New York’s Sex Diaries series asks anonymous diarists to record a week in their sex lives — with comic, tragic, often sexy, and always revealing results. This summer, the Sex Diaries will appear on the Cut as a special edition. Check back Tuesday afternoons for your weekly peek behind doors left slightly ajar.
This week, a woman in a six-year-long, poly-open relationship who tries a new drug and gets teased by an Australian lady: female, 29, East Village, works in the arts, in a long-term relationship, bisexual.
DAY ONE
7 a.m. My dog paws at my face and barks because somehow she is ready for our morning walk, even though I took her out like two hours ago when my boyfriend and I got home from a friend’s wedding in Manhattan. I am profoundly hungover because it was the best wedding I’ve ever been to; these friends are a couple we met over the catering spread at the very first sex party (I hate the word orgy) we attended together a few years ago. So there was much toasting to how our friendships have grown from fucking next to each other on the first night we met to witnessing their marriage vows. I convince the dog to doze with me for a bit longer.
8:30 a.m. I relent and walk the dog. I fall back asleep when we get home.
2 p.m. I wake up for real and consider how I did not follow through on my drunken dance-floor promise of post-wedding banging to Boyfriend, as it was 5 a.m. and I could barely keep my eyes open. I am too sweaty and hungover to follow through now, so we crank the AC and hang out on the couch.
4 p.m. I open up my laptop and start looking for a new sex party for myself. Boyfriend and I have been together for about six years, and our relationship is somewhere on the polyamorous-open spectrum, mainly because we just never got around to closing it when we got serious with each other. For the past year or so, I haven’t been having nearly the amount of extracurricular sex with women that I’d like to, so I figure I’ve got to find some environment where I’ll be unambiguously read as down to get with women. It’s been years since I’ve been to a sex party without Boyfriend, but I have to make some kind of move. I find an ad and send an email introducing myself to a group of like-minded women.
DAY TWO
2 p.m. I check the email account I use when I want to be anonymous, and I have a long-winded response from the lady-sex-party people, except it’s written by a dude and it becomes clear that this setup is actually about joining the rotating cast of women that he has threesomes with. He emphasizes that he owns a bunch of real estate. I decline to join him and one of the women for a follow-up coffee more politely than I should, given the deceptive nature of his ad.
3 p.m. I get a push alert that my period is about to start in a day or two, which annoys me. My birthday is soon, and I’ve got a hotel party and beach day planned. I’m not opposed to period sex, but I prefer it in the comfort of my own home, preferably day four or after when it’s lighter and I’m less bloated and sensitive. Boyfriend and I took a look at the guest list for the hotel party the other day and figured it probably won’t turn into everyone getting naked together, but I’m still counting on hot hotel birthday sex with Boyfriend, and I don’t want to have to be rude to a cleaning lady. I decide to not think about it anymore.
11 p.m. I try to initiate sex when we go to bed, but Boyfriend rejects my advances. It’s rare, but when the apartment gets really messy he says it’s too distracting. We’re reasonably-to-very-clean people usually, but the apartment is a pit right now because we’ve been busy running around for that wedding and planning my birthday party later this week, plus I’ve been working late a lot lately.
Midnight We’re jumping through piles of laundry and the sink is full of dishes, but usually I can refocus his attention with a little bit of effort plus turning off the lights. I decide not to push it, though, because for some reason it’s hard to not take personally tonight, like he’s suggesting it was my job to do the cleaning and that I failed at it. I tell him this. He points out that he sat on his ass all yesterday, too, and is equally to blame. I start to sense that he’s regretting brushing me off and is trying to make sexy amends, but it’s too late. I’m already thinking about my awful ex who did actually think that cleaning was 100 percent my job, and that whole train of thought is way too upsetting to recover from. It’s a shitty way to fall asleep.
DAY THREE
8 a.m. Boyfriend and I slept naked, so it’s a huge turn-on when he presses into me as we wake up, trying for a redo on last night. I know he didn’t mean to touch my housework nerve, but I also still have some stuff to get off my chest about that. I bring it up again, mostly to diffuse my own negative thought pattern by taking it to hyperbole. I dramatically tease Boyfriend that I am too sad to fuck him because he called me dirty, accused me of allowing us all to live in filth, hates my dirty body, and so on. He shakes his head and we chuckle and kiss, but decide not to have sex because we realize that we are late for work.
