Decadence (13 page)

“If you walked in on me
watching gay porn I doubt you’d dismiss that as me
just watching
something
.”

I ignored his seriousness, the sarcasm in his
tone, tried to lighten the mood a little. “What? You trying to tell
me something?” I asked him, laughing a little.

My muscles were spent, I was convinced my
bones were jelly and if I attempted to get up I’d fall right back
down. I was tired. I’d cum so hard I knew if I laid down on his bed
and shut my eyes I’d be in dreamland for at least an hour, but I
knew if he dropped his jeans and exposed a massive hard on right
then and there I’d be game. I’d welcome it. I’d welcome him with
open arms and spread legs. But his mood hadn’t seemed to be letting
up.

“What if one of my housemates had come back
here instead of me and heard you doing…what you were just
doing…huh? What if one of them had walked in and seen you?”

That was back during the time when he’d been
staying in an off campus three bedroom apartment, sharing it with
two other guys in his graduating class, splitting the rent three
ways. None of the others minded that I had a key to the place, none
of them minded that I sometimes spent the night. I didn’t
understand his complaint, especially since he knew they were gone
for the entire weekend to South Beach and they were hardly going to
turn around because anyone forgot their keys since they’d left the
night before.

“Baby,” I started cautiously because
obviously he was upset and I was in no mood to argue right then.
“They’re gone. Remember? Besides, it’s not like they haven’t heard
us having sex before.”

“You don’t sound like that when you’re having
sex with me.”

“Yes I do.”

“If you have, I haven’t noticed it, and trust
me, I would’ve noticed hearing something like that.”

“Well, get over on the bed and we’ll see how
I sound today.” I sounded seductive to my own ears as I tried to
entice him.

It was during late spring when the time had
just changed and the days were stretching. It was seven in the
evening but the sun was still high in the sky. The sunlight was
coming through the open window in his bedroom strong and I was just
noticing the heat from it as I felt it on myself, gripping me,
pulling me into familiar territory as I felt the tiredness
evaporating from my body and being replaced with something else.
Something primal. Arousal. Arousal was primal, raw. I wanted sex. I
wanted to cum. Again. I wondered if every girl felt the same way I
did and they just weren’t talking about it since I’d never heard
those conversations.

“Get dressed,” was all he said. “I can’t even
look at you right now.”

I felt my eyebrows knit. I was thoroughly
confused, couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong.

I got up and put on my clothes, my overnight
bag which had been transformed into my weekend tote since I’d been
intending to stay with him from that Saturday up until Sunday. I’d
imagined two days of being naked, having the place to ourselves,
all that was on my mind was the many ways and places we could make
love with the others out of the apartment. To say I was
disappointed by his reaction would’ve been an understatement.

On my way out I found him in the kitchen,
leaning against one of the countertops, his hands on the surface,
his head down, face hung in a way where I couldn’t make out his
expression in the dim light of the space he was in with the lights
off. He hadn’t been saying a word, there was no drink in front of
him, no food. He was simply waiting for my departure in a space
where he didn’t have to look at me, where he could pretend I didn’t
exist.

I stepped closer to him in an attempt to try
and make some kind of amends before I walked out of the door.

“Just go, Lea.” He told me before I could
make my way over to him.

I left that day and didn’t hear from him for
a week. I’d called him over and over again. At one point it rang
until it went to voicemail, but eventually his voicemail was all I
got. I didn’t hear anything from him until the following Saturday
morning when he asked me out to breakfast.

I’d been prepared to be in charge then, state
my case and ask him what his issue was, but he blindsided me before
the waitress came back with our coffees.

“I think we need to take a break,” he said
matter-of-factly.

“What?” My mouth had instantly gone dry along
with my throat, my heart fell to the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t
believe what I was hearing.

“I don’t understand what it is that you’re
into, but I won’t be in a relationship with someone who’s
bisexual.”

“I’m not bisexual.”

“What do you call what I walked in on the
other day?” He practically spat the words at me. “You weren’t
watching women having sex? You weren’t turned on by seeing other
women having sex with one another? Because that’s what it looked
like to me. Then you offered to have sex with me right after. Those
are bisexual tendencies.”

I wanted to ask him what he knew about
bisexual tendencies at all, but I sucked in my breath, held my
tongue. I was offended, hurt that he hadn’t let me explain myself
days ago, hurt that he obviously didn’t care about me defending
myself until he passed judgment and made decisions that I didn’t
agree with.

“I don’t want,” I was frustrated and trying
to choose my words carefully since he obviously had the wrong
impression. “To be with a woman. Not like that. It’s just…a
fantasy…like a game in my head.”

“People act on fantasies.”

“Not everybody. Not everyone wants to do
everything they think about in their private thoughts in real life.
What you walked in on was…sort of private. But it was the kind of
private I didn’t think you’d mind. I thought you’d enjoy seeing
me…like that. You know? Why wouldn’t you?”

