Sex Says

“You’re a little romantic at heart.”

“I am not,” I scoffed.

“Oh, yes, you are,” he refuted. “And this album is a perfect example of that.”

“Do tell how you came to that conclusion.”

“Every song I’ve heard so far has this poetic whimsy about it. Not to mention, the lyrics revolve around his muse and him being in love with her,” Reed explained. “This is right up sugary-sweet Lola’s alley.”

“Sugary-sweet?” I questioned in disbelief. “I’m not sugary-sweet.”

“If you were a wine, you’d be fucking pink Moscato,” he added with a knowing grin. “Believe me, you’re sugary-sweet.”

I scoffed, but I didn’t argue any further. Mostly because I knew he was right, and well, I wasn’t exactly a fan of admitting when Reed was right.

“Well, do you like the album?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. I’d have to listen to it a few more times before I decide.”

“You’re selective and picky with music.”

“I know. And you’re impulsive.”

I giggled. “I am impulsive when it comes to music. Even if there is one little lyric in a song that I love, but the rest of the song is just kind of meh, I will download it and listen to it for that one lyric alone.”

“And you’re a mood listener,” he added with a grin.

“No, I’m not.”

He flashed a knowing look. “Yeah, you are.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because you flit around between genres solely depending on your mood and emotions,” he explained. “The other day you were playing Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Bulls on Parade’ because you were irritated you had to clean your apartment.”

“So, I occasionally like to listen to Rage. Big deal.”

“When you’re angry.”

“That’s not true.”

“Name one time you listened to Rage Against the Machine when you were happy.”

I dug my toes into his ribs. “Shut. Up.”

He chuckled softly. “Exactly my point.” He reached under my left leg and tickled behind my knee. I yanked my leg away with fake self-righteous indignation. Really, I was just trying to avoid peeing myself when the tickling became too much.

“Stop it. I’m ignoring you, Mr. Know-It-All.”

He flashed a smirk in my direction, but that was the last one he gave me before buckling down and getting back to work. His fingers moved in fluid motion across the keys and teased me with the words I knew they were forming.

So, I did the same.

At least, I acted like it. In reality, I had fallen into the BuzzFeed black hole of puppy pictures and quizzes that told me when I would get married based off of my preferences in chocolate.

While I was trying to decide which was cuter, a corgi puppy or a dachshund puppy, my laptop pinged with a new email notification.

Corgi. Definitely, corgi.

Wait…no, dachshund.

Shit. I can’t decide.

I settled on a tie and opened up my Gmail account in the browser.

An email from Reed stared back at me. It had no subject line, and in some sort of bout of reverse psychology, I was immediately curious as to what waited inside.

“What is this?” I asked, and he smiled softly. “Are you sending me dick pics?”

I couldn’t deny I hoped his answer would be yes to that question.

Reed Luca had a beautiful penis.

Yeah, I know, that was a weird thing to say, but Reed Luca’s penis is beautiful.

Just trust me on this, okay?

I’m not the type of girl who walks around just complimenting dicks on a whim.

It takes a real special dick to tickle my fancy.

His smile grew wider. “It’s my next column.”

My eyebrow rose of its own accord. Aside from the beginning, he’d never let me read his columns before they published. I had a feeling that was more for his safety, and certainly the health of our budding relationship, than anything else. It was his job to disagree with me, but that didn’t stop me from taking a few poorly executed swings at him each time I read it for myself.

“Just read it, LoLo.”

I stared at him for a few seconds, searching his eyes for answers, but his expression remained irritatingly neutral.

I slid my finger across the mouse pad and clicked to open his email. “Do I need to, like, lie down while reading this?” I asked before I let my eyes move down to the contents of his mail.

His gaze mocked my already sedentary position on the couch beside him—I was completely sprawled out like a lazy bum, my feet in his lap.

I rolled my eyes. “You know what I meant by that. Is it going to piss me off?”

“Read. It.”

“God, you’re bossy,” I muttered. His chuckles mirrored the same soft volume.

