By the time B killed himself in our backyard, we hadn’t had sex in two years. After forgiving multiple infidelities (some that I knew about and more that I suspected) and after being thrust into the role of caregiver for the final seven months of his life, I was no longer in love with him and was barely attracted to him. But for almost a year after he died, I burst into tears almost every time I had an orgasm.
About a week after B’s suicide, I found myself once again wide awake at 2:00 a.m., and I had my first grief crygasm. To my surprise, as soon I was done, I rolled onto my side and started weeping. The tears lasted just a few minutes, and then I quickly fell asleep, clutching my fat orange cat against my belly as I escaped into a reality where none of my current chaos existed. The next morning, it happened again. This time I realized I wasn’t crying because I was missing B; I was crying because I felt B was missing this: this moment in time, this random burst of pleasure, this day, this life.
While the French have long referred to orgasms as “la petite mort” or “the little death,” these sudden post-orgasm outbursts left me a little confused. I was well-known by many of my former lovers for bursting into laughter when I was done and had often joked that it was easy to tell if I was faking an orgasm because I simply could not fake the deep laugh that followed. And while my fantasy life with B had always been dark and taboo, with room for lots of feelings, including lust for others, jealousy, anger and regret, sadness had not been part of our regular repertoire.
