AirBnBooty

“You’re breathing too much,” he says.

            “Excuse me?” I snort.

            “You’re creating too much wind.” My breathing is apparently having a dispersive impact on the smoke rings he’s working so hard to create from the massive vape parked between his lips.

            I laugh, joking that he’s already starting to get annoyed with me after less than 48 hours in my presence.

            “Today it’s my breathing, what’ll it be tomorrow?”

            “There is no tomorrow,” he says.

            That’s true. I’m leaving the following morning to fly to London, then back home to Los Angeles.

The previous night, my first in his Berlin apartment, my cute 27-year-old German-Argentinian host tells me he’s single because he gets bored of people easily. He’s making me dinner—spaghetti—something he says he’s never done for an Airbnb guest before. I speculate that this extra bit of hospitality is probably due to the fact that earlier that day, when I showed up at his apartment, I broke the ice by telling him I was going to the Berlin porn film festival, and from that small sliver of information, he gleaned that here was an American girl on vacation interested in porn and whom he could most likely have sex with if he put in a modicum of effort. He’s right. I would have sex with him even without the spaghetti.

            He holds out a chunk of pasta from the package and asks if I think that’s enough for the two of us. I advise him to put back about half of it because it will expand in the water and in my experience I always overestimate and make too much pasta. He follows my advice and after seven minutes, strains it into the sink. He holds up the strainer, exasperated.

            “This isn’t enough at all!” He exclaims. I laugh and apologize and tell him I'm used to cooking for one. “I’ll have to make more.” He seems more amused than annoyed. How annoyed can he be after all, he hasn’t even had sex with me yet.

            “Okay, I’m not obsessed with porn,” I qualify what I’m about to say as we eat our spaghetti. I tell him how I’ve been looking at the landing page of PornHub while in Berlin, curious about what kind of porn Germans are into and if it’s different from the porn that’s popular in America.

“There’s more fetish stuff here, particularly dominatrix stuff,” I tell him. Something called face sitting seems quite popular—an act of dominance in which a fully-clothed woman with a big ass sits on the face of a naked restrained man until he almost passes out, then she lets him breath for a couple seconds before sitting her fat ass back down on his face; in the one I watched all the way through to the end, the guy eventually didn’t wake up and the woman leaned over him and asked, “Are you dead?” Then she walked off camera and it faded to black. Is this a snuff film, I wondered? I tell my host about another one in which a dominatrix with a white-blond ponytail wearing a pink leather body suit ala Britney Spears in the “Oops... I Did it Again” video—except with a zipper on the crotch—barks in German at a fat groveling man who keeps repeating the same word over and over again.

            “What does ‘entschuldigung’ mean?” I ask my host.

            “I’m sorry,” he says.

            That makes sense.

            I ask him what kind of porn he's into and he tells me he likes that dominatrix stuff. I tell him that I often think if someone observed what porn videos I click on, they would be really surprised about the ones I choose to watch. It doesn’t even make sense to me, I say.

            “Like what?” he asks.

            I confess that the other night I watched a video in which a guy had sex with a sleeping girl, and got very turned on. I understand the inherent controversy of admitting this in the time of Cosby, Weinstein, Kavanaugh, et all, but I believe that fantasy and reality are and should remain separate. In the words of Cindy Gallop of Make Love Not Porn, "I'm pro-sex, pro-porn, and pro knowing the difference." I think that problems arise in a world where sex education has been replaced by porn, and too many people don't know the difference.

           “I wonder why we like that stuff,” he says, smiling.

            “It’s taboo.”

I had spent the day at the sauna, which in Germany means all nude and co-ed. I tell my host about how even here where people are much more relaxed about nudity and it’s not sexualized like in America, I was watching the men and could tell a lot of them were trying really hard not to stare at the breasts and vaginas of the women sitting around them. I found it funny and perversely titillating to realize that even these seemingly more evolved men struggled not to look.

            “Men are animals,” he says. He asks if I think women are as horny as men.

            “Yes, but I think it’s more circumstantial. And the stakes are higher for women. Biologically, men are designed to spread their seed far and wide, whereas women have to consider—even on an unconscious level—the possibility of getting pregnant and having this guy’s baby, so it’s less frivolous for us. We have to be more responsible.”

            He tells me that for him love and sex are separate. He explains it like this: “If I love you and I think you’re cute, I can’t be dirty with you.” Being dirty sounds like it’s important to him. I say I used to feel more like that but it has started to change for me lately.

