How Long You Should Wait to Have Sex: a Novel

by Sorgen, Monique

  “Oh my God, is that the week of the Brigman-Myers Conference? I had totally forgotten about that! But that’s honestly not the reason I picked that week. I picked it because that’s when John gets his time off.” Big lie. “And if I don’t take vacation on the same days as John, how is he going to whisk me off to some tropical island where he can surprise me with a proposal?”

  Henry’s not buying it.

  “I’m pretty sure he’s planning something,” I go on, “he’s been acting really strange lately.”

  “Samantha, I run a PR firm, so I have a pretty good instinct for spin. Tell me why I’m getting the feeling that this story is completely fabricated.”

  Damn, he’s good. I’m standing by my story.

  “I don’t know why you get that feeling.”

  Henry thinks about my request, which is never a good thing, because when he doesn’t instinctively agree with you, it usually means that some kind of a job-threatening deal is gonna come out the other end.

  “Well, Samantha, it’s true that you’re no more necessary than I am at the conference, except as a companion for me at the greenroom buffet.” At least he gets that much! “So I’ll give you your vacation days, but--“ Oh, crap, here comes the deal, “—if you don’t come back engaged, I will always harbor doubts about your honesty and your loyalty to me.”

  Well, I’m not going to come back engaged because I’m not even going on vacation with John. I’m going on a press tour with Marty, who I haven’t told you I’m representing behind your back, because I’m planning to surprise you with the most high-profile client you have ever had at your firm—which he will be, as soon as I finish making him famous on this talk show circuit, which I need these vacation days to do!

  I can’t tell him any of this.

  “That’s not fair. I have no control over whether or not John will propose to me. I just imagine that he will soon, because—“ I can’t exactly tell my boss, “Because he wants to get laid,” so I improvise, “—because we’ve been together a long time now, and I don’t know, maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part. Maybe he has no intention of proposing.”

  “I’ve told you my condition. And while it may seem strange to you, it’s based on a gut instinct that I’m trusting in myself. Now it may be that you’re trying to get out of the conference, and it may be something completely different that I’m not aware of, but something in my gut is telling me that your story isn’t right.” Damn is he good! “Now, if you want to change your mind about taking these particular vacation days, I will pretend this conversation never happened. Do you still want the days?”

  So basically I have two choices. I can admit right now that I’ve lied to him, and restore his instant trust in me by pretending I did it to try to get out of the boring conference, or I can accept that I’ve lied too far to go back now, and I’ve worked too hard to schedule major interviews for Marty to have to cancel them.

  Clearly my biggest mistake was not getting the days off before scheduling the interviews, but I wasn’t sure I could land the interviews that would make it worth my while to take the days off.

  I know how to fix this. I’ll just take the days off, and pick up an engagement ring somewhere on my trip.

  Then again, knowing Henry, he’ll probably think of the possibility that I faked the engagement, and find some way to double check my story with John. That means I’m gonna have to get John on board to corroborate my little ruse.

  I really didn’t wanna have to bring up marriage again with John. We saw how well that went last time. Only this time, I can’t go and fix it with a sex-time reset, since I’ll need for John to actually remember what he’s supposed to say to Henry when he comes snooping. I am not looking forward to this conversation.

  Chapter 25

  I decide to cook French for dinner. That’ll relax John a bit. I put on Les Nubians as background music, right before John comes over, and make sure he’s focused on our delicious meal before I bring it up.

  “So I got the days off to go on that press tour with Marty!” I announce, as if I were one hundred percent successful.

  “Good,” John replies between bites, “does Henry know why yet?”

  “Not exactly. I told him I was going on vacation with you.”

  “Let’s hope I don’t run into him while you’re gone!” Shit. I hadn’t thought of that possibility. That could actually happen. Especially since Henry will probably stalk John’s house just to see if he’s on vacation at all. I’m fucked.

  “You can’t let that happen. You’ll have to wear some kind of disguise while I’m gone.” John laughs because even though I was dead serious, what I just said is pretty ridiculous.

  “I’m not wearing a disguise, Sam.”

  “Fine, but if you run into him, you have to tell him you’re John’s twin brother, Sean.”

  John laughs, “Sean is just the Scottish version of John. I don’t think my parents would name their kids Sean and John.”

  “Fine. Be Ian. I don’t care.”

  “Funny you should pick ‘Ian,’ that’s the Irish version of John.”

  “Well I can’t help it if every name out there means John! Be whoever you want. Be Jesus, for all I care. Just be your twin brother and not yourself.”

  John laughs at me some more, “I don’t know what you’re so worked up about. I’m not running into Henry while you’re gone.”

  “You only think that because you don’t know my boss.” John laughs. He clearly thinks I’m being silly. We’ll see how silly he thinks I am when he runs into my boss while he’s supposed to be on vacation, and he has to come up with a name for his twin brother on the fly!

  “And there’s one other thing, too,” I may as well tell him while he’s finding me so hilarious, “I told him we were going on vacation to get engaged.”

  “You told him what?!” Funny, he’s not laughing anymore.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll buy my own fake ring.”

