Poor Timing

by Liz Lydic

The results of the sex study included their data, because Dianne had done nothing to prevent it. Sixty-seven percent of couples engage in intercourse sessions lasting on average from 12-15 minutes; 18 percent have sessions that are less than 12 minutes; and the remaining 15 percent, in sessions lasting more than 15 minutes.

Dianne skimmed the remainder of the science article that had been sent via a link to her email address along with the $725 VISA gift card. Distracted, she registered only a few words, mostly about older participants’ hormonal imbalances and delayed ejaculation.

We shouldn't be in this, Dianne thought, and pressed Control-P to print the article, in color. Without them, the study’s results would not have changed, she knew, not with the percentages she was reading. That's what Matthew would say.

"Why do you always do that?" he'd ask if she told him they should consider returning the gift card to Ashley, the person they knew one-dimensionally from applications, waivers, and a group video phone call. "Research Participant Liaison" for the study entitled Intercourse Time in General Married Population was how Ashley introduced herself in the online training session.

Dianne had hoped the meeting would include a roundtable about why the couples had chosen to participate in the research, and was prepared with her response: I sought out this sex study for my husband and me as a wonderful chance to reconnect. She anticipated Matthew’s answer would revolve around the gift card payout. But Ashley hadn’t asked.

"Don't you think we should at least tell Ashley about the timing…issue? Then let her decide if our results should be dis-considered?" Dianne finally asked, the evening they put a 50% down payment on a leather sectional, applying the VISA gift card's 16 digits when they were prompted for a payment method. Dianne wanted to use the gift card for groceries, putting aside the equivalent $725 from their upcoming paychecks into their savings account in case they needed something critical for their home.

"That's what the sofa is," Matthew had said, and Dianne thought his eyes narrowed into a glare, when it would have been better to have said it gently, happily, sensually, like he might have at some early part of their relationship, in a way that was undoubtedly a man talking to the woman he claimed to be crazy about, not the woman who now apparently disgusted him every time she opened her mouth, out of which he seemed to think only came worries, obsessions, and a steady stream of thoughts that began with "What if...", and ended in hypothetical crises.

"Is that even a word, 'dis-considered'?" asked Matthew.

"You know what I mean," said Dianne. "We didn't actually complete the full survey." She lowered her voice, even though the only inhabitants of their home were themselves and their goldendoodle, Spock.

"We did!" Matthew's voice was sharp. He took a breath, and the edges of his auburn eyelashes that were turning white embarrassed Dianne, who always thought of the word blanched.

"Ok, we did finish it, I know, but-"

"Not agreeing on the asinine survey directions is not the same as not doing the tasks. I think you are worrying for no reason." Matthew was pushing their current sofa, a sagging unit they'd owned since they moved in together, the coarse fabric now flattened and smoothed by the chronic weight of their bodies over time.

"It's not arriving for two business days," Dianne said. "You can leave Gray Sofa where it is."

In the beginning - seven and a half years ago - naming things, agreeing through jovial mutual acceptance to reference their shared parts of life this way slowed the approach of domestic exasperation. "Do you want Snack Dinner?" Dianne might have asked, or Matthew might have thanked Dianne for bringing out Wooly Blanket on the first night of winter. When they used the names now, there remained no delight in the charm of having created something; no thrill in the idea that they were inventing a private language together. No guests in their home ever knew such intimacies as these secret coded labels for inanimate objects.

"I'm just moving it a few inches," said Matthew, but then pushed it all the way against the wall, the right arm perpendicular to one side of the dining room. There was a dark letter-C shaped arch where the feet had scraped against the carpet.

After dinner, seated on two collapsible camping chairs Matthew had extracted from the hall closet - Dianne attempted to name them once they were prominent in the living room, and said, “Oh, Foldy One and Two,” then laughed in a forced breath out through her nose, but Matthew was busy straightening the legs and didn’t respond - they watched an episode of the TV series they were working through.

Dianne flinched appropriately when the bad guy was finally brought down by the hero, but the sofa looming against the wall caught her eye frequently.

They'd had sex on it for one of the sessions after Dianne had ceded. She held the stopwatch, as usual, and, as she'd suggested at the start of their sessions, she counted down, "Three, two, one, go." From then on, it was not possible to not think of the cheating, and even if she was sufficiently aroused, the knowledge that she had started timing when Matthew's penis tip entered her body instead of when the penis was completely inside could not recede to a less prominent part of her brain. Though it was likely only a single second difference, not knowing the exact intention of when to begin timing surely meant they had ultimately provided bad information. It was not like her to not get things right, and the nagging feel of having been wrong was not easily ignored. Worse was that three of the sessions by then had been recorded, starting when the penis was all the way in, and the last seven sessions would be recorded starting when the tip was in, meaning the data was a mix of variables.

