Love & Relationships

Sex With an Ex: Good Idea, or Worst Idea?

Kate Sloan

I’ve never had sex with an ex. This experience seems to be common, and being as sentimental and stubborn as I am, it seems like something I would do – but I never really have. Apart from one ill-advised encounter with an ex-FWB in a sweaty closet at a Pride party, I’ve never gone back to once again fuck someone I had previously decided I wasn’t going to fuck anymore.

Oh, I’ve certainly thought about it. Whenever someone dumps me, I walk around in a haze of regret for at least a few weeks, daydreaming about running into my ex in public while looking absolutely scintillating, and earning an invitation back to their place for comfortingly familiar sex that will inevitably lead us back into a comfortingly familiar relationship. But this never happens, and in the long run, I never really want it to.

Having sex with your ex is playing with fire. If you broke up, there was always a reason – and if you feel the desire to find ’em and fuck ’em again, it’s worth pondering: what was the reason you broke up, and is that reason still relevant?

It may not be. For example, I’ve broken up with people because I was in love with someone else and it was messing up my relationship, or because they were dating someone who decided they didn’t want to be polyamorous. Both of these are circumstantial roadblocks: they posed a problem at the time but may well have melted away in the intervening months or years. These are people with whom I might be tempted to rekindle things if I ever bumped into them on the subway or at a party, because – why not? If the attraction and compatibility are still there but the problems aren’t, what’s stopping us from giving it another go?

But that’s not why most breakups happen. Most breakups happen because you came up against some kind of fundamental incompatibility, or there was a big betrayal, or you just weren’t feelin’ it anymore. In those situations, it’d be tougher to justify a redo. Sure, your ex’s body and mind might still thrill you, or inspire a nostalgic frisson, but pursuing that half-extinguished spark is often more trouble than it’s worth.

Of my 30 lifetime sexual partners, 28 are people I’m no longer sleeping with. Of those 28, 10 are people I would happily fuck again if the opportunity presented itself – but that’s unlikely to happen. 5 are people I would consider fucking again, but we would have to have some heavy discussions and one or both of us would need to make some serious amends before I would feel comfortable jumping back into things with them. The remaining 13 are people I just don’t have any desire to be intimate with ever again – either because they hurt me too badly, or I’ve lost all attraction I once felt for them, or we just aren’t sexually compatible, or all of the above. I’d be curious to know what your ratio is, if you feel like sharing!

So, is sex with an ex a good idea? I think it’s a situation where you’d have to have a lot more pros than cons to justify even attempting it. Sex with someone who knows your body, who you feel comfortable around, and who you don’t have to explain yourself to is very tempting – but I think, in most cases, it’s not worth the complications and tricky feelings it could bring up. Whether I dumped them or they dumped me, I’d be verrrry hesitant to get back in bed with an ex. That’s not to say you should never do it, but be careful with your heart, okay?

 

This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

5 Underrated Measures of Compatibility

Kate Sloan

I’m not sure I really know anything about compatibility. I’ve only been in 2-3 relationships I would consider “long-term” in all my 27 years, so I’m maybe not the best person to advise you on what works. But I do know a lot about what doesn’t work, having lived through my fair share of disastrous relationships destined to fail. (Bleak? Yes. True? Also yes.)

You hear a lot in sex/dating media about well-known measures of compatibility: sharing similar interests, for example, or being able to make each other laugh. But here I present to you, for your consideration, 5 measures of compatibility that I think are under-discussed, rarely understood, and deceptively important…

Sexual desire style. Disregard this point if sex isn’t part of your relationship, but if it is: have you heard of responsive desire? Brought into popular consciousness through Emily Nagoski’s excellent book Come As You Are, responsive desire is a way of wanting sex that differs from our culture’s usual “lightning bolt to the genitals” understanding of how the sex drive works. “Instead of emerging in anticipation of sexual pleasure, like spontaneous desire,” Nagoski explains, “responsive desire emerges in response to sexual pleasure.” In other words, instead of wanting sex and then going to get it, folks whose desire is responsive often need to encounter sexual stimuli (dirty talk, porn, erotica, sexual touching, etc.) before they become aroused and start wanting sex.

Learning about this was revelatory for me, and many other folks who may have felt broken for seldom craving sex out of the blue. But here’s where compatibility comes in: I prefer to date and fuck folks whose desire style is closer to the “spontaneous” end of the spectrum, because when I date another responsive-desire person, sexual initiation can feel like the dreaded “Where should we go for dinner?” conversation: “Where do you want to go?” “Well, where do you want to go?” A person whose desire is spontaneous, to continue the metaphor, is likelier to say, “Here’s where I want to go. What say you?”

