I like hotels. I mean, everyone seems to like a good hotel, but I just like hotels in general. I booked into a budget hotel, once, with my first girlfriend for about £30 just because I could. My second girlfriend and I took an alarming number of mini-breaks throughout our relationship; my third and I once stayed for an entire week in the same hotel room (which we barely left).
With my current girlfriend, hotels have been an important part of our relationship. Early on, before we had announced that we were together (we got together about a month after my previous relationship ended, so the timing wasn’t great), we had nowhere to go and, as a result, I became quite skilled, quite quickly, at finding – at short notice – an affordable hotel.
I’ve also stayed in hotels on my own. Sometimes I’m going somewhere; sometimes I’m staying somewhere else. I’ve even stayed in hotels at some points just because I can. And then I’ve been abandoned – twice – in hotels.
Hotels and I have a complicated relationship, but when it comes down to it, I think the basics are: I like being taken care of. That’s what hotels do – even if it’s a cheap room in a hotel around the back of King’s Cross where all they do is give you a key and a room number. Room service and complementary breakfasts are one thing, but the fact that you just get a room – a space where, to all intents and purposes, you are free to just be – for a small fee… is nothing short of genius.
Stoppard’s quote (above) works, in a way, but I think it’s much broader than that. In a lot of ways I don’t mind where the hotel room is. I once went around the country staying in hotel rooms by myself for a while, and – although I could orgasm to interactive hentai on my laptop while watching the commuters going to and from St Pancras one day and fall asleep on my back covered in my own cum in central Birmingham the next – the act of being in a room of one’s own put me into a completely different headspace.
Physically, it’s pleasant – a nice bed, free hot drinks, good breakfast if you’re lucky, excellent sex if you have someone with you – but, mentally, being in a hotel gives me a complete disconnect from everything else.
In a hotel, you are allowed, without judgement, to just be, even if you have had to pay for the privilege.
[Girl on IRC] I’d like to have you in the shower… [ILB on IRC] That might be quite tricky. [Girl on IRC] Maybe the bath? [ILB on IRC] I have had sex in the bath…
While I didn’t go into details, that statement was indeed true. I have had sex in the bath. It was, like I imagine shower sex to be, incredibly difficult.
I can’t really take baths (although I can have sex next to them). My skin doesn’t like warm water – it tends to flare up on contact – so I can’t have a long soak in a bath, play with Matey like I used to as a small child, or post those obnoxious “here are my legs in the bath” selfies that unreasonably hot women on Instagram do. The last time I actually took a bath, I itched so much that I swore, rolled out onto the bathroom floor, and cried for a while wishing I could peel my skin off and send it to a lab for dermatological testing.
Sex in the bath happened a few years earlier.
The fact that it was a success I can attribute to the fact that my girlfriend at the time was very short. As anyone who’s met me can attest, I’m tall, and trying to position myself on top of someone the same height – while remaining in a confined space, as opposed to a double bed or somesuch – would have been a logistical nightmare.
But, this way, it was easier. I drew the bath myself; she settled herself into the water, relaxing against the far end with her legs (which only reached part of the way to the tap end) spread. I got in, my feet up over the taps (the only way I would fit), positioned myself the same way I usually did when we had sex, and after I got consent, slid into her.
The sex itself was quick and dirty, if not the most comfortable. All the familiar sensations were there – the throb of my cock inside her, the tightness of her inner walls around my shaft, the softness of her folds as they pulled back – the water was just an extra bonus. Even our movements were familiar; the water itself made a pleasing slosh with every thrust, and there was more of a slap of body-against-body contact. It just didn’t feel majorly different.
What was different was the fact that I was increasingly stiff throughout (my whole body, not just…). I was jammed into a confined space which, while it fit my 5’2″ girlfriend, wasn’t really optimised for me. After a few minutes of passionate thrusting, I wasn’t really feeling it any more, and she was more than happy to get out and have sex on the bathroom floor, for which I was grateful.
We then decided, in our infinite wisdom, to go to her bedroom and have sex there as well – which we did. This time, we both came – she shuddered and jerked and sighed beneath me; I tensed up, reared back and shot rope after rope of cum into her, and we collapsed, together, into a happy, sticky mess atop her crumpled bedsheets.
“I need a bath,” she said after a while. “Oh, right,” I replied. “I’ll go and draw you one.” “No need,” she said, looking around for a towel. “I think it’s full already.”
