The Coitus Chronicles

by Olive Persimmon

  She just might have been right.

  For several days after OM’ing, I noticed a difference in the way I felt, as if was vibrating on a higher frequency and as a result, radiating happiness. People, especially men, were noticing. More people hit on me in the three days following my session with Sheng than in the whole rest of the month combined.

  I was a non-believer. Until I tried it.

  I couldn’t wait to try it again.

  * Mary: Oh boy, this is awkward. If you’re reading this, I owe you a nice dinner for this one. Red Lobster for some cheese rolls or something?

  † Hey Mary, at least I used my own linens. That counts for something, right?

  ‡ Let’s just get this out of the way. Technically the vagina is the canal on the inside and what can be seen on the outside is the vulva. I use them interchangeably a lot. But just to be clear, that’s wrong. Be better than me and use the right terminology.

  § Is this why sex becomes “performative”?

  THE STEALTHIEST EX

  For the next three months I continued exploring sex in the best way I could think of as a single person. I went to classes, read books, and attended lectures. I became the Bill Nye of boning. My whole life was about sex.

  Except I wasn’t actually having sex. It was like learning to bake by looking at pictures in cookbooks.

  What I really needed was someone to practice with.

  Unfortunately, I was in a dead zone of potential candidates.

  I wanted someone it wouldn’t feel casual with, someone I trusted, someone who made me feel comfortable. Despite my best efforts I couldn’t make a boyfriend magically appear in my life.

  There was one person, though.

  My ex, Mateo.

  He was a sexy Italian who wore suits and planned salsa dates. When he looked at me, his eyes filled with lust. He loved my body, worshipped it almost. No one had desired me that way since. It had been three years since we’d dated, but we stayed in touch and occasionally grabbed lunch or coffee.

  He had dumped me, out of the blue, via text.

  Our failed relationship was the first time I realized I had some issues around sex. We had dated for six weeks but hadn’t copulated* even though I wanted to. I was so worried that he’d want to try a crazy position and I wouldn’t know how to do it. He’d write all over the Internet about his ex who couldn’t figure out how to Corkscrew. His friends would comment on his post like, “OMG, seriously? It’s not even that hard.” He’d get drunk and tell his next lover all about my ineptitude. They’d go home and have passionate sex, pausing only once for her to say, “Bet your last girlfriend couldn’t do this.” He’d nod and they’d orgasm into bliss while I was home alone masturbating in missionary.

  Every scenario ended with me being bad at sex and him dumping me, which was ironic because he dumped he anyway.

  I had always felt like it was my fault it ended. If we’d had sex, or minimally if I had been honest with him about my hang-ups, things might have turned out differently.

  After our breakup, Mateo was in and out of long-term monogamous relationships. When we met up there was always an undertone of sexual tension, but he was never a free agent, so nothing ever came of it.

  Until one day I saw on Facebook that he was single.

  It was my chance to right my wrong. I was one text away from breaking the dry spell, getting back together, and living happily ever after.

  “Drinks tonight?” I texted him.

  We planned to meet at a bar by my house.

  He showed up forty-five minutes late, wasted out of his mind. He’d been at a basketball game earlier and drinking heavily since the afternoon.

  He plopped down next to me on a stool.

  “Hey sexy,” he said going in for a kiss as if it was the most normal thing in the world even though we hadn’t kissed each other in years. We both ordered beers and when we were finished with our first ones, I asked, “Want another drink?”

  “No, I want you. Let’s get out of here,” he said, straightforward and to the point.

  If it had been anyone else, I would have left immediately, but there was an element of trust that came from having a shared history. This sexual tension had been building for three years and finally, after all this time, we were gonna do something about it.

  “Oh yeah?” I asked flirtatiously. It felt good to be wanted.

  “Yeah,” he leaned over to kiss me. He jumped off the stool and grabbed my hand, leading me out of the bar.

  We walked quickly to my apartment and when we got inside, he threw his coat and bag on the floor. He made a quick motion to pull my jacket off before scooping me up and walking toward the bedroom.

  Mateo had always been a good kisser but today his kisses were aggressive and sloppy. He undressed me and himself quickly and we fooled around until my serotonin and dopamine-soaked brain decided I was ready to end the dry spell, right then. Right there.

  “Do you have a condom?” I asked.

  “Um . . . no,” he said, kissing my neck.

  “Shoot. I might have one laying around,” I said, jumping out of bed. I hadn’t bought, used, or even looked at condoms in years, but luckily my roommate had one in her desk drawer.

  I ripped open the packet and nervously unrolled it, trying to remember how to put it on correctly.

  “You should probably do this,” I said, handing it over to him.

  He rolled the condom down his erect penis, kissing me passionately for a few minutes before reaching down to stroke my thigh with his hand.

  I felt him rub the tip of his cock across me and he started to slowly enter. I could feel my muscles resisting because I hadn’t had anything inside me for ages.

  “Let me adjust. It might be more comfortable in a different position,” I said, rolling around, pausing to kiss his stomach mid-roll.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced down at his erection. To my surprise, the condom was gone.

  “Where’s the condom?” I asked, assuming it had accidentally come off somehow.