Finally ready to engage with his words, I read each one with full focus.

A Picture of Intimacy & Why You Need the Right Partner to Paint It

By Reed Luca

Intimacy.

Whether your mind works in stages or milestones, the most important part of intimacy, as with many other things, is the process.

But it’s not one you can follow with instruction from anyone but yourself.

“Intimacy isn’t just sex. Intimacy isn’t just sharing your body with someone else.

It isn’t a to-do list you can check off as you reach each milestone. There isn’t a manual on it, no paperback you can purchase at Target to give a step-by-step guide on how to achieve it.” –Lola Sexton, Sex Says

You may have gotten used to Ms. Sexton saying one thing, followed by my explanation of its lack of validity for some subset of the population.

But these words ring too true, their message is too insightful, and their validity on a broad scale is perhaps the most expansive view Ms. Sexton has ever written.

I blinked several times in absolute shock. Holy hell. Am I reading this right?

Real intimacy is a sacred experience. It comes from the soul, and like many matters of true spiritual satisfaction, the key to finding it, the route to get there, and the signs of its existence aren’t concrete. It comes from a place within you, and despite your best efforts to decode its composition, it never exposes that deep, secret trust. It is willingly, naturally, and without doubt or worry, reserving your soul for someone else blind of the consequences and willing to absorb them no matter how big the impact. It is giving all of yourself to that person, no matter how vulnerable and fragile it may make you feel.

There is no timeline, and it can’t be forced. It will happen naturally and without restraint.

I continued to read, expecting to eventually reach the part in the column where Reed Luca disagreed with me.

But it never came.

It. Never. Came.

Physical attraction is often craved by humans above all things, but it is fleeting. When you can find someone who slips under your skin, who can embrace the dusty and dark corners of your soul and dance with your mind into a powerful connection, you’ll look to your canvas to find it full.

Full of contentment and safety and full of something so delicate, you’d consider changing yourself to keep it.

Sex Says that intimacy’s foundation is trust.

And Reed This, America: Sex Says is right.

To my absolute horror, tears soaked the collar of my no-frills T-shirt, the beauty of his words and the imprint each one left on my soul nearly shattering.

“You agree with me?” I whispered, voice shaky.

Reed looked up from his screen at the sound of my raw emotion. It wasn’t a long trip from noticing my voice to the tears on my face, and he wasted even less time before acting. He set his computer on the coffee table and pulled me into his lap.

Each word had been written carefully and concisely to me. I felt it as sure as I felt the hard flesh of his stomach under my hand and the beating heart in my chest. His take on intimacy traced mine precisely, and I knew why—because we shared it with one another.

His fingers softly moved a few loose strands of hair out of my eyes. “I agree with you.”

“You agree with me?” I repeated like a moron, still trying to process it all. In a couple of months, we’d gone from hating one another to this. Though, maybe there really hadn’t been so much hate there, after all.

A smile crested his lips, and he nodded. “I agree with you,” he said, humoring me and my psychosis, and pressed a soft kiss on the corner of my mouth. “And more than that, I loved what you wrote.”

“I think I need a moment to let my brain process this.”

His smile grew wider just before he shoved his face into my neck.

“This makes me hate you even less now,” I teased.

“You don’t hate me.” The words were slightly muffled by my skin. He tickled my rib cage, and I giggled.

“This makes me dislike you even less now.”

“You don’t dislike me.” He tickled me again. Thanks to my squirming in an attempt to get away from his persistent fingers, my computer started to fall off my lap. But Reed, quick as a cat, caught it before it hit the ground. He started to set it on the coffee table beside his, but he stopped when his gaze caught my screensaver.

“Wait…” Little laughter lines folded the skin at the corners of his eyes as he squinted at the photo. “Is that a picture of an old lady in a park with a puppet?”

“Yep,” I said proudly. I’d found this picture somewhere on the internet and knew instantly that I had to keep it. I might even say I’d found a certain intimacy with it. I mean, it was the cutest fucking thing I’d ever seen in my life.