The Hardwood Bench

On Courtrooms, Coworkers, and Why My Emails Are Never Spicy

‍ Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

The bench is hardwood. I know this because I have been sitting on it for three hours, shifting every twenty minutes, trying to find a position that does not remind my spine that it is, in fact, a bone. Williamson County courthouse. A Tuesday morning. The fluorescent lights hum a monotonous hymn to bureaucracy, and the air smells like old paper, anxiety, and the faint ghost of someone’s too-sweet perfume.

I am here as a witness. Not to a crime, but to love’s long, procedural death.

My closest friend, more big sister than friend really, given the thirteen years between us, is navigating a child custody modification. She and the man she once loved have finally reached an agreement after months of back and forth, of attorneys billing in six-minute increments, of late night phone calls where she cried and I listened. Today is the formality. The judge’s gavel will transform their private pain into a public record.

Her case is scheduled last. So I wait. And I listen.

The courtroom becomes a theater. The cases roll through like small, tragic plays. A sad one about unpaid child support, a father’s excuses crumbling under the bailiff’s impassive gaze. A humorous one about a disputed lawn mower that somehow escalated to a restraining order. I learn that people will fight about anything when they feel they have nothing left to lose.

And then there is the case that catches my attention. A divorce. The wife has filed on the grounds of adultery, a strategic move designed to shift the property division in her favor. The mistress, the ex-husband’s coworker, has been subpoenaed to testify. She sits in the front row, arms crossed, face carefully blank.

The lawyers do their work. And then the texts are read aloud.

Explicit. Detailed. Chronological. The husband and his coworker had left no room for plausible deniability. Every message, every email, was a meticulous chronicle of what they planned to do to each other before each date. The language was vivid, hungry, and utterly, damningly specific.

An older woman in the second row, who bears a striking resemblance to the ex-husband, shakes her head slowly. Her face is a map of disappointment. She does not cry. She simply looks tired. Tired of secrets. Tired of evidence. Tired of knowing more than she ever wanted to know about her son’s extracurricular activities.

The judge rules in the wife’s favor. The mistress leaves quickly, her heels clicking a retreat against the marble floor. The ex-husband stares at the table. The older woman gathers her purse and walks out without a word.

And I sit there, on the hardwood bench, and think of you.

You have mentioned it, during our dates, usually after a glass of wine or in the quiet moments between. “You are so warm in person,” you say, a little surprised. “Your emails are so professional. So stoic. I wasn’t sure what to expect.”

You do not say it as a complaint. You say it as an observation, a small mystery you are trying to solve.

Let me solve it for you now.

That courtroom, that mistress, those texts read aloud in a public forum… that is why my emails are never spicy. That is why my messages are professional, clear, and devoid of the kind of language that could be used against you. I am not cold. I am not disinterested or boring. I am protecting you.

You have a reputation. A career. A family, perhaps, who loves you and does not need to know the details of our time together. You have financial stability, social standing, a life built over decades. A single screenshot, read aloud in a courtroom or shared in a moment of marital strife, could undo years of work. I refuse to be the mistress on the front row, arms crossed, while a judge reads our private language to a room full of strangers.

So I take extraordinary measures. My email server is Proton, encrypted and secure, because even the pathway our words travel should be protected. After screening, I delete everything. Every email. Every piece of identifying information. Every digital trace that could connect you to me. I do not keep files. I do not build dossiers. I hold your trust in my hands, and when our time together ends, I open my palms and let the evidence scatter like ash.

Even my writing reaches you through a layer of discretion. My Substack journals are newsletters, not public billboards. No flashy titles. No imagery that could draw the wrong kind of attention. You found me because you were looking. Anyone else scrolling past would see nothing remarkable. That is by design. My words are for the curious, the discerning, the ones who already know what they are seeking.

I am stoic in writing. I am careful. I am a ghost on paper, impossible to subpoena, impossible to trace.

But in person? In person, I am yours.

I am warm. I am inviting. I am open to every conversation, every confession, every dirty word you have been holding in your chest. You can say anything to me across a dinner table or tangled in hotel sheets, and I will receive it without judgment, without recording, without a single piece of evidence left behind. What happens between us lives only in memory. Yours and mine. And memory, unlike a text message, cannot be subpoenaed.

That is the gift of discretion. It is not coldness, rather care

So yes, my emails are short. My messages are professional. I do not flirt on paper. But when you are with me, when the door closes and the world falls away, you will find no one warmer, no one more present, no one more eager to explore every corner of your desire.

The hardwood bench taught me that. The woman in the second row, shaking her head, taught me that. The mistress who walked out on clicking heels taught me that.

I will never be her. And you will never be the man staring at the table while his life’s work crumbles.

So book the date. Send the professional, boring, stoic email to my Proton address. I will reply in kind, then delete it. And then, when we are together, you can say anything. Absolutely anything. I am here for all of it.