Intimate (2 page)

Caleb was
silent for a long time, but his arm around her was strong and familiar.

She nestled
into it and started to feel a little better.

Finally, he
asked, very softly, “Why does it bother you so much?”

“What?”

“Sex. This
isn’t just something that happened tonight. Anything connected to sex does this
to you. Why does it bother you so much?”

Her throat
tightened. “It doesn’t.”

“Marissa.”

“There’s no
reason. Some people just aren’t sexy.”

“That’s
ridiculous, and you know it. It has nothing to do with being sexy. It’s like
sex…why does it bother you so much?”

“It doesn’t
bother me. I just don’t like it. Not everyone has to like it.”

“Did something
happen? I know the courts decided your mother was unfit, but I never knew why.
Was there something that happened? When you were little?”

Marissa
breathed raggedly and pulled away from his body—since he didn’t seem quite as
safe and cozy anymore.

She could feel
him staring at her, although her eyes were focused determinedly on the floor.

“Why can’t you
tell me?” he asked.

They’d been
close since that conversation on the concert stage six years ago. When Caleb took
a break from touring to go to college—mostly because Marissa hadn’t stopped
nagging him until he did—she’d decided to go to the same university so they
could stay close. He’d gotten a full scholarship at one of the best music
programs in the country, and Marissa majored in Latin, choosing what Caleb
called the most useless major in the university curriculum.

They told each
other everything, but she couldn’t tell him this. She could
never
tell
him this.

Not just
because she preferred to pretend that part of her history didn’t exist. But
also because it would crush him.

“It’s not what
you’re thinking,” she said. “I was never raped or touched or anything like
that.”

“But something
did
happen when you were a kid? Something that turned you off sex?”

Something. You
could call it that.

Her babysitter
had never done anything until Marissa was sent to bed, but their apartment had
been small.

That kind of
loud, crude performance couldn’t be blocked out by a door and a thin wall.
She’d been too young to understand it, but she’d hated it. Hated anything that
reminded her of it.

“It’s no big
deal.”

“If it’s no big
deal, then why can’t you tell me?”

She looked
away, since his eyes were too knowing, too sharp.

“Not everyone
has to like sex,” she said at last. “People blow it way out of proportion.”

“Maybe.” The
one word was spoken in a dubious drawl.

“I know
you
like it.” She’d be a fool if she didn’t know that, since he’d been getting
around—a lot—since he was sixteen. “But it’s not the be-all of existence, the
way everyone makes it out to be. Tell me the truth. Wouldn’t you rather give up
sex than give up your music?”

“I’d rather not
give up either one.” His voice was dry and would have made her laugh on a
different evening.

Caleb was
everything Marissa wasn’t—fearless, passionate, and self-indulgent. Marissa
studied hard, and Caleb played hard. They really shouldn’t be such good
friends.

“Well, that’s
fine for you. You have all the sex you want. I just don’t think I’m cut out for
it. Some people aren’t.”

“I don’t think
that’s what—”

“I don’t like
it. I don’t like anything to do with it. And I don’t think I’m going to want to
have sex again.”

For just a
moment, she felt free—at the idea of a future without sex, a future without the
nauseating disgust that always rose at the thought of going to bed with
someone.

She’d felt the
pressure of it for the last couple of years, and she just wanted to be rid of
it. She’d thought having sex tonight would be enough to push past it, but maybe
not
having sex at all was the only way to do it.

“I don’t think
that’s going to happen. Once you work through whatever the issue is, you’re
going to want to have sex.”

She shrugged,
trying not to act too bristly or defensive. She knew Caleb loved her. She knew
he was trying to help.

None of this
was his fault.

“Maybe. I’m
just not going to worry about it right now.”

“Okay.”

He reached out
and pulled her against his side again, and she understood it was the only way
he knew to comfort her. He wasn’t a particularly touchy person, so she knew he
was really trying.

She appreciated
it.

She hugged him
for another minute and then pulled away.