This is not to say you can’t date another responsive-desire person if that’s how you operate; it may just mean you both have to take a more proactive approach to purposely arousing each other (and yourselves) rather than waiting for someone else to bestow arousal upon you.

Decisiveness vs. indecision. Speaking of the “Where should we go for dinner?” conversation… I am a chronically indecisive person in many areas of life, partly owing to just lacking confidence in my own choices and tastes. It’s no secret that I’m submissive, so I like to be bossed around in bed, but I also find it affirming to be (consensually) bossed around by certain people outside of the bedroom. Weirdly, it’s a way they can show me they care.

My boyfriend, for example, is the type of person who loves making plans and being in charge of things. When he does a good job of this, he feels accomplished and proud. So he’s a good match for someone like me. When he plans a date night for us – makes reservations, gets us there on time, helps me choose what to order – I feel deeply loved and taken care of, while he enjoys the satisfaction of knowing he took care of me in that way.

Compatibility is about more than what you can do for each other; it’s also about what you enjoy doing for each other. If I was dating someone who was willing to make these types of plans but found it tiresome, each outing of this type would just drive us further apart and foster resentment – but because my partner enjoys making the exact kinds of decisions I don’t enjoy making, this interaction just brings us closer every time it happens.

Communication preferences. You’ve probably heard of the love languages. It’s an oversimplification of human psychology, perhaps, but it’s also a useful framework for understanding how to communicate with your partner.

I’ve dated people before whose love language was quality time, or acts of service, or gifts – and while all of those things are lovely, my most significant love languages are words and touch, so if I’m not getting those things in abundance, I don’t feel fully loved. It is possible to adjust your communication style to better suit a partner who differs from you in this way, but not everyone is willing or able to put in the psychological and logistical work required to make that shift.

Along similar lines, I’ve dated people before who didn’t like to text a lot when we were apart, or who answered my carefully-crafted messages with monosyllabic apathy, and that doesn’t work for me either. Communication is a huge part of what allows relationships to function smoothly and healthily, so if you and your partner have incompatible communication styles or preferences, it could become a major sticking point if it hasn’t already.

Coping strategies. What do you do when you’re stressed, sick, or depressed? How do you communicate at those times? What do you tend to want, need, and crave at those times – and what do you absolutely not want? Would your ideal partner give you support, or space? Would they bring you soup and sympathy, or would they back off and let you do your thing in peace?

While it’s useful to ponder these questions before they become relevant in a new relationship, often you won’t know quite how your stressful periods interact with your partners’ until you actually live through one together. It can be helpful to specifically ask for what you want – “Can you come over and cuddle me in silence for a while?” or “Sorry, I just need a few days to sort this out, but can we get dinner on Friday?” – but, depending on your partner’s own stress levels at that time, they may or may not be willing or able to give you what you’re asking for.

I learned this lesson the hard way when I had a boyfriend who suffered from intermittent depression, like me, but who needed altogether different things than I did when he was depressed. At those times, he craved emotional distance, lots of time alone to work through his feelings in private. He didn’t want kisses, or cuddles, or sex. But when I’m depressed, I usually want to be with the person/people I love, and get as close as possible, through both physically and non-physically intimate activities. Obviously, when we were both going through a tough time, we found each other pretty frustrating! Complementary needs in this regard are something I look out for now when assessing my potential compatibility with someone, because they can really make or break a relationship.

Relaxation activities. They say you don’t truly know whether you’re compatible with a partner until the two of you travel together. I think this is a good piece of wisdom, not only because travel can be stressful (see above) but also because vacationing together lets you see how your partner prefers to relax – which may be altogether different from how you prefer to do those things.

If you like to unwind by reading a book on the beach, but your partner wants to do the entire museum circuit, you may not be the best match – unless you’re able to happily go your separate ways and reconvene later on. This principle also applies to relaxation in your day-to-day, not just on vacation. If you need quiet time to recharge after a long day, but your partner needs to verbally unpack everything that happened to them and/or dance the day’s stress out at a club, you may not be the best fit – unless you can find ways to each get what you need, separately or together, without stepping on each other’s toes too much.

