how to end a dry spell.

Louis meets me at the southwest corner of the block where I am at a supreme-court-themed party (my friends are VERY specific people), because I insisted that he walk me home because my skirt is too short, it is too late, and I am too drunk. We walk arm in arm, catching up with each other about the events of the past few weeks: his huge work upgrade, my finally finishing the most challenging year of my academic existence. His hand slides across my waist to rest on the curve of my ass.

He tells me he wants to bend me over a car parked on the street.

He asks me if I can tell how hard he is from where I am, pulled to his right as we briskly march down a cobblestone sidewalk.

I feel my pussy tingling, waking up from a hiatus. I lick his earlobe and tell him to walk faster.

We are at my front door. I fumble with the keys. We enter. I walk up the stairs in front of him, my impossibly short skirt riding up my hips and showing my thong-clad pussy through my tights. His hands are running up my thighs, helping my skirt on its way north.

We are at my apartment door. He presses behind me as I search for the key. My skirt is at my waist, he finds the top of my tights and pulls them down, his breath is breezing through the hairs on the back of my neck and tickling my ears. His hand spreads my thighs and fucks my pussy on the landing.

I cannot find my keys.

I press back against him. I go from the beginnings of sexual response to the edge of orgasm in approximately ten seconds.

There is a zipping sound, and the ripping of a condom wrapper. I am momentarily empty, and then his hands are on my hips again, his cock is parting my labia and entering me, I am standing on my tiptoes with my face pressed against my front door. It is 2:00am, I barely consider that my neighbors might be awake to enjoy the show. The pane of glass in my front door rattles with our thrusting.

His right hand pulls the front of my tights down and finds my engorged clit. He brings me to orgasm and I stifle my cries as best I can, hoping not to wake my roommate whose bed is approximately 8 feet away through two doors from where we screw.

He pulls out of me and pulls off the condom. I find my key in an unfamiliar pocket of the jacket I only rarely wear. I open the door. We make our way through the darkness to my bedroom, shedding clothing as we go. I turn on the light. I take his latex-tasting cock into my mouth, he moans deeply and holds my hair in fistfuls. I am kneeling on uneven hardwood. Saliva rolls out of my mouth, onto my hand, onto my thigh, down the slant of my thigh to the floor. He hardens more. He moans, pulls my head off his erection, and puts his hands under my arms as he tells me to get on the bed with my legs in the air.

His face is buried in my pussy, one hand is inside me and one is pressing apart my thigh. I am dissolving in my own orgasm.

Another condom. He stands as he penetrates me.  My legs are over his shoulders, then spread apart by his hands, then wrapped around his waist as he pushes me back on the bed. We roll over and I am on top, his face in my breasts. I slow us down. I am savoring this, the cock that stretches me out and presses against my swollen tissues, the hands that spank and spread the globes of my ass, the mouth and teeth that bite my nipples while calling me a whore.

I am lost. I try not to leave marks as I kiss him, kiss his neck, cry into his ears and come, my snatch wrapping and seizing around him.

I ask him to fuck me from behind. He is thrilled to comply. We roll over; he grabs my vibrator off my nightstand and gives it to me immediately before lunging in.  The fronts of his thighs slap against the backs of mine. His hand leaves large red marks on hips. I press the vibrator against my clit, I pant, I hold off as best I can and so does he, until he doesn’t anymore and thrusts aggressively against me while making purely primitive, purely male sounds.

He pulls out. I fall onto my stomach. My breath is rapid. His head is in the small of my back. He kisses both of the dimples on the back of waist. My hands are in his. We are like this for a minute, until we rearrange ourselves under covers, with him on his back and my head in the hollow of his arm. We sleep.

The next morning, we are on our sides, my stomach to his back and my arm around his waist. We mutter morning pleasantries to each other. He rolls on his back. We kiss, small light kisses on cheeks and noses, then heavier, more purposeful ones on mouths. I straddle him. I kiss him. I slip down between his legs.

I take him into my mouth. I feel him stiffen; I wrap a hand around his shaft and one around his balls. I alternate running my hand with my mouth and using just my hand while licking each testicle. I feel him get impossibly hard, and I back off. I feel him soften, and I apply more pressure, with my lips and tongue to the parts of his dick that make him instantly harden, with the knuckle of my hand cradling his scrotum to his perineum and indirectly to his prostate.

