Eyes Wide Open
She left me trembling. Her hands slipped away, and I felt like I had been born again, blood pounding in my ears, my chest desperately rising and falling as though my diaphragm was trying to escape with my lungs. I didn’t need it, I had wanted it, and she knew. First, just a hand on mine, then a kiss, and another, making their way up my arm until she reached my clavicle. Then down, to my stomach, and up again, up my back this time, ending on my nape. It was only then that we kissed.
It was immediately enough to spiral my mind away, cast off into a place where it felt like I was outside of myself. Being lead up towards a beige cotton couch with stuffing falling out, next to a table covered with wine glasses, cd cases, and stained manilla folders. A fan spins lazily on the lowest setting above us, until she finds the logistics of our current intimacy unsuitable to the environment. You can hear it in my voice now, it happens even as I try to share it. The disconnect. I have to fight to be here, in this moment with you, as much as I fought to not be in the moment then.
Men assume women don’t have sexual desires like they do. But they’re wrong. They’re both contemporary and parallel. People are horrified when young girls are abused by their teachers, but when a young boy is the victim the reaction is completely different. You might assume by this I accuse people of having a double standard, but any talk with a teenage girl will tell you that they are just as lustful as a teenage boy. You can infer from this what you will.
Either way, for a long time I assumed I was asexual, I think I might have made myself asexual by repressing my sexuality, my desire for her. A big part of me wanted it. What does that make what happened to me? What we had? Later on I was a prolific womaniser, but completely abandoned almost any encounter that lead to sex. Denying them what I had ‘promised’ them was mirroring how I denied myself, through dissociation, denying my own experience of pleasure, like I have done with alcohol and so many other things. Good luck taking any of that to court.
We’re in her bedroom now. She’s running her fingers up and down my body, kissing me. She whispers something in my ear but I don’t really want to repeat it, it’s too embarrassing. Shame, or guilt? Shame. She’s touching me, and I’m touching her back. Foreplay. Boring. Skip. I begin to tremble, and she slows down, she whispers more things to me. She coaxes me, then I freeze up and stare; I can see myself standing beside the bed, watching us. You and I lock eyes. She whispers something into your ear again, and frowns. Moving back a little she shakes you, but you and I are still looking at one another. Don’t you dare look away. If you look away you might feel something good. The slap is playful, but it still hurts. Looking up at her now, you smile, and apologise. You tell her how nice it feels, and kiss her. You tell her you love her.
Looking at it from the outside, it seems like she only smiles, or makes gratifying noises, when she knows you can see her, and she can see you. It seems as much when she moves her hips it is not so much just for pleasure, but the pleasure that also comes from seeing you enjoy yourself. Was she trying to give me something, was that pleasure a gift, just like Milese treated it from half a decade later? For her sex, pleasure, is a gift, because it’s the only way she can understand what was done to her. Maybe that’s precisely what I’m doing, except I’m not giving it, I’m hoarding my own for myself. Denying the entire world of my sex to spite it in the same way I spited myself. The same way I ultimately spited my girlfriends by avoiding my own pleasure with them. How masochistic I was, acting as a giver.
I’m really shaking now, we’re holding hands, and she can tell I’m going to cum soon. She puts her other hand on my face and smiles, but instead of finding the words too embarrassing to repeat, they are missing. When I come she slows down a lot, grinding her hips down on me. She’s grinning, but I am not there. She’s so sweet when it comes to sex most of the time. It’s very overwhelming for me, I’m very sensitive when it comes to physical sensations, emotional too now I come to think of it, and so she does a lot of the work. The Greeks would call that gay.
I can’t feel anything when I come. I can see the orgasm moving through my body, but I am not there. I am not even watching, I am crouched on the floor, unable to watch, plugging my ears against our moans.
She gets off, and I lie there for a long time. Trembling and paralysed, until I get up and crawl back into my own body.