Page 85 of This Is Who I Am

“So?” This is how I know for sure we’re good. Cass doesn’t tiptoe around me being asexual. It doesn’t stop her from asking what she wants—and from referencing a joke we shared at the beginning of our relationship.

“So, how about we conduct our very own case study on the impact of two orgasms within the span of an hour on the frequency of hot flashes in a fifty-three-year-old woman over the next twenty-four hours?” Cass continues.

“That’s an awfully complicated way for you to ask me to fuck you again.”

“Just doing my bit for science,” Cass says, but she can’t keep a smile from lighting up her face.

“Where do you keep your lube again?” I reply. “We’re going to need it this time around.”

CHAPTER41

CASS

TWO MONTHS LATER

Hunter, Suzy, and I are sitting on the deck of The Bay. I’m wearing a sweater against the early autumn chill in the air, but Sadie’s surfer ladies don’t seem to care about the cold.

“Estelle’s getting really good,” Hunter says. “Not bad for a woman her age.” He’s simply unable to give a compliment without tacking on a backhanded remark. I’ve always known this about him—and while I accept it, I still give him grief for it every chance I get.

“At least she’s out there,” Suzy says, surprising me. “Unlike you.”

“We’re the land rats,” Hunter says. “You’d tear me to pieces with your sharp land rat’s teeth if I only tried on a wetsuit.”

“Excuses. Excuses,” Suzy says.

Estelle hasn’t tried getting me on a surfboard again. She surfs almost every day now and she talks about how it benefits her often, but as we’ve established many times, I’m not her and she’s not me.

Hunter’s phone rings, and I take the opportunity to gawk at Estelle, much like I did in this same spot when I first became aware of her. Things couldn’t be more different now. We’re together and even though our journey has had its bumps in the road—still has from time to time—we’re solid.

“Bobby’s joining us soon,” Hunter says, putting down his phone. “He says that if his boss lady can be out surfing with her menopausal friends, he can stop busting his mighty fine ass in her father’s house.”

“It’s only you who calls surf club menopausal,” Suzy says. “Bobby’s evolved enough to not use language like that.”

“That’s only because he has a massive woman crush on Estelle,” Hunter says.

At first, I was a little apprehensive when Estelle and Bobby started hatching plans to renovate her dad’s house together. Bobby makes furniture and Estelle’s a mathematician—what could possibly go wrong? But apart from being excellent with numbers, Estelle’s also very good with her hands—something I can most certainly attest to. And they get on so well, they finish each other’s sentences now when they talk about the house.

Estelle has a project she can put her energy into and she’s working with a friend. Bobby adores her and enjoys rising to the challenge of making Daddy Raymond’s dusty old dwelling into a gorgeous abode—his words. And I get to have Estelle live with me during the renovations and, if all goes well, hopefully have her stay afterward. We’re those lesbians now.

But it’s pure heaven when I go upstairs after a long service and she’s waiting for me, cozily curled up in a chair with August in her lap. It’s not something I believed was still in the cards for me after Sarah left, but here we are. All it took was a stubborn, brilliant, asexual woman to waltz into town and sweep me off my feet.

I still refuse to take hormone therapy and I have regular hot flashes and night sweats and I have to pluck my chin every other day, but I also attend Suzy’s weekly support group at Savor and—surprise, surprise—it’s really helpful to simply talk about the discomforts of the menopause but also about the unexpected joys. Upon most attendees’ suggestion, we’ve swapped the tea for wine and we have a good laugh every single week. It helps with the mood swings and the hormonal outbursts the rest of the time.

My gaze is drawn to Estelle again, as it always is when she’s around—I shouldn’t even think this, but between all the surfing and tearing down walls in her father’s house, she’s gotten even hotter—and a smile tugs at my lips.

Even though I’ll never get to touch her the way she touches me—which can be damn hard at times—it’s something I can live with because what I get in return for simply being with Estelle—for the huge privilege of being her partner—is beyond measure. It’s not a matter of tolerating her asexuality—a thought, she has admitted, terrifies her at times—but simply of recognizing that, just like me, she’s human. She has her hangups and her quirks and things she doesn’t do no matter what, and so do I. I don’t surf. I barely swim, although, a few weeks ago, on one of those utterly gorgeous Clearwater Bay late summer days, she dragged me to the cove beneath the cliff Savor is perched on and the two of us swam naked in the Pacific Ocean—a thrill I won’t soon forget because Estelle took off all her clothes for me.

It was more foreplay than anything, because I’m a sexual person again. I still think my body is too big and it doesn’t comply with what I want it to do more often than not, but her presence, and how she treats me with respect and patience and—always—endless kindness, makes it so I don’t hate my body like I used to any longer. How can I when it gives me such unexpected and profound pleasure?

I no longer think of myself as a failure at romantic relationships. The other day, I saw Sarah and her wife strutting along the boardwalk. Sarah was very pregnant and both of them were beaming with the happiness I couldn’t give Sarah. Instead of stinging, it made me genuinely happy, too.

“I’m not joking,” Hunter says. “For once.” He sends me a smirk. “If we were all twenty years younger, Bobby would want to have a baby with Estelle like I had one with Devon.” He shakes his head. “And to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure he’d want to turkey baste the whole thing, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m so glad you’re not joking,” I say.

“You know me,” Hunter says drily. “I’m the serious one of the group.”

“Speak of the devil,” Suzy says.

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