"Love is the subtlest force in the world."
(Gandhi)
About four months into my relationship with the man I later married, Derrick and I started having long discussions about our sex life. These often occurred when we were driving to go visit his parents, who lived about 150 miles away from the city where he and I both lived. These drives eventually became the time when we had all of our serious conversations, mainly because the drive was so long and we each had a captive audience to hear our thoughts.
The sex conversations often centered around the little problem we were having. Namely, I was not having orgasms. I assured him that I had never had them with any other man I had been with, so it wasn't anything he personally was doing wrong. I just assumed that we would eventually figure things out and the problem would get resolved. We were both trying to be patient as we experimented, but we were both getting pretty frustrated, too.
One particular day during the drive home, I was distracting him from the road by "sharing" my roll of Tropical Flavors Life Savers with him. "Mmm! This flavor is *really* good!" I teased, reaching my hand across to rub his neck.
"What? Which flavor is it?"
"I don't know. Maybe peach or something. Wanna taste?" I leaned across the seat and raised my eyebrows at him suggestively.
"OK, real quick," he agreed. I kissed him and surprised him by passing the rest of the Life Saver from my mouth into his.
He sucked on the candy for a few seconds then agreed that it might be peach flavored. I popped another candy into my mouth. "Oh, this one is pretty good, too. I think it might be watermelon."
"Well, I've still got the other." He smiled at me. "You're going to cause a wreck if you're not careful," he warned.
"How about we just *talk* about sex, then, if I can't actually touch you."
I was very concerned about keeping our sex life interesting, especially in light of our recent difficulties. I had decided to ask him to specifically make suggestions to improve our sex life. "Is there anything I can start doing or stop doing that would make our sex life better for you?" After all, I loved him, and wanted him to feel like our sex life was *fantastic*. I was also a little scared that our problems might make him want to find another woman who was, well, more responsive.
"Well, it would certainly be nice if you were having orgasms!" he stated unnecessarily. By now, this was an obsession for both of us.
"Yeah, well, other than that, honey." I was really hoping he could come up with something else.
"I don't know." He thought about it for a while. "I mean, that's pretty big."
"Well, we can keep working on that, but I mean something else *besides* that."
He thought about it some more, then stated, "We could do cherry flavored Life Savors next time," he joked. We both laughed. "Seriously, well, I don't know. I guess there is one thing, but I really wouldn't want you to. I mean, I wouldn't if I were a woman."
"What is it? I mean, I can always say 'no' if I don't want to do it." I should have known what was coming next, but he surprised me.
"It would be nice if you would let me come in your mouth." He paused. "But, of course, I don't really think you should. I mean, that's just too much to ask."
So that was it, huh? The one thing he could think of that he thought would improve sex for us (other than the impossible), and I was disgusted by the thought. I quickly replied with a very light and non-committal response, "Well, maybe I'll surprise you some day." Yeah, right, sure. He just laughed and changed the subject, probably wishing he hadn't said it because he knew that I would feel bad about it.