Sunday 15 February 2009

What's my motivation?

So the coil is out. We are now officially "trying for a baby", that whiney little phrase which has always made me cringe when I've heard anyone else say it.

I've told a few people - my mum, one close real-life female friend, a few online friends. I kind of want to keep it on the downlow. I don't want everyone waiting on tenterhooks for "the call", because I'm fairly sure it'll be a while before we conceive. I'm in my mid-30s, so my fertility may or may not be up to scratch, but while this was something that worried me a few years ago, now I'm more concerned that it will be the infrequency of our fucking will slow us down in the up-duffing stakes, and I don't really feel like explaining that to people when they ask why I'm not pregnant yet.

Of course, this could put rather a new and interesting spin on how we approach our sex life. I've been arguing for months for the concept of planning sex, booking time in to do it rather than waiting for spontaneous passion to overwhelm us. When you have the winning combination of a low-libido man, a woman whose confidence is stifled by his lack of desire, and the calcifying build-up of misunderstandings and assumptions clogging up the lust flow, spontaneous passion is few and far between. Even when it appears to be present, my unhelpful internal dialogue unfurls and spreads itself out like a damp tea towel on a chip-pan fire. V has been singularly ambivalent towards the planned approach, though as far as I can remember he's never really said why.

But now we have not only a brand new reason to fuck like bunnies, but also a damn good imperative to plan it into our schedules. The patterns of fertility are such that there's a relatively short window each month when conception is most likely. However, as it's technically possible to conceive any time, most experts recommend making love (OMG, "making love"! what a weird concept that is to me) at least a couple of times a week. He jokes, like all men probably do, that it'll only take one go with his super-strong über-sperm, but he doesn't seem overly opposed to the idea of planning in sex dates. Having said that, he hasn't actually said yes. Or no. I think I need to talk to him about it when he's in a peak state, get a proper answer out of him and, if he is willing, actually make a plan.

Of course, this is a wee bit complicated by the fact that he has only just started coming around to the idea that having kids might actually be a fun and fulfilling thing to do. Perhaps I should pitch his motivation to him - a well-fucked and pregnant B is a happy B, a B that's moving towards a future she wants. A happy B is the B he fell in love with. Surely he wants that girl back?

Last night was our first unprotected fuck, and very strange it was too. He was tired and didn't feel like it - quelle surprise - but had been promising me all week and I guess he knew he had to put out eventually. Jesus, that makes me feel like a rapist. We kissed and caressed standing up in the bedroom, and our undressing was awkward and methodical, but kind of exciting. We joked and chatted throughout - I can't remember about what, but it lightened the mood.

I laid him down and began to kiss his body, lightly drawing my hand over his cock and balls. He gasped and moaned loudly, but he didn't feel too hard under my touch. Was he faking, or genuinely enjoying while his body failed to catch up to what his mind was doing? For an instant, the movie in my mind unravelled and I glimpsed a future where erectional dysfunction combined with low libido into a big old mess of sexual dissatisfaction and childlessness. I reached a hand between my own legs and turned the voices in my head down. He tried half-heartedly to touch my pussy, but half-cocked is worse than no-cocked, and triggers the feelings that he doesn't really want me, so I shifted my body down and sucked his cock enthusiastically. It had been a few weeks and, God, I had missed his cock in my mouth. I love the looseness of the skin over the grainy firmness of the flesh underneath. Feeling it swell harder and hearing his groans turned me on far more than a missing-the-mark hand on my pussy. The voices in my head exalted - I am a sexual being! He wants this! He wants me! I felt giddy at my power and skill. My hips bucked and twitched of their own accord. Suddenly I was wet where before I'd felt embarrassingly dry.

By the time we finally fucked, he seemed to have joined me in the mental space where it felt right. I lay back, drawing a cushion under my hips and hooking his towards me with my heels. He grabbed his cock and lay it over my open pussy, stroking it over my clit a few times before redirecting it into my cunt and pushing hard into me with an "Oh, fuck!" His face scrunched up and, one hand on the headboard to hold himself up, he grabbed a breast and massaged it roughly, then slapped it across the nipple. I yelped with pleasure, but laughed silently at his change of tune - my god, there was actually passion there. He moved with more determination inside me, and my hand went right to my clit, clockwise circles the way I have for years. He was ready to come soon, and he thoughtfully stopped, rigid inside me, and waited. To my amusement, the climax-inducing images in my head were not the usual pornographic standbys, but sperm penetrating eggs and cells dividing. It was all I could do not to laugh out loud, but it did the trick. I fell over the edge and cried out, and when he felt my cunt squeeze and my back arch as I came, I felt his cock pulse against my G-spot as he poured his come into me, buckets of backed-up no-orgasms-for-a-week come. Peter North quantities. My cunt was actually full, and even the tops of my thighs were dripping wet and covered. He looked down at my pussy and said "Well, that's that done, then".