“You’re still
really pale,” he said. “Is there anything I can do?”

She felt awful,
and she was sore between her legs in a way that made her want to vomit. It was
too late to do anything about that, though. “Will you play Bach for me?”

He got up
silently, retrieved his cello, and brought it into position between his knees
again.

He started to
play the piece she’d interrupted earlier, beginning again with the Prelude.

Marissa curled
up on the worn couch and listened for over an hour.

***

five
years after that

Living without sex wasn’t hard
at all.

It might be a
pleasant recreational activity for a lot of people, but it wasn’t even close to
the most important aspect of existence.

Marissa had lived
without sex for five years now, and she didn’t even miss it.

Coming in on a
Friday evening, she dropped her shopping bags onto the floor of her entryway.
The day before, she’d gotten the graded comments back on the hardest paper
she’d written in graduate school so far, and she’d gotten an A.

So she’d gone
on a shopping spree to celebrate.

When he died
last year, her father had left her enough to live on while she did her graduate
work. She wasn’t hurting for money, but she wasn’t exactly rolling in cash.

She probably
shouldn’t have bought the shoes

They were very
impractical, being way too strappy and way too high. The designer label was
well known for being way too expensive.

But she’d
wanted them, and she didn’t indulge herself that way very often—so she’d bought
them.

She didn’t even
regret it.

After finding
the energy to put away her purchases, she changed into a t-shirt and yoga pants.

Since it was
only Caleb coming over tonight, she could dress comfortably.

She was
braiding her hair to keep it out of her face when there was a knock on the
door. Then she heard someone unlock the door and let himself in.

“I’m in the bathroom,”
she called out.

“Hurry up,” Caleb
replied. “I’ve got dinner.”

“Good. I’m
starving.” Marissa finished her hair and headed to the kitchen, where she heard
him rustling around in the cabinets.

He was
uncapping two bottles of imported beer with his back to her as she entered the
small kitchen. He wore jeans and a t-shirt, his body lean and strong. His dark
hair was a rumpled mess.

Feeling a surge
of affection at the sight of him, she reached out and squeezed both of his
sides, causing him to give a startled exclamation and jerk away from her.

She giggled at
his aggrieved expression.

“What did you
bring?” she asked, pulling on the socks she'd brought with her from the
bedroom.

“Baked penne
from Eddie’s.” He poured the beer into glasses and then glanced over at her.
“You look like a ten-year-old in those braids.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“You’re the one
who complains that people don’t take you seriously because you’re so short.”

It was true.
Being so short did not make it easy to convey much authority in the academic
world.

Or any other
world.

“Well, I didn’t
think I had to try to impress you with a dignified appearance.”

Chuckling, Caleb
picked up the containers of yummy-smelling food he’d brought with him. “Eat in
the living room?”

“Yeah, I think
so. In case we want to start the movie.” After grabbing forks and napkins, Marissa
headed out of the kitchen and toward the couch. She set her beer on the coffee
table and flopped down with a huge sigh.

“So what was
the verdict on the paper?” he asked.

“An A.” She
tried not to look as pleased as she was. “He said it was the best grad student
paper he’d read in a long time.”

Marissa was
finishing her second year in a graduate program in Classical Studies, since she
hadn’t known what else to do after graduating college with a degree in Latin.

She had vague
notions of working in some sort of classics library when she got her degree,
but she liked school and wasn’t all that eager to get a real job.

“And you
thought you were going to fail.”

“I didn’t think
I was going to fail. I just wasn’t sure if it was what he wanted.”

“You always say
that, and then you always get A’s.”

“I do not.” She
stiffened her shoulders, but her glare would have been more effective if she
hadn’t been putting a forkful of pasta in her mouth. "Remember that paper
last semester?”

“Yes, I
remember the weeping and wailing over that B.”

