[Boyfriend · Me] The craving first took root back in college. Back then I would trawl through those forum posts in some dark, sunless corner, reading how other men wrote about their own women coming undone in another man’s hands, and I always swapped the heroine’s face for hers. She had only just gotten together with me then, wearing a high ponytail, her eyes curving into two little crescents when she smiled. Even as I felt ashamed of the thought, I would go painfully hard. I hid it for years, buried deeper than any other secret.
[Girlfriend · Wife] We had been together almost nine years. Nine is a long number, long enough that I could no longer remember exactly how the first flutter had started. The days had worn everything smooth — he knew which side of my waist was ticklish, I knew he tossed his towel behind the door after showering. Sex had become as routine as brushing my teeth; sometimes my mind would wander halfway through and I would wonder what to make for breakfast. It was not that I did not love him. I just no longer burned for him. That was the one thing I never dared to tell him.
[Boyfriend · Me] Our sex life had gone dull too. We still did it, but it felt more like turning in homework. I would lie beside her, listening to her breathing even out, and that old craving would surface again, growing sharper over the past year and more. I wanted to talk to others who shared it, wanted to know how other people had reached that point — but I was afraid. Afraid she would be hurt, afraid of running into the wrong people, afraid that once the thought was spoken aloud it could never be taken back, and would shatter all nine years along with it.
[Friend · The Other Man] Only later did I realize I was a role someone had rehearsed in his head countless times. Before that, I was just a name online he got along with, a stranger hiding behind a screen who had traded a great many fantasies with him. We talked about cities, about work, about our respective women, on into the small hours. He never once said he wanted to actually do anything, yet I could faintly sense there was a door inside him, left ajar the whole time, only nobody had dared to push it first.
[Boyfriend · Me] That evening we were leaning against the couch watching some boring show. I switched off the TV, took her hand, and said life is too short. I said that people naturally crave sex, that it is nature, not sin. I said that as long as we still loved each other, as long as everything stayed safe, tasting a little novelty would not tear us apart. I spoke very slowly, yet my heart was pounding like it wanted to leap out.
[Girlfriend · Wife] While he was saying all this, his palms were slick with sweat. At first I did not understand, and once I did, my face flushed hot in an instant. I said this was not a good idea. I said it would not be safe, something would go wrong, someone would recognize us, it would ruin us. Everything I said was a reason — but I could hear it in myself too: I did not say “no,” I did not say “you’re insane,” I did not stand up and walk away. I was only talking about all the “not safe.” He probably heard it too.
[Boyfriend · Me] She did not refuse fiercely. She only said “this isn’t a good idea,” “it wouldn’t be safe.” In that very moment something inside me clicked — I knew this might actually happen. A real refusal is cold, a closing door, and what she gave me was a string of misgivings, and misgivings can be talked away one by one. I did not dare let it show. I only held her tighter and said we were in no rush, I just wanted you to know what was on my mind.
[Girlfriend · Wife] That night we went and got a room. It had been a long time since he had kissed me like that. He pressed me against the door panel, one hand buried in my hair, the other sliding up under the hem of my shirt, his palm gliding up along my waist. My breathing came apart. Nine years, and he could still make me tremble — we had simply grown too lazy to light this fire. That night he lit it, and it burned until my scalp tingled.
[Boyfriend · Me] Her body was more honest than her mouth. As I undid her shirt, she pushed her chest up into my hands herself. I took her small, delicate nipple into my mouth and circled it with the tip of my tongue; a muffled “mm” caught in her throat and her back arched. I kissed my way down, over her flat little belly, down to between her legs — she was already wet, wet enough that her underwear clung to her. I looked up at her; she turned her face away, the roots of her ears flushed red. It was in this very moment that I told her about the little circle.
[Girlfriend · Wife] Even as his fingers were entering me, he murmured into my ear about that circle — a group of people just like us who treated this as a kind of erotic play, never showing their faces, sharing only within a small trusted range. His fingers were slow and wicked, and I clenched around him in waves down below. I could not speak; I could only bite into his shoulder. He asked if I wanted to join, just to look, no faces, safety first. I was on the very edge of coming — heaven knows whether I was actually thinking at all just then.
[Boyfriend · Me] When he pushed inside I nearly cried out. He drove in deep and steady with his head down, thrust after thrust nudging me up the bed. He was still grinding the words into my ear — “just to look, no faces, I promise you’ll be safe.” I hated that he picked this moment to say it, but my body betrayed me, clenching tighter and tighter. In the end I neither agreed nor refused; I just trembled apart beneath him, my mind gone blank. Thinking back on it afterward, that was probably as good as a yes.
[Friend · The Other Man] Later still, he told me she had joined that little circle. Now and then when they had sex they would take a couple of faceless photos, as a bit of seasoning in their bland days. He said that at the start of each time she was clearly aroused, her eyes bright, but once it was over she would refuse to admit any of it, even got a little irritated. Slowly he worked it out — it was not that she did not want to, it was that she felt insecure, afraid that once she admitted it, she would become “that kind of woman” in other people’s eyes. That hurdle took him a long time to understand.
[Boyfriend · Me] When she got worked up, I would ask into her ear: shall we find one more person to join. In the moment her gaze always went hazy and her breathing grew heavy, her body more honest than anyone’s; yet bring it up afterward and she would flatly deny it, saying I was talking nonsense again. Back and forth like that. Until this year, when we set our wedding for the end of the year. The certificate, the photos, booking the banquet — those solid, concrete things were like a lock on the last shred of misgiving in her heart, and then a key too. She trusted me, trusted that we would not fall apart. That door left ajar, at last, began to give.