I gulped, staring at the phone.
‘Come on, Anaya, you can do this,’ I gave myself a pep-talk. It had been a week since Shelly and I talked, and I hadn’t been able to pick up the phone at all. I tried, and I got as far as finding his contact, but my finger never pressed the “send call” button.
Suddenly, my phone rang, making my heart race like a pack of wild horses.
“Hello?” I answered without looking at the caller ID.
“Hey, Anaya,” Margaret said into the phone, sounding guilty.
“Ah, hey Margaret,” I said cautiously. We hadn’t spoken since she stormed out of my apartment, and quite frankly, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to deal with her drama.
“I’m sorry,” Margaret blurted out.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I was just dealing with some… issues. And I took it out on you. So I’m sorry.”
“Issues? Boyfriend trouble?”
“Something like that.”
“I didn’t realize you were dating someone?” I questioned, wincing when it came out a bit accusingly.
“Not exactly…” Margaret trailed off, and I sensed that she probably wanted me to stop questioning her now.
“Let’s hang out at the bar sometime. We haven’t gone in a while,” I suggested.
“Great!” Margaret cheered, sounding a lot happier. I grinned, pleased with myself.
“See you at work tomorrow.”
“See ya!”
I hung up, grinning like an idiot, when I realized that I hadn’t really accomplished much. I made amends with Margaret, but I still had a harder task in front of me: apologizing to Daniel.
“One down, an even harder one to go,” I sighed to myself.
“Well, I need to do laundry, so I guess it can wait a few more minutes. I’ll do laundry and then I’ll call him,” I decided. “Yes, that sounds satisfactory. Anaya, stop talking to yourself like a crazy person,” I muttered.
I collected my laundry and some quarters and walked towards the laundry room. Glancing down at my phone, I noted the time.
‘Shelly didn’t collect me yesterday for yoga… that’s weird,’ I thought just as I bumped into someone. Well, my basket hit someone, as I carried it in front of me.
“Oh my, I’m so sorry,” I exclaimed, looking up immediately. “Are you-” I froze. “Daniel?”
“Hello, Anaya,” he said, smiling wearily, scooting past me. “Don’t worry; I’ll get out of your way.”
“No!” I half yelled, making Daniel freeze and turn around to look at me questioningly.
“No?”
“Um. Yeah. We need to talk.” I stiffened at his words.
“Okay…”
“Not right now, I need to do laundry,” I stated, wincing internally when I realized I was just pushing this conversation off even longer. Daniel raised an eyebrow, and his handsome face just made me feel even worse.
“Sure. Well you know where to find me, just down the hall.”
“Okay,” I said, biting my lip. Daniel nodded once before turning and walking back to his apartment.
“Okay,” I repeated with a sigh; although Daniel was already gone, I remained frozen in the hallway.
Shaking myself out of it, I rushed off to do my laundry, nervous about my impending doom in the form of a talk with Daniel.
Half an hour later, the washer was going. I had spent all the time I could slowly loading in my clothes, putting in the quarters carefully, triple checking everything, but alas I couldn’t delay anymore.
Hesitantly, I walked over to Daniel’s apartment, knocking quietly on the door. When he didn’t reply instantly, I was tempted to leave.
‘Well, at least I tried?’ I tried to justify to myself. I knew exactly what Shelly and Margaret would say, though: ‘Anaya! Get your butt in there and get your man back!’
Taking a deep breath, I knocked harder. Daniel opened the door almost instantly, leaning on the wall with an amused look.
“So you’re actually serious about talking? No running away?”
“No running away,” I confirmed.
“Then, please enter,” Daniel said with a grand sweeping gesture of his arm, making me giggle a little. I walked into the entranceway.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve actually been in your home before,” I commented. His apartment was smaller than mine. It oozed practicality, with super organized kitchen cabinets, a tidy, small sitting room, and a bedroom and tiny bathroom off through a door. Everything was neat and orderly. I was almost hesitant to sit down in case I’d break his couch or something. He had quite the videogame setup in the sitting room, which seemed almost out of character for him.
“You approve?” Daniel asked drily, making me wince at his tone.
“Maybe I should just leave,” I muttered.
“No, sorry. Sit down; we need to talk,” Daniel uttered those four words every person in a relationship dreads hearing.
