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I Can Fix Him (Complete story, 1/16/23, Bonus Material added 1/23/23)


TQuintA

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I hope they talk about what they want deeply.

Gabriel right now truly wants to be with Augie. In terms of actions.. he tries to do everything by the book. 

Ganriel seeks companionship, someone to share the trials and tribulations with, a partner in crime someone who will cheer for him.

Augie wants to be wanted. He yearns to be fulfilled both physically and.. emotionally. And he wants what he had briefly with his exes - but with Gabriel. And the big question. "Are you tortured by this?"

Gabriel yearns for someone who can accept what he says as the truth of his feelings. It's already hard enough to say what we actually feel with words, it's near impossible. ..There's more than 7 or so emotions. The mere act of meeting halfway, it's... Different.

It might feel impossible to find someone again who could understand you so intimately and the fear of losing a connection like that - it may feel like you'll lose a part of you. It feels like you'll never be truly happy again. No one could ever have that same connection. It's the one that slipped away.

 

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Ok, I was a little worried with the previous update, but this way I'm feeling more reassured about Gabriel's behavior. And it has actually been really fun! Another one knocked out of the park, TQuintA!

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Just for the record:

It's entirely possible to be in a committed, emotionally supportive, *romantic* relationship with someone who is asexual. I know. My husband and I have been together for almost 20 years and for 14 of those years (2008 to date) he has been asexual. In that time (and before I altered the terms of engagement) I have felt frustrated, perplexed, rejected, depressed, and a thousand other emotions but never once did I feel like a pet, or that we weren't husbands, or that our relationship was a sham. Except in the bedroom we are there for each other, I for him, he for me, in every possible way. 

And we're not the only ones. A dear friend and former colleague lost his de facto life partner of 40 years a couple of years ago. Not only was their relationship asexual, the guy who passed away couldn't acknowledge the fact that they were anything other than "brothers in Christ." But as I told Richard, "you were each others principal object of affection, plain to everyone who met you, much less knew you; the fact that he couldn't call it what it was didn't make it any less of a marriage, and you are, willy-nilly, a widower."

The truly awesome thing about queer relationships is that even now that we are (at least temporarily) afforded legal blessing WE define them. Not the law. Not tradition. Not history. There is no paradigm for our marriages other than what we craft on our own. The only limits are our imaginations and the capacity of our hearts.

I haven't read the latest chapter but I hope that in the end Auggie and Gabriel figure out how to honor the love that is so clearly there.

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Partners not having sex is one of those subjects that is very sensitive to some, but also trips a lot of triggers for me when people start saying you should do X, Y or Z. I know someone whose wife stopped having sex with him, and it destroyed his self esteem. I've gone through spells where I've had about zero sex drive, but fixed it with some personal time for masturbation, because sex drive is a mental muscle that can atrophe if you don't attend to it. I know couples who both are asexual and in great a relationship. I know people who thought they were asexual after a while in a relationship and then after leaving that relationship realized they were suppressing their own desires to conform to their partner's vanilla desires. The problem I have with some posts in here is that it's people projecting their own circumstances onto this complex issue and saying people should or shouldn't do one thing or another. The truth is that every circumstance is complex and when you find yourself in one of these situations you need to do some soul searching, research and probably therapy to figure out what the right answer is for you. There isn't a right answer. Only choices about what you value and what you're willing to do.

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Chapter 31

            My new relationship with Gabriel blossomed over the following week.  He did a million small, thoughtful, spontaneous things to show me he was committed to fulfilling all my romantic needs.  Gabriel swung by my office twice to have lunch, and we went out dancing one evening (though Hank had us home by 10).  He was a lot more affectionate in general.  And I mean both verbally and physically. 

            The verbal changes were a balm to a scarred heart.  He continued complimenting my appearance, especially if I wore tighter clothes.  He switched from calling me things like “buddy” and “dude” to calling my things like “babe” and “baby.”  He would wish me goodbye with an, “I love you.” 

            As much as I adored this verbal affection, I couldn’t get enough of his physical affection.  When we danced, he held me close.  He went around shirtless, just like he did in college, only this time he’d periodically invite me to squeeze his pecs or feel his biceps.  We took another shower together, and his touch on my body was intentional and delicate.  There were incidental, everyday touches too.  He’d stroke my hair, touch my face—he even started to kiss me—two or three times a day.  When we watched a movie together, we were interlaced on a couch.  Curled up against Gabriel’s massive muscles, I felt warm, safe, and comfortable, like I’d always belonged in his arms.  One night, he even cuddled up next to me in bed until we fell asleep. It was the first time Gabriel had ever slept in the same bed as another person.

            It was an amazing whirlwind.  I felt like the luckiest man in the world.  We hadn’t had sex yet, but Gabriel was really stepping up and showing me his commitment.

