The Misconception

       "You don't like it when I smack your butt?"
       "No," she said.
       "Oh."  Sprinting through my head: high fives and butt slaps in baseball dugouts; touches and pinches in movie romances; girls in my youth flirting with me, trying to catch my attention.  "I'm sorry.  Why not?"
       "It's too sudden.  There's no buildup.  It's just--an assault."
       I can't respond to that.  Over by the closet, I'm picking out a shirt.  I need new shirts.  In the last couple of months, I ripped the elbows out of four work shirts.  So it's time to buy new shirts, but I haven't had time.  I'll wear a ripped shirt today with a sweater over it.  The other ones are dirty.  I haven't had time to do laundry, either.  She did laundry yesterday, but didn't get to my shirts.
       Squeezing past her, I say, "How about this?" and pull her hair back, kiss her gently behind the ear.
       "Okay--but don't scratch me with your beard," she commands, shrugging me off.
       I pick out a tie.
       "I think the problem with sex in marriage," she continues from earlier, "is there's this massive misconception that once you're married, sex is just--free.  Like, just because we're married, sex isn't suddenly free now."
       Again, no response.  The idea of free sex rambles through my head.  We have been married almost nine years.  I can see the lips moving on marriage counselors as they extol the sexual attraction generated by doing the dishes.  I do dishes every night, but she hasn't been sexually attracted to me since giving birth three years ago.
       Actually, it's been longer than that--if I'm honest, I doubt she's ever been "sexually attracted" to me.  I used to ask and pressure and beg for sex; now I don't.  I stopped asking for it after the first baby.  I intended to do this as a grand gesture of my love for her, but in fact I often just find myself helplessly regarding it as a significant and pointless personal sacrifice.
       Later it occurs to me that in my romantic idealism, real sex isn't something you can pay for, anyway, because real sex is always a gift.  Theoretically, I give sexual pleasure to her as an expression of my love.  Or I would.  In real life, instead I attempt to suppress my entire sexual self as a more welcome expression of love.
       One time a marriage counselor asked me what she does to express her love for me.  I drew a blank, stammering in embarrassment.  I still usually draw a blank.  It was a very damaging question.  Years later it still bothers me.  I'm still ashamed I don't know--have no idea.
       I am circling a dark drain in my head now (around which I've lately been wearing a deep groove), self-piteously wondering why I'm still here, still drawing blanks, still suppressing this entire aspect of myself, still prioritizing and blindly trying to love someone who has no evident interest in me.  I practice moving past the thought in my head, switching the channel, which is something else I've been working on lately.  Look outside.  Trace the shape of a tree.  Examine the logo on that truck.  Who designed that?
       Last night we'd been in bed for a couple of minutes--me, nude; her, in sweatpants and two shirts--when she said, "Oh, rats."
       "What?"
       "I forgot my vitamins."
       "Oh."  There was silence.  She has been doing this with increasing frequency; two nights ago it was an empty water bottle.  Nearly every night it's a heating pad that needs warming up in the microwave.  In an act of defiance against my nature, I get up every time and do what she hasn't even bothered to ask.  Well, nearly every time.
       "Where are the vitamins?" I ask.
       "In the vanity.  Oh, get some Vitamin D too.  Take some yourself."
       "Why don't you get them?" I'm tossing back the sheets.
       "I'm cozy."  So was I, but who's counting.
       I cross the room, flip on the bathroom light and rummage through the vanity behind the mirror.  "I know why you really wanted me to do this," I tease.
       "Why's that?"
       "You just wanted to see me naked."
       Sarcastically: "Oh, yeah, that's it."  She's blind without her glasses; not sitting up, can't see me anyway.  Later, trying to fall asleep, I try to cuddle up to her, innocent of intent or action.  She flings me away like I've touched her with sewage.  It's happened enough times: I'm practiced.  I avoid her jabs and scuttle off to my corner of the bed.
       Sex is free?  That's the misconception?  I would argue the more basic misconception is that "Sex Is."  Would argue, but won't: we agree on two of three words, which is a majority.  Not worth fighting over.  Anyway, mentioning sex only makes everything worse.
       As I'm putting on the sweater over my ripped shirt this morning, she brings our second son over to see me; he's nine months old and still blinking himself awake.  The sight of me washes his face in a drowsy, lopsided, four-tooth grin that bathes my world in a holy light only I am allowed to see.  He extends his fist towards me with a clumsy flexing motion, his beautiful fingers curling and uncurling, and my wife explains as though I didn't understand: "He's trying to wave, he's saying hello.  You like your daddy, don't you?"
       The misconception isn't sex.  Not in any way.  Free, costly, absent--it's not sex.
       The misconception is that marriage is about me.  Or sex.  Or even us.  It's not.
       "Keep telling yourself that," say the many cynics in my head.  Well, thanks, I will--for as long as it takes.  We're only mortal here; it won't be long now.



March 2017