Okay Fine Whatever

by Courtenay Hameister

  He was more attractive than I remembered. More put together. Had he done something to himself, or was I just remembering him wrong?

  We sat down and talked about horribly boring shit for a couple minutes to fill the space. I had revealed a lot to this man I’d met only once, and I was having some trouble reconciling those two things, the same way I had with Text Guy.

  My sake cocktail arrived with his bourbon. This would help.

  “How are things going with your wife?” I asked, shifting the conversation to comfortable territory we’d covered online.

  “They’re fine,” he said, shaking his glass to cool down his whiskey. “She seems happy with this guy and I’m happy for her. But sometimes it’s hard when one of us has a second and the other doesn’t.”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “She’s probably not as available as you’d like.”

  “Yeah, and we’re having less sex,” he said as he took a swig of his bourbon.

  “Is that normal?” I asked.

  “Sometimes,” he said. “When it’s new.”

  “That must be hard,” I said.

  “Nah,” he said. “Kinda goes with the territory.”

  As my cocktail kicked in and the subject matter got more interesting, my dread ball was shrinking as my curiosity grew. We talked about his relationships, my dates, what I knew about polyamory, and how that jibed with his reality. Eventually we started talking about his stranger sexual encounters, like spending an evening in a sex club with his wife and three other people.

  “What was that like?” I asked.

  “It was definitely difficult to navigate physically,” he replied. “It was about two to three more people than would be my ideal.”

  “I don’t think I could even do a threesome,” I said.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “It would be like one long sixty-nine session,” I said.

  He laughed. “In what way?” he asked.

  “Well, sixty-nine-ing can be nice,” I replied. “But the entire time, you’re trying to concentrate on giving the other person pleasure while also trying to concentrate on what’s happening to you. As in most cases of multitasking, I think both experiences can suffer.”

  “That’s more thought than I’d ever give to that,” he said. “But it makes sense.”

  By now my breathing was less shallow and the knots in my stomach were coming untied. Each story made him more intriguing and, weirdly, sort of admirable in a Meriwether Lewis–of–the–sexual–world kinda way.

  I got another drink, and my questions to Jeremy got bolder, as did my admissions.

  As with what felt like almost every single person I’d met online, I didn’t have a lot in common with Jeremy, but this was different somehow. I hadn’t had much in common with the other guys because I didn’t understand how to use Java as a server-side language for back-end development. I didn’t have much in common with Jeremy because I’d never had a fivesome.

  But unlike with those other men, with Jeremy I was actually interested in the things that made us different, and the idea of him dominating me kept creeping into my head as we spoke.

  After a couple of hours in the bar, we moved to the picnic tables outside, where we sat on the same side of one of the tables, facing out.

  “Can I kiss you?” he asked.

  I squinted at him, half pretending to be wary. Because I was half wary.

  “Sure,” I said, grinning.

  We started to kiss, and at one point he grabbed the back of my head in a way that made me immediately think about making bad choices.

  He suggested we go back to my place.

  I had some misgivings about this. My vagina didn’t.

  He followed me to my house, which was only about five minutes away.

  It was late, so we walked quietly to the old pool house in the back that my roommate and I had been using as a sort of love shack. Jeremy and I made out some more in the doorway, him pressing up against me.

  “So, if we were to do this domination thing, how would that work?” I asked.

  “We’d just do it,” he said breathlessly.

  “Shouldn’t we have a safe word, just in case I don’t like it?”

  “Oh, right,” he said, backing off. “Of course. Do you have one?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ve never needed one before.”

  “Okay, so it should just be something you wouldn’t normally say,” he whispered while kissing my neck. “Like, it definitely shouldn’t be no, because no might be part of the fantasy. It should be a word that you have no reason to say, like pineapple.”

  “Okay, let’s make it pineapple,” I said, pulling him in.

  “You sure?” he said. “A safe word is a kind of personal thing.”

  He was right. I’m a writer. I couldn’t just appropriate someone else’s safe word.

  My mind went blank.

  “I don’t know. What if I choose one that breaks the mood?” I said.

  “Like what?” he asked, clearly less in the mood.

  “I don’t know…grandma or impotence.”

  “Can you not mention impotence right now?” he said, rubbing his eyes a little.

  “See?”

  He left to pee while I thought about it a minute. “I got it,” I said when he returned. “Safe word.”

  “Really?” he said.

  “Yeah. That way, you’ll stop immediately. If I picked a different one, there might be a minute where you’re like, Was that supposed to be the safe word, or was it grandma?”

  He grabbed my face and held it.

  “Stop saying grandma,” he said, smiling, then he kissed me hard.

  “Okay,” I said between kisses as he led me into the pool house.

  We got to the bed.

  “You really want me to do this?” he asked.

  “Please,” I said.

  He pushed me down onto the bed. I gasped a little. I was immediately, insanely aroused.

  He told me to get on my knees. And then he started ordering me around in earnest.

  Normally, I’m not a fan of bossy people. In the real world, I tend to bristle when anyone tells me what to do or how to do it.

