Sporadic texting of flirty pleasantries, "thinking of you"s and "how was your day?"s and pictures of cute animals. Meeting up two to three times a week to share a meal, sometimes a movie or a play or just running errands together.  Returning to his or her place to spend the night. Dissolving into a blur of sighs and gasps, unbuttoning and unzipping and fucking within minutes of crossing the front doorway. 

Over the span of a few weeks, Lily and Milo had developed a certain routine. The memory of every encounter glowed white-hot in her mind and she couldn't help but feel strangely disconnected from it all.

It wasn't that she disliked Milo, or even that she was disinterested in him. As far as she could tell, she found him lovely. As the first-few-dates jitters had subsided, a wonderful spaciousness had started to imbue their conversations. Natural lulls in dialogue, once her biggest enemy, registered as invitations to bask in the moment, or share more of whatever was on her mind. She found herself revealing more to him than she ever planned to; her body, yes, but her inner world as well.

Most recently, she'd even told him about the six-going-on-seven months she'd been unemployed and the mental health woes that had led to the loss of her last job. To her surprise (and relief), he'd taken it in stride. She held tightly to the memory of the kindness in his eyes as the words had tumbled out of her mouth, how he'd nodded pensively and asked her how the job search was going. Whenever they started getting physical and the overwhelming fear rolled in, remembering those moments made her feel slightly more like herself.

Because that was the issue, really. It wasn't him - it was who she was becoming. Her apartment had never been so tidy; her answers to job interview questions were becoming steadily more polished. Her behaviour was also shifting with him. She'd never liked sex that much before. She still didn't, on one level, and on another, his body had somehow become one of her biggest and most frequent cravings.  She bought him little gifts, held his hand and kissed his cheek in public. If it had been socially acceptable to lick every square inch of his skin, she very well would have.

Inwardly, she found herself oscillating wildly between enjoying her newfound inclinations and shouldering the dread that came with her changed behaviour. Only now, dread and fear led to overwhelming pleasure...which lead to more affection. Which led to fucking. Frantic, needy, insatiable fucking. She couldn't recall ever leaving those encounters anywhere close to satisfied. Inevitably, Milo would get tired and they would stop, and she'd rush to the bathroom for a few minutes alone to try and catch her bearings. Like she was doing now. Saturday, January 15, 11:48pm.

Lily lived mostly for this part of the night, when she'd come back to find him fast asleep curled up on his side.  She turned off the lights and tiptoed her way to the bed, then slid under the sheets carefully, trying her best not to wake him.  She curled up around him, the big spoon to his little spoon, pressing her forehead gently against his shoulder blade. She closed her eyes and listened to his breathing.

That twilight space between waking and sleep, where the only sensations she could register were the warmth under the sheets and the rising and falling of his lungs, was her favourite.  Sometimes she felt they were the only moments she truly was here of her own volition, instead of fighting a myriad of conflicting forces pulling her this way and that.

Eventually she'd fall asleep and land in the middle of restless dreams. Days kept bleeding into nights, which bled right back into days again.  She knew tomorrow she would wake up at 7:30am without fail; she didn't need the alarm clock anymore.  Regardless of what she did upon waking up - reading a book or trying to fall back asleep or cooking breakfast or blowing him in the shower - she'd find herself at her computer, starting her daily job search activities, by 8:30am sharp.  The hours of the morning always went by smoothly, serenely, even, and at some point she'd look at the time and realize it was noon, time for lunch, and take an hour before resuming her work. As of the last week, she was getting job offers, a few of which she was even considering seriously.

Outwardly, she couldn't say she had ever been better.

***

She realized she was sitting in the chair with no recollection of how she got there.

She could feel the weight of the Within on her head, the familiar curve of the arms of the chair below her palms.  The lights were dimmed.  Eventually her attention surfaced and she realized the voice was talking.

"Your attention is your most precious resource. What makes it precious is how limited it is. You are learning to channel this attention where it is most beneficial.  You no longer let your attention drift to ideas that do not serve. At the moment, your attention narrows to the sensations that accompany these changes. You do not need to consciously absorb the meaning of these words. They are absorbed easily and automatically. You let the pleasure be your guide."

