Coming Back – How I learned that sex can make you happy [MF]

Ready for the psychological clusterfuck that is my story? Strap in. It’s a rough ride, but it turns out better than I’d hoped.

This is going to read a little differently than everyone else’s stories; no “skip to the steamy bits” or porn-grade displays of wild abandon. I’m no sex god. I’m just a normal, overly-trusting guy who’s gone through some stuff. While the bad parts lasted longer than half of you readers have been alive, coming out the other end I finally learned that sex can be something that makes you feel happy. This is that story. All personally-identifying details are changed. The story though is very, very real.

Until this point, I had never, even once, been in a healthy romantic relationship. In my family growing up, if you were kind and accommodating then everything always worked out. It always worked. Always. As an adult, I naively assumed that my love life would work the same way, making me a target for girls who take advantage of boys. I tried to resolve conflict by being a better boyfriend, and later, by being a better husband. I fixed things by fixing myself, by admitting that I was the problem, accepting responsibility for everything that was wrong, and changing myself — my behavior, my thoughts, my desires, everything — in response to my girlfriends’ (and then wife’s) concerns. So I never understood that my marriage was full of abuse. For 20 years I had no idea. I confidently believed that the problem was me. I was so certain.

When I discovered the affair, she agreed to counseling, but only if I also found a personal therapist to fix myself, which she explained was “the real problem.” Turns out she was kinda right, just in exactly the wrong way. Therapy helped me accept myself and set healthy boundaries, which helped me immensely but left her with no reason to stay. And despite how hard I tried to save the marriage, I have to admit that the divorce literally saved my life.

Narcissists don’t really DO vulnerability, and my lovely wife was no exception. She enjoyed sex; she loved to feel adored and wanted and needed, but she wasn’t OK with “putting herself out there.” She kept most of her clothes on during sex because she didn’t like to be seen naked unless she was showing off for the praise of an audience. And she wouldn’t let herself cum while I was around. She instead always made me leave the room first and let her finish alone. I made her feel self-conscious, she said, which made it not work for her. Well, who was I to judge? Sex is about being comfortable after all, “you do you,” and all that. I was understanding and ready to accommodate. But I was also sad that I couldn’t do anything for her.

Our sex was pretty goddamn bland. No oral (“not if you want to kiss me with that mouth”) no fingering (“uh, you’re using the wrong body part, there”), never from behind (“I am NOT your dog”) and cum was never allowed either on or inside her (“you need to deal with your OWN mess”). Nothing adventurous. She liked to be on her back and wanted me to fuck her hard enough to dislodge her dental fillings. And that was all. She was super hot and super confident; the sexiest thing you’d ever fuck in a sweater and long socks. She’d scream and moan and squirm, she loved every second. But I couldn’t keep it up for long, not with that intensity, and I wasn’t allowed to slow down (“you might as well just leave”). I’d rarely last more than a couple of minutes. She didn’t want me back inside her after I came, I just got that one shot. So when I came, I’d apologize. Every time. My body had failed, again, just when I was finally starting to be something useful, to do something for her that she enjoyed. It was the one time she liked what I was doing, the one purpose I could hope to serve, and I always failed. She seemed to enjoy that fact; she was more than I could handle. It proved, in a backwards way, that she was better than me, which was kind of the whole point of having sex with me at all.

After a few years of this, I avoided sex as much as I could. For nearly my entire adult life I hated it. There were psychological parts actually far worse than what I’ve described here, and maybe I’ll give more detail later. The point is, sex always made me feel awful. Broken. Depressed. Worthless. Sick. And if I never did it again in my life I’d have counted myself lucky. I’m not exaggerating on this, I was done with sex forever. Forever.

But therapy gave me a glimmer of hope. It showed me that what I was dealing with wasn’t normal. I worked with a lot of amazing professionals, and I healed from so much damage. Everything else but this. Sex, it turns out, is complicated, and there’s no fixing it alone. But I vaguely hoped my new post-divorce start would let me join the real world, that I might have a real relationship and a real sex life. Perhaps someone, and dear God please let her be someone patient and understanding, would show me what I was missing.

I met Ana on a dating app. Our situations were similar in that neither of us was ready for another long-term relationship just yet, but neither of us wanted to stay isolated either. She’s about 5 years younger than me, but at 40 who’s counting? How would I describe her? Definitely beautiful, but given my situation with my ex, that wasn’t something that got me so excited anymore. No, what stood out for me wasn’t just that she was hot, it’s that she was warm. Like a soft blanket and a warm fire while a blizzard rages outside. The kind of warmth that makes you comfortable and lets you know you’re safe.

She’s from Finland and looks the part: silky soft sun-bleached hair, blue-gray eyes like storm-filled skies, and a calm, contented smile that makes you forget what you were about to say. She moved to the US to finish her PhD in chemistry. And now she has a daughter who only speaks English and an ex who makes mine look like a goddamn saint.

We hit it off like old friends. Drinks at the brewery turned into drinks on the couch. Commiserating about the frustrations of trying to co-parent with a legitimately crazy person, how we had never even dreamed that life could become such a shit-show, how sex had turned into a hated chore, and how we each remembered it being better a long time ago, believing perhaps that it could still be better than it had become.

It wasn’t the first date, or second or third or fourth; it’s not that kind of story. And I later learned that she wanted to prove to herself that she wasn’t as shallow as her ex. But talking led to kissing led to grinding and whimpered moans. And one afternoon before the wine was gone, I was laying on the couch with my dick in her mouth, and she had the happiest, most self-satisfied grin I’d ever seen. Eyes smiling with sapphire glee. She was having absolutely the time of her life.

