Sometime yesterday afternoon while I was at work, I got an email from Francine.  She said, “I could stop over this evening and bring some wine, a movie, and some massage oil.  I’m not an expert on massage, but maybe it would help your sore back and neck.”

I pretended that I didn’t see that email in time to encourage or decline such an invitation for last evening.  The temptation was there to accept her offer.  I’ve been very stressed lately with a combination of a very high workload right now, repetitive strain injuries that are putting me in constant pain, and a low-grade, chronic ache for some physical pampering and TLC.  I feel very low and vulnerable right now.

I closed my eyes yesterday afternoon and imagined what it would be like to accept her offer to come over with wine and massage oil.  (I knew that in the presence of wine and massage oil, the movie would never be viewed.)  Francine and I have had sex on two separate occasions — during the first week of our relationship!  It was good sex for both of us on those occasions.  I could imagine that the third time would be even better.  She was experienced in making love to a woman, and she had given me much sexual pleasure.  My mind entertained what it would feel like to share some wine and then take off all my clothes.  Maybe a nice, warm bath in the whirlpool would follow with lots of attention to massaging my back and neck as she bathed me with fragrant lather.  She would dry me with a large, soft towel, and then naked on my bed, her oiled hands would soothe and heal as she worked the tense muscles of my shoulders and neck.  I would give myself over to the ministrations until her kneading slowed and stopped.

Turning over onto my back, I would take her in my arms and kiss her, the inevitable shivers cascading down my spine and arms as her lips teased my ears and neck.   Her tongue would run along my collarbone, and soft kisses would trail down onto my breasts.  She was fairly aggressive with me before when she squeezed, pulled, and sucked my nipples, and I liked that!  I’ve developed a taste for nipple stimulation that is sometimes just to the point of discomfort.  It’s highly arousing and I wanted her to do that to me!

By the time she worked her way down to my lower belly, my musky juices would be flowing in abundance, and the merest touch of her lips and tongue to my labia and clit would send me over the edge into immediate and powerful orgasm.  It would be the first of several.

But I didn’t answer her email.  I didn’t invite her over.  One thing didn’t lead to another, and I didn’t have any of that pleasure I craved and imagined.

Why?  Because it means something different to her than it does to me in this relationship.  We’re in different places with our emotions, and I can’t take from someone like that and encourage her to go down that path of disparity with me.  It’s not fair.  It’s not caring.  Sure, one could argue, she’s willing to give it!  You’ve had the discussion.  She knows where you’re at with it.  She’s an adult and capable of deciding for herself how involved she wants to get in a situation like that.  And yet she’s still willing to give you this pleasure!   Take it!

It would be oh-so-easy under those circumstances to just take it, to indulge myself in some pleasure.  I’d make sure she got hers, too.  No worry there.  I’m not a selfish lover in that regard.  She’d go home sexually satisfied as well.

But to do that, knowing that she wants to be in love with me as well as sexually involved with me, I would have to turn a blind eye to that situation and set it aside for the sake of justifying and indulging in my own needs.  She may be a willing partner, regardless of those circumstances, but what would that say about me?  Could I be that self-centered, self-indulgent person?  Could I be that person who doesn’t want to deal with the complexities of the emotions involved, who places sex on a base plane of acts and physical responses, divorced from the concept of emotional intimacy?

The temptation is there to be that person when I’m feeling needy and vulnerable and achy for all of my own personal reasons.  But, no, I’m not that person.

The answer I had to give to myself was no.  By omission yesterday afternoon, my answer to her was no as well.