I have a lot to learn about setting boundaries.

Clearly, I’m confused by our messaging.

Confused because you are messing with my head. 

  Messy because I can't tell if we are friends or something different.

Undefined. Dark. Dangerous. Talking to you is my best bad idea.If we’re messaging about crockpot dinner hacks, I am not expecting you to tell me that I have juicy tits because that is not something that work friends, who are casually sharing recipes, do—instead, tell me what you’re binge watching or complain about the weather or how your next door neighbor plays his relentless Eurtotechno mix so loud on Wednesday evenings that it shakes the decorative plates off your kitchen walls and if you enjoyed earthquakes you’d have bought a house on a fault line but you are too afraid to go over and talk to him because you’re convinced that your neighbor does shady business and you’re certain that he could kill you or at least fuck you up with just his tattooed hands and maybe that spare spool of thick, white plastic-sheathed cable that you can’t help but notice in his sparse albeit well-lit garage when he mysteriously steps out and smokes his unfiltered cigarettes, blowing the smoke towards your patio— but again, you are too chickenshit to say anything because you don’t want to have your body found in the retention pond you pass every morning on the way to the commuter train because that pond looks shallow, and your lifeless body would just float there, in situ, where local kids would find you and poke at your torso with sticks for a few minutes before deciding to call the cops. And maybe in this scenario, I am the scared one. Too scared to call you out on the inappropriate messages, because somewhere deep inside--deeper than that shallow pond by your house--I like it. 

When we message, my pulse flutters, my breath hitches in the back of my throat, and my cheeks burn and it’s a mix of excitement and shame because I am a married woman living a quiet suburban life, who has no interest in stepping out on her husband because my dad did that to my mom and it devastated her and years later she puts on a brave face but there is something inside of her that will never be set right and I look at her and I realize how easy it would be to be the person who does the fucking up and I would never do that to the father of my children—the man whose name I took and when I signed the ketubah. 

I made promises.

I made a binding contract with spoken vows and oaths, and I said forever, and I meant it. 

I mean it.

I remind myself of that when I close my eyes and fantasize about your hands on my body.

Evidently, I have a lot to learn about boundaries.

Johannah Simon is a corporate learning strategist by day and (sometime) creative by night. A Midwest GenX multi-genre writer, her tiny pieces have appeared in literary journals, including Stanza Cannon, Micromance, Bending Genres, Paragraph Planet, and Janus Literary. You can find her on X @JohannahWrites, @johannah.bsky.social, and at www.thewritingtype.com.