Gravel shifts beneath my sneakers, each crunch a metronome I cling to. The sound is ordinary, grounding, proof I still belong here. Evening air slides under my skirt. Cool against my thighs above striped socks that feel more like armor than fashion. I keep my gaze pinned to the path. It’s easier to believe the world ends where my feet land.

The sun drags low, bruising the sky in amber and violet. Clouds glow from beneath as if something burns inside them. The river stirs behind the hedges. Restless, endless, the excuse I give myself for coming, its noise louder than the press of my life.

Ahead, the bench waits. My chest tightens at the sight. I force my steps slow, studying the wood worn smooth. The chipped paint, the indifference of something that has carried countless strangers. And remembers none. To the right, the hedges split, showing the river’s body rushing past, unstoppable. For a heartbeat I imagine myself the same, moving without resistance. But I know better. I am standing still.

I smooth my skirt before I sit. The wood is cool, damp against the backs of my thighs. Knees pressed tight, ankles locked, I brace against the chill. My eyes find the water and hold it, borrowing its current for my own.

This bench once meant quiet. A place where the rush of water carried my anxieties away. I used to believe I came here for solitude. That was before he appeared. Now the bench carries another weight, impossible to set aside.

My chest flutters at the thought of him. I try to trace back to the first day, the moment he arrived, but the memory slips like smoke. Did I push it away because it unsettled me, or has time blurred it into nothing? Anxiety climbs my spine, then slides lower, reshaping itself into hunger.

A breeze brushes my face, lifting strands of hair from my cheek. In it I swear I catch him already, that faint curl of cigar and leather that belongs only to him. My thighs press together before I can stop them. My heartbeat drops heavy into my belly. Heat spreading until I can feel wetness rising even before he appears.

I laugh under my breath, bitter and amused. How absurd, all of it. Yet I return week after week. To sit beside a man I hardly know. To watch him expose himself, stroke himself, release himself. The thought makes me shiver. And still I stay. Thighs clenching for stolen pleasure hidden under my skirt. Pretending it is not indulgence at all.

The sun dips lower until the horizon swallows half of it. Light stretches thin, as if time itself is holding its breath. My chest flutters again, but what was once anxiety burns hotter now. A want that unsettles even as it pulls me deeper.

Then it comes. The sharp curl of cigar smoke, wrapping around my throat like his hand. Not cruel but unyielding, a choke I welcome because it reminds me I am seen.

My heart hammers against my ribs. I hear him approach, not on gravel but on the softer grass behind me. The steps are quiet, deliberate. They stop close enough that I feel the pause. I bite my lip until it aches, the pressure a tether holding me in place. My fingers twist the hem of my skirt, the fabric tight in my grip. I am split in two, one half aching to run, the other to stay.

The bench shifts beneath me, not from his weight but from his nearness. I sense him at my back before I see him. Lamps along the path flicker on, amber light pooling around us. Out of the corner of my eye I catch his hand gripping the backrest inches from my shoulder. That is all he gives me, the outline of a hand. So close, yet still apart. The space between us feels too familiar, echoing every half-connection I have known. Friends who never reached. Lovers who kept their distance. A family that could not close the gap.

I perch on the far edge of the bench, balanced as if I'll slip off. He always seems to fill space. I cannot tell if it is dominance or simply how he exists. What I know is how it feels, the certainty of his presence pressing into the hollow places inside me. Will I ever learn to carry myself with the same ease? Could I?

His hand slides from the backrest as he moves to my left. The bench dips under his weight, his thigh a breath from mine. Heat radiates, real or imagined, I cannot tell. I shift closer to the edge, tucking my hair behind my ear again and again, restless. The park feels wide, yet here on this strip of wood the air has narrowed until it makes me dizzy.

Before I can pull farther away, he turns. His face tilts toward mine. Every nerve screams to look away, to bolt from the bench, from him, from myself. Yet another part, quieter but heavier, holds me in place. I lift my eyes at last and give in.

