We met up for coffee the next day and talked about the guidelines. I had a Friend with Benefits in college, but I had never talked about boundaries and explorations beforehand. It was a smart thing to do, since it’s pretty hard to have that conversation once everyone was naked.
I looked at him over my latte and noticed how handsome he looked. I didn’t know how to start so I smiled and said, “What are you hoping to get from this?”
“Well, I haven’t had the opportunity to explore like this and you’ve been researching sex for a while, so I’d love to learn new ways to pleasure you and receive pleasure,” he answered. “What about you?”
“Same. Sort of. I mean, basically I want to feel like a confident and competent lover.”
“You are already all of those things.”
“Thank you,” I said, taking a sip from my mug so he wouldn’t see me blush. “I just want to feel that way, though.” I continued, “What do you need out of this, like guidelines, I mean?”
“Safety. I mean we need to always be safe and if you decide to take on other partners, let me know, and vice versa,” he responded.
We established that first and foremost, we’d be honest with each other at all times.
We’d be considerate, thoughtful, and safe partners always.
“I want to kiss and cuddle afterward and not make it weird,” I said. I knew I needed affection or else I would start to feel crappy and cheap about the whole thing.
We agreed that our aftercare (how you treated your partner after sex) might involve cuddling and leaving or occasionally staying over. We wouldn’t make it awkward either way.
We also agreed that we weren’t accountable to each other outside of the bedroom. He didn’t owe me a “How is your day?” text and we were both free agents, able to date as we pleased.
Now it was time for the fun part. We were both going to make a list of things we wanted to try.
I pulled two pieces of paper out of my backpack that I had printed from the Internet. They were “Yes, No, Maybe” lists. On each side, there were categories of things to try sexually. We’d each fill it out, placing a Yes, No, or Maybe next to each suggestion, indicating whether or not we wanted to try it. Then we would exchange lists.
I grabbed a book to write on and hid my list under the table and started filling it out.
Blindfolds. Yes.
Body Paint. Yes.
Double Penetration. No.
Food Play. Yes.
Saran Wrap. Maybe? I guess it would depend on the context.
I filled out my list and waited until Amit was done with his and then we exchanged them.
His list included things like: Prostate massage, anal play, role-playing, and threesomes. Mine included pegging, role-playing, BDSM, and watching porn together.
Because I didn’t want to date Amit, there was no fear of rejection. Since there was no fear of rejection, we were able to reveal our desires honestly.
I wanted to give us both time to think about our arrangement and see if anything else came up before we put our plan into action, so we agreed to meet the following Saturday.
On Thursday, Amit sent me a Snapchat of his erection at work with the text, “Thinking of you.”
We met on the street three hours later, kissing each other with intensity and need. We made small talk but we weren’t trying too hard to be funny or impressive.
When we got to his house, he asked, “What do you want and what do you need?”
“I want you and I need a shoulder massage, badly,” I said, partially joking.
“Let me massage you. Undress and lay down,” he instructed.
I lay down in his bed completely naked, all my “problem-areas” out in the open, without any desire to hide them under a sheet.
He gently massaged my shoulders, using his thumbs around the knots in my neck. He spent a long time there, alternating between light and heavy touches. He moved his hands down my back, following my instructions of “right there” and “harder.” He was taking his time.
He moved to my butt and kissed each cheek before massaging muscles I didn’t even know I had.
With my other lovers, sex had felt linear.
It was always oral sex followed by vaginal sex. Cuddle. The end.
Foreplay felt like something you did on the way to penetrative sex. Everything that happened along the way was cursory. With Amit, there was no final destination. Our only “goal” was to figure out what made the other person squirm, to enjoy the other person’s body. There was no expectation of sex from either side. Foreplay for the sake of foreplay was such a fun and delicious game.
Since there wasn’t a final destination, Amit took his time, rubbing my back for a full half an hour. He was sensual and slow, massaging my thighs and my arms. He never tried to hurry things along or seemed like he was doing it out of obligation.
When he was done, I sighed happily.
I knew I should return the favor, and probably would have if we were dating, but I didn’t want to give him a backrub. That was the best thing about a Friend with Benefits, nothing needed to be tit-for-tat.
Instead I leaned over his chest and licked his nipple with my tongue.
He moaned slightly and rubbed my arm while I took his nipple in my mouth, flicking it softly.
“Stay there, please,” he said. One of our agreements was that we would ask for what we wanted.
I kept my mouth around his nipple for a long time, sucking it. Nibbling on it gently. In any other scenario, it might have seemed like forever but since it wasn’t a means to an end, we were both enjoying it.
I moved on to his other nipple and pinched it lightly and then roughly.
“Which do you prefer?” I asked.
“Pinch it hard,” he said.
I pinched his nipple harder, alternating between that and strokes from my tongue.
Effortlessly, in one motion, he flipped me over and mirrored what I had just done to him on my own nipples.
Without haste, he kissed his way down to my pussy. As his warm tongue landed on my clitoris, I moaned with pleasure.
He alternated between rubbing it with two fingers and licking it until I was on the brink of an orgasm. Then with expertise, he increased the pacing until I came.
