#110 - What's Sex Got to do With it?

Today’s words: Physical, Honeymoon, Gin, Snow

Word count: 517

Completion time: 50 minutes

Summary: Sex is not mandatory, and it never will be.

--

Somebody once told me it didn’t count as a real relationship unless things got physical...you know, if they had sex. They said it may as well be another form of friendship, something masquerading as romance. Masquerading, heh.

I imagined a masked ball full of elegantly-dressed couples dancing under chandeliers, maroon and gold curtains lacing the walls. Everybody’s having a great time when suddenly, someone shrieks. The music stops, and all eyes are on a couple whose masks have fallen off. Underneath the masks are a couple who were not supposed to be there – the ball was strictly Real Couples Only, and everyone knew that they hadn’t had sex.

Next level is off-limits; please touch genitals to advance.

This fool masquerading as a relationship guru happened to be dating my friend, and after the “painful, sexless” honeymoon period, only one thing was on his mind. So, over a bottle of gin, he asked as casually as he could, when they were going to do it – not if, but when. I was there when this happened, him thinking nothing of discussing it in my presence.

“You said you’d think about it, so what’s your answer?”

My friend knotted her eyebrows and looked at the table. “Could we discuss this later?” Her blue eyes looked towards the exit.

“You always say that. If I keep going along with this, I’ll never get laid.” He raised his eyebrows and smiled. “You’re like the sun...and I’m like snow. You’re killing me, baby.”

How poetic.

Her eyes widened and it felt like my jaw locked; I wanted to tell him to fuck off, to leave my poor friend alone, but I couldn’t get the words out.

She looked like a defenceless mouse but managed to say: “I’m not doing this here.”

Two months ago, she told me about meeting this “really sweet guy” on Tinder. He asked for her bra size before he asked how she was, but apparently that’s just what guys were like on there. Aside from that, I was assured that he was extremely sweet.

“You’re not doing it at all, apparently,” he continued.

I put a hand on his arm. “If you want sex so bad, why not find someone who actually wants it?”

“I know she wants it,” he said quickly. “She said ‘maybe’ so many times...’maybe’s turn into ‘yes’s eventually.”

“No they don’t,” she said. “’Maybe’ means ‘maybe’. I’m not comfortable with it, so drop it.”

“Look.” I still held onto his arm. “Clearly she doesn’t want to. Your words aren’t magic dust, so stop trying to convince her.”

He looked at me like I was speaking Korean, but I continued.

“Maybe she’ll change her mind, maybe she won’t, but don’t you dare act like you deserve it.”

She stopped running her fingers through her hair and smiled. “Thanks.” Her facial expression changed when she looked at him. “You knew what I was like before you got with me, so why are you being like this? You can’t change me.”

Thankfully, they broke up a few days later.

Sex is not mandatory, and it never will be.

#64 - They Won't Have Me (part 2; final)

Today’s words: Origin, Yield, Zeitgeist, Yenta

Word count: 950

Completion time: N/A – this story was thought about since I wrote the first part

Summary: Two completely different people meet each other unexpectedly

For more in-depth information on asexuality, go to http://www.asexuality.org/home/. No one asexual person is exactly the same as another.

 ** Part 1 **

--

He stared at the new phone contact and wrinkled his brow. Alexis.

He wondered: was it normal to ask for the number of a girl, a stranger, who had tried to have sex with him? Had he just felt guilty that he didn’t yield to her impromptu advances?

The phone vibrated, ceasing any further thoughts.

‘hey! u free this evening?’

~

The mood inside the carriage of the underground train was the same as ever, but David was uneasy about what was going on. Yes he had agreed to meet her, at a cocktail bar; yes he had met her less than 24 hours ago; and yes, he thought he might be harbouring some feelings for her which was ridiculous because he didn’t know anything about her, her origin, what she cared about, which position she slept in, if she liked cats or not...

He knew it was irrational and stupid and pointless and a bunch of other negative words, but she intrigued him. He concluded that it was something to do with the look in her eyes just before she’d said her name. It felt like they had wordlessly exchanged secrets in a language meant just for them.

