Sex in Real Life | Changing gears to match your partner
Sex in real life isn’t always as harmonious as we’d wish.
Desire for your partner might be alive and burning, but this doesn’t mean you are well attuned on all occasions. After all, it takes two to tango and your libido cannot possibly be at the same level as your partner’s at all times. So what do you do if you and your partner happen to be on different gears in bed?
A couple of nights ago in our bedroom…
-Why don’t you take off your clothes and get on your knees for me, Aliki?
I have just spent the last five minutes taking off my high-heeled shoes and rubbing my tired soles while staring absent-mindedly at the wall in front of me thinking of my meetings for the next day. I am drowsy and the wine I’ve drunk during dinner has made me slow. So slow I haven’t realized that in the time it took me to take off the shoes and yawn, Xander has lost all his clothes and is leaning against the door following me with his gaze, excited and ready for action.
– Just a sec, baby, I am coming…
On different sexual gears
Now, Xander and I usually are on the same line when it comes to sex. We go through comfortable periods of soft and intense love-making, just as periods of sexual exuberance when we are all over the place, happily indulging in our wildest respective and common fantasies. I like it this way: I need both the slumbering and the effervescence. For me, they are two aspects of the same coin and one cannot exist without the other. This is sex in real life.
Sex in three acts
Tonight though is one of the rare occasions when I feel out of sync. It’s not like I don’t want sex, I am wet and excited alright. I just don’t feel particularly adventurous about it. Xander, on the other hand, must have been studying the most obscure pages of Kama Sutra. We always enjoy discovering new positions together, but this time, I can’t quite keep up with the acrobatics involved. After a couple of minutes, I stand up, take Xander by the hand and lead him to bed.
I am thinking, let’s try something more traditional. Or not: Xander is feeling kinky. He comes up with a variation to missionary position which would be exciting on any other night. Tonight, though, it makes my breasts feel squashed under his weight. Plus I am feeling much less of the actual sex happening. No deal! I am sighing in discomfort and move again, changing once more our configuration.
Xander misinterprets my move and approaches me from behind this time. My reflex is to pull away: as much as it gets me off, some days are just not cut out for anal sex. As we get down to it again, I realize that somewhere along the way I must have lost my initial excitement.
I breathe in and try to get back my mojo. Just as I am starting to relax, Xander gets vocal about his fantasy of me with another woman. To be fair, it’s a common fantasy between us, most of the times invoked by me. Only yesterday, in bed, I was telling him about this Asian girl I’ve been chatting with on a bicurious site. Tonight is different though. Absurd as it might be, tonight I am not in the mood for it. What’s more, for some reason, I even find him starting about it patronising!
But how is my lover supposed to guess my reaction when he is playing with the very same fantasy of the night before?
-Ok, you know what, Xander? I cannot keep up today! Let’s just stop!
The fine mechanics of sex in real life
I am rushing to the bathroom, angry at him and not even sure why. After all, he hasn’t done anything we haven’t done a hundred times before. My irritation is unreasonable, that much I register even on the spot. I have the nagging feeling though that tonight, in his excitement, my loving partner has failed to follow my cues. Sex felt strangely lonely without this essential contact.
When I get back to bed, Xander is looking at me puzzled. Luckily for me, he looks only mildly disturbed. Xander knows how to keep a cool head when I lose it. He listens to my list of complaints with a little frown between his eyebrows.
-Aliki, you know you can talk to me about anything, including sex, don’t you? Nothing is off-limits, baby, and I don’t need anything more than just you. How could I ever possibly not care about your feelings? The one thing I cannot do though is be in your head. How am I supposed to know what you feel like if you don’t talk to me? Come here, let me hold you, my love.
I take a deep breath and bury myself in his arms. As I relax, I silently promise myself that next time I will be more straightforward about my needs, no matter how boring they might make me sound.
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