I barely knew this woman, but I liked her, she was brash and witchy, so when she pulled me into the bathroom at a party I was too old for, brandished a compact full of dope, and asked me who I was fucking, I wanted to tell her something scintillating and mysterious, but the boring truth was this: I was freshly raw over the end of a serious relationship and hadn’t had any action in months. I tell her how long it’s been, how much I just want to rub up on these sexy young men with swaggering egos and tight pants, they are writhing so close and smirking through the beer, and I’ve been dancing, and here, I admit, I get a little breathless, going on while she cuts up lines and nods, solemn and intent.
She meets eyes with me in the mirror, checks her nose for residue, and tells me, with conviction, “I know someone.” I follow her out, amused, protesting a little—”I’m not really that kind of girl!”—but then I get swept up by the DJ, he’s playing Prince, and everyone is going nuts and it’s fun, even if I’m older than everyone here, I’m having a good time, and I really am that kind of girl, who am I kidding.
I’m only 27, my heart is broken, but my desire to fuck attractive men is not.
I see my wild new friend through the crowd, she’s talking to someone and soon enough a boy with sweaty hands and a pretty smile is sidling my way and grabbing my hips. He says he loves my hair, does this endearing move with his face in my neck, and my weak resolve is thoroughly ruined. Yes, I say, I will go home with you.
We are both only vague friends with our matchmaker, and have, in fact, met before, but briefly, and without the maelstrom of desire that seemed to engage every person at the party we had just left. He drives us to his house, furious kissing at all red lights, and by the time we get there, I am so ready I have already unbuckled my belt, removed my coat, unbuttoned a layer.
There is something cinematic about struggling up flights of stairs while trying to sustain a passionate embrace with someone; eventually, though, this feels ridiculous and it’s a relief to get in the door and out of my clothes.
This is when it starts to get laughable. I am naked and splayed on the bed, quietly admiring him from below—he’s really got a killer body, this young man—and he seems equally taken with me, murmuring that I have great-tits-and-a-great ass, in one breath, as if it’s some laundry list of compliments he’s memorized to make girls wet. But he starts to seem sincere when he asks if he can turn the lights on to really “see” my body, and though I am eager and probably have mascara smeared around my eyes, I acquiesce to the lights business, I’m even kind of flattered, but really hope to start the fucking as soon as possible.
He comes back to bed and makes a beeline for my pussy. I am astonished by his enthusiasm to go down on the first round, but, naturally, I am nothing if not game. Still, again, it’s as if he had some checklist to go through because just when his tongue seems to have found a successful rhythm, he’s up and at my breasts.
He mutters something unintelligible in my ear.
I unsexily repeat, “Huh? What did you say?”
He can’t seem to focus, he’s got my legs here and his head there, or moves this limb up and around…this goes on for far too long. Finally, I can’t bear the various tonguing of body parts anymore, and I tell him to fuck me, and it starts off nice, very passionate, it’s going well, until he says, “Look at me.”
This is something I was never aware of about myself until the moment he said this, but it is physically impossible for me to keep my eyes open while I am striving for an orgasm. The instant I get this directive, I try to obey it, but it feels absurd, making sustained eye contact with someone pounding away on top. Mostly, I get distracted.
A line from “Training Day” comes into my head (Denzel: “You probably still fuck her face to face, don’t you?”), I get transfixed with the way his mouth is contorting, I start wondering about Oscar nominations, and then I think that the implicit sentimentality of looking someone in the eyes while doing it is all wrong for this moment.
So I say, “Let’s try it a different way,” to kind of shake it off. He gets behind me, I’m on my hands and knees and yeah, that’s good, I like that, I’m having a good time again, until he ruins it with a sigh and says, “This is boring. I want to look at you.” He flips me over. I am annoyed.
Here we are again, face to face, now having been at it for several hours and two condoms, no relief in sight. The sun is rising. I am over it, exhausted, want him to finish this up so I can get some sleep, but he is like some kind of man possessed, really aggressive, and our bones are grinding into one another, my thighs hurt from being gripped and maneuvered, and still, he keeps going.
I am not lazy during all this pummelling, no, I am involved, encouraging, sexily urging him on, and finally, when he comes, it’s like he was fucking a brick wall, like his dick was a battering ram and my vagina was the enemy’s drawbridge he had to conquer. He presses himself up hard against me and just stays there like that, gasping. Hurting me.
His fingers curled up so hard into my hips they leave these seemingly indelible bruises that take more than a week to fade. And more than anything, I am confused by how intense this was for him; he is struggling to recover, while I am barely awake.
I only got about three hours of sleep that night—I drifted off recalling the unacknowledged joy of predictable relationship sex. He woke me up with more fucking, but I couldn’t take it, my body felt battered, and I didn’t have the energy to look at him.
