“I just think you’re putting too much attention on it. You didn’t used to think about it this much, but now that you are, it’s like it’s constantly upsetting you that our sex life isn’t something from one of your books. It’s like it’s given you unrealistic expectations of sex, like it’s shifted the importance of it all of a sudden, and you’re making it a bigger deal in our lives than it needs to be.”
And I’m stumped. I can’t actually figure out, aside from maybe trying a time or two to recreate something that sounded cute in one of my novels, what I’ve said or done to him that makes him think I am expecting porno levels of lust and pleasure in our daily lives. I mean, I know I have a tee that saysFictional men do it better, but that’s just a cute little tongue-in-cheek thing. Do I tell him that my best friend has a sex life worth writing home about? That it’s not only in fiction that people have regular orgasms with their partner?
I really just want him, as my boyfriend, to make sure I have as much fun (or close to it) as he does when we get down, and, preferably, to enjoy it along the way. Even better if we’re not on a fucking weekly timer, where his dick pops up like that little red thing in a turkey when it’s its time, and that’s the only way he remembers he’s got a girlfriend who’s worth paying attention to her body as much as her mind.
Am I insane?
How many women wish their partners cared about the physical side of the relationship as much as the mental, the emotional one? I’ve got to be in the minority here. I’ve got a man who adores my mind, our conversations, he supports me in my career goals, he’s financially stable, and I’m complaining that he doesn’t want to bone enough?
Am I the one in the wrong?
But then he opens his mouth again.
“I think you’ve got ideas in your head that real men can’t live up to.”
I pull my hand back, blowing out an irritated breath, my eyes bugging out, and my filter breaks. “Jesus Christ, I’m not threatening you to give me multiple vaginal orgasms every time we have sex or I’ll leave you for a foxy fisherman with a nine-inch dick who knows how to use it, David. The only thing I’m asking is for you to CARE about my experience here, my pleasure in this, too.”
Silence greets my ears. I have no trouble filling it.
“Let me ask you something. When’s the last time I got you off with nothing in return?”
“Um…” His eyes bounce around the room, trailing over the large frameless TV, the entertainment center, the art on the walls, all of it black and white, with pops of silver. The balcony behind my back that overlooks the high-rise buildings of downtown St. Pete from twenty stories up. Anywhere but me. “I don’t know.”
“It was Thursday. Do you remember?” The glaring tone pins him as much as my eyes do.
“Oh. Yeah.” His eyes shoot toward the entry to our condo, the foyer where I was on my knees for him. “And?”
“And when was the last time before that?” I probably could’ve been a decent lawyer if my dad’s heart wasn’t so firmly entrenched in a family business.
“I don’t know.” He stirs, cracks his knuckles, his neck, uncomfortable with where this is headed, but unsure how to get out of it.
“I do. It was a few weeks before that. Do you know why?”
Tonight’s awkwardness brought to you by our sponsor, silence.
“Because Iliketo give you pleasure, David. I make it a point to do it regularly. But you never think to return the favor once you’re done. Ienjoymaking my partner happy. Do you?”
His hands drop back to his thighs with a slap that echoes off of the leather furniture, the walls around us. “It’s not that easy to get you off, Ell. You know that. You have…issues with getting there sometimes. I don’t mind that about you, but it’s not realistic for me to spend hours getting you off every time we have sex. My mind is on work, and I just can’t separate myself from it for that long, you know that.”
I scoff. “So much to unpack there.”
I stand from the couch, start pacing the spacious living room. Doing laps around the Scandinavian coffee table. Like my best friend, my arms start to fly when I’m impassioned. Unlike her, the salt doesn’t come out of me often. But it’s here now. “Thank you for that professional analysis, by the way. I appreciate you telling me how you really feel about what a chore it is to make love to me. I’m glad you ‘don’t mind’ that you can’t get me off.” My hands make sarcastic air quotes on the words. “Did you ever think that maybeIdo?”
His eyes follow me warily, unused to this volatility that’s been set off. “I’ve held back on telling you this before because I don’t want to make this situation between us worse, I’m not trying to make you feel bad here, but now feels like a good time to tell you that my ex hadzeroproblems getting me off regularly. And it never took hours, not once.”
Are you surprised? It’s more silence.
“When’s the last time you got me off with nothing in return?” Intentionally, I don’t let my arms cross over my body, trying not to make this any more of an attack on him than it already is. This is a conversation, not an assault. I let my shoulders fall back, drop down, take a deep breath.
His brows are etched permanently at half-mast, something of a cross between stupefaction and apathy as this conversation continues. “I don’t remember.”
“That’s because it’s literally NEVER happened, David. You’ve never done it. Not once. And I don’t think it’s because you’re malicious or something, I know you’re a great fucking guy. But I genuinely think my pleasure doesn’t even cross your mind.” One hand flies up to tap the side of my temple, a little too vigorously, but I don’t stop. “Like unless you happen to be next to me, already in bed, and your dickhappensto be hard, you don’t even think about sex with me. It’s like my pleasure doesn’t even register for you. Like I’m not someone you see in a sexual light, I don’t have my own needs, I’m not someone youwantto be sexual with, unless the fucking universe aligns, and even then, it’sneverabout me.” I walk over to stand in front of him, speak from the heart, make sure he can feel my sincerity when I say, “What do I have to do to get it through your head that this is important to me? I’m so tired of begging for my needs to be heard with you. How many times are we going to have the same conversation?”
His eyes and nostrils both flare in indignation. “Jesus Christ, Ellie. You’re making this such a big fucking deal. You’re in your thirties now. I’m going to be forty in a few years. You’re not in your college years anymore. There’s more to a mature relationship than sex!” His voice raises in consternation, and the look he gives me feels a little too much like scolding for my liking. “We’ve been together for so long already. It’s normal for that…desire to fade with time.” His voice softens. “I have a lot of pressure on me day to day. My job is stressful, I have a lot of clients to keep on board, a lot of assets to stay on top of.”
He looks back to the balcony, off to some horizon I can’t see, and I wonder if the watercolor sunset he’s seeing out there looks like the sun setting on our relationship, or if that’s just from my vantage point. “My mind isn’t on my dick twenty-four-seven. I’m sorry if that’s offensive to you, but it isn’t personal. I’m just anadult.”
Is he calling me childish for wanting intimacy? “There’s more to a relationship thangoodsex, David. I fucking know that. But there’s got to be good sex there in the first place, otherwise what even makes it a romantic relationship instead of a platonic one?” My eyes burn into his dark ones, but his stare back blankly. “I feel like your roommate and not your fucking girlfriend six and a half days of the week.”