2:30 p.m. I get an early happy-birthday text from the married dude I’m seeing. His wife was having some problems with her boyfriend that they were working on a while back, so I hung back on that for a little bit, and then I got more interested in dating women, so I haven’t seen him in months at this point. I consider sending him a Snapchat of my boobs to let him know how much I miss him, but I’m too busy at work today and wind up ignoring him because I can’t think of anything to say.
7:30 p.m. I exit my weekly yoga class slightly disappointed. Usually a good yoga class makes me feel all open and ready for sex, but instead I’m just sleepy, which in turn is annoying.
11:30 p.m. We start fooling around, and I realize that I’m not feeling it. My body’s really out of whack because I did a bad job of taking care of my hormone disorder last week, so my testosterone levels are all messed up, which means that my face is breaking out like crazy and I’m bloated, which is hard to set aside. Then the dog makes some rustling noises in the kitchen like she’s getting into the trash, so I get up to check on that, and by the time I get back, I’ve lost even the slightest spark. It’s been a few days, though, and really want to want to have sex, so I press on.
11:40 p.m. I go down on Boyfriend and hope secretly that I can get him off that way because it would be ideal: no self-consciousness about my bad skin while being face-to-face and no pressure about getting off myself. Instead, Boyfriend sees this move as ramping up past foreplay and wants to actually have sex now. It feels fine, but I can’t stop beating myself up for not making sure we had sex before taking off all my makeup for bed. When it becomes really clear that he’s holding back his orgasm for my benefit, I finally cop that it’s just not gonna happen for me tonight and then I dirty-talk a little bit until he’s done and we fall asleep.
DAY FOUR
6:30 a.m. It’s my 29th birthday. I notice that we woke up early enough to get a head start on birthday sex, and then feel disappointed in myself for not feeling into it. Neither Boyfriend nor I attempt to initiate.
12:30 p.m. I undress in the private bathroom at work and Snapchat a topless picture of myself with birthday-cake emoji as pasties to my friend in Chicago. We met and had amazing hotel sex there when I was in town for a conference, and we realized (while fucking) that we have the exact same birthday.
1:15 p.m. I check and see that Chicago opened the Snapchat. I know he’s busy apartment hunting today, and the thought of him opening the pic in semi-public feels great.
6 p.m. Boyfriend and I arrive at the hotel and our guests slowly join us. My birthday is near a holiday, so the guest list always winds up being just a strange mix of whoever happens to be in town. So of the ten or so guests, there are about as many good friends as there are people I’m only just getting to know.
10 p.m. I’ve never tried any drug beyond pot and booze, and tonight Boyfriend bought a party drug I hadn’t heard of before because I am so square. I figure it’s time to get adventurous, and Boyfriend and two others join me.
DAY FIVE
1:50 a.m. A wasted Australian woman joins (crashes?) the party in our room as I am starting to really feel great. She declares that she and I have a special bond, and we have a very intense conversation about our mutual skin and hormone problems. It probably is a special bond, but she is also loud and brash, which is hard for me in my current state, so I start also feeling a little afraid of her.
2:30 a.m. I am pretty sure that the Australian is flirting with me. I mean, she keeps putting her boobs in my face, and we’re talking about sex a lot, but also I’m high and not at all confident in my ability to pick up on social cues, understand her slurred accent, or flirt back.
3:30 a.m. Somehow, several of us are now in the Australian woman’s room down the hall. This is like a college dorm. I’m lying on her bed with my head in her lap, wishing everyone else would leave. Someone observes that the two other high people at my party have already taken one of the beds, and we start discussing our person-to-bed ratios. Australian Lady declares that we don’t have enough, and someone is going to have to fuck her to stay in her room. I decide to just go for it, nuzzle my head into her lap, and volunteer. I think that freaks her out, because she immediately stops stroking my hair, points at a dude across the room, and yells that he is the person who will be staying in her room. I am deeply confused, and she goes over to the window to have a cigarette with him.
4:45 a.m. We get kicked out of the Australian woman’s room, but not before she puts her boobs in my face a few more times. I’m high enough to doubt myself a little, but am mostly sure that I didn’t imagine her flirting. I have no idea what I do wrong with women, but clearly it must be something.
