Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 164828 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164828 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
“I do,” I reply without hesitation. “No doubt about that. I have always loved her.”
“So, what’s the problem? If you love her and you’re physically attracted to her, what’s the problem?”
“Eliza is home to me, Alex. If I fuck this up…”
“Nathe.” He sighs. “I know that Eliza is the only thing that kept you sane while you were going through your breakup with Robert, but….”
“She was.” After I broke up with Robert, I went through a particularly wild time in my life. I was single and young with a broken heart. I’d never been sexually active and free before. It was all so new. I would party hard, and my friend dates with Eliza were the only thing that kept me on the straight and narrow. I toed the line because of her. I take a big gulp of my beer. “Another two, please,” I ask the waiter.
“She probably doesn’t feel the same, and… what if I don’t like it?” I stare straight ahead.
“Like what?”
“The sex. How the fuck do you suddenly start liking women at the age of thirty-four?”
He shakes his head and laughs quietly, like I’m an idiot.
“What’s that laugh for?”
“You want to hear what I think? I think that you just happened to fall in love with a guy first. And I think that it perhaps molded you into thinking that only men could give you the type of sex you want.”
“What?” I scowl.
He holds his hand up. “Listen to me for a minute. You have said to me on many occasions that you like rough sex, have you not?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me, Nathe, do you think that a woman could handle how rough you are in bed?”
“No. I don’t.” I shake my head. “No way.”
“Do you think that when you broke up with Robert, you gravitated toward men because they were familiar to you and you didn’t have to think? You could just fuck and forget about the world. Is it possible that you associate the type of sex you like… to the sex of the person?”
“What?”
“I believe that you think only men can take it how you want to give it.”
I stare at him, a clusterfuck of confusion tearing through my mind.
“Nathe, women like it rough. I can’t fuck Jessica any harder than I do.”
“What are you saying?”
“I think that if you slept with a woman… you maybe wouldn’t…” His voice trails off.
My eyes hold his, waiting.
“Okay, let’s go through this.” He begins to count on his fingers. “You don’t have any gay friends, other than ex-boyfriends. Your male friends are all heterosexual. You hate gay bars. You hate anything camp. You have never picked up someone in a bar in front of anyone you know. You have never ever battled with your sexuality like most do. You have never battled with coming out because a title has never bothered you.” He holds up his counted fingers. “That’s eight. Ten. Don’t you think that if you were truly a gay man that you would want the world to see who you really are?”
I sit back in my seat, affronted.
“You would be out and proud if that’s who you really were. You’re not ashamed of being gay.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that maybe you just happened to fall in love with a guy first and that it doesn’t have to define who you will love in the future.”
My eyes drop to the counter in front of me. “I wouldn’t change meeting Robert.”
“I know.”
We sit in silence for a while, and my head is spinning about his revelations.
“Tell me this, Nathe. If you could go out tonight and pick up anyone in the world, male or female, and have sex with them, who would it be?”
Eliza.
I can’t bring myself to say it out loud. I exhale heavily and put my head into my hands.
“I feel like the walls are closing in. I’ve never been so confused in my life.” I sigh. “I’m watching things I shouldn’t be watching. Thinking things I shouldn’t be thinking.” I shake my head in disgust. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on with me, and you know what I noticed this week?”
“What?”
“Maria, my receptionist, has great legs.”
He frowns.
“She’s worked for me for four years, and just this week, I noticed she has great legs.”
“Why?”
“You tell me.” I gasp. “I’m like a fucking pubescent teen again. I’m confused and angry… anxious.” I shake my head in frustration. “I’m having wet dreams and jerking off in Eliza’s bathroom, for Christ’s sake. I don’t know what the fuck is going on with me or how to deal with it. It’s like I’ve been rewired or something.”
His eyes light up. “Yes. Maybe that’s just what’s happened? Maybe by not having sex with anyone, you’ve wiped the slate clean. You’ve been guided for so long by what’s familiar, that maybe now, it’s time for a change.”