Sex Before Dinner

A new twist to our experiment, now nearly two months old. Let’s not wait until after dinner to have sex.

The reason? Well, how do you feel after eating a meal? Amorous? Or tired and kind of bloated?

So, even though it disarrays our schedule somewhat, when He arrives home from work, we’re going to have to get down to it. Yesterday was the first attempt, and I must admit, some giggling aside at the forced nature of the beast, it worked rather splendidly. There was a bit of a “hi, how was your day, get your clothes off” kind of vibe, but not in a bad way, possibly because we’re a little beyond taking this too seriously. My admission was that I had, in fact, already had my dinner (He came home late), but it was just a little soup, so I wasn’t having food coma issues.

Over the weekend, we discussed a situation we hadn’t considered at the onset of this challenge. There is every likelihood that there will be a handful of nights throughout this year that we won’t spend together. How to navigate those tricky waters. I already foresee somewhere in the neighborhood of a week spent apart in June as I take a slightly longer vacation than He does. Phone sex, we both agreed, it OUT. Neither one of us has a taste for it and since the trip will be of an international nature, the expense of grinding one out over the phone seems wasteful. How then do we reconcile our 366 leap-yeared days? I’m proposing that for unavoidable separations (as in we can’t use this when we’re just not in the mood) we have a bank of days we will need to make up in 2009. does this sound like cheating?

I can’t think of an alternate solution. Much as people love each other’s constant company, sometimes absences are unavoidable.

The Perfect Settlement

Thanks to the wonderful Matisse, I came across this article about why I, as an unmarried 30-year old should get my ass married to whomever will have me asap.

But, you say, aren’t you married already? This whole site has been about having sex with someone every day – we assumed it was your husband. Haven’t you two been together for eons?

Au contraire. I am having sex every day with someone with whom I have spent nearly eleven years. But we’re not married. And we don’t have immediate plans to change that.

It’s not for political reasons, and it’s not to make a statement. It’s not that we don’t love each other or that we don’t plan futures together. It’s that marriage is forever and until it feels like we’re truly ready to make what we both consider an unbreakable agreement, we’re not going to do it.

Yet, by the time of my 25th birthday, people were already asking where the ring was, hy he hadn’t married me yet, what about children, etc. 25! An age at which I had no job, no fixed source of income, no ambition for anything. So, obviously, that was the perfect time to get married. The questions haven’t stopped. In fact, with each passing year they become more confused, frenzied, and intrusive. What on earth am I doing with my life if I’m not marrying the man I share a home with; the man I share a bed with; the man I occasionally buy furniture with?

The truth is I’m not quite sure. Most of the time I think a lifetime spent with one another is a fait accompli and that when the urge strikes us we’ll make it legally binding; other times I wonder if 2, 3, 4 years from now we’ll realize that we have spent a wonderful 13, 14, or 15 years together and that we’re still not sure. Maybe we’ll keep on going as before, maybe we won’t. I’m currently ambivalent about children, and don’t know how likely it is that will change.

What I can report on is the here and now: here, in our apartment, I sit typing this as He plays Guitar Hero 3 (which is awesome by the way, and if I wasn’t typing, I’d be grappling for the guitar). I’m immensely comforted and enervated by his presence. We’ll be taking our clothes off soon and making love and falling asleep in each other’s arms. As we do every night. This weekend we’ll do some shopping, watch a movie, make a meal, make love some more. We’re pretty domestic.

Recently we’ve taken to calling each other, tongue-in-cheekly, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Husband and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Wife, respectively, but after reading Lori Gotlieb’s article, part of me wants to ditch those labels and return to being uncategorizable because I’m sickened by the alternative.

I’m technically a single woman, being unmarried. And I’ll be 31 this year. According to Gotlieb, who doesn’t address unmarried couples, when I look in the mirror, I should see a liar who convinces herself it’s ok that she isn’t married. She’s right only a small fraction of the time because honestly, most of the time I don’t think about it. Oh, sure, once a month, I wonder if I mind that I”m not married, wonder if I mind that, though all evidence points to the contrary, I’m not settled down, but it’s a fleeting thought, replaced by a smile that tickles my face when I hear His key in the door.

We’ve had plenty of opportunities to and plenty of conversations about getting married. We’re not avoiding the subject, but we have a variety of good reasons not to: we hate our jobs, we’re in crap shape, we’re horrible housekeepers, we don’t know where we want to ultimately live, we don’t know if we want kids, we don’t know if we want to buy an apartment or a house, or if we want to do either, we don’t know what we want our lives to realistically look like 10 years from now, five years from now, next year. In short, we’re both fairly serious people who like to take care of these serious matters as we can. We come from different religions and by our second anniversary we had dispensed with the future religious upbringing of any future hypothetical children. We don’t leave the hard conversations for later. But some of the answers aren’t forthcoming. How could I be married when so much about me, individually, is up in the air. It just doesn’t seem right.