I think about the last guy I fell in love with, the literal clown whom I met at a fringe festival. He was in an open relationship with his wife and eventually broke my heart. The clown had stared into my eyes when we made love and whispered “my Ava” and “beautiful Ava” and I came so hard I cried. I used to think “making love” was a stupid and embarrassing expression, but now it seemed I required it and could no longer come from the usual pounding.

            “What about when you have a strong connection with somebody, the sex can be intense,” I say. My host shrugs. Clearly "being dirty” and somewhat detached is more his speed, as I will come to find out later.

           

I can't have asked for a more perfect candidate to fuck the loving clown out of me. We get stoned and, as I make an O with my lips trying to blow smoke rings like he’s taught me, he leans over and kisses me. He is undeterred when I have to go remove the diva cup I preemptively inserted earlier that day thinking I was getting my period—I appreciate his lack of squeamishness over the potential for a little blood. And whereas some guys in the past—particularly casual fucks—have used my impending period to justify not going down on me, he seems quite content to bury his face down there—a quality I respect.

When we first start having sex, I try to maintain eye contact and pull him close, but his eyes glaze over or refuse to meet mine as he stares down at my flapping tits or watches himself thrusting in and out of me. Despite my asking him to slow down, he pounds harder and faster and, as he does, I slip further and further away from any chance of orgasm. Eventually I give up trying to connect with him and instead shut my eyes tight and default to the fantasy I’ve come to depend on in times like these—the secretary bent over her boss’s desk organizing his papers when he comes upon her with a hard on. But even this old standard proves fruitless. Apparently the clown has ruined me not only for porny sex but also for my tried and true, orgasm-guaranteed fantasy. Will I forevermore require deep eye contact and tender proclamations during sex in order to come?

            Just as a few nights ago I experienced the rude awakening that I am now suddenly too old to sleep in an eight-bed, dorm-style hostel room amongst a bunch of drunken 20-somethings singing Backstreet Boys karaoke, I now feel too old for this particular brand of fucking. It seems like just yesterday I was sucking dick in a dive bar bathroom and feeling really good about my life choices. Now here I am wanting my two-night stand Airbnb host to make sweet love to me and tell me I’m beautiful. What the fuck happened to me? When did I get so old?!

After moving me around into several different pretzel-like positions—legs on shoulders, hip twisted to the side, knees out like a frog as he fucks my feet (new one for me!), he asks where I want him to come. Ah, my favorite question.

            “My tits?” I try. He looks nonplussed.

            “My ass?” I try again.

            “Your face!” He beams, eyes shining. He looks so fucking excited I burst out laughing.

            “No one wants you to come on their face,” I assure him. This comes as a surprise to the porny fucker.

When he eventually does come on my tits, he tells me he’s never done that before. Really? This amazes me. I wonder if I have somehow inspired the porniness of this guy’s fucking. Is he normally a tender lover but because this eager American introduced him to the porn festival and admitted to watching a sleeping girl get screwed, he thinks this must be the one to try out the moves he’s been practicing only in his imagination--the porny moves no self-respecting woman before me has allowed him to try? Not for the first time in my life, I wonder if my being a sexual woman who is honest about her proclivities inspires men to disrespect me. Not that I necessarily find being ejaculated on disrespectful, but the ease with which some men assume this is something I want always surprises me. And I find it often comes coupled with a seeming disregard for my pleasure, at least when it comes to orgasm.

Both times we have sex that first night, when I pull him close and ask him to slow down, he resists, instead opting to spread my legs wider or put them over his shoulders or actually speed up his pounding to a frequency of motion that will never in a million years make me come. The second time we have sex, when he declares, “I’m going to come,” I say, “not yet.” And still, he comes. So, despite all the finger banging and his face buried in my ass for five minutes and him poking around my vagina as though giving me a gyno exam—something that actually makes me laugh out loud and inquire, “what are you doing back there?!”—I do not come. Which leads me to the inevitable conclusion that all this seeming attention he pays to my pussy is really more for his own pleasure than it is for mine.

The second night, we have sex one more time, and I do come. I tell him to put a condom on and I go to the bathroom to remove my diva cup, which is now full of blood. I return and tell him to get on top of me. I slow him down for long enough that I am able to eek out a modest orgasm. Afterwards, I get in my PJs and almost fall asleep next to him.

            “This is dangerous,” I say. I have a flight to catch at 7:30AM and have to be up in four hours.