I often fondly reminisce on a Montreal trip I took with an adventurous, excitable friend. I expected her to drag me to historic sites and famous bagel shops – and she did, some of the time – but one afternoon, I told her I needed to recharge my introvert batteries and she suggested we go to a café with our books and journals and just sit in silence for a few hours, sipping coffee and chilling out. It was one of the most blissful experiences I’ve ever had on a vacation, and all because we were able to find common ground in how we chose to relax.

Which measures of compatibility do you consider important in a partner or friend?

Hearts, Flowers, & Bruises: Valentine’s Day Ideas For Kinksters

Kate Sloan

Look, I get it. Valentine’s Day is kinda bullshit. BUT. It is also an opportunity to celebrate love. We could always use more of that. Whether you’re dating one person or a bunch of people or none at all, whether you’re vanilla or kinky or somewhere in between, you deserve to feel lifted up by love.

But frankly, a lot of Valentine’s Day activities guides are vanilla as fuck! So I’ve put together this list of suggestions for how you and your dom or sub can celebrate this weird fake holiday together. Hope this sparks your pervy imagination!

Mark the submissive with a heart. There a bunch of ways to do this. You could give them a thorough spanking with a heart-shaped or heart-emblazoned impact toy. You could use a stencil and a hairbrush to spank a heart onto their skin. You could brand them with ice. Or you could keep it simple and just draw a heart on their skin with a red pen, perhaps somewhere secret where prying eyes can’t see. This is a cute way to literally mark your sub with love.

Get a collar (or put more stuff on the one you have). Some consider a collar a pretty big sign of commitment, so maybe this is a bit cheesy, like getting engaged on Valentine’s Day. But it’s also very sweet. You could pick one out together online or at a sex shop, or go get one custom-made, or make one yourselves. If the sub already has a collar, maybe you could add something new to it, like a collar tag or a charm.

Read each other kinky love stories, to remind you of just how romantic D/s can be. I like Mollena and Georg’s story, sappy stuff from Sinclair, and you can also read, um, anything in the “Super Sleepy” tag on my site. Slash fanfiction also works a treat for this purpose!

Do an elaborate roleplay. I’ve found few things more romantic than doing what was essentially a low-key public improv game with my partner, as part of a kink scene. Complex roleplays like this can be hard to plan and to make time for, which is why Valentine’s might be the ideal day to do one – it’s already a day dedicated to your love, so you might as well go whole-hog.

Define “romantic sex” together, and then have some. Bullshit concepts of “romantic sex” in the media – think rose petals, scented baths, and Barry White – often position themselves as one-size-fits-all when they totally aren’t. Kinksters’ idea of romance can be quite different! Have a chat about which elements of sex and kink feel truly romantic to you both, and then combine all those elements into a scene. (I think mine would involve wax play, a thuddy over-the-knee spanking, face-slapping until I cry, and a lot of cuddly aftercare.)

Write each other kinky love letters. Of course, you could write traditional love letters, too. But I’ve enjoyed kink-infused writing assignments in the past, and you might too! The dom can tell the sub to write them a note about their favorite past scenes, their fantasies, or what they appreciate about their partner’s dominance. The dom can write a “progress report” or “report card” for the sub, or a loquacious list of all the ways their sub makes their life easier and better. Beautiful stationery and good pens are strongly encouraged!

Go on a D/s-tinged dinner date. I’ve written before about how to do this. All the fancy, romantic restaurants will be packed on V-Day, so it’s an especially perfect opportunity to play with power exchange on your date. Outfit selection, table manners, mid-date tasks to complete in the bathroom… There’s so much fun to be had here!

Incorporate a stuffed animal into an ageplay scene. Cute little stuffed bunnies and teddy bears holding hearts are everywhere around this time. If you are a perv of the ageplay persuasion like me, you could get one and incorporate it into a scene – maybe the little has to get themselves off by grinding against the toy, or they hold onto it for comfort while enduring a difficult spanking.

Visit (or rent) a dungeon. The Ritual Chamber in Toronto, for example, can be rented by the hour, and it contains enough implements and themed rooms to keep you busy, whatever your fantasy may be.

Watch a kinky movie. If a snuggly Netflix-and-chill date is more your speed than a night out, there’s still lots of ways to make it kinky. Of course, you’ve got classics like 50 Shades (ugh) and Secretary (…okay), but I would also recommend Red Eye (psychological manipulation galore!) and Shortbus (the orgy and threesome scenes are divine). My mom the cinemaphile would be mad if I didn’t mention her fave sexxxy movie here, Blue Velvet, which supposedly contains a fisting scene!

