He awoke one morning with the idea that premarital sex was wrong.\u00a0 What would his life been like if getting a woman into his\u00a0bed included signing an oath committing himself to just one woman and doing so\u00a0in\u00a0front of clergy and family?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The idea was outrageous; commitment, solemn oaths were societal dictates that had no room in this post religious age.\u00a0 Nobody in their right mind did that thing anymore.\u00a0 But guilt pervaded his conscious one particular morning when realizing that premarital sex was the only type of sex he had ever had. \u00a0So, the startling question awoke within him; if premarital sex had not been so easy, if condemns and birth control had not been so readily available what would committed sex have been like?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
He wasn\u2019t a moralist, but if a sane man couldn\u2019t think of another reality, what was the world coming to?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
So, stretching deep and feeling his muscles tense and then release, he thought of the different lovers he had known with the idea he would bring each to mind without overt emotion.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t a cruel man by nature, but he was intelligent and feelings were detrimental to reason, in his opinion.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
There was one woman who wanted to curl up next to him and talk until they both fell asleep.\u00a0 At first the idea was comforting, like being read a bed-time story, but after about a year he realized he was dreading sex because of the conversation afterwards.\u00a0 Words like future and phrases like \u2018my mother,’ and \u2018your dad,\u2019 slipped so easily between her lips.\u00a0 He imagined that his apartment was full of grungy kid\u2019s toys and the looming responsibility of college tuition was bearing down upon him.\u00a0 No, he had had enough, and they had drifted apart.\u00a0 There was the other who insisted on watching him fall asleep and yet another who wanted to eat in bed and watch television – that happened once.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Yes, there was another and despite his idea of remaining devoid of emotion, his heart tugged at him and he squirmed around in his big, cool, comfortable bed uncomfortably.\u00a0 She (what was her name, damn) curled up by herself and didn\u2019t want anything to do with the afterglow.\u00a0 The whole object of the deed was the touch, so he was a little miffed at her attitude at first.\u00a0 There were those who were loud and those who even cried and one or two who had the sexiest moan he had ever heard. Each had their own quality, even the one who wanted to eat in bed, but only one acted wounded.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The idea of sleeping with a virgin made his head spin, but the sheets didn’t reveal anything of that nature and he remembered falling asleep relived if not a little miffed at being frightened.\u00a0 She got up the next morning unbeknownst to him and slipped out of his apartment.\u00a0 He looked about, wondering if she stole anything.\u00a0 She had not.\u00a0 He felt odd, puzzled for an entire day, and then thought little about it.\u00a0 He never saw her again.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Sitting up in bed after contemplating his various lovers he sighed and mentally conceded that each had their good qualities but each had their own diabolical fault.\u00a0\u00a0 A clinging lover was too much.\u00a0 By the\u00a0nature of\u00a0the act, you had to put some distance between yourself and your lover for at least a few minutes.\u00a0 Wanting to fall asleep in a quasi-pool of love wasn\u2019t something he looked forward to night after night.\u00a0 Besides, it was exhausting.\u00a0 A man had to sleep.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Outside of the girl who would not allow him to touch her afterward, he never had a one-night stand; all the rest hung around for a month or two.\u00a0 There was one who lasted a year. \u00a0They had met at a New Year\u2019s Eve party and parted at the very next New Year\u2019s Eve party – it got noisy, but the whole block was noisy on New Year’s Eve.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
He had an idea.\u00a0 Committed sex may be like reading the same excellent book over and over.\u00a0 He had read a few novels but had never read one over. \u00a0\u00a0 He imagined his adolescent years reading the great novels of Sir Walter Scott. \u00a0 What would those novels reveal to him now?\u00a0 Reading again a novel that spoke to him twenty-five years ago would speak to him differently in the here and now; it\u2019s reasonable to think so.\u00a0The discoveries, the lines and the language that a 13-year-old boy read through quickly to obtain the ending may be enjoyable now. Yes, enjoyable and perhaps even comforting due to the familiarity.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Yes, he would reread a novel, one he loved from boyhood, that was a start to contemplating committed sex. But he would tell no one, especially a woman, because any woman would be smug about his idea and wonder what took him so long to come to it.\u00a0 He would try it first and make sure that familiarity was an enjoyable experience.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cWhat are you thinking about?\u201d\u00a0 She walked in with nothing but his shirt on and a copy of East of Eden in her hand.\u00a0 He realized that his idea had come from his latest partner.\u00a0 She was a student of literature, a few years younger than him, and had the strongest thighs he could remember on a woman.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cIs that novel any good, would you read it twice?\u201d he asked eagerly.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cI do nothing twice.\u201d \u00a0Her smile seemed a little canine.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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But guilt pervaded his conscious one particular morning when realizing that premarital sex was the only type of sex he had ever had. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3,19],"tags":[11,21,23],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-story","category-short-fiction","category-writing","tag-amwriting","tag-shortstory","tag-writing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lydiaink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Read-it-Twice.jpeg?fit=1376%2C768&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2281,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions\/2281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}