7 Years Bad Sex

by Nicky Wells

  ‘It is quite profound, now I come to think of it,’ Casey agreed. ‘I’m quite proud of that, actually.’

  They laughed and clinked tea cups.

  ‘So would you consider an annulment if Alex came up with the idea?’

  Casey hung her head. ‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I never thought I’d end up a divorcee…’

  ‘Or annulee, as the case may be.’

  ‘Is that even a word?’

  ‘Probably not. Sorry. That’s the brandy speaking.’

  ‘Annulee, divorcee… I never thought that would happen. I thought Alex and I were for life. But after everything that’s happened… Maybe we need to get on with separate lives.’ Tears pricked at Casey’s eyes and eventually brimmed over, rolling down her cheeks one by one.

  ‘I—I thought about this ages ago,’ she hesitantly confessed. ‘The idea popped into my head, but I banished it. I was horrified at myself. But it’s not like Alex was the first one to come up with it.’

  Sasha stood and held Casey close. ‘In that case, my dear, you probably best meet with your husband and figure out a way forward. Don’t you think?’

  ‘Probably.’ Casey hiccupped. ‘This is totally absurd.’

  ‘It’s life.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Sasha went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine. ‘Since we’ve already started on the drinks, how about some vino?’

  ‘Really? It’s a work night. Don’t you have to be at the office at some insane hour in the morning?’

  ‘Never mind that.’ Sasha grinned. ‘Let’s work up some Dutch courage for you, and then you can send Alex a text. Or, who knows? Maybe you’ll even call him.’

  ‘If he’ll answer,’ Casey muttered darkly.

  ‘Oh, he will. He has an agenda after all. Let’s work on what you’re gonna say.’

  ‘Okay.’ Casey watched as Sasha uncorked the bottle. ‘Sasha?’

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘You’re an angel, do you know that?’

  ‘And a saint. Sure, I know.’ Sasha grinned. ‘And you’re a lush and a bleeding heart. Together, we make a great team.’

  ‘We do, don’t we?’

  ‘We certainly do.’

  ‘And one day when we’re old and grey, we’ll share a room in an old people’s home, and we’ll laugh about this, won’t we?’

  ‘This, and a whole load of other things. I’ll drink to that.’ Sasha raised her glass and winked. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  Two hours later, and despite many a drunken practice, Casey couldn’t summon the courage—real, Dutch, or otherwise—to call Alex, so she sent him a text instead:

  See you at the White Lion at noon tomorrow. C.

  Chapter Sixteen:

  Sometimes You’ve Got to Quit to Get Ahead

  ~Alex~

  ‘This is awkward.’ Alex gulped down a mouthful of beer and swallowed hard to disguise his emotional discomfort. Seeing Casey on her own for the first time in over three weeks had reminded him of how much he really loved her, sexual frustration notwithstanding. ‘I’m sorry, love. I really am. I’ve been treating you bad.’

  Casey shrugged and avoided his eyes. She made a show of looking around the busy pub. The White Lion was bedecked with garlands, tinsel, and other gaudy accoutrements, and intermittent Christmas pop songs were playing on the sound system. It was the end of November, and the pub had very much inaugurated the festive season.

  Casey was still looking anywhere but at him, and that in itself told Alex how hurt she was. He hadn’t been entirely in his right mind when he had fired off that text about a divorce. He had wanted to provoke a reaction, a new dialogue, and he had been stunned when Casey simply replied with an invitation to meet. Her silent and stoic acceptance of his hasty proposition rattled him more than any recriminations. He was beginning to feel a little panicked.

  ‘It is a bit. Awkward, I mean.’ Casey finally spoke. She picked up a beermat and began shredding it into little pieces. It was a nervous habit she had, and Alex’s heart ached.

  ‘I was out of my mind. I didn’t mean it,’ he heard himself backtrack.

  ‘You did mean it,’ Casey challenged him calmly. ‘And all things considered, it’s probably not a bad idea.’

  ‘You’re not serious?’ Alex couldn’t believe his ears. What a damn fool he had been to send that text.

