Greyhound

Thirty-Seven

⚠️ TW! Medium⚠️
Please revisit the info page for this story for a list of possible triggers and proceed with caution, your mental health needs to be taken into account. I understand if you cannot continue forward with this story.
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"I missed you a lot." Ashton mumbles into Amelia's hair, kissing across her scalp as he tickles his fingers along her arm.

"I missed you a lot too." She smiles, shifting until she can meet his eyes in the glow of the TV.

Ashton carefully wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her onto his lap fully, turning his attention completely from the tv to her. "Can I ask you something a little bit personal, or actually a lot personal." He chuckles nervously.

"What's got your mind in knots?" She nods, brushing her gentle fingers through his loose curls.

"You know in November, when we were sitting about like this and you asked me if you could kiss me?"

"Yes." She smiles, but he can tell by her eyes that she is curious as to where this is going.

"After I kissed you you told me it was like your first kiss, because you'd never been kissed because you wanted it too. Because there were feelings involved right?"

"Ya..?"

"Does that same truth apply to other things?" He asks quietly, twirling his finger in a strand of her hair.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," he sighs, "obviously with your history I know you're not a virgin, but have you ever had sex with someone because of an emotional connection and it being something you both wanted? Or has it always been paid partnership or abuse?" He asks nervously, glancing to meet her eye only fleetingly.

"Oh." She shifts nervously, reaching to grab his hand, her fingers playing softly with his before she sighs, "it's always been for a reason I guess. First the abuse, then came the sex for money, and ever since Ezra happened I've avoided it at all cost. Sex has never been about pleasure or me, it's always been a means to a better end. Something I could give away, or was forced to give away, to gain what I needed."

"Have you... have you considered the idea of us ever getting to that point together? Do you even see it as something you could want and enjoy with someone after the traumatic history you have with the physical act?"

"I— I don't know." She frowns, biting her lip as she ponders. "I guess since I have had a toxic relationship with sex for so long I don't even view it as an intimate part of my life, I don't know if I ever did honestly. My mom was always having guys over and never secretive about what they were doing, she never gave me any indication that it was anything special. When I started getting raped multiple times a week at age fourteen it was traumatic, but I already had such a low opinion on what sex was that I don't think it hit me how much he was taking from me for quite a while, despite how scared I was and how terrible it felt and was. I became numb to it all, it wasn't pleasurable and very few times in my life has it ever been that way. It wasn't about if I was enjoying it, because he knew I wasn't, and he was enjoying that part. With prostitution it was always about them. The selfish cringy men who had enough money to pay me to lay under them, or whatever else they wanted me to do, and let them enjoy my body. It wasn't about if I was enjoying what we did. I guess I never thought about it being a step for us, and that sounds terrible, but when I think about you I think about all the good I see and all the things I love about us together, but sex isn't a good thing in my mind. And like at dinner when I said I really liked you performance... I found it attractive and it turned me on, but... it was more like it made me miss you and I wanted to just be held by you again, to be close to you again, like this. It wasn't necessarily a I want to jump his bones moment, though if I was a normal human it probably would have been. And logically I know it should be in my thought process for us, especially with us being at least kind of together. But it's not... and I'm sorry." She sighs, waiting for him to push her off, to storm out, to say he can't be with her when she is so broken and abnormal.