I think I understand what you mean. Seemingly unrelated things can trigger emotions, pain. I'm always willing to stop whatever we're doing to hold you. Or to give you space if it's what you need in the moment. Please never feel bad about needing either.

[He tips his head back further, half closing his eyes. This intimacy is such balm. Even if they took sex entirely out of the equation, it's hard to imagine ever going back to a time when they couldn't touch each other and take comfort in it.

He's glad they don't have eye contact now. He has reached a place where he has to say this.]

I'm afraid to now. After...after what he did to you. I don't want you looking at me and seeing him. Or...or flashing to a point during all of that. I don't know what could trigger it, so it seems safer just to...not.

I've been thinking about something else. I don't know if I ought to say it at all. If you'd just find it upsetting, or...or crazy.