  But in the bedroom, surrendering my will to someone else wasn’t just a relief, it was wildly hot. The bossier Jeremy got, the more I quivered.

  And he got very bossy. Not bossy enough that I needed to use my safe word, safe word, but still.

  This acting-out-the-opposite-role-in-the-bedroom theme comes up a lot in the BDSM (bondage/discipline/sadomasochism) world. It’s said that the more dominant people are in their work and home lives, the more submissive they want to be sexually; it’s a relief and a vacation from themselves to let go.

  Some people have even posited that for truly bossy people—people who subjugate others to their will all the time—being a sexual submissive is a way to do penance.

  That definitely wasn’t me. The only power one has at a public radio show is the ability to get someone a free tote bag.

  Funny thing is, even though I was submitting, I was also still sort of the boss because I’d asked Jeremy to dominate me. That’s the strange circular logic of the dominant/submissive relationship.

  During our pool-house session, Jeremy acted out the perfect amount of dominance for me, shedding the bossiness when it came time to make sure all my needs were met and that orgasms were had by all.

  Afterward, there wasn’t a lot of afterglow, but there was a lot of sweat and even more laughing. I had surprised myself and I think he’d done the same.

  “Was that okay?” he asked, not in the “How was it for you?” sense, more in a “How weird was that for you on a scale of one to infinity?” kind of way.

  It had been the most incendiary sexual encounter I’d ever had. Not a speck of tenderness or emotional intimacy, just raw, unfettered sexuality. With a guy who—following what seemed to be the trend of the year—I wasn’t that interested in emotionally.

  And I really enjoyed it.

 
“Yeah,” I replied. “It was kinda great.”

  “Well, I enjoyed the hell out of it,” he said. “I hope we can do it again.”

  He got dressed while I lounged on the bed and replayed some of the better moments from our session. He leaned down and kissed me before leaving to go home to his wife.

  I stayed in the pool house that night. I left the doors open to the cool night air. Sometimes Portland takes an early turn to fall. It’s impatient, maybe. I can relate.

  Days after that encounter, I was still fantasizing about it—something I’d never done with any other partner. So I saw him again.

  We probably saw each other three times in the next six weeks, the third time at a hipster hotel in Southeast Portland. I adore hotels and was excited at the prospect of actually being the mistress in the hotel even though we totally had permission.

  We had sex twice that night, but Jeremy wasn’t feeling particularly dominant so it was only semi-hot and didn’t have the earth-shattering impact our first encounter had.

  He had to leave afterward (he and his wife had a rule that they couldn’t have overnights without special permission) but he told me that I could stay as long as I wanted to.

  I enjoyed the sex, but I also couldn’t wait to have a hotel room to myself. Cable. An ice machine. Full minibar access. I was very excited by the prospect of cuddling with myself.

  When he left, I fell back into the kajillion-thread-count sheets and watched cable while eating M&M’s.

  Jeremy and I texted each other for a while after that, but we never saw each other again.

  Even though it ended with a whimper (well, two bangs, then a whimper), I was grateful I’d met him.

  One reason people date is to discover what they like and don’t like.

  He taught me something I liked. A lot.

  The dating portion of the OFW Project had felt pointless to me because of all the failure, but this was a case where spending time with a man I would definitely not end up with was perfectly fine. More than fine. Knowing that he wasn’t the man for me was exactly what allowed me to ask him for something I couldn’t have asked for otherwise. (I’d love to say I’m more evolved than this, but being honest about any perceived freakiness is a million times easier when there is zero at stake.) So now I knew it was possible for me to ask without being mortified or rejected. And now I knew what to add to my list of things to look for in a partner: bossy AF, but only sexually.

  I was also learning that, when it came to sexuality, my curiosity beat out my anxiety almost every time. In this one category, I was starting to feel a little brave. Would it have been better if my bravery manifested itself as putting my body in front of a bullet meant for one of my comrades or running into a burning building to save a family of four? Sure. But we play the hand we’re dealt. And some of us were dealt those naked-lady cards.

  Jeremy friended me on Facebook a couple months after we dated and we stayed in touch that way.

  A year and a half after I saw him for the last time, he got a divorce. His wife had fallen in love with her second and left him.

  I really don’t think they’ve worked out the glitches in polyamory yet. You may want to wait until polyamory 2.0 is released to try it.

  1 This is one of those fetishes in which I get caught up in the logistics. Where does one get peed on? Do you always have to have sex in the shower? And then later, when you pee in the shower for convenience, does that turn you on? For a golden-showers person, is peeing on yourself like masturbation? I have so many questions.

  2 More like “dick-tation,” amiright? I’ll see myself out.

  Build-Your-Own-Burrito Night at the Sex Club

  Wherein I Am Disappointed by Public Sex and Tortillas

  NO NUDITY AT THE BUFFET.

  When you’re in an establishment and you see this sign, you know you’re probably outside your comfort zone.

  My comfort zone was somewhere in Utah, perhaps, when I spent an evening at Club Sesso in downtown Portland in month nine of my Year and a Half–Ish of Activities That Lessened My Scaredy-Cat Tendencies.