“Right, talk,” I sighed, quietly walking across the floor and perching on the edge of the sofa.
“Do you want anything to drink?” Daniel asked as he went to the kitchen.
“No thanks,” I replied nervously. I wiped my palms on my jeans nervously.
“Okay,” he replied. I watched as he filled a glass of water, staring out the window. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out in one huge sigh.
“So. Talk,” he stated, stalking across the room and sitting on the opposite end of the couch, angling his body so he was looking at me.
I shrugged, suddenly unable to find my voice.
“You know, I hung out with Sheila this weekend. We went to that yoga meditation class at the gym yesterday.”
‘So THAT’S why Shelly didn’t come and bug me to go with her…’
“And?”
“She asked me to be careful with you, because you’re sensitive.”
“I am not sensitive!” I snapped, huffing a little. Daniel just gave me a look, raising his eyebrow. He looked like he was trying not to laugh.
“This is a waste of time. I’m going back to my apartment,” I glared at him, stalking out and slamming the door. When I got to my apartment, I sighed and put my key in the lock, leaving it open as I kicked off my shoes and went to the kitchen to grab a pot of water.
‘Go ahead and shut me out, and go running to your friends about how all guys are assholes. Maybe some time you’ll realize that the only reason your love life is a complete and utter failure is because of you. Only you.’ I remembered.
‘I need some hot chocolate,’ I sighed to myself.
“She also said you like pushing people away, and not to leave you alone if you did the same with me,” a voice came from the doorway, making me jump and spill water out of the electric tea kettle. I quickly shut off the faucet.
“You should go,” I said weakly, not turning around. I didn’t want to see his face. I’d lose my resolve.
‘He’s better off without me. Allosexuals and asexuals don’t belong together,’ I reminded myself.
“You know, we are going to have to talk about that at some point,” Daniel pointed out. Before I could freak out again, Daniel hurriedly added, “It doesn’t need to be now, though.”
I hesitated, but I knew he was right. I needed to talk to him about my asexuality.
“No, let’s talk about this now,” I said, turning back to the sink to gather my courage. I shakily set down the kettle and turned it on. Water started to boil.
“Are you sure?” Daniel asked, his brows crinkling as he looked at me worriedly. “We can talk later.”
“Daniel, I’m asexual,” I blurted out, staring at the counter in front of me, not willing to turn around and face me.
“Okay, so what are you expectations for our relationship?”
“What do you mean?” I said, confused.
“Well, I’m guessing you’re at least heteroromantic because you’re dating me.”
I froze, and then looked up and turned around, surprised. “You know about asexuality?”
Daniel smiled and patted a chair at the kitchen table. “Come sit and talk.”
“I- Just- Just let me just finish the hot chocolate,” I said, turning back around, confused. I absentmindedly flicked a packet of hot chocolate powder before putting it in a mug and reached up for a second now that Daniel was over. Lots of thoughts were running through my head, making it hard to process them all.
‘Daniel knows about asexuality? How? Well, that’s not as important. What does he think of asexuality? What does he think of me, now that he knows I’m asexual? Does he have questions? Is he upset that I kept it from him for so long? Is he going to leave because he’s wanting sex?
‘But what if he’s okay with it? He seems to be accepting so far. What if he doesn’t mind going my pace? Then what happens? All my past boyfriends had no idea what asexuality was, and we always moved faster than I liked. But Daniel’s been a perfect gentleman these past few months. He’s never pressured me for more. Is he going to pressure me now? Or will he continue to not care about going slowly?’
I was brought back into my apartment when the water started boiling, startling me into action. I was on autopilot as I poured the water from the machine into two mugs. I stirred them for a few minutes, but Daniel was patient and waited, much to my happiness as well as nervousness. Unfortunately, though, this meant I could no longer delay our conversation. I took a deep breath, steadying myself, before picking up the mugs and walking over to the table. I steeled myself as I took a chair and sat down across from Daniel.
I looked at the table, not wanting to break the awkward quiet. I bit my lip, tracing lines on the kitchen table. Daniel didn’t say anything but simply took a sip of his hot chocolate.
“So,” I said finally, breaking the silence. “What do you know? What do you have questions about?”
“Well, first of all, what does it mean to you?”