            “You could set an alarm in here,” he says, but I opt to go back to my own room where I am guaranteed at least a few hours sleep. I guess in some small way I’m learning to take care of my own needs—a benefit of turning thirty, I suppose. I kiss him goodbye.

Predictably, the following day on my flight back to London, I replay our time together. His amused annoyance with my breathing, me pretending to hold my breath, joking that “I want to make this work,” spoken in a ditsy American accent. Our stoned laughter. My excitement when I finally successfully blow a single smoke ring and he isn’t even paying attention. His tight body and the tattoos on his shoulder and thigh and the one of a tadpole on his ring finger. The view of his tight ass as he stands naked with his legs crossed, hovering over his computer. His James Dean-like pompadour of sandy blond hair. His nose ring. The cute way he pronounces “cheese” in his Argentinian accent. “Chiz.” The fact that he is a Sagittarius, like me, and how the only other Sag I’ve been with is Gaffer Guy—clearly not a good match for me.

            I should be used to this post-coital nostalgia fest by now, but somehow it always catches me off guard. Why is it that no matter how mediocre the sex is or how clearly incompatible I am with someone, if I fuck them, I will inevitably spiral into this wistful replaying of our time together? Is this what I meant when I said women are just as horny as men but we have to be more responsible, have more self-control? It's not only because we might end up pregnant with his child, but maybe more so because our feelings betray us. At least mine do. It's become blatantly apparent that if I have sex with someone—even if I don't like them all that much—I will inevitably fall a little bit in love. It feels inexorable, outside of my control. In fact it feels like a biological holdover from a time before birth control, before the possibility of abortion. Because even if I know in my head that in the unlikely event that I did get pregnant, I would certainly get an abortion—at least while I still can!—my body tells me a different story, an ancient story, one that is unfortunately quite compelling.

Dating Myself

I've decided to start dating myself. I came to this conclusion on Saturday mid-morning after dragging my tired ass out of bed to take a walk in my neighborhood. I ended up outside a house that used to belong to Anais Nin, the renowned French writer of erotica. I couldn't see much of the house, but it was comforting to know she had once lived in my hood. I kept walking, working up a sweat on the steep hills. I started to feel better.

The night before, I'd felt like I was coming down with this mysterious multi-week cold/flu that all my friends seem to be getting. I huddled in bed with my iPad binge-watching Jessica Jones on Netflix when the front doorbell rang. I wasn't expecting anyone, and I couldn’t hear either of my roommates making noises about answering it. In my PJs and not in the mood for company at 9pm on a Friday night, I texted them. "Expecting someone?" One responded back right away that she wasn't home, the other didn't answer. The doorbell rang again and now someone was fumbling with the handle. My heart started beating fast. I put my iPad aside and crept out of bed with my cell phone gripped in my hand. I padded into the living room and could hear what sounded like a group of guys talking outside. I thought I saw one of them trying to peak into the window on the side of the house and then a dark shadow ran past the other window towards the backyard. I was shaking now, suddenly and viscerally scared out of my rational mind. I crept upstairs and shone my iPhone’s light towards my roommate's bedroom—the one I thought was home. The light was off, her door open. Not home. Now I was terrified. I crept towards the front door and instead of opening it, slid into the dark garage where I stood on a chair peering out the garage windows into the street. My roommate’s car was in the driveway and there was no sign of anyone outside. I couldn't hear voices anymore. I stood on that chair and shook for a good five minutes, my phone clutched to my chest. I imagined this group of guys casing the house, surrounding it, deciding the best way to break in.

I gingerly stepped off the chair and pressed my ear to the door in the pitch-black garage, listening hard for the sound of breaking glass or jimmying locks. My phone was now sweaty in my palm. Should I call someone? The police? And say what, “someone rang my doorbell”?? Why the fuck was I so scared? It suddenly occurred to me that I didn't know any of my neighbors and that I didn't have anyone to call at a time like this. No nearby friend who would drop everything to come be with me until I calmed down. This made me feel sorry for myself and I almost texted the guy I’d gone on three dates with to see if he was back in town, to let him know I was a damsel in distress and needed his manliness to protect me from whatever perceived danger I was apparently in. Men love that shit! I imagined winning him back with the scenario of the helpless female. Then I imagined the opposite, him feeling put-upon and thinking doesn’t she have anyone else to call? I decided instead to wait it out. I stood in the dark as my breathing gradually returned to normal and I felt the fear slowly dissipate. I decided I was safe and had invented the sense of danger. I returned to my room and finished the episode of Jessica Jones I had been watching (probably the reason I was scared in the first place—the show is terrifying).

