A series of confessions made to a stranger at a lesbian bar over several dates and an indecent amount of alcohol
“My first kiss was with my roommate at the psych ward. The only thing I remember about them is that they were nonbinary, and their hair smelled like cheap, floral shampoo.
“Kissing was supposed to be something coveted, at the time. Sacred. It was meant to electrify me, the sensation equivalent of a zap up my spine. I never did believe all the waxing poetics about how “good” it felt, but when my lips locked over hers, I was expecting something. A tingling under my skin, a jerk in my stomach, anything at all that would’ve prompted me to look the way she did once we broke apart—mouth hanging slightly open and reverent. In a shaking voice, she told me I was a good kisser. When I left the psych ward, her comment on my pseudo-yearbook was miss you & your lips.
“I wonder if she still misses me. I wonder if it was the flick of my tongue, the feeling of his teeth clacking awkwardly with mine, or the way I held the back of their head as I sucked just barely on her bottom lips—making all those WikiHow articles I perused at age twelve proud, no doubt.
“During my stay, two girls fingered each other in the Common Room. We all avoided that chair with a pathological gross, and they seemed to be just fine with this reality. They’d giggle and snicker as they made pucker-lipped faces at each other, pecking the other on the cheek when the nurses weren’t looking. I remember my kisser tossing glances to me across the room. In retrospect, our kiss was a clandestine little thing she wanted to share—a daring tryst, sandwiched between dinner and med time—but I reciprocated nothing. I understood nothing. It meant nothing to me, and in the few short years between this fling and now, I have forgotten her name.”
~~~
“My first fuck, on the other hand, was entirely over the phone. By any sensible means, it barely counts.
“For one, we’d never seen each other in-person. For another, I only got off myself long after I’d hung up, after his moans weakened into soft pants, distorted by distance and static. Sometimes I’d do it while still playing a round of Sudoku, pausing my slick fingers when I had to ponder a particularly tricky square.
“Our dynamic, so to say, began only when I discovered a latent curiosity about the human body. I was starkly, firmly against the idea of penetrating myself, yet I was fascinated by the notion. He possessed a strong desire to kill himself, but an even stronger desire to do as he was told. We quickly settled into a consensual arrangement: he would offer me his body, metaphorically speaking, in exchange for staying alive.
“That’s right: I fucked that boy into loving himself. Or he fucked himself, with slick-wet fingers and whines growing in pitch as I sat at my desk and played Solitare on my computer, occasionally holding a card mid-drag to mutter something sweet and dirty to him. Don’t come, or come for me. Go harder, slower. I remember he’d pretend not to know the existence of his G-spot, as if the very notion of having a vagina was foreign to him, and I’d play along. In your body, I’d tell him. There’s a spot in your hole that’ll make you feel good. Push into it. Fuck against it. He submitted, and submitted well. So well, in fact, that he continued submitting even while I broke up with him.
“Our breakup was much like our sex; I claimed what I wanted from him, and he complied to fulfill my desire, which was secretly his own. When I told him I’d lost feelings, not quite as a ‘dom’ but a lover, he only said: ‘Okay.’ At the end of the day, years later, he’s still alive. I give myself credit.”
~~~
“Years later, on some Grindr article an ex-lover sent me, I discovered what a ‘stone top’ was. A disinterest, or even distaste for receiving. Wanting never to be touched sexually by another. Rather than feeling surprised, or afraid, or seen, I remember distinctly that I was aroused.”
~~~
“My record-time for getting off is twenty-eight seconds. During the height of yet another depressive episode, it was the quickest way of ensuring my body still functioned: a clinical, clipped orgasm, wrought out of my gut without so much as a gasp. No toys. No penetration. My body, still as stone against my mattress, except the constant movement of my finger against my clit. When I stopped shivering against the raised bed of my dorm, I checked my underwear for that tell-tale splatter of discharge, for evidence of my hard work, and found my vagina dry. I went immediately back to sleep, satisfied that I required no clean-up.”
~~~
“I have aphantasia. My fantasies are in the second person, present tense, always: you arch your back, you fuck her, whether I’m on the ‘top’ or ‘bottom’ for it. I physically cannot imagine myself in any scenario involving another; instead, I play a two-person act of debauchery. A nameless, faceless something fucks me, yet I’m both the fucker and the fuckee, muttering—and replying to—those same dirty nothings as I whispered at the boy.
“The imaginary jury, which doubles as a voyeuristic audience to my debasing, tries to assess whether I’m more aroused by the vibrator I have held against my clit or the fact that I’m holding it. They do not arrive at a consensus, but I do—my back arches, nerves lit alight, and falling against the mattress as I attempt to regulate my breathing. Inhale. Exhale. 4-3-5, 4-3-5, in & out.