“Huh?” I gaped up at him. “What do you mean?”
“From what I understand, asexuality is a huge spectrum, correct?” Daniel asked patiently.
“Yes…?”
“So, are you romantic or aromantic?”
“Romantic.”
“Hetero, bi, homo, or some other type of romantic?”
I just gaped at him. Daniel gave me a small smile, seemingly amused by my reaction. Shaking my head, I cleared my thoughts and responded, “Heteroromantic.”
“Okay, so that means you only date guys, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But you’re not physically attracted to them?”
“I don’t feel sexual attraction. Like, most women would be physically and sexually attracted to a specific type of person, whether guy or girl or whatever. The sexual attraction is commonly described by words like ‘sexy’ or ‘hot’, but I don’t ‘see’ that, to say. I just don’t have sexual attraction.”
“Okay,” Daniel said, thinking. “That makes sense.”
“How did you hear about asexuality?”
Daniel frowned. “I first heard about it with my sister’s friend.”
“Your sister? I don’t think you’ve mentioned her before,” I commented, curious.
“Probably not. She’s not with us anymore,” Daniel responded, looking downcast. I hesitated. ‘How am I supposed to respond to that?’ I stood up and dragged a chair over to sit next to him, wrapping my arm around his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I responded, because what else can you possibly say to that?
“It’s not your fault, but thanks,” he said, burying his face in his hands. “It was a long time ago.”
We were silent for a minute, Daniel’s body slumped over, until Daniel seemed to pull himself together.
“Alright. Now. More about you!”
I allowed the change of topics, even though I was really scared to talk to Daniel about asexuality. To be honest, I was really afraid of being rejected, though it seemed like Daniel was pretty accepting. ‘It’s one thing to be accepting of asexuals and quite another to want to date an asexual,’ I reminded myself.
“Well, what else do you want to know?”
“I’m afraid that’s the rest of my asexual knowledge. What else should I know about asexuality and you in general?”
“There’s a lot of information. Some common misconceptions: It’s not a phase, I’m not a plant, and there’s no hormone deficiency issue.”
Daniel chuckled. “I wasn’t going to suggest there was.”
“Also, just because I’m asexual doesn’t mean parts down there don’t work,” I blurted out, blushing a little at my bluntness.
Daniel, slightly to my dismay, looked like he was curious and still had some questions. He also looked slightly amused and didn’t look like he was about to run, making my heart thump in my chest.
“So, even though you’re asexual, you can still have sex?”
“Yes.”
“But you choose not to?”
“I don’t have a desire to. There’s a few main things with sex: there’s sexual attraction, which asexual people don’t have. There’s also libido, which is sexual desire, of which mine is low. Then there’s aesthetic attraction, which is the basic, ‘She’s pretty,’ kind of attraction. I have that to a small degree. Finally, there’s whether or not the person actually has sex, which can be either way for asexuals. I’m personally not sexually active, as you would know as we’re dating.” After I finished my small speech, I reached over for my mug, taking a few sips.
“But you could be sexually active?”
“Yes, if I wanted to be. Just because I’m asexual doesn’t mean I’m celibate.”
“Can you enjoy it?”
“Hypothetically, I suppose so.”
“You haven’t…?” Daniel asked, raising an eyebrow. He looked slightly surprised that he actually asked that.
“No,” I said, blushing furiously and looking at my now-empty hot chocolate mug, refusing to meet his eyes.
“Would you want to be sexually active?”
“Honestly? I’d rather not. We’ll just cross that bridge when we get there.”
“Okay, sounds good,” Daniel said, smiling at me, which I saw out of the corner of my eye. I relaxed instantly. Something about his smile was a stress reliever. I leaned over, resting my head on his shoulder and putting my mug on the table.
“You’re not leaving?” I asked, feeling rather vulnerable. My voice shook a little and I bit my lip in nervousness.
Daniel looked shocked. “No, absolutely not!” He responded vehemently. “Anaya, I really like you. I’m not going to up and leave you.”
I looked up at him, tears filling my eyes. “You’re not?”
“No,” he responded, reaching a hand up to wipe away a tear.
“Thank you,” I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Anything for you, my little Naya,” he chuckled, giving me a gentle kiss on the forehead.