Intimacy vs Ecstasy

Navigating toward comfortable togetherness, without losing the OMG

“The kids have that camp this weekend... Franc?” My husband didn’t look up from his phone. “Franc!” I repeated more loudly.

“Sorry?”

I rolled my eyes. “We can go out on Saturday night.”

“Ah oui. I suppose you want to go to the sex club?” he said.

I sighed. “Not really. It’s not worth it.”

He placed his phone on the kitchen bench and turned to face me. “Not worth going with me, you mean? It was fine for you to go by yourself.”

I paused, considering my next words carefully. “I told you, I just wanted to talk to the owner about those parties I’m interested in. I said before you went away that I might go.”

“You’re unbelievable,” he said, bitterly. “Why did you post that birthday message on Facebook, when you know I don’t like to spread my life across the Internet? Knowing you were going to the club that night?”

“I didn’t know I was going to go then,” I insisted, though I could see he didn’t believe me. I was really working at the honesty thing, but stepping into these moments was still terrifying.

“The worst part is that you didn’t tell me for over a week afterwards. It’s the same as with Rory. When you don’t tell me, I feel even more humiliated.”

“It was like two days, tops! I told you pretty much straight away. Would you prefer if I ruin your holiday?” I said. “You would’ve been thinking about only that for the rest of the time you were there.”

“Better to say what you have to say. I’m really stupid. I saw that there was an MFM night on, and I saw the wax on the bank app, and still, I thought, ‘no, she wouldn’t. It’s my birthday.’”

I crossed my arms, then quickly dropped them to my sides. “You always say you don’t care about birthdays.”

“But you do!” he cried. “You love to make everyone feel so special. One year, you made me pork belly from scratch. You, a vegetarian! That’s all over now.”

“What do you mean? That’s why I sent you the Facebook message! I wanted you to know I was thinking of you. The club was a bit of fun. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“So, why not tell me about it straight away?”

I stood there gaping at him like a fish.

“I didn’t want to argue,” I finally said.

“But arguing is good!”

I looked over to where the kids were watching their screens in the next room and stepped forward to open the cutlery drawer.

“Come on. Dinner’s ready.”

In the end, we decided not to go to the club on Saturday night. We went to a Vietnamese restaurant instead.

No sooner had the menus been handed over and we’d ordered a bottle of pinot noir, then the conversation drifted back to the same topics we’d been turning over since he got back from France.

“I think I don’t like to argue because it scares me,” I admitted. “When I was little, my dad used to get so mad over tiny things. I think I’m very sensitive to getting in trouble. Like, if we dropped a plate while washing the dishes, he would lose it. He didn’t hit us or anything, but he screamed at us until we cried. I mean, he always apologised, but the damage was done, you know?”

“I’m from the Mediterranean,” he said. “Arguing is in our blood. Better to get it out immediately than to let time go by—that just makes it worse.”

I nodded and looked up as the waiter placed two glasses on the table and filled them with slightly transparent red liquid.

“Have we decided what we want to eat?” she asked, pulling a notepad out of her apron pocket.

We picked up the menus and scanned the list hurriedly.

“If I could just trust that nothing I did could actually break us,” I continued after she walked away. “But I don’t know that. You keep saying that I should do what I want. But there will be consequences.”

“Everything has consequences,” he said. “But I can’t force you to care. You have to want to want to be here.”

“Of course I want to be here,” I said, frustrated. “Why do you keep pushing me out the door?”

“Because you obviously don’t want to be here. We’re a drag to you.”

“That’s not true. I hate it when you tell me what I think,” I said. “In the end, it’ll be a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Is that a threat?”

I exhaled audibly and took a sip of wine. “Why would I leave? We have a great life.”

“But it’s not special or unique to you. You could have this with anyone,”

“What, children?”

“Of course not,” he said. “Santé.”

“The sex,” I said, picking up my glass and clinking it with his before bringing it to my lips and then placing it gently back on the table. “Yeah, sex with other people is fun. You should try it, you might like it.”

“You think everyone can just do what you do. That it’s completely meaningless.”

“I don’t think anything,” I said. “I get that it’s special to you. But don’t you think it’s better now than it used to be? Remember how it was before? I always initiated. I would be gentle and kiss you and stroke you but you never got hard. It was so special and so intimate that we had to do it in the dark and we always finished ourselves off. So you took viagra, which made you hard, but then you never came. And the doctor told you nothing was wrong with you, anyway. Now, you lead. And it’s a bit more aggressive. But you’re hard as a rock and you come inside me. Isn’t that better?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you like? What is your fantasy, if you could have whatever you want?”

There was a long silence while he stared past the clear plastic that kept the drizzle out of the heated terrace, watching a tram rumble past on the street outside. “I can’t think,” he said, finally. “A lot of things are better left as fantasies. They don’t need to be acted out in real life.”

