I Can’t Have Sex With My Boyfriend Because Luckily I Have a Cold
Originally Published in Flash Fiction Magazine
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My boyfriend says he wants to rail me.
“We can do it from behind if you’re feeling insecure about your stomach,” he adds helpfully, like a man offering to dim the lights before executing a terrible magic trick. I hadn’t been feeling insecure, until now. I tell him that I have a cold. That we can’t. That he could catch it. That, worse, he could catch it and miss his upcoming work trip, the one I’ve been looking forward to him going on for months.
He stares at me and unconsciously drools, and I want to throw up.
He says he will get on his knees and beg, which he won’t, or fly to the Western Wall and pray, if he has to, which he won’t, or maybe even go to Cinderella’s Wishing Well at Magic Kingdom, since it’s closer, which he actually might. He says that he would even take rubbing himself between my thighs and letting me play Friends in the background, suggesting the one where Joey and Rachel kiss, an episode I hate, but could tolerate to avoid making eye contact with him.
The next day I feel worse and call my ex-sorority sister, Sophie, the nurse, who tells me I’ll be fine as long as I drink fluids and take an egg-yellow capsule pill called oseltamivir phosphate twice a day. I ask about Ozempic and mention I’m hopeful to lose a few pounds this week. She sighs, says she’s really busy. I apologize because I feel like I have to. I ask my boyfriend to pick up the prescription at the Rite Aid around the corner, along with a box of tampons because I’m having stomach cramps, which means my uterus is shedding its lining, celebrating that our body isn’t carrying my boyfriend’s idiot child, a man who I’m not sure I even like half the time, but who’s been around long enough that the idea of starting over feels more exhausting than staying.
My boyfriend leaves for Washington D.C., and my body seizes the opportunity to self-destruct. My fever spikes, limbs revolt, and the city-wide adventure I’d planned crumbles instantly. I was going to lie about my age at bars for the thrill of being carded, flirt with women at Cubbyhole, only to remember I prefer admiration over participation, and finally eat at the restaurants my boyfriend deems “too spicy” because his palate never graduated past Lunchables. I stole his credit card, ready for a little harmless fraud, armed with the excuse that it looked just like mine. But now, I am bedridden, my immune system staging a violent coup against me.
This cold is evolving and ruining the good, sexless time I was supposed to have without my boyfriend. The neighbor across the street watches me through our window, and I dream we have really good sex, so I want to leave the curtains open and walk around the apartment naked, but I want to shit myself with every step I take, and I don’t know if he’s into scat play, so I keep the curtains closed tightly and masturbate unenthusiastically instead to Magnum P.I. reruns.
Then there’s the Christening. My goddaughter is a menace. She’s a micro-version of her girlboss mother and three feet of unadulterated bitch. The last time I saw her was her sixth birthday when I gave her a Bessie Coleman Barbie doll, and she rolled her gunk-crusted eyes and said, “Thanksssss” in this stuck-up, ungrateful way. I was supposed to go this weekend, endure a room full of adults pretending a baby’s baptism was as important as a wedding, listen to my goddaughter’s mother humblebrag about how advanced her child is, and pretend to care. But now? I have a cold. I’m free.
Through my half-drugged haze, I see my sickness isn’t an inconvenience. It’s a shield, a get-out-of-jail-free card that exempts me from every obligation, every dull conversation, every terrible event I never wanted to attend in the first place.
My boyfriend texts me from his hotel and asks me to send him nudes. I text him to watch porn instead. He usually likes to watch white girls get gang-banged, but says only my body can satiate him lately for “some weird reason.” He tells me he’s an addict and I’m withholding his drug, but he’s never been an addict nor done drugs. He lives for the hyperbolic, and it makes me want to die. He says it’s so unlike me to not be horny, that he’s thinking of coming home early because something has to be wrong.
I block his number and roll over in bed, cocooned in my blankets, surrounded by tissues and medicine, blissfully alone. I settle deeper into my pillows, turning on a show I actually like for once. There’s no one to complain about the volume, no one to insist we watch something I hate, no one breathing down my neck for attention. I take another sip of my ginger tea, letting the warmth spread through my aching body, and realize that for the first time in months, I don’t have to be anywhere, or do anything. For anyone.