            That week was amazing.  Then Friday came around, and I got home from work a little early.  Gabriel wasn’t home, but he should’ve been.  I decided to surprise him.  I went into his bedroom so I could return the small acts of love he showered me with by tidying up for him, maybe even doing some laundry.

            When I went into his room, I was the one who was surprised.  All over the room were post-it notes with scrawled self-affirmations.  They were on his mirror, his closet door, his window, his dresser—everywhere.  “You can do it.”  “Have strength.”  “Do it for Auggie.”  “Fake it ‘til you make it.”  “Auggie loves you.”  “Tough it out.”  “Don’t forget to breathe.”  “Grin and bear it.”  “Be the man Auggie needs you to be.”  

            As if that weren’t enough, there were papers scattered all over the desk.  Two well-worn books were opened, pages bookmarked and passages highlighted like they were textbooks.  One was called 365 Romantic Days a Year, and the other was called Release the Sexual Being Within You.  There were multiple notebooks filled with handwritten notes and plans, computer-printed schedules, and calendars.

            My curiosity piqued, I picked up one of the papers, and I discovered it was a detailed itinerary of all the romantic things Gabriel had done for me.  Not a one of them was a spontaneous gesture.  They’d all been planned to the smallest detail.  He even scheduled when he would kiss me down to the minute.  I had realized he always initiated the kissing, but I didn’t know he was scheduling them to the minute.  There was even a sheet of notes where he brainstormed a whole bunch of ideas for future encounters; the list was labeled “Ideas for Further Research.”  The majority of items on that list were things he’d seen in movies that might possibly be romantic, like walking home in the rain, going to a baseball game, and taking a pottery class together.  The most surreal item on the list was this one: “Aquarium=Kiss?”

            Underneath the Ideas for Further Research was a second list that broke my heart.  It was a detailed plan to work up to having sex with me.  It included two dozen small, incremental steps to build up to the big event, which he had scheduled for our wedding night.  The list was labeled “Scaling Everest.”  That schedule was affixed with yet another post-it note affirmation: “Auggie is worth it.”

            As I was reading through “Scaling Everest,” Gabriel came into the room.  “Fuck, babe.  You weren’t supposed to see these.”  He swept the items I wasn’t holding off the desk and looked at me shamefaced.  With a deep, meaningful sigh, he said, “Seeing all of this must hurt your feelings.  I sincerely apologize.”  Then, he leaned in to kiss me, but I held him off.  “Why not?” he asked.

            I tapped to a note in his handwriting: “In case of emergency, sincerely apologize and kiss him.”

            “You preplanned your apology,” I said.

            He nodded.  “I had to.”

            “You don’t have to do any of this,” I said, gesturing around to his various notes and schedules.

            “I did it for you,” he admitted.

            “I didn’t ask you to,” I reminded him.  “I know you’re aroace.  I know you’ll never change, no matter what my brother thinks.  When you said you could be the man of my dreams… I didn’t realize…I didn’t think you’d meant…”  I trailed off.

            “It’s okay,” he said, rubbing my arm compassionately, comforting me.  This man had bent himself into pretzelled knots to please me, and yet Gabriel was comforting me.  Why?

            “How could this be okay?” I asked.

            He peeled off the post-it note on top of the notebook and showed it to me again as he said out loud, “Auggie is worth it.”

            “You’re beating your head against the wall for me.  Your room looks like a serial killer lives here.  You’re denying your every natural instinct to make me happy.  How am I worth this?”

            “Because you stayed,” Gabriel said.  “You stayed,” he repeated.

            “I don’t understand,” I admitted.

            Gabriel turned around and said all of the following while facing the wall, his back to me, as though he couldn’t look at me while saying it. 

            “I have no family.  I don’t have any siblings, or cousins—nothing like that.  I don’t know who my father is.  My mother moved to France without even telling me.  And friends, well, I struck out there too.  Every friend I thought I made…they want sex.  And when I turn them down, they leave.  They all leave. 

            “They all fucking leave.  I don’t know if it’s because I’m hot, or if this is just how it is in the allo world, but once people find out they can’t get sex from me, they leave.  All the friends I made in high school, college—they leave. 

            “I tried making friends with the straight guys at work, at your suggestion need I remind you.  They bored the fuck out of me because every conversation eventually cycled back to chicks and sex, especially when we played poker, but I hung in there just to have friends.  Then, I started getting seriously bigger.  They were horrible to me and saw me as a threat.  They cheered for my demise.  Some of them applauded when I was fired.

            “I tried making friends with the guys at the gym, but it was the same problems.  Boring conversation, and they either want sex or see me as a hostile threat.  They leave too. 