“Come on,” I pushed him. “What would be a first step?”

“I guess I would just like to be more comfortable in those situations,” he said. “Not to seize up completely.”

“OK,” I nodded.

“You go too fast,” he said. “You think that if I’m not up to your level instantly…” He clicked his fingers from side to side in the air, “that it’s not worth it. Best to go off without me.”

“It is easier,” I chuckled, then quickly cleared my throat and took another sip of wine. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have gone. It wasn’t even that good. I shouldn’t have done most of the things I’ve done, really. Maybe I should just stop all this nonsense altogether.”

“Your solution is always to stop everything. It’s always all or nothing.”

“You know I’m making this up as I go along, right? Lots of people have open relationships and it works fine. They can share intimacy with more than one person. What’s the big deal?”

“That’s sad to me,” he said.

“Why? It’s just one aspect of our lives. It’s not everything. We have so much else going on that’s shared. We’ve both grown a lot in our careers. The kids are getting bigger. We have property now.” I brought the glass to my lips and smiled through the sip. “This might just be an evolution to a new normal. Oh, thank you.” I paused and accepted the bowl of noodles that had just been placed on the table in front of me.

To anyone watching, we would have made perfect sense. Two people completely at ease with one another. A conversation that flowed. When one poured a fresh glass, both glasses were filled. We tasted each others’ meals and laughed at each others’ jokes. The kind of couple that doesn’t date on Valentine’s Day because they have the rest of the year to eat out at regular prices without the crowds.

No one would guess that our relationship had reached that pivotal moment that every relationship reaches sooner or later, given enough time—the point where we start to show parts of ourselves that don’t fit the image we held of who the other is. Those dark corners that have somehow remained hidden until now. And we have to decide whether we can accept those things and keep to our shared path, or if the flaws and differences are sufficient to break us apart.

I picked up my chopsticks and fondled them between my fingers absent-mindedly, looking at him critically across the table. All my previous relationships had ended when contempt crept in. Not only did I no longer feel attracted to the person, but I resented their presence. Everything they did annoyed me. I didn’t want to be associated with them. Would this happen again? Could it?

No.

He was still the baby-faced man I’d fallen in love with. Looking at him was like looking in a mirror. I could no more feel contempt for him than I could myself. He was family. I always wanted him around. I missed him when he was gone. I needed to run everything by him before making decisions. He was my guy.

I wondered if he still felt the same, despite everything.

“Lucie told me to be careful,” he said, breaking my silent reverie. “When we first met you.”

“Oh? Why?”

“I remember it well,” he continued. “On the bus away from your village in China, she said to watch out for my heart. You were this girl living all alone in this town with no other foreigners, just sitting on your couch playing guitar and writing out Chinese characters in a notebook all day. She said you might break my heart.”

“Huh,” I replied, finishing off my glass and refilling, then topping his up. “I can see that. But I don’t think this counts. We’ve stayed together for years and years. I didn’t use you and throw you away or anything.”

“That’s true.”

“This is more about resisting society’s expectations of what a relationship should look like. I guess knowing that I was someone who would move to the middle of China by myself should have given you a clue that I don’t always follow the ‘correct’ path.”

“I don’t expect you to. I don’t think I’m that traditional,” he said.

“Well,” I tipped my head to one side. “Kind of.”

“What?”

“No, nothing. You’re right.”

I didn’t want to go down this path. There was too much to say. Too many things that he’d resist and deny and I’d doubt myself and question everything. I don’t even want to write it out here because he reads these posts and it would start arguments today if I talked about some of these thoughts.

Oh my god this is so hard.

Trying to tell this story, to put myself back into the scene. The meal. The restaurant. The conversation.

And what’s significant about this particular night? Why am I even telling this story?

That’s coming.

We had an extra drink at the bar before going home.

We were still arguing as we came through the garage door into the kitchen.

About how I’d betrayed him, not by fucking other people, but by leaving him behind.

How he was humiliated.

Cuckold.

“Why don’t you just leave me then?” I asked, facing him across the tiles.

“What? And only see the kids once every two weeks? Like your father? There’s no way,” he said.

“We could figure something out if we really wanted to,” I said. “But it makes more sense to be together. Doesn’t it?”

“I just want to go back to France. I’ve wasted my life being here! We were only supposed to stay a couple of years. It’s been 15! I’ll never get that time back!”

“I’m sorry you feel like the years with me have been wasted,” I said bitterly.

“That’s not what I mean,” he said, softening. “But you are obviously unhappy.”

“What? No, I’m— Why do you keep putting words in my mouth?”

“You must be. Or you wouldn’t do these things.”

“That’s not what it’s about.”

“Well, what then? What is— What are you doing?”

