38 Weeks: The Thirty-Fifth Week

On Thursday night, Fi asked, "Do you want to have sex?"

Michael looks up from his book.  Because of the hip pain, Fi hasn't been interested in sex in a while, and she doesn't exactly look like she's craving it right now, either. In fact, the look on her face is much closer to dread than take-me-to-bed-and-do-things-to-me-that-were-illegal-in-half-a-dozen-states.

But he's not entirely sure how to answer this, because he doesn't want her thinking he's rejecting her.

He smiles, buying himself another second to think, puts the book down, and kisses her. "Yes. But, I don't think what I want really matters this time. I think the real question is, do you?"

She seems pleased by that answer. And Michael feels a weight lift off his shoulders.

"I don't want you to feel neglected."

"I do not feel neglected. I know you're hurting. I know you're not really into sex these days. That's fine."

"It's just, with as bad as I'm feeling now, and it's not going to get better anytime soon, this might be the last chance for a long time."

"Not a problem. I want to have sex with you when you're feeling good and want to have sex with me. I don't want you to feel like you need to provide me with sex when you're not into it."

"It's been two weeks since we last had sex, and it might be four months before we do again."

"Fi, do you want to have sex?"

"No, not really."

"Then I can wait four and a half, or however many, months. I have before, and longer than that. You didn't notice me dating other women while we weren't together, did you?"

"That's true, you didn't."

He looks at her meaningfully. She smiles at him.

"What's the longest you've gone?"

"You mean, besides the first seventeen years?"

"Longest you've gone since your first time."

"Two years, twice."

"Twice?"

"I was in Afghanistan for two years, and while there are women there, the ones you don't have to pay are likely to get you and them killed, and the ones you do have to pay aren't likely to be in the business because they want to be. I was never so horny I wanted to die for it, and never wanted to feel like I had forced a girl."

"And the other two years?"

"After I left Ireland."    

She nods.

"How about you?"

"Not that long. Of course, I've never been in a place where available men were few and far between."

He decides he doesn't want to know too much about how long not that long is. And he really doesn't want to know if she slept with half of Ireland after he left.

"You mentioned not wanting to die for it. But have you ever paid for it?"

Amsterdam red light district at night.

He looks chagrined. "Just remember, I joined the Army at seventeen and was eighteen the first time I was stationed in Germany. Trips to Amsterdam, where prostitution, pot, and alcohol are legal, were fast and cheap. So, yes, I partied like a hormone-crazed eighteen-year-old-with-money-to-burn when I was a hormone-crazed-eighteen-year-old-with-money-to-burn, and some of those parties involved hookers, drugs, and bar fights."

She laughs at that. "Hard to imagine you as a hormone-crazed-eighteen-year-old."

"I was still me. Just a version of me that thought mostly with my dick."

"What I would have paid to see that."

"It really wasn't pretty. For example, back then no sex would have made me pout." Which he demonstrates for her, and then grins. "It would have never occurred to me that if we aren't going to be having sex, to suggest that either you keep me company while I have sex with myself, or if it's just the penetration aspect, that you lay back, relax, and let me do you." He kisses her shoulder as he says that, tongue flicking along the skin, reminding her of what he can do with it.

"I'll happily keep you company while you have sex with yourself, but right now I hurt from my knees to my neck, and nothing inbetween wants to be touched."

"Fair enough."

"I am curious, how do you envision me keeping you company working?"

He scoots out of his pajama bottoms and kicks off the covers. "Roll onto your side so you're facing me." She does so, and he relaxes onto his back, one hand on his cock, the other holding hers. "Let me talk to you, tell you what I will very happily do to you when you're feeling better again. Tell me what you'd like to do to me when you're feeling up to it."

"So, phone sex, in person."

"Yeah."

In the end it wasn't quite just Michael on his own. She couldn't not touch him as he got closer and closer. So her hand joined his as he shuddered and spurted. And by the time that had happened, she was feeling like maybe some very gentle oral sex might be in order as well, which he was more than happy to provide.