And it doesn’t seem necessary. I love this man and want to spend the rest of my life with him and, if in five years, we decide we’re never going to be ready and we should go our separate ways, I’ll be devastated. But I won’t be hopeless. The reason why it seems so many single women into their thirties can’t find mates is that they are so self-absorbed by their insecurities that no one wants to spend five minutes with them, much less a theoretical lifetime. The women have allowed themselves to feel broken and so they look broken, sound broken, and act broken. I have not a single shred of doubt that I will be just as marriageable at forty as I am today and that’s because, learned or inherited, I have confidence. I’m not a good catch as a defense mechanism, I’m a good catch objectively. And knowing that is a knowledge that is easily identifiable and translate-able. Women who don’t know why they can’t land men in their 30s are worrying too much about why they can’t instead of presenting themselves as the kind of women who don’t need to worry about landing a man. Women are always saying that confidence in men is a turn-on – only the lowest common denominator of men don’t find the same thing about us.

So when people ask me, from now on, why I’m not married, I’m going to tell them it’s because I’m not ready to be divorced – which is a distinct possibility when people force marriage in an inorganic manner. I have a partner in life and I’m living a life with a partner. No name or document changes the fact that that’s what’s happening RIGHT NOW. Forcing the marriage issue is as useless and ultimately counter-productive as forcing your fat ass into a pair of too-small jeans: you might wedge yourself into them eventually, but you’ll look like shit and be unable to breathe.

Flu

Flu does not conquer those with a mission. Those with a mission perform lazy fellatio while high on NyQuil and complain not. Flu only conquers those who are weak (weak from something other than the flu, that is), and no matter how incredibly unappealing the sick partner might be (red nose, wheezing, mucus, anguished moaning), the non-sick party is duty bound to acquire and maintain an erection for a respectable period of time during which, generally, the sick party paws at it like a cat at string, and then passes out from aforementioned NyQuil.

Sounds sexy, right?

So I haven’t written in a week because I was sick for about a week, during which time we made every good effort every day to consummate. I’m not going to say it was very elegant, but it was, thank you very much. One of the worst parts (aside from, you know being sick and miserable), was being sick-horny at a strange time, like 1 in the afternoon when He was clearly at work and I was clearly alone with my DVR-ed episodes of 90210 and my fortress of used tissues. Too weak, dizzy, and lazy to even masturbate, and pretty much already dead to the world when he arrived home.

Last night, however, after passing out during the Best in Show judging of Westminster, I awoke with a shock at 2:00am to discover we had failed to make it. I reached behind me to where His sleeping form lay, located the proper apparatus and began to awaken it. What followed was the kind of ass-slapping sex two people can have at 2:00am in college and rarely again – mostly because grown-ups aren’t up at 2:00am. We went at it for about 30 minutes before realizing the flesh was willing, but the central nervous system was still asleep. We snuggled, watched the results of the dog show (thank god the fucking poodles didn’t win), and returned to sleep, awakening this morning with the stupid grins of kids who stayed up too late and fucked.

Three Days and Counting

It’s been over a month.

Many of our efforts have been perfunctory and then, possibly to commemorate our month, possibly because of the apprehension and then elation of a Giants victory, possibly because we were tired of wasting our weekends.

We had good, solid sex – it’s now three days running.

Saturday was shaping up to be another put it off until the last minute kind of thing. I had spent the day in the kitchen, He had spent the day avoiding bringing in the laundry, and my invitation to the late-night shower was sort of ignored. In the shower by myself, I vowed that we would at least make an attempt at good sex, so I set my mind a-wandering. There was a small item I had picked up several months earlier that we had not yet taken for a test drive, a little pinching mechanism I thought might add nicely to our repertoire. I stealthily snuck it under my pillow (too stealthily I might add as I was quite ungraceful retrieving it), and after several minutes of healthy making out, suggested it.

Good idea. Definitely a good idea. Perhaps a little overzealous in its administration for I was solidly on the pain side of the pleasure/pain scale, but good idea. It was followed by some good idea fucking, sadly interrupted when I coughed rather strongly, ejecting my lover, causing raucous laughter.

Sunday, we just decided to go for it before we left for the Superbowl. It was fun, it was female superior, it was a romping, rollicking good time, made only better (or at least more amusing) by the phone ringing precisely two seconds following orgasm. I leaned over to get the phone while we were still intertwined and He had at least 30 seconds of conversation with His dad before we both lost our shit and started laughing. And as I have mentioned many times, I think laughing and sex go together really quite well.

The best part about Sunday afternoon sex was that it obviated the need for post-Superbowl, drunk, tired sex at 12:30am when we got home. Go us!