  He shrugged nonchalantly.

  “I don’t think I have another one,” I said, pausing to kiss him deeply before jumping off the bed to rustle through my roommate’s drawer again.

  I returned to the bed empty-handed.

  “No dice.”

  He shrugged again and made a grunting noise, before leaning in to kiss my shoulder and rubbing his cock dangerously close to me.

  I pushed him away, annoyed. I was frustrated by the fact that we didn’t have another condom but also by his breeziness. He didn’t seem to be bothered at all.

  “No condom, no sex,” I said firmly. I didn’t know his recent sexual history. If we were going to have sex, we needed to be cautious.

  “C’mon babe, I’m clean. You know I get checked,” he said, stroking my nipple.

  Now I was pissed. I had no idea how often he got checked and I wasn’t on birth control, something that he didn’t know because he hadn’t bothered to ask. I hadn’t waited this long to break the dry spell haphazardly. I was a cautious person, and this felt reckless.

  I sat up and folded my arms.

  “I’m serious. No condom, no sex,” I said.

  “Babe . . . you’re being unreasonable. It’s fine,” he said.

  It wasn’t fine. Not even a little.

  “I’m not playing. We’re not having sex without a condom. I’m not on birth control,” I said.

  I didn’t owe him an explanation though. I thought we were using a condom, and suddenly there was no condom.

  He sat up and stared at me.

  I clenched my jaw and my fists, fuming. If he shrugged one more motherfucking time, I was going to lose my shit. Breaking the dry spell was a big deal to me. He was being careless and blasé about the whole thing, as if he didn’t care if we had sex or not. Then he had the nerve to try to make me feel guilty about wanting to use protection? I wasn’t experienced but even I knew that was wrong. It was such a pathetic disappointment after years of wi
shing Mateo and I’d had sex.

  I lay down with my hands crossed over my chest and stared at the ceiling.

  He made up some excuse to leave, and I was glad he did.

  I walked him to the door.

  “Bye, great seeing you,” he said.

  “Bye,” I said as coldly as I could muster, letting the door slam behind him. I knew that was probably going to be the last time I saw him. I’d always assumed Mateo was an ex because we hadn’t had sex, but maybe he was an ex because he was an inconsiderate asshole.

  I raged for another twenty minutes before falling into a deep, angry sleep.

  The following morning, when I woke up, one of my roommates, Lindsay was already awake, a large grin plastered on her face.

  “Soooooooo, I ran into Mateo last night outside. Did you guys finally do it?” she asked.

  “Nah, we didn’t have a condom. Well, we had one, I mean one of yours, but then he lost it and we didn’t have a replacement. Also, I owe you a condom,” I said, grabbing a mug for coffee.

  “What do you mean it got lost?” she asked, confused.

  “Who knows. It was there and then it wasn’t there.”

  “Hmm, that’s . . . odd,” Lindsay said with a concerned look on her face.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  She described an epidemic she had read about online called “stealthing” where a man secretly takes off the condom.

  I stared at her in disbelief.

  No way.

  There was no way that had happened. It was an accident. An inconvenient accident but an accident all the same.

  “Who would do that? That’s . . .” I couldn’t find the words. On a personal level, I placed such a high value on integrity that that level of dishonesty was unfathomable. Especially from someone I thought I could trust.

  “There are forums teaching men how to do it. According to this article I read, it’s alarmingly common.”

  “But what kind of piece of shit would do that?” I asked.

  She bit her lip slightly before saying, “Maybe a piece of shit named Mateo?

  “I mean, he does have a kind of shady history,” Lindsay added, twisting her long, brown hair into a knot.

  I started to refute this statement, but when I thought about it, I realized it was true. I had some serious revisionist history when it came to Mateo. I always painted him as a passionate man who adored me. The one who got away.

  In my desire to make him seem great, I’d dismissed dozens of not-so-tiny red flags that had presented themselves while we were dating.

  Suddenly I remembered other negative things about Mateo. Like how his best friend had cyberbullied me after our breakup. Like how his Halloween costumes were always offensive. Things he had said and done that pointed to the fact that maybe he wasn’t the charming guy I wanted him to be.

  Maybe the real Mateo was the kind of guy who removed the condom during sex.

  I mentally replayed the events of the night before, analyzing the situation. It did seem odd that the condom had been there and then suddenly it hadn’t been there, with no trace of it to be found, even in the morning. It also seemed odd how unconcerned Mateo had been about the whole situation.

  I didn’t know for sure how the condom came off, but the more I thought about it, the sicker I felt. I felt foolish and stupid for ignoring the warning signs.

  I expressed my fears to Lindsay, who said, “You always see the best in people. It’s one of your greatest qualities. You stood up for yourself in the moment with the knowledge you had. He’s the piece of shit here.”

  I nodded. I didn’t have time for jackasses.

  Luckily, I didn’t have too much time to think about it though because my roommates and I were in the process of moving . . .

  . . . and I was busy falling in love with the boy in my room.

  * Have you ever tried to write a book about sex without using the word sex in every other line? It’s hard!

  THERE’S A BOY IN MY ROOM

  His name was Adam Fansher.

