Welcome back to our Anonymous Sex Diaries series where queer and trans people from around the world let us into a seven day snippet of their sex, love and dating lives.
Coming to terms with my own queerness has possibly been the greatest and worst-timed journey of my life. Despite having spent my entire adult life living in one of the most LGBTQ+ friendly cities in the United States, and hyper-fixating on gender studies in my undergrad years, I somehow made it to my early 30’s before realizing that I’m not, in fact, the only straight person in many of my friend groups. When I came out to my husband, he was astonished that someone with my “frightening level of insight” could have missed what was apparently obvious to him. Our decision to open our decade-long relationship for the first time was fairly straightforward and, both together and separately, we spent several glorious weeks navigating the dating world. This gave me just enough time to establish some exciting-but-tenuous relationships before some major life events required my husband and I to move to my childhood home, and in with my parents. While we’re still within an hour’s drive of our previous city, I now find myself living in a conservative community where almost everyone believes me to be one half of a monogamous, heterosexual couple.
Day 1
This morning I wake up with a slight headache. This has been my normal for the past few weeks, ever since taking up a holiday retail job where the air is chronically dry and water breaks are policed. On this particular morning, however, last night’s vodka sodas might be partially to blame. Fortunately, my husband saves me by bringing me coffee in bed. We talk about last night in hushed tones, given our bedroom’s paper-thin walls.
Yesterday we attended our first-ever shibari performance. The event’s location also gave us a perfect excuse to visit the other half of our quad. Rowan and Erica also had big plans that evening, so we had a no-sex pact to avoid derailing our evenings. Instead, they made us Pad Thai for dinner before we moved to the living room sofa in front of their fireplace. I cuddled on the couch under the blanket between Rowan and Erica as we chatted and dozed. Eventually, as if they planned it, Erica’s hand was up my shirt, while Rowan’s ended up down my underwear, circling but not quite touching my clit. As I squirmed, I reminded them both, as I often do in these situations, that they’re teases, but I had no interest in stopping. Opportunities for prolonged foreplay are rare in my current living situation, so I’m going to sit back and enjoy the ride when I can. Unfortunately for me, this ride ended almost as soon as it began, with Erica reminding us all that we were all almost late for our plans. Rowan was slightly less concerned with the time and pulled me in for a prolonged kiss before letting go. Fucking teases, indeed.
The line outside the performance venue was a far cry from Rowan and Erica’s cozy living room. It was one of the first truly cold days of the season and I wasn’t dressed for the weather, but thankfully my husband and I distracted ourselves with the people watching. We’re both fairly new to the kink scene and haven’t exactly experimented with how we present ourselves. We line up behind a couple wearing matching “Got Rope?” t-shirts and watch the attendees walk by. We see a tuxedo-clad dom with their sub wearing nothing but a rope harness under their long coat; a historically-accurate pirate; conservatively dressed couples who could just as easily have been attending a church function; lots of leather; and just about every variation of attire in between. I was wearing the same jeans and button-down flannel I had worn to work that day, and I made a mental note to find one or two more exciting outfits for future occasions.
Once inside the venue, my husband and I ordered vodka sodas and the bar and found seats on the floor near the stage, which just consisted of a 10-foot-ish high metal frame. Sometime after the scheduled performance start time, the performer and his assistants unceremoniously walked on stage and began tying red ropes to the frame. It took most of the audience a few minutes to realize that this was part of the performance. They climb up and down ladders and weave the ropes around each other for 10 minutes, then 20, then 30 as the shape of a spider’s web begins to form. After an hour, the performer climbs down this ladder for the final time, revealing his intricate rope sculpture that will undoubtedly support his model. He brought his model on stage, a shibari instructor who I have a parasocial crush on. The performer ties the model into an elaborate harness with at least 10 tie points. They perform a few suspensions, which I watched intently. As an amateur rope model, I rarely get to witness elaborate transitions from a third-person perspective. Their nonverbal communication was aspirational, and I wondered if I’ll ever get to a point where I’m both physically and emotionally capable of allowing someone to suspend me upside down by my ankles. After this, the model climbed a ladder into the web and, within a short period of time, she was tied into the center. The results were amazingly gorgeous. I found myself thinking that I should be more open about my interest in shibari, because I want to brag about this to all my friends.