It could apply to either thing, really. First of all, my CD drive won’t work. I have, in all fairness, had this for a while. It certainly opens well enough, but then there’s the matter of the fact that it’s not reading the CD-R I’ve put into it.
Maybe it’s a problem with the CD-R. I went through labelling them all a month or so back, and this one says “this disc is temperamental”. But it’s not just not reading – it doesn’t appear to exist. My computer isn’t detecting a drive at all.
Maybe it’s not plugged in properly.
I fiddle with wires. Eventually the drive groans into life.
I’m looking for something specific, but I’m not even sure if I have it. Disc after disc go in and out of my drive. Scene after scene scroll past my eyes, flickering like a peepshow. What am I looking for? Is this it? What even is this?
Why won’t this work?
I was hard even before I started watching the scenes. Minutes pass, and this becomes less of a scavenger hunt than a mission of arousal. My body is crying; every part of me screams for release.
It’s too early to be horny, I tell myself. But then I can’t control what my body wants. And I’m haaaaaard.
So why won’t this work? These are carefully curated scenes. They’ve always worked before. My hand knows what to do. But something is disconnected here – it’s not working. If I can’t find what I’m looking for, then I may as well satisfy myself in another way, and if I can’t satisfy myself that way, then what am I achieving here?
Maybe I should just give up. Put on some clothes, get myself a drink and walk to the cinema to see Jungle Cruise.
Google Chrome is still open, I notice. What site was I browsing before this? Click.
Oh…
Something sparks in the back of my brain. I close my eyes and let my imagination take over.
I probably need to point out at this moment that my mother didn’t actually refer to my former classmate as ‘Loch Ness’. We used to call her that at school (privately, not to her face) because her name looked a bit like the Loch Ness Monster rising in humps put of the water. I do believe it was my friend-who-is-a-midwife who came up with that one.
In any case, I had been talking to Loch Ness after stumbling across her on the street and getting her MSN address. In fact, I’d been talking to her quite a lot. And I’d been talking to her about quite a lot.
As it turned out, since we lost contact Loch Ness had been dating a lot of my friends from secondary school. She allegedly got her first boyfriend in year 7, which seemed realistic… once she was legally able to, she started sleeping with them too (and, although I never thought to ask any of them, I’m willing to bet my entire reputation as a hopeless social misfit that at least one of the punk rock fans in my year lost his virginity to Loch Ness).
I’m still not sure why she told me this.
“It’s not nice being single after being in a relationship for so long,” heartbroken ILB said at one point, “there’s no fun.” “Does you use of the word ‘fun’ have a sexual connotation?” “Maybe, I mean, I wasn’t really being that specific but…” “Because once you’ve had some ‘fun’ it’s hard to stop, right?” “…Right?” “Hey, question. Have you ever had a crush on me?”
This was, I am 100% certain, why my mother had asked about her. She made a big deal out of the fact that Loch Ness was very pretty, and being perfectly aware that I was just out of my first relationship, assumed that this was a direction I was heading in. (She was less keen on her throughout junior school, when Loch Ness tended to invent stories. One of her boldest claims: if Oliver Cromwell had accepted the throne, she would be a princess.)
Fortunately, I had an answer to that.
“Didn’t I marry you at one point?”
And indeed I had. I mean, the ring had been made out of Play-Doh, all the guests had been wearing school uniform and the best man had been a pushmi-pullyu comprised of Robinson and my friend-who-is-a-midwife tied together with a scarf, but I did indeed marry her. If my memory served me correctly, I stopped her as she passed my table and asked her to marry me.
I’m not sure if a year 1 wedding hastily arranged following a maths session counts, but nevertheless.
“So you did! Happiest day of my life!”
Now that I could believe.
“So…” “So…?” “So…”
There was a pause. Should I go back to talking about sex, or answer her question?”
Sex without love is as hollow and ridiculous as love without sex.
hunter s. thompson
While I can’t speak for everyone, I’ve certainly had both of these.
The very easy thing to get out of the way is that the very first time I had sex, and the hundred-plus time afterwards, I was definitely having sex with love – that is to say, I was having sex with someone I was in love with. Sex was a big part of our relationship, and the same was true of my second relationship (which was also “sex with love”, although sex of a more adventurous variety). In fact, half the people I’ve had sex with have been people I’ve loved. I’m very lucky in that respect.