"So, did Justice know beforehand that Marmot would go into that car at that exact time?" Dianne asked. The villain on screen was in a dark room, his face bloody, his posture in defense against the protagonist's interrogation.

Matthew looked over to her in the other chair and frowned. His right arm dangled in the space between them, and he gestured as he recounted the previous scene's setup. "You don't remember that?"

Dianne nodded. "Oh, right. I remember," she lied.

The program ended on a cliffhanger, causing Matthew to yell, "No fucking way!" He smiled, then shook his head.

He suggested another show, his streak of energy appearing to need a place to go.

"I'm tired," said Dianne.

Matthew shrugged without looking at her and clicked the remote through the thumbnail of programs on screen.

“You can just say what you want,” he’d told her at one time, years ago, something about an errand or chore around the house Dianne had hoped he’d manage. “I’m not a mind-reader.” Dianne hadn’t known if that was an insult to her or to him.

In bed, Dianne moved one of four decorative pillows to Matthew's side. She'd brought the printout of the study results and unfolded it.

68% of men believe the length of intercourse is dependent on their spouse, whereas 12% of women responded similarly.

Both men and women agree that they feel their own sexual functioning is “above adequate” and that they function properly for a satisfying length of intercourse.

There had been no definition of the word 'satisfying' in the training, just as there had been no specific instruction on when 'entering' should begin.

"Let's just be clear," she'd told Matthew. "We should be on the same page."

Matthew's arms had jerked suddenly like he was shaking water off his hands. Dianne lay beneath him and pressed her elbows against her ribs so her breasts pushed together.

"You’re stressing out when this should be fun," he said. “I can’t now.” He rolled the condom off, and Dianne looked away from his hand where he was holding his softness. "We’ll have to redo it." Dianne reached toward him then, her arms outstretched. But Matthew was already hiking his left leg over her body toward the bedroom floor.

"It's ok," she'd whispered to herself, after putting her top back on.

Dianne scanned the results again, focusing on new information. Both men and women, it stated, wanted intercourse to last longer.

On average, women were twice more likely than men to feel emotionally closer to their spouse after longer intercourse sessions.

15% of men associate sexual dysfunction with intercourse time, while 89% of women do.

She put the printout down and dug her feet - suddenly cold - into the bed, pointing and flexing her toes to gather the blanket into a little cocoon.

When the whoosh of the hallway toilet flushing pulled her from the staticky gray of dozing, Dianne remembered that Matthew was there, in the house. Occasionally, she would forget altogether that she was married, and that the home she occupied was just as occupied by a person known as her husband.

Reawakened, she returned to the study. The conclusion, she had initially considered unimportant, as it did not contain any statistics that her dishonesty would affect. There was a paragraph dedicated to the overarching discoveries of the research: that most participants fell within the study’s predicted brackets. That the duration of satisfying sex is contrary to stereotypes seen in movies and TV. That communication is key in achieving a shared sense of intercourse length time satisfaction. Above the ‘Related Data’ list at the study’s end was a final paragraph of narrative.

The results of this study confirm that shared beliefs on the length of intercourse is a good indicator of sexual synchrony. On the other hand, a lack of agreement on intercourse length creates shared stress responses and can indicate negative communication patterns associated with dissatisfaction.

Dianne ran her hand along Matthew's side of the bed, and in this sweeping motion that sent a tingle from the heel of her palm to the inside of her elbow, the infiniteness of the mattress, the entirety of which she could not reach by the expanse of her arm, alarmed Dianne into a consideration that she could freefall into its vastness. She pictured her body slicing down the back of the study printout, making a straight line through the middle. Pros. Cons. It could get better; it could get worse. What else is there; what else is there? Could start kegels; not enough. Vows; more like roommates. In it (7.5 years), no kids.

The list could be completed on her own, defining the parameters, sure that she understood the expectations. A narratable answer could emerge from the data. With scientific consideration, she could just tell Matthew what she wanted.

Her arm scooped up and under the pillow on his side, where Dianne felt nothing other than smooth cleanliness, the fresh underside of their mutual bedding. She closed her eyes and refocused her attention on recalling the last time she had changed the sheets, concluding with relief that it was certainly since they had submitted the survey results.

Liz Lydic is a mom, writer, and local government employee in the Los Angeles area. She also does theatre stuff. lizlydic.com