(A more accurate title might be, “Sorry I didn’t sleep with you last summer!”)

Anyway, remember that time I was abstinent? Yeah, it happened. April of last year. When I realized the guy I was into at the time was a cheater, compulsive liar, and probably a sociopath. (This was the same guy who later published nude photos of me.) After I compared stories with the OTHER girl he was fucking, I started screening his calls, quit believing in romance, and decided to let my hymen grow out. I was so angry (not heartbroken, not sad, but PISSED OFF) that I was determined to not repeat this mistake. So I took an absolute approach. No sex ’til love, I said. What I really meant was, “No sex until I fucking feel like it again, assholes.”

I moved to New York at the end of May, and my phonebook started filling up with numbers despite minimal effort on my part. It was summer in the City and everyone was feeling frisky. Yet despite feeling pressure from guys in the double digits, I managed to remain unpenetrated (and thus, appear totally game-less in New York magazine) for the first two months of summer. There were hot models and blogworthy exploits and everything, but I kept my legs SHUT. Trust me, temptation was in the air.

Not really.

Had I wanted sex bad, I probably would’ve had it, but I was still completely wary of anything with a dick. So I did what seemed reasonable at the time: I put dicks in my mouth. This was the summer of the grand blowjob. I have never before, nor have I since, given so much head and been so good at it. Seriously, I wish I had transcribed some of the post-orgasm reviews. But despite the fact that I blew so many people that I would need to refer to my Word document of hookups to tell you how many penises I sucked, this slut drew the line at third base. Why? Spite. I didn’t say no to sex and yes to oral because of some misguided notion of what “real sex” constitutes. I was just angry at men and I liked saying no. I liked the power that came with refusal almost as much as I liked the power of being able to clamp down my teeth at whim. Defiance for the sake of defiance has always been how I roll. Couple that with a mad desire for revenge and the result was a stubborn bitch who’d lick your balls but wouldn’t engage in either extreme of kissing or fucking. I drove guys crazy.

Anyway, I didn’t care. I didn’t give a shit about any of the dicks I sucked which is probably why I can barely recall half the men who were attached to said dicks. In the end, I broke my abstinence streak after four months with a former fling. He was someone familiar and safe and good. He was someone I used to really like, who I suppose, in one way or another, reminded me that there are men worth loving and fucking, and even if I hadn’t stumbled on the one I wanted to love yet, there were certainly others — unattached, decent, respectful others — who I could fuck in the meantime.

That being said, this was a guy I probably shouldn’t have slept with (because he once upon a time stomped all over my heart), as evidenced by this entry from my private journal the day after the de-revirgnization:

30 July 2007 @ 02:08 am
had sex last night. first time in four months. cannot really tell my blockmates or they will kill me. the end.

I didn’t tell them until weeks into the school year. Which probably speaks for itself.

So despite the vow on the blog back in April, I didn’t start having sex again because I fell in love. I had it because I felt like it. For whatever reason, the person (an old flame) and the occasion (a boozey birthday bash) felt like the appropriate circumstances under which to bid my short-lived abstinence streak adieu. Frankly, it was really immature in retrospect to react with vengeful abstinence after being deceived by some guy who really won’t even matter in the grand scheme of things. And my weird use of my vagina as some deranged tool of evening up the cosmic forces? Really weird. And deranged. What I did was every bit as fucked up as withholding sex until accumulating a certain number of dates with a guy. Or until getting a ring on my finger. Simply not wanting to have sex is one thing, but downright refusing it across the board on the basis of an ignorant and stubborn adherence to a rule (in this case, a self-made rule) is another. It reduces sex to a bargaining chip. And that’s not what it should be.

In my life, there have been plenty of guys who I fucked on the first date (for example, the one I’m currently involved with). There are some guys I didn’t fuck until the tenth date and only then because I wanted to know if there was reason to stick around for the 11th. And then there are the guys from New York, the ones from the summer of the blowjob. They were the ones I blew but wouldn’t fuck, who got no real explanation beyond “Someone was mean to me and now you have to suffer for it.” Well, this is your explanation M, J, N, B, M, and whoever the hell else there was. I’m sorry I wouldn’t let you stick it in, not even “just the tip.” If I could go back in time, I’d probably accept your valiant effort to make me cum via a series of thrusts. But hey, the likelihood of a time machine being invented is roughly equal to the likelihood of your success at triggering cunt spasms, so let’s just cut our losses and agree that things are what they are. I may have not fucked you, but at least I swallowed.

