I’ve sexted my boyfriend.
I’ve seduced him.
I’ve blown him within seconds of him getting home.
I’ve tried to initiate…sexy time with him when we’re in bed.
And time and again, he’s not getting the message.
So tonight? I’m making it crystal fucking clear.
“I’m not happy with our sex life.” I blurt the words out, like they don’t burn my throat and tongue on the way out, like hurting this man’s feelings, eviscerating his manhood doesn’t destroy me. But keeping them in? That’s destroying my femininity, and a large part of me. Hopefully we’re both better off for this talk.
David chokes on his whiskey, the sip he was mid ingesting slipping out of his mouth and back into his etched rocks glass as his eyes widen and he struggles to clear his airway to make room for oxygen.
I’ve tried to be gentle, I’ve tried to be kind, I’ve tried to be indirect and politely direct, and nothing else has done it. So I’m going for the throat (literally, with what that whiskey just did to him). Or maybe I’m going straight for his balls with this.
“Sorry?” he asks, once he’s managed to put his drink down and take a breath of air.
“I’m feeling…unfulfilled.” I try to make it graceful, mature; not an attack on him, just a declaration of my own feelings. That was a good way to put it. I pat myself on the back, mentally. It’s not,your dick is decent but you don’t know how to use it, or,you can’t eat me out like my ex used to, or evenmy friend has at least three orgasms a night and you can barely give me a half of one. A good starting point, without being personally offensive.
I hope I don’t have to pull out theyou don’t have what it takes to get me offcard, because that’s a grenade I’m not ready to pull the pin from and launch just yet. It’s the kamikaze shot that will drive my point home, but probably irreparably damage his ego, and thus, our sex life at the same time. What good is winning the fight if it loses you the war?
I take a deep breath, inhale and let it out, letting the quiet tune from the stereo in our living room calm me. Music can have any effect on me, hype me up, make me cry, make me more confident. That’s tonight’s choice. Something that centers me, gives me the boost in backbone I need for this.
David shakes his head, like he can’t process what I said. His eyes narrow on the speakers on either side of the entertainment center. “Turn that shit off.”
“Sorry?”
“I can’t fucking think when it’s blasting.” His hands rub at his temples, like we’re in a warehouse, at a rave, not listening to soft piano covers of recent pop hits.
Opening the controls on my phone, I turn the volume further down, but not off.
“What do you mean you’re not happy, Ell?” His face, weighted and lined with the usual stress he carries daily from work, looks even more pained than usual. Something twinges deep inside me thatImade him feel like that, but I know I need to push through. I’ve started to peel the band-aid off, some skin cells and hair are caught in the cross-fire at the moment, and I need to just let it rip, get this over with so we can fix it. Let the air heal the rest of the wound, rather than keep it hidden away from the light of day so no one can see it.
“I mean that I feel like sex is a very low priority in our relationship, that it isn’t as important to you as it is to me, and I’d like to have more of it, and I’d like to also enjoy it more when we do get intimate.”
“Well, yeah, muffin.” He reaches out to grab my hand, connect us physically while we try to bridge this gap between our physicality. “It’s not a huge focus at this point. We havelives.”
My head draws back, a mind of its own. “Come again?”
“I just mean we have responsibilities. Priorities. You have an entire company to run, payroll to be covered every single week, clients to keep happy, and I have tens of millions of dollars in assets I manage. It’s stressful, for both of us. We have big things going on at work; we’re both driven people, that’s always going to be the priority for the two of us. I don’t want to have to commit to sex three times a week or something, just add another responsibility to the list, another duty to be checked off.”
“Com—commit to sex? I’m not asking for a schedule, David. A little spontaneity would be great, actually. But it would be nice if youwantedto be with me more? Or realized that sometimes I need more to get me there than what we’ve been doing. It kind of feels like my pleasure is more of an afterthought to you.”
He lets out a heavy sigh, but doesn’t let go of my hand. “You didn’t used to care this much. I don’t know why it changed, but can’t we just go back to how it’s always been with us? We’ve got the perfect thing going here.” He bobbles his head around, using it to point around at the reminders of our shared life as he goes. “A great setup, so much understanding and support for one another. This beautiful condo. Ellie, wegeteach other in a way one else ever could. I couldn’t ask for a better situation with a partner. With my future wife.” His thumb strokes along the top of my ring finger, bare since I rejected his proposal years ago.
A horrible thought strikes me. What if I said no not because I just wasn’t ready to say yes to him, but because I knew something wasn’t right between us?
For as muchgoodas we have between us, what if a small part of my subconscious has always known there’s something there that doesn’t align, doesn’t click between us? Picked up on something my conscious mind couldn’t, or refused to?
The thought terrifies me, while it also fills me with the determination to see this conversation through.
I’ve never considered myself an overly sexual person, but I am becoming increasingly more and more unsatisfied with the status quo between us, romantically speaking. What if this is the thing that’s been standing in the way of our future? The reason I’m not ready to have kids with him, or commit to him with an eternal band of metal and two sacred words? I think there’s this part of me that’s always been…waiting for what I’ve dreamed of, what I envisioned for all those years I was waiting for the right man, to come true.
Chrissy is right. If I continue to let this sit, not actively work at making it what I wish it were, this could fester and rot us from the inside out. She got through it with Chance, we can do this, too.
David’s next words sound exhausted, but if it’s from his day, his workload, or from me, I’m not sure. Though I’m starting to get the distinct impression I’m making his lifeworseand more stressful by wanting more from what we have, striving for improvement between us.
