Choosing the right Man

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chloe

I arrive home to find Paul in the kitchen eating pizza. It’s his go-to dinner when I get home late. I used to cook a lot, but haven’t done it much since getting my new job. I love to cook, but Paul and I no longer have romantic dinners where we sit and tell each other about our days.

Of course, I don’t think he wants to hear about my day, about how I was crying out another man’s name less than an hour ago. More guilt fills me when he looks up with a distracted smile.

“You’re home early,” he says. It’s nearly seven now so this isn’t exactly early, but I guess between my job, working out, and my time with Mason, it’s unusual for me to get home before ten these days.

“I didn’t do a gym workout tonight,” I say. I grab my own slice of pizza, and move to the island and sit.

“Your arms look great. I can really see the muscle definition,” he tells me. I give him a smile. It’s the first compliment he’s given me in a very long time.

“I love the bench press and doing curls,” I tell him.

“My job’s so sedentary if I don’t work out, I feel like a lazy slob,” he says.

“You work harder than anyone I know so no one can call you lazy in any aspect of your life,” I tell him. For just a moment, things almost seem normal between us. It’s these moments that make it so hard to have our final conversation. He might not be my lover anymore, but he’s been my friend since I was sixteen.

“Some might say my obsession with work is unhealthy, but I love what I do, and I want to advance in my company,” he says.

“You’ve always been hungry for more.”

“We stop moving forward if we don’t push ourselves,” he tells me.

“I’ve been there a lot where I feel like I’m lost. This new job is great. I’ve been given more and more responsibility, and it makes me want to try harder so I finally understand what you mean,” I tell him.

“You’ve rocked this new Vegas design,” he says, surprising me. Maybe he listens more than I realize. If this is the case, how can he not know I’m having an affair? Maybe he does... and he doesn’t care. Normal people in our age group don’t go months without sex. Again, this makes me wonder if he’s doing the same thing as I am. Why don’t either of us care? Maybe because we’ve morphed into nothing but friendship without having a conversation about it.

“Well, I better get back to work,” he tells me before I can gain the courage to have the real conversation we need to have. I think about stopping him, but then he moves over and gives me a kiss on the cheek, then quickly walks away, almost as if he’s fleeing, as if he can read the look in my eyes telling him we need to have a serious talk. It makes me sad to realize this is the longest conversation we’ve had in about a month.

I get up, grab a bottle of wine from the fridge, fill a glass, then take it and the pizza box to the living room. I sit down and drink my wine and eat some pizza as I think back to more of my earlies days with Paul.

I’ll never forget the night Paul and I made love for the first time. It connected us in a way that made him go from being my boyfriend to being my everything. It’s odd that something so common and messy can bond two people for a lifetime.

Maybe it’s because I waited until I was with someone I truly loved, or maybe it was because I was told it was a special act. I’m not sure what it was about having sex with Paul that deepened our bond, but that night will always stay with me. It was a night I’ll never forget.

It’s odd how memories fade. There are events in life we think we’ll never forget, but years go by, and they fade. But the first time you make love to someone is an unforgettable experience, whether it was a good one or not.

I’d only turned seventeen a couple of months before. I look back now and realize I was too young to be sharing something so intimate with another person. But at the time it had felt right. While I might have been too young, I have no regrets. It had to be Paul.

Paul and I had known each other for nearly a year at that point, had been dating for about half that time. One night we took a drive to the beach. It wasn’t something we planned, which made it that much more real, that much more special.

We laid out a blanket, the warm summer breeze blowing across our young bodies. I snuggled against him as I looked at the sky, mesmerized by the twinkling lights so far above us. We talked about the vastness of the universe, talked about how small we felt when looking at the millions of twinkling lights.

It didn’t take long for him to turn me so I was on my back. My stomach fluttered in anticipation of his kiss. Our kissing had become more urgent over the months, as if we needed to consume one another. He leaned against me, his mouth connecting with mine in a way that felt right.

His mouth caressed mine, his hands traveling over my body. I held him, loving the smoothness of his skin, the heat pouring from him. Slowly he pulled my shirt off, and I trembled beneath him. My bra went next, and though I was excited I was also self-conscious at being so exposed.

But I didn’t stop him. When his hands slid up my skirt and inside the elastic of my panties I still didn’t stop him. His kisses became more urgent. I usually called a halt to things at this point. We were getting too heated. We were pushing boundaries.

But I was excited this time. I loved him. What could be wrong with doing this final act to show each other how much we belonged together? The next half hour was a lot of fumbling. Our clothes came off and there we were, skin to skin, nothing between us. He didn’t ask if I wanted to do it, he just climbed on top of me.

The moon shone bright, but it was almost impossible to see his face. I was unaware of the outside world. Anyone could’ve walked up on us, but I only had eyes for Paul. I was scared, but I knew it was time for us to take this next step.

My body wasn’t ready. Yes, I was excited, but we didn’t know what we were doing. I was so young and na?ve, a time in life when innocence was real. A time when I hadn’t yet been hardened by the realities of all that was out there.

He reached between our bodies and held himself as he lined up his erection with my sex. Then he pushed forward. All the tingles rushed from me as pain seared my insides. I gasped while he groaned, thinking my sound was one of pleasure.

I hadn’t talked much about sex with anyone. Just to girlfriends who only gushed about the good. Sure, I’d learned the basics at school, but I had no idea of how much it was going to hurt. He sank all of the way inside me, and my entire body was rigid. He didn’t seem to be aware. My fingers dug into his back as I tried to catch my breath.