Sex without love has also been fun, although for a very different reason. Louise, Alicia, Lilly and snowdrop all had their reasons for sleeping with me (even if “I was horny and he’s got a dick” was the simple reason). All four were highly sexual people and the knowledge that there was no real commitment other than “satisfy this person” (and I did satisfy them, believe me!) both jarred with my monogamy-centred lifestyle and excited my own sexual self.
My aim was, and has always been and always will be, to ensure that anyone I have sex with enjoys it. Sex goes wrong every now and again – of course it does, everything does – but, if you can accept the person you’re making love to, you can accept the occasional fuck-up (and be aware of your own as well). I like to please – I’m desperate to do so – and so there is, in fact, a common thread here, no matter who I’m having sex with, or why.
Love without sex is different.
I’m in a relationship which is, to all intents and purposes, sexless. This may be slightly ridiculous to say when the relationship started during sex, but it is true. I’m still interested in sex (well, of course I am, I’m a sex blogger, silly), but they are not, or at least not any more.
I’m not entirely sure why – various reasons have been thrown about, ranging from health complications to relationship anxiety to depression to physical weakness to the way they put it the other day – “I’m just disgusted by sex, the idea repels me. It’s not you, it’s sex itself. I don’t like it any more.” To this point, we haven’t been intimate for weeks, and we haven’t had penetrative sex for years. I’ve genuinely lost count of how long it’s been.
I’m not going to press the point, though, as it’s a touchy subject – nor am I going to put them under any pressure. If they don’t want to have sex, they don’t have to, and I’m not going to try to change that, as it’s their prerogative.
My sex life now consists of pleasuring myself. Since I don’t have sex with anyone else, I’m not having sex at all, and with thestrange waysmy sexual desiresmanifestthemselves being more apparent as a result, I control and temper myself with masturbation – although I don’t always get the time to do that either! I can easily slip into sexual fantasies or explicit half-dreams, but again, when I can’t actually do anything about it, it’s…
…well, yeah, it’s difficult, of course it is.
A cis female friend recently told me about a conversation she had where the other conversationalist (who I don’t know but is also a cis woman) was presented with the same situation – monogamous couple, no sex for boy – and straight-up said, “he’d probably just leave, that’s what men do.”
I could never imagine leaving. I completely, truly, deeply, one hundred per cent love the person I am with, and the fact that we’re not having sex doesn’t change that.
So, no, I don’t agree with Hunter S. Thompson.
Sex without love is fun. Love without sex is possible.
I’d barely checked in (and put my bag down) when I realised that I was, in fact, bored. I’d been bored all week – I had to be in the city for a few nights and had nowhere to go – and had spent quite a while in the big market square playing Pokémon Sapphire. I had, in fact, been there since Thursday, and had managed to source places to sleep until Sunday night. To whit, I acquiesced, walked to the most convenient hotel I knew… and asked for a room.
My bag stashed in my room, I took myself back down to the lobby/bar area and sat at what amounted to being a bar (although it wasn’t too much). The girl who had checked me in came up to ask what I wanted to drink, and it was at that point that I got a look at her properly.
Let’s get a bit of context here. I was 19 or 20 (or thereabouts) and had spent the entire day playing music (if what I do actually counts to the discerning listener as ‘music’). Following a week of boredom ending with a day of cacophonous racket, the one thing I really needed was a drink. My overwhelmed mind beginning to decompress, I noticed a couple of seconds after I started speaking that the girl I was talking to was incredibly pretty. I noticed in the mirror that the look I was giving her was somewhat appraising, and then a moment later that she was giving me the same sort of look.
Spark.
“Hello, could I please have a Friar Tuck?” I asked clearly and politely. “That’s full-fat Coke with a shot of blackcurrant cordial, if you’ve got that.” “Coke and blackcurrant?” she repeated. “Yes,” I sighed, and then fished around in my head for the necessary addendum to the question. “It’s a non-alcoholic cocktail invented in Nottingham and it’s…” “It’s what I drink!”
I blinked.
“Excuse me?” “It’s what I drink! Coke and blackcurrant! I like the combination! It’s very sweet! I’ve never met anyone else who likes it!” “Oh!” I ejaculated. “Excellent!”
She handed me my Friar Tuck and, for a few seconds, both of us paused. It took me a while to remember I needed to pay for this, and as I fumbled for my change, I could feel her eyes on me. Focus, ILB. Focus.