  Sesso (which is now, tragically, closed) was billed as “Portland’s Premier Swingers Club.”

  The club was licensed by Ron Jeremy, America’s most trusted name in on-camera intercourse.1 “The swinging lifestyle in Portland and Southwest Washington has wanted an upscale erotic-lifestyle club for several years,” the website claimed, and Club Sesso had “answered that demand.”

  The thing is, I’d lived in Portland for about eighteen years, and I’d never heard anyone demand anything like that. A seat warmer for a unicycle? You bet. Cruelty-free mustache wax? Absolutely. But no one had ever looked at me over her gluten-free barbecued tempeh sliders and said, “Y’know what this town really needs? An upscale erotic-lifestyle club.”

  Nonetheless, we had one.

  I’d heard about this place from a friend who had taken a meeting with Mr. Jeremy in the club. She told a story about watching him eat pasta and then sign a contract with his right hand while he fingered a woman with his left. She may have made it up, but it sounded like a pretty Ron Jeremy thing to do.

  I never imagined I’d actually see the inside of Sesso until I was having a conversation with Joe in bed one night after we’d been seeing each other for about a month. He was telling me about a group of polyamorous mothers his wife was in, women who would get together and chat about the challenges and frustrations of their lifestyle. I was fascinated.

  “So she knows enough of them to have a group?” I said. “God, I’d love to talk to them.”

  “You should,” he said. “But if you really want to see what the poly lifestyle is like, you should come to Sesso.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “I don’t think I need to do that.”

  “Why not?” he asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be doing things that you wouldn’t normally do?”

  “Yeah, sure. But that seems excessive.”

  “Okay,” he said. “It’s your deal.”

  Yes, I was incredibly curious about what Sesso might be like, but the last time I’d done something I wasn’t completely comfortable with—going to Joe’s house while his kids were home—it hadn’t gone well. I hadn’t mentioned that to Joe; I’d just told him that I didn’t want to have any more at-home dates and he understood.

  “Do you have to have sex there?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Jesus. No. Some people just go and sit at the bar all night. There’s also a pretty decent buffet.”

  “You’re shitting me,” I said.

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  I looked up the website on my phone. It mentioned the buffet.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’re going.”

  There was something about the fact that it had a buffet that immediately calmed my nerves. Things can only get so dark and salacious when there are chafing dishes and sneeze guards nearby.

  That being said, as the day approached, I got a little sweaty as I pictured myself at a fully naked, un-Cinemax-ified version of the party scene in Eyes Wide Shut, standing just far enough away to avoid being splattered by bodily fluids and taking notes for my column.

  I felt pre-humiliated.

  It wasn’t the fact that it was a sex club that freaked me out the most, it was that it was a club…a place where people go to meet other people. I’m not good with social situations, especially ones where people might be wearing assless chaps and asking me if they can place something of theirs in one of my orifices.

  Once I knew it was a done deal, though, my apprehension was joined by what I’m pretty sure was excitement. (I don’t feel it very often, so it was either that or gas.) I knew this was likely to be an evening fraught with dicey personal interactions for me, but I’m also fascinated as hell by human sexuality in all its forms, and having an escort who had been there before was surprisingly comforting.

  I told my mother this at our weekly dinner.

  “You don’t have to worry about it, Mom,” I said. “Joe’s tota
lly been to a sex club before.”

  “Doesn’t help,” my mother said. “Might’ve just made it worse.”

  She was not a fan of the idea of me going to a sex club, but my mother was otherwise surprisingly cool with my ridiculous escapades. She is a product of the sixties, but not the hippie ones. She had been a stewardess and an army officer’s wife, and I think my parents skipped the sexual revolution to attend some really fun cocktail parties. So although my OFW field trips were often things she wouldn’t do herself in a million years, she wanted me to be happy and less tightly wound, so she supported me.

  “We’re going on fetish night,” I said.

  “Oh Jesus,” she replied, taking another swig of her sangria spritzer.

  Joe and I had decided to go to the club on fetish night because we figured it was likely to be a lot more interesting than a standard weekend night. The website said fetish clothes were encouraged, so I wore the closest thing I had—a simple black blouse with a velvet pencil skirt that laced all the way up the back with a satin bow. Joe actually wore pants instead of cargo shorts, so I knew this was a special occasion.

  I felt exactly like I had the night I went to see a Missing Persons concert in high school and tried to dress new wave–y and everyone could tell I’d never smoked cloves before, except at Sesso, instead of being worried that everyone would know I was square, I was worried everyone would know that I had never tried anal and had utterly failed at the reverse cowgirl the one time I tried it.

  Before we entered the club, we were asked to sign an extremely long form.

  “What is this?” I whispered to Joe.

  “It essentially says that you know what you’re getting into and that you won’t sue them if you’re traumatized by what you see or do,” he said.

  “Aw,” I said.

  “What?” he asked.

  “It’s just so romantic,” I said.

  My hands were cold and tingly. The waiver didn’t help to assuage my nervousness.

  I took a deep breath.

  Joe touched the small of my back as we walked in and then leaned into me. “We can go whenever you want,” he said. “Just say the word.”