Try as she could to keep hearing the words, they faded to a pocket of her mind she could not access. She was sinking into pure feeling. It was impossible to ascribe meaning to any of it. Time dilated, or contracted, she wasn't all too sure - the only constant was the heat that coiled and uncoiled around her navel. She was squirming in her seat.

The sound of a moan cut through her trance. It took her several seconds to link the sound with the heaving of her chest. 

"Lily? Everything okay?"

She froze. It was quiet now. Her eyes darted to the door, which was now open. The lights were on. When had the door opened?

"Lily?"

John stepped out from behind her so he could face her. He had a strange expression on, concern and something else. Lily raised her eyebrows and tried to center herself back in the room.

"Hey, uh...Sorry, John. I think I was woolgathering."

An awkward laugh from him.

"Yeah, uh...it seems like you might have fallen asleep there." He removed the Within from her head and she saw his hands shake a little bit as he fiddled with the contacts so they would slot into the foam.

She realized from the tone of his voice that the "something else" was discomfort.  Embarrassment fell like a weight over her shoulders. She looked at her watch without really seeing the time.

"Whoa, looks like this one really flew by. I need to meet someone! So I'm gonna go now, uh, take care John, see you next time!"

She didn't listen to the answer. She sped out the door. Thankfully, the hallway had an end, unlike the one in her dreams.

***

"You look like you've seen a ghost," said Mitski, a hesitant smile on her face.

She was standing at the exit of the subway station, her mitten-clad hands stuffed into the pockets of her grey wool coat.

"Not a ghost, but I'm pretty sure I saw a man with a live squirrel on his shoulder down there," laughed Lily. She walked up to her friend and gave her a half-shivering hug. It was a glacial January day, the coldest of the year yet. The mild, sticky-snow days of early winter had given way to blustering winds and powder that glittered in the low 4pm sun. "I think I just feel a bit out of it today. Within was more tiring than usual. And it's cold as butts out here."

Mitski nodded vigorously. She had dressed for the cold in style, as was her habit. A giant forest-green plaid scarf was looped around her neck and she donned a pair of fluffy black ear warmers.  "Let's go. We've got some Bake-Off to watch."

The third Friday of every month, Lily and Mitski met up to watch baking competition shows together. It was a bit of a carry-over tradition from their high school days, during which Mitski's mother went through the trouble of taping every episode for them.  Nowadays, they'd curl up in Mitski's living room and pull up Netflix on the TV, but the routine still held all of its comfort for Lily.

A brisk walk later, they reached Mitski's apartment. She shivered as she dug through her purse for her keys, then perked up as she unlocked the front door.

"Oh! Have you told Q about your treatments yet?"

Lily paced a little in the cold, remembering their purple-haired college classmate. "Not yet," she said. She tried to hide some of her discomfort.

Not for the first time, Lily marveled at the ability of an intro-psych college course to bring together people who would likely otherwise never have spoken. Mitski had borrowed a pen from Q before their first midterm, and half a decade later, friends they all still were, though it would have been so easy to drift apart. Mitski had become a marketing pro, Q a software engineer with a side hobby of researching brain-machine interfaces, and Lily...Lily wavered in and out of dead-end administrative jobs and sick leave.

They both entered the apartment and began the process of taking off boots and coats.

"But Lils! Q would be all over this thing! I even think they were poring over press releases for the Laboratories the other day. Made a bunch of comments about pivotal trials and IPOs and the stock market I didn't understand." Mitski was laughing as she hung up her coat.

Lily hung hers as well. She wasn't sure how she could explain that was precisely the reason she didn't want to tell Q about her treatments. She worried that they would make her feel like a  news item, or worse: a science experiment. Which, she guessed she kind of was, but this was also therapy for her. Already it was difficult to share with Mitski. She might have known the girl since childhood, but Mitski was so lively she sometimes seemed unable to understand the toll Lily's mental health problems took on her life.

