Not the Sex Stories You Were Expecting

I'm an earthy type of girl. Very few topics are off limits, and I ask and give information that would make quite a few polite public topics rather squeamish to others.

But I've also learned some tact and discretion over the years, so there are some topics I keep to myself.

Sex, of course, is one of those gray areas. Want to talk about dissatisfaction? Pain relief? Techniques? What I learned in my three-hour class with a dominatrix? Let's dig in! Chat about dildos, or the ancient condoms I re-created from period methods (yes, I AM that person, it was me!), sexy scripts for snuggly cuddly time, sexy poetry... Yeah, I've talked and written a lot.

But my own personal sex life? I've been married thirty years, quite sexually active during the whole time, spicy and vanilla and toys and all, and I don't talk much about it.

Why?

Because I'm also demisexual, and to me, the act is really really close to sacred. I don't talk about my religious epiphanies, either. Same reason.

But there are two stories I tell, because they're darn funny.

Sex just happens to be entangled within the story.

Well, that's not quite true either. They're sex-adjacent. Sex is involved, but the sex isn't the funny part.

Anyway.

So, back in the early years of our marriage, we had to scrape by to make ends meet. Poor as church mice, we had to work jobs with wonky schedules. Hubby worked first shift, and I worked second. There were bunches of days where we woudn't even see each other except asleep. Meals eaten alone, and lonely down time. And frustrations, that built up. And need release. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

It had been twenty days and counting, and no sex. Let me tell you, if I didn't get it every other day like clockwork, I got CRANKY.

FINALLY, we had a day when we were both off! And we could sleep in! And we were awake at the same time! And we were horny!! And no other plans!!! Yay, put on the boom-chick-a-wow-wow music and let's get some horizontal refreshment!

So we decide to take showers. Because it's a warm summer day, and our fans (no A/C) can only do so much, and what better way to kick off the festivities than soaping each other's... um, backs?

I start. I asked him to give me five minutes to actually do cleaning, then he can hop in. No problem, I ablute. And wait. And then ablute again, just to make sure all the abluted things got well and truly abluted.

No hubs.

I ablute a third time, to remind the second ablution what the first one should be doing, so all concerned know what ablutions should well and truly look like.

No hubby.

I've now been waiting twenty-five minutes, and I need to conserve water. I sigh, turn off the spigots, and hop out to dry off.

Hubby had gotten lost in reading a book.

Sigh. I snarl a bit, and he ambles bathroom-wards to take a shower. I sit in my chair, sulking a little, hair still wrapped in a towel, but every square centimeter of my body squeaky-clean.

And I get an Idea.

It's a splendiferous Idea. It's an amazing Idea. It's a horrible Idea, but if I'm going to hell, I might as well update my résumé.

Because, hubs and I are filkers. Weird Al? Randy Rainbow? Take a song that's already out there, take out the lyrics and put different ones in, and voilà , it's parody! Or pastiche, or filk, there are lots of names. We do it constantly. We've done it all our lives. I have notebooks, both out of slaughtered / processed trees as well as electrons, covered with lines or a stanza or two of silly lyrics that pop to mind when I hear another song. We even taught a class on how to filk at an SCA event.

This one happens to be to the tune of the folk song The Wild Rover, and no I cannot put the lyrics in this story, because they are filthy. They are awful. They are raunchy. And they're hysterical, and by singing it, I have ruined that song for many a bard's repertoire in the SCA. Insidious lyrics, that slide in under the real lyrics while you're singing it live. If there's such a thing as a Bardic Hit List, I'm certainly on it.

I dive for a notebook – we have them scattered around for just this purpose - and start scribbling.

It comes easily; too easily. The easy ones are the wicked ones.

This one is especially wicked.

I am scanning my gloriously debauched masterpiece when hubby returns clad only in a towel around his waist. I open my mouth to show him what I wrote, turning the notebook towards him-

And he grabs it, plucks the pencil (old school) from my fingers, flips a few pages to an empty one, and starts scribbling furiously. “Don't talk!” he hisses as he frantically pours his own Idea onto the page.

It's hard to laugh silently.

What are the chances that we had filks land at the same time? I wonder sometimes what was in the water. Or soap.

No, we never did get to the main entertainment, we were too busy reading each other's filks, praising them, tweaking them, and laughing at the absurdity of it all.

His, I can attach to this story, because it's funny and clever. And that's usually how we roll – he's funny and clever, I'm funny and filthy. Luckily I can ablute with the best of 'em. I can't clean up my songs, so I have to clean up my act.

Fast forward a year. Same schedule, same frustration, another muggy hot summer. This time, much of our weekends are taken up by helping a friend at Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire build his shop. PARF has a policy, that you can be a temp for a few years, but at the (I think) third year you have to build a permanent structure. Most of the vendors there were on shoe string budgets, so we helped as much as we could.

But our schedules were still wonky, and it had been two weeks, and I was CRANKY.

But we promised we'd help.

FRUSTRATION.

So when the alarm went off, we groaned...

And didn't get out of bed.

Well, eventually. We were late, but satiated, so off we went.

What was happening at the faire, whilst we were dallying?

The shop owner... well, let's just say he identifies as a wolf, and we'll leave it at that. No, I'm not snarking on furries and totemics; I happen to associate most everyone I know with one animal or another, it's how I see people. But this guy really embraced it to an unhealthy degree, and it showed. He was pacing, agitated, just like a caged wolf does when things aren't going right.

“Where ARE they? They PROMISED to come! They should have BEEN here by now! Where ARE they?” Back and forth, back and forth, pace pace pace pace turn pace pace pace pace back.

