Saint Vals 2020 Anthology

Worth Less ✔ by @LanaJoKing

Five days since we last slept together...I put it off too long, again. If I find a distraction tonight, who's to say tomorrow night won't be a worse time. It is at least early in the night; I could get it over with soon and still get to sleep on time to not be miserable tomorrow. I could say I didn't shave to skip foreplay and speed things up.

I hated myself for thinking like this. Every. Damn. Time. I didn't understand. I loved Ren. I truly did. And still the thought of having sex made me want to force myself to vomit, just to give me one more excuse to not.

Kind, cute, sweet, understanding, hard working, artistic, and I even like his family, yet I felt no need for anything. No desire. No urges. Nothing. Why was I like this?

No. I knew why I was like this...I just didn't want to admit it. But I couldn't keep doing this. It wasn't fair to me, and it certainly wasn't fair to him. Not a single strand of hope held onto the idea that this conversation wouldn't be the most painful I'd ever experienced.

We sat on the couch to watch some TV show. That's how it started every time. It had all become so routine, like gears in an ever winding clock just ticking by, counting down the seconds I had to be uncomfortable before it struck twelve and it all began again. But, in reality, I liked the routine. The routine helped me deal with it—gave me a sense of control and familiarity.

As he leaned it to initiate the first kiss that would blossom into another uncomfortable night of sex, I stopped him, pushing him back lightly before we touched. My therapist was right; I needed to talk to him.

"We need to talk," I said, as cliche as ever. His face dropped and his body slouched back on the couch, already knowing a disastrous fire ignited to ruin the night.

"About?" A shaking in his voice told me he feared the next words I said.

I wiggled uncomfortably on the couch, and coughed, trying to dislodge the words stuck in my throat. "I don't know if you've noticed—"

"How you never want to get close to me anymore? Yeah, I've noticed." Ren said, bitterly.

I can't say that I was shocked by his words, only that he said them so bluntly. Ren avoided conflict like some rare disease. "Oh. You have? But—you never said anything."

"I didn't even know how to bring it up. What questions do I ask there?"

"I know, but sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."

"You don't love me anymore?" The words flew out of his mouth and stuck me right in the gut.

"No. I didn't say that!" I hadn't meant to raise my voice. I didn't want it to turn into a fight, I simply couldn't pretend anymore. The hiding exhausted me more than anything else.

"Then what? You think I'm ugly? Am I gross?" Every word oozed with explosive venom, long built up from months of my aversion. And I didn't blame him. This sucked, and he had the right to be mad.

"No. That's not it. I'm— Well, I think— no, I know...I'm asexual." I let the last word drip off of my tongue and linger there for as long as it needed to soak into his wide-eyed head. It didn't matter how he reacted, because it was the truth and nothing would change that.

"No. I don't think you are," he said.

I lied. It mattered how he reacted.

For months, if not years, I felt ashamed, embarrassed, depressed, and stressed about this. Then, when I was finally able to admit it out loud to someone I cared about deeply, they denied it. There were no words for that level of disappointing pain.

"Excuse me," I said, simply. The switch clicked from 'understanding' to 'defensive as hell'.

"It's not natural. Sexual desire is a biological attribute. If you are asexual, you're broken. It could be fixed—"

Nope. No. Hell nah. The raging fury inside of me set off. I knew deep in my heart his denial came from a long, frustrating quest to discover how he could please me in a way that stopped my disdain for intimacy, but I hurt enough without his sharp words cutting into my skin.

"I don't want to fix it!" I yelled, losing all control. "I don't feel broken, and I don't feel like I need to be 'fixed'."

"How do you expect me to respond to this?" Ren asked and stood up from the couch, waving his arms in aggravation, trying to relieve any of the explosive pressure I caused by dropping this atom bomb on our four-year relationship. "How do you know it isn't me?"

"I felt this way with Jeremy too," I explained. "But that relationship was such a burning pile of shit, I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I was with someone better, nice, kinder, you, I'd feel different. I kept thinking "it'll be better once I'm not depressed"..."It'll be better when I'm not so busy"..."It'll be better when I publish that book"...but nothing ever made it better. And I'm sorry. I just— I can't pretend anymore. The pretending is tearing me apart." The tears rolled down my cheeks. I hated crying. I hated it so, so fucking much. Just looking at the hurt on his face made the tears fall harder. I hated hurting him more than I hated to cry. His eyes swelled in a sympathetic reaction.

"Then what do we do?" he asked—the dreaded question.

I sniffled, and wiped the warm tears away from my eyes. "We can talk and try to find a solution that works for both of us." That's it. We needed to talk. We needed a schedule. I needed to know when to be ready for these moments, and mentally prepare myself. That's all. I didn't need him to give up sex forever—that wasn't what I was asking. I wasn't replused by sex, only indifferent. The repulsion didn't stem from the actual act, but more like everything I needed to do to feel ready, and never being ready when it was sprung on top of me. But he never let me explain any of that.

"I don't think there is a way this will work," he said, tearing me right back into my flood of tears. My heart shriveled with cold and burned with fire at the same time. He continued, ripping my soul to shreds, "It's not fair to expect me to stay with someone who doesn't love me."

"Sex doesn't equal love!" I screamed the words through my cracking voice, loud enough to concern the neighbors. Those words which I so passionately believe, and most of the world denied. I loved—and I loved deeply. I didn't show it through kissing, and love-making, and hot date nights...but I showed it through support, kindness, caring, always being willing to drop anything and everything to be there for someone I truly loved. People can bang their bodies in sweaty passion all their lives and never understand the type of compassion I felt for the people I loved. "My love isn't worth any less than anyone else's"

"But it is," he said, dry and echoed from a throat choked with guilt. "For most people, when they love someone, they want to have sex with them. If you don't, by definition, your love is worth less than theirs."

The sadness reached a pit, so low, and so lonely, the tears stopped falling. My body felt limp, and my mind went numb. His words took everything from me until I remained an empty shell of self-doubt. Broken. Unnatural. Worth less. That's how he saw me.

That's who I was.

I tried to tell myself he just didn't understand—because that was the truth. He didn't understand, and he was hurting too. But it didn't matter. The words were said, and they could never be taken back.

"You're right," I stated, cold, stale, plain. "I don't think there is a way this will work." I got up from the couch, leaving four years of lies, pain, and self-torment behind.

I walked into the cold streets of the night, slamming the front door behind me. I stood in the shadow of city streetlights, breathing through the tears, and the pain.

Alone.

How I was meant to be.

How could I ever ask someone to love me when the love I'd give in return would always be worth less?