The next morning, I had trouble getting out of bed. I watched more Jessica Jones and finished a bag of potato chips before 11am. I started having a general sense of FOMO, so I decided I should probably leave the house. At least take a walk. Exercise usually helps the feeling of ennui that often settles over me these (unemployed) days. Maybe it was Anais Nin's house or maybe it was the fresh air and endorphins, but I began to feel better and I made a sudden, inspired decision to start dating myself. That's right, ladies and gentleman, I decided to stop waiting for that mysterious man to come along and take me on cool dates, and instead to take my own damn self out on some cool dates. If I were dating me, where would I take me? I decided first I would take myself to see City of Gold, the new documentary about LA Times food critic Jonathan Gold. I know my fondness for food and how much I love Jonathan Gold, so I knew this date was sure to please me. Who knew, afterwards if things were going well and I still seemed interested, perhaps I could take myself to one of the restaurants featured in the film? That would be the perfect date for me! I felt better already. Why hadn't I thought of this before? Fuck these men. Who needs em? I'm an only child, I know how to play by myself.

City of Gold was wonderful, a love letter to Los Angeles with its vast mosaic of various cultures and cuisines. I decided Jonathan Gold is my personal hero, for he found the one activity he enjoys above all else—eating all the foods—and made a career out of it. Jonathan Gold eats everything. He picks restaurants the way I like to pick restaurants—democratically. He loves equally the highest-end fine dining meal at Providence (LA Times #1 Best Restaurant in Los Angeles three years in a row) as he does the street tacos from the Guerilla Tacos truck. Jonathan Gold is living the dream. He gets paid to eat and write about it! Sitting in the back of the movie theatre on a Saturday afternoon, watching this film—that was a really lovely date with myself. Afterwards, I thought about going to Jonathan’s favorite Thai place, Jitlada, which was not too far from the theatre, but I was due to meet Best Guy Friend and his girlfriend for dinner and another movie, Zootopia. I’m not in the habit of crashing Best Guy Friend’s dates with his girlfriend, but seeing as I’m now dating myself, this was actually more like a double date. And Zootopia, while not a movie I would have gone to see without them, I found absolutely delightful. I was so enthralled that I leaned over to Best Guy Friend in the middle of it and exclaimed in his ear: “This is a feminist parable!” To which he laughed at me.

The next day, Sunday, I went on a three-hour hike with my friend Paula in Topanga Canyon. As we often do on our hikes, we got to talking about the feminist injustices in the film industry and how we sought to remedy them, and soon we were huffing and puffing up the steep hills, red in the face with both exertion and conviction. After we had worked up an appetite with the exercising of both our calves and jaw muscles, we went to Milo and Olive for brunch.

“I’ve decided to date myself,” I declared happily, sweaty and red-faced.

“I think that’s great,” beamed Paula. Paula would also like to meet a man. She is a hot and sexy woman in her 40s who is incredibly talented, fun, smart, and amusing; she has a gorgeous house and an amazing ass. The fact that Paula can’t seem to find someone to date I find equally hard to believe as the fact that I can’t find someone to date. By all accounts, and I say this with the utmost humbleness and objectivity, we are both catches.

I think about the guy I went on three dates with several weeks ago. The last time I saw him he said, “I really like you and want to get to know you.” Then he cancelled our next two dates (because he was understandably very busy) and left town for two weeks without trying to see me before he went. I asked if he was doing the fade away to which he LOL-ed and replied, “No! But to be clear as day, I’m seeking a slow burn. I’m not rushing into anything. But I’m enjoying our time together.” To me it didn’t feel like what we had going was a slow burn. It felt like what so many of these flings feel like: hot and heavy in the beginning and then the flame gradually goes out. I had texted with him on and off since he’d been gone, but now I hadn’t heard from him for a whole week, and I feel like if you really like someone and want to keep the burn going, you don’t just forget about them for a week. Especially since in the beginning his attention had felt constant and intense, texting me the day after our first date that he was “still smiling” and when we had a date coming up on Saturday, rhetorically exclaiming, “Is it Saturday yet?!” I missed those days, I missed the attention and the sense of consistency, the lack of games. Now I was feeling the age-old pressure to not seem too eager, to not text first for fear of seeming more interested than him. How did this happen, I wondered. I wasn’t even sure I was attracted to him in the beginning. I felt like he had worked really hard to fish me out of the ocean and then, once I was caught and in his hands, decided to throw me back. Had I no say in the matter?