Look, guys. Quit equating aggressive sex with rape. I am used to having my bedroom conduct judged (even though no one is in any position to judge me), but I do not appreciate the implication that I’m encouraging anything but consensual intercourse.

The safe word is “elephant”. If I had wanted him to stop, I would’ve used it.

Disclaimer: The following is completely consensual. It is not rape. I do not endorse rape. The guy in the following entry does not endorse rape. There is a difference between aggressive sex and sexual assault. I really do not think a disclaimer is necessary for this to be clear, but since so many commenters have expressed concern for my well-being, I thought I’d assure everyone that I’m not being abused on a regular basis.

I woke up Saturday morning with my cheek pressed into his chest and his hands softly gripping my back. My skin was sticky against his, and when I gently pulled away from him, I felt the faintest sting, as if I had peeled off a layer of myself in the process. His body had absorbed mine overnight.

I yawned and got on my side, turning away from him. I was awake, but barely, and I would’ve headed straight back into slumber if it weren’t for the three alarms — his desk lamp, his watch, and his cell phone — going off at ten minute intervals, much to my annoyance. He kept pressing snooze. Instead of deep sleep, I drifted in and out of consciousness for the next hour while he slipped one arm beneath my neck, the other around my waist, pulled me closer, and breathed into my ear. He touched his lips to my neck. I pressed my ass back against his crotch and felt him harden. We were both still half-asleep when I turned my head all the way around to kiss him. His mouth felt hot and I was hungry for it, even or maybe especially, in the morning when he tasted slightly bitter.

“You feel better?” he asked. He pulled away and rested his fingertips on my cheek. I nodded.

“Good,” he said. “Then maybe I won’t be as nice I was last night.”

He let his hand drop, lingering at my throat to briefly encircle it. I swallowed and closed my eyes. Practically asleep again, I started to murmur something about not being in the mood.

“You what?” he demanded fiercely. I jolted from my haze. His hand was back around my neck now, tighter this time. I hesitated before answering.

“I’m … tired,” I said carefully. “I don’t feel like having sex.”

“You don’t feel like it?”

He made it sound like the most inadequate explanation he’d ever heard. I shook my head. I felt like a girl.

“If you don’t feel like it,” he continued. “Then you shouldn’t have woken me up by rubbing your ass against my cock and making out with me.”

He had a wicked look on his face, the same one he had when he dragged me around his living room by the hair and forced my head down on his cock so hard that I had to strain to catch my breath. He didn’t have to say a word and I knew I was fucked. I was going to be fucked.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

His grip tightened.

—

The night before, I cried in front of him.

We stayed in. He broiled tuna steak, pan-fried asparagus, and poured Riesling from the bottle we picked out earlier. He chose it because he’d visited the brewery in which it was made. “How bougie of you,” I had teased when we were in the store.

While he made dinner, I sat in front of my laptop, deep in conversation with Kennedy over video chat. She was three weeks into her semester in Germany, and I was getting more and more anxious about the separation. Her first serious breakdown was the night before. I found out about it by reading her blog. Like with most things, she didn’t volunteer an explanation. I’d have to prod her for the full story.

So I did. I got her on webcam despite her insistence that she was sick and couldn’t speak, and for the first time since what seemed like forever, I saw her face. Kennedy was all there and she didn’t fall apart. Not even close. She told me about her new acquaintances and how German boys couldn’t dance. She said she was bored with the repetitive meals of sausage and potatoes. She spun her laptop around to show me her room. I listened. I laughed. I indignantly recounted my experience getting ignored by cashiers at the local piercing place, where my floral dress and platform heels made me look like Alice lost in Rebel-land. I marveled at her hair, still spirited and wild. We giggled about things irrelevant and irreverent. I introduced her to the man moving in and out of the frame behind me. He waved at the camera and said hello to her like her reputation preceded her. I’d already told him countless tales about this 5-foot wonder.

