Feeld Notes is a column about a middle-aged woman who suddenly realizes she wants to have sex again—and the beguiling app she uses to do it.
For all my talk of various kinks and thwarted online assignations, I do have some good news: I’ve found a lover. An intermittent lover, yes, and sort of a shy one, but a lover nevertheless.
His name is Seth, and I met him after he liked my profile back in December. He’s 31 and works in a skateboard shop in the suburbs—a bit of a haul from me—but he’s got a dependable old Subaru and is willing to drive to my neck of the woods to have sex. And a lot of it.
Which isn’t to say that he just comes over and we fuck. Usually there’s some dinner beforehand, a bit of chatting—he’ll show me videos of his skateboarding tricks, which is cute—and we’ll catch up on what’s been going on in his life. We don’t talk much about mine, which is one of the issues I have with him, but I always ask him about his work, his new kitten, his family. (He grew up in the area, and his family is still nearby.) Then, when we run out of things to talk about, we give one another a certain look and head to my bedroom, which I’ve always prepared with low lighting and a candle or two. I do this to both create a mood and ensure that he can’t see the cellulite on my inner thighs, which I hate.
Seth is a great lover, because first and foremost, he’s a great kisser. (I believe that a person who knows how to kiss, using a variety of pressures, movements, and tilts of the head, is a person who is also very good in bed.) I love making out with him, which we usually do for five or 10 minutes on the bed before I ask him to stand up so I can undress and run my lips along his taut stomach. (He always gets this adorable look of what appears to be surprise and delight on his face, as if he’s shocked to find himself with his pants around his ankles and my mouth on his torso.)
Seth isn’t the most well-endowed of the men I’ve been with, but no matter: I’m not a size queen, and he knows what to do with what he has. And his excitement influences my own: During foreplay, the way he moves around and vocalizes turns me on even more. He gets so loud that I’m convinced my neighbors upstairs can hear what’s going on.
He’s even more exclamatory during actual sex. Our favorite, go-to position is doggy style (hence my anxiety about my thighs), and I love the way he moves and encourages me to move with him: slow sometimes, then with more vigor, then slow again. He knows that I like it when he pulls away from me as an attempt to tease me. It works like a charm.
Is this too much information? Probably, but what I’m trying to do is communicate the eroticism and attentiveness with which Seth makes love— although, of course, we’re not dating. There’s no romantic interest between the two of us, which we’ve been upfront about. But the sexual spark is real.
Here’s another thing about Seth: He can go three or four rounds without going soft. I don’t know if it’s his relative youth or just plain luck, but I marvel at his stamina and endurance. (Though the volume with which he yells during orgasm is really something. I’ve honestly never heard anything like it.) Sometimes we smoke a little pot in between sessions, which makes the sex even more intense, though it also leads Seth to hold forth for too long on subjects as disparate as vegan diets and his favorite cover bands. What can you do?
The only problem with Seth, as I can see it, is that we can’t have sex more often. Right now, it’s been happening once every two weeks—the long drive from out of town is tough on him—and maybe that’s OK. But getting a taste of semi-regular sex has stimulated my erotic impulses in ways I haven’t felt in years. In fact, the sex was so good last time that I thought of him, uncharacteristically, every day for a week afterward.
One thing I’ve learned about Feeld so far is that for every seven or 10 idiots or chickenshits I encounter, there’s one really good guy, the sort of guy who actually wants to make plans to see me in person to gauge our mutual interest, and, if things are feeling good and right, accompany me back home. (I never go to their apartments.)
Usually, these guys are younger than I am, and I’ve noticed something else about them, too: They don’t always seem to have a lot of … ambition. Seth included. I’ll admit that this is a little bit of a turn-off, or, at the very least, confusing. Seth is a smart guy, with an appetite for engaging with the world (podcasts, websites, film and television, books) that I’d think would inspire him to move beyond just working in a skate shop. But we are who we are, and it’s not like many millennials are content in their jobs.
Another thing about Seth, one that I really like: He seems incredibly self-aware and sensitive, perhaps paralyzingly so. When I first met him for a drink after we matched, he told me about the end of a previous relationship, a failure he was still really hurting about. I was impressed by his willingness to make himself vulnerable with me, especially when he wondered aloud whether women his age actually want to date nice guys like him. (He seemed convinced that they don’t. I told him that they do.)
It was a strange position to be in, on a first date with a man almost 20 years my junior, trying to assure him that, eventually, he’d find a woman worthy of his attentions and affections, someone he can marry and have kids with. (He’s made it clear he really wants these things.) I just wish someone had been around when I was his age to say the same sort of things to me. I guess in the interim, before he finally finds the woman of his dreams, we’ll just continue having multiple rounds of mind-blowing sex. There are worse things.