It didn’t help that I hadn’t been able to talk to him in person since that third and final date. My ex-boyfriend encouraged me to be honest with him and express what I want, what I need—but how was I supposed to do that on text when I didn’t even know if he was back in town or not? I had preemptively invited Best Guy Friend to come to Dan Savage’s amateur porn festival Hump! with me in case this guy bailed, but it was depressing to think I had to prepare for that. Preparing for disappointment. Why can’t I date someone who is true to his word, who doesn’t feel like a slippery fish who could slink away at any moment? And furthermore, what had I said to turn him off? Sure, I had tested out some feminist rants about abortion rights on him, but he seemed to be able to handle this aspect of my personality—he even seemed charmed by it. Was I really so deluded and unable to read the situation that when I thought he was watching me fondly, he was actually thinking, get me the fuck away from this woman?

I didn’t think so. But I honestly didn’t know what had happened. And the not knowing was making me nuts. I didn’t understand a guy’s impulse to work so hard to woo a girl only to lose interest in her after three dates. Why would he have treated me like this could develop into something if he knew he didn’t really want it go anywhere, or he wasn’t sure? Why not play it a little cooler and not say things like, “I really like you” and “let’s sail to Hawaii”? Or was this all in my head? Would I receive a text from him any day now stating, “I’m back in town and I want to see you!” Somehow I doubted it. It felt like it was over. And I felt once again disappointed, and tired of feeling disappointed by men. Was this what he meant when he said sex was a contract and women got hurt—was he warning me that I might get hurt? Is that what had happened?

“I just don’t want to start over with someone new,” I told Paula. “This guy already knows everything about me.” She laughed, but it was true. I was tired of small talk, of the whole getting to know you rigmarole. We had cut through so much of that, and that’s what I ultimately liked most about him. We got to the real shit. By the third date, I felt he knew all my secrets—such as they are. Was that too soon? Did I say too much? Did I show too much of myself? Was I just really bad at dating? I guess this was possible; I didn’t have a lot of experience. Or rather, I had a lot of experience with first dates and sex, but not so much with second and third dates. Was it possible I had actually become something I had been called once by a man: undateable? And what did that even mean?

I brought in girlfriend reinforcement to analyze our text chain. I showed my friend Cheryl how we’d had a flurry of flirtatious banter back and forth on Monday, and then I hadn’t heard from him for a week. On Sunday night, I was watching a great documentary called The Mask You Live In about the culture of masculinity boys are raised with in this country, and I thought it might interest him based on some of the conversations we’d had. I texted him the recommendation and didn’t hear back. Now it was Monday night and we still had plans to see the amateur porn fest on Saturday.

Cheryl expressed feeling lucky that she never had to date in the age of texting. She’s been with her boyfriend since back when people used cell phones to call each other, when people used to communicate, and if you stopped liking someone you couldn't just ignore their texts. I could tell by her text suggestions that she had never done this before, never played these games, and that she’d been in a LTR for a very long time. She encouraged me to ask him if he was still coming with me on Saturday night, seeing as we were now within a week of the date. I texted him and he responded: “Fuck I’ll be in New York! For work.” Although I knew in my gut that this was coming, it still blew my mind. I invited him to this event, he said unequivocally yes, I asked him when he wanted to go, he picked the date, then he not only made other plans, but also neglected to tell me about them? Would he have ever told me? I flashed back on something I had said on our second date.

“We shouldn’t make too many plans.” I said this out loud, as though channeling, as though warning myself from the future. I didn’t know at the time where this piece of advice was coming from, but clearly I’m more intuitive than I’ve been paying attention to.

Inexplicably, I found myself relieved by the confirmation that he wasn’t coming. At least I wasn’t waiting anymore. I had my answer. That was it. The end of the road. I thought about what to write back, I consulted my girlfriends. A sampling of my favorite suggestions:

“Third time. Not so charming.”

“Put a fork in you. You’re done.”

“You owe me $25.”