After an eternity of silence and smiles, she drifted away to check in some git who had arrived specifically to distract her from me, and I found some solace in the trivia machine in the corner (I was the first to play it, as she told me later, so I was first on the scoreboard by default; I did quite well, nevertheless) for a while. A few games later, with my wallet lighter in my pocket, I finally took a sip of my drink.
It was the best drink I’d ever had.
*
I got back to my hotel room burning with energy, excitement, and a few other things. What do I do for her? was the question blazing trails through my head. Buy her something? Just be polite and thankful? Maybe I’ll ask her out. No, that’s stupid, when am I going to be here again?
I sat at the little desk that all hotels seem to have and pulled out some headed paper.
I know, I’ll write her a song, I genuinely then thought. And, after a fashion, that is exactly what I did – a few verses and even a chorus. I even used the word “exuberance” once, non-ironically. In my head, it resembled the finale from Antonín Dvořák’s ninth symphony (although, when I added chords a week later, it sounded nothing like it). I finished three pages of scribblings, crossings-out and corrections, signed my name and…
…what do I do now?
I couldn’t just go and give it to her. Weird guy checks into hotel you work in and writes you a song? That’s creepy. I stashed it in my bag, made myself a tea (also a hotel room thing), and looked for something else to do.
*
After breakfast the morning after (which I almost didn’t make it to: I was there three minutes before it ended), I went back to my room to pack (and, let’s be honest, clean up). On the desk, once I’d moved off all my stuff, I noticed a little card I’d overlooked the night before: a nomination card for a guest service award. I pulled out a thick black gel pen and carefully wrote out her name on it.
It proved more difficult to write out exactly why I was nominating her for an award. Somehow “I have only met her once but I think I have a crush on her, and moreover, I think she has a crush on me” didn’t quite sound right in my head. I wrote out something generic about being friendly and helpful, and quickly added “…also knows what my drink is” before taking it to the counter.
I checked out, paid for my one rented ‘movie’, and handed the card to the lady now occupying the counter.
“Oh, she’s a honey,” she said after glancing at the card. “I’ll make sure she gets this.” “Oh, thanks,” I said, before adding, “well, tell her I said hello. I mean, you too. I mean, it was a very pleasant stay, I mean, yes, thank you, yes.”
ILB, the master of wondrous wit and ready repartée.
“Will we be seeing you again?” “Oh, yes, yes, I’ll come back, I will, I promise,” I squeaked as I walked out of the door. Standing outside for the first time in twelve hours basking in the warm air, I took a few long, deep, steadying breaths before trudging my way back into the milieu of the city I knew so well.
I went back to that hotel once more, with 47 in tow at that point. It was then that he told me that he knew I was ILB.
Last Thursday, while trying to explain to a friend what my recent diagnosis means, I managed to accidentally demonstrate by falling spectacularly to the ground and cutting my knee, grazing my head and shoulder, and winding me, to the point that I couldn’t get up again. I had to be hauled to my feet and hobbled to the nearest safe place, bleeding freely as I did so.
Adjusting to my parents’ new house, in her own (slightly confused) style.
Which means I was, under the advice of the triage nurse, not at work on Friday, which means that I was at home when I got the call from my mother to tell me that my beloved cat Willow was about to undergo an operation, and half an hour later, the call from my father to tell me that Willow had died on the operating table.
Willow has been in my life for sixteen years. By the end of the first day, she was sitting on my chest as I lay supine on my gran’s floor; when I went back to university soon afterwards, it was very hard to leave her.
For the last tumultuous decade and a half, she has been there for me. By the time I started writing ILB, Willow was there. She was curled up on my bed as I was setting up my first Blogger account. Three girlfriends came (and, in two cases, went) and every single one of them adored her. I carefully combed her for fleas once and she was so grateful she didn’t leave my bed for a week.
As my sexual identity grew, Willow was remarkably tolerant. She wouldn’t bat an eyelid if I masturbated with her in the room having forgotten she was there. If I remembered, and put her outside, she would wait patiently for me to open the door so she could resume her napping spot on the bed. If I cried because of heartbreak, she was there. If I sat up in bed reading, or on the ‘phone to a loved one, she’d be there. If I lay in a pool of sweat and cum, or weeping with frustration because it didn’t happen (and I’d forgotten to let her out), she’d be there.
Willow was a constant throughout a good portion of my life. She wasn’t just my cat – she was a member of the family and, in certain points, I saw her as something like a daughter. I loved her, and I still do, and I always will.