“I enjoy this strange post-coital routine more so than the so-called ‘pleasure.’ Trying to keep myself as still as possible, pretending I haven't been affected by the onslaught of sensation just seconds prior, is my favorite form of aftercare—beaten only by having to do none at all.”
~~~
“The most unpleasant sex I’ve ever had was when I, against better judgment, penetrated myself with my fingers.
“In all the sex forums I perused like the morning paper, I saw that the G-spot was regarded with the same reverence as teenagers discussing kissing. Naturally, I grew curious. I opened up a packet of lube, warmed it against my fingers, and indulged in my default fantasy with an air of duty. I imagined a hand on my thighs, spreading me open, rubbing against my wet entrance to tease. I imagined whining, urging the metaphoric someone to hold me open, and pushed two slick digits into myself.
“I hated every second of it, including the moment my fingers rubbed against my G-spot, because here too I felt nothing but stark discomfort: a strange sense of wrongness all over. I don’t think I ever want to repeat that ever again.”
~~~
“So,” I opened, awkwardly twirling the straw in my drink against the glass. The girl sitting beside me at the bar—one of the lesbian bars in Portland—stared, wordless, her expression unreadable in the vibrant neon lighting surrounding us. I felt the need to re-explain my own warning label in succinct, easy-to-understand phrases. She hadn’t touched her drink all night, after all, and I was markedly sober; statistically, we’d be having sex tonight. “If we’re going to fuck, I basically only bottom for myself. I also won’t like being touched by you—sexually. Is that fine?”
A long, long pause settled between us, in which she studied the tips of her blunt nails with an air of hesitation. Finally, she looked up to meet my gaze. “Can I be honest?”
“Sure,” I replied.
“Do you want to top?”
Here, I went quiet. I had been expecting a rejection, not some thinly-veiled accusation with an unknown amount of subtext regarding my sexual preferences. Rightfully taking my silence as confusion, she explained: “I like topping more. And based on what you told me, you just don’t sound like a strict dom—it also sounds like you haven’t been topped before. Have you?”
It was my turn to stare, dumbfounded—“How would anyone top me without touching me?”—and she laughed.
“Are you stupid?” She shook her head, still grinning, then pushed her drink towards the tender and motioned for me to get up. “For someone who talks so much, you really can’t figure out what about. Get up. I’ll show you.”
I acquiesced on instinct, hastily shoving a five dollar bill in the tip can on our way out.
~~~
She led me to her own apartment, just five minutes away. The drive there was tense, uncomfortably so; I didn’t know what to expect from the excitement shining in her gaze, or the way she kept glancing towards my hand. Upon arriving, we climbed the two stairs up to her flat, and she fumbled only briefly with the keys before opening the door to a completely dark house.
My heart was pounding. As my bare feet pressed against the cold wooden floors, shoes taken off at the front door, I deigned to reach for the lights—intending on figuring out what was going on. Promptly, I found my fingers swatted. I hissed, withdrawing at the sting, and stared incredulously.
“No,” she said, simply, and took my burning hand in hers before navigating through the darkness. Eventually, the two of us entered a bedroom down the hallway, where she pushed me onto the bed by gently shoving my shoulders. I looked up at her. Moonlight flickered through her translucent curtains, illuminating her face beautifully, and for a moment I was breathless; she took that moment to crawl up on top of me, brushing a brief peck on my forehead. Then she petted me twice.
“What the fuck are you doing,” I mumbled, uncomfortably warm.
“Strip your pants,” she replied, ignoring this entirely. Hopping off the mattress, she bounced over to her bedside drawer. I lay there, still as a board, prompting a pause and a bribe from her: a sweet kiss, a nip to my bottom lips, and my gaze met dead-on. I had the distinct feeling of being dissected—then, a command: “Keep your panties.”
I decided that kissing still felt strange, and that I’d do as I was told. When she returned, the mattress dipped softly with our combined weight. With a grunt, she pulled me into her arms, hugging me from behind as she held my body somewhat upright—her head leaned against the headboard with mine against her chest. Something soft brushed my hand. I glanced down, and saw the tell-tale shimmer of silk against moonlight. She pressed that blindfold onto my fingers first, then slowly—using my hands as her own—guided them up to my eyes, eventually wrapping the soft cloth around my head. I let my hands fall to my side when my vision went dark: still, pliant, waiting for her next move.
“Color?”
I could sense the smile in her tone. “Green.”
