Asexual Anecdotes: What it's like to read a romance novel after a decade-long dry spell (as an asexual)
Open for a hilariously lusty satire of the first romance book I read in years.
After about a year, I finally was able to get a new library card for the new area we’ve moved to. It still baffles me that library cards now expire…
Anyway, as soon as I got my card, I redownloaded the Libby app and started scrolling through the book selection for my first read.
And the first book I found was one that looked familiar from my mountainous list of “to read”s. It was called Get a Life, Chole Brown.
And boy, did it get hot and heavy!
So far, (I’m a little more than halfway done. But no worries! No true spoilers.) it’s a story with a pretty predictable romance trope: fiercely walled-up woman who has a deeper pain beneath all her bark and bite, meets a secluded and reflective guy with a scarred and regretful past. Both don’t like each other, but end up liking each other…
And the growing fondness for one-another is… a lot.
Not “corny” a lot, or anything bad.
Let’s just say at the moment I’m vicariously living through being hungered after and kissed as lustfily as portrayed in the book.
A history of college crushes
As a low libido asexual, any descriptives below the belt or made about the chest made my eyes glaze over. But even so, it made me curious about secretive PDA in public.
The closest thing I’ve seen to that has been those scenes in movies when the woman tries to romantically sober up for a phonecall while their lover kisses them all over.
And the closest thing I’ve experienced to that was back in college, when a long-time friend and I (we both had soft spots for one another) kissed in front of a local McDonalds.
I still occasionally go past that McDonalds and I’ll see the thick, sunshine yellow bikerack rung he propped me up against.
From that point on though it’s been pretty dry in the romance and sensual happenings department for me. Through college, I had a smidge of dudes that all lost interest in me within a week of us talking.
I had a few crushes on my end. I remember internally screaming when my first college crush came to sit next to me late into the day, after most classes had ended. And my distinct memory from that moment was when he let me try some of his Naked Juice straight from the bottle!
Then he drank right after me!
I immediately told myself that I technically got to (indirectly) kiss him.
A few years later I found out quite a few young women from school had a little crush on him as well, and we all talked about his last name and how fitting it was.
You wouldn’t believe what his last name was!
Obviously I’d never tell for privacy reasons but goodness… What an interesting ride.
The rest of college and afterward were filled with less and less moments that got me excited when it came to guys.
Way, way less guys, too.
And the more the years passed, the less attention I got. And the less that became a priority or desire.
Fastforward nearly another decade, to now. While I’m partnered, we started talking during the pandemic, and still struggle to make contact cause of it and how my life’s playing out.
So… to see flirting and desire in a book that displaces me from the mundane life I live at home into a whole ‘nother world that feels pre-pandemic and sensual and fun?
Whew. Goodness that was such a long, long time ago…
I feel old reminiscing about all of this. Should I be rocking in a rocking chair on my front porch? Knitting needles in my lap as I lean back and fondly remember when one or two guys I dated swooned after me similarly to how the book portrayed?
I guess so. For now, at least.
I truly haven’t placed myself in a romantic vicarious situation since before the pandemic, honestly. Being romanced and flirted with and all those things haven’t been a priority of mine in years. So having a book get me so enraptured really deserves some kudos and a brownie point or two!
Talia Hibbert? Good job writing this book.
It nearly sent me over the edge with jealousy and joy.
Slight update
Update: I’m a bit further along in the book and am starting to get tired of what feels like–to me–mundane tasks still being met with the desire to jump each other’s bones.
Timeline-wise, it’s fair. They’d certainly still be lusting after each other and in their honeymoon phase…
But I think I’ve gotten out of my honeymoon phase with them.
A lusty satire of the couple in this book
A day or two ago when I placed my earbuds into my ear to keep listening to the audiobook while I washed dishes, I kinda dreaded pressing “play.”
I’ll give you a satirical example. (Trigger warning: it’ll be a bit sexually graphic.)
*A lovely, warm, and gravelly British woman’s voice narrates*
“Oh, no!” She exclaimed. She had forgotten the apples to make the apple streusel dessert, and he’d be there any second.