I bring him to an edge, and then I bring him back. I repeat.

My pussy swells and drips. I moan against his cock. His hand reaches between my legs and he half-laughs, half moans to find how wet I am. He asks me to stop sucking him off, he begs to eat my pussy, and I comply.

Sucking cock brings me close to orgasm on its own. Being flipped over and feeling a light, then slightly more substantial, tonguing, accompanied by hands that spread apart my labia and penetrate my cunt sends me over the edge much more quickly than I expect.

The climaxes that I reach with Louis’s face between my thighs are of heights that I cannot attain by myself. With him, my mind empties, my body opens and my spine enflames, every nerve from every part of me firing off. Muscles in my pelvis that are otherwise quiescent make their existence known, my throat makes sounds that come from some more basal part of my organism. The sensation from Louis’s lips and his own moans of satisfaction reverberate against my flesh.

He arises. He kisses me, his mouth tastes like my body. He puts on a condom, puts my legs around his neck and thrusts into me without preamble. I am squeaking, squealing with pleasure and oversensitivity as he fucks me and my post-orgasm pussy tightens even more around him. I move my legs down, I wrap them around his waist, he holds my arms over my head, he thrusts into me and sweats.

He pulls out. He pulls off the condom. I lift my torso, and with him straddling my thighs I take him into my mouth while cradling his balls and stroking his shaft.

“Margot, you can squeeze me harder than that.”

I accept the challenge.

His breathing changes. He thrusts against my face.  I feel him orgasm before he makes a sound, his ejaculate shooting straight to the back of my throat in a high-pressure stream. His voice is guttural, his orgasm continues. What I can’t swallow leaks out from my lips onto my hand, and falls on my stomach.

He stops. I pull my mouth off. I smile broadly. We flop over and sleep for another hour. We wake up. We make coffee. I am calmer than I have been in weeks. He seems happier than I have ever known him to be. In my kitchen, we hug like friends and kiss each other on the forehead. He leaves to meet his brother for lunch.

I go back to bed. The left side—the side he slept on—smells of man. I have no obligations today aside from enjoying anything that I want to. I smile, and run my hands across my body, thinking of all the things my lover can make me feel.

voyeur

In my day job, a working knowledge of anatomy and physiology is a requisite. My education provides me with this information in a variety of different iterations: there is microscopy, there is biochemistry, there is gross anatomy and the physical exam. There are infinite ways to view the body, and every field that takes care of it develops a unique perspective and language to talk about the organism we live in. Many of these perspectives are things that you can only see on other people, and never on yourself, without a particular creativity or circumstance.

A friend recently had surgery. He told me over burgers that he read the operation report as soon as he was lucid. We have an infinite fascination with the parts of our bodies that only other people can see: the inside of my friend’s spine is a vision he himself only understood through the lens of the surgeon’s notes.

There is a particular anatomical, surgical posture that most women loathe but will experience at some time or another: the dorsal lithotomy position. Supine, thighs spread apart, ankles cupped in stirrups, examiner viewing the full expanse of the anatomic perineum: from the mons on back to the coccyx, and from the inner crease of each thigh across. This diamond of flesh is one of the houses of my identity. It is an inflow and outflow of my body. I can observe this patch of my body (and I have on multiple occasions), but its biological responses to stimulation are things that I never see. The mirror that reflects back to me the image of my own anatomy is not convenient to hold when I’m more interested physiology.

I have spent much of my sexual, adult existence wondering: what do my lovers get to see that I never do?

I have an answer to this question.

One night as I was videochatting with a friend, I sat on my bed and angled the top of my computer so that she would get a full view of my face instead of an unfettered look up my skirt, and I had an epiphany. I’m sure I’m not the first one. In fact, I’m positive that I’m not and that there is, in fact, an entire industry based on the thing that it took me greater than two decades to figure out.

If my laptop was angled correctly for my curiosity, I could get a full view of my anatomy, and my own sexual response to stimulation. The idea gripped me. I had to test my hypothesis.