Ruin some red lingerie. You can usually get good deals on novelty lingerie around this time, so it might be fun to buy some cheap lacy stuff, wear it under your clothes for an outing, and then have your dom bite/cut/rip it off you once they get you alone. Lots of people have this fantasy but rarely get to actually experience it; now’s as good a time as any!

Try a new kink together. I’ve found few things more exhilarating and romantic than barrelling head-on into a new kink activity with someone I adore. Much like riding a roller coaster or seeing a scary movie with your beloved, there’s an element of fear tempered with the comfort of being with someone you trust. Watersports, wax play, and feminization are some recent somewhat-scary faves I tried for the first time with my partner, for example.

Make dinner into a service task. If the sub is culinarily inclined, perhaps they would like to throw together a home-cooked meal, complete with intricate table-setting and elegant candles. It can be very satisfying, as a submissive person, to make something (food-wise or otherwise) that perfectly suits your dominant’s specific tastes.

Play with “love addiction.” This kink is particularly a trope within the hypno community; you can use hypnosis to make someone feel like they’re falling deeper in love with you and can’t get enough of you. (Proceed with caution and with lots of negotiation beforehand, obviously!) A skilful hypnotist could even set it up so the sub feels a little hit of love every time they take a sip of their drink at dinner, for example, or every time they overhear the phrase “Valentine’s Day.”

Get (and/or give) a massage. Maybe the dom’s a little achy from all that paddling and flogging, and could use some firm hands to work out those kinks, so to speak. Maybe the sub is sore from last week’s predicament bondage scene and needs to be kneaded into putty. A professional couple’s massage would be a super romantic gift from one of you to the other – and, as a bonus, you’ll both be extra limber and relaxed afterward, ready to return to the high-intensity pervy activities you love so much.

Chocolates… with a twist. Whatever Valentine-y treats you pick up at the store can be used as rewards in a kink scene, you devious genius. Maybe the sub gets a chocolate for each shoe they shine; maybe they get one when they complete a series of math problems while their dom goes down on them; maybe they just get a bunch as aftercare treats once they’ve taken a thorough beating. Aww.

Use roses as a spanking implement. This is a much kinkier way of sprinkling rose petals all over your bed! Just be careful of the thorns, okay? Unless you’re into that…

 

What are your favorite romantic kink activities?

 

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

5 Features I Wish All Dating Apps Had

Kate Sloan

Dating apps are exhausting. As App Store searches and online reviews here will attest, there are soooo many of them – a surprising amount of which are more gimmicky than functional.

I’m dating an app developer, so I could just complain to him about all this. But I’m a blogger, so you get to hear about it too. (You’re welcome…?!) Here are 5 features most dating apps don’t have, which all of them should…

Actually useful filters. There was a time in OkCupid’s history when you could set certain answers to certain compatibility questions as “mandatory” for your potential matches, and the site would hide people from you who didn’t answer the way you wanted them to.

This feature could be used to swiftly expunge from your dating queue anyone who – for example – held racist/sexist/homophobic beliefs, felt differently from you about eventual marriage or procreation, or even just… didn’t like giving oral sex. (Hey, we all get to decide what’s important to us in a potential partner!)

Many of the site’s filtering features are now reserved for paid users, and it’s a real shame. I don’t want it to even be possible for me to accidentally strike up a conversation on OkCupid with a Trump supporter, a selfish lover, or someone who thinks women are morally obligated to shave their legs. I should be able to erase them all from my world in one fell swoop.

Comprehensive blocking. Internet safety has become a bigger and bigger issue as the online world has interlaced with the “real world” more and more – and yet many social networks and apps still don’t take it seriously enough.

Tinder, for example, lets you block someone you’ve already matched with, but doesn’t let you block people who just come up in your swipe queue – which is a problem if, for example, you spot your abusive ex on the app, or someone makes multiple creepy accounts in an attempt to contact you, or you just keep running into the same douchebag over and over.

If a dating app values safety – especially the safety of its most vulnerable and marginalized users – it should provide a blocking feature which works, completely and immediately, no questions asked, and which can be used on anyone you encounter in the app, not just people you’ve matched or messaged with.

First-message length minimums. One-word messages are an epidemic on dating apps. “Hi.” “Hey.” “Sup.” Frankly, I think that if you only want to put that much effort into dating, you’d be better off posting on Facebook to solicit dates with former high-school classmates, or trotting down to the local bar and shouting “Anyone interested?!”