I had pulled my top over my head and was starting to remove my bra. I looked up at him from under lowered brows. “What do you mean?”

“Stop that.”

“Why?” I shifted my shoulders back and let the bra fall to the floor. I moved my right hand to the button on my jeans.

“It’s… I was saying somethi…”

I wriggled my jeans down to my ankles and lifted one foot and then the other to push the legs off along with my socks.

Slightly shorter without my shoes, I faced him with a soft smile, wearing nothing but my black cotton underwear.

“Are you not attracted to me anymore?” I asked.

“I… Of course…”

“Don’t you want to touch me?”

I turned around and leaned forward on the bench, waiting. Nervous that he might say no. Might say that if this wasn’t only his feast, that he didn’t want it anymore.

But he crossed the distance between us and gripped the sides of my underwear and lowered them partway down my thighs.

He put one hand on my back and ran the other across my round cheeks. He slapped one gently.

“Ah,” I said, reassuringly. “That’s nice.”

He grinned, still visibly uncomfortable, but slapped me a little harder.

Stepping back, he undid his belt and folded it in half.

Our eyes met over my shoulder. “Is it OK?” he asked.

I nodded. “Not too hard.”

He tapped me with the leather strap, so lightly I could barely feel it. “Too much?”

I laughed. “No.”

He tapped me a few more times before undoing his pants the rest of the way and moving behind me.

I was slightly too short to bend cleanly over the bench, so I stood on tiptoes to try to give him a good angle but it was awkward and tricky to get it right.

After a few rounds of rearranging, a few pumps, then repeating the process, I stood up. “Come on,” I said, reaching out to grip his hand. We moved to the bedroom, leaving my clothes sprawled across the kitchen floor.

I perched on the edge of the bed.

He stood looking at me, his pants undone but penis back behind the cloth of his boxer shorts.

“Would you like me to…” I murmured, lowering my body between him and the bed and dragging his pants down at the same time. When he didn’t resist, I took him into my mouth, working him back up with both the movement of my head and hand. The effort of trying to get inside me in the kitchen had softened him slightly.

I could hear him responding and feel his hands in my hair, gently guiding but not controlling. He was clean and dry but for my fresh saliva; he’d never produced much pre-cum.

Eventually, I paused and he helped me to my feet.

I opened the draw in the bedside table and pulled out the handcuffs we’d bought when we first shopped for lingerie. Straightening, I dangled them in front of his face. With a grin, he took them and spun me around. He fixed my hands behind my back and bent me in half over the bed, which was thankfully lower than the kitchen bench.

He pulled my hair and used my bound wrists to gain traction as he thrust deep inside, building momentum while I groaned and shuddered, relaxing into the sensation.

The fluffy covers on the cuffs had shifted a bit and the metal bit into my skin, amplifying the pain from the roots of my hair and his nails digging into my flesh.

I scrunched up my eyes and passed my awareness throughout my body, focussing on the various sharp points and then the blunt pressure of his body mass, all combining to bring me fully into the moment, letting the weight of the conversation, the depth of the decisions before us, the guilt and the shame of my actions all fall away for a few brief moments.

That is, until images of Ludo, my ex-colleague and current crush, flitted into my mind, unsettling me and breaking into the otherwise pristine darkness. Then the memory of Chris, the club owner, broke through, my mind replaying the moment he pushed me against a wall and held his hand to my neck. Fuck off, I thought. Why can’t you just shut up for five minutes? I don’t want this! Franc is here. Franc is the one I want. There is only Franc.

Moments later, Franc pushed deeply into me and finished with a quiet grunt. He pulled out, leaving me breathing heavily into the dark green sheet.

“Undo these?” I said after a while, lazily rolling my head over to face where he’d laid down next to me.

“Oh, right, sorry,” he said, fumbling to release the clasps so I could run off to the toilet. Wiped clean, I pulled on my pyjamas and crawled under the covers beside him and kissed his soft lips.

“That was nice,” I said.

“Mmm.” He looked down at me. “Do you want to finish?” He shifted so I could access his upper leg to rub against like he knew I liked.

“That’s OK,” I said. “Maybe later.”

It wasn’t the pure intimacy that he desired, nor was it the mind-exploding ecstasy that I’d been chasing, but it was a good night. A good date.

A compromise.

But so much was still in the air. I wanted to explore more. He didn’t trust me.

I still loved him, but I wanted novelty and was being torn apart by temptation.

He still loved me, but wasn’t sure he was enough for me. I’m not even sure he still liked me.

How could we keep moving forward?

A few weeks later, an ad popped up on my Facebook feed for a sex festival coming up in our city. A weekend-long series of workshops and events. I ran it by Franc, and with his go-ahead, signed us up to go along.

Image credit: https://wallhaven.cc/w/gjl2y7