"Eve, no! What the hell?" He immediately pushed me off and started pacing around my room. "Why would you say that? You can't just— You should never do something just because someone wants you to! We are not having sex!"
I sighed, dragging a hand down my face for being so goddamn blunt, as usual. I sucked at this stuff... Of course he misunderstood. "That's not what I meant, Gibbs. Sit down."
He did not sit down.
"Listen," I insisted.
"This is all wrong, Eve. I can't—"
"Gibbs."
"Eve," he sighed.
"Listen, okay?" I said, pushing him back onto the chair. "Just let me explain."
He looked up at the ceiling with yet another sigh.
"Look, here's the thing. Maybe I don't need sex, but you do."
"No, I—"
"Yes, you do. And that's okay. It's normal and—"
"That does not mean—"
"Let me finish!" I cut in.
"Sorry..."
"I tried to explain this to Tamara and Leslie earlier," I said, sitting down on the other chair. "I know it sounds complicated, but it's actually really simple. I am not interested in sex, but I'm not incapable of it. And before you have a stroke, I know I don't have to, but I want to."
He crossed his arms and squinted at me.
After I'd given him the broccoli analogy and then added the whole thing about sex feeling good, because of how the human body worked and shit, he was silent. He dropped his head so that I was looking at the fluffiness on top, and then unfolded his arms only to fold them again but mirrored. The other way around. Left over right. Right over left. I felt like I was supposed to say more, but I had no idea what, so I just sat there and let him gather his thoughts.
After a long moment of silence, he said, "Right, I guess that makes sense."
"Not now, though," I added.
He chuckled and finally looked up at me. "Yeah, I got that."
I slowly returned the smile, but he let out another sigh and muttered, "Honestly, I feel like such a dick for even making this a problem. It's not like I'm—"
"Shut up," I said. "Seriously. It's just hormones and shit. Nobody can blame you for wanting to have sex with your fucking girlfriend, for God's sake. It's normal."
He grimaced.
"I know, alright?"
"What?"
"We have established a long time ago that you are not using me for sex."
He nodded, and a silence fell. It wasn't an awkward silence—we were both just thinking. There was a whole lot to think about, after all. I had basically just told Gilbert that I was willing to have sex with him—for him. That was pretty big.
"So..." he said, breaking the silence. "Have you ever..."
"What?" I asked.
"Do you know what it feels like?"
"Sex?"
"No, I know you're a virgin. I meant like, you know, orgasming. Coming. However you wanna call it. Have you ever... masturbated?"
"Uhh... no."
"Then how do you know if it feels good?"
"Biology."
He rolled his eyes and then told me, "Yeah, but everybody is different. If we're gonna do this, I want you to be 100% sure, okay?"
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"I don't want you to just lie there on the bed while I'm doing my thing, thinking 'this is how it's supposed to go' while you're like... in pain or something. You get me?"
"Yeah, well, I trust you and you can trust me to scream out in pain if it does hurt."
He shook his head. "You should figure it out by yourself first."
"What, you want me to... to masturbate?"
"Uhh, it sounds kinda weird when you say it like that, but yeah, that's what I want."
"You cannot be serious."
"Why not? You just said, and I quote, it's normal," he said, lifting an eyebrow. "Are you afraid?"
It was as if he was daring me...
"No," I replied.
"Then do it."
"Fine."
"Good."
Another silence fell, and this time, it was awkward.
"Do you wanna watch a movie?" I asked.
"Sure," he said, reaching for my laptop and logging into Netflix.
A few hours later, he left the house in good spirit, smiling, hugging and kissing and everything. I guess it's true what they say, huh? Communication is key. Yes, I 'hated talking about my feelings', as Tamara put it, but I could admit that it worked wonders. And I wasn't looking forward to listening to his advice, but I knew he had a point.
I just had one problem.
I had no idea how to do it.
Due to my disinterest in the whole thing, I had never paid attention to how it actually worked. I mean, I knew how it worked, but I didn't know how it worked, if you get what I mean. The specifics... The do's and don'ts...
Jesus Christ. Couldn't Gilbert just shove his hand down my pants and do it for me?
No, I'm kidding, I didn't want that—that'd just be awkward for the both of us—but it would be nice to have someone or something telling me what to do. Like a step-by-step tutorial.
I crept behind my laptop, opened an incognito window, stared at it for at least five minutes, and then reluctantly typed into Google how to masturbate.
A/N: Asexuality has such a wide range of views regarding sex and it was not easy for me to decide what Eve would eventually be comfortable with, but I went with this in the end... In all of my other stories I'm throwing sex scenes left and right because everyone here is horny lol, but I really wanna stress that this story was not and will never be about anything but romance (and memes). This is just to show that being sexually attracted to someone and consenting to having sex with someone out of love are two different things! Hope you guys are still enjoying it! There aren't that many chapters left until the end... :')