Emotional Baggage

Everybody in their twenties carries around a lot of emotional baggage. Jessica did so even more than other people. Six weeks had passed since she had broken up with her ex when things started to get serious with Paul.

To Paul Jessica seemed like the woman he wanted to marry. She was good-looking and not bitchy at all. This time, he was for real and  he wanted things to work out. When they first started dating Jessica told him about her ex, how he had made her feel like a sexual object. Paul decided that he would never let her feel like that.

Now Paul found himself in a paradox. He asked himself: how to have sex with a woman without making her feel like a sexual object? Of course, he wanted to have sex with her – that belonged to a relationship, but he did not want her to know that he did. He even researched in the Cosmopolitan and found out: Women easily think that men only want sex.

Jessica, on the other hand, wanted to be desired in a sexual way. She just did not know how to ask for it. She was wondering what was wrong with him, so she took the first sexual step. Afterwards he kept telling her: “Oh I didn’t know you were such a passionate woman.” He made sure she knew that she had started it. Soon, Jessica got tired of arguing with him after each act of compassion, who was to blame. He always said it was her even though he knew it was him. Paul always repeated that she was so passionate and she began to think that he considered that to be something wrong. Did he not like a woman who took the initiative? Did he prefer a rubber doll?

In fact, Jessica wasn’t enjoying sex with Paul. He was always asking her ver y tensely: “Do you really like it that way? You know some women think that this position is disrespectful to them.” All her excitement was gone after being asked for the fifth time if she was comfortable and she had to fake it. Of course, Paul’s concerns didn’t help his physical performance and Jessica thought that he was nervous about his best friend’s performance. She began to think that he was blaming her activity for that.

After a while, Jessica just didn’t want to sleep with Paul anymore. The mere thought of kissing him led to the image of another stressful night. That night the reversal of roles took place: Paul became the sexual monster he had been trying to repress. He continued trying, waking her up six times a night and telling her that she unconsciously tempted him. After she wrote him off the seventh time, he got up and held a piece of chocolate in front of her face. “If you’re not feeling well, eat that.” Jessica had never felt so disrespected in her life. She locked herself in the bathroom unable to face that now it had come true what she had wanted. She was desired but she lost the control over the situation. That made her freak out and reveal the monster in her.

Four days later, they had their break-up talk. Jessica believed that they had talked too much, Paul believed that they hadn't talked enough. Both weren't able to face the monstrous reflection of themselves in the eyes of the other. They ran away from the image in the mirror and accumulated even more baggage for the future.