Chapter 31
31
J oan folded herself into child’s pose and turned her head to one side. She was in therapy with Jamie again, though this time she was doing some hip stretching and yoga positions with her deep breathing, so she was fully clothed.
She decided to bring up her success, though it embarrassed her to do so. Jamie had a stoic “I’ve heard it all” face, but Joan wondered what she might actually be thinking.
She came up to a sitting position.
“So I have a report slash question,” Joan said.
Jamie smiled at her. “Sure.”
“First off, I had some success with a new partner. It was only a finger, and not a penis, but still.”
“That’s amazing news, then.” Jamie pushed her computer to the side. “Any pain?”
“Only a little, at first. But in my previous experiences, it would have been, like, a seven out of ten on the pain scale and I would have called this a one or two out of ten, maybe.”
“Well that’s a vast improvement.” Jamie smiled again, a real smile, and Joan’s shoulders dropped. She sometimes wasn’t sure how much she should share, but Jamie was treating her for vaginismus, so surely it wasn’t out of line to talk about the particulars of sex.
“So to my question.” Joan rolled onto her back at Jamie’s urging, moving into a butterfly position. “How do I transition from what we did to actual intercourse?”
“Okay.” Jamie crossed her legs, clearly settling in for a long discussion. “That’s a good question. It may take you some time. Think of how long it took you to get here.”
Joan nodded. She’d been working on this problem for months now.
“Some people choose to purchase something less clinical and more lifelike, maybe a silicone toy or a vibrator, to work on insertion that way. When you’re ready, you and your partner can go in stages. Here, I’ll write this down for you so you aren’t overwhelmed.” Jamie took out a notepad and started jotting some bullet points down.
“You might have better luck before you try this if you engage in something that’s brought you pleasure in the past, so you’re relaxed. Then I often have people start by bringing the penis close to the vaginal opening without insertion, taking a mental note of any sense of tightening or guarding. If you and your partner want to stop there, that’s fine, but you would want to have the discussion beforehand, so there are no surprises. You with me so far?”
At Joan’s shaky nod, she continued.
“The next step would be actual penetration, but with no movement. You want lots of lube for that, of course, and you can use the dilators beforehand if that helps you feel prepared. As with the first step, you should have the conversation beforehand about where you are stopping. That’s what sets this type of pain apart from other kinds of pain—it involves another person. If at any point you feel like you are having spasms or pain, you can stop and try again at another time.”
Jamie kept scribbling. A flash of nervousness rose, but Joan tamped it down. She could take this slowly, like Jamie said.
“Sometimes you can try reinserting the largest dilator again, then retrying insertion with your partner. Once you are comfortable with that mechanical process, you can attempt intercourse, with frequent check ins of course. This might take a lot of practice, and if you start anticipating pain, you can take intercourse completely off the table again and go back to touching that isn’t painful. The goal is not to associate any sexual activity with pain at all. And of course, to have fun. Once it’s pain free, the idea is enjoyment.”
Joan blew out a breath. “That all makes sense. So then what’s the timeline here?”
“It’s hard to say.” Jamie shrugged. “Once the larger dilators are comfortable, though, it is typical for progression to happen more quickly than it did initially. And you have been making excellent progress here.”
Joan pulled her knees to her chest for another stretch. She tried to think calming thoughts. She would succeed. She wanted this.
The idea of having this conversation with Lucas made her somewhat itchy with nerves, however. It felt like a process she should undertake with someone who cared about her in a romantic way, instead of a friends with benefits situation. She wasn’t plagued by antiquated notions of only having sex when in love, but something about asking Lucas to do this for her seemed wrong somehow. This was a big ask.
She would talk to him. He always had a way of making her calmer.
Addie motioned to Joan with her head, indicating they should meet in the break room. Joan followed her. The freshly brewed coffee smelled delicious, but it was a lie; the break room coffee barely ranked above disgusting.
“So, I found out a few things from talking to Celeste yesterday.”
Joan gestured for her to continue.
“Well, apparently Jennifer got wind of some of Celeste’s behaviors the old manager was sweeping under the rug. So Jennifer told her that wouldn’t be tolerated under her leadership, and that pissed Celeste off. So my theory is that she’s doubling down. She thinks being mean to new nurses helps prepare them for the difficulties of the profession.”
Joan nodded. “I’m okay with an older nurse being direct with me. But this goes beyond that.”
“I know. I’m certain she wouldn’t admit to hiding a med from you even if you brought it up, but she’s been worse with you for sure. Belinda told me she overheard a patient saying they liked you better than her, so maybe that’s it.”
“Wow.”
“I know! And get this.” Addie lowered her voice. “Belinda also said Celeste’s husband is cheating on her with some younger woman.”