“We can do it from behind if you’re feeling insecure about your stomach,” he adds helpfully, like a man offering to dim the lights before executing a terrible magic trick. I hadn’t been feeling insecure, until now. I tell him that I have a cold. That we can’t. That he could catch it. That, worse, he could catch it and miss his upcoming work trip, the one I’ve been looking forward to him going on for months.
He stares at me and unconsciously drools, and I want to throw up.
He says he will get on his knees and beg, which he won’t, or fly to the Western Wall and pray, if he has to, which he won’t, or maybe even go to Cinderella’s Wishing Well at Magic Kingdom, since it’s closer, which he actually might. He says that he would even take rubbing himself between my thighs and letting me play Friends in the background, suggesting the one where Joey and Rachel kiss, an episode I hate, but could tolerate to avoid making eye contact with him.
The next day I feel worse and call my ex-sorority sister, Sophie, the nurse, who tells me I’ll be fine as long as I drink fluids and take an egg-yellow capsule pill called oseltamivir phosphate twice a day. I ask about Ozempic and mention I’m hopeful to lose a few pounds this week. She sighs, says she’s really busy. I apologize because I feel like I have to. I ask my boyfriend to pick up the prescription at the Rite Aid around the corner, along with a box of tampons because I’m having stomach cramps, which means my uterus is shedding its lining, celebrating that our body isn’t carrying my boyfriend’s idiot child, a man who I’m not sure I even like half the time, but who’s been around long enough that the idea of starting over feels more exhausting than staying.
My boyfriend leaves for Washington D.C., and my body seizes the opportunity to self-destruct. My fever spikes, limbs revolt, and the city-wide adventure I’d planned crumbles instantly. I was going to lie about my age at bars for the thrill of being carded, flirt with women at Cubbyhole, only to remember I prefer admiration over participation, and finally eat at the restaurants my boyfriend deems “too spicy” because his palate never graduated past Lunchables. I stole his credit card, ready for a little harmless fraud, armed with the excuse that it looked just like mine. But now, I am bedridden, my immune system staging a violent coup against me.
This cold is evolving and ruining the good, sexless time I was supposed to have without my boyfriend. The neighbor across the street watches me through our window, and I dream we have really good sex, so I want to leave the curtains open and walk around the apartment naked, but I want to shit myself with every step I take, and I don’t know if he’s into scat play, so I keep the curtains closed tightly and masturbate unenthusiastically instead to Magnum P.I. reruns.
Then there’s the Christening. My goddaughter is a menace. She’s a micro-version of her girlboss mother and three feet of unadulterated bitch. The last time I saw her was her sixth birthday when I gave her a Bessie Coleman Barbie doll, and she rolled her gunk-crusted eyes and said, “Thanksssss” in this stuck-up, ungrateful way. I was supposed to go this weekend, endure a room full of adults pretending a baby’s baptism was as important as a wedding, listen to my goddaughter’s mother humblebrag about how advanced her child is, and pretend to care. But now? I have a cold. I’m free.
Through my half-drugged haze, I see my sickness isn’t an inconvenience. It’s a shield, a get-out-of-jail-free card that exempts me from every obligation, every dull conversation, every terrible event I never wanted to attend in the first place.
My boyfriend texts me from his hotel and asks me to send him nudes. I text him to watch porn instead. He usually likes to watch white girls get gang-banged, but says only my body can satiate him lately for “some weird reason.” He tells me he’s an addict and I’m withholding his drug, but he’s never been an addict nor done drugs. He lives for the hyperbolic, and it makes me want to die. He says it’s so unlike me to not be horny, that he’s thinking of coming home early because something has to be wrong.
I block his number and roll over in bed, cocooned in my blankets, surrounded by tissues and medicine, blissfully alone. I settle deeper into my pillows, turning on a show I actually like for once. There’s no one to complain about the volume, no one to insist we watch something I hate, no one breathing down my neck for attention. I take another sip of my ginger tea, letting the warmth spread through my aching body, and realize that for the first time in months, I don’t have to be anywhere, or do anything. For anyone.