  He was my first crush after actively beginning my quest for coitus.

  When I first moved to New York City I moved into a two-bedroom apartment with my friends from high school, Lindsay and Mary. In order to make city living affordable, I split a room and a bunk bed with Lindsay. We had been sharing a tiny closet and late-night chats, summer camp style, for almost five years. For the most part, I thought my bunking situation was hilarious, but six months before my thirtieth birthday, I knew I was long overdue for my own room.

  Thirty and bunking?*

  That was the kind of embarrassing story that went viral on Reddit. If I wanted to bone ever again, I needed a bed that didn’t involve a ladder.

  It was time to move.

  We found a three-bedroom apartment in Harlem that we couldn’t afford with a giant living room and natural light. I might have been okay financially if I hadn’t been unexpectedly fired from my corporate job. I had somehow managed to get a job selling corporate training programs and over the course of one year, I had sold exactly nothing. I wasn’t meant for sales, so I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. I had enough savings to cover one month’s rent and after that I was royally screwed.

  One week before my money ran out, God sent me Adam Fansher.

  He had recently moved to NYC from Vermont and needed to sublet a room for four months.

  I needed money.

  I rented my brand-new room to Adam Fansher for extra cash. He slept on my bed while I slept on the living room couch. I hid my clothes in storage bins in our kitchen and hung my dresses in the hallway closet. It was a temporary solution until I could find a new job or get some freelance writing gigs. There was a four-month timeline. I told myself that anyone could live with anything for four months.

  Not exactly how I thought my life was going to turn out.

  My self-help books urged me to reflect on this. “What choices did you make to get here?” they’d ask. It was an excellent question that I didn’t have time to ponder.

  I was too busy living.

  And too busy falling for the boy who lived in my room.

  Adam Fansher was tall and lanky with a permanent five o’clock shadow and a mess of brown hair on top of his head. He ate three things: orange chicken, homemade pizza, and peanut butter sandwiches. He said the word “exactly” with an emphasis on the T. I’m not the kind of person who notices these things, which is how I knew I was falling for him.

  He was gentle and spoke softly in a way that made it seem like he was really listening. He had a great sense of humor that was perfectly sarcastic without actually hurting anyone’s feelings. He cared about the environment, was passionate about the arts, and went to see plays by himself. He wore sweaters that looked like they had been picked out by his mom. Whether it was due to proximity or chemistry, I wanted him in a way I hadn’t wanted anyone in a long time.

  Unfortunately, Adam Fansher was madly in love with someone else who’d broken his heart and moved to England. Her name was Jenny. He couldn’t say her name without getting a little bit teary-eyed.

  I knew it was a bad idea. I knew that emotionally unavailable people who were still in love with people who’d already broken their heart didn’t have the capacity to be in love with me.

  But I was too far gone. Heart and hormones were running the show.

  Even though I knew he was sad over Jenny, I still thought there was something between us. We’d spend hours together: we’d meet up after work and go to the gym together and then ride the subway home together. We’d cook together, eat together. I looked forward to coming home because I knew that he’d be there. When he wasn’t there, I didn’t want to go out, in case he’d come home.

  One Friday night, two months after he moved in, we decided to stay in and have a movie night. I curled up on my couch, under the blanket with my extra-large bowl of popcorn. Adam sat down next to me despite there being a perfectly open spot on the other end. He was closer than he needed to b
e with a lot of space to spare on his other side. It felt like a good sign.

  We finished our first movie and agreed to watch a second one. It was midnight, the magical witching hour of flirting. Adam yawned, closed his eyes, and lazily laid his head in my lap.

  Despite having lived together for months, it was the first time we had touched. I could smell the subtle scent of his body soap. I tentatively reached up and played with his thick hair. He made the human version of a purr.

  My heart responded by beating rapidly.

  I was aware of every part of his body. His head against my hand. His hair. His muscular arms.

  He sat up and stared at me for a minute.

  I licked my bottom lip, hoping he’d kiss me.

  “I’m gonna head to bed. I’m tired,” he said, standing up abruptly.

  I wasn’t sure what had just happened, but it was frustratingly anti-climactic. I watched him walk out of the room and laughed in confusion.

  It made me want him even more.

  My body was on fire.

  I loved the chase and the buildup of sexual tension. The wanting to kiss someone badly enough that it becomes an all-consuming thought and when it actually happens it’s electrifying.

  I waited until I heard his door shut and settled in on the couch. I fantasized about breaking the dry spell with him while touching myself until I quietly came.

  He was going to be worth the wait.

  The next weekend, Adam and I spent our Friday night the same way. Movie. Popcorn. Hair stroking.

  Followed by no kissing, going to bed, and solo masturbation.

  Even though I liked the game, the sexual tension was becoming too much for me to handle. When was he going to make a move?

  It felt like the fifth hour of playing Monopoly. I woke up horny and went to bed horny. I’d calm down and then see him in the kitchen, chopping onions in a cutoff shirt with his arm muscles rippling and I’d start all over again.

  Something had to give.

  My unquenched libido was manifesting in bizarre ways. I found myself sitting in a supermarket watching a man eat french fries, my pulse increasing as I watched his mouth close around the fry.