By the time dinner was ready, my conversation with Kennedy had already moved from the uniquely German (”Everyone eats gelato!”) to the mundane (”School starts in two weeks”). But I didn’t feel any more at ease after I logged off. Sure, Kennedy seemed fine in Germany. But she always seemed fine. Even when she was still at Harvard and not at all happy, it rarely showed. It took me well into our sophomore spring, a year and a half after we met, to even find out that she was depressed. I just didn’t know, I could never tell, and this was one of my best friends. I thought sleeping against her back for two months when I was 18 and lonely meant that I knew everything about her. But no one really did.

She was perfectly normal when she spoke to me hoarsely from her side of the world, and in a way, that only made me more worried. I didn’t want to see Kennedy fine. I wanted to see her honest … not that this wasn’t honest. It just wasn’t how I imagined she’d be the day after the tears and panic and anger I read about on her journal. I wanted to see that. I wanted to witness all of the worst, because I figured that watching her fall apart couldn’t possibly be as bad as simply imagining it.

He served dinner, and I could only think about my little friend in Germany. I sliced up the tuna on the plate and brought it to my mouth, once, twice, again, mechanically, but I couldn’t respond to the taste. I had to concentrate hard on his words, even harder on chewing, on each bite, because each piece after piece of food down my throat only brought the lump inside closer to the surface. I couldn’t swallow for fear of crying, so I barely said a thing.

In lieu of substantive conversation, we talked about the food. The tuna was good, could’ve used a little soy sauce so he retrieved some. The vegetables were over-seasoned, but more than acceptable. The wine was fantastic, but I already knew this since I’d been sipping on it since I started talking to Kennedy an hour ago. Thank you for making dinner, I said more than once. I should have helped. He assured me that it was fine. I was talking to my friend, after all.

“Are you feeling better about Kennedy now?” he asked.

“Yes,” I lied.

He asked more questions and I gave more answers, short one-word answers, barely emitting a breath as I spoke. I swallowed and swallowed after each response. I fixated on my plate. Dinner was quiet. I was somewhere else. I was someone else.

We finished. I cleaned. He pulled me to the couch. He kissed me, but I wasn’t really into it, and he could tell. He could tell about five minutes into dinner that my mind was unsettled. He wanted me to talk about her, to verbalize how I felt, which really was the last thing I wanted to do. I admitted I was worried. But I’m always worried, I explained. This feeling doesn’t ever go away, not since I found out a year ago what’d been going.

Then I changed my mind about talking. Actually, I told him, I don’t want to talk about this. Let’s focus on something happy. I closed my eyes suddenly and swallowed. He could tell. I could tell. My voice had almost broken. I was going to cry. I swallowed again. It’s okay, he said. Come here. I pushed my fists against his chest as he pulled me closer, but it was an empty gesture. He was stronger. I’m fine, I’m fine, I insisted. I nearly choked on the rising ball in my throat. Really, I’m fine. This repeated itself, a few times, and finally, I gave in.

I don’t cry, I told him. I really don’t do this. He thought I was silly, thought I was trying to be tough or brave or whatever people pretend at when they stifle tears. The truth was that I wasn’t worried about how I looked in front of him. But I would have liked to sustain the illusion that my best friend was perfectly alright. I don’t want to talk about this, I told him. I’ve never talked about this. I’ve never said this aloud or admitted to myself that I am terrified one day Kennedy will just decide to kill herself and there will be nothing that any of us can do to stop her. What if she does it and I don’t see it coming? And now, I could feel the pressure coming up against my throat and nose and eyes and I told him, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even when we graduate, but what if years down the line when we are 24, 25, when she is far away in Europe again because that is where she will be after Harvard, what if then she decides to do it? What if none of this ever goes away, if I am always scared she will just be gone when least expected. What if my seemingly irrational fear actually materializes? What if I blink and don’t see it coming?

I’d never said any of this to anyone, certainly not to her and not even to myself. It would have made it too real. Admitting all of this would mean that I might not just be paranoid, that the worst case scenario could be realized. And he was the last person I expected to bear witness to my confession that my almost-sister can break my heart when I see how deeply her heart has been broken. I love her, and there are nights like tonight when I am certain I’ll lose her.

