by Mina Bennett
"Yeah," I said. I didn't dare say anything about how I wished I was in Hawaii, or some nonsense like that. He'd only get angry. The few times we'd talked about money, he always got defensive and even a little panicky, insisting he was a "good provider," which I didn't doubt. I never meant to criticize, I was just curious. I really had no idea what our life was going to be like, in that respect. My parents had never been in any serious financial trouble, as far as I knew, but I did remember lots of fights when I was younger that started with bills spread all over the kitchen table. I didn't want to end up like that. My mom had always told me that money was the number one reason that marriages didn't work out.
"Penny for your thoughts." He'd stopped rubbing my back, and was just leaning over me.
"Nothing," I said. "Just wondering what my parents are doing right now."
"Your parents?" He chuckled. "The last thing I want you thinking about on our honeymoon is your parents."
"Sorry," I said, feeling instantly embarrassed.
"It's okay." He walked around to the side of the desk and grabbed both my hands, standing me up to face him. He leaned over and kissed me, and his hardness pressed into my hip bone. I should have guessed there was a reason he was being nice, all of a sudden.
No, that was unfair. I was his wife now, and I had my obligations. He didn't have to be nice about it, but he was. I'd heard my fair share of horror stories, whispered around the church. He was making an effort. And that was nice.
I still felt a little dizzy and sick, but when he laid me down on the bed it was somewhat of a relief. He kissed his way down my neck and chest, and I was actually starting to feel a pleasurable tingle working its way down my body.
Then, he stopped abruptly, pulling away and unzipping hastily. He was nudging at my entrance before had a chance to breathe, pressing and pushing, not seeming to notice when I winced.
I tried to relax, but my inner muscles were clenched tight and I couldn't seem to control them. "Come on, come on," he was muttering, not to me so much as to himself, trying to force his way in.
"Wait," I said, and he looked up at me like I was speaking an alien language.
"What?" he snapped. "What the hell's wrong now?"
I'd never heard him use the word "hell" outside of religious discussions. I was mildly shocked - and he wasn't letting up. "Please," I said. "I can't - I don't know what it is. I can't relax."
"Are you serious? What do you mean, you can't relax?" He sat up, breathing heavily. "I'm your husband, Mari, you're supposed to enjoy this."
"I know," I said. "I'm sorry."
"You didn't have any trouble last night, and that was your first time," he said. He didn't have to express his suspicion out loud; I saw it in his face, and I'd seen it afterwards back then. "No blood?" he'd said, looking at me like he thought I was about to admit something.
"I guess not," I'd said. It had hurt - like hell - but there was nothing but my word to prove that.
Now, I didn't know what he expected me to do or say. My body was rebelling against me, and I couldn't remember anything about this in the educational books my parents had given me as a young teen.
"Can't you just unclench it? Like unclenching a fist?" Mark was still obviously frustrated, but he'd calmed down enough to talk to me like a reasonable person. I sat up.
"I don't know," I said. "I don't think so. I don't even know how."
"It's okay," he said, looking like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince me. "We can do other stuff."
"Other stuff?" I looked at him. "What do you mean?"
"Come on," he said, patting the mattress. "Sit up, right here, on the edge."
I did as he asked, even though the pit of my stomach was heavy with hesitation. "What?" I said. "What are we doing?"
"Shh, it's okay." He was standing in front of me, close, so that his stiff member was right in my face. I knew about this, but for some reason I'd never pictured it as being a part of my honeymoon.
He grabbed himself at the base, holding it steady for me.
"Come on," he said, softly. "Go ahead, lick it like a popsicle."
I took a deep breath, and did.
It wasn't as bad as I expected - it just tasted like skin, although a little drop of salty bitterness came out of the tip suddenly and almost made me gag. When I went to pull back, his hand rested on the back of my head, stopping me.
"No, no, baby, you're doing great," he said. "This is perfect. Don't stop."