And just as she thought it, she heard a knock at her door.
She whirled around and let out a tiny gasp. But reminded herself that he wouldn’t mind a slight hiccup. He kept her so calm, the jam to her scone.
She opened the door and couldn’t help it. “I forgot the apples at the store, I simply must go back.”
“But Chole…” He started.
I want dessert now…
His voice was low, swooning… she knew what he meant, and she wanted him too.
She needed him inside her, around her, bursting light through her vaginal lips as if she swallowed the sun. And she would swallow him whole to feel him radiate inside her.
She stopped herself from quaking long enough to strengthen her voice and say, “No, no. Apples first.”
He leaned against the wall outside her flat, “alright then, let’s go together, love.” He smirked at her as he looked at her damningly beautiful face, and her insides melted like a lava cake.
She smirked back shyly, and quietly said, “alright then. Let’s go.”
(Later at the grocery store…)
At self-checkout, she began scanning her apples one by one…
And then he appeared behind her, sending shivers up her spine and straight into her clit like her pussy had stuck a fork in a toaster.
“How many apples do you need, Button?” He whispered into her ear, his voice low before he licked the shell of her ear and sucked her earlobe like a thick milkshake through a straw, leaving behind a darken lovemark bruise.
He moved back to the shell of her ear, lapping and drinking its sweet curves and crevices so much that her hearing improved 20%, and her hyperpigmentaion along that jawline cleared.
She held back a moan that left her weak, unable to turn around and hit him and tell him to wait until they were at least back in the car.
But she didn’t want him to wait. She wanted him all. Now. She wanted to drink him like a runner who had finished a triathlon without a single sip of water.
So she didn’t resist. She let his artist hand play with her like one of his canvases. His hand a very skilled paintbrush.
He grew hot. He needed more.
He didn’t care who saw, but knew she would. So he stayed discreet.
Her hand violently shook as she attempted to grab the next apple to scan; she was trying hard to keep herself from imploding. But he wrapped his arm around her, reaching into her top and snaking his hand close to her warm, luscious body before slipping his hand into the cup of her bra.
Her skin sizzled in the best way, sending electric currents through her body like God’s thunderbolt.
The other store patrons stared in bewilderment, apples falling to the floor in front of the couples arousment. The manager grabbed popcorn and binoculars.
When she saw the sight and how engaged everyone had been at their failed attempted at discrete foreplay, she only saw red.
And he could feel it radiating from her. He had become one with her after being tangled in the sheets with her every night, and knew what she felt before she knew herself.
To stop the impending doom on everyone in the grocery store, he quickly stood in front of her. His hand growing ice cold, in need of amputation from the frostbite because it no longer touched any inch of her body.
When she came to, she snapped her head up toward him, and he could sense it of course, so he craned his head back toward her direction. Still standing in front of her. Shielding her.
She began searching through his piercing eyes like the spotlight of a helicopter in the sky.
There he was, her night in shining armor.
“Kiss me…” she meweld.
He was ready to explode looking into those deep, black coffee eyes, so he tried to distract himself from her curves, her thighs, her tumbling waterfall hair that tosseled and blew about even when there wasn’t a diva fan in sight…
He grabbed one of the last apples that remained on the checkout platform after all the sexual aftershocks and bit hard.
The bite aroused her, sending her to a flashback five nights ago when he had bit through her peach-colored lacey underwear so cleanly that she bursted as if a juicy peach was perched between her legs...
I’M SORRY I BUSTED OUT LAUGHING WRITING SOME OF THIS.
A reminder: this is just how I, an asexual with a low libido, felt while reading it further. The same person who turned on Bridgerton to see what all the hype was about, only to groan in annoyance to see a sex scene within the first two minutes.
I just decided to have some fun and let you into my world with my perspective of the book based on where I’m at reading it.
It truly is good and I’d recommend it so far!
It’s just quite a bit of lusting I could skip if I could.
But… it was a nice feeling to have after going so long without sensual actions or affection even remotely similar going on in my own life for about a decade.