Then last night I was asked to dinner and ran out of the house before He got home, arriving back home myself around midnight. Knowing this was a danger time, I did the only thing a woman can do: shed clothing except for arters and stockings, ask partner when He was considering coming to bed, performing enthusiastic fellatio while still in garters and stockings.

I’m coming down with something, and I worry how that will affect our schedule, but I’m really pleased and impressed with us that we’ve kept this up, every day since New Year’s (with a couple of pre-New Year’s bonus days thrown in for practice). Only 11 monts more to go!

Getting in the Mood

I asked Him last night if he was doing anything differently during oral sex because for the past two weeks, I just haven’t been feeling it. I will accept full responsibility for being dumb and needing a man to tell me what my own body is doing, but He said He hadn’t been doing anything differently it was just that he noticed my body wasn’t in the mood.

Not in the mood? For head? For shame!

But then I thought about it. We’ve been leaving compulsory sex until the very last moment of the evening when we are tired and stupid and have been omitting a lot of foreplay of any kind in order to shorten the time commitment (things we are, of course, contrite about). So when He descends, He finds my body kind of iffy on the whole matter and my body finds Him strange.

This is a problem that needs solving toute suite because I feel myself very fortunate to have spend the past nearly eleven years with a man who not only enjoys going down on me, but knows precisely how to do it. It’s another one of those ways we really fit together. I don’t want to suddenly associate his oral skills with a general feeling of unease followed by a tickling sensation and the sudden need to clamp my thighs together.

So I’ve been thinking, this morning, of ways to encourage arousal in unarousing situations. Mind you, He has noted a similar problem in that when my mouth is actually on His penis, His penis is happy, but if my mouth leaves for even a moment, His penis becomes rapidly depressed and forlorn. How do I get aroused when intellectually I might rather sleep?

Ordinarily, I’m not a big fan of oral sex from behind. I find the angle strange and I also am occasionally uncomfortable with His nose being squarely in my ass. However, having the sides of my breasts, butt, and thighs stroked while I’m lying on my stomach, has always been kind of hot for me – especially when hands slip between thighs. Yes, the mechanics of then flipping me over for the main course don’t make good video (which fortunately we’re not attempting), and can sometimes disrupt things (for instance if someone were to accidentally kick someone else in the head), but I enjoy being touched when I can’t see the toucher and when I don’t know where He might tough next.

This we will try this evening.

Sneaking Up From Behind

Malaise settled over you? Really wish you were sleeping? Know you can’t sleep yet because compulsory sex is, well, compulsory? Here’s some help:

The scene has been set by a highly productive, but tiring, weekend, full of experimentation in the kitchen and a tumult of housecleaning, marred only by disturbing family phone calls and a really bad bottle of wine (Beacon Wines & Spirits, if you’re listening, for $25, I expect not only a potable wine, but a good one, not something we take two sips of and pour the remainder down the drain – fuckers!). Now it is 12:30am. The creeping dread of the new workweek is everywhere evident and we’re talking about building rockets packed with fuel to send to Mars so that the people we send to Mars will have enough fuel to come back again (debate solved – rockets are a stupid means of conveyance and we’re going to have to come up with something different).

But it turns out we’ve both been thinking about sex all day. This makes the preliminaries take less time, the thought of what’s to come seems to be enough. Then I’m on my knees and we’re having the kind of skin-slapping, deep-moaning, poking in all the right places sex we ought to be having every day.  And it’s good. I’m happy. He’s happy. It’s sexy sex. Neither candles, incense, and deep meaningful stares sex, nor strictly fast and furious fucking. It’s a third breed: the we really want each other and we want it a little hard, and we’re not afraid to just do it.

And the totally awesome sleep of the dead that followed wasn’t too shabby either.

Kissing Twice A Day

I, for one, always intend to brush my teeth twice a day (and floss), and yet, I frequently forget to do so in the evening. I don’t really have an evening ablution ritual (though keeping the eye makeup remover pads near my computer has been helping me to at least get my mascara off before bed), and the teeth brushing often gets waylaid. Not so the kiss.

I can’t remember all the times we’ve forgotten the kiss before bed and the kiss in the morning, and I attribute that to the number being rather small and insignificant. Even after a fight (or during one), when our breath is less than lovely, when we feel ill, when we’re not really having all that many pleasant feelings about one another, we kiss to end the day and begin the next.

I don’t get all mushy about intimate moments, nor do I employ cliche phrases like week in the knees, but I can say that from the first time He and I kissed, I was pretty confident that I could get away with not kissing other people. That if this was the kissing I was signing up for during a lifetime, I had pretty well lucked out. We kiss well. I don’t know if we would kiss other people well, but His kissing style and mine work well together (we are similarly adept at holding, our bodies being positioned just right to make a startling number of fused pretzel shapes both comfortable and natural).  Reaffirming that affinity by ritualizing the morning and evening kisses is an always welcome reminder that even when we’re not working well on another level, the kiss is still sturdy.