I tried, as best I could, to take him in my mouth and bob my head up and down, the way I was pretty sure people did this. He seemed to think it was okay. My stomach was in knots, roiling from the motion and the sensation of him hitting the back of my mouth. But I didn't want to ruin it for him, and his hand was holding me in place, so I didn't stop.
It was going to be okay. It was going to be okay. I kept telling myself that, over and over again. Tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes, and my jaw was aching, but it was going to be okay.
I breathed harshly through my nose, when I could. Sometimes he pushed too deep and I couldn't breathe at all, but never for too long. After the first few times it happened, I stopped panicking so much. It was going to be okay.
It was. It was.
After what felt like an eternity, his breathing changed, and his fingers tightened at the base of my hair. I winced, but kept my pace going. Finally, more of that bitter, salty liquid flooded my mouth, and I only had a second to react before I gagged so powerfully that he had no choice but to let go of me. My whole body lurched. I jumped up and ran to the sink, still gagging, my face bright red with shame.
I'd stopped. It was the one thing he'd told me not to do. I'd probably ruined the whole experience for him.
When I finally came out of the bathroom, he was sitting on the bed, fully dressed and composed.
"I'm sorry," I said, in a small voice.
He looked up at me, his face utterly blank and emotionless. "You don't need to be sorry," he said. "You'll get better. Practice makes perfect."
His smile made me shiver a little.
"Okay," he said. "I'm just...I don't really know what I'm doing. And I don't understand what went wrong before."
"It's all right," he said. "You can see a doctor on Monday."
A doctor. It hadn't occurred to me that was necessary, but if he thought so...I had to admit, it was nice to have someone worried about me.
***
"Well, Marissa." The doctor was pulling her gloves off. "First of all, I want you to know that what you're experiencing now isn't strange or uncommon at all. We call it 'vaginismus.' It's a funny sounding word for a pretty painful, embarrassing problem. It doesn't usually mean that there's anything wrong with you, physically. That doesn't mean that it's 'not real,' or that your feelings are imaginary - but sometimes, your body is more in tune with what you're thinking and feeling than you might realize. You know what I mean?"
I nodded. I still didn't understand, not really, but I hoped she was going to give me some kind of concrete solution.
"Sort of like how, when you're stressed out, you get a lot of headaches or stomachaches? Or even just stomach cramps and sweaty palms? Those are all physical reactions to difficult emotions, and usually, that's what vaginismus is. Especially in the absence of other symptoms. And you seem very healthy - so that's good news."
Was it? I'd been hoping for a pill or a shot. Something to fix me. I wanted to go back to having sex the normal way, not the "other stuff" that Mark had initiated over the weekend. After he got tired of my mouth, what was next?
"I don't really understand," I said. "So there's nothing I can do about it?"
Her smile was sympathetic. "I know sometimes these kinds of diagnoses can be very frustrating," she said. "But they can also be very helpful and healing, in the long term. Symptoms like this can really bring things to light that we might be ignoring otherwise. Sometimes it has to do with how we feel about our partners, or being intimate with them -
or just sex in general. Sometimes it can be a combination of all three, or it can be stress or unhappiness that's seemingly unrelated to the relationship at all. Is any of this sounding familiar?"
My head was swimming, but I didn't dare admit my misgivings out loud. That would have made them real. "I don't know," I said, my voice sounding faint. "Can't you just...isn't there something I can take?"
She took in a long breath, and then let it out, slowly. "Unfortunately, there's no quick and easy solution to this. If you like, I could speak to your husband and explain the situation. We could all work on the problem together."
I shook my head, vigorously. I couldn't imagine how Mark would respond to that, but I knew it wouldn't be good. "No. No, don't do that. I'll do whatever I have to do."
Concern passed across the doctor's face, and I knew what she must be thinking. I rushed to correct whatever impression I'd just accidentally left in her mind.
"It's not that he's a bad guy," I said, quickly. "He just has his own things to worry about. I just want to be able to get this fixed. That's all. I want to be able to...make him happy."