But Paul was moving, his body frantic as he groaned above me. His body arched, and he pumped faster and faster, then yelled out as I felt warmth soak my insides. He let out a satisfied groan as he collapsed on top of me.

The pain subsided into a dull ache, and we lay together, my arms wrapped tightly around him. This part of making love was wonderful. Our bodies were hot, and I truly felt we were one. Neither of us spoke for several moments as his breathing returned to normal. I don’t know how much time passed before he pulled away from me. I suddenly felt empty as our bodies disconnected. He shifted and cradled me in his arms as he lay on his back and held me close.

“That was amazing,” he said, his voice filled with satisfaction. “Did you like it?”

A nervous giggle escaped me, and he turned and looked at my face. Now, on his back, I could see his expression better in the moonlight. I didn’t think to lie.

“It actually hurt. I’m a little sore . . . you know . . . in there,” I admitted.

His eyes widened with concern. “Did I hurt you?” he gasped.

He had no clue it wouldn’t be pleasant for me. He was older than I was, but still young, and didn’t know how to read a woman’s body. I didn’t exactly have a woman’s body. I was still a girl. I asked a question I never thought to ask before.

“Have you...” I paused. My throat tightened, but I needed to know. “Have you done that before?”

There was a long silence as he thought about his answer. I was scared to hear what he had to say. I didn’t want to share him. I had just given him something I could never give another, and I didn’t want the moment tainted.

“Yeah,” he admitted, sounding unsure if he should admit to it. “But she was older and knew what she was doing, and it was... different. I didn’t love her.” His words were spoken almost casually at the end.

“So this probably wasn’t good for you,” I said, ready to break into tears.

“No!” he said, his word emphatic. “I love you. What we did was beautiful,” he assured me. His large hand cupped my cheek, and I knew I had done the right thing.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m glad we did it.”

Silence greeted those words. The two of us lay there for a while longer. He clung a bit tighter as his hand began rubbing my back. We weren’t looking at each other when he spoke.

“Do you want me to... um... to try to make it feel good for you?”

He sounded nervous. His hardness bumped against my leg. He was ready to have sex again. I didn’t know a whole lot about sex and how it all worked, but I remember talking to friends who said when a guy came he was done for a long time and couldn’t do it again. I felt the ache in my insides and shook my head.

“I think we should wait. I still hurt,” I told him. It wasn’t a stinging pain anymore, but the area was tender. I was slightly embarrassed to have to admit this to him.

“Of course. I’m stupid,” he said, sounding remorseful.

“No, you’re wonderful,” I assured him.

We lay on our blanket for another hour, our hands caressing each other. After we dressed, he drove me home. When I used the bathroom, I realized how foolish we were. I found a mixture of blood and semen. We didn’t use protection.

Luckily, I didn’t get pregnant. And as we made love more and more we were smarter. That night connected us. There were times we were more intimate than at others, and it took nearly a year for me to learn my own body, to learn to ask for my own pleasure.

We were normal teenage lovers... well, I was a teenager, and he was twenty-three at that point. Our relationship wasn’t perfect. We had beautiful moments and horrible ones. We fought, broke up, told each other we never wanted to see one another again, then we’d run back to each other and make love with a frenzy. I was so young.

My high school graduation was a bittersweet moment. I knew by the end of my senior year he was the man I wanted to be with forever. Maybe it was because I was from a small town. Maybe I didn’t understand there was a whole other world out there.

I had no idea why, at the tender age of eighteen, I wanted to make a lifelong decision to stay with the same boy I’d been with for well over a year. I knew we had problems, the initial infatuation had faded, and there were a lot of things between us that didn’t make sense.

But he was mine, and I was his. Maybe he had some of the same doubts I had. The difference was, he was being more honest about those thoughts. He was older and had already experienced so much in his life, where I hadn’t experienced anything outside of my small town.

The summer I graduated, he left for an internship. We talked often on the phone, for hours in the evening — at first. The calls faded after a while, and I realized I was fine. I spent more time with friends and wondered if he was truly the one I wanted to spend my life with.

But when he came back, all of those feelings I’d once felt so deeply, immediately came back. We were together again as if we’d never been apart. Paul was such an important person in my life that I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.

He then proposed to me. He took me to the beach and had fake candles set out, since the wind would blow out real ones. He bought me roses and told me he didn’t want to be without me. I said yes. We then moved to Portland. Somehow, we never planned a wedding. I even stopped wearing the engagement ring. I’m not sure why. Maybe we got comfortable, and it just didn’t matter.

I guess it makes it so much easier for us to break up since we aren’t married. A part of me is sad about this. Another part of me is grateful. I don’t want to have multiple divorces in my life. Maybe we haven’t loved each other enough if we didn’t even bother to plan a wedding.

I wonder if we would’ve stayed together if we hadn’t begun having sex. For the longest time I did it because I knew it pleased him, not because it brought anything to me. I wonder if he would’ve wanted to be with me if I hadn’t had sex with him. That’s something I’ll never have an answer to.

I hate that something so beautiful turned into something we eventually took for granted. I hate that something I needed from him, something he always wanted with me, is now something he won’t give me.

I realize a relationship can’t last without sexual compatibility. It’s so important. It connects us in a way we can’t connect with another person. We have friendships, relationships, and lives outside of our partners. But sex with our lover is something we only give each other... or we’re only supposed to give to our partner. It bonds us. It unites us. When it’s taken away, it leaves us empty, as if we’ve somehow failed. It leaves the relationship vulnerable.

It leaves the door open for someone else to step through...