Page 95 of My Husband Problem

“Great. That’s what I want you to focus on. You’ve had your first intimate encounter with Declan. It resulted in an orgasm. And no pain. Astrid, this is big.”

“Even if I was partially asleep when it happened?”

She nods. “Even then. But, yes, I really want you fully conscious next time. And he needs to be fully aware of what’s going on. And yes, it’s going to be difficult to tell him, but youdeserveto have amazing sex with the man you are incredibly attracted to. And married to.”

My heart bangs against my ribs. I have to tell Declan O’Grady that I am defective…

I stop myself. I amnotdefective. This is something else we’ve been working on. Turns out that physical therapy is also partially mental therapy.

My body has been through a physical trauma and is reacting in a physical way. Of course, that affects me emotionally. All of that is normal. I am not defective. It is no more a defect than if someone sprained their ankle and has residual ankle pain when they run.

No one blames the person for that, and of course, it takes healing and therapy and sometimes adjustments to activities after an injury like that.

This is the same. My pelvis has muscles, nerves, and blood vessels, and all of those can be injured and contribute to pain.

The good thing is, they can also heal.

“I know I just blew in here, but I was hoping maybe we could check things,” I tell Thea. “We haven’t had a session in a long time, and I am curious how it will go.”

Initially, I would come to the clinic, and Thea would work on the muscles and tender spots until we progressed to the point where I could do it myself.

Thea taught me everything I needed to do at home to work on the trigger points—the muscle knots in my pelvic muscles that caused pain when pressure was applied to them—and to stretch. I worked with dilators, progressively larger silicone cylinders, to stretch my vaginal opening. And then giving myself orgasms after touching and stretching the pelvic muscles, as would happen during sex. Thea hadn’t done that with me in the clinic, of course, but we’d talked about it, and it had been a good way for me to associate the therapy sessions at home with something fun that felt good.

Still, there is a difference in touching myself and having someone else do it.

“I’m happy to check with you,” she says. “But of course, it’s going to be different with Declan. And no matter how well it goes today in the clinic, you are going to need to talk to him about this before anything happens between the two of you.”

“I know.” I take a breath. “I’ll tell him. Somehow. Eventually.”

“The sooner you do it, the sooner you can have more orgasms.” She grins.

“That is definitely a good incentive,” I agree.

Now that I’ve calmed down a little, I can think back to my couch, and my body heats and tingles.

Declanhad hismouthon myclit.

I really want to do that again. Fully conscious.

“Remember, he’ll want to help. This will be important to him too,” she tells me.

Right.

In a typical marriage between two people who love one another and have been together in a real relationship, that would obviously be true.

For Declan and me…

Well, that’s the thing.

I believe he wants to have sex with me. But I don’t know that he’ll want to put in the work this is going to require. He can have sex withsomany other women. He does not have to work hard at it.

But this is still going to be a win for me.

I’m either going to get the sexual partner I want and need to take this next step forward in my pelvic health…

Or it’s going to be the thing that finally convinces Declan O’Grady to annul this marriage once and for all.

And I can probably ignore the voice in the back of my head telling me that annulment is actually a loss.