"Sure," said the doctor, smiling again. "Of course. But I'm sure that he wants you to be happy, too. He cares about your well-being."
"I know," I said. "But I don't want to give him something else to worry about."
"Well, okay." She clicked her pen, and laid the chart down. "Is it all right if I ask you a few questions, so we can try to figure this out?"
I nodded. I had a feeling I wasn't going to like most of the questions, but clearly this needed to be done.
She laced her fingers together, resting them on her knee. "I understand this is a very personal question, but try to answer it as best you can. How do you feel about sex?"
That one completely stymied me. It seemed like it should be a simple enough question, but it wasn't one I'd ever considered before. Was I supposed to have an opinion? It just...was what it was. Wasn't it?
"It's fine," I said, at last. I knew that wasn't particularly helpful, but I had no idea what I was supposed to say.
"Do you enjoy it?"
I knew I was supposed to say yes. It was on the tip of my tongue, but when it came down to it, I couldn't quite force the word out.
"Not..." I was going to say not always, but then it occurred to me that wasn't entirely honest either. "No," I managed, finally.
The doctor seemed to take that in stride. "You've only been married for a few days now - is that correct?"
"Yes."
"Well, it's completely normal for the whole experience to be a little strange, at first. But it's supposed to be enjoyable for both of you. Would you feel comfortable talking to your husband about it? Maybe trying some new things to make it better for you?"
I shook my head.
"How do you think he would react?"
I swallowed. "I don't know. Get offended, maybe."
"Sure," she said, nodding. "That's actually not unusual. But most times, people find that their spouses are a lot more receptive to these kinds of conversations that they expected. It helps if you keep the language positive. 'I would like' or 'could you' instead of pointing out what you don't like."
"I guess I don't even know where to start," I admitted. "I have no idea what I like."
"Okay, fair enough." She smiled. "It might help to start out with something like massage, or taking a bath or shower together. It might take you a while to get used to having a sexual partner; for a lot of people, it's a pretty big adjustment. We tend to build it up as this amazing thing, and it is, but it can also be very anxiety-inducing and confusing. And your body might just be reacting to that. It's important to listen to the signals that it's sending you."
After that, she started asking me questions about Mark that I answered perfunctorily. No, he never made me feel unsafe. No, I wasn't concerned about violence in the home. I understood what she was driving at, and even if I didn't feel "safe" or if I did feel "isolated" I couldn't say so. It would have massive repercussions against me, against him, against our whole community. She asked me what it was like when we fought, and I told her that we never really did. And it was true, mostly.
She sent me out with an encouraging smile and a pile of pamphlets. Mark looked up as soon as I walked into the waiting room, but he held his questions until we were in the car.
"Well?" he said. "What'd she say?"
I shrugged. "They have to run some tests." It was a fib, but a harmless one, I thought. "But she doesn't think it's anything...physical."
"What does that mean?" he wanted to know. His tone was half skeptical and half annoyed. I needed to tread carefully; I'd already inconvenienced him enough.
"Well," I said. "I don't know, really. She asked me a lot of questions about stress, and how - you know, since this stuff is all new to me, maybe I just need to get used to it."
"Well you can't exactly get used to it if we can't do anything," he said. "I knew I should have gone in there with you. I've got a few questions for that doctor of yours."
"Call her, then," I snapped. I didn't mean to be so short, but I was feeling cornered and exhausted by the whole thing.
He looked at me like a puppy that had been hit.
"Marissa," he said, "I'm just worried about you. I'm worried about your health. I don't want some doctor writing it off, saying it's all in your head. Stress? I mean, what do you have to be stressed about?"
"Well I did just get married," I muttered. Mark shook his head, and I couldn't tell if he didn't hear me, or just didn't accept that explanation.
"Ridiculous," he said. "Totally ridiculous. I will be calling their office, okay, make no mistake about that. Next time, you tell them you won't be seen unless I can come into the exam room with you."
