The Blues

I was sitting on Sean’s couch while he washed dishes in his kitchen after making me dinner.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to help?” I asked setting down my wine glass.

“Yeah, just relax. I don’t want you to lift a finger, besides I’m almost done. This’ll be so much easier once my dishwasher is fixed.”

After a few minutes, Sean sat on the couch and we started making out. He was nuzzling my neck when I realized that this wasn’t going to go where I wanted it to, so I pulled away to spare Sean from having to stop me before we got too far into it.

“There’s supposed to be a Lord of the Rings marathon on tonight, let’s watch it.” I said reaching for the remote control and scanning through the channels to find the right one.

A look of confusion and questioning flashed across Sean’s eyes but he let it go and turned towards the television to watch the first movie. About twenty minutes later, Sean started putting the moves on me again.

“Oh, look Gandalf is about to die.” I said gently wiggling out of his grasp.

Sean eyed me suspiciously and grabbed the remote. He turned off the television.

“Is there anything you want to talk to me about?” He asked, holding the remote for ransom.

“No, can you turn the television back on?”

“I will if we can make out during the movie.”

I tried to snatch the remote from him but ended up straddling him just as he threw the remote into a chair across the room and held me close to him.

“Sean…what are you doing?”

“I’m trying to have fun with my girlfriend. Why are you resisting? I thought you wanted to be more physical…”

“Can you let me go, please?” I asked, suddenly aware of how close we were.

Sean relented and I sat next to him on the couch staring at the dark television. We were in an awkward silence and I was trying to figure out what to say to Sean.

“Faith-“

“Look,” I said turning at the sound of his voice, “I do want to be more physical with you but I can’t fool around with you and then get all hot and bothered when I know it’s not going to go anywhere. It’s kind of the same thing as blue balls. And when I push you to go farther than what you’re comfortable with, I feel like a horrible person afterward.”

Sean looked at me with shock and was quiet for a long time. I started crying when the silence stretched on.

“Maybe I should just go.” I went to get up and Sean grabbed my hand, pulled me into his lap, and wiped away one of the tears that had trailed down my cheek.

“Faith, I don’t want you to feel like you’re a bad person. I can go take a pill and be ready to go in a few minutes, if that’s what you want.”

“No! Now that you’ve told me about everything it’s going to make having sex even more confusing. Every time we have sex I’m going to wonder ‘does this mean he loves me or is he on something’. And you don’t want to take the pills, Sean, I don’t want you to take something if you don’t want to, this is about your health, not me. I don’t need sex, Sean, but I can’t be taken on a roller coaster ride every time you kiss me.”

“How about this…how about I give you my pills and you can do what you want with them. Flush them, carry them with you, give them to me to use, whatever. And we won’t try to wait anymore.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

“I mean that if things start going in the sex direction I won’t stop it and if I rise to the occasion, then whatever. I know I’m not in love with you right now, but I’ve had sex with you unaided once before, maybe magic will strike twice.”

“Are you serious. What about waiting?”

“I told you…that was just a cover to hide my problem from you. I think we’ve waited enough. If you don’t want me to use the pills then we can still try to get things to a more intimate level without them, why not, right?”

I hugged Sean and gave him a deep kiss. He broke and grabbed my hand to lead me into his bathroom. Sean handed me a brown prescription bottle with blue pills inside.

“These are my pills, they’re yours now.”I held the bottle in my hand and looked at it for a long time.

When I looked up at Sean I knew what I wanted to do with the pills. I popped the lid off and walked towards Sean who held his hand out for a pill. He was confused when I walked right past him, when he turned around he saw the last of the pills falling into the toilet as I pushed the handle down. Sean smiled at me and gave me a hug. We fell asleep during the Lord of the Rings marathon and didn’t come close to having sex, but both of us are happy now and I think we’re closer than we’ve ever been.