Page 108 of Unclench Me Softly

Edge Me Like You Mean It AKA Masculine Order and Other Unexpected Turn-Ons

I’m curled sideways on my altar rug, notebook open across my lap, one foot gently pressing against the base of a flickering salt lamp like physical grounding might somehow download a fresh divine curriculum directly into my nervous system.

Spoiler: it’s not working.

There were five pillars.

Five.

An elegant number. A sacred structure. A spiritual arc from Jaw Unclenching to Masculine Seed Offering.

But this is a seven-day retreat, and now I’ve got two full days left to fill with something that sounds intentional but is really just a fever dream in leggings and aromatherapy.

I scrawl the words Lavender Labyrinth Freeze Tag in the margin and stare at it for a long, dark moment of the soul.

Could that… be something?

Could I convince five half-feral, emotionally raw men to chase each other through a scented maze under the guise of inner child shadow integration?

I circle it twice, then add a star.

Next idea: “Wish-Infused Penny Toss in the Koi Pond of Letting Go.”

No notes.

Except: do we have koi?

Do I need to source koi?

Can you spiritually bless a goldfish?

I’m halfway through drafting the ceremony outline for “Float Your Grief Downstream in a Coconut Shell of Surrender” when my pen stills and my breath goes uneven.

Because I can’t stop thinking about them.

All five of them.

Jax, smirking as he whispered “You like how I water things,” like I wouldn’t spend the next twelve hours trying to exorcise it from my brain with sage and cold showers.

Asher, looking at his glittery pot like it was a holy text.

Jonah, painting his black like he was preparing it for battle.

Seb’s rune, still etched in my mind.

Miles and his perfectly printed “Stillness,” which now lives rent-free in my frontal lobe like a soft, academic ghost.

I fan myself with the notebook.

It doesn’t help.

There’s glitter on the floor. I have no idea where it came from.

And now I’m planning what might become the world’s first emotionally immersive game of spiritual tag.

I’m sitting cross-legged in a circle of half-drawn ceremony ideas and unspooled gel pens, trying to decide whether “Emotional Sand Art of the Root Chakra” is a spiritual breakthrough or a cry for help, when the flap of my dome shifts.

I don’t look up right away.

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