  “You will do nothing of the sort.” He actually seems kind of angry.

  “Oh, do you wanna buy it?”

  “No. You’re not wearing a ring.” Oh, yeah, he’s pissed. I don’t really understand why, though.

  “What’s the big deal?”

  “I haven’t proposed to you.”

  “So?”

  “So everyone we know will think I did.”

  “Everyone won’t know about it. I’ll only wear it to work.”

  “Listen to yourself. You want me to pretend I’m my own twin brother if I run into your boss while you’re gone. That’s how you think about stuff. You’re thorough. You don’t leave yourself open to accidents. And that’s why you won’t just wear the ring to work. You’ll have to wear it all the time. Then everyone will think it’s real, and that’ll force us to act like it’s real, and before we know it, it’ll become real.” I don’t like it, but he’s right about me, and I do see his point. “I want to get engaged to you on my own terms. When I want to. Not because everyone we know has already assumed that we’re engaged.” He takes a deep breath to try to calm down, but he’s not done venting, “As it is, you’ve announced our big news to your boss before announcing it to me. That’s just weird.”

  “Sorry,” I gulp, “I didn’t think it would be a big deal.”

  “I don’t get you sometimes. You wanna wait until marriage to have sex and yet you don’t get how engagement—the step that leads to marriage—is a big deal?” Then he suddenly puts something together, “Wait, are you holding out on sex, to try to get me to give you a ring faster?”

  “What? No!” I’m taken off guard. If anything, I’m trying to get the ring to guarantee he’ll still be here after sex.

  I’m starting to realize that this isn’t the best version of this particular conversation, so I decide to seduce him.

  “Anyway, I don’t have to hold out for sex, anymore. I love you and I trust you, so if you wanna have sex, let’s just do it right now.”

  “Really?”

 
“Why not?”

  “I don’t know… After all that waiting, it just seems bizarrely easy all of sudden.”

  “I guess, I wanna prove to you that I’m not holding out so I can get that ring.” He smiles wide.

  “Your willingness to give in and trust me, like this, makes me want to give you the ring.”

  “Really?”

  Instead of answering, he leans in and kisses me softly. That was bizarrely easy, too. I’m starting to see why he was surprised I would give into sex so easily after all that “waiting”.

  The kissing goes on for a while. It’s gentle and sweet and even loving, I think. Before I know it, I’m sitting on his lap, with my back to the French food on the table, and we’re making out for almost an hour.

  Between the sweet kisses, he sneaks loving glances at me. My smile uncontrollably expands to match his.

  I’m straddling him on his chair now, and unconsciously find myself grinding up against him, trying to get myself as close as I can to him. I can feel through his pants that he’s ready for anything.

  Quickly, the longing gets too intense for me not to kick it up a notch. I unwillingly pull myself away just enough to undo his pants, and even the time to do that has me aching for more. I undo my pants while still grinding against him. The question now remains, how am I going to get them off when I don’t want to leave this comfy, hot straddle position. I just have to get it over with.

  I kick my leg around just long enough to drop those pants to the ground and remove just one foot from its pant leg, before swinging my free leg back over him, and resuming the position.

  We are skin to skin now, and he feels so warm and smooth against me. Without any work on our parts, he slips inside of me like two magnets drawn together by their opposite charges.

  “Ahhhh…” I whimper, already releasing an hour of built up desire.

  I press my feet against the chair’s lower support bars to leverage myself up and back and forth, while my hands grab the back rest, pulling me firmly into him. He feels so hot thrusting inside of me, I never want this feeling to end.

  He thrusts me higher until I’m floating above the chair, practically suspended in mid-air by his pelvis, when suddenly, we push the chair back too far, and it falls to the ground.

  I throw out my arms, breaking the fall just enough to prevent him from getting a concussion. We burst out laughing, and I let my whole body weight fall over him.

  He caresses my back as we lay there recovering, and before long, our hips, still attached, start to move subtly toward each other again in little circles and thrusts, until we are fully refocused on the act at hand.

  Now with the chair on the floor, I can wrap my feet around the lower support bars to press his whole backside deeper into me. This is an amazing discovery. He’s deeper in me than he’s ever been before.

  I feel him throbbing inside of me, like he’s about to explode and I allow myself to moan louder and louder until we’re both letting everything out at the same time. Coming together is so bonding when it happens. This is the first time it’s happened for us. We both feel it, as we stare in amazement into each other’s eyes.

  The sex was so good and so intense, that I hate to have him forget all about it, but I did it to erase our conversation, so I console myself with the fact that I will always keep a fond memory of it, and then I wish myself back in time.

  ~

  John arrives for dinner again and I tell him about pretending to be his own twin if he runs into Henry over the weekend. I let him know that his twin’s name is Greg. He doesn’t argue with me about the name. Now I have to bring up the whole engagement ring business, and since he didn’t respond well to the fake engagement story, this time, I decide to simply go for the real one.

  “So, I’ve been thinking lately, about how badly I’d like to sleep with you,” I lead with. I’ve got his full attention.

