Instead, my best orgasms happened by my own hand and there was no such thing as true intimacy with my husband; he never lasted long enough and foreplay was nonexistent.
“You just got stiff as a board,” Ace murmurs. “Where did your mind go that took you away from the here and now?”
“To a time when I gave up on my dreams and settled for something spectacularly underwhelming.”
“Your ex.” His voice is strange, as if he’s holding back anger, and I open my eyes, lifting myself to my elbows to look at him.
“Are you mad?”
“Not that you were thinking about him, but that he did whatever he did.”
“He didn’t hurt me, if that’s what you’re thinking. He was just…boring. Staid. And sex was over so damn fast, I never had the chance to learn how to enjoy it.”
“Can I ask why you got divorced?” He’s picked up my other foot now and is starting the whole process once more, so I lay back again.
“My mother introduced us.” I laugh even though it isn’t funny. “Which should have been my first clue that we were totally wrong for each other, but I was twenty-five and wanted children, so I started going out with him. It was nice. Nothing earth-shattering, but he was smart, well-traveled, educated, and attentive. We went to nice places and did fun things all the time. So the man, who he was beneath the surface, didn’t become apparent until it was too late.”
“Pretty on the outside, ugly on the inside,” he murmurs.
“It wasn’t entirely his fault,” I say sadly. “I wanted him to be something he wasn’t. I was fairly quiet and shy when we met, because I was trying to be who my mother told me I should be, so I could find a husband and have the children I wanted so much. I should have let him see who I was much earlier as well, but I didn’t understand what that meant in the context of a relationship.”
“But you are quiet and shy, aren’t you?”
“Shy, yes. Quiet? Not really. Not with people I know. The thing is, he thought I would be the perfect submissive little wife and bow to his every whim. He didn’t realize that shy doesn’t mean easily manipulated or naïve about the world. Naïve about sex? Definitely. But the world in general? Absolutely not.
“When he realized I wasn’t going to be what he wanted, he tried to access my trust fund, but I wasn’t willing to let him have a dime. He wanted me to stop working, but I love to teach and wasn’t ready to quit.” I swallow hard, slightly embarrassed to be telling him about this. “He also wanted threesomes, and while that’s fine if it’s your thing, it’s not mine. Not because it’s bad—everything he proposed actually seemed kind of sexy—but our relationship was already precarious, and frankly, I’m not the kind of woman who could do that, share my husband with other women. Maybe if I’d been sexually active before I got married, I might have tried it with a one-night stand or something. But with my husband? Not a chance in hell.”
“While polyamorous relationships are fine in theory, I don’t think I could do it either,” he says, his hands moving up my calf and squeezing a little harder than before. “But it was unfair of him to spring that on you, especially knowing you were a virgin before you got married.”
“Well, we had sex before we got married, because I didn’t want my wedding night to be painful or messy or any of the stories you hear about your first time.”
“So, he knew you were inexperienced and thought he’d be able to mold you into the sexual partner he wanted instead of allowing the two of you to discover what you wanted together.” It was more of a statement than a question, and I merely nod.
“I suppose.”
“Of all the things I regret in my life, that might be at the top of my list now. If your first time had been with me, I promise it would have been very, very different.”
I think I said, “I know,” but I’m not sure because I must have drifted off to sleep.
The next time I open my eyes it’s morning, though it’s still dark out. I’m under the covers, still fully dressed, and I nearly cry with frustration. I fell asleep, and he was a perfect gentleman. I wouldn’t expect any less from him, of course, but this isn’t fair. I don’t know how long I’ll have him in my life, and I want him, all of him, all of everything there is to share while we’re together. And maybe, if the intensity between us continues to grow, he won’t leave me at all.
Ace is awake, because when I turn over, he’s lying on his side with his back to me, but I see the light from his cell phone and hear him lightly tapping on the screen. Though he’s just a couple feet away, since our beds are separate, it feels like miles and I’m suddenly sad. As if the distance between us is some kind of metaphor for my life.
The loneliness I try so hard to pretend is okay.
The babies I haven’t had.
The emptiness that’s become so poignant since losing my father.
Even when my marriage was unraveling before my eyes, I had my father to lean on. Now I don’t have him either.
I still have my mother, of course, and though we’re closer now than we ever were while Dad was alive, it isn’t the same as the bond I had with my dad. And now that I’ve gotten so close to Ace in such a short time, have him in my life again, he’s keeping a distance between us that I don’t understand.
I would have gladly made love with him already, but he’s used excuse after excuse, and though my heart believes he’s being a gentleman, my brain is starting to doubt everything about us being together.
“I waited nearly five years for you to come back.” I keep my voice soft in the darkness, but he immediately glances over his shoulder at me.
“What?” He turns over in the small bed, the muscles in his bare back flexing as he moves.