He wasn’t done. He moved back to my nipples, rubbing his finger across each one, slowly, until I arched my back up to meet him.
He kissed me passionately before returning back to my clit for round two.
My body responded immediately.
“Your neighbors are going to hate you,” I joked between moans.
“Mmhhhmm,” he replied, his mouth too busy for words.
In a few minutes, I had my second orgasm and melted into his bed.
We lay there cuddling and spooning for a long time, running our hands all over each other, making jokes and being silly about what turned us on.
Pretending to be a cat, I swatted his arm and “meowed,” playfully teasing him. “Seriously though, do you know how many cat videos you made me watch? What is up with that?”
“My cat is awesome. The world needs to know.”
If we were trying to date, I would have sucked it up and watched a zillion more cat videos and never said anything. The ability to be honest was exactly what made the whole arrangement beneficial. We could say what we were thinking.
“But three videos on one date? I mean . . .”
He leaned into his best line of defense, cutting me off by stroking me from behind.
“It’s too . . .” I was incapable of finishing the sentence because I was moaning louder than before, the pleasure rippling down my body.
“The world must know about my cat,” he said, grinning devilishly at his own ability to make me stop talking.
In seconds, I came for the third time that night.
I felt feral, like a wild animal. Uncontrolled. I was the embodiment of unbridled sexuality.
I bit him, hard, on his shoulder.
“You’re my bad
, bad Superman,” I said, showering his body with kisses and nips.
I rolled over and took his erection in my mouth, sloppily and with enthusiasm.
When he was moaning the same way I had, I said, “Get a condom.”
I hadn’t stayed over with the intention of having sex that night, but my God did I want to.
He hopped out of bed and was back before I even noticed he was gone. I reached for him hungrily.
He grabbed my ankles with the same need and held them up in the air, pushing my legs back toward my face before immediately entering me.
He thrust quickly and rapidly. It was the perfect amount of aggression after hours of sensual slowness.
He ejaculated quickly and collapsed. We lay there for a while, breathing erratically before he said, “You’re hot,” meaning temperature-wise; I was burning up.
He propped himself up on his side and started blowing across my body, like someone would do with soup, trying to cool me down. It was such a thoughtful gesture. He could have rolled away, too engrossed in his own orgasm, but instead he was still trying to make sure I was comfortable and taken care of. It was too bad we weren’t compatible for dating.
We cuddled for another hour, touching and holding each other before I got up to leave. He invited me to stay for dinner, but I was too afraid he had the Charlie Brown New Year’s special cued up and ready to go.
Besides, we were better in bed than out of it.
I didn’t text him later and he didn’t text me. I didn’t dream or fantasize about him, but it also wasn’t lost on me that our ability to be vulnerable and honest with each other was allowing us to have incredible sex.
The next time I saw him, I brought my rope from the BDSM class. I tied him up and made him call me Mistress. I never once said please as I tried to recreate the sexiness I felt with the Irishman. It wasn’t hard, since I was good at bossing people around.
We both enjoyed ourselves and agreed that maybe next time we’d explore some toy stuff. I couldn’t believe it, but this Friend with Benefits thing was working out.
I was starting to feel like maybe I knew what I was doing.
A CUDDLING CATASTROPHE
February arrived with a vengeance and with it, the kind of chill that freezes your bones. On a particularly cold NYC night I was sitting on my couch at 2 a.m. wrapped in a blanket, thinking about what I wanted in that exact moment.
I wanted winter to be over. I wanted to magically snap my fingers and have a bowl of soup without having to make soup. I wanted warmer socks and three more episodes of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
Mostly, I wanted a warm body next to mine to cuddle away the cold.
I pulled up Amit’s number.
“Come cuddle,” I started texting, but I stopped before I could send it. It was late and my relationship with Amit was purely physical, and it worked that way. Asking him to come over to cuddle at 2 a.m. would have infringed on the terms of our FWB situation. Also, I knew it would have turned into something more than cuddling. I realized that although Amit was fulfilling a necessary role, all of my needs weren’t being met. The problem: I wanted affection without sex. To be held by someone without having to do anything else.
A hundred percent just cuddling.
I tapped my finger on the keyboard, brainstorming a solution.
Because it was late, and I was delirious, I pulled up Google and typed “Platonic cuddling” in the search bar, just to see if anything would pop up. I had no expectations, but New York’s full of surprises.
The first website that came up was called the Cuddling Cave. It was a free site, similar to OKCupid, for people looking for “cuddles only.”
I clicked on it. The home page raved about the effects of cuddling on the brain and the dopamine spikes caused by human touch.
They didn’t have to convince me. I knew how weird and desperate a person became when they were hungry for touch.
Before Simon, I was starving.
I scrolled through some of the profiles and decided to join, because, why not? I had nothing to lose. I uploaded a picture and filled in my profile with one sentence.
“Smart, funny, and kind: looking for JUST cuddling.” It was my laziest, bare-minimum effort. I went to bed and buried myself under three blankets, fantasizing about a pajama-clad man next to me.
