I almost fall off my stool. I am not easy to shock, but did I hear that right? “You decided to become what now?”
“Celibate.” He smiles softly. “Shortly before I went back to Marrakech.”
“Celibate. Like…no sex at all?”
He shrugs, looking resigned. Like this is a conversation he’s had a million times. I’m pretty sure everybody has the same confused look on their face as I do right now. The image of this man and celibacy does not compute. This shakes me so much that I belatedly catch on to what he said next—‘shortly before I went back to Marrakech.’
I frown, trying to figure out the timing. He was in Morocco, Mad Dogging his way through, ahem, everything with a pulse. Then he was gone? Then he came back, with his dick retired from active service? Could it be…
“So you were celibate when we met, when we went out?”
He nods.
“And are you still?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Wow!” I blow out a breath and will my head to stop spinning. That means…Wow!“I’m sorry, I don’t know why that’s so shocking to me. It’s just…well, it’s so unusual to hear, I guess. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who’s willingly celibate before. I had no idea. I guess I had this picture of you.”
“Which to be fair, had once been an accurate one. I was indeed a giant man whore.”
I turn it over in mind as I get more comfortable with the idea. I mean, that must be hard. Look at him. It’s not like he doesn’t have offers. The man is a god. I can’t be the only woman who threw herself at him. I still can’t decide if that makes me feel better or worse. No clue. I’m still struggling to move past ‘wow.
He takes a sip of his orange juice. “Well, now that you know, can you forgive me for not having sex with you after you were convinced I was a sure thing?”
My cheeks, only just cooling down, flare up again. “Of course I can. I’m so sorry I said that.”
“Don’t be. Like I said, I was. Hence the celibacy.”
“So, were you…like,” I lean closer and drop my voice to a whisper, “addicted to sex?”
He doesn’t shrink away from the intrusiveness of my question, something I admire in him. “No. Nothing that simple. I have an addictive personality, and I have multiple issues. I also don’t drink, or do drugs of any kind. The sex was just another way of escaping, of running away from the things I needed to face. Some of the things I spoke to you about.”
I cast my mind back to that night we spent talking. He’d mentioned some stuff then. Bereavements, the loss of his mom and his girlfriend. The breakdown of his relationship with his father. He’d seemed still wounded by it all. In return, I’d opened up about my childhood. Not the full sordid tale, he wasn’t ready for that. But the fact that I’d also lost my mom as a teenager. We shared a lot in a short space of time. He poured out his heart, and I’ve spent all this time resenting him for not fucking me. I need to give myself a kick in the ass.
“In the end, sex just stopped serving a purpose for me,” he says. “It stopped being fun. And so I decided to concentrate on other areas of my life.”
“Don’t you miss it?”
I am literally made of questions, but that is the first one out. He stares at me for the longest time and my mind starts to wander to places it shouldn’t, like whether he misses it enough to ever try it again. Specifically, with me. “Sometimes, yeah.”
“So, are you waiting for marriage? The right person? Or will you always be celibate?” I’m unable to hide my curiosity. I hope I don’t sound as disappointed as I feel.What a waste.
“I’ve never really had an end point in mind. I guess I’ll stop being celibate when it doesn’t make sense for me anymore.”
Well, that is vague and non-specific, but also very candid. More candid than I deserve. He’s been vulnerable, yet again, and maybe I should too. “I never forgot that night, Maddox.”
“Neither did I. It was special. I did come back to say goodbye the next day, maybe to get your number. But you…” He raises his eyebrow. He’s giving me the chance to come clean, I guess.
“I was hiding. I told my friend to cover for me. I was too embarrassed Maddox. Absolutely zero judgment on any woman who goes after sex with a man she wants, but I’d never really been that girl, you know? I’d never put myself out there like that. So when I invited you up to my room, it was a big deal. I liked you, and I thought you were, you know, a sure thing.”
I still cringe as I say it. He nods, thinks about it.
“Wait, so all this time you thought I wouldn’t have sex with you because…?” His eyes narrow.
I take a quick glance down at myself. My thighs stretching the seams of my new dress. The roundness of my stomach against the fabric. As opposed to the supermodels he’s probably dated in the past. I don’t look like fashionable New York girls, or even like a lot of the women I traveled with. I don’t judge myself for that, but it’s also true.
“I just figured it was because I wasn’t your type.”
