I sucked in a breath. “I know it’s not very sexy to talk about sex. But I think we need to. There are things you should hear before we do…that.” I felt myself blushing but held his gaze.
“Who says it’s not sexy? Sadie, you could be reading the instruction manual for a vacuum cleaner and it would be sexy. Because it’s you. Whatever you need to tell me, I am here for it. Please.”
I wrung my hands in my lap as I gathered my words, appreciating the openness of Renn’s expression. “You need to understand why…being intimate…is hard for me, as much as I want to. In the past ten years, I haven’t been with anyone other than Henri. And you know he was…unkind.” Renn’s features tightened, but he simply nodded as I continued.
“Throughout our relationship, he found ways to touch me—or sometimes tonottouch me—and he used it to make me feel less than.” I stopped to take a few deep breaths as Renn met my eyes quietly. “Henri would say things to me about my body. He would pinch my stomach and frown at me or stab my thighs to point out cellulite. He would withhold sex. Or demand it. It went from being something I remember enjoying to a weapon he used to hurt me. He never forced me. It wasn’t about that. I think in his twisted way he thought he was making me better, like, molding me, or something.
“When we first got together, he gave me more love, more affection. And I craved it so much that in the end, he was getting off on how hard I tried to please him. So, he pulled back even more. That was our game. I kept doing things to make him love me and he took being a withholding asshole to the highest level.
“I’m nervous about being with you physically because I’m not sure if I know how to connect with someone in that way. But the other day, when we were kissing at your house, it was nice. Really nice.” My face grew redder, but I wanted him to understand. “I trust you. And I think there’s a chance we could be good together—in bed—but I need you to be patient with me. To go slow, okay?”
Renn seemed to consider my words and reached out to take my hands before speaking. “Thank you for telling me all that. I’m sorry Henri was such a bastard. And I think I’ve been clear about how much I want you. But there is no part of me that would push you to do anything you aren’t ready for. If this…” He sort of waved his hands around the room. “If this is all you can do right now, hanging out, talking, eating together, then that is totally fine. I just want to be with you. In whatever way we can be. Being apart from you sucked balls.”
I laughed. “We are a classy pair, aren’t we?”
“Fuck yeah, we are. The fanciest.” He squeezed my hands. “Us taking our time will not be a problem. It never has been.” He looked at me searchingly. “I have been waiting to touch you for so long. No matter what you’re able to give me, I’ll still be the luckiest guy in the world.”
I gave myself a few moments to digest the sincerity of his words before peering up at him shyly. I breathed out as I settled myself against his side.
Renn tilted my face, giving a hard press of his lips to mine. “I know we can figure this out. We might have to go slow, and it might be awkward. We might have to laugh at ourselves, but you know what?”
“Hmm?”
“I think you’re right. We can be good together. However you’ll have me, I’m yours.”
I snuggled closer and we existed in the charged air, neither of us making a move to watch a movie. After a few minutes, Renn got up and went over to the credenza where he’d been looking at my vinyl collection earlier. He flipped through the fading cardboard as he took inventory of the only real insight I had into my mom and dad. The Carpenters, Carly Simon, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, James Taylor, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones. There were about two hundred records, a snapshot of my parents as young people. There was something peaceful about watching Renn touch things they had held.
He pulled an album from the collection and slid it out of its sleeve onto the record player. He reached his hand out to me as the sound of Seals & Croft’s “Summer Breeze” came over the speakers. “Dance with me?”
In any other circumstance, I would have thought this move was corny as hell, but as I stood up into Renn’s embrace, it seemed right. Neither of us knew what to do exactly, so we settled for the eighth-grade gym dance style of awkwardly rocking side to side with my hands behind his neck and his around my waist. Perfect.
As we moved, Renn traded off his atrocious singing with whispering in my ear, telling me how amazing I was, how happy he was to be with me. I was so incredibly grateful to the man in my arms. The one who had never given up on me, the one who had somehow found his way from the tattoo studio into my life, despite every roadblock. We danced for a while, next to the cookies, in the apartment I’d shared with Zach, listening to my parents’ records. I lifted my face from where I’d rested it on his shoulder because in that moment I knew.
“Hey, Renn?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
He kissed the tip of my nose and pressed our foreheads together as he closed his eyes on the admission. “I love you too, Sadie. So much.”
And I had never been surer of my next words.
“Will you come with me? To bed?”
He nodded solemnly as I took his hand, leading him down the hall.
My bedroom wasutilitarian. Considering its postage stamp-sized square footage, it had to be. I’d only been able to fit a hanging rack for clothes, a small dresser, and a queen-sized bed.
I couldn’t tell if Renn noticed the cramped layout because the entirety of his focus was on touching every part of my body he could reach. Once inside the room, he spun us around and started kissing me, smashing our bodies together while running his hands feverishly up and down my back.
He pulled away to murmur, “Just tell me if I’m moving too fast or if you need me to stop.” He ran his lips along my jaw and reached into his back pocket, taking out his wallet and throwing a condom on the dresser next to my bed. “No pressure.” He palmed my waist reverently. “Just don’t want to have to fumble around for it later.”
Putting my hands on his, I reassured him. “I’m good. I promise I’ll let you know if I’m not. Now please just carry on as usual.”
“Usual?” Renn huffed. “Sadie, I don’t exactly have go-to moves here. It’s been more than a year since I’ve done this with anyone. There’s a decent chance we won’t even need that condom because I might come in my pants any minute.”
I laughed. “Well, I guess that’s the good part about dating a guy in his twenties, right? If that happens, we won’t have to wait too long for round two…or three.” I lifted my face up and bit down gently on his earlobe, feeling the immediate gooseflesh that spread across the back of his neck. “Because I would very much like to use that condom.”