I wouldn't be surprised but, as much as I want to be pregnant, I kind of hope not. I want more of the same, please. Lots more.

Happy Valentine's Day.

I was surprised this morning by V presenting me with a dozen roses and a card which was extremely "us" in nature, plus two tickets to see a show. Sadly, the lovey-dovey ended there. I spent the day cleaning the house. He spent it playing video games and complaining of a headache.

Late afternoon, I announced that I was heading to the bedroom to play with a rather extraordinary new toy, and did he want to come with me. He stopped play for a second to look up at me, remote control in hand, with a smile at half-cock and exaggerated sleepy eyes. And unpaused the game.

"I guess that's a no, then."

Quite literally, go fuck yourself. And I did, loudly and vigorously, and in front of a mirror.

Round two, ding ding. I wandered back into the living room in just my T-shirt, to debrief him on the performance of my new plaything. Perhaps sir would be interested in a demo?

No, sir would not be interested in a demo, even if the demo is a visibly aroused, wet and slippery young lady, hard nipples poking through her T-shirt, sliding a large buzzing dildo into her cunt right in front of him. See how much I can take, sir? Sorry, sir, I can see now that you're busy. With Mario Kart.

I give up, I honestly do. Except clearly I don't, because I like sticking rusty pins into the rotten cabbage of my self-esteem.

So Valentine's Day and the ensuing evening passed much as most Saturdays do, and it was fucking boring and depressing and not at all romantic, and I had another good cry, though not entirely for the state of our relationship. Ho hum. Yeah, it's probably just the intensifying ray of Valentine's Day thowing a spotlight on the shitty, but today has really bummed me out. Hope springs eternal. I promise to endeavour to make tomorrow better. Maybe even he will too.

Friday 13 February 2009

We took a shower together on Sunday, the first in months.

I don't know why he agreed to it - a time-saving exercise, I suspect. He stood awkwardly a good foot away from me, awaiting his turn under the water. It's the first time in a while that we have been close and naked together, but he averted his eyes from me. I soaped my breasts, ashamed at my own desperation to arouse him and tearful that I was most likely failing. I squeezed past him, playfully sticking my soapy arse out to slide it over his crotch - "Ooh, not much space in here, I'll just have to... Ooh, sorry!" My advances towards him have evolved into a mockery of flirtation and desperation, a self-conscious chubby woman trying to pique the interests of a dispassionate and irritated man. My need for attention is pathetic and churns in my stomach. I try to turn down the chatter in my brain so I don't spoil any actual potential for intimacy by bursting into tears. I feel clunky, awkward and obvious. But there's no space left for eroticism or seduction - how can I be erotic and seductive when it's clear that he has no desire for me, and when I have no confidence in my own ability to make him want me?

The utilitarian shower continued. I reached out and washed his back. He didn't wash mine. I swiped a soapy hand across his chest, mock-naughtily refusing to let him rinse off, and began to do it myself, rubbing his skin and looking up at him. I kissed him once, and again - both times he responded with the kind of kiss I dread. I know that kiss. I loathe that kiss. To me it means "Not now". It's a smacking, chaste, childish kiss, the kind one might give to a toddler as you drop him off at nursery.

I gave in to the hopelessness, and began to cry. I leaned into him and his arms went mechanically around me as I sobbed and shook noisily against his chest. I admit, I laid it on a bit thick - who wouldn't? I know it's pointless, even cruel, it just fans his guilt and dampens his libido further, but I want him to know how much this hurts me.

Again I told him our relationship was in trouble, how rejected, ugly, hopeless and helpless I felt, how intimacy is the cornerstone of a relationship, blah blah blah - I'm so tired of repeating it. I felt like a selfish bitch for even bringing it up considering what he's been through this last month, and I told him so, with an apology. He looked down at me, silent and impassive. He got out of the shower. I thought that was it, but he eventually gave me his latest version of events. He says his libido is even worse since his recent trauma, and if it seems sex is at the bottom of his list it's cos he's working hard to build his career to support our future kids. Immediately he backtracked "I know there won't be any kids if we don't have sex." "No, actually," I retorted, "there won't be any us if we don't have sex, because unless you start making an effort to improve things we are going to split up."