As my husband and I lay in bed with our coffee the following morning, our conversation turns to our own experiences with shibari. Bondage has been part of our play for most of our relationship, but we’ve only started learning about shibari in recent years. I still don’t have much interest in being a rigger, but after a few workshops and watching yesterday’s performance, I’m developing a new appreciation for tying. Who knows, at this rate I might be a switch in another 10 years.
Day 2
Today my husband and I have our weekly couple’s therapy appointment, and I mostly want to take this opportunity to sing my therapist’s praises. We began seeing this therapist a few years ago in order to more successfully navigate some personal and career changes. Unbeknownst to us at the time, this particular therapist specializes in people who practice polyamory. When we initially floated the idea of opening our relationship in a telehealth session, I had never seen him look so thrilled. Within seconds, he was excitedly pulling books off shelves and recommending his favorite dating apps. After my first dates with a woman and my subsequent identity crisis, he walked me through exercises on how to best process my feelings and articulate them to my husband.
Today’s session is fairly uneventful and is mostly concerned with stress surrounding the upcoming holidays, but towards the end of the session, our therapist congratulates us, saying that we’ve had one of easiest transitions from monogamy that he’s seen. Next time, I feel that I should remind him that we had a literal expert to help us for this entire journey.
Day 3
Today is mostly spent navigating the corporate retail hellscape that is my current job. The last few holiday seasons have been particularly challenging for me, in no small part due to being surrounded by homophobic relatives while coming to terms with my own queerness. This year, these challenges are compounded by my current underemployment situation. In the past few weeks, my normally chill, albeit grossly underpaid, retail job has transformed into a nonstop gauntlet of angry customers and long hours. On days like this, it’s challenging enough to feel like a real person, let alone one who has the inclination to write in their daily sex diaries.
The bright spot in these long days is my new friendship with my coworker Sonia. She’s the first bi poly woman I’ve met outside of dating apps or through mutual friends. I’m not out to many people, but coming out to her felt so natural. Maybe this is because it’s easier for me to share with people who I haven’t known for a long time, or maybe it’s because she’s very open about her own dating and sex life. Either way, swapping stories about our dating lives has been cathartic for me. In our few minutes of covert stockroom gossip, she tells me about her ex who came out of the woodwork, wanting to get back together despite having an impending out-of-state move. There are very few openly queer women in our town, so I understand why she’s considering it.
Sonia asks me about my current relationships, although I tend not to share as much as she does. Recently Sonia has been telling me about how challenging it can be to date women in our town, so it doesn’t feel especially helpful to rhapsodize about all the wonderful sex I’ve been having with my beautiful and smart girlfriend. Maybe things will work out with her and her soon-to-be long distance ex, and I’ll feel more comfortable freely sharing these aspects of my life.
Day 4
My current living situation affords me far less privacy than I’ve ever had in my adult life. There are few spaces in my childhood home where one can have a private conversation, and at least one well-intentioned but overly curious family member always seems to be around to ask who you’re talking to on the phone, or who you’re going out with. And I’m not in a place where coming out to my family is a reasonable option. Fortunately, I have a husband who is more than happy to cover me during my prolonged phone conversations with other partners.
Today, we are sitting in my childhood room while my husband plays music and occasionally provides his own commentary in order to obfuscate my actual conversation. Meanwhile, Erica and I are chatting on the phone. We haven’t had a prolonged conversation since the weekend, and she’s requesting a full rundown of our shibari performance. She had been telling me for weeks to wear something sexy to the show and wholeheartedly supports my decision to find something more suitable for the next one.