  ‘I am.’ Casey stared at the table. ‘I love you so much. But I agree. This’—she made a helpless rolling gesture with her hand—‘this can’t go on. It’ll drive us both nuts. I think you’re right. We should call it a day.’

  ‘You really want a divorce?’ Alex couldn’t keep a note of hysteria out of his voice. Yes, he had been frustrated, annoyed, angry, supremely disgruntled, and completely at the end of his tether. Yes, he had sent the text with the D-word in it. But he had never expected Casey to take him at his word. He had hoped that they would meet, laugh, and dismiss the notion.

  ‘No.’ Casey shook her head. ‘We can’t get divorced.’

  ‘We can’t?’ Alex breathed a sigh of relief before the real importance of what Casey had said sunk in. ‘You mean, you’ve looked into this?’

  ‘What did you expect me to do after you asked me for a divorce by text?’

  Even though her head was bowed, he could see Casey’s eyes were brimming with unshed tears. Alex reached across the table and clasped her hands.

  ‘Casey, I was being stupid. I didn’t mean it, honestly. I just—I wanted—I don’t know what I wanted.’ He sighed deeply and cursed his inability to explain himself coherently. ‘I wanted to see you again. To make up,’ he ventured softly.

  ‘You great big oaf,’ Casey chided him mildly. ‘Talk about biting off your nose to spite your face. You could have said “hello” or—who knows—perhaps even “sorry”. I’d been waiting for that kind of message for three weeks.’

  ‘I know, I know. I was daft. I wasn’t thinking straight. I’m so sorry.’ Alex held on more tightly to Casey’s hands, willing her to look at him properly at long last. But her eyes persisted in skittering all over the place.

  ‘Alex,’ she whispered. ‘Maybe you think you only sent that text to—to get me to meet you, but can’t you see? If it wasn’t what you’d really wanted deep down, you’d have picked a more harmless opening gambit.’

  ‘You’re reading too much into this!’ Real fear resonated in his protest. This conversation wasn’t at all going how he had planned.

  ‘“It’s over. Let’s talk divorce”,’ Casey quoted quietly. ‘You think I’m reading too much into that?’

  ‘You are. You totally are. I didn’t say, “let’s get divorced”.’ Alex rushed his words in a desperate attempt to make her understand. He could see why she could have misinterpreted his meaning, and he needed to fix her misapprehension fast. ‘I said, “let’s talk”. I wanted to talk again. That was all.’

  Casey smiled ruefully and chewed her bottom lip. ‘Then you could have said so. I don’t think your choice of words was an accident.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Alex demanded. ‘Why are you twisting my words?’

  ‘Alex.’ Casey sighed deeply. ‘I’m hardly twisting your words. I simply played them back to you. There’s very little room for twisting.’

  ‘But I didn’t mean them.’

  ‘Then you shouldn’t have typed them!’ Casey was starting to get angry.

  Alex flinched. This whole thing was out of control. He was standing at the abyss, and the cliff’s edge was disintegrating beneath his very feet.

  ‘Look.’ Casey’s voice cut through his despair. ‘I do think you’re right. We can’t go on like this. At some point, I’ll want kids. I don’t want to conceive with the help of a turkey baster.’

  Alex’s head jerked up. ‘What?’ He laughed despite himself. ‘I’m having visions of—you know—filling the tube and… eurgh.’

  ‘Eurgh indeed.’ Casey gave him a watery smile. ‘See? This whole not-having-sex-thing, it’s doi
ng us in. I feel like I’m losing my best friend, and I can’t bear it. I’d much rather go back to what we had before we dated than not have you in my life at all.’

  Ka-pow. And there it was—the fatal blow. Alex recoiled and let go of Casey’s hands. It was obvious that she had thought this through. Unlike him, she meant what she said.

  ‘But—but that never works. Being friends after a relationship.’ He was clutching at straws.

  ‘It does if you were friends first,’ Casey contradicted him. ‘We’ll make it work. Blue Heart will see us through this, and we have to sort ourselves out for the band. For Liza and Myles.’

  Even while she spoke, she finally began to cry. A fat tear escaped her eye, followed by another, and another. She didn’t make any attempt to wipe them away. She simply let them fall. Alex wanted to reach out and dry them, but he held back.

