Author’s note: This post includes a brief excerpt from Comings and Goings: The Art of Being Seen that touches on themes of emotional vulnerability and intimacy. It is written with restraint, care, and a focus on quiet connection rather than explicit content.
I’ve always believed that intimacy isn’t just about what happens between two people—it’s about what they notice. The curve of a breath. The press of a hand. The way moonlight spills between blinds and paints soft shadows on a shared moment.
Kelly looked up at me then, eyes heavy-lidded but steady. Not searching. Just present. Like whatever I had to say, she’d already made peace with it.
“What’s wrong? You look like you’re worried about something,” she said, her voice low, maybe even a little shy. “You’re not sorry we—”
“No,” I whispered. “Not at all. I just… I wish I’d been better at this.” I hesitated. Swallowed hard. “The first time, I— I barely lasted a minute.”
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t smile to make it easier. Just looked at me, calm and certain, her hand still resting on mine.
“I expected that would happen,” she said gently. “This was your first time with a girl, right?”
I gave the smallest nod, eyes downcast.
She reached up and brushed a strand of hair from my forehead, then leaned in and kissed it—soft, certain. Not to console. Not to correct. Just to be close.
“Then it was perfect,” Kelly said. “You were kind. You were here. That’s what matters.”
In Comings and Goings, there’s a scene between Jim and Kelly that unfolds in silence, in touch, in stillness. It’s not graphic, and it’s not designed to be provocative. It’s meant to be present. Jim, ever the observer, doesn’t narrate from conquest—he narrates from awe. From gratitude. From the stunned realization that someone is there with him, not out of obligation or curiosity, but because she wants to be.
- “You were kind. You were here. That’s what matters,” she tells him.
- And in that moment, nothing else does.
I didn’t write that scene to shock. I wrote it because it felt true. Because someone’s first experience—especially when wrapped in uncertainty and hope—deserves to be seen with care. Not through a lens of performance, but of permission.
There are plenty of stories that treat sex as climax in every sense. I wanted to write one where kindness was the climax. Where being held—emotionally, physically, wordlessly—was the point.
Some of us remember our first time through awkwardness or intensity. Jim remembers his through stillness. Through a hand on his chest and the slow orbit of a thumb over knuckles. Through the quiet bravery of asking, “Why did you do this? With me?” And being met with honesty rather than reassurance:
- “Because I like you.
- Because I needed to.
- And… because I think you needed this, too.”
That reply isn’t cinematic. It’s human. And that’s what I wanted Comings and Goings to hold: not scenes that impress, but ones that listen.
Comings and Goings is available now as a Kindle e-book. The paperback edition is scheduled for release on Amazon July 1, 2025.
“Because I like you,” she said. “Because I needed to. And… because I think you needed this, too.”
Comings and Goings – The Art of Being Seen
A Certain Point of View, Too 
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