When Luke and I met, we quickly fell in love, in the big, red, candy hearts surrounding us kinda way. During the few months we were together, our vision was filled with a rosy fog that made it hard to see each other as anything less than perfect.

We developed elaborate fantasies of what our future together might look like, as is the nature of new relationships, but we always returned to the reality of what was.

I knew from the start that his plan was to travel the world, just as soon as the pandemic allowed for it. When, one night as he was dropping me off at home, he told me that he wanted our relationship to last, that he didn’t want to leave me, I believed he might put those plans on hold. …

I’m standing naked in the bathroom. Hot water is pouring from the showerhead and the mirrors are beginning to steam up.

I’m about to step into the warm water, let it pour over my body, cold from the winter walk I’ve just returned from, when I think, Hydration.

I leave the bathroom, walk (still naked) into the kitchen where Drake is making us some lunch. I fill a glass with water from the pitcher. He doesn’t look up from the skillet where he has two grilled cheese sandwiches frying.

“Whatcha cookin’?” I ask, still naked.

“Grilled cheese,” he replies, glancing at my face, respectfully looking into my eyes. …

I dab perfume on my wrists and then behind my ears, as much for myself as for him. Gabriel — the man I started seeing right before the pandemic, who’d made the whole thing so much more bearable — doesn’t have a strong sense of smell. I on the other hand have a super keen nose.

The perfume is a new thing. I can’t remember ever wearing any when I saw him. I don’t wear perfume often, but like many things I left by the wayside during this pandemic — make-up, nice clothes — I’ve ditched perfume altogether.

As I breathe in the scent now, I wonder if my impulse is a symbolic gesture towards the fresh start we are making. …

I didn’t get my first vibrator until I was in my late 20s. It was a Valentine’s Day gift from my boyfriend at the time, Barry.

Barry and I struggled with our sexual relationship. He had trouble getting hard which ate away at my confidence which only made the original issue worse. Eventually, sex and orgasms were hard to come by (no pun intended) for both of us.

We cared about each other, so we worked on this issue. One way was through his vibrating gift.

He brought me to my neighborhood sex shop.

It was my first time in a sex shop, and my first time expressing any interest in sex outside of the bedroom. …

My boyfriend Luke is the same height as me, so I never wore heels when I was with him. I didn’t think about how this was subconsciously playing into gender norms, I just habitually put on my flats each time we had a date.

Then one day, I was talking to him about how I don’t wear heels much because I’m tall, and he told me, “I’d be okay with you wearing heels when we’re together.”

I suddenly realized what I’d been doing: I was making myself appear as short as possible to avoid challenging his position of power as a taller (read: bigger, stronger, more powerful) male human. …

It’s Wednesday morning and I’m in bed reading erotica, my favorite pink vibrator in my right hand, phone in my left. I’m enjoying the story for all the typical reasons one would read erotica — but I also find myself reflecting on the complex psychology of BDSM and my own D/s relationship.

Ignore the Warning Label is a story about Devyn, a woman with a proclivity for D/s porn.

She’s had this interest for as long as she can remember, but she has never been in a submissive relationship… until now.

The story is long (seven parts), and, as the author states in a note at the beginning of the story, it is “not intended to be a quick get-you-off type story.” …

Recently, one of my guy friends was complaining that his girlfriend was being “needy and clingy.” This friend of mine, Luke, doesn’t normally talk about his girlfriend, Elisa, like this.

The times he’s talked about her in the past, he’s always said positive things: She accepts him for who he is. He can be himself around her. He’s told her all his dark secrets, and she’s never made him feel embarrassed or ashamed of them.

Besides this wonderful quality of accepting him for who he is, Elisa has a very compatible relationship style and similar goals as Luke.

“We want the exact same thing,” Luke told me once. “We both want to be virtual nomads and travel the world.” …

My darling,

I wondered why you want me to tell you these stories while we’re apart, the stories of my lovers before you. Is it because you’ve been too shy to admit to my face that you love to hear about your girlfriend getting fucked by other men?

It’s hard right now, to think of them. All I can think of is you. My heart is sad without you, my body missing yours…

But you help me out of that place of sadness as you excite me in whatever way you can, even from across the ocean. …