  ‘So—um—right.’ He scratched his head. ‘Where are you going with this? And why can’t we get divorced?’

  Casey inhaled deeply and picked up her beermat again for more shredding. ‘We can’t get divorced because we haven’t been married for a year. But we can get our marriage annulled.’

  ‘Annulled?’

  ‘Declared void, like it never happened.’

  ‘Ouch.’ Alex recoiled. ‘That sounds even worse than divorce.’

  Casey lifted her shoulders until they practically touched her ears. ‘I know. But those are our choices. We can either wait until next May, or we can file for nullity now and be done with it.’

  ‘“File for nullity”?’ Alex echoed, nearly speechless. ‘Why do I get the feeling you’ve researched all this?’

  ‘I haven’t, as such,’ Casey replied evenly. ‘You forget I’m staying with Sasha.’

  Sasha. Of course. Sasha was a legal eagle of some description, something rather high-powered if he recalled correctly. She was bound to know about these things.

  ‘And we can do this on what grounds?’

  ‘Non-consummation of marriage.’ Casey chewed her lip. ‘Non-consummation makes a marriage voidable. We’re almost a poster child for it. Almost.’

  ‘Only almost?’

  ‘Yeah. We’ll have to agree to bend the truth here a little.’

  ‘Why? We haven’t had proper sex since we got married. That’s the whole problem.’ Alex was at a loss. ‘Why would we have to lie about this?’

  ‘Because technically, and I quote, “erection and penetration” define consummation, but orgasm is optional.’

  Alex spluttered into his beer. ‘You what?’

  Casey laughed—the first proper Casey laugh he had heard for weeks. ‘I had the exact same reaction, but there it is. On account of the two or three times where we achieved’—she made speech marks in the air—‘“erection with penetration”, we’ve technically consummated. So we’ll have to agree to disregard those instances and file for nullity on grounds of permanent and incurable incapacity.’

  ‘No way!’ Alex almost shouted. ‘You must be kidding. I’m not putting that on any form!’

  ‘You’ll have to. And I’ll declare the same about myself. It’s only fair. This is definitely a two-way issue.’

  Alex shook his head. ‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  They sat in silence while the absurdity of their circumstance hung between them.

  Eventually, Alex summoned some words. ‘So, suppose I agree to this. How would it work?’

  ~Casey~

  ‘As long as we get our stories straight,’ Casey explained, ‘this will be really straightforward.’ She rummaged in her bag and retrieved a folder with forms that she had printed out at Sasha’s house earlier that morning.

  Alex looked at her with wide eyes. ‘You’ve got forms? Don’t we need to go and see a solicitor?’

  ‘Nope, not if we agree on everything. Look.’ She pointed to a first piece of paper. ‘One of us fills in this form, the “nullity petition”, and files it with a divorce court. We’ll have to pay a fee, obviously.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Right.’ Casey wasn’t going to be distracted by Alex’s sarcastic repartee. ‘So within about eight days, the other one will be asked to respond. The “respondent” has to fill in a form, plus a statement in support of annulment of a voidable marriage.’

  Alex seemed dazed. ‘Have you taken up a law degree while I wasn’t looking?’

  ‘No. But it really can be very simple if we both agree. So after the response is filed, the court will deliberate on it and give us an agreement. After that, we file for decree nisi and then for absolute. Piece of pie.’

  ‘I’m in shock.’ Alex sat back and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

  ‘Why? Isn’t that what—’

  ‘Don’t say it’s what I wanted, because it’s not. My head’s swimming. You’re so—so matter-of-fact about this, almost clinical. I can’t quite believe it.’ He rubbed his forehead vigorously.

  ‘Alex.’ Casey softened her voice. ‘I only looked into all of this because I thought you wanted it. And once I started thinking about it, it made sense. Everything seemed to click into place.’

  ‘Well, it hasn’t for me.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Casey shuffled the papers back together and stuck them in their folder. ‘Maybe it’s a bit much. Maybe I am barking up the wrong tree. Only… I don’t know.’ She shrugged helplessly. ‘Sometimes you’ve got to quit to get ahead.’

