Curve Ball

The weirdness around consent

It all comes at me out of nowhere like a slow curve ball driving through space at the same speed for all eternity. It was always there, always true and felt, always happening. Only now it’s passing me and I can see it – see it now and in its infinity – and I understand. I’m beginning to understand.

So my good friend G’s boyfriend P has a little crush on me like he has a little crush on every little sexy thing with legs and tits; he mutters horny things now and then to which she sometimes murmurs her agreement, sometimes. He’s mentioned the thought of having sex with both of us and she’s dallied around the issue of inviting me into their bed, but I’ve never responded very positively or negatively to the notion, thinking it was all a lighthearted joke. I’ve brushed off the issue, thinking but not saying: a) I’m not keen on having sex with either of them; b) I’m married and satisfied with my real man; c) P has herpes, for god’s sake!; d) G is like a sister to me – eew; e) neither of them exudes the masterful sensuousness I crave in bed; f) I’m much more attracted to women than to men, but not just any woman. The actual possibility of a sexual encounter with G and P never crossed my mind.

We head to the nudist beach one afternoon and I’m thinking I can feel comfortable because, after all, it’s about being naked in the sun rather than getting off on each other’s bodies. I’ve been naked with G countless times before, and since I feel relatively relaxed, amiable, and asexual around both of them I figure we can hang out together in the nude, comfortably. P arrives some time after G and I have already enjoyed the sun and sea. His sunglasses are pervertedly reflective, so I can’t see where his eyes rest as he strips off his jeans and – ! – thong. 

But he lies down on his stomach first and I know the gaze rested on one of us a bit too long, and it ain’t G. He becomes aloof suddenly, like he doesn’t care to be here; he’s ignoring us, especially me. I’m just sitting on the sheet in golden-breasted glory and I don’t give a rat’s ass whether P is here or not. I get the strange feeling he’s angry at how attracted he is to me. He keeps looking away behind those sunglasses.

He wants to fuck me really bad, I realize.

I would rather fuck a goat than this man, I realize. 

I don’t feel like fucking either of them; it’s a gross thought. It’s not that I think them completely unattractive; sometimes I even want to flirt with them. But there’s a beautiful, concrete limit to flirting. There’s also a limit to whom I will have sex with, and how I want to do it. Of course, this limit had to be reached to be proven.

All afternoon at the beach P keeps looking away, almost as though he’s frustrated or impatient. I have more pubic hair than G; in fact, I’m much furrier than usual. I also have beautiful, stinky tufts of armpit hair. P has a fetish with hairlessness; he is hairless all over save for a buzz cut on his head and two curls in each armpit. Not exactly my thing. Suddenly I wonder whether his aloofness has to do with his frustration at being attracted to me in all my dirty glory, and perhaps he’s wishing he could see my cunt, wishing it were as bare as he wants it, frustrated that I’m hiding it from him.

That night, after I spend the evening alone at G’s, she comes home at 2am to a phone call from P. He’s asking whether we’d mind if he spent the night; he’s a little lonesome. I’m thinking, fine, she’s got a king sized bed and if it gets uncomfortable I’ll move to the floor. At the same time, his sudden craving for company seems a tad overbearing.

He comes over, takes off his clothes and gets into bed stark naked. Okay. We are watching the end of the movie “Blow” and I think Johnny Depp is incredible and amazing. When it ends, we turn off the lights and hunker down, me in my sundress and drawstring pants, G in her tank top and undies, P naked. Laying down, I suddenly feel a pair of hands sliding my pants down over my hips. These ain’t G’s fingers, either. 

I sit up, startled, as the hands attempt to pull my dress over my head. Heh heh, no, I think I’ll keep this on, I say worriedly. P laughs. I get down from the bed, put on my pants, and return topless. Funnily, I feel safer this way than having my legs and cunt and bum all vulnerable under a dress. After all, boobs are nothing after a day at the nude beach. We lie there and play a game of truth-dare-double-dare-promise-to-repeat, which goes poorly. P is sulking. Now G is topless. He tries tickling me, but I just settle down quietly and unassumingly because I have no intention of fucking these people. We fall asleep. I am on the outer edge of a loft bed seven feet in the air, and a few times in the night I feel P’s arm scoop me away from the chasm and curl me closer to him. Once, his hand grazes over and cups my breast, and I push it away. He wants me way too badly, it’s just pathetic. It makes me want to laugh, not fuck.

In the morning G’s panties are missing and they start fooling around. I get down from the bed and take off my pants, walking through the apartment. I feel safe and fine. I sit outside for a smoke. It feels strange and eerie, exceptional, repulsive, and glitzy that I’m patiently meandering around naked while my good friend fucks her boyfriend . . . to know they want me in on it and I don’t care to participate. Come and join us, says P in a husky voice and when I see his face I should know what join us means, but I clamber up stupidly and sit on the edge of the bed, thinking maybe they are finishing by now. I sit there naked, not paying attention to the fact that he is still fucking G. I look at her face and damn she is beautiful, all dark and roses. 

Then, suddenly, without asking, P pulls me around my waist up to her so we are both lying next to each other, she on her back and me on my front. He grasps me and immediately starts fucking her harder; he kisses me once, twice, on the back, the buttock, while groping my breast. So his penis is inside her but he is looking at, groping, grasping, biting, and kissing my body. All this takes place in a span of three seconds. It smells like sex up here, like sex that isn’t mine. 

I rise up rapidly, shaking my head at G, and sit on the edge of the bed swinging my legs. Nope, nope, nope, I’m saying inside my head. What the fuck is this all about? Did P even try to seduce me, or persuade me? Did he ever compliment me or tell me he would like to make love to me? Did he make personal, emotional, or intellectual contact with me the previous day or night? No: he simply took me as soon he thought there was a chance. Here I am, thinking we’re all just nudists, and I’m a blow-up doll for a couple’s fantasy. His attraction for me is nothing but empty air. I mean, he doesn’t even care. He’s using us, me and G.

I’m going to put on some music! I say, jumping down with relief.

After that, I lie on the floor under the loft bed, doing yoga stretches and thinking about what just happened. My limit existed, but it was twisted and stretched and pulled, even by myself. I knew all along there was some vibe and I was playing with it. In the end, the very limit itself held, but how strong was I, really? I’d chosen to play innocent, to lead them on, even though they’d never expressed their intentions openly. I could have, I suppose, let things go a different way; but it wasn’t what I willed. Why had I tested it?

The boards under the mattress begin to shake quickly and hard and repetitively; G moans. I think amusingly that he seems like a boring lover – they’ve been in the same position forever. I don’t feel any care in the world that they are having sex above me in the same room; the problem is merely that they tried to involve me, or that I let myself be involved to such an extent. I’m faithful to my partner, I want to say now, I’m attached, I don’t just sleep with anyone or have threesomes on a whim with people to whom I’m not even sexually attracted. 

But many things aren’t true anymore about my life. Why did I think of my partner in this situation and not in the past? It’s because this situation felt wrong for me, and the other one felt right. I held the limit (and barely) only when it was good for me.

I’m the common denominator.

So it’s a lie – it doesn’t all come out of nowhere. Nowhere is somewhere, and that’s the place where all my thoughts and actions reside. I am responsible. I am responsible. I am completely responsible.