His gaze catches me. Softer than I expect, none of the hardness I brace against. His face lined just enough to show the years between us. Dark hair swept back in uneven waves. Stubble shadowing his jaw. His mouth curved almost imperceptibly, as if to tell me without words that it is all right. That I am all right.

Something steadies in me. My restless hands fall quiet in my lap. I draw a deeper breath than I have in minutes. He turns toward the river again, and the pattern falls back into place. Strange yet steady, it should feel wrong, but somehow it feels safe because I know what comes next. I face the water too, wondering what fills his mind. Does he think of me, of this, or is he far away?

His arm shifts along the back of the bench. The wood creaks softly under his hand. He never lets it touch me, never crosses that line, yet the nearness hums through me. That restraint has always been part of what binds us.

I wait. My vision narrows until the edges blur. The world dissolves into background while sound sharpens. Water licking the bank, leaves whispering, grasshoppers sawing their legs in rhythm. Each note threads into a spell, holding me suspended.

Then the metallic clank of his belt buckle cuts through. The sound slices straight into me.

Goosebumps ripple across my skin. I tug my denim jacket tighter, though I know the air is not to blame. My nipples strain against fabric, hard and aching. The muted pop of his button follows, then the slow slide of his zipper. The sound vibrates down my spine and pools low in my belly, heat blooming in my cunt.

My tongue wets my lips before I can stop it. I turn my head. His left hand disappears into his jeans and with a low moan his cock comes free. His fingers close around it. At first it looks soft, but blood rises quick, swelling beneath his grip. Each stroke hardens him further. I lean closer without meaning to, drawn to the transformation, unable to look away.

His wrist lifts, hand climbing the length of him. Each stroke swallows the crown, then leaves it thicker, more swollen. My breath falls into rhythm with his, drawn out and released. I clutch the hem of my skirt, pulling it tight across my thighs, a tether to hold me still. My gaze slips to the river, as if its motion could shield me.

But my body refuses shelter. A pulse beats low, answering the churn of the water. His sharp inhale reels me back, and my eyes betray me, snapping to him. The tip glistens, wet with arousal, a mirror of what soaks through my panties.

My leg swings over the other, skirt riding higher. Air brushes the bare strip above my socks. I squeeze my thighs together until my clit throbs beneath the pressure. My cunt straining with every stroke of his hand. This is the closest I have been to another body since the breakup, and the intimacy crushes me. Terrifying, yet safe. Neither of us needs the other, yet both of us stay, and that fact alone consumes me.

His hand moves at a steady pace, unhurried, as if nothing were unusual in exposing himself here. In his room it would be ordinary. On this bench it feels unreal. I tighten my thighs again and a bolt of pleasure rips through me, forcing a gasp I cannot hold back. He does not falter. His focus is absolute. I marvel at that composure, at how absorbed he is. Against my better judgment I wonder what might break it, what he would feel like in the palm of my hand.

The thought jolts me, but it sparks something too. My lifted leg twitches against the other, a restless kick that stirs more sensation. He draws himself higher toward his stomach, pulling his balls into view, pale and bare. I catch myself studying the detail almost clinically, then recoil from my own curiosity. Could I cross that line? Would he allow it? The idea swells and I shove it down. Why risk unraveling what fragile strangeness binds us?

I fight myself in silence. One part clings to the bubble of safety I have built, untouched and unseen. If I stay still, there is no risk of rejection, no risk of losing what little we have. But another part strains against the walls. Restless, demanding, wanting to be bold like him.

Then the sound comes, the guttural strain I know too well, the noise he makes when release is close. My chest tightens. It is now or never.

I lean toward him, my hand crossing the space I swore I would never breach. My fingers cradle him, hot and heavy in my palm. His hand falls away as if it had been waiting. For a heartbeat I brace for him to pull back, to leave me stranded with what I dared reveal. But he does not. The silence of his acceptance stuns me more than his heat.