  She put the folder into her bag to clear the table of unpleasant paperwork. Then she picked up the remains of her shredded beermat and rolled her shoulders. She didn’t know what to say or do next.

  Alex sipped at his beer. She had never known him to take so long to consume a pint. He seemed genuinely upset, despondent even, and that broke Casey’s heart. She hadn’t intended to hurt him. She had thought that consenting calmly to his idea of ending their marriage would be the best way forward, but now she wasn’t so sure. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

  ‘Suppose—suppose we go through with this. Suppose we annul our marriage. What would happen to us? The house? Our relationship?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Casey confessed. ‘What would you like to happen to it?’

  Alex exhaled slowly. ‘Nothing. As in, I don’t want any of it to go away.’

  ‘Me neither. But on the other hand, the whole point of separating is that we could both potentially find new partners. For, you know… having sex… making babies.’

  ‘I don’t know. I get your point, but I still love you. I can’t switch that off.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Casey echoed Alex’s earlier response.

  ‘So why do it?’

  ‘Alex, we’re going round in circles. We’ve got to do something. We can’t stay in this limbo for the rest of our lives.’

  ‘Or for the next six years or so,’ Alex muttered.

  ‘Or for the next six years or so,’ Casey agreed. ‘If one were to believe in curses, which, of course, we don’t.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Of course I’m right.’

  Alex nodded. ‘You usually are. But how do you see it working? Say we annul. Then what?’

  ‘I say—I say we carry on as normal—live together, work together, shop together—but without the… the pressure. And we’ll see what happens. Maybe one of us will meet someone else. Maybe miracles will happen. Who knows? But I think it’s really important to get us out of this deadlock.’

  ‘Or wedlock, as the case may be.’

  Casey giggled. ‘Now you’re getting there.’

  ‘I’m not sure I am, but it seems to make a strange kind of sense, as you say. Besides, it’s the final frontier, the last thing we haven’t tried.’

  Casey swallowed. ‘You wanna do it?’

  ‘Why not?’ Alex sat up straighter. ‘What’ve we got to lose? It’s only another set of forms and a bit of money. And if we don’t like being annulled either, we can always remarry.’

  ‘Again.’ Casey c
hortled some more.

  ‘We should commission someone to write our story!’ Alex laughed. ‘But joking apart, why not? I think maybe I’m starting to get it. A clean slate, a fresh start. Yeah. Let’s do it.’

  ‘You sure? I don’t want to talk you into anything you’re not comfortable with.’

  Alex nodded. ‘Don’t go backtracking on me now, or we’ll be doing this dance for days, weeks to come. Go on, let’s have those forms. Might as well get on with them.’

  ‘What, now? Here?’

  ‘No time like the present.’

  ‘You’re not bluffing?’

  ‘I’m not bluffing. Let’s go for it.’

  Casey shook her head. ‘I feel like I’ve been on a loop-the-loop. I don’t know if I’m up or down.’

  ‘Oh, definitely up. Come on. I’m totally into this now. Things can only get better. They certainly can’t get any worse. And we’re still friends, whatever happens. Isn’t that what you said?’

  ‘Well, yeah. Absolutely.’ Casey was taken aback by the speed of events. Even though she had brought along the relevant paperwork, she had never considered completing it right away. She had anticipated a few days’ deliberation time, maybe more meetings…

  ‘Are you still staying at Myles’s place?’ she burst out a propos of nothing.

  ‘I was, but I’m—I’d like to come home now and sleep in my own bed. With you, if that’s okay. What about you?’

  ‘Me too. I miss our place. And—and your company.’

  ‘So here’s the ultimate in dramatic irony. Let’s fill in the paperwork to get split up and then promptly move back in together. What do you think?’ Alex’s eyes sparkled with mischief. ‘No strings, obviously. We’ll soon be annulled, so we’ll have to keep it nice and innocent.’

  ‘Is that a promise or a threat?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Whatever. Here goes: Do you want to be petitioner or respondent?’

  ‘I don’t mind. Who fills in the first form again?’

  ‘The petitioner.’

  ‘Then that’s what I’ll be.’