The last time I’d had a halfway decent blowjob I was 18. I’d forgotten that it could actually be good; she swirled her tongue, sucked lightly on the tip, licked and kissed, and played with me like I was her new favorite toy. I moaned, I squirmed, my toes curled, my body tingled, I’d remembered these feelings from long ago, and the memory reminded me of something I used to love to do. And I wanted to try it now. I didn’t let Ana finish me.

Laughing like a dumb teenager, I got up, flipped her onto her back, slid off her pants, and pulled her panties down. That taste. Two decades since I’d tasted it last. Sweet but not like sugar; more sharp and refreshing. Deep, repressed memories flooded back to me, one after another, reminding me that this was real. This was possible. This was human. The taste reminded me of my first girlfriend on a cool afternoon by the pool. The smell brought back the intoxicating sweat of someone whose name I never knew one hot summer night on a park bench after school. The texture on my tongue brought back a snowy winter night in a car outside my college dorm. This was real, all of it real. This experience was definitely new and unique, all new, but a new that was colored with memories that I had long ago convinced myself were too good to have ever been true, too good to have ever actually happened. It was wet and tangy and sweet and sweaty. It was trust and vulnerability. It tasted like the need for more.

I had forgotten what it was like to adjust to the shape of someone new; the excitement of finding out what makes someone squeal. At first I licked and sucked and drank, reveling in the sheer joy of familiar discovery. Then as I adjusted to her shape, I rediscovered a few key landmarks on this new and beautiful body, and I began to lick and suck her clit, almost buzzing with anticipation of the effect it might have.

It worked. She gasped, her breath catching like she’d jumped into a lake. Slowly she melted back into the cushions, humming softly and moaning gently with each slow breath, like a purring kitten. Slowly the intensity increased. She grabbed my head and pulled me in tighter, rocking her hips to grind her clit against my tongue. Quick, shallow, irregular breaths. Her tummy spasmed at intervals. Then she pulled me tighter still, lifting her butt off the couch to press my mouth harder against her clit and forced my tongue deeper inside her. She held me in place and whispered: “ooooohhhh… fuck… fuuuck… me..” Then her legs suddenly clamped tight around my head. She took a deep breath, let another moan escape, and then whispered more breathily this time: “ooh… God… FUCK!” Her legs tensed and straightened, forcing her back to arch against the couch, and she held that position for a dozen heartbeats as her breath came in small spasms, legs shaking slightly. Then she relaxed again with another quiet whimper. I rubbed her gently all over with my fingertips as she caught her breath.

“Oh my god,” she said, “oh.. that was… WOW.” Her eyes went wide with the word “wow”, like she didn’t know any word in English that quite fit the strength of what she wanted to say. “Oh my God.”

Seeing and feeling my partner orgasm was a deep and personal need of mine that my ex-wife never allowed. And it was an experience I only remembered vaguely from a handful of cherished memories of more than 20 years ago. I had thought from the beginning that this was just too much to hope for. This was a very big deal.

“So… good?” I ask.

“Holy shit, Ben. Yes! Wow. Oh, fuck ME yes. I haven’t cum like that since before I was married.” She stared wide-eyed at the ceiling and exhaled slowly.

I had rested my cheek on her pubic bone as she came down, and I watched her breast heave slightly as she worked to get her body back under control. I gave her clit an experimental lick to gauge her reaction.

“OK, no,” she said, “Not this time. Now it’s MY turn.”

“I’m giving you a turn!” I protested. I had been starving for this kind of feeling forever. I could easily keep doing this for hours.

“No, Ben!” she said, “It’s my turn to make YOU cum.” She reached down and gave my dick a gentle tug to see if I was ready. It was still rock hard and now dripping slightly.

“Would you… would you like to take this upstairs?” I ventured.

“To the bed?” she asked.

“Yeah. It’ll be more comfortable.”

“Sounds like fun. Show me where to go,” she said.

It was just after 4:00 in the afternoon, plenty of time for some enjoyment. We grabbed our discarded clothes, the wine glasses and bottle, and climbed the stairs, both of us fully clothed up top and naked from the waist down.

“That’s a nice butt you got there,” I said as she climbed the stairs in front of me. Her hips rocked side to side with each step, like a dancer showing off her form.

“Oh, why thank you!” she said looking back at me with a glowing smile. “Yours is pretty nice, yourself!”

“Oh, really? Are guys’ butts really a thing?”

“Yours is,” she grinned.

“OK, come on!” I said, “Let’s go fuck.”

“Yes!” she said, “I’d really like that.”

​

*There’s obviously a lot more to this story, and I’ve already written most of it. But I’ve run long so that’ll have to be part two. Probably part three as well, perhaps more. I tend to be verbose.*

*I’m a bit scared to post more though, my story being so nontraditional. No amazing feats, no public performances, no drunken hookups with strangers. That’s not my story. For me this was all about connection, about emotions, about rediscovering something wonderful, and mixing trust with raw desire and feeling it work better than either of us imagined. We had a lot of hormone-fueled fun afterward, but this is the story of that first time. And it’s set against such a dark background that I worry that nobody wants to hear more of it.*

*Plus this story is deeply, deeply personal for me. It is my actual life, after all.*

Source: reddit.com/r/gonewildstories/comments/voknqa/coming_back_how_i_learned_that_sex_can_make_you