And a Grip That Didn't Let Go

A story about Autism, paid intimacy, and the moment someone held my hands without letting go.

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Next To Life

Some people move through life knowing they belong.

They never hesitate before stepping into a room. They don’t wonder how much of themselves is too much to bring. They move through the world with the ease of the already accepted.

But others—others feel like they’re always a beat behind.

Seen, but not witnessed.
Included, but not embraced.
Heard, but never really understood.

If you’ve ever felt that quiet dissonance—that you exist next to life rather than inside of it—then you’ll understand this story before I even begin.

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I. The Quiet Ache of Being Unchosen

I’m 31. Autistic. Brown. 5ft 6.5 inches tall, with a slim skeletal frame and a lean-to-average build.

Too intense. Too analytical. Too sensitive.

And yet, never quite enough.

Where others were dating, I was decoding. While my peers learned to flirt, I was studying expressions and gestures—desperate to understand the mechanics of connection.

At 21, I wasn’t out partying or learning to love.
I was reading Joe Navarro, trying to crack the language of micro-expressions and non-verbal cues. Trying to grasp what everyone else seemed to know intuitively:

How to belong.

How to be chosen.

I studied body language the way someone studies for survival.

But no matter how well I understood the signs, no one pointed them back at me.

I lived by the belief that life was meant to be lived. That progress, logic, and stoicism would be enough.

But the deeper truth is this:

Life isn’t meant to be lived.
It’s meant to be felt.

And when you’ve spent most of your life outside the frame of desire, the hunger to be felt—to be received—isn’t just emotional.

It’s existential.

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II. The Weight I Carried In

Wounds don’t always scream.

Sometimes, they whisper through body language. They arrive as a subtle tension in the shoulders, a slight hunch in the spine, or the way you hesitate before entering a stranger’s home.

That night, when I went to meet Katja, I wasn’t entering with a blank slate.

I was still holding the residue of an earlier wound—a session that had gone so wrong, I almost forgot what tenderness felt like.

Her name was Victoria.

It was -3 degrees Celsius outside when I arrived. I’d layered up—multiple jumpers, thermal wear, a coat thick enough to brace against the cold.

But just as I began to undress—right before we were about to be intimate—she burst into laughter.

Not with me. At me.

It was a kind of disbelief. Like I’d walked in wearing a costume and she couldn’t contain her reaction.
She covered her mouth, eyes wide, shaking with the kind of laughter that doesn’t know—or doesn’t care—how cruel it is.

I laughed too, reflexively. As if to say, “Yes, yes, I get the joke.”

But inside, I was burning.

That moment—those few seconds—turned what should’ve been intimacy into shame. It felt like I had been discarded before the door had even closed behind me.

From that point on, her body stiffened. Her energy closed. She made no space for me to connect with her. I was tolerated, at best.

So I carried that with me into my encounter with Katja.

The guardedness. The disbelief that I could be received with softness.
The ache of being someone who pays to be seen—and still ends up invisible.

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III. The Room That Didn’t Flinch

Katja didn’t look how I expected her to.

Her photos had promised a certain youthfulness—smooth, unlined. But in person, there was age. Elegance. A quiet maturity that surprised me.

I was prepared to be disappointed.

But then something happened.

She smiled. Genuinely. Her presence felt whole.

Warm.

Welcoming.

Human.

And though I didn’t realise it then, that difference—humanity—would come to mean more than any curated image ever could.

Inside the room, the bedside lamp glowed amber, casting long shadows that softened the edges of the walls. There was music playing gently—something ambient, wordless. I asked her to turn it down slightly, and she did without question. The room held its warmth.

And when the shower didn’t work at first, I panicked quietly.

Not again. Not another session where nothing flows.

But then—Katja called through the door, came over, and calmly turned on the water for me from outside.

No tension. No coldness. Just presence.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

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IV. A Grip That Broke the Rules

It happened in the middle of me giving everything I had.

I was going down on her—present, focused, not to perform, but to connect—and that’s when it happened.

She began searching for my hands.

And when she found them, she squeezed—tight. Not urgently. Not desperately. But with a fullness that said:

“You’re wanted.
You’re needed.
You belong here.”

No words.

Just her hands, wrapped around mine, as if to say:

Don’t stop. I see you. I feel you. I want you here.

And something inside me cracked.

Because gestures like that don’t come easily. Not in this world.
Not in paid settings. Not from strangers. Not for people like me.

In that grip, something sacred passed between us.

It didn’t matter that this was transactional. It didn’t feel like performance. It felt like receiving—fully, instinctively, without resistance.

And yet, even as she held me, my mind raced.

This isn’t real.
She’s just playing the part.
Don’t read into it.
Don’t believe you’re wanted.

But my body knew better.

And when it was over, I looked at her—trying to find words for the indescribable.

“I just want to say, Katja… when you held onto my hands, it meant everything to me.
I really mean it. Thank you. It made me feel like a human. Present. Wanted. Desired.
Not like a rodent.”

She didn’t flinch. She just smiled.

And in that moment, I was no longer apologising for my existence.

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V. Gabor Maté and the Space Between

When I first discovered the work of trauma expert Dr. Gabor Maté, something clicked.

He writes that what hurts most isn’t the trauma itself—but the absence of a compassionate witness to that trauma.

We break not just because of what happens to us…
…but because no one sees us break.

No one stays.

Katja may not have known any of this.
She may not have meant for it to happen.

But in those few hours, she bore witness to something fragile in me—and didn’t look away.

She saw my guardedness, my hesitation, my unspoken questions…

…and she answered them with presence.

With stillness.

With a grip that didn’t let go.

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VI. The Echo of a Grip That Didn’t Let Go

That grip—that unwavering presence—wasn't a promise of healing in the conventional sense.

Its gift was something different.
Quieter.
Perhaps rarer.

She didn’t cure me.

She didn’t fall for me.

But what she offered was something no algorithm, no app, no perfectly matched profile had ever managed to give me.

She made me feel worthy of touch.

Worthy of closeness.

Worthy of being seen, not as a project to fix or a payment to collect—but as a person to hold.

She didn’t rush me out. She didn’t distance herself.

She let the moment breathe.

And when I left that warm amber room and stepped back into the cold evening, I didn’t feel discarded.

I felt carried.

And I’ll carry that feeling with me.

Not because it healed everything.

But because it reminded me:

Even in a world that rents out its affections by the hour...

There are still moments that arrive without pretense.

Still hands that hold without flinching.
Still silences that say—you’re allowed to be here.

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VII. It Happens Again: Proof of Recognition

I carry that feeling. That stillness.
That sense of being held without flinching.

And remarkably—it wasn't the last time. There was another moment. Later.
Different. But no less seismic.

Her name was Irina.

And in her presence, the ground shifted again—quietly, unmistakably.
A different texture of presence. A different kind of silent understanding.

Proof that true recognition doesn’t belong to fantasy.
It isn’t confined to one room, one night, one woman.

It can happen again. And again.
In the most unexpected places.

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Thanks for reading. If this piece resonated with you, feel free to leave a comment below or share it with another who may need it.

- Søren Vale