OkTrends, OkCupid’s now-defunct blog of dating-based statistical analysis, found that the ideal first message length is 200 characters – so, about the length of a tweet, but like, a substantial, thought-out tweet that you didn’t dash off in five seconds.

Granted, not everyone’s attractions work how mine do, but if it were up to me, I would instate an 100-character minimum on first messages in every dating app. Read your potential match’s profile and find something to comment on or inquire about; if you can’t do that, then why are you even interested?

Organization tools. Okay, not to sound like a total slut or a total nerd (I’d rather be equal parts of both), but sometimes I wish my Tinder inbox had folders.

Kind of like how I have one Airbnb wishlist for far-away destinations and one for weekend getaway spots, I need a Tinder folder for “potential relationship material,” one for “could be a fun hookup,” and one for “you already went out with this person and it didn’t go well – beware.” And that’s just for starters.

If it sounds like I’m reducing people to their objectlike utility, well, I probably am – there’s a reason the phrase “meat market” persists, despite our better intentions – but I also think the ability to sort matches would help cultivate more actual, IRL connections. Part of the reason I so often forget to message people is that by the time I’m in the mood to reach out to someone, the cuties I was most excited about have often been pushed down in the queue by more incoming matches. If I could find the most promising among them, quickly, whenever the mood struck, I’d be likelier to actually make contact.

Activity-based statuses. Tinder had the right idea with their “Matches Up For…” feature, which allowed users to mark themselves as “up for” drinks, coffee, and a few other boilerplate date activities. But what dating apps really need is a blank field where you can type whatever you’re up for.

True, this feature would be abused immediately, by people who don’t understand that nonconsensually showering strangers in dicks is a dick move, even in text form. But just imagine how good it would be if it worked. “Up for… seeing the Harry Potter improv show at Comedy Bar tonight.” “Up for… a marathon viewing of The L Word over Chinese delivery.” “Up for… co-working at a coffee shop, with intermittent flirty eye contact.” Being able to articulate whatever weird datelike activity you’re craving, and maybe actually find someone who wants to do the same thing, would be blissful.

This feature would, of course, be useful for sexxxy purposes too. While there are lots of times I’ve just craved sex, it’s far more common that I crave a specific sexual act. “Up for… a thorough paddling from an experienced, sadistic dom.” “Up for… no-reciprocation-expected cunnilingus.” “Up for… a handjob while listening to Vivaldi.” Some apps go to great lengths to determine your sexual compatibility with potential matches, but I think knowing what someone wants to do in bed right now might give you an even better window into their sexuality than their answers to prefabricated questions, which they may have answered months or years ago anyway!

What features do you wish all dating apps had?

 

This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Whoops, I Love You

Kate Sloan

I find excuses, at improv practice, to tell the cute boy that I love him.

It’s not entirely on purpose but not entirely an accident, either. One approach to improv is walking on stage and knowing, immediately, who you are to each other – in spirit, in feeling, if not in detail. So when I walk on, and look at this floppy-haired blue-eyed sharp-tongued goofy-grinned boy, the overwhelming feeling that flows into focus is love.

(Okay, maybe not love, but something like it. We’ll get to that later.)

I’m his wife in too many scenes, his girlfriend, or the moony admirer with whom he becomes entangled over the course of a longform set. I don’t know if he notices, but other people do. “I think you should try pursuing more non-romantic storylines,” my coach offers offhandedly at the end of practice one day. I blush, because I know what he means, I know why he’s saying this, and I know I probably won’t take this note. Improv is a wildly careening ship and my love is a tumultuous river pouring downstream toward disaster. Anchors aweigh.

“I love you,” I shriek in improv scene after improv scene, terrified the cute boy knows I mean it.

“I love you” is weighty, a Big Deal, perhaps too much so. But any time I find myself wanting to believe it can be casual, it just means I’m flooded with love and embarrassed about it.

My shame about my lack of chill is sometimes so intense that I could probably talk myself into thinking “Will you marry me?” and “We should be buried side-by-side” are breezy things to say.

But who decided love was embarrassing? Who, like John Lennon, argued we’ve got to hide our love away?