  “You have?” he stutters, “because I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, too. I mean, not just lately, pretty much for the whole time we’ve been dating.” I laugh, and he adds, “But I still think I deserve credit for being a good boy.”

  “You do, and I give you that credit. I care about you so much and I trust you, which is why I really want to give in to you.”

  “I can’t tell you how much I want that, too.”

  “But as you know, I’m waiting until marriage.”

  “Right…” John sighs, disappointed at the new turn the conversation has taken.

  “So maybe we should get married sooner, rather than—I don’t know, we could finally sleep together, and I would really love that.”

  John is silent for a good, long while. I feel a little awkward, but I know I had to do this, because I need to get that ring.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, “I mean, for the long silence. I was just thinking about it. I need more time to think.”

  I nod quietly. It’s only fair.

  He feels bad, “You understand, right? It’s not the kind of decision you just make on the spur of the moment.” Then, remembering his first marriage, “I mean, you don’t make the same mistake twice. Not that my first marriage was a mistake. It was awesome. But it was a spur of the moment decision and I promised myself when it ended, that next time I’d do it—I don’t wanna say better—but maybe in some different way that doesn’t end in divorce.”

  “I understand,” I say. And I do.

  The bottom line is that I can’t count on John to come through with this ring for me. What I have to do to save my job is make sure that Marty kicks some serious butt on his press tour. Once we’re a success, I can tell Henry everything, and let him in on the fact that he has just made a ton of money on a client he didn’t even know he had.

  As it is now, my deal with Marty states that if he crosses a certain financial threshold with the project’s various elements, he will be obligated to pay me not the low-end monthly fee that I normally charge at $3000 a month, not the high-end monthly fee that I often charge at $5000 a month, not the doubled fee I discussed with Henry at $6000, but, for my hard work and belief in him, he will pay me a fee of $7000 monthly for a year, plus back pay for all the time I invested pro-bono. After the first year, we agreed to reduce his fees to normal levels, as this high monthly is only meant to cover my return on investment in him.

  Since I am contracted with Henry’s firm, my plan has always been to give the firm my usual cut, and surprise Henry with it. Of course I can’t surprise him with the good news until Marty reaches our set trigger, and I have the money. But Marty is very close to reaching the predetermined financial threshold that tips off my payment, and my hope is that by the end of this short press tour, he will hit our agreed upon sales marker on his book sales alone.

  Anyway, this has to work, because if it doesn’t, it’ll just look to Henry like I went behind his back, and he’s already established that he’s having trust issues with me.

  Chapter 26

  Marty and I plan to meet up at the airport. I check in to my flight to New York and make it all the way through security before I find him, waiting in the boarding lounge. I sit down next to him.

  “No pressure, Marty, but you’d better charm the pants off these talk show hosts, because if we don’t hit your sales marker on this trip, I’m probably gonna lose my job when I get back.”

  “Yeah, no pressure at all,” Marty jokes sarcastically, “I just have to be relaxed and intelligent and witty in front of famous celebrities and television cameras, or the one person in the world who chose to believe in me is going to lose everything she’s worked to achieve in life. That makes me feel very calm and serene inside.”

  “Sorry,” I agree, “it’s not your fault. I just ended up majorly lying to my boss about my potential engagement status, so I could go to New York with you.”

  I reach into my carry on and pull out my computer. I can feel Marty’s eyes on me. I look up to see him smiling at me, full of adoration. Why shouldn’t he adore me? I’ve basically changed his life in t
he past few months, free of charge.

  “I’m serious,” I say, opening my computer to find my notes, “since John isn’t going to propose to me by the time we get back, the only chance I have to keep my job is to show Henry that you’re a huge success. Ready to practice?”

  “Yes, sir!” he says mocking my diligence. I roll right over it. We’ve got a book to sell, and I can’t afford to have this go any less than perfectly. I read off the list of preparation questions that I’ve brainstormed.

  “They’re gonna wanna know why you got into sexology.”

  Marty plays along, as if I were the host, and he’s already sitting on the stage, “It started thanks to a long history of going after women who had absolutely no interest in me,” he looks at me complicitly. I guess he’s referring to Lacey. I should probably tell him that she still asks about him, and she isn’t not interested in him. Especially now that he’s starting to do well. I won’t tell him that part, of course. I am capable of learning from my mistakes, after all. In fact, I won’t tell him any of this right now, because we need to stay on track with our prep.

  I play along with the pretend-time pre-enactment too, and take on a posture as if I were a talk show host.

  “So, was it any woman in particular, who led you to sexology?”

  “Very astute, my dear—“

  I interrupt him, “Don’t say ‘my dear’ to the actual hosts.”

  He laughs at me, “Yeah, of course. I was just talking to you. But if you want me to practice like it’s the real thing, I can do that, too.” Then he picks up where I cut him off, “It was my college roommate who led me to sexology. I was so in love with her. And she couldn’t have been more unavailable to me.”

  “Because she was in a relationship?”

  “No. She was gay. And not even in the closet about it or anything.”

  I laugh. Then I apologize. But chasing a lesbian is an even stranger form of pointless wishful thinking than the one I’ve been pursuing with John.