I decided to give it a beat. I didn’t want to respond in the moment from a reactive place. I wanted to be honest. But I also didn’t feel like writing him a novel via text with all my thoughts and feelings, about how I felt disrespected by his lack of consideration for my time, for my schedule. I also didn’t feel like calling. Somehow his lack of remorse made me feel like he really didn’t care to hear from me, and this made the thought of calling him absolutely sickening. Part of me wanted to never write back and to never talk to him again, but as we all know, I’m bad at letting things lie. I got into bed and tossed around. I couldn’t get comfortable. I wanted to express myself, but I didn’t know how. I opened my phone and deleted our text chain. Then I considered blocking his number, so I wouldn’t know if he ever wrote me again and therefore wouldn’t feel compelled to respond. Instead, I deleted his number. I lay back down. Still couldn’t sleep. I sat up in bed. Searched his name, he came right up—of course, the iCloud makes deleting numbers absolutely impossible. I wanted to keep it simple and sweet. Express myself eloquently and succinctly. Really get the point across but in a relaxed way that read: I will be over you in five minutes. “Wow. That’s disappointing,” was what I came up with. I felt okay about it. I haven’t heard from him since.

Sex Club

"Do you know what kind of place this is?" The pretty young woman at the front desk asks us as we check in and pay the $30 "couples" membership fee.

"Yes," Best Guy Friend and I reply in unison.

Ron Jeremy is apparently an investor in the club, and therefore his name is used to promote the place: “Ron Jeremy’s Club Sesso Swingers Club.” I have to say my only hesitation in visiting Club Sesso is the Ron Jeremy affiliation. His association evokes a certain level of sleaze and creep-factor that, upon entering, I realize is not the vibe whatsoever. While doing my extensive Yelp research to find the best sex club in Portland, I discover that Club Sesso has 5 Stars and all the reviews are positive and enthusiastically written by women and men in relationships. There is a wholesome vibe to the reviews that initially attracts me, a sense that this is simply a sex-positive environment where like-minded people gather to have fun. The reviews are spot on.

First of all, when we first walk in, we are greeted by a friendly, tatted young woman who politely checks us in. Then Eileen, the “Madame” of the establishment, a petite 70-something woman with cropped blond-grey hair and a youthful spirit, materializes to give us the grand tour. She also asks if we know what kind of place this is. We smile and nod. She leads us into the small bar where several couples sip drinks and furtively glance around to see who has just walked in. There is porn playing on a small TV near the ceiling. The empty dance floor has two cages with poles inside and some multi-colored directional lighting. As new members on our very first visit to the club, our first drink is on the house. I order a Campari and soda. Best Guy Friend asks what they have on tap. I glance up at the balcony above us where one couple and several single guys stand separately peering down, assessing the fresh meat. I try not to hold eye contact with anyone for too long, but enjoy the intensity of their gazes. The sense that everyone is openly here for the same reason cuts through some of the usual bullshit of going to a bar to find someone to hook up with. 

I think there are a surprising number of people here for a Wednesday night, even one guy I find pretty hot who keeps making eyes at me as he passes with his girlfriend. I hold his gaze for a beat longer than usual. Eileen assures me that “this is nothing” and says we should plan to come back the following night for Gang Bang Night or Friday for Wet T-Shirt Night.

“School Girl Night is really fun,” she says. “All the girls dress like school girls and the men dress up like professors. It’s very sexy.”

She indicates the empty dance floor.

“On Wet T-Shirt Night, all the girls get in the cages. They love it.”

She informs us that her husband, who owns the club with her, has Parkinson’s so he doesn’t make it down so much any more.

“But when he does, I get up on that pole and I fuck his face,” she shares nonchalantly. I want to be this woman when I grow up. I feel immediately fond of her, not in small part because she reminds me of my ex-boyfriend’s mother, someone who has always been one of my grown-up heroes.

Eileen shows us the “complimentary dinner buffet”, reminiscent of a janky school cafeteria and I congratulate myself for ordering us a couple apps at the bar where we pre-gamed before coming to da club. She then leads us upstairs where there is porn playing on a bigger screen behind a bar with a mattress on the floor instead of a bartender. This is the first "play area." All the other play areas are small separate rooms equipped with a large mattress, several towels, and condoms scattered on the bed like chocolates. One smaller darkly-lit room has a sex swing. There are doors for privacy and windows where voyeurs can peek inside if the couples inside are kind enough to open the blinds. No one is having sex as far as we can see, but it's only 10 p.m. We can hear some distant groaning coming from one of the private rooms, but the door and curtains are closed and uninviting.

Best Guy Friend, who has frequented sex clubs in Germany where he says the rooms are all open and people fuck anywhere and everywhere, asks Eileen about this.