I can’t describe the noise I made when I heard the news – it was something between the sounds made by a banshee and a werewolf. I was still in paroxysms of grief when my beloved called, and then for a hew hours afterwards, I was sobbing on and off. By the time I got to bed, I was feeling nothing but a dull, empty numbness; my uneasy slumber that night punctuated by waking moments feeling small holes opening all over my body.
The bit that hurts the most – unequivocally – is that I didn’t see Willow at all during the past few weeks. I’ve spent quite a lot of time at my parents’ house for one reason or another – including just after being in hospital, when I asked where she was – and didn’t seen her once during that time Every time I used to go there I saw her, and would give her a tummy rub or scratch behind the ears, and was looking forward to doing so again… and again… and again.
My parents didn’t bring her body home. I will never see her again.
Last time I was an inpatient in hospital, I was there for a night. Just one – as it turns out, there wasn’t anything wrong with me, but my chest was hurting, I had an odd ECG reading and my grandad died of angina when I was two, so I went to A&E anyway. I was there for hours, got a bed in a ward, and was discharged in the early hours of the morning. It was still dark when I left.
I remember vague things about that. I had a Harry Potter book with me. The nurse brought me a sandwich once because I said I was hungry. I remember the shape of the room – a sort of irregular pentagon – and the sound of the cars outside.
And I masturbated. Twice.
Are you meant to masturbate in hospital? I’ve no idea. There’s nothing wrong with it, I suppose. I was horny by the time I got into my hospital bed (although I wasn’t triggered by anything – just horny), and since I had a room of my own with an en-suite bathroom, I doubt my rationale process went any further than, “hey, there’s a toilet; I’ve got a dick, let’s have a wank.”
I’m still not sure why I did it twice. I think I just got bored at some point.
I’ve just spent an entire week in hospital. Go back seven days to last Monday early afternoon and I was already well-ensconced, semi-conscious, hooked up to a heart monitor in an MAU. I’ve been through multiple neurological procedures, CT scans, MRIs, one EMG and a myriad of ECGs. Healthcare professionals drifted in and out of my life trying to figure out what the fuck was wrong with me – it was clear that I was ill, but why?
Unlike the time I had my accident, I don’t remember much of the ambulance ride. I remember being given NO2 and wishing that they’d given me more, although they did also administer morphine, which I have to assume worked. I wondered, at one point, if there were flashing blue lights on my ambulance, because there was certainly a siren going. Getting to the hospital didn’t even take that long, even though it was a different part of London.
Memories of the first two days are hazy. I remember a lot of pain and an initial diagnosis which was later canned in favour of a different one. Towards the end of the week, as a result of an off-the-cuff remark I made on day one resulting in further tests, I was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy – which was both a surprise and a relief at the same time.
I was there for a week, and I didn’t masturbate once.
I tried, on the last night. I couldn’t really do so in my bed, even with the curtains pulled: I felt a lot more self-conscious and the guy in the bed opposite me had a General Grievous-like coughing fit every half minute, but I did manage to escape into the bathroom and try a few times while perched on the edge of the toilet. The problem being, I suppose, that without anything to rest my back on, any sort of visual stimulus (my imagination having been fried after a week of tests), or the sort of silence or comfortable environment I usually set up for myself, it just…
…didn’t…
…work.
I went back to bed feeling both guilty and frustrated (and possibly a little angry at myself, for all the missed opportunities). Wriggling and struggling in my bed for a bit, I made the conscious decision that I couldn’t do this alone. I groped for the call bell and pressed it. My night nurse appeared.
“What can I do for you?” she trilled. “I’m sorry to bother you,” I started with, “I know you’re busy.” (I started every conversation like this – I used to work in healthcare; I know it’s a universal truth!) “But I’m not sleeping well. Could you get me some warm milk?” “Sure,” she smiled. “I’ll be back in a second…”
She genuinely could get me warm milk? It was only a joke.
I sank into a fitful slumber once I’d had my milk. Orgasm-free, perhaps, but sleep, at least. My dreams went to odd places, too: not sexy, just odd.
The oppressive heat has been beating down on us all. It makes us hot, untidy, and stupid. The room in which I work is both big and sparsely populated, but the nature of the beast dictates that I am in almost-constant human contact.
The sun, streaming through the window, makes me sleepy. In the quiet time(s), it makes me want to rock back on my chair and sleep, even though I know I can’t. If I do lean back, even for a moment, my body arches – my nipples rub against the fabric of my tee…
…and I’m suddenly very aware of my breasts.