But...she had tried to have sex with him. What if she tried to take him back to her place?

He swore under his breath and stared at a Durex advert pasted by the ceiling. “If it gets to that, I’ll just be honest.”

~

The agreed meeting place was on a side street in Shoreditch, off of the main road. Lacey’s Cocktail Bar. A generously-sized place that looked a little like an American diner with more booths and sofas. After stepping onto the slight ledge and opening the door, he looked around and tried to spot her. She had shoulder-length brown hair in an asymmetrical bob, and he was sure she had a mole by her eye...but on second thoughts, it could have been make-up.

“David, right?” a voice from behind him asked unsurely.

Turning around, he saw her standing there in a cream jumper and a flower-print above-knee skirt. “Yeah, right. Alexis?”

She nodded, walking past him and motioning for him to follow. “You have got to try the Sex on the Beach they do here, it’s,” she paused, looking up to the ceiling and back at him, “delectable.”

~

“Sorry, what’s a yenta?”

“Oh,” she put her drink down and leaned forwards, “someone who gossips...kinda nosey, you know? A German friend asked me if I knew what it was once, before proceeding to bitch about someone who had two men on the go,” she laughed and bit on her black straw, “that was a few seconds before she realised who she was talking to.”

A red flag flew up. “Oh?”

“I’m not a slut,” she sipped some more of the multi-coloured cocktail, “I just like sex.”

“Fuck,” David thought, not sure if the word had made it out of his head or not. “Yeah?” he added, in case it had.

“Yeah. I mean...who doesn’t, really? I mean, really,” she raised an eyebrow.

His heart beat nervously. “I...don’t really get it...why do people like it so much?”

She studied his face. “What?”

“My mum used to call me someone who retained the zeitgeist of the 18^th century, assuming I was waiting for marriage, assuming I was still a virgin.”

“Well,” she finished the rest of the drink and clasped her hands on the table, “I like it because it brings two people together closer than...probably anything else.”

False, he thought. “What about...hugging? Falling asleep together? Holding hands? Sharing yourself,” a pause, “emotionally?”

“Nothing beats an orgasm. Haha,” she laughed, trying to assess his expression, “are you a sex critic or something?”

“No...I’m asexual.”

~

After listening to his basic explanation of what being ‘asexual’ meant, she looked at him, tilting her head and furrowed her brow. “So...you just don’t have sex? Because you don’t want to?”

“It’s more like,” he searched for the right words, “I never feel the desire to, so it isn’t really a choice, it just how I feel. Not everyone has to like or want sex, right?”

She nodded slowly. “I guess, but I’d never thought of it like that before – never having sex...” she looked into the distance like she was trying to figure out a complex maths equation.

He figured he’d just go for it, say what he really wanted to say. “I don’t want to be presumptuous, and it’s probably this horrible-tasting cocktail, but I felt something with you last night, and I don’t know if it was imagined or what but...fuck, what I’m trying to say is, can you imagine spending time with me if you’re probably never going to have sex with me? Because if that’s what this is, you’re looking at the wrong guy.” He looked down into his drink and played with the straw.

“As long as we’re being honest...”

He reluctantly looked up.

 “...Yeah, I did want to,” she bit her lip, almost apologetically, “but if it’s never going to happen, I guess I’ll need to see how I feel about you. After all, we just met, and I’m not about to give up a big part of my life for someone I don’t know yet.”

“Don’t feel like you need to agree to anything with me,” he said quickly.

“Same here!” she raised her eyebrows as she said that. “I’m not about to try and change your mind. This works both ways.”

“Cool.”

“And I’m sorry about last night...I assumed...”

He put a hand out. “It’s okay,” he smiled, “it was kind of funny.”

“I guess, yeah.”

They both laughed.

“Soooo...” David began. “Do you like cats?”

