Girl on the Net

My favourite time to fuck is after I’ve emerged from the bath. I step out, dry off, cover my body in lotion or talc, and lie on the bed listening to the tail end of whichever podcast I put on to keep me company while I washed. When it’s nearly finished, I sext…

“My tummy’s so soft. Want to bury your face in it?”

The sheets feel cool and smooth against my skin. I smell fresh and clean and perfect.

But that’s not why I like this moment.

He loves the feeling of naked flesh – would have me naked all the time if temperature and comfort and nervousness and guests weren’t an issue. When offered, he’ll push his face into the soft flesh of my stomach and let out a sigh of ecstatic delight – the way he does with the first slice of pizza from the box.

But that’s not why I like it, either.

When I’m naked on the bed, before I invite him upstairs, I spit on my fingers and run them down the folds of my cunt. I imagine him running his tongue over the slit, and taking muffled breaths as he inhales the post-bath scent of me. And as I wet myself I think of the best way to invite him to join me:

“I’m slippery and I smell nice. Want to get naked and roll on the bed together?”

Conjuring the perfect sext with which to summon him exercises my imagination nicely. It arouses me by helping me picture what we’ll do when he arrives, and gives me practice in pressing his buttons – drawing on memories of what’s worked before, and which turn of phrase is most likely to make his dick twitch when he reads it.

But that’s not why I like it, either.

The reason I like the post-bath fuck is because there’s a split second between me sending the sext and hearing his footsteps on the stairs. A tiny slice of will-they/won’t-they in the otherwise predictable rhythm of our lives.

When I hit ‘send’ I’m all the clichés: my heart is in my mouth. My pulse quickens. My mind tells me not to get my hopes up, or let my happiness rest on the approval of a boy. I’m sixteen again, wishing I could slow-dance at the disco. Or twenty-one, crossing fingers that the guy at uni wants to snog. Twenty-six on a date with a man who might come home with me, but who hasn’t yet said ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

I lie on the bed: soft tummy, rapid pulse, crossed fingers and wet cunt, waiting to see if my guy will come and slow dance.

And if I really were sixteen, or twenty-one, I could easily lie in ear-splitting silence forever. I’d have to judge the point of no return – the moment when I should give up. Get dressed, shrug my shoulders, ignore the ache in my chest and pretend I don’t mind that he’s isn’t going to come.

But I’m not sixteen, or twenty-one: I’m me, right now.

Seconds after I hit send he clatters up the stairs. Giddily, excitedly: he runs. As if this doesn’t happen twice a week. As if it’s new.

As if he’s lucky.