It's like clockwork, this little charade she is forced to participate in every few months. It always starts the same way, with a call from her sister.

They chat about things, she asks about the kids and about Greg and about the new job Rachel just started now that Eddie's in preschool and how she saw Nina last week and she talked to her about wanting them all over for Thanksgiving at her place this year.

And then the inevitable pause occurs and Olivia braces herself.

So there's this guy, Rachel begins…. and she sighs inwardly… and he'd be perfect for her, she just knows and he's relocating to Boston next month and wouldn't it be nice if someone could show him around, make him feel welcome and it's not like Olivia's was seeing someone right now, was she?

And because Olivia loves her sister and because Rachel is simply determined that way, she ends up in a restaurant in a strapless dress and heels (and even does something wavy with her hair) with a man who makes a lot of money and by all accounts is perfectly charming and good looking and great in just about every way.

She lets him pick a wine for the table and they talk about things that people talk about on first dates and though it doesn't happen all that much, he's charming and funny and he has blue eyes …. she even has fun.

Sometimes, she lets a first date turn into two, maybe three.

Sometimes….they go back to his place, never hers though, and she think what the heck and lets him take her to bed, because really… it's just sex and she happens to be good at it and she could use some of that to take of the edge of the clusterfuck her life is on most days.

Making love is a laughable notion. Something that cannot exist in a void of emotion and she doesn't feel any emotion for him, merely responds to the stimulus. It's a physical release, plain and simple, a utilitarian task if there ever was one and she feels exhausted and refreshed in the same vein in the mornings, like after a brisk run.

He'll watch her from his bed as she gathers her clothes and dresses, sleepy, disheveled expecting….something… acknowledgement even and she only hopes against hope he won't ask her anything.

This was fun, he'll tell her, and he'd like to see her again.

Absolutely… she smiles at him… just as long as they kept it casual, because no offense and this was great really, but she wasn't looking for anything serious at this point.

And he cocks his head to the right and grins sideways and tells her she has to be god's gift to single men.

She laughs. He's funny in a way she likes.

She's okay with that.

She stands in the bathroom while he showers behind the curtain, staring at her reflection in the mirror, in boy briefs and a grey full sleeve t-shirt.

She doesn't know why she let him spend the night at her place. It's not a good idea, sharing her space of habitation with another, even if it's just for the night.

Intimacies make her uncomfortable. They put thoughts in her head that she has no business having at all. They force her to think about why she always sleeps on only one side of the bed and why she sometimes picks up pecan pie filling at the supermarket without even thinking even though she never bakes.

She pulls up her hair as she grabs her blue toothbrush; she could have sworn in that second that there used to be a red one right next to hers.

She sighs. It's time to take a step back.

It's a pity, the sex is really good.

"Do you even like me a little bit?" He asks her one day, after they've been doing this for three months and she turns to him with a surprised look.

"It's not a requirement of course, but it would be nice to know if you did."

Of courses she likes him, she says carding though his brown hair, she wouldn't be here if she didn't now would she? She does like him. He's funny and he makes her forget for a brief while, that nagging feeling in her heart that she's missing something, like going on vacation and realizing you forgot to pack your favorite pair of shoes, and really why does he have to ask her questions like these and complicate things.

Does she have feelings for him? That's an entirely different question now isn't it? It would be nice if she could feel something, anything really…

But she doesn't and she can't help the fact that she doesn't. It's better this way. Because if she did feel something, then she could never sleep with him without feeling like she was dying inside.

He smiles an odd smile. "Then why do I get the feeling you're in love with someone else?"

"There's nobody." She tells him, a little too quickly, a little too bluntly and…. she's surprised it's taken him this long to realize.

"Then why can't we have something more?"

She frowns and smiles in turn. This was not the arrangement they'd agreed to. She's already broken far too many rules for him.

Why not indeed?

Because in the end, he's merely a distraction, because she's too broken and can't bring herself to trust anybody after what happened with John, because she really doesn't have the time for anything substantial with anybody, and because… its wrong.

He's a placeholder for a phantasm, an acceptable replacement for a part of her that's been missing for so long now that she's almost forgotten ever living without that feeling.

But he can't be any more than that.

Because he's not the one she pictures in her mind every time she approaches her moment of climax. Because she misses the scratchy feeling of facial hair caressing her chin and feels disoriented every morning she wakes up in his high-rise loft, absurdly thinking she should be instead in a rickety twin bed in a house with slanted roofs and sunlight pouring in angularly.

"I can't give you any more than this." There is no room for negotiation in her voice and Olivia knows the time has come to put an end to it.

"You deserve more than this. You really are wonderful." She tells him, wishes him the very best, and leaves him.

A week later she's fielding yet another call from her sister. This one's a doctor, she's told.

His eyes are brown and he's clean shaven.

She doesn't call him after the first date.

Rinse and repeat. Life goes on.