“Faking it?”
Her meaning was in no way unclear.
But I couldn’t help repeating what she had
said.
She didn’t answer; she just kept her eyes
fixed on mine—more calm and patient than angry or irritated.
Faking it.
For the five years that we had been married—and,
I assume, for the two previous years we had been dating—Jan had been faking it.
I thought she’d been having orgasms—the
result of things that I did to her; it had certainly looked (and sounded) like
that to me.
Turns out?
This had been a Show.
And . . . I’d bought it.
Hook, line, and sinker.
Okay . . .
The immediate question, of course, was: Why?
And that’s a Part A and Part B question,
right?
How and why had I been failing her sexually?
And . . . why had she waited seven years to
tell me this?
She hadn’t cum—just a few minutes before;
that had been obvious.
I had “held back” for as long as I
could—which meant something like: actual intercourse lasted closer to six
minutes, rather than four—but there had clearly been no “culmination” for her,
what I, perhaps selfishly, thought of as a “reward for my efforts,” evidence
that I had “done my job.”
I liked to think of myself as sensitive.
I liked to think of myself as “aware.”
I liked to think of myself—I’ll confess,
given how things have “evolved,” with some mortification—I liked to think of
myself as something approaching a sexual artist; like a musician, well attuned
to his instrument.
But . . .
No.
Not really.
Just . . . obviously.
The death of that illusion was less the
pricking—pun intended—of a balloon, and more the spectacular flameout of the
Hindenburg: The hydrogen-filled blimp that caught fire, in the 1930s, over some
part of New Jersey.
Oh, the humanity!
Yes, I am comparing my sexual failings to the
loss of some thirty-five lives.
An argument that I skew in the direction of
self-important—or did, anyway—can be made.
A good deal of “air” has been let out of me
in the past few months; hard for me to picture that I am ever going to inflate
again to my original size—pun intended—in just so many ways.
“Mickey,” my wife said, face going a little
sad, “I just can’t pretend anymore. I . . .” it felt like she was on the cusp
of saying she was sorry about that; she didn’t. “I just . . . can’t.”
I don’t think I had cried since my mother’s funeral—some
three years before.
Felt like I was flush up against the brink of
breaking down; I didn’t know how to respond: what to say, what to feel, what to
think—whether there was any “solution” I could propose.
I felt like I had just been run over by a
freight train, and that I was trying to determine whether or not I was dead.
Clearly, I was injured—or just inadequate.
No arguing about that.
I managed a single word: “And?”
Clearly, this was a question for which she
had prepared.
There was still another long pause.
The clause she started with was chilling.
“If you want to stay married . . .” she
began.