Joan experienced an unwanted swell of sympathy for Celeste. “But what’s that got to do with me? I’m not the one sleeping with her husband.”
“Yeah, but she might be projecting or something. The woman is young and blonde.”
“So are you, though.”
Addie laid her finger on her chin, tapping the corner of her mouth.
“That’s true,” she said. “But you’re new, and maybe she thinks you’re an easy target.”
“That still doesn’t sound quite right to me.” Joan rubbed her chin. “She really has it out for me. And none of that sounds like enough.”
Addie shrugged. “That’s all I’ve got.”
Joan sighed. She gazed longingly out the window, toward the parking lot and blissful freedom. “So what would you do if you were me?”
“I was thinking about that. You should stand up to her more. Call her out. And if it happens again, report her to Jennifer. This has gotten out of hand.”
Standing up to Celeste scared Joan a little, but probably not as much as it would have even a month before. She’d grown brave since soaking up more of Lucas’s affection, like a flower under sunlight, though she thought she might be in a bit of trouble with him. She liked him in ways that strayed far from their original agreement, and she didn’t know if he felt the same way. Or if he did, she wasn’t sure how long she would have his attention, and that scared her. She thought of what her next steps would be with her therapy, and she wasn’t sure she could ask him to do that with her. Either way, though, his admiration and respect gave her some courage to deal with her other problems.
“That’s a good plan,” Joan said. She wouldn’t let Celeste push her around anymore.
Joan went a couple of weeks without seeing Lucas much, given some problems with schedule alignment and weekend commitments.
Her conversation with her therapist scratched at her thoughts during that period, and her work situation exacerbated the problem. She’d talked herself into thinking she was asking too much of him. By the time she saw him again, she boiled with anxiety.
They met at a diner after one of her work shifts. She sat across from him in a booth, squirming with apprehension, while he looked as though he wanted to devour her whole. Dark scruff covered his jaw and messy hair poked out underneath his backward cap. Her own body was starting to respond to his heated stares. Her face flushed. Their knees touched, and just that incidental contact made her skin tingle.
“How was work?” It was an innocent question, but with the way he kept ogling her, it felt like he was asking if he could take her pants off. She might have said yes, public setting be damned.
Joan brought him up to date on the Celeste situation. He watched her as she told her story.
“Good God. She needs to be fired.”
“Eh.” Joan looked down. “Most facilities are so short staffed they overlook things. And I should have documented her bullying from the beginning. I could have taken it to management already. It’s okay, though. I’ve got a plan.”
Unable to meet his gaze, she glanced off to the side, tracing the quatrefoil design on one of the tiles on the wall with a finger. She took a deep breath to clear the fog of attraction, but that didn’t seem to help at all. When she looked back at him, his eyes were sharp with concern.
“So what else is wrong?”
“Would you believe me if I said I was tired?”
He studied her. “No.”
Their waiter arrived at the table with their plates. Lucas glanced up to thank him, but then his focus was right back on her, scrutinizing her face like she was a complex problem for him to solve.
“Well, I am tired,” she said a little obstinately. “I just worked for twelve hours. But I wanted to talk about us.” Her heart beat against her rib cage, its steady thump moving up her throat and into her ears.
“Okay,” he said slowly. His foot tapped underneath the table. “What about us?”
“I think we should stop our experiment,” she blurted. She looked away again, but not before she caught a glimpse of his face paling.
“Alright. Can you tell me why? We haven’t, you know, accomplished your goal.” He shifted in his seat. His expression was carefully arranged, like maybe he wanted to say more, but held back.
“For one thing, I’ve been thinking about how it’s kind of unfair to you,” she said, and he frowned. “I mean, I’m not thinking about future relationships at all, but isn’t the goal here to help me prepare for that in a way? I can’t get it out of my head. I feel like I’m using you.”
“But I don’t feel like that. And for God’s sake, it’s not like I’m not enjoying myself. Having sex with a beautiful woman isn’t some chore for me.”
She glanced around her as if to say lower your voice. He sighed.
“I know, and I’ve been having fun, too. It’s just an icky feeling I had, like we’re using this situation as a segue to the rest of our lives, our real lives, and our other relationships.” The whir of blender and the chatter from other tables dampened some of her volume, but she still kept it as soft as possible. “I have another hang up. Something I felt after my last therapy session.”
“Okay.”
“The next steps in my treatment are kind of a lot to ask of someone who isn’t my boyfriend, or who doesn’t care about me in a boyfriend sort of way. Not that all sex has to be lovey-dovey. It’s just that I’m asking you to help fix me, and that’s a huge ask from a friend.”
Lucas took a few bites of his food. He stared over her shoulder for a moment, then swung his gaze back to her.