Day 5
Today is a rare day off where my husband and I have a few hours to ourselves. We spend the whole morning lounging in bed, drinking coffee and sharing amusing TikToks-turned-Instagram reels like proper millennials. We don’t use these precious solo hours to have sex, but that’s not what I miss the most about living in our own space. What I do miss is these lazy mornings, unconcerned about filtering conversations or keeping up the appearance of being “productive.” I feel most myself with him.
That afternoon, we meet up with Erica for some supporting-small-business shopping. We stroll down a commercial strip near Erica’s neighborhood and I make some purchases for my upcoming fiber arts projects. I’m not much of a shopper, but it’s a beautiful day and we browse through a few quirky independent shops. Later, we meet Rowan at a nearby restaurant for takeout. The four of us bring the food back to Erica and Rowan’s place. We sit around their dining room table, gorging on shawarma, falafel, and lentil soup. None of us had explicitly voiced any intention of having a foursome tonight, but I’ve been getting my hopes up and now I’m wondering if we’re all going to go into a food coma instead.
Eventually, Rowan gets up to take a shower, and my husband moves to the living room to hyperfixate on one of his purchases from this afternoon. This leaves Erica and I in the dining room alone, her arms around my waist and her head resting against my shoulder. Suddenly, any thoughts of crashing are gone from my mind. She declares that I’m wearing too many clothes, grabs me by the hands, and leads me into her bedroom. I’m sitting on the edge of the bed while she stands between my legs, kissing her. Our shirts and bras are gone, and we laugh as we try to figure out, for at least the half-dozenth time, how to finish underdressing each other in a semi-sexy way; she’s in tights and I’m in skinny jeans. We fail, for at least the half-dozenth time, and once all of our clothes are off, we reconvene in bed to make out.
She spreads out on the bed and my face is between her legs. Even though this is far from our first time together, I still can’t believe how sexy she is. Honestly, I’m probably a bit overeager to impress her. I suck on her clit, the way I can’t quite master but know she likes. I hear footsteps coming towards the bedroom and my husband appears, fake-shocked, yelling “Are you two having SEX?” It never fails to make me laugh, but I soon return to going down on Erica, while he lays at her head, kissing her and running his fingers through her hair. Soon we’re joined by Rowan, who sits at Erica’s other side and whispers to her while grabbing her nipple. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but whatever it is makes her even wetter, as I slide a finger inside her. A vibrator materializes out of nowhere and someone hands it to me. I hold it to her clit for a few moments, but I sense that something I’m doing is not quite what she needs. I could ask, but Rowan looks eager to have a turn, and I’m equally eager to see what he does. Soon I’m the one at Erica’s head, as I watch her wrap her legs around Ronan’s head, with her hands shaking and grabbing mine as she comes. She opens her eyes, laughs, and asks, “What did I do to be the star of the show?”
I must have also done whatever she did to deserve it, because the next thing I know, the attention is on me. The next few minutes pass in a blur and all I could register is Rowan alternating between gently running his fingers through my hair and then suddenly slapping my nipples. I later learn that Erica’s mouth is on my clit while my husband fingers me, but all I feel in the present is absolute bliss. I come in a minute, which is probably a personal record.
The three of us take turns blowing my husband. Soon, my attention turns to Rowan and I lose track of what the other two are doing as he climbs on top of me. He has this quiet intensity to him, and it’s easy to shut everything else out while we’re having sex. He’s a true switch and today he seems to be leaning into a his dom streak, and he fucks me hard, just the way I like it. When he comes, he lies on top of me for a few minutes while I wrap my legs around him. By then, my husband and Erica have finished whatever it is they were up to and four of us lie in bed, chatting about bad movies and bizarre holiday traditions.
It’s late, and as much as I could lie there for hours, we all have early mornings tomorrow. We say our goodbyes, and my husband and I head back out into the December night.
