Everyone sat in silence for several awkward minutes.
“What if …” Kelly bit her thumbnail and wrinkled her nose.
“Yes, Kelly?” Rhonda prompted her. “There is no judgment, honey. This is a safe place.”
It wasn’t a safe place. It was the opposite of a safe place. It was a prayer room, a room to judge and be judged. We all knew it.
“What if I want intimacy, but I don’t want the uh … other stuff?”
“Sorry, I’m not following,” Rhonda said. “What do you mean other stuff?”
“Well, like … marriage. I’m not sure I want to be married again.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged, squirming in her seat. “It was exhausting. And I like my space. I like my time alone. I didn’t need it so much when I was younger, but now I do. But sometimes I just want … intimacy.”
Rhonda nodded slowly and folded her hands on her crossed leg. “Maybe you could find an online pen pal or join a club. The church has a coed volleyball team for singles that you could join and find someone who might enjoy occasional stimulating conversation. Before my husband and I got married, we used to meet at a park and watch the birds and squirrels for hours while discussing the second coming of Christ. I would walk home feeling so intellectually satisfied.” Rhonda let out a slow sigh of contentment.
Bethanne raised her hand slowly. We didn’t have to raise hands.
“Yes, Bethanne?”
Bethanne cleared her throat and shifted her attention to me. Why me? I had no idea, but it drew everyone else’s attention to me as well. And I started to sweat.
“I think … I think what Kelly means …” Bethanne cleared her throat again, wringing her hands together. “Well, I think since Elsie took the first step in really opening up our group to honest discussion by being brave in the face of the unknown, I want to do the same. So I’m just going to say it.”
I had no idea where she was going with any of her nonsense. My intentions were never to open the group up to some greater level of honesty. I wasn’t a hero or role model. I made a mistake. Period.
“Sex. Kelly wants sex. That’s what she means by intimacy. Not marriage. Not commitment. Not stimulating conversation while watching wildlife. She wants to feel a man inside of her again.”
Well done, Bethanne. My honesty garnered a few wide eyes. But Bethanne’s honesty drew a collective gasp from nearly everyone in the room, but none louder than Rhonda.
“Oh stop!” Bethanne went from nervous Nellie to an errant child not happy about being told she has to go to bed early. “I know we are in a church, but this group isn’t a sermon. And we’ve all had sex. Why can’t we call it that? Why can’t we be honest about our feelings regarding it? Either our hidden gratitude that we never have to have it again or our secret desire to have it with every guy we lay eyes on.”
And there it was … the Elsie moment. The moment when you just vomited your unfiltered emotions onto the group and prayed someone threw you a lifeline by admitting they, too, have had similar feelings.
Right.
Wrong.
Or just incredibly needy and human.
Validation meant everything when you felt completely cut off from the world.
“Kelly, maybe you should—” Rhonda began to make her mandatory intervention, but I threw poor Kelly a lifeline first.
“I miss sex. I miss the warm fullness that just can’t be duplicated with something from Amazon. I miss the way my nipples get really hard and sensitive from a single touch. I miss the heavy feeling slowly growing between my legs, all warm and tingly. I miss falling off that cliff as my eyes roll back in my head, my jaw goes slack, and my toes curl. I miss the moan of pleasure from another human finding me so sexy.”
“I miss having someone take charge.” Pauline sighed. “Toby and I were going through a rough patch a few years before he died. We saw a counselor, and she walked us through some exercises to help open up our lines of communication. Come to find out … I just wanted a night to myself to take a hot bath without hearing my kids screaming and to enjoy a good book. Toby … well, he wanted to be dominated in bed. I took care of three young kids, cooked, and cleaned. I shouldn’t have had to dominate him in the bedroom too. My whole day involved being in charge, in control, on alert. I just wanted someone else to take charge once we got into bed. I wanted him to grow a pair.”
A few of the women sniggered.
“Ladies, this is highly inapprop—” Rhonda made another attempt to diffuse the conversation.
“Well, I just want everyone to remember, most of us have children. This is a small town. And God is always watching. So maybe instead of ordering things from Amazon and missing things that are purely selfish and physical, you should spend more time in prayer, giving thanks for what really matters. What would Jesus do?” Aurora was basically a slightly younger version of Rhonda. I had a hard time imagining either one of them actually letting go of their inhibitions, spreading their legs, and allowing a penis to enter their bodies.