“It was a B-.
And, in graduate school, that’s like getting a D. I’m good at Latin, but this
program is a lot more than that. There’s all this theoretical stuff that’s
crazy hard.” She put her plate down and leaned over to grab a photocopied
article to hand him. She always printed her research out, since she preferred
the feel of paper in her hands. “This is the kind of stuff I have to make sense
of.”

Caleb kept
eating, but his eyes focused down on the article she’d handed him.

He’d never
tried very hard at school in anything but music, but he was smart and
articulate, and she almost laughed when she saw his expression change as he
tried to decipher to the dense, ridiculously lofty article on the rhetoric of
gender in ancient Roman love poetry.

“Told you,” she
said, when he gave up and tossed the article onto the coffee table. Then,
changing the subject, she asked, “So? How was it?”

“How was what?”

“Don’t play coy
with me. How was the date last night? What did you think of Karen?”

“She was
great.”

“You’ve got to
have more to say than that. Did you have a good time?”

“Sure. She was
perfectly nice.”

 “Uh oh. I’m
sensing some reluctance. What could you possibly not like about Karen? She’s
beautiful.”

“I told you she
was great, but it's not like I'm about to propose to her. We’ve only had one
date.”

“Well, are you
going to ask her out again?”

 “Maybe.”

“That means no,
I guess.” She drooped back against the couch, feeling a little disappointed but
not really surprised.

“We’d get along
better if you’d stop fixing me up with every halfway decent female friend you
have.” The words were a little sharp, but his expression wasn’t. In fact, it
looked more worried than anything else.

“I’ll stop if
you want me to. I just think you’d be happier if you could…if you could settle
down a little.”

He’d been
bouncing from woman to woman since high school, and he showed no signs of
stopping. He was incredibly handsome and could charm the pants off anyone.
Women had always thrown themselves at him.

Things came
easy to Caleb, which wasn’t necessarily a blessing.

After he’d
graduated college, he’d gone back on the concert circuit for a couple of years.

It hadn’t been
good for him. At all.

With his youth,
brilliance, and charisma, he’d become a kind of rock star of classical music,
with all the groupies, self-indulgence, and unusual stresses that came with
that lifestyle.

The rigorous
tour schedule—when combined with too little sleep and too much partying—had
taken a toll on him physically and mentally.

Last year, Marissa
had been busy with her first year in graduate school, and she hadn’t seen him
as much as usual. She’d gone to New York for one of his concerts and found him
on the verge of a breakdown.

He’d ended up
spending a few weeks in a residential treatment center to recover his mental
and physical health. Then she’d convinced him to give up touring and take a job
with a symphony orchestra that would allow him to build a stable, healthy life.

He was more
settled professionally now, but he wasn’t even close to settled in terms of
relationships.

Marissa liked
things settled, and she worried about Caleb a lot.

She’d watched
her mother circle down the drain, no matter how hard she’d tried to stop it, and
she couldn’t stand for the same thing to happen to him.

“I don’t see me
settling into domestic life any time soon. It’s not that I’m against it. My
folks have the best marriage I’ve ever seen. You know that.”

She shifted
uncomfortably. “Yeah, but your parents don’t have the only marriage that’s
worth having.”

“I know that,
but that’s what I’m looking for. If I can find a relationship where we can both
still have our space, without all the pressure that comes with committed
relationships—something like my parents have—then I might consider it. Until
then, I don’t think so. Who are you to talk anyway, since you’ve entirely given
up on romance? I accept that about you. Why can’t you do the same for me?”

“It’s different.
I’ve given up sex, so I can get everything I need outside of romantic
relationships. I’m basically self-sufficient. But you need someone to take care
of you.”

Caleb gave her
an affectionate look, which was so rare it made her belly ache. “I thought
that’s what you were for.”

Unable to
suppress a fond smile in response, she still said firmly, “Yes, I do my best.
But it would be better if you could get everything you need from one person.
And since you still want to have sex—lots of it—you should find someone who can
love you, but who also wants to have sex with you. The sex thing is out of the
question for us.”