Page 100 of Unclench Me Softly

They follow me.

Six deep, unified breaths. A rhythm. A grounding. A calm.

And then on the seventh breath, Asher makes a sound.

It’s not a whimper exactly. Not a sob. Not a moan. It’s something between all three, and it vibrates through the space like a tuning fork of vulnerable eroticism.

“Let it go,” I say, a little too sharply. “Let the breath carry what you no longer need.”

Jax snorts.

Miles exhales like he’s trying to file the sound under “meditative” and not “sex-adjacent.”

Seb shifts slightly. Jonah’s shoulders go tense.

“Return to the breath,” I try again. “Inhale softness. Exhale your internal drought.”

And then Miles exhales again, louder this time, almost a groan, and Asher follows with another of those godforsaken sacred sounds of surrender that makes my thighs clench involuntarily.

Jax opens one eye and looks around the circle. “Okay,” he says slowly, voice dry but amused. “Is someone about to come or cry? Because I need to prepare emotionally.”

Asher gasps. Actually gasps. Like something just left his body and soul at once.

“Oh my god,” I mutter under my breath. “They’re doing it. They’re breathgasming.” I try to keep my voice steady. “Stay present,” I say, louder now. “If emotion rises, let it. Let it flow through you without shame.”

Jonah makes a low noise that sounds suspiciously close to a suppressed groan, and I swear to all moon gods past and present, the air in the room tilts into fully charged sex coven in under ten seconds.

Seb’s eyes are still closed, but his hands have clenched into fists, and his jaw is tight like he’s holding in something he absolutely shouldn’t be processing on a group mat in a robe-safe zone.

“Breathe through the tension,” I say, trying to channel calm while I internally prepare for someone to either pass out or break into interpretive dance.

Asher sniffles. Sniffles. Then says, breath trembling, “I just… I think I miss myself.”

Oh no.

We’re crying now.

We’re spiritually climaxing and sobbing at the same time.

Jax lies flat on his back and lets out a long, dramatic breath like he’s watching the ceiling for divine instruction. “This is insane,” he mutters. “I think Seb’s gonna explode. Miles is vibrating. Asher’s leaking. Jonah looks like he’s edging his third life regression. Bliss, we need a safe word.”

I smile tightly. “The safe word is ‘herb garden.’”

I’m halfway through guiding another round of breath, this one slightly more grounded, slightly less orgasmic, when the door creaks open with the dramatic timing of a plot twist I didn’t authorize.

Toad steps inside with a cardboard box that looks suspiciously sacred for a UPS delivery balanced in his arms and an expression that suggests he’s either just seen a ghost or stepped on a mushroom that spoke to him.

“Got a drop-off for the Seed Cult,” he says flatly, eyeing the group with a practiced kind of detachment that only comes from prolonged exposure to my family. “Label said ‘Breathwork Room Urgent.’ Someone wrote it in glitter.”

He sets the box down in the center of the mat circle, then turns and exits with all the reverence of a man who once accidentally walked into a sacred yoni-steaming ceremony and has never fully recovered.

The door swings shut behind him with a finality that sounds like it was blessed by chaos.

I blink at the box.

So do the men.

There’s a pause long enough for Jax to open his mouth and raise a brow. “If this is a metaphor, I’m leaving,” he says.

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