The premise of this story is that women have gone on a sex strike. What follows occurs during that time frame.

He had been waiting in the dark for me. I had a thought about our relationship tickling the back of my throat, but it was thorny and I tried to swallow it. When I got home, he almost screamed it out of me. “Oh, God,” I grabbed my heart, “I thought you were . . .”

“What, a rapist?” His feet were on the coffee table and his arms were behind his head. He laughed. “I’m sorry. Come here.”

I put my bag on the counter. When you date someone long enough, trenches are dug. They might be muck and mire, but trenches are dug, and escape is not so easy. Victory in these trenches is meaningless, and a truce requires two parties, so you fall into stalemate. Stale mate. Stale is how it felt when I put my bag on the counter and went to his side, and he pulled me in for a kiss and squeezed my ass. “Can I help you?” passed through the grate of my smile.

“You know how.” He was grinning like a naughty little boy. Cute. His hand traced the curve of my flesh, and I allowed it, but appeasement fails. I felt a renegade finger prod me.

“Stop.” I brushed him off.

“Okay.”

I retreated to the kitchen and tied my hair. I felt him watching me. And I knew if I turned to look, he would be staring back at me with those sad eyes, biting his lip. I had hurt his feelings, they would be telling me. It was like a wolf with puppy’s eyes: do I pet it, or do I run?

“What are you doing?”

“I’m hungry.” I opened a cabinet I knew to be empty and studied it.

“Do you want to order something?”

“Um,” I stood on tiptoes, biding time. I could say yes, and it would be convenient, but that meant spending more time together. I could say no, and I would get to be alone, but that meant I would go hungry for a while. “I don’t know.”

Exasperated sigh. “Well there’s not any food here.” He stood up. “Alice?”

I was frozen at the fridge. His tone was not that of a question but of a command. Alice. He reminded me of my boss. But like with my boss, what I wanted to do, which was scream at him, could only defeat me. Because then I become the shrill bitch. Or on my period. Or crazy. And perhaps I am all of those things, but if I am, it is not because I resent getting felt up like a woman, only to be scolded like a child, but rather because I am too silent to what’s inside me when that happens. My jaw unhinged itself from its locked position. “Yes?”

“I asked you a question.”

“You’re right.” I closed the fridge. “Let’s order.”

“What do you want?”

I had lost my appetite. I would eat, but I would eat not out of desire, but of practice.

What I really desired was for his questions to stop. It was one aer another with him, like a child’s tug on his mama’s dress, done not for any reason but to be acknowledged. “Whatever you want.”

“No, I want to include you.”

“It’s fine.”

“Um.” A pause. A sigh. A scratching of the head. “Is everything okay?” His tone was that of a reluctant obligation, of a having rather than of a wanting to, like I was a lit fuse he needed to put out, and not, perhaps, a budding flower that needed watering.

The most simple and truthful answer would have been no. But that truth would not have stood alone, it would have summoned others to join and expand on it, like the links in a chain, a chain I was not yet ready to lose. “It’s nothing,” I shook my head, “Work is stressful.”

“Aw, baby.” I was back to being his princess. He put what he imagined was a supportive hand on my shoulder. But then it slipped down to my waist, and he pulled me in close. The naughty little boy had returned. “I know what can make it better.”

I shook him off me. “No.” His face dropped. “You know why.”

He did not conceal his anger. Soured, his mouth puckered and his cheeks turned red. He stalked into the bedroom, almost slamming the door but then, with an inch to spare, thinking better of it. I heard him punch the mattress. Were we still ordering dinner? The door opened again, and he rushed me, demanding, “Did you know that all your friends have done it? Broken the strike?”

“What?”

“I’ve talked to all their boyfriends. Carmen, Alexi, Joanne. They all have. ” He looked at me with disgust. “You’re the only one.”

I could feel his breath on my face. I took a step back. “I-I don’t believe you.”

“You want to bet? I’ll call them right now.”

“Please don’t.” I closed my eyes. My stomach broiled. The armband on my wrist, commemorating our moment, felt like a lie. I would have torn it off if I did not think that would have given him greater satisfaction. They all betrayed me, then? How many of us are turning their backs behind closed doors? Or is he lying? Even if they did, and I doubt it, but if they did, they could not have done it out of surrender, but out of love. I know them, I know each of them is in love, and a promise broken out of love is a broken promise I can forgive. “I believe you.” He sighed with relief and brushed back his hair. “I’m not trying to rub it in.”

“I know.”

“So?” He put his hands on my ass and, squeezing it, pulled me in for a kiss. “What do you say? Come on. No one would ever know.”

I looked into his stark green hungry eyes up close, and I felt a sudden freedom I had not known in a long time. Because when I looked in there, and saw myself in them too, I knew for certain that the war was over: that he did not love me, and that I did not love him.