#63 - They Won't Have Me (part 1)

Today’s words: Acquiesce, Whetstone, Fellatio, Soliloquy

Word count: 768

Completion time: N/A – research and things got in the way, but I started research at 8pm (4 hours ago)

Summary: Two completely different people meet each other unexpectedly

Part 2 will be written with a different selection of words on 17/11.

For more in-depth information on asexuality, go to http://www.asexuality.org/home/. No one asexual person is exactly the same as another.

--

This couple’s relationship would likely end with disaster or unfulfillment, feuding families or poison aside. That’s not to say that it was wrong or bad for them to get together, it just wasn’t ideal, especially at the beginning.

The first person in the couple was Alexis – a confident twenty-one year old who apparently had had more sexual partners than Russell Brand. Every night out would result in at least one sexual encounter, and if she went home empty-handed, she’d collapse onto her bed, close her eyes, and pretend that her Rampant Rabbit was that guy in the club who had definitely been making ‘come to bed’ eyes at her. Exhausted and temporarily satisfied, she’d sleep and probably have erotic dreams to prolong the fantasy.

At the beginning of puberty, Alexis developed a higher sex drive that normal; she found it inconvenient and incredibly frustrating, but it was what it was.

The second person in the couple was David – an energetic twenty-three year old who had only had sex once (when he thought it would be rude not to acquiesce) and never wanted to again. In school, it went around that guys thought about sex every few seconds, so David found it strange that he never thought of it (in that way) at all. Nearly any time he found a promising relationship, the bond would be tested when he said that he didn’t want to have sex; instead of understanding, a lot of them would take it personally – “You don’t find me attractive?” He did find them attractive, just not sexually, which is completely separate from aesthetic or romantic attraction. As a teenager, he would constantly try to make himself think ‘normally’, like a whetstone sharpening a dull knife, but it wouldn’t work – he just wasn’t sexually interested in anyone, he was asexual.

David would often perform a ritualistic soliloquy in front of his mirror before he went to work that went a little something like:

“There is nothing wrong with me, it’s everyone else that makes me feel wrong. I am not broken, unnatural, or incomplete, I am me and this is who I am. Ignore people that try to make me feel bad about it – it’s something that I can’t help. I am just as valid as my friends and anyone else who wants to have sex. Sex is not the be all and end all of any relationship and it never should be.”

So how did these two people meet? At a house party hosted by a mutual friend. There was alcohol, public displays of affection, loud voices, louder music, and in the host’s room, Alexis was joined in the room by David.

Alexis propped herself up on the bed with both hands beside her. “Hey,” she began, trying to figure out who he was, “you’re not the guy I said to meet me here. I’m pretty sure he was blonde...”

David’s heart jumped uncertainly and he looked to where the voice came from. Sat on the bed in a red strappy top and black fitted skirt was a girl he didn’t recognise but who he immediately thought was beautiful. “And...this room isn’t empty,” he said, bashful but confused.

“What made you come up here?”

“I need to go, and the coats are all up here,” he explained, walking towards the pile of coats next to Alexis.”Sorry, it should be somewhere underneath all these...”

“Don’t leave,” she said, putting a hand on David’s as he went to reach for the coats.

He stopped moving his hands and said, avoiding eye contact, “What are you doing?” His hand tingled uncomfortably.

Her eyes flicked up to his and she gave him a look that she voiced out loud: “What do you think?”

David didn’t move from the spot he was in as Alexis began to pull her top over her head.

“Hey!” David exclaimed, holding onto her hands. “Don’t.”

“Oh,” she put her top back down, “you want fellatio?” she questioned, putting on a ‘posh’ accent and getting on her knees. “I can do that, too.”

He backed away and knelt down so they were on the same level. “I don’t want that either. Listen, I really do have to go right now, but, fuck...do you want to exchange numbers? I’m not gonna have a chance to talk to you, so...”

She stared at him, slightly open-mouthed before laughing and putting a hand to her forehead. “I really don’t usually do this, but yeah why not...you look a little like Orlando Bloom.”

“I do?”

“Orlando Bloom in Pirates of the Caribbean,” she continued to stare. “I’m Alexis.”

“David.”