After my video chat was done, I stripped below the waist. I sat on my comforter—white, with lime green dots—with my thighs spread up and apart, and no stirrups cupping my feet in this makeshift dorsal lithotomy. My computer screen reflected to me a larger than real image of my vulva: I saw the paleness of my thighs and belly, the reddish line where the elastic of my panties had been, the triangle of brown hair on my mons, and the darker, pigmented skin of my outer labia.

I followed a routine, but with a new sense of curiosity. I snaked my left hand down my stomach, and parted open the fleshier outer lips to reveal their pinker, more delicate inner workings.  The sight is familiar to me: the right inner labia is a small ridge, barely there at all, and the left protrudes from my body by somewhat less than a centimeter, with an abrupt angle. They are hairless and slick, and at their top they fuse to form a thin, slender band of tissue that just barely drapes over my clitoris. Many of my partners have commented that I have a somewhat minimal topography: my clitoris is small, hides behind its hood, and is barely visible when dormant. When I am not aroused, it is about the size of a button that holds down a man’s collar.

At the moment, everything is a light shade of pink and slightly paler than the lips on my face.

I watch my right hand join my left. The middle finger reaches down to the opening and finds it wet. It moves back up towards the clit and rubs it in a circle once: I am surprised to see the whole of my sex move around when I do this. I know that none of these landmarks are fixed, that all of it is fluid and flexible, and I have seen enough porn to see other women’s vulvas manipulated like I am manipulating my own, but there is some novelty to see the whole of my labia moving around in unison when I manipulated my clit.

I repeat this motion.

I sigh.

I notice on the screen that my labia are changing: they become thicker. They are redder. There is more shine to the opening of my vagina. I can watch my hips gyrate in involuntary circles in response to the sensations coming from my own touch.

I am transfixed.

My left hand explores my opening. A finger, then another, slip in and curve around, pressing on the back of my pubic bone. I hold my wrist at an unfamiliar angle so that I can still observe my experiment.

There are oscillations: I go back and forth between feeling and witnessing. Looking at the screen and feeling momentarily self-conscious can back off the feeling of approaching an orgasm, but then the sight of my arousal arouses me further. These oscillations are, ultimately, ascending to a peak.

My labia are red and engorged. My clit is obvious and sensitive, the hood no longer obscuring my view. My short fingernails are white bands that contrast with the deepening tones of my flesh that they help to expose.

The orgasm is powerful. I momentarily close my eyes, I pant and enjoy. I have the presence of mind to open them and observe. I am surprised that the waves that I feel are not immediately visible: I feel my insides wrapping around my fingers but this muscular contraction is impossible to view.

In the same moment that I am coming, I feel and I see, and I pull my fingers out. This changes everything.

I can observe undulations of my body. I can see my vagina pulling in and pushing out. I can see fluid leaking out from me and down to the sheets. I can see the colors changing in my labia. I am in wonder of my own body, how the physiology and the feeling are tangled in each other.

I am the observer, the actor, and the object.

springtime

It is spring here. There aren't leaves on the trees yet, and the wind is still cold, but the sun lasts later into the evening and I am starting to shed my layers. In the deepest parts of winter I will wear leggings under jeans, with knee socks and boots, and a tshirt under a tshirt under a sweater under a coat. I am not fucking around when it comes to preserving warmth, and I have figured out over the 10+ between me and puberty where the intersection of loathing winter and how to look like a girl with a figure—and not like a potato in shoes—while maintaining body heat lies.

In spring, my city wakes up. We shake off six months of extra layers and shimmy into skirts; we shed cold nights indoors for cool evenings in parks. Men and women eye each other up as they pass on the street because the light jackets of spring and the faces not obscured by hats and scarves are novel, and we notice just how beautiful our neighbors are. We peel back the dry onion skin of december into the flavorful moistness of march.

I am a person who opts to ride my bicycle year-round, in all instances except for when the roads are impassable due to ice, snow, or slush. My boots keep me warm and protect my clothes, and I have been known to wear a wool ski mask that hides my face. In winter, when I ride the wind stings my eyes and tears stream out of their corners, when I arrive at my final destination and take off my bag steam rises off my back. Spring is a welcome change. My hair flutters behind my ears, and I wear a single light jacket over my dress. Before summer, I still wear tights under my skirts, and their hemlines float behind me.

