It started this way

At some point this year I developed the nerve to think of myself as a sexual being. This meant that all my years of reading, thinking, dreaming about certain experiences as belonging to that part of the world that wasn't my life was over. In short, my propensity to live in my head and imagine experiences had to end. No one gets younger with the passing of time. And it remains to be seen whether my imagination will trump actual experience. So far, the experience wins.

I love a man who lives on the West Coast. He's known for almost a year that I've wanted to find out how anal sex feels, and he made it clear that as soon as I was ready to try, he was ready to help. Early this summer, I was ready to try. I went to him in June for one of our weekends.

He talks to me quietly while we fuck. I like that. He tells me what he's going to do to me, he asks me what I want, he tells me what he wants. Not constantly, but naturally, as part and parcel of whatever we're doing. He stays engaged. It's erotic beyond belief.

You should know . . . he has a gorgeous cock. Nicest one I've ever seen, no lie. About a year ago, before I had met him in person, we traded some pictures. He very sweetly took one of his dick, and I wasn't prepared for the attack of pure carnal lust it inspired in me. I'm not typically a cock worshipper, but his deserves hosannas and palm leaves. To each her or his own, but his cock is and always will be, I think, my ideal. Lucky me. And since I use an IUD and we're both clean, no condoms come between us.

I tend to visit him rather than the other way around. He lives alone on weeks that he doesn't have his kids, and I have a housemate. My ex-boyfriend, actually, which is . . . well, it's not a problem, but it doesn't exactly allow for full-throated sexual abandon, either. And I have a peculiar sickness -- I love traveling, I love airports, I love airplanes, for chrissake. So I fly into Oakland and he picks me up. Usually we go straight home and end up against the wall just inside the front door or on the carpet in the living room (scandalizing the kitten his children have recently brought to live at his house) before we manage to wrestle our way down the stairs and into the bedroom. This time, though, he takes my hand and we go to the bedroom, quiet and shy like teenage lovers. He leads me to the bed where I sit on the edge and undress hm while he stands before me. I can feel the heat rising off his skin.

He's hard, and already wet. I pull him toward me and nestle his cock between my breasts. I put my arms around him and embrace him fiercely. He pushes me back and we lie down together, and then he's pulling off my jeans. He puts his mouth over my mons, my panties still on, and I stroke his head. He bites me gently through the cloth. "You're wet," he says.

"Since I got off the plane," I say, and pull him up.

Now, we didn't get to my ass the first go-round, or even the second or third. So should I cut to the chase?

We had showered and dressed and gone out to dinner, and now we were back. He had promised me a massage, so I cash in my chit.

He sits astride me and I purr under the pressure of his hands. I can feel him against me . . . his balls brushing against my back as he raises himself and leans in to work on my shoulders. He scoots back and I feel his cock lying against my sacrum. I picture it between my cheeks and wriggle beneath him. He's getting hard . . . I can feel it. I arch my back and rock subtly.

Suddenly he has gripped me by the hips and pulled me into a kneeling position in front of him. He's rubbing the head of his cock against my cunt, but I'm so wet I can barely feel it. "Wait, what about my back rub?" I mock-protest.

"Shhhhh," he says, and suddenly pushes deep into my cunt.

"Oh God . . ." My hands are clutching the sheets, the pillow, whatever they can reach. He fucks me slowly and deliberately until I'm on the verge of orgasm, but when he feels me rock back more frantically, he pulls out and twists my hair in his hand.

"Tell me what you want . . . "

At the moment I just want him, inside me, on me, anywhere, and I'm not even thinking coherently enough to understand what he's asking. "I want -- you."

He pushes against me, his hand still in my hair. He kisses my back. "Where do you want me?"

Oh god, this is it. Am I ready? Will it hurt? Yes, probably, and "Fuck me, sweet boy, baby doll, fuck me in the ass," is tumbling out of my mouth.

He probes gently and I wait, wishing there was a mirror so I could see what was happening. I am intent on deciphering the feelings. He gets the head of his cock just inside my ass and I can feel it pressing against what seems to be a wall until it occurs to me to bear down, open and relax, and then he is past the ring with a delightful release, almost a pop, and holy fuck, this feels different . . .

There's a sudden wild notion that I have to go to the bathroom. I try to relax into the sensation, realizing that it's a reaction and not a reality. Slowly my body makes the transition along with my brain from confusion to pleasure and oh, is it good.

He holds still, and I can feel my ass contracting wildly around his cock. "Are you all right?" he rasps.

"Yes, yes, yes, it feels amazing, go on," I pant. "Do it, do it, do it --"

That's all he needs, and "Fuck," I whisper as he slides all the way in with a slow thrust -- it feels like segments, almost, as he slides past that tight ring, pop, pop, pop, pop. The feeling when he pulls out is disorienting, and then he pushes in again, and I hear myself crying out -- in pleasure, not pain. "That is good. So good." Then he is fucking me, not holding back but not out of control, and I am losing my mind with sensation.

"I can feel every fucking inch of you," I tell him.

"Does it feel good?"

"God yes. Does it feel good to you?"

"You have no idea," he says.

I'm amazed that there's no pain. None. He's afraid he'll hurt me if he lets loose, but I promise I'll tell him if he does. I want him to do whatever he wants. I want him to come fire. I reach between my legs and he says yes, come for me my own, and I do almost immediately. The contractions of my climax combine with the rhythm of his cock and I'm lost somewhere I've never been before. This is what losing my virginity in high school should have been like. This is what it feels like to be satiated.

I'm going to come, he breathes, and good, I say, good, and he asks are you sure, and I say yes, I want you to, and I can feel that, too. It burns a little around the ring of my ass when he pulls out, but that's the only moment of pain I experience the entire time.

"Do you mind if I--"

"Go ahead, sweetheart," he says, because he knows about my orgasms. He puts his hand gently over mine as I bring myself to a quick second orgasm, and pulls me into his chest while I shudder. Then, as I move straight to the third, he pulls my nipple into his mouth and sucks until I am back to earth again.

"I like number three best," he murmurs against my breast.

"I don't even know who I am right now," I sigh.

The kitten is sitting in the doorway watching us. I pat the bed and she pads over, hesitates, then turns tail and runs out of the bedroom. We burst into simultaneous laughter. We're giddy, elated, exhausted.

And we spend the next 48 hours, lather, rinse, repeat, unwilling to leave the bed except under duress ("I'm starving," "Take a bath with me," "I'm dying of thirst"). In between sleep and sex we watch a couple of episodes of Arrested Development because I love his laugh, and he asks me to sing Ellington and Strayhorn, Mercer and Carmichael, which I do until we both drift off.

I don't know why it didn't hurt, because later this summer (with someone else), it did. Which wasn't bad -- just different. Maybe it didn't hurt because I love him so damn much.