Even though I’ve had more experience with women than Kyra, she has a higher sex drive than me. I’d happily have sex once a month, whereas Kyra wants it two or three times a week. So we settle on once a fortnight. When we have sex, I’ll be living off that buzz for a while, but I think Kyra would like to live in that buzz constantly.
The fact that she is four years younger and this is her first lesbian relationship is probably part of it (when we met, I was 26 and she was 22). But it’s more than that – Kyra wants joy all the time. She’s hedonistic and wants to do everything. Then do it again, and again. She makes life fun. It’s what I love about her. If we haven’t had sex in two weeks, Kyra will say: “This is really bad.” But it won’t bother me.
We don’t need to have sex for sexual intimacy. We walk around naked, lie together on the sofa, touch and kiss. Grab each other’s bums in bars. Flirt outrageously. But I feel closest to Kyra behind closed doors, when it’s just me and her. Talking about boring things, like how the car needs an MOT. I can be my true self when I’m around her.
As it takes Kyra a long time to climax, we usually have sex on the weekend – it takes up a Saturday morning. Brunch plans are out of the question. Other times, she might suggest a quickie in a club bathroom, or on the sofa after work, but in reality she doesn’t get home until 7pm, and dinner’s already in the oven. So it’s probably not going to happen in the way she fantasises.
If I question whether her needs are being met and discuss opening up our relationship, she’ll say, “I do want more sex, but I only want it with you.” I can be stubborn and think: you can’t make me. But then I take a step back and realise my wife’s asked something simple of me, and I’m withholding out of stubbornness or laziness.
Kyra and I aren’t the same people who met nearly 16 years ago. Our intimacy has grown with us and we’ve made each other who we are. When things like how much we prioritise sex come up, we can be vulnerable and talk about it without worrying about how the other will react.
Before Lucy, I’d always wanted to have sex with girls, but I hadn’t met a hot, butch, cool lesbian like her. That’s why it was explosive when we got together. I was living in a shared house, and we’d go into my room on a Friday afternoon and emerge Monday lunchtime. It was like that for more than a year. I wanted to have sex all the time.
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Lucy has big, strong hands that I find so attractive. Sometimes when I masturbate, I just think about her hands. I’m an active thinker and can find it frustrating how straightforward and uncomplicated Lucy is. I try to coax fantasies out of her, but she resists and says she doesn’t have them like I do.
It also takes me a lot longer to orgasm, whereas it’s so easy for Lucy. And because I need to orgasm to feel satisfied, the sex we have is indulgent and lasts two or three hours. As Lucy comes first, she is the one who puts in more effort and energy, which is partly why I’m eager to have sex more often. In the back of her mind, she’s thinking: “How long will this take?”
But I think Lucy imagines I want to have sex more than I do; once a week is enough. Sometimes I wish she had a higher sex drive, but I don’t feel any pressure to initiate sex; Lucy initiates it. If we haven’t done it for a week or two, and we’re in bed on a Saturday morning, kissing, giggling and gossiping, I’ll think, “here we go”.
There are seasons to our sex life – it ebbs and flows, it evolves. It might be romantic and loving for a while, but at the moment it’s more kinky. Recently, I’ve become more interested in the butch-femme dynamic, where Lucy is in control. It plays into what I’m attracted to in women: strength, power and masculinity. And I like to feel feminine, or powerless, in contrast. I hope it will always continue to change, as I find not knowing what the future holds exciting.