I love riding in the spring: I love the fresh air across my face, and I love being able to ride fast without the wind biting my ears. I race myself through my city: I stand on my pedals and lift myself off of the saddle for bumps, and shift my weight to accommodate uneven roads. I dismount my bicycle and my thighs are the same jelly as when I have been riding a man.

I wear skirts on my bicycle. They stream behind me, flying up or down in the breeze, showing off my thighs as I pass. It is thrilling to me that my disorderly clothing might provide a show to some passers by: I am quick enough that any flash is an accident and soon rectified, but the shape of my lower half is unmistakeable. I wear shirts that plunge in the front and my breasts bounce and sway with the unevenness of the perpetually badly maintained roads of my city. At the end of most rides I am acutely aware of the smell of my body, of the flex of my legs, of the bend of my back, of the soreness of my groin. It is not lost on me that a bicycle ride is not wholly unlike sex.

There was a period in my life when I had a piercing through my clitoral hood, which lasted for about a year and a half and that I then removed because it interfered with the sex I preferred to have. In spring, I will sometimes replace the jewelry for a bike ride. It has happened that I swing my leg over the top tube, hop up on my saddle, and lean forward as I start to pedal, only to notice a newer sensation. I ride to my destination, aware of a more vibratory sense in my vulva, riding faster and choosing routes that I know may be more stimulating. I avoid roads with lights and pick straightaways. I lean forward and give my quads a workout. The speed, the texture, and the public-privateness of my adventures are exhilarating: the wind over my skin and the work that I do makes me fully inhabit my body, and my ride allows me to have moments of truly unbridled happiness.

I arrive at my destination, flushed and serene. I am smiling, calm, and relaxed. My thighs quiver with every step, I am aware of the way my body moves in space and the way it feels in the world. Thoughts of things I plan to do later with a lover slink through my mind: those thoughts are simultaneously more urgent and more fantasy. The prospect of the ride home brings a tingle.

I leave my jewelry out most of the time: I don't want to become desensitized to this particular stimulation, and springtime, with its freshly uncovered skin and bold glances, is the best time of year to enjoy it.

Pi

I am not on the pill.

I used to be. My periods came like clockwork every three weeks, only on weekdays, and for five days at a time. My mood was even. My libido wasn't dormant, but sex was a thing that I did to scratch other people's itches. I learned to take pleasure and find pride in other people's enjoyment of my body. This lasted eight years, and then I switched to a copper IUD.

Now I live inside my flesh. My body changes with my cycles: the skin on my stomach is tighter and looser; my breasts sometimes fuller and sometimes more supple. There was a space between my self and my surface that is now occupied by a humming desire whose frequency oscillates in a sine wave between noticeable and insatiable. When I ovulate my wave is at its peak; my angle is pi divided by my two legs.

At this peak, even walking is thrilling. My hips are dancing while the rest of me meanders. I have figured out how to control my bouncing breasts: at my peak I pop them with every step and my nipples assert themselves through my shirt. A breeze, a flutter of my scarf, the tickle of a hem, and the rub of my jeans across my thighs all feel faintly of a caress. My eyes flash at men and women, and I am almost concerned, but mostly excited, that they can smell that I am half-aroused by staring while walking.

I have a lover, though he is not always available when I need him to be. At my peak, my pussy is always slightly wet and reddened, and waiting for my lover is an impossible chore. I shower before he comes to see me, and I shave every hair from my legs and vulva and knead lotion into my newly smooth skin. I put on my robe and sit on my bed and as I wait for him my hands squeeze the insides of my thighs and creep up to my labia. My physiology is heightened and my response is quick: I am slick to my own touch as my clitoris hardens under my fingers.

I consider waiting. I decide against it. I open my robe and open my body.

My right middle finger massages my clitoris as my left hand cups the whole of my smooth sex. It heats my hand and I slip two fingers inside as my hips thrust up to consume them. I find the rough patch behind my pubis and stroke it in time with my right hand's action. My breathing is labored and my thighs flex against my hips. I pant, hold my breath, and finally moan and arch. I am calm for a moment and I pull my hand out of my body. I smell of sweat and want.

It is at this moment that my lover opens my bedroom door. He does not turn away from my disheveled state, but instead kisses my lips, licks my fingers and opens my robe further as he presses his body into mine.