5 a.m. My party (except for the chosen dude) is negotiating the bed situation for our room block. Boyfriend and I are in our own bed, but in the interest of not leaving one of my (monogamous, taken) lady friends sharing a bed with a dude she’s never met, I invite her to sleep in the extra bed in our room. I realize the challenge this will pose to accomplishing the birthday sex I’m craving, but I cannot break the rules of feminism and leave her overnight with dudes she doesn’t know.
5:15 a.m We three have settled into the room and I not-so-subtly invite Boyfriend to join me in the hallway. I’m not remotely tired and I need to have sex as soon as possible. We dip into a common-area bathroom stall. I immediately regret the location, but I can’t think of an alternative and I urgently need sex. It’s fine, if awkward. I’ve never had sex in a public restroom before. We wipe ourselves down and go to bed.
11 a.m. We debrief about the evening over some breakfast. I’m immensely pleased for my two girl friends who hooked up last night, but also jealous. I reiterate my recollections of what happened with the Australian woman and ask for confirmation that she was indeed flirting. The party agrees with me, but perhaps they’re being nice because it’s my birthday? I’m still really confused about what happened, but apparently she didn’t hook up with the dude she told to stay in her room, either, so I guess I blame the alcohol.
DAY SIX
12:30 a.m. My birthday party finally disperses after a beach day and then some movies back at my apartment. We’re exhausted and Boyfriend seems surprised that I’m initiating sex, but tells me he’s never too tired to fuck me. We have the birthday-level sex I’d been after and we pass out.
8:30 a.m. I wake up to Boyfriend rubbing my clit. We’ve been trying to wake each other up with sex more often, but my first thought is a pang of panic about whether my period came during the night. It did not. The sex is great.
4 p.m. Boyfriend lets me know that one of his exes has confirmed that she will hang out with us at a burlesque show later tonight. I always feel a little drop in my stomach when I hear her name, because Boyfriend didn’t do a very good job of balancing his attentions when he was dating her. It was a pretty rough time for us. We worked through all that, and I do like her, but it still drags up a bunch of feelings about the worst patch Boyfriend and I have gone through. It’s a little easier every time we hang out now, though. I genuinely like her! She’s bringing her boyfriend, and a friend I tend to make out with when drunk will be there also, so I’m not too worried. It feels balanced.
9:30 p.m. I’m surprised when I don’t feel that sick drop in my stomach when Boyfriend’s ex shows up. I do realize that I still drink too much when she’s around, though.
11:45 p.m. Our group is having an after-party on a dude’s roof in Park Slope. Most everyone goes on a beer run, and Make-Out Buddy and I are dancing. We kiss a little bit, but I rein it in because we’re alone with one person who doesn’t know us all that well. She’s an amazing kisser.
DAY SEVEN
1 a.m. We’re dispersing from the rooftop, and I offer Make-Out Buddy the option to split a ride with me and Boyfriend, secretly hoping we can make out more in the cab. She declines and it becomes clear that she’s going to try to stick around to hook up with the dude who lives under the roof we are on.
1:30 a.m. Boyfriend and I have some deeply comforting drunk sex. I typically do a transparent and sad porn-star routine out of jealousy after I see his ex, but that doesn’t happen this time.
11 a.m. I get a text from Make-Out Buddy that she struck out with Roof Dude and that she and I didn’t make out enough. My instinct is to tell her that she should have just come home with me and Boyfriend, but I’m not sure how serious I was about inviting her home last night; I was in kind of a raw place about my recent failures with women and whatever else was going on with Boyfriend’s ex. I sum up these complicated feelings by replying with a few kissy-face emoji.
11:30 a.m. My period comes! Perfect timing.
4 p.m. It occurs to me in the shower that I’ve had a hard time orgasming without help from a vibrator this week, so I start masturbating, thinking maybe I can reset myself.
4:05 p.m. Masturbating in the shower isn’t working for me, so I towel off, sit down next to Boyfriend, and we start masturbating together. Still nothing, so I tell him rough up my nipples, which finally gets me going. He gets a little rougher with me, which finally brings me over the edge, just my hands and his this time.
Want to submit a sex diary? Email [email protected] and tell us a little about yourself.