The next morning, I woke up to twenty-five messages in my cuddle inbox. Apparently, my laziest, bare-minimum effort was enough when the ratio of men to women was thirty to one.
My chat box lit up as a man messaged me in real time, “Price? In-call only?”
Oh, I thought.
This site was actually for people trying to buy sex. I should have known that “platonic cuddling” wasn’t a real thing.
I messaged him back, “I thought this site was for just cuddling? What are you paying for? What’s an in-call?”
“Yeah, you’re paying for cuddling. Lots of professional cuddlers on here, they charge an hourly rate. In-call means we cuddle at your place, out-call means we cuddle at my place,” he replied.
“Cool, thanks! Not for hire though,” I wrote back.
I scanned through some women’s profiles and found a lot of “certified” professional cuddlers offering “touch therapy” to a whole slew of happy clients. They charged sixty to eighty dollars an hour. Their profiles emphasized things like Egyptian sheets and rooms with air purifiers.
I wasn’t interested in hiring someone or being hired, so I scanned back to my messages, to find someone who didn’t want to pay me. My eyes landed on a message from a hot guy with a neatly-trimmed beard, playing the trumpet.
His name was Steve. He was twenty-four and according to his message, had cuddled with three people on the site and had an “absolute blast.”
We arranged to meet up later that week.
In person, he looked like his picture: average height with a dark red-ish beard and a cleft chin. We hugged and I noticed, with delight, that he smelled like oranges. We decided to go on a walk and thank goodness, it had gotten slightly warmer, though I was still wearing my winter coat and snow boots.
We chatted about ourselves for a little bit (he was a former band-nerd, I was a former theater nerd. We both liked ramen and Broadway shows) before moving on to cuddling.
As the practiced cuddler, Steve took the lead, answering my questions.
And I had a lot of questions.
Like how the hell did it work?
What did people wear? When did they leave? Was it truly cuddling or were people using it as a way to find sex?
He answered my questions with authority. People wore pajamas or whatever they wanted. They left when they were done. It was mostly just cuddling.
He had a few other cuddling buddies and raved about how much cuddling had improved his life and self-image. Like me, he was overweight as a teen and still getting used to his new body. Cuddling had taught him to be more comfortable in his own skin.
I was digging his vibe, flirting and touching his arm.
When I told him I was writing a book, he said, “Are you going to put cuddling in it?”
“I don’t know, maybe,” I said. “I messaged you because I wanted someone to cuddle with, not for a story.”
He asked me what else I’d done. I began telling him about tickling but I stopped halfway. I have a tendency to prematurely overshare.
“I shouldn’t tell you this,” I said.
“Of course you should. Let’s be clear; we’re not on a date. I’m not looking for a relationship. This is purely platonic cuddling, so you don’t have to worry about impressing me and vice versa.” Steve was a programmer and it became clear he operated from a place of logic. Everything he said was direct and straightforward.
I appreciated the clarity in that moment and dropped the flirtatious fakeness I adopt when I’m trying too hard. I didn’t have to be cute, or pretty, or interesting. I told him about tickling, my fears around sex, and why I was doing all of this in the first place.
He
asked if anything about cuddling scared me. Since we weren’t trying to date, I answered bluntly, telling him that I was afraid he’d rape or kill me and that no one would believe me because I met him on a cuddling site.
He looked taken aback before answering dismissively, “That makes no sense. You know who my employer is.” I had to laugh that that was somehow supposed to reassure me.
We walked around for another thirty minutes before sitting down on some steps, brushing off the snow.
“So, what do you think? Wanna cuddle?” he asked, blowing into his gloves to warm his hands.
I tightened my scarf around my neck and weighed the pros and cons.
Pros: Cuddling with a good-smelling, attractive man.
Cons: He might kill me.
“Let’s do this,” I said.
And to think, I used to be so cautious. Now I’d become someone who invited strangers from the Internet over to cuddle. My dad would kill me.
Even though he lived closer, I insisted we go to my house because my roommates were home, which meant I could potentially call for help in case he did turn out to be a serial killer.
Lindsay and Mary were sitting on the couch when we walked in watching the season finale of Big Brother.
I didn’t make any excuses. “This is Steve, we’re going to platonically cuddle,” I said.
They didn’t bat an eye. They were used to my shenanigans by that point.
Steve chatted with them for ten minutes, which was nice and odd at the same time. Like he said, we weren’t on a date. There was no need to be overly friendly with my roommates.
“Let’s go,” I said, grabbing his hand and leading him down the hallway to my room. When we got there, I wasn’t sure what to do.
Lights on? Lights off?
Over the covers? Under?
Steve took the lead and laid down on top of my sheets, fully clothed. I decided on lights off and laid down next to him, stiff as a board, my arm draped over his chest.
Through my window, I could hear the sounds of car sirens below. One of my neighbors was blasting some old-school Nelly. Beyond that, the room was silent.
We lay there quietly for what seemed like forever before I could fully relax. I took in a deep breath, trying to calm myself and let my body sink in next to his. He reached over, grabbed a piece of my hair and started twirling it around his finger.
The Coitus Chronicles Page 14