Page 62 of Sugarplum Dreams
Wow. How could he think she thought that he was? Where did she begin? It was awkward to talk about, but she’d started it, and she wanted answers. She couldn’t be afraid to continue the conversation.
“You never touch me. You…don’t kiss me, we don’t sleep together. I thought it was going to be a real marriage, but…I’m not complaining. Please don’t think I am.” She turned to look at him then, pleading on her face, because she really did love the relationship that they had, she just…wanted to be a wife too.
He stood staring at her, shock on his face, and then he shook his head, running a hand over his hair like he was agitated. He took one step forward, then turned around, away from her, like he was gathering his thoughts.
“It’s okay. I’m not angry. I’m not mad, and I’m not accusing you of anything, I just…was hoping that maybe sometime in the future?” She left the question open so that he could step in, hoping to make it easier for him to talk. Maybe he could let her down gently, because she knew he wouldn’t want to hurt her. He really did think a lot of her. She didn’t doubt that.
“So… You judge my attraction by how much I touch you? Whether or not I kiss you? Is that right?”
“Isn’t that how you show attraction?” she asked, her brows drawn down as she tried to meet his eyes, but he had one hand hooked around his neck and stared off in the sky.
“I guess it is.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just saying.”
“When’s the last time you touched me? Kissed me? Am I to assume that you’re not attracted to me either?”
She stopped with her mouth open. And then, after opening and closing it a couple of times and feeling a bit like a fish, she finally said, “I wanted you to take the lead. I told myself that I wasn’t going to be forward and push you into anything you didn’t want. You already were in a marriage that you didn’t want.”
“I wanted it!” He turned around and said the words. They were loud, and perhaps several people who were sitting nearby turned their heads, but she barely paid attention.
“It wasn’t up to you. I know you did what God wanted.”
“No. I know that I said God wanted me to come, and He did, but I told you, I figured out that God wanted it because I needed it, not because you needed me.”
“Whatever, so you needed me. But you didn’t want me.”
“But I do now!”
“I do too.” She didn’t think they were arguing about whether or not they wanted to be married. “And I’m not confused about whether or not you’re going to stay with me. I know you will. You said you would, and I know you keep your word. That’s not what I was saying.”
“I know that wasn’t what you’re saying, but you were trying to say that I’m not attracted to you, and it’s not true.”
His words hung there, as both of them were quiet. Neither one of them saying anything as they stared at each other, the truth hanging in the air between them.
She tilted her head, wondering how to reconcile what he said. She knew he wouldn’t lie about what he actually did want. But they didn’t match up.
“When we got married, that day as I was walking the pastor to the door, he told me that since we didn’t court before we were married, I should give you time to get used to me, not come on too strong. I think he knows how men are. And that’s me. It’s true. I definitely want the physical side of marriage, but I know that women aren’t the same as men. And I asked him how long I should wait, and he told me a year.”
“A year?” she cried out, unable to hold her words any longer, although she wanted to argue with him that women and men might be different, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t want the same thing that he did.
“It didn’t seem unreasonable to me. He said that was how long a lot of couples typically waited as they court and get to know each other, in fact that’s probably on the short end of modern day.”
“But we haven’t really done anything the way modern-day people do it.”
“I know. But I didn’t want to push you. I didn’t want you to be forced to do something you didn’t want to do.”
“I see.”
“I still don’t.”
“I haven’t had to do anything I didn’t want to do,” she said.
“That’s exactly how I wanted it.”
They stood staring at each other.
“But there were a lot of things I wanted to do but that didn’t happen.”