The other one, a mutual friend, lived down the street from us, and knew us and our wonky schedule well. “Calm down, they'll be here. They probably had sex this morning.”

THAT stopped the pacing! “WHAT???”

“You know what their schedule's been like, they haven't had time to kiss, much less do anything else. Eating in separate shifts, sleeping at different times. And they were here all last weekend, working on your building. And now they're here again, because you begged them, when everyone else said no because they needed a weekend to relax. When are they supposed to get time for just the two of them?”

Blink.

Blink blink.

Click, as his mind's Etch-a-Sketch re-set itself. Back to pacing. “WHERE are they?? Why aren't they here yet???”

Yes, he was that self-centered and selfish. We've since upgraded to better friends.

They could have started without us. What we were doing that day was making cosmetic faux stone bricks for the outside of the “castle.” But he wanted us there, because in his opinion, my husband makes the best cement. Mostly because my hubby patiently worked the water in to make the perfect ratio, and made sure to keep mixing to get it nice and smooth. Earlier attempts of the impatient owner to make his own cement had gone... poorly.

We weren't all that late, maybe an hour and a half. Which is unusual for us, we're quite punctual. And this is pre-cell phone days, so they couldn't call. But when we pulled into the parking lot, we could see two bodies up on the roof of the second story, peering our way.

And apparently, as we walked up the hill, hand-in-hand, our friend took one look at our body language and said, “Yep, they had sex.”

Owner freaked out. “LA LA LA LA I DON'T WANNA KNOW!!!”

For the rest of the work day, our friend would make a double entendre in conversation, I would shoot one back, and the owner would run away, hands over ears, screaming “I CAN'T HEEEEAR YOU!!!” or “LA LA LA NOT LISTENING!!!” or “AAHH! AAHH! ANGEL EARS!!” A bit dramatic, but that was the owner in a nutshell. And a bit overblown. Truthfully, he was just steaming jealous that someone else's marriage was going better than his, because he was definitely a “misery loves company” person.

But at the time, it was quite amusing to watch him get so agitated over nothing.

Finally, a small break. We ate lunch, and while relaxing a bit afterwards, hubby starts in on the next round of cement. Apparently the owner was still aggravated about our morning exercise routine, because he kept trying to bring it up and then chickening out. Friend and I were still amused and feeding into it, and it was hilarious watching him try to maintain a balance of curiosity and superiority. It didn't work.

What did he want to know?

How often we “did it.” What we considered "normal."

So, I decided to tell him a story:

A few months after we got back from the honeymoon, we were struggling. Not for the reason you'd think, but because my sex drive was so high. I needed it every. single. day, or I'd lose my mind. Hubby's refractory period is at least twenty-four hours, and his poor body was waving the white flag weakly.

I literally begged my doctor to put me on birth control. I was so horny all the time! I was wearing my poor hubster out! And she did, but warned me that it would cut my libido. She was shocked that I was okay with that. When I went in for my checkup, she asked how it was going. And I responded, “It's great!! Now instead of wanting my hubby every day, I only want him every other day!”

Silence greeted my little story. Our friend was grinning, but the owner was silent. And still.

He turned to my husband. “You poor man!”

Hubby said nothing. Tiniest little smile on face. Making cement, making cement, making cement.

“You poor, bloody bastard!”

Making cement, making cement, making cement.

The owner observed this response. “He doesn't seem to be too broken up about it, now does he??”

Making cement, making cement, making cement.

Then the owner's leg started twitching.

We watched, fascinated, and the vibrations per second ramped up, and his leg was a blur.

Suddenly, it was like the cartoons – POOF! - and there was a cloud of smoke where he used to be sitting. And, running down the road, hands over ears, was rapidly moving doppler scream of “LA LA LA LA NOT LIIIIIISTENIIIIIIIING!!!”

Issues, that one? Nope, fully paid subscriptions, with the matching luggage to carry them around in.

So, yeah, we don't talk about or sex lives much. It causes subscriptions.

Hubby has allowed me to print the lyrics to his filk here (used with permission, he owns the copyright, blah blah boilerplate.) We're in the SCA, the Society for Creative Anachronism, which re-creates the arts and sciences of the Medieval / Middle Ages. This song is based on a situation we heard about that happened during an event, and unfortunately we have fighters we call “rhino hiders” because they don't take blows honorably like they should. Yes, the offender was knocked out cold, staggered to his feet after five minutes of unconsciousness, wiped tears out of his eyes, and croaked, “light,” meaning the blow wasn't strong enough to be felt. Yeah, nope. The marshals booted him out.

To the tune of “On and On” by Stephen Bishop:

“Tourney” - Lyrics by Warren Harmon

Down at the tourney they got lots of big fighters

Laugh at your armor while they break your skull

I never die because I know what to say

Shout it out loud as I run away:

"That was light!" I just keep on lying

Dishonor beats the hell out of dying

"That was light, that was light, that was light!"

*****

Down at the tourney they got really really angry

Hit me again and say "Yield my lord!"

I don't care if they've the truth on their side

All that I need is my rhino hide

"That was light!" However hard they hit it

It doesn't count if you don't admit it

"That was light, that was light, that was light!"

*****

The tourney's passing and the field is getting smaller

The knights I kill look at me and glare

I'll show them that they cannot knock me down

If I survive 'till I get the crown!

"That was light!" But they're getting smarter

The more I say it they just hit harder!

"That was light, that was light, that was light!"

"That was light, that was light ... nighty-knight!"