I Kissed My Ex.

As in, tonight. So hard to explain how it happened, because it has turned my head incredibly fuzzy. But I will try.

We were at this thing, this public social thing which I can't say too much about for the sake of both of our anonymity, but suffice it to say that we both were involved in making the event happen, and it went really well, and afterwards we wound up alone together debriefing and I told him how much our working well together made me want to kiss him.

Now you will at this point surmise that this statement caused the kissing which followed, but in honesty, I say something like that to him practically every time we see each other. There just remains this crackling chemistry between us and it winds up feeling like the elephant in the room and I just can't stand there being an elephant in the room and not speaking of it. So I do. I don't expect anything to happen, I just have to acknowledge it. I find it actually often makes whatever the thing is feel less charged. Ha.

So tonight I said what I said and we wound up discussing what would have to happen for us to get back together. We had very different visions of this. He imagined we would return to our couples counselor and do a ton of processing and discussion at the end of which we'd decide whether or not to re-commit. I figured we'd have to go on a few tentative, no-strings dates and see if that made us want to see each other more or less.

The topics then progressed thusly: why we broke up (him: communication issues. me: not enough intellectual challenge) and whether those factors can change (both of us: erm, maybe?). Who's more optimistic about us getting back together in the forseeable future (both of us: him) and why that makes me want to sleep with him now more than he does me (because he thinks there's more to lose if the sex messes things up between us).

It was around then, though I couldn't tell you exactly what we were talking about right when it happened, but somewhere around then he leaned over and kissed me, softly, with closed lips. Twice. At first I almost pulled away because I didn't think he would really kiss me and I didn't want to pucker up and feel foolish when he veered to my cheek at the last moment but he didn't and I breathed one of those jagged, hitched breaths you do when the thing you've wanted for so long seems to be actually happening, and especially when that thing involves kissing. Twice.

Then he backed off a little and we talked more (don't ask me what about) and later I leaned in and we kissed a little more, and a little more open-mouthed. And then we talked a little more and then he left.

And now I feel so fluxy that I don't know how I feel, but it's not how I would have predicted if you'd told me I'd kiss Bob tonight and then not sleep with him. I feel like some emotional ice floe is breaking up and moving all around and I don't know where it'll end up. I feel more in touch with how much I love Bob as a person and want to be gentle with his feelings (and with mine, too) and less urgent about fucking him. Which is not because the kissing was a turn-off. Far from it. It was more a turn-on, in the turning on the emotional spigot kinda way. I didn't even know I'd closed it up so tight.