I match the rhythm he set, steady strokes, flesh sliding beneath my grip. My heart pounds so loudly I cannot hear the river. My mind splits, half of it screaming for retreat, the other half exulting in the daring of it. Pleasure thrums through me, vibrating outward until I can no longer tell where thought ends and body begins.

My thighs grind together, cunt caught between them, each roll of my hips sending sparks up my spine. I try to ignore it, to focus only on him, on the weight of his cock in my hand. My thumb cannot reach the far side, and the gap thrills me, a reminder of how much of him I hold. The musky heat of him fills the air, tangled with faint cigar smoke, a scent that feels like his second skin.

I glance at his face and find his eyes closed, head tipped back. Everywhere else he is tension, but here he softens, bliss unguarded. For once the ritual belongs to both of us.

My hand keeps its rhythm, steady though inside I am nothing but tremor. His cock swells harder in my grip, his breath breaking into gasps that ride the air between us. I feel as though the river itself has entered me, rushing and uncontainable.

The bench creaks beneath us, no longer a cage but a stage, carrying the weight of what we are doing. I am no longer perched on the edge. I am inside it, part of it, bound to him through the ritual we have kept for so long.

The scent thickens, musk and sweat and the acrid sweetness of smoke clinging to his clothes. It surrounds me, slips under my jacket, tangles in my hair. I know it will follow me home, impossible to wash away. A mark. A proof.

His cock strains in my fist, veins alive beneath my grip. One last stroke and the first hot spurt leaps across my knuckles. Thick, sticky, undeniable. Another pulse follows, stronger, coating my wrist. My hand clenches without thought and he jerks forward. Spilling in sharp bursts that paint my skin.

The air fills with it, musk and salt tangled with smoke until I cannot separate them. It drips between my fingers, glossy threads catching the lamplight. Binding me to what we have done. Each pulse leaves me messier, hand slick and dripping, wetness pooling in my palm.

He groans low, guttural, the sound vibrating through me as if I were the one releasing. My chest heaves, nipples stabbing against fabric. Cunt clenching in sympathy with every spurt. I keep milking him until his twitching fades. Until his cock softens against my grip and my hand is painted with the last of him.

For a moment I only stare. Sticky, warm, obscene and intimate at once. Proof. Claim. My fingers curl slightly and the wetness oozes between them, gluing me to him.

A tremor sparks in my thigh and sharpens before I can brace. It tears through me, sudden and fierce. I am coming. My cunt seizes in hard, wet pulses, clamping on nothing but soaked cotton. Heat gushes, saturating my panties, slicking the insides of my thighs. I grind against myself, desperate for friction. Each roll of my hips wringing another spasm from me.

My breath fractures into gasps, too loud in the hush of the park. I bite down to smother them, shame and thrill colliding in the risk of being heard. The quake only drives deeper. My nipples throb, sharp points beneath my jacket, every nerve lit and raw.

He is still heavy in my hand, slippery with release, anchoring me while the orgasm rips through. Brutal, wave after wave, until I am nothing but trembling muscle and raw nerve. The river roars inside me. Convulsions wringing me dry, my cunt clutching emptiness as if it might pull him into me.

At last the spasms ebb, leaving me shuddering, soaked, thighs shaking under the weight of it. I pull my hand back at last, glistening in the lamplight, his scent rising sharp from my skin. The sight should shame me. Part of me waits for him to recoil, to leave me stranded with the proof of what I have done.

Instead, he reaches into his jacket and draws out a folded handkerchief. Absurd in its neatness. He takes my hand without pause, fingers closing around mine. And wipes me clean with deliberate care. The cloth drags softly across my skin where everything else tonight has been raw.

When he finishes, he leaves it in my palm, closing my fingers around it as though entrusting me with a secret. My throat tightens, but the words come, small and certain. “Thank you for accepting me.”

His gaze lingers, steady. His voice is low, almost rough. “Thank you… for daring.”

The words hang between us, fragile as glass yet somehow unbroken. The river keeps rushing, the lamps keep burning. But on this bench we are suspended, two people who might have turned away and did not.