“So there’s a lot going on there.” He gestured to her face, as if to say a lot going on in there, in that head of yours.
“Yeah. I know I’m overthinking it.” She took some bites of her own food.
He reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “First of all, we get to define what we are. And if we’re both comfortable with it, there’s nothing wrong with what we are doing. I promise I’m okay with helping you here. I care about you. You’ve been my best friend for years. And this has been good for me, too—it’s not like I was having a lot of success in sustaining relationships, and now I’ll have at least one where the woman stays in my life. It makes me less anxious. That feels like a win.”
She planted her elbows on the table and laid her chin on a platformed hand, her attention rapt.
“And second, you aren’t asking too much of me. I would do almost anything for you, and I know you feel the same way about me. And am I wrong, or hasn’t it been fun?” He grinned.
“It’s been ridiculous.” She smiled back despite her glum mood. “In the best way.”
He stared at her in challenge, and her blood simmered under her skin.
“Okay, can I say something else? Like, are we in the trust tree here?”
She braced herself, but nodded.
“What if we tried dating?” At her heavy silence, he spoke more quickly. “I know we shelved that idea a long time ago. But things have changed. Why couldn’t we try it? I like you so much,” he said, and her heart squeezed, “and this has been the best time of my life. Couldn’t we be good?”
“We could,” she said, and his eyes lit. “But we could also crash and burn. And then we truly would have ruined us.” She wasn’t going to bring up his relationship history again—she had her own failures in that department, so was hers really any better? “Also, if you end it with me because we can’t have intercourse, it will break my heart. Honestly. I’m not sure I can handle that.”
He was sitting forward now, food forgotten, which was rare for Lucas.
“I wouldn’t do that. You know me better. And what if we don’t break up? That’s a strong possibility, right?” He trailed his fingers along her own, setting off sparks in her nerve endings. “You don’t know we wouldn’t stay friends, either. If we broke up, I mean.”
“Name someone who is friends with their ex.”
He leaned back, an adorable little furrow forming between eyes. “It sounds good in theory, doesn’t it?”
“I mean, yeah. But it’s more likely I would just lose you forever.”
He stuck his bottom lip out, fake pouting. She smiled at him despite the pressure gripping her chest, then leaned toward him and grasped his hand again, tracing along a vein in his arm with her finger until he shivered.
“You’re hard to say no to, you know that?” Joan gentled her words to soften their blow.
“I’m not so sure that’s a great quality when you put it like that.”
“It is. You’re just so damn likable. But I said after my last relationship I would stop saying yes to men just because that would make them happy. And Lucas, I do want to make you happy, so this is really hard for me. I don’t think I’m ready to give a relationship my all yet, not when I have so many hang ups and so much shame. And honestly, I’m still concerned about how this all ends for us. I think there’s a chance we still go back to normal if we’re involved physically for a few months, but if we do the dating thing—announcing what we are to everyone, and making declarations, and getting more serious, it feels like there’s more of a chance of getting hurt. You’ve been so important to me for so long, I don’t want to throw that away on something impulsive.”
He deflated a little, and Joan felt like she’d kicked a puppy.
“Well, at least I know where we stand,” he said. “Now there’s no question.”
“Lucas,” she said, a little desperate. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
“Don’t be.” He waved her off. “I’m glad to see you stand up for what you need. But sometimes I wonder…”
“What?”
“I mean, what would the difference be? We care about each other, and we have this killer chemistry. We hang out all the time. I know you have at least some feelings for me, in a small way.” At her raised brows, he laughed and pointed his straw at her. “Don’t lie. I’ve seen how you look at me. What’s left?”
The waiter returned to take their plates. Joan stared out the window at the line of hanging bulbs connecting one streetlamp to the next, glowing against the dusk. A family walked by, a little boy between his parents as they held hands with him and swung him forward.
“Just commitment, I suppose,” she said. “And I know you can do that. Don’t you think you’d get bored with me eventually, though?”
“The way people talk about me getting bored, you’d think I was a hyperactive toddler,” he mumbled. “But point taken. I understand your hesitation.”
She nodded, miserable. She’d created a mess.
“What do you want to do?” She glanced toward the window again, at the brick walkway outside. “About our arrangement, I mean? I don’t want to hurt you. The whole idea here was to keep us in each other’s lives.”
“I’m good with it if you are. But let’s try something,” he said.
She nodded. “Whatever you need.”
“Let’s take a few more weeks off from the sex stuff. You keep doing your therapy at home. We’ll go back to being friends for a bit, then if we still feel like it’s a good idea, we’ll continue.”
She hesitated. Did he want to quit now that they weren’t going to be together? It didn’t sound like something he would want, but maybe she had hurt his feelings. How could she not, with her rejection? But she wanted him to feel comfortable.
“Deal.”