7days7authors

Friday - Verbal Vulnerability by Peter W. Knox

I rolled over on my side to face her, adjusting the sweaty mass between my legs for comfort. Searching her expression for clues and finding none, I let out a sigh. “What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly that.”

“What? You know I love you.”

“I know you love me only because you tell me so.”

“And that isn’t enough?”

“No.” I watch her pout. She’s laying there, movie naked, where my worn light blue cotton sheets barely cover her chest. It’s a cool afternoon, the kind of day when fall is imminent but summer still lingers. The sun streaks through the dusty slates of my once white blinds, covering me with its warmth, but this time it hits like the familiar light of interrogation.

Wiping the post coital sweat from my forehead, I coyly return her expression, my lower lip jutting out in exaggeration. It works because she smiles and playfully punches me lightly in the arm that isn’t supporting the back of her head.

“No stupid, I’m trying to be serious.”

“Me too,” I respond. And as I do in stagnant situations, I tickle her under the sheets with my left hand, locking her head against my chest with my right. She can’t help but try to stifle her uncontrollable response to tickling. I can’t help but feel like not talking after an especially exhausting lovemaking session. “What do you want from me?”

“You know what I want. I’m trying to be serious here.” And I do know what she wants because she always gets like this. There’s a reason woman are stereotypically the more emotional ones in a relationship, since it’s practically always true.

“Every time we have sex you act like this. Why can’t we just relax and enjoy each other for once?”

“I don’t always act like this.” That’s a lie. “And I don’t want to just relax, I want to know that this means something.”

“No, you just want me to reassure you all the time because you’re insecure.” I relax my arm from around her and pull back slightly so she knows I’m tired of playing this game. The room is small and rectangular, but feels smaller than usual, the bookshelf and posters casually framing my double bed. With the ceiling light turned off, only the afternoon sun creates the cool and calm setting, and by retreating from her body, my exposed arm receives the room’s cooling breath.

She reacts by pulling me into her again. “Is that so bad that I want to hear from you? And especially after we have sex? Is that too much to ask?”

Early in our relationship, she had to deal with other girls always calling me to hook up. After hanging up and never returning their calls, the girls of my past managed to move on, but my girlfriend hasn’t put them out of her mind. It’s something I can understand, but not something I want to keep having to discuss.

It’s a fact that guys don’t want to talk too much after having sex because its one of those few moments during an absolute clarity of mind that guys aren’t thinking about having sex and might be truthful. Women try to take advantage of our scattered thoughts and verbal vulnerability by picking apart conversations, looking for discrepancies in semantics and continuity.

But she looks just as vulnerable and sensitive laying there, now on her side, brown hair spilling over my pillows and perky breasts poking out from beneath my thin sheets. I love her, or at least I think I do. How am I supposed to know if she is ‘the one for me’ or not? And even more so, how am I supposed to know if this is what ‘love’ feels like? Just because I haven’t felt this strongly about any of the girls I’ve been with doesn’t mean this is what she means when she says ‘love.’

“I love you. Is that okay?”

“Yes, but how do I know you love me?

“How am I supposed to answer that? The hours we’ve spent talking? The dates we went on and the times I’ve seen your parents? That we’ve been together for seven months? The flowers and bracelets I gave you? That during that time I haven’t so as much looked at another girl, because I only want you?”

I ended in a huff. I know there is no answer to that question, so why does she have to ask it? Exasperated, I fall deeper into my pillow, away from her pursed lips. Sometimes I wonder how we’ve made it seven months when it feels like all I do is defend my relationship to her – as if it hasn’t been enough convincing my friends to lay off me for dating someone steadily. At least the sex is steady for me, but it usually comes at the cost of these conversations.

She stays quiet for a while. Momentarily I feel bad for snapping at her honest question, but I’m confident any animal would do the same when trapped. The dorm room is small in comparison to hers, but since I don’t have a roommate, we’re over here most of the time, and she always complains because it’s cluttered and messy. Starring at the off-white ceiling, I sense her attempting to break through the uncomfortable awkwardness as her hand graces my chest.

“I’m sorry I made you mad. Everything you do for me is amazing and I don’t deserve to be with you - that’s why I get worried.”

The bed feels heavy with the weight of conversation. The comfort of ruffled sheets and sweat stained pillows can’t counteract the lack of material separating us from the mattress, and suddenly the strain on my spine jolts me to respond and grapple for a comfortable position.

“Yeah, well, I feel the same way. I just get worked up because I love you but it always feels like you don’t believe me. If I didn’t want to be with you, I wouldn’t.”

That seems to satisfy her, but only momentarily. She’s stroking my chest, and I’m breathing heavily, glad to have dodged the first round of questioning. I originally thought that with time our relationship would solidify, yet it’s currently as shaky as ever. The room is silent, only our irregular breathing hyphenates its pause. I can tell she’s thinking things over in her mind.

The second round begins: “Do you ever think about other girls?”

“What? That’s crazy. Think about other girls when?”

“Like when we’re having sex or you’re masturbating.”

“What kind of question is that? I’m not even going to answer that.” She’s sitting up in bed, clutching the sheet to cover her. I’ve resigned to lying on my back, ignoring her inquisitive stare.

She doesn’t give up. “That’s because you do think of other girls then.”

Her playground tactics work: “No, I don’t think of other girls.” I can barely relax, having fended that last attack, before the next.

“How many were there?”

I know what she means. “How many were where?”

“As in women that you’ve been with.”

Feigning ignorance, “Haven’t I told you before?”

“No, you’ve never told me.”

“You realize no good can come of this. Right now it’s already too late. If I don’t tell you, you’ll always wonder, and if I do, then you’ll never get it out of your head.”

We both knew what I had said was true, but the barrier had been crossed, the gauntlet thrown. For months I had been treading on eggshells, apprehensive as to when this day would come. She didn’t respond. She just merely laid her head on my chest awaiting the answer that only I knew.

“Are we talking strictly sex?”

“Uh … that’s what I figured, but yeah.”

“Then thirteen.”

“Thirteen girls? Am I thirteen?

“Oh, shit, fourteen.”

“Fourteen!”

She didn’t have to say any more than that to sufficiently let me know of her displeasure. But what could I do? Apologize for my life before I met her? I’m not unhappy at all with my life – there are no regrets for each of the fourteen women on that list. And I knew her number – three. I am the third person she’s been with and luckily for me, they are guys from home I don’t have to see around this campus. She’s already heard from her friends who else I’ve had sex with, she just didn’t know how many. She sees them everyday, and before today, she didn’t have to feel embarrassed to come later on the list.

“And what else?”

“What else is there?”

I could tell that my initial answer wasn’t going to be enough for her. She had a stammer in her voice.

“How many other girls are there?”

“You mean like girls I only did-“

“Yes. How many?”

She doesn’t want to know this; it’s just a follow-up question that cannot be ignored.

“I don’t know.” I’m counting in my head. “I guess I’d say ten or so more.”

“You guess?”

“No, I know.” She has to know. “It’s nine others.”

She’s no longer lying on my chest. She’s retreated to her side of the bed. By now the sun has moved, its redirected rays no longer on me but highlighting the space between my girlfriend and me. She pulls away from my outstretched arm and I remove it having received the hint. And I think, she brought this on herself. There’s nothing I can do about my past. Imagine if I had told her the real number.