“Lydia says she wants what I want,” I told Luke, just jumping into it. Sometimes you had to act before the stage fright could catch up to you. “Aren’t I supposed to want what she wants too?” If she wanted to have sex and I didn’t, wasn’t sleeping together once or occasionally meeting in the middle? Everybody said relationships were about compromise. That was the compromise.
He thought about it while painting poorly. Didn’t know it was a trick question. “I guess,” he decided. Except he didn’t sound very decided.
“Why wouldn’t it work both ways?” I swiped my brush forcibly. It felt satisfying and I’d paint over it in a second.
“It does, but that doesn’t mean you have to actually do everything she wants.” He gave me a meaningful look though I didn’t quite know what he meant. “That’s too much power, especially for someone like Lydia.”
“Hey,” I felt the need to protest.
“It’s true,” he insisted.
“Yeah, but still hey.” Lydia acted uncaring and uncompromising. She mostly was. Still, the side Luke saw of her might be a bit different from the one I did.
“The tricky thing,” Luke said philosophically, “Would be when what you want and what she wants are at odds.”
I had the urge to slam my head into the wall even though I had recently been painting it and rationally understood it was nowhere near dry yet. “Obviously,” I replied with incredible restraint. That was, like, the entire situation. Her on one end and me on the other. The tone and the look I sent him were very disdainful, my Joanne from Company look.
God, Ryan must love him to put up with his obliviousness.
Luke didn’t flinch under my judgement. “It helps me to talk things out,” he informed me seriously. Did I need to be involved in that process? I guess not. He kept going. “You’re willing to do something for Lydia.” He lowered his voice when he said something, like he was afraid Ryan’s dad would hear, even though ‘something’ wasn’t a dirty word and could have meant anything. “That counts obviously, but it doesn’t mean she has to take you up on it.”
He went back to painting. That was it?
“I don’t have to take her up on her offer either,” I pointed out. If it could be called that. She seemed to assume how our relationship would work. I would be mad, how our relationship works should be a joint decision, but I might have done the same thing.
“Her offer to not have sex?” He thought over his words, stopping his brushstrokes entirely like he couldn’t both paint and process information at the same time. “That’s just,” he continued slowly. “Kind of weird?” Didn’t even sound like he was sure about that.
I clutched my brush tighter and kept it still to avoid the overwhelming temptation to paint his face.
“Because, like,” he continued. “You guys aren’t having sex right now?” He had to mean in a grander sense because— “Like, literally in this moment.” I was obviously not literally having sex. “Where you’re with me in a public place.”
…
“Oh my god,” I told him with feeling. I moved to slam my head into the wall, paint be damned, but he caught me before I could. Must be those fast baseball player reflexes. He was totally getting paint all over my shirt, but this was an old shirt I wore specifically for this activity.
“I’m just saying!” Luke’s face looked embarrassed again, but he kept going anyway. “Not having sex is, like, the natural state. You don’t have to do anything. That’s just how things are. To do sex, that’s what requires the effort.” He might make a good actor as he could plow on while saying ridiculous things.
“You just said to do sex,” I pointed out. Did I have to take someone seriously who said that? If so, that might be the greatest acting challenge I ever faced.
“I’ll say it again,” Luke said while raising his head defiantly. “To do sex, that’s a big commitment. What’s the harm in waiting until both of you are totally, completely sure? That’s just what couples do, right? Why should that be different in your situation?”
It’s not that what Luke said was wrong. Shockingly. However, he was new to this. Lydia was too. I guess even I was but… I still knew how this went.
“To wait until we’re ready and we’re both sure we want this.” When he nodded, I continued, “Wait for a day that would never come. There’s never going to be a time when I want this the same way she does.” Why had I believed Luke when he said talking about this might help? Ugh. “Look, you don’t understand how this works.”
“I never understand how anything works,” he responded easily. “So you should probably just skip to the part where you explain it to me.”
I almost smiled but that didn’t make explaining any easier.
Did I say painting was boring? Painting was fascinating. I focused intently on dragging my brush up and down in smooth, even strokes while I spoke. “I’m not sure I’d ever be comfortable with having sex. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t have it someday. That’s pretty much how it goes.” Whether it was Lydia or the next person.
Us ace folk weren’t a large percentage of the population by any means, but everything was online these days. I belonged to a few communities on the internet. Yes, there were ace people older than me who had never had sex before. And then there were the people who had sex when they didn’t realize they were asexual and it had been super underwhelming and was never quite right and that was usually one of the big signs they were ace, but…
Even aside from the whole having children thing, the people that were in committed, long-term relationships? With people who weren’t asexual? Yeah, a lot of them had sex before.
“No one is like Lydia,” I continued. “That’s what I love about her.” I felt guilty then, for grouping her in with others. “But she’s not the first person to date someone asexual, to be all ready and willing to make sacrifices only to find out the reality wasn’t worth it.”
If I wanted to keep her, we’d have to work something out. We’d have sex on bank holidays or the first of the month or something, like going to a dinner with the in-laws or attending baseball games in the case of Ryan for Luke. Maybe it wouldn’t be great—I couldn’t imagine it being great—but that didn’t mean it would be completely terrible. There would still be the stimulation, the release.