“Are there any rooms where people can have sex out in the open in front of people?”

“The third floor room is all open, but it’s closed on Wednesday nights. On Gang Bang Night, people really go for it up there.”

“Do people ever have sex in the bar?”

“Oh no. But on Wet T-Shirt Night, someone might get a blow job or eaten out in one of the cages,” Eileen informs us. Apparently we’re here on the wrong night.

Eileen tells us that it’s very important to stay active at her age, and says she pole dances regularly to stay fit. She shows us her muscular thighs and encourages us to feel how strong they are. We do. She talks joyfully about sex and pleasure, and about how the city is always trying to find excuses to shut down the club.

“Really, even in Portland?” I ask.

“People hate sex in this country,” says Eileen matter-of-factly.

Best Guy Friend, being German, doesn’t understand this mentality.

“America was founded by Puritans,” I inform him.

As a fairly attractive “couple” in the club, we attract a good amount of attention, and soon a pretty and flirtatious African American woman is hovering close and smiling at me. I tell her that Best Guy Friend and I are platonic friends, and she tells me, “I want to have what you guys have with my boyfriend.” This confuses me, seeing as Best Guy Friend and I don’t have sex. It makes more sense when I realize she has clearly dragged her boyfriend to the club, probably because she wants to hook up with a girl, and he’s not really into the experience. She points him out talking to another guy that I guess is trying to pick them up. She repeats several times, meaningfully, “I would rather hook up with you than that guy, I’m actually pretty into girls.” I play a little dumb because I don’t want to get sucked into whatever weird energy is going on between her and her boyfriend.

The hot guy and his girlfriend are still meandering around, him catching my eye every time he passes. I point them out to Best Guy Friend.

“Maybe we can swing with them,” I suggest.

“She’s not interested in me,” he says. She doesn’t seem very interested in the club in general and isn’t checking anyone out, or even really looking around at all. I wonder if there’s ever a case when one partner isn’t dragging the other one into this experience.

A young heavy-set girl with a long-standing membership to the club takes it upon herself to be our hostess for the evening. She also up-sells the Wet T-Shirt Night and encourages me to partake because: “you have great tits.” Still, no one is having sex publicly, which is slightly disappointing for a sex club. I’m struck by the fact that it’s probably much smarter to bring someone you're actually fucking rather than your platonic best friend (duh) and marvel at how even the couples who would choose to come to a sex club on a Wednesday night are still shy about doing it in front of people. I think about how my ex-boyfriend and I would have cleaned up in our heyday.

An attractive, wiry Israeli Dude introduces himself. He is from Tel Aviv and works in New York and is in Portland for business. He invites me and Best Guy Friend outside to smoke weed out of his Audi. As we stand there smoking, I complain that no one’s having sex and he says meaningfully, “If you want something to happen, you have to make it happen.” Best Guy Friend raises his eyebrows at me: a challenge.

When we return from outside, everyone’s spirits have lifted somewhat because “a girl is being tied up upstairs.” Our hostess leads us up the stairs to where a big-breasted woman is standing on the mattress behind the bar, her arms over her head, tied up and blindfolded. A large man with rainbow-colored hair is smacking her ample ass. She writhes with pleasure and anticipation as he teases her, methodically perusing a selection of tools he might use on her.

“This is called a scene,” explains our hostess. “When you’re tied up and blindfolded, your senses are heightened and you have no control, leading to a feeling of euphoria.”

“You’re the hostess with the mostess,” I say stupidly. Best Guy Friend laughs and rolls his eyes. The large man lubes up a dildo and starts fucking the woman with it, and I find myself giggling like an embarrassed school girl as I watch this very private moment made public. Soon the woman is untied and the scene is apparently over.

Club Sesso allows single guys in (most swingers clubs don’t), so there are a lot of random dudes slinking around in the shadows, watching and waiting. There is a sense that everyone is waiting for something to happen, and I get impatient with this. Flirtatious woman is still hovering nearby, so I try to encourage her and her reluctant boyfriend to grab a room and have sex so we can watch. I also attempt to volunteer our hostess. She says she’s more of a “watcher.”  Israeli Dude keeps repeating in my ear, “If you want something to happen, you have to make it happen.”

Finally, the hot guy and his girlfriend start getting it on in the corner of the upstairs room. Literally everyone in the club (mostly dudes) gathers around to watch. I feel almost uncomfortable watching them because everyone else is. My instinct is to give them their privacy.