            “Back in college, I even tried making friends with some lesbians.  That didn’t work either.  That lasted, like, three months.  They all got into romantic relationships, and suddenly I’m the third wheel.  They stop spending time with me in an effort to be kind to me.  They leave too. 

            “Even Bridget, who I thought was such a good friend I agreed to sham-marry her.  She left me for Ellis.  I haven’t seen her in weeks. 

            “And now, we’re at the age where people are having kids and starting families, and all of it is just going to get worse.

            “You stayed.  We got along famously, had so much fun together, enjoyed spending time together.  And you stayed.  I rejected you—twice!—and you stayed.  I sent you a thousand mixed messages, and you stayed.  You dated other people, and you stayed.  Fuck, Auggie, you chose me over Douglas.”

            He turned around to face me again.  His eyes were wet.  He hadn’t cried, but the slightest thing could push him over the edge.  “And then you said you were going to leave.  I could not let that happen.  You need romance?  I’ll give you romance.  You need sex?  One way or another, I’ll give you sex.  I can’t survive you leaving too.  Not you.  Not Auggie.  If you leave too, I’m done for.”

            I looked at Gabriel, unsure how to process all this information.  “Gabriel, what you’re describing isn’t love.  It’s desperation and loneliness.”

            Gabriel clenched his fists and made strange gasping noises as he said, “I love you so fucking much!  You’re my Auggie.  You’re my favorite person.  I just love you the wrong way.  If I weren’t broken, none of this would be a problem.  If I weren’t broken, I could love you the right way.”  He looked like he was about to hit himself.

            I stopped his hand.  “You’re not broken, Gabriel,” I insisted.  “I believe you.  You love me.  But I don’t want to marry someone who sees kissing me as a chore on a to-do list.  I don’t want to marry someone who’s killing himself, who’s contorting himself into someone he isn’t just so I’ll stay.”

            “It’s not a chore; it’s a learning experience.  It’s a transition period,” Gabriel said.  “I’m developing new habits.  I’m nothing if not a man of consistent habits.  Give me the chance, and I’ll develop romantic habits too.”  As he said these things, he was calming down. I could see smooth, confident Gabriel re-emerge.  “A week ago, I had to hold my breath to kiss you—I don’t have to do that anymore.  The way you light up when I kiss you—it’s magic.  Yeah, the kiss does nothing for me.  Fine.  I confess.  I might as well be kissing a pillow.  But the look on your face when I kiss you—I’d kiss you a million times to see you that happy.  Once I get over this stupid, nonsensical revulsion at the thought of having sex with you, I’m sure it’ll be the same thing.  The first two or three times, it’ll be unpleasant for me, but then I’ll see that look on your face.  And to know I made you feel that way, that you love me in a way that I can’t even process, I’ll learn to love sex too.  For you.” 

            Before I could stop him, Gabriel swept me up in his giant arms and kissed me deeply and passionately, my feet dangling a few inches in the air.  This time, there was no holding back, no wall between us.  It was as if we melted into one being.  My heartrate increased, my brain fired a thousand synapses of pleasure, my extremities tingled.

            When the kiss ended and Gabriel put me back down, I tottered unsteadily and smiled dopily.

            “That’s the stuff,” Gabriel said, pointing to my face.  “The kiss was whatever.  Me playing my part in the script.  But that drunk, happy, satisfied smile on your face…”  Gabriel put his hand over his heart.  “I’ll kiss you whenever you want to see that smile.”

            “Maybe I should have just had sex with you the night I came back from my glamping trip.  The night you threw yourself at me.  Brought this all to a head back then.”

            Gabriel shook his head emphatically.  “You were right to reject me.  It would’ve destroyed us.  I wasn’t ready.  I’m still not ready.  But I’m working up to it.  And I will get there for you.”

            “I don’t know…”

            “I’m not promising you anything unrealistic.  I’m never going to crave sex with you.  I’m never going to look at you and think, ‘Wow, look at him.  I gotta fuck that hot piece of man.’  I’m not promising that.  I’m promising I will find ways to sexually satisfy you because you matter to me.”

            I was still unconvinced, and my face betrayed that.

            “I’ve got two more weeks,” Gabriel said.  “Don’t leave just yet.  I’ve got some good stuff planned.  Like tonight?  I’m taking you to my gym.”

            “Your gym?”

            “You used to like watching me work out.  You like my muscles.  I’m going to give you a thrill.  Show you just how much more manly I am than the other studs at the gym.  Plus, I’ve got a surprise for you afterwards.  I know how much you like surprises.”

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Gabriel is grade A toxic. It’s not that he doesn’t care, but the emotional dependence leading to emotional blackmail of Auggie is pure toxicity. Simple. And it’s destroying Auggie’s life.

Get outta there!

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