Oh, the sex. Or rather, should she say:Ooh la la, the sex!
Mebel always wondered why people made such a big deal about sex. Every time there was a sex scene in a movie, she always wrinkled her nose with distaste and wondered what the big deal was all about. And why were people always so out of breath afterward, anyway? Mebel was never out of breath after sex. A slightly elevated heart rate, perhaps, but certainly nothing that left her gasping for breath. She decided that breathless sex, much like coffee after four p.m., was a European thing, best to be observed from a very far distance.
Now, Mebel lies in Alain’s bed, her legs tangled in the duvet, staring up at the ceiling, and she is very definitely, very much so, out of breath. So out of breath, in fact, that she can barely keep a single thought in her head. Her mind, usually so quick with catastrophic thoughts, is blissfully silent for once, except for the occasionalOh my.
Next to her, Alain has lit a cigarette. Smoke curls up from the tip, and the rank smell of it snaps Mebel out of her dazed state. She flaps her hand over her face and makes an obnoxious coughing sound.
“I’m sorry, would you like me to put this out?” Alain says.
“Yes. Smoking is very bad habit,” Mebel says automatically. “In my culture, the only people who smoke are bad people, like gangsters and politicians.”
Alain smiles. “In my culture, those two are the same.” He stubs out his cigarette and slides close to Mebel, gesturing at her to lay her head on his chest.
Mebel is hesitant at first. She and Henk had cuddled for a bit during the first handful of years of their marriage. Over the decades, the cuddles had dwindled, slowly at first, then the rest of it disappeared so fast that Mebel didn’t have time to miss them. They were simply too busy to cuddle. At night, when they went to bed, both of them picked up their phones and scrolled mindlessly through cautionary reels before turning off the lights and going to sleep. And Mebel has certainly never cuddled while sweaty after a round of what can only be called vigorous, life-changing, mind-blowing sex.
Who am I?she thinks to herself.I am a hussy, I am. Imagine if Meimei or Natalia or any of the other ladies from the country club back home see me now.
The thought makes her shudder with a touch of excitement. She leans into Alain’s open arms and rests her head on his chest. It’s not as sweaty as she’d feared, merely a little damp, and much hairier than Henk’s. Mebel has never spared a single thought for men’s body hair, but it is with much surprise that she finds herself liking it. She places her palm gingerly on his chest, feeling very awkward at first. When Alain chuckles, she feels it vibrating through his chest.
“Have you never been held, Mebel?”
“Of course I have,” she says as a knee-jerk reaction.
“Have you been held recently?”
She doesn’t bother with a reply. He can extrapolate from her silence what he wants to. Mebel’s mind wants to start racing like it usually does, but what she has just experienced moments ago is still luxuriating through her body, still flicking at her pleasure sensors. She relaxes, melting into Alain’s arms, marveling at what her body is capable of.
“What are you smiling about?” Alain says, looking down at her.
Mebel wrinkles her nose. “Don’t face me when you talk. You smell like cigarette.”
“Okay,” Alain says good-naturedly, turning his face away from her. “Now tell me what you are smiling about.”
“Sex is not really an open thing in my culture.”
Alain nods slowly, his expression contemplative. “Not what I thought you were going to say, but okay.”
“Is not something we talk about. I think the young people, they talk about it openly, but my generation? Never. We don’t talk about such thing. We treat it like something we need to do, you know? Get married, have children. The sex happen somewhere in between that. And after children, finish. Maybe have it once in a while, on birthday and anniversary, but that’s all.”
“Ah. I see. Very different from my culture then.”
“Yes. We see it as something embarrassing. You know, my mother, she used to be so proud that she didn’t have sex with my father after my siblings and I are born and they are done having children. She used to say, ‘Hah, you think your father and I do anything anymore? Of course not. Ugh.’ ”
“What did your father have to say about it?”
Mebel shrugs. “Not much. He never say much.”
“And your relationship with Henk was like that?”
“Yes.” And now the sadness comes over her like a wave, soft but unrelenting. She takes a sharp breath. “I wonder if he secretly want more, but maybe he doesn’t know how to ask me.”
Alain’s fingers stroke up and down her arm and he murmurs, “Well, then he’s an idiot. If he wanted it, he could’ve talked to you about it.”
Mebel sighs. “I don’t know. I don’t make it easy for him, you know? I always say things like, ‘Ugh, sex is so unhygienic,’ or ‘Oh, what a bother, and is such a hot day.’ And this and that. I think maybe is because I am so bad at it, I don’t know what to do, you see. Nobody ever talk to me about sex and how to do it right.”
“You’re not so bad,” Alain says. “I quite enjoyed it.”
“You have had many sex?”