My eyes welled and a few stray streaks of liquid cascaded across my face. He wiped off each with his thumb and murmured in my ear something kind. I was surprised at my admissions. I didn’t think I was this scared, didn’t think her depression was this real. Maybe it had taken me until now to admit to myself that Kennedy hurt in a way I didn’t believe was possible for someone I once thought of as unbreakably strong.

We were in bed within two hours. I had barely cried but I felt exhausted, drained by the experience of fighting him for the right to keep my face dry only to lose anyway in the end. I fell asleep curled up next to him on the couch as he rubbed my temples. When I woke up again, I was midair in his arms en route to his bedroom. He placed me down, brought the covers to my neck, and kissed my forehead. He read next to me until he felt ready to retire and then he pulled me against his body. I was barely awake. It was the first time we spent the night together without having sex.

—

His grip tightened, and I started to gasp for breath. Even though sex had been the very last thing on my mind when we went to bed, I couldn’t help getting wet from the feel of his hands around my neck. By the time he forced open my mouth with his cock, I was eager to spread my legs for him. He always pushed it a little deeper than what I could comfortably take. He was more than halfway down my throat when I couldn’t stand it anymore and had to pull away. He asked me if I wanted him to fuck me and I nodded yes.

He knew exactly the right buttons to push, the right tone of voice to use, the perfect things to say and the perfect moment to say them. The very first time we had sex, he put restraints around my wrists. There were things I let him do that I never let anyone do. There were things I didn’t let him do that he did anyway.

I came on top. He said he wanted me to fuck myself on his cock, so I did. I straddled him and rocked back and forth until my clit throbbed and then everything else throbbed and my mind went blank for a brief, blissful moment. I stopped feeling anything but him inside me. I stopped thinking anything but here, now, this man in this bed in this apartment in this country in this side of the Atlantic.

“Awake now?” I asked him.

“Yes.”

“Me too.”

Two days ago, I reached a personal sex record: six times in 12 hours. Six.

SIX.

When I got home (and thank god I actually left or who knows how many more times we would have done it), I headed straight for my bed and promptly passed out for nine or so hours. Marathon sex is a tiring endeavor. And I had a midterm the next day. Yikes.

It is not physically possible to sustain my sexual routine of late. I have had more sex in the past two weeks than I have had during the rest of junior year combined (that would be the previous six months). This overindulgence is the result of finding the most sexually compatible partner I’ve ever had. He’s attractive, sure, but more importantly, he knows exactly what I like in bed, picks up on all of my physical cues, and makes me love things I never thought I’d even want to try. We’re well-matched, and I’m honestly enjoying the best sex of my twenty years. I can’t wait to have more of it. I’m just not certain my body can take it.

Take, for example, last weekend’s physical wear: chafed lips and an aching jaw. Giving blowjobs too frequently actually rendered my mouth useless for more conventional activities (like you know, eating). Have you ever given so much head that it hurts to chew food? I didn’t think it was possible either, but a few days ago, I found myself in enormous pain during a multi-course dinner. This was after I spent the whole weekend with lips so dry and swollen red that I was seriously beginning to channel the “competitive skiier” look.

And still we can’t get enough of each other. Last night, I met him at the T station and handed him a treat from BerryLine, the local frozen yogurt place. “How sweet of you,” he said, meeting my upturned face with his lips on mine. “Let’s get on the train.”

“Wait, I’m not coming,” I laughed and resisted the tug of his hands on my arm. “I’m just here to say bye.”

“Oh, you’re not?” he said. His surprise was evident. We’ve been spending every spare second together. Of course the assumption was that I’d follow him home.

“No, I should stay here. If I go back with you, we’re not going to work. Besides, we’ll see each other tomorrow. We’re going to spend the whole night together.”

“Well, actually … that’s good. I’m proud of you. I’m glad you have the self-control.”

“One of us has to have some!”

