Back to the Basics

Birth control was a libido-killer.  Long-term relationships induce boredom.  Nowadays it was all about whips and chains and kinky things, sex as a time-filler, itch-scratcher, fem-dom subversion of the patriarchy.  Women’s bodies were sex-object (sex, sir, I object, the old joke went) or vehicles for the battle of the sexes.  She was thirty-two (where did the time go, wasn’t it yesterday when her hair was a cobalt and pink spiked rainbow); she wanted the climax that had eluded her.  Relax into yourself, discover what you like.  Masturbate, masturbate, masturbate.  Love thyself before loving someone else.  Embarrassing to think she’d never tried it before.  Hitachi magic wands rabbit ears veined smooth crooked rubber plastic vegan, did they have this variety when she was a teenager?  It frightened her.  The options made her unsteady, nervous, and unsure if she was ready for this.  Not like this.  Old-fashioned – a square – but out of the stores blinding ambience she no longer cared.  She’d head home, candles, a bubble bath and champagne better tools to wage like Charlemagne a war of conquest against herself.  Pulsing low beats the punk infested heat of smoky European clubs steamed the bathroom, curled her fuchsia painted toes (she adored colors still, but wore them on the sly, bras, panties and polish that gave her a thrill every time she stripped off her work clothes).  Yes, of course, she sighed.  The water warm enough to pail paint and do harm, burning the way she imagined great sex would be: a clawing from the outside in.  In search of relief, she chose to believe that her problem – her frigidity – was a result of ignorance and incompetence (hers and his, in that order), one that could be remedied with the judicious application of intellect and discovery.  Her nipples puckered in sympathy.  She rested her head on the bathtub edge, feeling movie-star decadent, letting her hands wander every which way but south.  Nothing doing there, not yet.  Arousal for women is in the mind and takes time patience and a firm, kind hand, so she’d been told.  She explored her clavicles, the only bony bits about her (she’d be lying if she claimed the weight didn’t make her self-conscious; while the world seemed to have gotten the memo to diet, she’d tried it and didn’t like it, preferring a good Brie over almost all things).  Her breastbone was sensitive; running a finger lightly up and down produced goose bumps, induced a shivery thump to her pulse.  Nipples not so much; she loved their wrinkled old man look but gained little pleasure from touch.  The undersides, though, were live wires of desire.  One friend explained that nerve endings live in strange places; she understood that now.  The weight of them – heavy, ponderous with promise of feedings and babies – she kneaded her breasts, dough in plough farmer’s wife kitchen.  The feelings rather than abating increased.  Her ex-husband’s hands had never created half as much sensation.  She decided to love them, her breasts, sag and all.  Her tummy, slippery with bath salts, was the next hurdle.  Never bathing suit yummy, a decade of mistreatment (but she’d give very few of those beers or those meals back) showed in the corn-color attack of stretch marks running from navel to notch.  The rows of stretched skin quivered under her palms, greedy for the soothing balm of a caress.  Oh yes, she liked her belly very much, the tightness spreading from her nipples to lower and then lower still.  No one could convince her now she was not beautiful.  That alone would not get her to the peak, the shining beacon of orgasm that lay on the other side of these ministrations (if she was lucky).  Feeling plucky (after all, things were going well), she opened her eyes and spread her legs, knees peeking out from the fading bubbles.  They were good, her legs, her pride and joy, remnants of tomboy days playing soccer and kickball.  Her goal, wet with water within and without, lay between them.  Her pubic hair was coarser, darker than the natural oak color of her head.  She knew that from countless showers, had contemplated once or twice giving in to current trends and getting a Brazilian.  Something about the plucked chicken look made her think of pedophiles; her pubes stayed.  After soaking in the tub for countless minutes, however, they were slick and sleek.  Well, there is no victory for the meek (no matter what earth they stood to inherit) so she plunged in, shifting her hips.  Using her right hand to separate her lips freed her left for exploration – there, recessed, shy like its owner, that nubbin that fairly snarled in invitation, her clitoris.  Oh how glad she was she’d strayed away from the vibrator; pressure stronger than her fingers would be painful.  It hurt now; an anxious drawing in that almost scared her into stopping.  It wasn’t pain, not really – more an overwhelming.  Side-to-side, front to back, circles, squares, hexagons: she got creative in her strokes, looking for what spoke to her.  Figure-eights, she decided, combined the best of all worlds, beaded her forehead with sweat and drew soft moans.  Sinking further into the water, she realized she could do this all day, a lovely lay in the bathtub, clever fingers learning and expanding on what she liked.  That cemented what she always suspected.  Her exes (only three, so few a number for someone in her thirties, one for each blighted decade, she smiled bitterly at the symmetry) were terrible lovers, with no concern for anyone other than themselves.  Still, like this she would not come.  Speed, it seemed, signified.  It was awkward at first, picking up the pace, too much like a race to the finish. What sex had always been.  The beauty was, by herself she could slow down again, retrace and relearn the steps before moving on to the next.  Figure-eights for slow, tight circles for fast.  Oh at last, the screaming creaming roaring excitement she’d heard about, everything taut in and winding out.  Fuck, there was blood on her lips where she bottled her shout, and stars behind her eyes from how forcefully she’d closed them, and rushing whooshing wheezing in her ears and lungs.  Fuck, the pattern disappeared, sheared to nothingness in her desperation; now it was frantic tugging and pulling, fingers slipping into her vagina and one low angry pulse sliding out from her insides onto the surface of things.  Her head hit the bathtub edge as she tumbled over the edge, shaking apart in all directions.  No wonder.  She’d blundered badly in believing that good girls don’t.  Pruned skin from sitting in rapidly cooling water was a small price to pay for the discovery.  This good girl would, every day if she could.  With that thought in place, smile on her face, she reached for the champagne, foregoing the glass for the bottle, and took a long, hard swallow.  She had a feeling this first orgasm would be a hard act for any man to follow.