I felt a stab of panic in my chest, though I couldn't exactly explain why. "I don't think they'll allow that," I said, softly. I had no idea if it was true or not, but I knew I didn't want him in there with me.
He let out a bark of laughter. "Who are they? The Gestapo? Of course they'll 'allow it.' You're their customer. Their patient. They have to accommodate you, do whatever makes you comfortable."
I swallowed thickly, hoping against hope that his phone call wouldn't reveal that they had no such policy. We'd argued about it in the car on the way there, and blaming it on some nonexistent policy seemed like the easiest way to get him off my back. I wasn't sure what I thought would happen, but could I possibly answer any of those questions in front of him? Feel his eyes on me during the examination?
I couldn't even imagine.
But this was my life now. I was tethered to this man, for better or worse. This was it. This was the freedom that I'd wanted so badly.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jacob
Brandon's family was holding their annual Fourth of July party, and the whole world was going to be there.
Well, all of Hobb's Vale, anyway. I don't think anyone was quite sure how the tradition started, least of all Brandon's family. But every year, it happened - culminating with all the kids gathering on the roof to watch the neighbors' lavish fireworks. It was typically an all-day affair, with Brandon and his brothers barbecuing about a thousand pounds of meat, everyone playing Frisbee and football in their massive yard, and many late-night chats out on the porch swings while the youngest kids ran after fireflies, their giggles echoing into the night.
Usually, at some point during the night, Mari and I would end up out on the porch, talking long after the sun went down. It wasn't until now, when I realized she was going to be with Mark all night, how much I was going to miss it.
Miss her.
I forced myself not to think about it. I had Lily, after all, someone who was actually interested in me - and more importantly, wasn't married to someone else.
We got there very early, and I spent some time kicking a soccer ball around with Lily on the massive lawn, soaking up the sun and focusing on tracking the ball, on the movements of my feet. It was a welcome distraction. After a whi
le of running around in the grass, I started to feel a strange clarity in the back of my mind. Everything was going to be fine. This was my new life. Out with the old, in with the new - this was the summer when I finally grew up. This was the summer I'd get over Marissa Moore.
It was kind of exciting, if I thought about it in those terms. Like it was a New Year's resolution or something. I'd just...stop feeling the way I used to feel, that was simple enough, right? When the feelings cropped up, I'd stamp them down. I'd pray, I'd read the Bible, I'd ride my bike, I'd run around in circles shouting nonsense - whatever it took.
As the party got into full swing, I felt like a new man. It turned out that if I pretended hard enough that Mark and Marissa were just people to me, just ordinary people like anyone else at the barbecue, it almost became true. As the afternoon wore on, I started noticing things that had escaped me these past few months. Little Carson, the church pianist's baby, who I'd held on my lap a few times when she went up to play, was walking on his own. Brandon's little sister had grown about three feet taller. With my mind clear and unclouded, I felt like I was waking up for the first time in months.
I'd always privately taken the verses in Corinthians about how it was best to remain unmarried with a grain of salt - but now, I was starting to understand his point. When you were busy thinking about love, you missed a lot of the world going by. How much time had I wasted feeling sorry for myself? I felt disgusted by it now. Never again.
Lily was a much better match for me. I could easily see her complementing my life; improving it, even. She didn't make me feel like I wanted to tear my own hair out. It was a calm, quiet, steady feeling, being with her.
She had to leave the celebrations early, to get home and rest up for a college visit in the morning. Before running off to meet her dad's running SUV, she gave me a quick peck on the cheek, and then turned away, embarrassed.
"What a sweet girl," Brandon commented, making me jump.
"You've got to stop doing that," I complained, turning around to face him. He was holding a plate loaded with burgers, macaroni and potato salad, and assorted cheese cubes. "Bringing me food isn't going to make me feel any better about the inevitable heart attack when you sneak up on me at the wrong moment."