“Come here,” he whispered. He cupped my face with his hands and leaned in slowly for a kiss. This is awfully public, I thought, but the gentle flick of his tongue over my lips brushed away any concerns about being spotted. And then quickly: a confirmation of the next day’s plans, a promise for feedback on the yogurt, a hasty glance back as if to say goodbye again, and I was off.

A half hour later, I was back at the frozen yogurt shop chatting with my girlfriend when he text messaged me, “The yoghurt was excellent! Thank you so much!”

“You’re excellent,” I responded.

“Haha, enjoy your night of rest,” he wrote back.

I think I laughed aloud. In the immediate future, at least, rest will be a rarity.

Had a three hour convo with Mark, my sometime-gentleman caller (figurative and literal). He is in a hotel in Connecticut, where he’s been stuck for weeks on a project. His work is something boring and corporate; I am decidedly neither. We did a nice bit of catching up and juuust when he was about to hit the sack (at 5 a.m. EST), the talk took a turn for the erotic.

I’ve had my fair share of phone sex and it can be really good or really bad. It’s annoying when the guy initiates it but then expects me to carry most of the conversation. I get it. People become incredibly self-conscious about sex and go silent on the line as a result, but if you’re going to do it at all, really do it. I try to think of it like this: I’m already holding the phone with one hand and masturbating with the other, so I really might as well go all out.

Mark, luckily, is not awkward. But he’s not exactly candidate number one for kinky activities either. When it comes to work, he’s straight-laced, methodical, and annoyingly by-the-book. Since his professional life is such a big part of who he is (or at least, is the part of him he’s shared most with me), it’s pretty hard to see him as someone other than the straight-laced, methodical, annoyingly by-the-book consultant I’ve become accustomed to. As it turns out, he likes his sex even dirtier than he likes his martini.

He calls me a “bad girl” and suggests disciplinary methods that frequently involve me on my knees. Sex, according to what he says on the phone, would mostly consist of me being thrown around from one corner of the room to another (wall sex! mirror sex! desk sex!) I have no objections but I am pretty surprised. I wish this were manifest in direct interaction, maybe not literally but in spirit. Mark and I have a history of being much dirtier over the phone/texts/IMs than we are in person. Our face-to-face meetings have been very vanilla, and despite our fantastic hookups, they’re nothing compared to the stuff that gets said on the phone.

Though we speak sporadically and see each other every few months, we only slept together once, a year and a half ago after a handful of dates. His job makes meeting up tricky, and his flakiness has been a major turn-off in the past. Nowadays, I don’t really care. It’s weird to define a relationship with someone who isn’t a boyfriend, isn’t just a hookup, but isn’t exactly a friend either. Perhaps the only accurate characterization: I consider this relationship one long series of one-night stands with someone whose company I enjoy equally at dinner.

He is really attracted to my petite size and I’m really attracted to his height and larger frame. The fact that he’s significantly bigger than me is a huge turn-on (not that it takes much to be significantly bigger than me). On the other hand, the size difference works against us too. He’s much too large to comfortably fit any orifice of mine and I’m notoriously tight which doesn’t help (apparently, there is a thing as overdoing kegels). To give you a good idea of what I’m dealing with: being fingered by him is like being fucked; being fucked by him is like being drilled for oil. Who thought our combination could be more of a curse than a blessing? In terms of sexual chemistry, though, he’s probably the best I’ve experienced outside of a relationship. There’s a very natural click in the bedroom that has always been there; it’s hard to replicate with just anyone.

Tonight, I came but he didn’t. Apparently,  jerking off doesn’t get him off. Weird.  I didn’t think to ask him when he told me, but I wonder if this means he didn’t experience orgasm until his first sexual encounter with another person. How unfortunate would that be? I guess there are plenty of women who go through the same and worse but it’s assumed that guys don’t have to deal with the same frustration. So while I was basking in post-orgasmic glow, he was contemplating a cold shower to cool off from the convo.

If he ever breaks up with his job, maybe we could meet up for once and actualize the roleplay. He told me on the phone, “I love how you feel against me right before you get off. Your entire body trembles, you get this look on your face … watching you come is a major turn-on.” I briefly contemplated turning on my webcam before I thought: Hartford is only an hour and a half from Boston if you drive recklessly. Who needs the Internet when you’ve got wheels?