I always knew that my time with Anatolia would be finite. She was and is a cognitively atypical person, which meant that things would be somewhere between unusual and bizarre. I saw the end looming from our first kiss, but I wanted to enjoy us and what time we could have together. 

 Anatolia is a former student, someone who was in some of my courses around 12 years earlier. Then we reconnected when she contacted me out of the blue to plan a visit.

 I didn’t expect it. I was still in a state of mourning over my badly crashed and burned marriage, and I was trying to figure out what to do with my life. A small town in Pennsylvania hold little interest or opportunity.

 But then came that kiss, and things between us began.

 It came at the close of an otherwise platonic weekend spent together as she visited.

 We kissed goodbye as she boarded her car to leave.

 This was a long-distance affair, as she lived several states over. We took our time together seriously. On one visit, we attended a local gallery opening for a showing of a friend’s artwork. I vividly recall hanging with some of my Russian friends there, as she went to the bar to get us a couple of drinks. One, a blond woman, crossed her arms and eyed Anatolia with a wry smile.

 “There is a very desirable blonde at the bar,” she whispered to us.

 I was buoyed. “She’s with me,” I said proudly.

 And she very much was desirable. A bit psychologically unpredictable, but I have a history of gravitating toward neuroatypical people, so I cannot be surprised that I found her so. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Among my closer friends is Raven, who — like me — is a very sexual person.

 When I spoke about my relationship with Anatolia, I revealed that we had not had sex yet.

 Raven was aghast. “You haven’t had sex yet?!”

 No, I said, I was letting her set the pace. I was not going to push. I would be happy with snuggle-level intimacy until she decided otherwise.

 Which is part of why the sex part of  title above is in quotes.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Eventually, Anatolia was comfortable enough to pursue more physical intimacy. We spent quite a lovely stretch on the couch becoming more and more so. I only tried to reach down to her cleft twice. Both times she immediately clutched my hand and moved it gently but firmly away.

 Her message was clear: her pussy was a no-go zone.

 She is the only eurotophobe I have ever met.

The only one I know of, anyway.

 But she was kind, and she was considerate about my needs.

 She wandered dreamily from my living room into the bedroom. I could hear her rustling around in her bags in search of something.

 After a minute or two, she emerged in her panoply, topless and wearing transparent hose as a protective barrier between her no-go zone and the outside world.

 She also brought her wares: A travel-size personal lubricant; a pair of plastic gloves; her breasts, finally, exposed.

 Coitus was clearly out-of-bounds. She had made that much clear. But she wanted to engage me sexually. She eventually admitted to me that she and her family suspected her of being borderline-autistic, but that her mother had refused to have her checked out for that because she did not want to have a potentially harmful label applied to her daughter. That seemed to be in play, somehow, with this performance.

 “I want to satisfy you, too, you know,” I told her.

 “This satisfies me,” she cooed.

 This was sex with Anatolia. It was simultaneously frustrating and satisfying, but she had boundaries and limits, and of course I would not cross those.

 

 Eventually, things would implode.

 She would talk of marriage with me and begin shopping for things for our post-wedding life together.

 But without exaggeration, the very day that her ex boyfriend turned up once more in her feed on Facebook, she ended things with me.

 After recovering from the stunning, abrupt end enough to see straight again, I realized something I’d been too close to see: I had been the rebound guy.

 Nothing more.

 

 

 

 

Johannes Rabb lives and writes in Central Pennsylvania. He is the author of a handful of novels and collections.