“Ah, yes. Slow dancing. A wonderful way to make love standing up.”
“You know, I never thought of it that way, but you’re right. Making love standing up.” Barbara placed the chicken mixture on two plates and sat across from her friend. In only two days it had become comfortable to have Maggie around. She had a friend.
“Do you like making love?” Maggie asked, anxious to move Barbara along to phase two of her makeover.
“It’s not like it is in the novels I like to read, but the few times I did it it was tolerable.”
“Tolerable. What a terrible way to think about making love. No bells? No stars? The earth didn’t move?”
“That doesn’t happen to people like me. That’s for glitzy novels and X-rated movies.”
“It can happen, and it does, and it should.”
Barbara sipped her wine, her curiosity aroused. “Did the earth move for you?”
“You mean did I climax?”
Blushing slightly, Barbara nodded.
“No, not every time I made love. It takes a bit of effort and consideration on the part of both partners for orgasm to occur. But I did more often than not. I found that my men friends liked it when I came even though they were paying me to be sure they climaxed.”
“But you only discovered good sex after your divorce.”
“That’s true and a bit sad. I regret that Chuck and I never found out what good sex was all about.”
“Do you and he still see each other? I mean, did you? Does he know what you do, er…did?”
“Boy, tenses are a problem, aren’t they. Anyway, no, I don’t see Chuck anymore. He and his new wife moved to the West Coast many years ago. We had no kids, no ties, not much in common except a lot of history, and reminiscing wears thin very quickly.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.” Maggie watched Barbara sip her wine as if searching for the right words. “Look, Barbara,” Maggie said, “you can ask anything you want. I may choose not to answer, but please, we’re friends and this is a really strange situation.”
“As a,…let’s say woman of the evening, you had to do all kinds of things with your customers. Is all that kinky stuff really fun?”
“You mean like oral sex and bondage?”
Barbara merely nodded.
“There are a thousand things people enjoy in the bedroom. Some enjoy plain straight sex, missionary position. Some enjoy telling stories in the dark, tying a partner up, spanking, anal sex. There are probably as many variations as you can dream of. Most I enjoy, a few I don’t. But that’s true with all things. I love almost all foods, but I hate liver and lima beans.”
Barbara laughed. “What sex-type things don’t you enjoy?”
“I already told you that I don’t find pain pleasurable.” Maggie thought a minute, then continued. “That’s about all.”
“Pain? That’s sick.”
“No, it’s not. Listen, I hate to sound preachy, but I think this is very important. Anything that two consenting adults get pleasure from is none of anyone else’s business and isn’t sick. As long as both partners know it’s important to say no if anything feels the least bit wrong, anything else is okay.”
“I guess. How did you discover which things you enjoyed and which you didn’t?”
“Trial and error. Lots of trial,” Maggie grinned, “and a few errors.”
“Errors?”
“Sure. I got myself into a few situations where I had to give someone his money back.”
“Were they mad?”
“Not really. There was one guy from the Midwest. I won’t go into details, but he wanted me to hurt him. Knowing that it would please him, I tried to do what he wanted, but I couldn’t. However, I had a friend who was more into the pain side of pleasure than I was so I called her. He put on his clothes and hustled over to her house. He was so grateful that he called me the next day. He told me it had been everything he had ever fantasized about.”
“No accounting for taste, is there?”
“No. And you may find as time passes that there are things you enjoy that you never dreamed of.”
Barbara looked startled. “I’m not interested in kinky stuff. I don’t mean to put you down, it’s just that I’m not that type of person.”
“You have no idea what type of person you are. I’ll bet you have no real idea of what gives you pleasure.”
“Of course I do.” Barbara got a dreamy look in her eyes.
“You want romance, slow dancing, kissing and hugging. Long, slow sex with gentle penetration and a long rest period afterward.”
“Sure. Why not?”
“No reason. But there’s much more to good fucking than that.”
“Fucking. Such a terrible word. It’s so animal.”
“That’s what we are, animals. And human beings enjoy a good fucking as much as the average animal does. You know when you think of it, sex is a really awkward and embarrassing thing to do. It violates any feelings of personal space you might have, you get into lots of not-too-comfortable positions, and it’s really messy.”
“I never thought about it that way.”
“So in order to create offspring, God, or Mother Nature, or evolution had to give the animals some reward for doing this ridiculous stuff. So that’s where the pleasure comes in. I read somewhere that animals will go through much more maze-running and the like for sexual gratification than for any other reward.”
“It’s really pleasurable, isn’t it?”
“It really is. I doubt you’ve ever experienced an orgasm.”
“Of course I have.”
Maggie raised an eyebrow and Barbara looked down and sipped her wine. “There’s no shame in not having climaxed. It takes time and an understanding of your own body. You’re not born knowing, you have to learn. Do you know where you like to be touched? What makes you hungry for more?”
Barbara continued to stare into her wineglass.
Maggie reached into her pocket and found the audiotape she had somehow known would be there. She pulled it out and stared at the label. “I don’t understand how this got into my pocket, but there’s a lot about my assignment I don’t quite get yet. This is one tape in a series that a friend of mine made. He creates sensational erotica and has a soft, sexy voice, so he found this unique way to package his stories.” She put the tape into Barbara’s
