Page 105 of Let's Talk About Love
Alice waited until she couldn’t see Essie anymore, counted to ten, and then walked back to the corner. “Takumi?” she whispered.
Arms wrapped around her from behind, making her giggle. “Sorry,” Alice said, turning around. “Back hugs do things to me.”
Takumi’s eyes searched her face. He was close enough to kiss her, but a distant look in his eyes had formed in her brief absence.
“So,” she began, feeling confused. He hadn’t let go of her waist, but thatlook. “You were in the middle of saying some very nice things?”
Takumi’s sad smile knocked the wind out of her. Silently, he took her hand and led her to the very back corner of the reference section. He turned, leaning against the wall—she mimicked his body language, conscious of the fact that she was on the outside and he hadn’t let go of her hand.
“I already apologized, but I want to do it again, because I truly am sorry that I said what I did. I was too flustered to think properly and instead of taking the time to think like I knew I should have, I tried to answer you right away. I know what I want to say now.” His shouldersslumped as he exhaled and he began to tap his thumb against his thigh. “I want to be honest. The last thing I want to do is hurt you again and what I have to say might do that, so if you don’t want me to say it, I won’t.”
“I know I tend to make things about me when maybe they shouldn’t be, at least not completely. I’m working on not doing that.” Alice emptied her lungs to center herself and stood up straight. “I want to hear what you have to say.”
“I’m not asexual,” he said immediately.
“I know that.” She managed to not roll her eyes.
“Do you? I never said I wasn’t and I think I need to because I’m not,” he said. “It took me awhile but I think I figured it out. The reason why I hesitated wasn’t because of sex itself. You were spot on before. Sex is like jogging. Either you enjoy doing it or you don’t. To me, and this is just me, it’s thefeelingthat I care about—what sex is supposed to represent.”
“And that’s what to you?”
“If you felt the same way as I feel about you, you would want to have sex with me.”
(Father God… did she time-travel and land in a parallel universe?)
Alice kept her eyes stretched wide, because if she blinked it would be all over. She’d feel that tear on her cheek and lose all her control. How many times would she be forced to live through this conversation?
“You would think of me as someone worthy of your passion and desire, and you would show me how you feel physically. Not just with words but with action and urgency,” he continued, “but you don’t and for the most part, I understand. That’s not a part of who you are and I know that doesn’t mean that you don’t have other feelings for me.”
“Because I do! Lots and lots of feelings.” She pointed to the spotabove her heart. “It’s like a volcano in there. I’d put Mount Vesuvius to shame.”
Takumi covered his mouth with his fist. “Please don’t make me laugh.”
“I’m serious!”
“I know you are, but the thing is, that feeling that you can’t give me? It’s important to me. And I can’t apologize for feeling that way or for wanting it.”
“Okay. That’s fair,” she said, voice tight. Her thoughts whirled with certainty. “I don’t want you to apologize. That would be like me saying I’m sorry I’m ace when I’m not. We are the way we are and we’re just not compatible in that way.”
“You know, now that you’ve mentioned it, you really do assume a lot.” He ran his hands through his hair, sighing. “This morning it finally clicked. I was thinking of sex, actually having sex, as the Holy Grail, and when I got frustrated, I tried to look at it from a different point of view and I realized something else.
“No one has ever complimented me as much as you do. Every day. All day. I could show up wearing a burlap sack and a tinfoil hat and you’d probably tell me how avant-garde and handsome I looked. You genuinely listen to what I have to say and value my opinion. You tell me I’m wonderful and talented and amazing—”
Alice didn’t mean to laugh—it bubbled out of her before she could stop it. She tilted her head to the side, looked at him, and said, “Because you are.”
“When you thought I didn’t want you, you started to cry,” he said. Alice tried to memorize the gentle look in his eyes as he spoke. “I watched you lower your head, clutch the front of your shirt, and try to smile because you didn’t want me to see how much what I was saying hurt you, because you do desire me. You wanted me so much that me saying no caused you actual pain. The thought of me only caring aboutnot being able to have sex with you hurt because you thought I knew how much you wanted me.”
“For the record, I didn’t cry in the car. I cried in the shower.”
“It was still because of me.” He raised their joined hands and kissed the backs of hers. “It’s the same thing. Whether you’re so overwhelmed you can’t keep your hands off me or you’re crying because you think I don’t want you, it’s the same thing. It comes from the same place. That’s desire. That’s passion. You’ve never held back how you feel about me.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, wiping away a rogue tear. She hadn’t realized she’d been waiting for someone, anyone, to say that to her. Sheknewit was true, of course, but sometimes hearing it out loud made all the difference in the world. “For saying that. Thank you.”
“It’s the truth.” He wiped away another of her traitorous tears with his thumb. “If we take away everything—there’s just you and me, nothing else, I see us together. Stripped down to the core, being with you is what I want because I’m in love with you. If we never had sex, I would still want to be with you because you’re in my heart, too. Just laughing, dancing, and twirling in circles, and I know that sounds weird as hell, but you are. And it’s important to me that you know that.”
Alice made sure she understood every single word and syllable, tried to read between the lines, ensure she wasn’t confused in any way. When she reached up and he didn’t move, she cradled his face in her hands. “Can I kiss you?”
He nodded and she kissed him in all the places she had wanted to. Featherlight kisses, her lips brushing across his skin. Takumi closed his eyes, letting Alice have her way. She kissed his eyelids, one after the other, the bridge of his nose, the ridge of his forehead, his temples and cheeks and chin, and saved his lips for last.