I wasn’t entirely sure if anything I said had
come out right, and he didn’t look satisfied.

“Those are the kinds of private thoughts you
have? Sex fantasies with other women?” his expression was nearly
unreadable, impassive, but it was also one that spoke of confusion.
Maybe he wanted to understand and just didn’t know how.

I took that as an opening.

“Those aren’t the only fantasies I have, you
know.” I let go of a sly smile, hoping that the air was clearing,
that he was understanding me. My tone was bordering more on the
teasing side of things. “How about this? You tell me your fantasies
and I tell you more of mine. Deal?”

It was an intimate invitation that I was
looking forward to, that I wanted to engage in. It was another side
to us as a couple, as lovers, as adults in an adult
relationship.

Ryan shook his head, dropped some money on
the table, pushed his chair back and stood up.

“I can’t do this. I can’t be a part of
something like this,” he looked at me, sorrow in his eyes as my
mouth dropped open but no words came out. “It’s over. Don’t call
me.”

He walked out and I called him immediately. I
saw him look down at his phone and end my call without looking back
at me as he walked away from the coffee shop.

That was our first breakup. The first of
many; the first of seven. My first real taste of his flaws, his
closed mindedness when it came to what I wanted in order to make me
happy, his stubbornness. One of his housemates called me couple of
days later and told me he’d come down with a bug, and broken up or
not I ran over to take care of him. I loved him regardless of how
he felt about me.

I wonder if we would’ve gotten back together
that first time if he hadn’t gotten sick. I wondered that a lot
over the years, if we would’ve ever gotten back together at all,
especially after we fought.

Now we were at a
crossroads where I could give in and put the ring back on, accept
what we were going through as just another breakup, or I could
follow through with what I’d started. We’d been together so long
and had been through enough with one another that Ryan saw our
fighting as one big mesh, just something that couples did from time
to time. To him, we were no different from anyone else. We had our
issues, we let them blow up in our faces, we yelled, we might take
a break, but we weren’t
really
going to breakup, not in
his eyes. Once flared tempers cleared, and things were back to
normal, he forgot what we fought about at all until the next fight.
Nothing got solved, nothing ever changed.

You couldn’t force someone to hear you; you
couldn’t force someone to listen. I knew that now. I understood
that.

And I didn’t expect him to change just for
me. He didn’t have to. I didn’t want him to, not anymore.

Just because he couldn’t give me what I
wanted didn’t make me think any less of him. For a lot of other
girls he was still the perfect guy, he could be that person for
them. He had wonderful qualities. He was genuinely a good man. But
he was also human, and every single one of us have flaws. Not all
of us were meant to be with one another.

The hotel room was beginning to feel
stifling. I needed to get this over with. I needed to say what I
had to say and walk away.

“Ryan, I am respecting your needs. Right
now,” I said as I stood up. “You need someone who will accept you
as you are, and so do I.”

“Don’t go.” He stepped in front of me, put
his arms on my shoulders. He looked torn, like a man being ripped
apart from the inside. “I’ll do it. Toys, watch…you know…whatever
you want with you. Let’s just talk this out.”

“That would be almost like
forcing you do it, and I don’t want to force you to have sex with
me the way I want to have sex,” I told him gently, glad for the
steadiness in my voice, the fact that the tears had stopped
flowing, and I’d found my bearings somehow. “I want someone who
will
want
to please me the way I want to be pleased. I think I
deserve that. Don’t you?”

He shook his head, his jaws tight, strain
written all over him. I felt bad, but not bad enough to give in and
give him what he wanted.

“One of these days you’re going to have to
realize that the world doesn’t revolve around your pussy. Fucking
somebody isn’t going to make them fall in love with you, and I’m in
love with you. I feel sorry for you because you can’t see
that.”

I took in his words, took them for his truth,
how he saw me and my situation and nodded my acknowledgment that
he’d spoken and I’d heard, and he may or may not have been right.
Whatever the case, I was done arguing. I was done feeling as if I’d
done something wrong just because I told him how I felt. I was done
being deprived as if it were an obligation of mine.

I sought freedom. I sought satisfaction. I
sought experience. None of which I could gain by staying with Ryan.
But I refused to be cruel and say those things that I felt. The
weak were cruel, the strong had no need to be. And if there was one
thing I knew, I wasn’t weak. Maybe I wasn’t as strong I wanted to
be, maybe I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was, but I knew I was
strong enough to walk out of that hotel room door without Ryan’s
ring on my finger. I knew what I had to tell him and there was no
turning back.

“Goodbye, Ryan.” I said just before I walked
out the door, letting it close behind me. I didn’t look back. The
farther I walked away, the lighter I felt.