Mitski sat down on the couch in the living room. "They've been asking about you, you know. Said you hadn't answered any of their texts in a month."  Lily groaned internally as she sat next to her. She felt guilty about that.

"I don't know how to respond to them! All Q sends me nowadays are memes, weird ones, and I'm not sure what they mean, or whether they're supposed to be funny, and if they are funny, why that even is."

Mitski chuckled. "But who cares! I don't get them either. Q just needs an opener. I'm sure if you responded, the two of you could have actual conversations, and the ratio of memes-to-messages would go way down."

Lily knew she was right. Mitski was often right about Q, about friendships in general. Sometimes witnessing the ease with which Mitski got people left Lily feeling like an alien.  But the other part of it, the part about Within, was bothering her, too.  She debated saying so as Mitski queued up the episode on her TV. The opening credits were almost done playing when she finally spoke again.

"I...I'm not sure how well the treatments are working?"

Mitski's eyes moved from the television screen back to her. She took the remote, paused the show and shifted in her seat to face Lily.  "What do you mean? I thought you said you felt better?"

Lily could feel the heat prickling her cheeks. "Yeah, at first...and still, kind of. It's complicated.  I feel better and I...don't?"

"Well, what's up, Lils?" She knew the look on Mitski's face was one of confusion, not disbelief, but she still felt the urge to sink into the ground.

Lily's fingernails dug into her thigh through her pants. The pain was subtle given the thickness of the fabric, but it helped keep her present, somewhat.  "It's confusing. I feel less hopeless. I feel...even....happy! Sometimes. Doing things is easier. I can clean my apartment, and apply to jobs, and go out and see people, and it feels okay. Which is awesome!"

Mitski looked at her. She hesitated, then spoke gently: "...but...?"

There was a truth bubbling up from the depths of her stomach, and part of Lily hoped the couch cushions would swallow her whole just as she started uttering it. "But...I have been....feeling things.  Things I'm not used to. And it's not that they're bad things, but they don't...feel...like me?"

This time Mitski remained quiet, waiting to hear the rest. Lily sighed.

"Sex. You know it's never been my...thing. Like, it's fine, it can be fun, but it was never this big thing for me like it seems to be for everyone else. But with Milo..."

She'd half expected Mitski to start howling and asking prying questions, as excited as she had been to set her up with Milo. But her friend remained calm. Maybe she could sense the depths of Lily's discomfort.

"What about Milo? Is he treating you okay?"

"Yeah, he is. He's really nice. It's not him. It's...I am feeling very self-conscious explaining this to you but I can't figure it out myself and it's eating at me." Lily tried to blink back tears. She heard some soft sympathetic sounds from Mitski.  She couldn't bring herself to look at her as she continued, staring down at her knees instead.

"I've been...horny? It's like whenever I'm around him, there's a button that gets pressed and my body goes in heat. And the sex is fine and he makes me feel good and there's no pain or anything but I just don't feel like myself and it's fucking terrifying."

There was a long pause.  Lily looked up to Mitski, who seemed deep in thought.  She opened her mouth to speak, but it took a few seconds for words to emerge.

"I could see how these new feelings are scary to you. It sounds like things have changed a lot for you in the past month. All of the changes in your behaviour and your emotions. I can imagine you would find it overwhelming."

Lily nodded. She could feel the tension in her body subside, somewhat. Mitski continued, her voice soft.

"Is it possible...that this could be the breaking-in period? Do you think maybe all of these feelings are uncomfortable not because they're bad, but just because they're new?"

Lily paused to consider that. "Maybe."

"Because, I don't say this to invalidate how you are feeling. And if you feel differently you can tell me, but none of what you describe sounds painful. It just sounds...different. And if it's a good different, why question it?"
 

Lily couldn't say she was 100% on board with that premise. But she also didn't feel certain enough to disagree with Mitski.  She'd been miserable for most of her adult life, incapable of functioning normally or having anything close to a romantic life. The notion that the changes were helping her live a more normal life was enough on its own to make the changes feel like an upgrade, even with how utterly lost she felt experiencing them.

If it was a good different, why question it?