Day 6
I’m a bit uneasy today. Tomorrow my friends are hosting a holiday party, and they’re pulling out all the stops with signature cocktails, elaborate decorations, and with much anticipation, a Christmas cookie competition. With the hosts’ blessing, I invited Erica and Rowan several weeks ago, but now I’m wondering if I am asking too much of them. The hosts are two married longtime friends of mine. To my knowledge, they are very monogamous and very heterosexual and do not have any inkling that I’m neither of these things. I’ve been waffling on whether or not to come out to them for months and, while they’ve met Erica and Rowan, I’m starting to feel a little bit weird bringing them around without being straightforward about our relationship. To make matters more uncomfortable, the hosts are dealing with the aftermath of a Very Bad Life Event from earlier this week and are very much not their usual selves. I’m wondering if I’m asking too much of Erica and Rowan to come at all. They’re both out to almost all of their friends and I’ve met many of them already. I’m just not sure that I’m ready to do the same.
I even ask Erica if she still feels comfortable going given the circumstance. She answers that they have already baked cookies and absolutely do not need them in their house. Fair enough. I can practically see her sardonic smile as I read. She then says that after this party we can have a party of our own. Even better.
Even though Erica and I have been together for several months, I’m not very confident in my sex-with-women skills. This is partially because most of our sexual encounters have been in threesomes or foursomes where there are more hands to assist, and partially because Erica and I need very different, almost opposite sensations to get off. I need penetration with very little clit stimulation, while she needs an amount of force that would honestly be painful for me, so I often feel myself holding back.
Later that evening, I share this with my husband, and he is more than happy to use our brief period of solo time to give me yet another cunnilingus “tutorial.” I lay in bed as he goes down on me, interrupted by his own commentary, “Use suction like this, but like, 50% harder,” and “move your fingers inside her like this, but only when she’s getting close.” Predictably, this “tutorial” leads to more sex. We break out our WeVibe for some missionary sex, and we come almost-simultaneously. We’ve learned to be efficient in this current season of having limited alone time.
Day 7
It turns out I was vastly overthinking this party, which won’t surprise anyone who knows me. Even so, the party itself was shockingly uneventful. The hosts were preoccupied with making sure everyone had a good time, and a lot of the attention was turned towards the unexpected arrival of a couple who were recently engaged and just moved back to town. I definitely didn’t mind this dearth of real or perceived scrutiny. After a socially acceptable amount of time, we make a discreet exit for our afterparty.
We’re back at Erica and Rowan’s place. Erica and I are alone on the living room’s pullout couch while Rowan and my husband are in the next room. They should be joining us at any moment and maybe we should wait for them, but she slides her hand up the back of my shirt and I instantly break out in goosebumps. Suddenly the shirt is gone and we’re both under the covers and Erica is going down on me. My husband and Rowan join us. Initially they settle in on either side of me to watch, and a few minutes later one of them squeezes my nipple, pulling hard and slightly twisting, just the way I like it. This sends me over the edge in seconds.
Eventually I find myself between Erica’s legs for the second time this week, and this time I’m determined to get out of my head. My mouth finds her clit and I spend several minutes building pressure with my tongue. I press much harder than I would have expected and she moans, grabbing my hair. For the first time, I feel like I understand how to use my tongue to find a slow, consistent and relaxed rhythm that she likes. Soon she tells me to slide my fingers inside. I do, terrified that my shifting will make me lose this rhythm, but it makes her cry out louder and she comes within minutes. I crawl on top, kissing her.
My husband and Rowan have been spectating up until this point and ready to join on the action. Riding the high of finally making Erica come (mostly) on my own, I find myself on top of Rowan, pinning his arms over his head. I’ve always considered myself to be a sub for as long as I’ve been familiar with the term, but sex with Roman makes me rethink this dynamic. He says something semi coherent about liking me in control, and in this moment I’m loving it. He finishes by grabbing my hips and pulling them close to him. Somehow I hadn’t noticed that my husband and Erica left the room to clean up and refill our water glasses. At this point, I realize that I’ve been awake for nearly 20 hours, and I’m grateful for our standing invitation to stay the night. Erica and my husband return, and the four of us squeeze onto the pullout couch together. Normally I’m the first to get claustrophobic and split off into a separate bedroom, but tonight I fall asleep instantly.
This was sexy, I loved reading it