I wince, shake my head. “I can’t imagine growing up with such a limited view on it.”
“Anyway, I wanted to wait a few days, but it almost became an argument. I wanted to ease into it. Kiss, touch, just sort of…learn each other. Take our time getting her ready for sex rather than just jumping right into it.”
I watch him, seeing the remembered pain on his face. “God, Jamie.”
“She wasn’t having it. She tried to convince me she wanted it, but that she was just scared. But, I could tell she wasn’t ready, you know? So, we had this super awkward, super short foreplay. And then…she was like, okay, let’s do this. Like, with an air of let’s get this over with.”
I touch his shoulder in sympathy. “That’s just…sad and terrible for both of you.”
“I was…I don’t want to say pissed, or disappointed, just… I don’t know. Upset.”
“Um, yeah, I can see how you would be.”
“I mean, I’d been waiting and looking forward to being with her for almost three years. We met when we were twenty, and got married when we were both just short of turning twenty-three. That’s a long,longtime to wait. And then when the moment finally comes, she was tense, scared, and not into it atall. It was just…hard. Upsetting.”
“Did it ever get better?”
He shrugs. “Not really. Which is the point of me telling you this. I hoped that with time and experience, she’d loosen up and learn to enjoy it—learn to enjoy our relationship. But she just…never did. She wasn’t…cold, not at all. She was a kind, warm, amazing, sweet, affectionate, wonderful woman. She just wasn’t interested in sex at all. She never got past seeing sex as a duty. Once a month, on Sunday evening. She would brush her hair out, put on some makeup, take her clothes off, and just sort of sit on the bed waiting for me. After a while, I sort of stopped trying to involve her, to make it feel good for her, any of that. She just wanted me to finish as quickly as possible and get it over with.”
I shake my head. “Wow. Just…wow.”
“That’s how it was, for a long time.” He sighs. “For our whole marriage.”
“Once a month? Get it over with, good night?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah. Pretty much. Once, a friend of mine got married and I was in the wedding party. Open bar, and she got a little tipsy. That night was the one and only time she ever loosened up and seemed like she had an inkling of what it could be. But she felt so awful the next day about drinking that she vowed to never drink again, and she didn’t.”
I groan on his behalf. “Ugh.”
He laughs. “Yeah, ugh. So, my point in all this is that I really have no experience with a woman who desires and enjoys sex. Up until my wife—my ex—my only experiences were the frantic, hurried, fumbling experiences of a teenage boy.”
I blink, suck in a breath, and try to sort through and filter the wild tumult of thoughts and feelings inside me. It takes me so long to figure what to say, where to start, that Jamie eyes me with confusion and amusement in his eyes.
“What, Elyse?” he asks. “Saysomething.”
“I’m trying. I have so many thoughts and feelings right now that I don’t know where to start.”
“Anywhere. Say anything.”
“Anything?”
He nods. “At this point, Elyse, I just need you to…I don’t know—open up to me, whatever that looks like, even a little bit.”
I wince at the pained, strained, hurt desperation in his voice. “Jamie, I—”
He cuts in. “I know, Elyse. I get why you’ve been pushing me away. I really do. I don’t like it, it hurts, but I get it. But at this point, considering…? I think you need to trust me at least alittlebit. Even if it’s just a response to everything I just shared.”
I owe him that much, don’t I? A response, at least.
I blow out a long slow tense breath. “Okay. Okay.” I shake my head, as if the movement could dislodge my thoughts and turn them into words. “I think—when you and I had sex, I would never have guessed that your sex life was so…shitty, for lack of a better word. You were attentive, responsive, and…and you made me feel beautiful. Desired. You were focused on me in a way I wasn’t used to.” Now that I’ve started talking, words begin tumbling out in a flood. “My experience was with a husband who was…well, your ex would’ve been happy with him, I think. He was interested in very little other than getting to the finish as quickly as possible, and he never gave a single thought about how that may have felt for me, or for what I wanted.”
“Yeah, she’d have been cool with that,” Jamie says, bitterness ripe in his voice.
“After he and I split up, I was…lonely. And…needy. But with Aiden being so young and so messed up from Daniel leaving that I couldn’t spare the time or attention to even think about dating. Before Daniel, I’d been…not exactly adventurous, but I did have enough fun to discover that I really liked sex.” I feel things emerging that I’ve never talked about, even with Cora. “I, um…things with Daniel were so crappy that I bought those toys to make myself feel good, because I needed it and I wasn’t getting it with him.” I blush. “I was also sort of ashamed. Or, not really ashamed, just…I don’t know.”
“Of needing to take for yourself what you should’ve been getting from your spouse?” He laughs ruefully. “I understand that more than you know. I did the same thing. I didn’t dare look at porn, because she’d have sussed that out faster than you can say sin, but I had to find relief more than once a month somehow, you know?”
I nod. “Yeah. For me, it was books. I read romance books on my Kindle, and that provided the mental stimulation I needed to get myself there.” I blushed harder, hiding my embarrassed grin behind a hand. “I hid the toys. I had a little purse I never used in my closet, and I knew Daniel would never look in any of my purses, so I’d hide them in there. I would tell Daniel I needed a few minutes for a shower, and I’d turn on the water and sit on the toilet and…” I shrug, blushing harder than ever, giggling. “You know. Then, when we split, I didn’t have to hide them.”
