“It’s okay,” I reassure him. “That didn’t hurt.”
He rests his forehead against mine, our noses aligned. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”
I shift, spreading my legs to create more space, à la happy baby pose. After months of yoga, I still feel stupid doing it. Fortunately, though, it makes a noticeable difference in relaxing my pelvic floor.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Harrison’s eyes widen as he feels my muscles relax, and he pushes forward more. I feel an uncomfortable pressure, and he must see me wince because he starts to shift as if he’s going to pull out, then stops himself.
“Okay. It’s okay. I’m frozen,” he says, reassuring himself as much as he’s reassuring me. “I’m not moving until you tell me to.”
I steady myself, prying my eyes open to meet his. “I’m good. I’m good, I promise. Keep going.”
Unexpectedly, he smiles, dimples forming. “I can’t keep going.”
“Oh, uh—okay,” I stutter. “Yeah, you can pull out slowly.”
He smiles wider. “I can’t keep going because I’m all the way in.”
I freeze, my eyes widening. He smiles at my obvious shock, leaning forward to give me another kiss, then another, and then another. When he pulls back, there’s a wet spot on the side of his face.
“Sorry,” I say. “I don’t know why I’m crying. I’m doing great.”
“Actually, they’re my tears,” he says, chuckling. And he’s right—his eyes are red-rimmed, and my own eyes feel dry.
I kiss a tear off his cheek. “I hope these are happy tears?”
“Something like that,” he murmurs. My pelvic floor seizes up briefly, but we both breathe through it. “Happy tears, proud tears, general emotional tears. I don’t know.”
“I’ll take it.”
He looks down to where our bodies are connected, then meets my eyes again. “Tell me how it feels.”
How do you describe the sensation to someone who doesn’t have vaginismus, let alone someone who doesn’t have a vagina? It feels like I just lifted a heavy weight, and now my muscles are tense and sore and also actively burning. But not in a burned-by-boiling-water way—more like a sandpaper way, like it’s super dry down there, except I know it’s not dry because we used a metric shit-ton of lube and also because I was super close to finishing before we did this.
“Honestly?” I say. “A little uncomfortable, but mostly just really vulnerable and really embarrassing.”
“I know it’s hard,” he says, leaning forward and kissing my forehead. “But you know what?”
“What?”
“I think you are so incredibly sexy.”
A surprised laugh erupts from me, sending my pelvic floor into another fit of spasms. Harrison and I breathe through it together.
“Yeah, that’s super sexy, isn’t it?”
He tilts his head, thinking, then begins murmuring in my ear in between kisses:
“The happy sighs you make when I kiss you.
The way your body fits perfectly against mine.
The way you look when we go out to dinner.
And the way you look when we wake up in the morning.