He acquiesced, kind of, and said we could make a date for that night, for time to be naked together, and true to plan, it went ahead. It culminated in some of the most tender, emotional sex I've ever experienced and the first orgasm ever to make me cry. But even through this, I can't help wondering if I'm simply projecting an aura of romance and love onto the act. For all I know, for him it was a singularly detached experience. While it was easy to imagine, while he was inside of me, that it meant as much to him as it did to me, he certainly didn't seem emotionally moved in any way. But this is half of the problem - he's such a cool customer that it's impossible to know what's going on for him unless he opens his mouth and talks. And that's rare.

So that was last Sunday. It's Friday now. There's been no sex all week, and last Sunday hasn't been mentioned. No promises have been made, but it's the weekend now, the time of the week when the chance of us actually getting together raises from a flatline to the vaguest glimmer of possibility. I haven't decided if I'm going to play it cool or attempt to push through my self-disgust and pounce. It's Valentine's Day so the pressure's on. Let's see how it pans out.

Thursday 5 February 2009

I am Bea.

Or Beatrice. Or B. But obviously I'm not really. It's a nom de plume, so it makes no odds, as long as you spell it right.

I've been blogging my life elsewhere for a few years now. I've built up quite the little support network of online friends, some of whom have crossed over into real life, and some of whom have made the reverse journey from real life into online, joining me in my virtual home. It's all lovely and cosy and mutually supportive, but one of the problems of online transparency is that when writing about your life becomes your therapy, there are some things you just don't want to spout out to everyone you know.

I love V. We met online a few years ago through our blogs, love bloomed and we moved in together quickly. It was fait accompli before our demiversary. We've been together now for going on three years and plan to start a family together soon.

Yet while I adore him, and he me, and we have a lovely little life together, ours is not a bed of roses, and my need to write it all out cannot be fulfilled in my usual spot without me hanging out my dirty laundry all over my friends' desktops, and that wouldn't be fair on anyone. I've tried talking to my friends in real life - it was equally as unfair as public blogging and, frankly, embarrassing for all concerned, not to mention the advice I got was more or less useless and discounted the fact that I love my man and want us to stay together. Besides, I'm far more articulate with my fingers than I am with my mouth, hence this blog.

V has no sex drive. While the start to our relationship was heavily sexual, a whirlwind of cyber, phone sex, and dirty cellphone pics as long-distance things tend to be, his desire slid quietly out the door a short while after he moved all his stuff in through mine, and two years later it shows no sign of returning from its extended break. It's now been just over a month since we had any sexual contact bar desultory kissing. This is only slightly longer than the usual gap - normally I am able to wrestle one half-hearted fuck out of him every two to three weeks, if I'm lucky. What's different this time? A couple of things - firstly I'm giving him a break. He's just gone through a traumatic family event and I know full stop that sex is even further from his mind than it usually is, which is pretty fucking far. And secondly, I just can't take the rejection any longer. Putting myself through the agony of trying to wrench some sexual interest out of him is sapping at my dignity and self esteem, so I just can't pick at that scab any longer. I have to let it heal before I start digging my nails into it again.

I, on the other hand, have a love and need for sex greater than almost any other drive in my life. I've always been fascinated by it, and since I discovered orgasms at the age of 14 there's been little more important to me than using my body to feel good, and feeling desired by others. Without these twin energies my confidence plummets and every area in my life suffers, even though I know I am truly loved. My brain and my cunt are still abuzz with lust and desire, and images and fantasies constantly float across my mind's eye. But V has shut down from me and will barely discuss it, much less work on it. And knowing that I will be stonewalled and the damage that the repeated rejection has already done to my self esteem, I have all but shut down from him, and my sex life is reduced to the inside of my head, and my own hand rocking under the elastic of my knickers while he snores gently beside me, and I try not to wake him. Mostly. Sometimes I don't care, and I wank vigorously out of spite, hoping he knows exactly what I'm doing, and exactly why. Sometimes I hate him, through the overwhelming sense of love, for what he's putting me through.

So that's what this is all about. I love my boyfriend more than anything in the world and I desperately want us to stay together. But I need a place to spill and share and - oh god how I hate to use this as a verb - journal about how I feel about this relationship. Perhaps I'll be able to reconcile my need for sex with the knowledge that I am, for the first time in my life, truly in love with someone who loves me, and learn to make do and mend with a near-sexless relationship. Perhaps, and preferable to me, I will find ways to get our sex life, and with it, my own self esteem, back on track. Perhaps I'll just use this space to scream and shout and whine and write the odd bit of filth and get some much-needed attention. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. But I know from experience than ignoring a problem won't make it go away, so I have to do something. Without his help and on my own, this is the best I can do right now.