The movie was boring and not good at all. The characters were poorly written and poorly acted. It was a movie that had been on Sasha and Greg's to watch list for years. Greg didn't like to waste time "wandering around Netflix" as he referred to it. He had a schedule and liked to keep to it.
So, every night after eating dinner, and doing the dishes, they would sit down to watch a movie from the list they had been compiling for years. Anytime Sasha discovered a new movie to watch she would add it to her Netflix list if she could. On any given day they knew they had a movie to watch at their fingertips. It was just the way Greg liked things, organized and predictable.
Greg's organization and scheduling had been refreshing when the two had started their relationship. Sasha had grown up with an alcoholic single father, which led to very little predictability in her life that having so much structure had been comforting.
Household chores and making dinners were traded off on the schedule which Sasha also appreciated. It allowed her to focus on her online ceramics shop and actually turn it into something lucrative for them both. She knew she was lucky. She knew Greg was great.
But at some point in their marriage the scheduling had got out of control. Greg was scheduling normal things like vacations, dinner with friends and date nights. But then he also started scheduling down time together, "spontaneous" outings (which lacked the very thing that defined it), and worst of all he began to schedule in sex.
At first Sasha thought it was a considerate move. The longer they were married the more difficult it was to find time to get sexy with each other. Time in the evenings would get away from them, especially if Sasha had customer orders to finish up or if Greg had brought work home. They would part ways after their movie and suddenly it was 1am; the couple almost too tired to kiss each other good night.
Mornings were very separate affairs, since Sasha liked to sleep in. Greg was an early bird. He liked to get a morning run in before heading to work. It had gotten so bad that Sasha began to feel more like roommates than lovers. So, scheduling in sex to make sure it happened was the most obvious solution to Greg.
But of course, it only made the problem worse. When sex started appearing on the schedule it took on a weird obligatory feeling. It became another 'To Do' to complete like an extra load of laundry. The spontaneity was gone, passion nothing more than a fizzled firecracker lost in the park after a rousing festival.
The romance of the act was lost in the strict little chunk of an hour that it was allowed to occupy on the calendar. So here Sasha sat with her husband turned roommate watching a movie, wasting time on a story that was bad and acting that was worse and wondering where the romance had gone.
"Are you enjoying this movie?" Sasha suddenly asked. Greg looked up from his phone guiltily.
"Not really," he admitted. "I'll put my phone away though. Sorry, I'll be more present." He slipped his phone in his pocket. "Who added this one?"
"I don't know. It might have been 25-year-old Sasha," she admitted, although she honestly couldn't remember. "Should we change it?"
"Eh," Greg shrugged, non-committal and sighed.
"It feels like we're ships passing in the night," Sasha blurted. "I miss you." Greg looked at her surprised.
"I'm right here Sash!" Greg held his arms wide.
"I miss you kissing me! I miss you randomly coming up behind me with a huge boner! I miss the spontaneity we used to have, the passion! I miss your dick dude," Sasha said.
Greg reddened. He had this weird dichotomy of being. He could be such a prude sometimes (raised by strict Mormon parents probably didn't help with that), but damn when he let loose, he was a fucking animal in the sack. The problem was that the animal was making fewer and fewer appearances as time went on.
"Where is this coming from?" Greg asked. It had admittedly come out of nowhere. The movie had nothing to with sex and she hadn't yet told Greg how little she enjoyed the scheduled sex.
She'd been too contemplative about the whole thing lately, talking with her therapist and her sister about it. They both told her to say something. Her sister insisted she couldn't complain if she sat in silence about it.
"I have been feeling very...horny and unfulfilled. I don't think scheduling sex was the right thing to do," she said trying to keep her voice measured.
"I mean, do we have to be hyper-sexual all the time? Relationships are more than sex," Greg said. He looked back at the movie he had zero interest or investment in.
"Of course, I know this, Greg. And we have a great relationship, but part of our relationship is sex. I don't feel like I'm getting quality sex with you. It seems more like a chore or something. Can you honestly tell me you truly enjoy the sex we've been having? Can you remember the last time we actually had a good spontaneous, passionate bone fest?" Sasha poked him in the leg with her toe. Greg reddened again.
She loved to see him squirm sometimes, and he had told her he enjoyed the way she challenged him. But tonight, he looked more bothered than turned on. She wondered if she was pushing too hard, being too blunt. Maybe she was, but it had been months since he'd last touched her outside of the allotted sex hour.
"I mean... yeah... it was..." Greg paused thinking. He started to count on his fingers.
"If you have to count on your fingers, it's too long Greg," Sasha leaned back, trying to hide the frustration in her voice. Greg slumped in his seat.
"I guess I didn't realize how much I was relying on the scheduled sex," Greg said. "It was never meant to be the only sex we were having."
A knot formed in Sasha's throat. How could he not have realized? How had he not been missing it? She missed it so very much. The feel of his lips on her neck, his hard cock pressing into her ass, him rubbing her nipples, her clit while they watched TV. The need to stop what they had been watching so they could fuck each other's brains out. Sasha felt her face flush and subtly shook her head to bring herself back to the present, attempting to ignore the warm moisture between her legs.
"How could you not realize Greg?" she croaked out. Greg shrugged and ran his fingers through his hair.