasting the phantom of his mouth on my lips. Each hour he was not in my presence, the image of him grew more elaborate, more demanding. I would run through the scene like a prayer, and with each recitation I added new details: the way he had hesitated before a kiss, the way he had inhaled when I leaned in. He confessed nothing concrete; he disclosed only the fact of his wanting—urgent, repeated, relentless. “I have wanted to touch you for years,” he said once, as if stating the weather. “I have read your face like a map.”

We told each other, eventually, that what had happened must remain within ourselves. We told ourselves a pact in hushed tones: never again, never mention it, never repeat. Richard’s clothes were readjusted, his tie re-done, and the evening resumed. We walked into the world with the tremor of what had transpired under our skin. Sometimes, late at night, I tell myself the truth in a whisper: You are addicted to him.

The admission is ridiculous, simple, and devastating. I am not proud of it. I am not innocent of it. Yet the thought of never again tasting that small, private nearness feels like a deprivation worse than any social consequence. The memory—his scent, the pressure of his palm, the heat at the base of my throat—returns like a tide.

And so, I keep living. I keep answering family texts. I keep smiling at dinner. I keep folding napkins with the same precise care. But somewhere under these small actions, the obsession pulses—resolute, patient, and insistent. I am not sure if it will release me or consume me. I only know that I have been marked by that single night and by the thousand quiet echoes that followed. I only know that in the great ledger of my life, his name is written in a hand so small and so precise that it will not be easily erased.