No Sex is the Ultimate Sex
She turned to him, “are we having sex right now?”
“What—” he said, playing his video game.
Oh. Uh.
She was making guacamole, and this was the first thing she’s said in 20 minutes. He remembered the last book he read, Structures: Or Why Things Don’t Fall Down by J.E. Gordon. Structural integrity resides both in how materials are assembled, and in the internal strength of the materials. Structures can break down at either point — either due to an internal material weakness, or due to a weakness in the assembly.
Depending on how he answered, his relationship could fall apart right at this moment.
“…Yes. We are having sex…right now.”
Kayla perks up. He must have answered correctly. Her perky breasts in her white crop top excite more aggressively also.
“Mmm,” she says. “Yeah, uh, I love that! So we are edging so hard that actually right now, by not touching me, you are touching me?”
Kamchum was playing Donkey Kong Bananza. He had been playing Donkey Kong Bananza for the past three weeks. He had not touched his girlfriend in this time. He runs a quick enneagram 5 analysis and concludes that his ENFP girlfriend is trying to make the best of her situation. This is very sweet of her, he decides, even though it is distracting him. He wonders what he can say to reward the sweetness.
“…Yes,” he says.
Kayla moans. She puts down her avocado knife and pulls down the v-neck on her white croptop even lower. “And so when you haven’t touched me for three weeks, that was all leading up to this moment.”
He wonders about Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations and the limits of language.
“…Yes,” he says.
Kayla lifts up her skirt, enwetteningly. “I LOVE intentionality,” she says all ENFP-wangled. “I love how strategic and thoughtful you always are.”
Kamchum remembers a scene he has seen in an episode of Rick and Morty, which parodies Hellraiser. “Pain is pleasure” he recalls vaguely.
“Is this pain causing you pleasure?” he asks her.
“Yes,” she says. “God, yes. Is it causing you pleasure?”
Kamchum dies on the third Donkey King Kong world boss. He stares at the screen. He has been working on this section for eleven days. A lesser man would have thrown the controller. He does not throw the controller. He is, structurally speaking, a very load-bearing man.
“…Yes,” he says.
Kayla makes a sound that is difficult to transcribe. She pulls her skirt back down because she needs both hands to mash the avocado. You cannot abandon guacamole. This is something they both understand about each other, in the way that only people who have shared a refrigerator for two years can.
“I feel so close to you right now,” she says. “Closer than even if we were touching.”
“I feel close to you too,” Kamchum says, and means it, which is the strangest part.
He respawns. She squeezes some limes, her fingers wet. Outside, the world is doing its usual thing. Inside, by no measurable standard, they are having the sex of their lives.