“Good girl,” she tested, and giggled as a shudder ran up my spine. Pressed closely, joined together as almost-one, I could feel her heartbeat through my own ribs. The way her thighs pressed skin-to-skin against my own, and spread in sync when I did so experimentally. I finally understood her ploy: the darkness was molding us together, blurring the boundaries between her hand and mine. Drunk off the sensation of having another body under my control, of having our bodies under our control, I yielded to the conflation of self. My eyes fluttered shut, as she became you and I became she.
~~~
“We’re going to use lube,” you tell her foremost, careful not to ghost your breath over her skin. The words should settle in layers, like soft-falling snow, lest you spook her further. Honestly, you consider it some miracle she hasn’t fled from your grasp yet; you’ve spent all this time hooking her in, listening to every word she spoke with rapt attention over months, yet she still tenses at the mere suggestion of lubrication. You roll your eyes, silently glad she cannot see it.
“Yes, baby, you have a thing for fucking dry.” It’d be a cruel thing to peel back the poetry she’s spent so long carefully inscribing into her sex life. To crush the flowery words between your teeth, taste it bitter-sweet above your tongue, and bring her back to the harsh truth of her imperfect, gorgeous, beautifully clothed body. But it was an even crueler thing, you think, for her to sit there and talk about disliking pleasure. “But you chafe after, don’t you?”
She goes quiet. Your grin widens, and you know she can feel it. “You can practice auto-sado-masochism on your own terms, but we both know lube isn’t just for penetration. Come on, pretty.” You push the bottle between her thighs, watching them spread briefly to accommodate the shape, and swallow hard—your throat bobbing behind her—as you ask: “Warm this for me?” Her legs close, obedient, and it’s answer enough. You press a kiss to her jaw as a reward, completely chaste; your lips lack even the soft moisture she’s come to expect from intimate kissing, instead rough and chapped. It’s coarse, it’s simple. It’d be platonic if she wasn’t shivering in your arms.
Without another word, you fold your hand atop hers, and feel down her body through her fingertips. You brush her fingers over the pulse point of her throat—the fleshy bump of her stomach—the soft dip of her hips, and below. Her other hand, placed neatly beside the two of you, begins gripping the sheets for dear life when you finally push her fingers against her clit—squeezed in the tight space between her thighs and the lube.
You rub two fingers, the middle and ring, against her, waiting for her to stop you. When she doesn’t, you start circling at the spot in slow, methodical twitches, counterclockwise—yet painfully, achingly light. She cants her hips up sharply when you draw away, chasing the pressure forward; her back arches, then she’s grinding against her own fingers in lieu of yours. You’re inexplicably fond of the way she’s nearly silent, no moan nor whine slipping from her open mouth, and in the way she stops instantly when you uncap the lube with a click. She’s already soaked through her panties, so wet that her scent clings to your hand when you drag it up—you inhale a heady rush while you push her sweaty bangs out of her eyes, and feel your cock twitch. As casually as you can, you pat the side of her thigh.
“Squeeze.”
Her muscles flex. The lube squirts up with an obscene squelch—a clear arc of fluid springing up from the bottle, suspended in mid-air for but a moment, a bow-taut anticipation between the two of you. Then it splatters on her thighs, and she twitches with each drop of liquid falling upon her skin. For a moment, there’s only her panting, drawn out and wanton. You’re so hard it’s beginning to hurt.
For once, her desire lacks poetry. She tells you candidly, “I’m so fucking wet,” and her voice is shaking. The only thing you can say is the only thought running through your head.
“I want you to fuck yourself,” you confess, and she starts circling her fingers against the hard flesh of her clit the moment she’s given permission. Her fingers glide against her skin, smooth and slick, and you can see the pleasure coiling in her. In the way she’s slowly curling her torso inward, in each bounce of her thigh under your hand, in her tight grip onto your other. She reached for it, moments ago, when some new angle made her swear under her breath. Her nails dig into your skin, but you hardly mind; you’re transfixed on the display before you, as you always have been, and you don’t dare break the illusion with something as petty as words.
Only when her movements become jerky, erratic, do you finally open your mouth and mutter sweet and dirty into her ear: “Do you want me to fuck you?”
She reacts like you just pushed into her. “No,” she gasps, digging the back of her head above your heart, intent on burying herself within. “Not tonight, not now, please, I’m so close—” and you bite your tongue to suppress yourself from moaning, nodding once in permission.
“Then come.”
~~~
Hours later, I woke up in a stranger’s bed for the first time in my life. I found myself clean. All traces of fluid had been wiped away from my body with diligence; the offending object, a wet-rag made from an old shirt, had been crumbled up on the nightstand.