“They want us to watch,” says Best Guy Friend, a sex club etiquette aficionado.

The hot guy puts down a towel on a couch in the corner of the hang out area and his girlfriend crawls on top of him and starts slowly moving up and down.

I suddenly realize that many couples must come here just to get turned on so they can then go off and fuck each other in private, rather than actually coming here to find someone new to have sex with. This idea bores me, and I decide to be part of the change.

Israeli Dude keeps casually suggesting, “we should just get a room.” I agree. We should. We start trying to negotiate which room, but I can feel every guy in the room watching me trying to pick a place to fuck, which makes me self-conscious.

“We should do the swing room,” Israeli Dude suggests.

“Okay,” I say. Go big or go home.

Flirtatious woman follows us, ingratiating herself. “Can I join?”

“Sure!” exclaims Israeli Dude. But I’m not sure I’m ready for my first public sex experience to also be my first threesome experience, and this girl’s cloying energy is kind of annoying me. She’s asked me about a hundred times what Campari is, and even after I’ve explained it to her and let her taste my drink and she’s made a disgusted face, she continues to ask: “But what is Campari?!”

“Maybe later?” I suggest.

“Okay,” she negotiates, “when you’re ready, give me a sign and I’ll knock on the door and you let me in.”

I vaguely agree to this plan and push her out the door. I open the curtains on both sides so people can watch. Immediately, a sea of male faces fill the two large windows. Best Guy Friend stands off to the side with an amused smile on his face.

We start to kiss and Israeli Dude tastes like beer and weed.

“You’re about to see a lot of tattoos,” he tells me.

He takes off my shirt and his own. We make out and try to negotiate how we’re going to have sex in this bed-less room we’ve chosen.

“Let’s get you in the swing,” he says.

Why the hell not? He puts my legs up in the straps and I’m amused by the fact that I’m now spread-eagle in front of a bunch of strange men. I can check that one off my Bucket List! He starts to eat me out, which probably looks sexier than it feels as I try to balance my ass on the straps so that I don’t unceremoniously fall out of this contraption. My skirt is still on and I try to free my legs so I can get it off. He tries to help.

“You need to take my legs out,” I inform him. I’m glad the guys watching can’t hear our negotiating from behind the glass. I imagine this is reminiscent of what it must feel like to shoot a porno. He frees me and I stand up. Skirt comes off. Now I’m standing in boots and a bra, and that’s it. I go down and start to suck on him.

Then, he gets me up against the wall and eats me out again, and he’s good at it and I much prefer this to the swing. I arch my back, aware of my audience. Best Guy Friend tells me later that at this point the guys outside were yelling for Israeli Dude to take off my bra, but we couldn’t hear them. Eventually, bra does come off and I bend over the straps so he can take me from behind. As he does this, I am facing the side window and can see many faces peering in at me. I avoid their gazes.

“What do you want me to do?” Israeli Dude keeps asking. At this point, I feel like I’m kind of done and ready to call it a night.

“I want you to come,” I say. He doesn’t.

I straighten up and we make out again. I lean into him, laughing.

“There are so many people watching us.”

He asks again what I want and I say, “I think I’m good actually.” There’s no way I’m going to come in this situation and I feel like I got what I came for.

We turn to our audience like, show’s over folks. I pull the curtains shut and start to get dressed but he won’t let me. He’s very hard and doesn’t want to stop. He starts kissing my neck and my breasts. I decide to finish him off, and I have to say the situation gets a whole lot sexier the second our audience is gone.

I hear banging on the door, which I know is flirtatious woman wanting to join in. I ignore the pounding, and he does too, or he doesn’t hear it because at some point he says, “I want that other girl to come in here and for both of you to suck me off.” Yeah, that’s not happening. Eventually I hear her being escorted away by a club employee as she pleads, “I was supposed to join them.”

I get dressed and head out. Flirtatious woman is nowhere to be found, and Best Guy Friend seems to think she and her boyfriend went off to have sex in a private room. I guess the affect of the club worked on them after all. The three of us leave the club and Israeli Dude offers us a ride back to my Airbnb. Best Guy Friend wants to walk and process the experience, so we say our goodbyes and head on our way. Best Guy Friend shares that it was interesting for him to see how I have sex. I’m pretty proud of myself that on my very first trip to a sex club, I found a stranger to fuck and did it in front of people. I find myself suddenly ravenous and so we do something I never do: stop at McDonald’s for a sirloin burger.