These fears all stem from the root fear of reciprocation or lack thereof. When you Say The Thing, you’ll find out pretty quickly whether the person you’re addressing Feels The Thing too or very much doesn’t. We all want to live in the will-they-won’t-they illusion a little longer, suspending judgment about Schrodinger‘s love, because “I’m not sure if they…” is uplifting, while “They definitely don’t…” is soul-crushing. So even when love seems likely, we still hedge our bets, guard our cards, crunch the numbers before we make our move.

The dreaded “I love you” is a big deal because it signals the end of one chapter and the start of another. The end of plausible deniability and the start of a reckoning. Whether it goes poorly or beautifully, you’ll learn even more than you thought you would.

Polyamory perk: being comforted by one partner about another.

Or maybe the person you’re crying about isn’t even a partner of yours. Maybe they’re just a crush you somehow let fester into love. Maybe your Actual Boyfriend knows what the deal is, and likes you anyway. Maybe your Actual Boyfriend is therefore a goddamn saint, but still not the person you’re devastatingly in love with.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Actual Boyfriend assures me, late one summer night, as I cry in my bed over a man who isn’t him. “I’m here for you.” He’s right; he is. But I wish he wasn’t. I wish he was someone else.

“I’m just scared that when he leaves at the end of the summer, I’m going to have a mental breakdown,” I sob. The object of my affections doesn’t live in my city, so this was always a time-limited endeavor. As if unrequited love isn’t painful and risky enough as is. I’m sick with contrition, my heart inconsolable. If I can’t have him then I just want to be alone.

Yet here is the boy I’ve been dating for not-even-a-month, his warm-but-wrong arms wrapped around me. “If you do, I’ll be here for you,” he promises. “I know we haven’t known each other that long, but I love you and I wanna support you and I don’t want you to feel alone.”

I can tell, from the way his sentence stretches out like taffy, that the “I love you” was an accident. Whether he meant it but didn’t mean to say it, or meant to say it but didn’t really mean it, is irrelevant. It’s between us now, screaming to be acknowledged.

I laugh a little, through my tears. “Did you just…?”

He laughs a little, too. “Yeah.”

This would become a cute, funny anecdote from our early relationship, if indeed I liked him enough to progress past this stage. But I don’t. It’s hard to love someone good and kind when you’re accustomed to love feeling distant and cold.

Later, when we break up over the phone, he yells that I’m clearly not capable of loving anyone but that other man right now, and that I shouldn’t have led him to believe otherwise. He is right. I wish I could have caught his embarrassing leap in a plush net, but instead I just let him shatter on the ground. You can’t save everyone, hard as you might try.

The weight of “I love you” comes partly from our cultural conviction that it ought to be a Special Moment, much like a proposal or asking someone to prom. The right time and place, the right ambiance, must permeate the memory upon reflection. It should live on in our minds like a Tiffany’s catalogue centerfold, sparkling and emblematic.

But of course, first I-love-you’s aren’t always this picture-perfect in reality. Many are whispered against sweaty skin after sex, or cackled in irresistible cacophonies, or lobbed automatically at the end of a phone call. We’d all like our lives to look like a perfect three-tiered cake, but sometimes the yummiest desserts are the crumbly, misshapen ones from an amateur baker trying their best.

We’ve known each other for 35 days when you accidentally tell me you love me. It’ll only be a few more weeks before you say it for real.

We’re having phone sex – a thing we’ve done a dozen times or so, and will do hundreds more times as we fall harder – and I’m a subspacey mess. Unraveled, wanton, slurring my words. I know how this aligns with your kinks, and I know you put me here on purpose, but I’m still nervous: what if you find this messy gibberish version of me unattractive and you’re too nice to say so?

“Sir, do you like me like this?” I ask, uncertain, seeking feedback that will calm my heart.

“I LOVE you like this,” you retort without thinking. There is a split-second of silence. We’re both too smart, perceptive, and overanalytical to have missed what just happened, but we’re both also too polite and socially fluid to make it into the big deal it obviously is. We launch back into dirty-talk as before, like cocks and cunts can overshadow what’s developing between us.

When you really say it, later, in a dimly-lit bar, it’s slower, more considered. I feel like I’m hearing you perform dialogue we’ve been rehearsing for weeks – the words were empty and now they’re full, dripping with meaning. You preface the phrase with my name, so I’ll know you really mean it and you mean it about me, specifically. “Kate, I love you.” I tell you “I know,” because I do, I do, I deeply do. And then I add, “I love you too.”

We didn’t plan to fall in love; we didn’t plan to say it tonight. But it wasn’t an embarrassing accident. It was a perfect surprise.