I’ve never been happy with the way I look, but my nipples are one of my very least favourite features. They are big, perky and look a lot like boobs more suited to a cis woman… there’s even a cleavage. As much as I tried to deny it, my school bullies never let me do so, once they’d noticed – they even sang a call-and-response song about the size of my tits at one point, during a Geography lesson.
Sleepy ILB’s awareness of his nipples makes him feel like they could – or are about to – swell into full, well-proportioned breasts.
Which is odd, because I don’t really have a ‘breast thing’.
Okay, maybe I do. I don’t know. I’ve never really considered it, but now I do, I’m realising that six out of the eight people I’ve slept with have had larger-than-average breasts. Many of the people I’ve fancied (or wanted to have sex with) have had noticeable chests; I have some friends who will cheerfully admit to their boobs being their best feature. My favourite sexy look, in fact, is topless… but wearing blue jeans on the bottom half.
My favourite soft porn stars have breasts of adequate proportions to suit their frame… but then, they’re in porn, it’s part of the trade.
Sensitive as I am about my own, however, there are things I like doing to boobs. I like the feeling of closing my lips around a pert nipple to suck on one; I like to hold one in my hand, feeling its size and weight. I like to rest my head against them, lick my way around the curves and finish by circling the areolae with my tongue, lightly tickle them with a throbbing erection if I can.
I made someone orgasm once with nothing more than my tongue on her nipple… but then again, I made the same person orgasm by kissing her shoulder in a park, so maybe that’s not the humblebrag it sounds like.
Let’s get back to Sleepy ILB at work. This has happened at least once every day for the past week, if not more. I’m not even meant to be leaning back on my chair… but it happens, and then when it does happen, I’m aware of my boobs, and then I’m reminded of the existence of boobs in general, and then for the next hour or so, I’m hyper-aware of how many boobs there are in my immediate vicinity (I work with a lot of cis women, so it happens).
I like boobs, I remind myself. Maybe, once I get home, I’ll have time to indulge in [insert name of scene here which involves breast-kissing; there are less than you’d think] and that would be nice and satiating for me. Perhaps I’ll even touch my own nipple while I do so.
Of course, by the time I actually get home, I’ve forgotten entirely about that…
…so that’s why I’m writing this busty post. As a reminder.
If you look at the list of softcore features from the ’90s (go on, do it), you’re more than likely to come across many – if not most – of them billed as “thrillers”. In fact, the erotic thriller genre really peaked in the nineties; there were multiple variations in how believable the thriller aspect was (there is a throat-slitting scene in Mirror Images II with the least realistic fake blood I’ve ever seen), and also massive variations in the number of sex scenes.
In the early noughties, less and less erotic thrillers were being made as studios started to become more interested in erotic sci-fi, but the genre persisted, and that’s why there are still things like
Naked Secrets is an odd beast. On the surface, it looks like a fairly standard “missing woman” thriller – Matt (Frank Mercuri) is looking for his missing wife Laurie (Lacie Heart), aided by his coworker Chase (Anderson). Dig a little deeper, though, and there’s a darker aspect – Laurie has been vising an exclusive spa, catering for female clients and fulfilling their sexual fantasies. Matt and Chase can’t get in, so there’s… that…
Into this mix comes Belinda (Cassidey – who is also the porn star Paizley Adams), who ends up having sex with Chase because of course she does, she’s played by Cassidey, she doesn’t need to have any clothes on to make an impact.
I mean.
Anyway, this scene starts with the soft porn candle, although it has clearly also been to the health spa as it has changed shape – it is also not alight, so why is it so prominently in shot at all? Did we have to have something to pan over before getting to the sex part?
Necessary cameo. The candle is the Stan Lee of soft porn.
The sex itself takes place on the sofa, and the first noticeable thing – candle notwithstanding – is that there is an age difference between Belinda and Chase (and presumably also Cassidey and Anderson). Before you start coming for me, I’m just going to point out that I noticed it. There’s no further commentary on that.
I’m lying. Here it is: softcore will have multiple actors of varying age. Some (Shannon Tweed) kept making it until their 40s; some (Amber Newman) made a lot and then moved on to other things; some (Jason Schnuit) are timeless. One of the jobs of the casting director (in this case, Robert Lombard… in 4,027,204 other cases, also Robert Lombard) is to make the pairings believable. When it comes to apparent age, although there are some gaps, most of the scenes I’ve seen appear to have participants of roughly similar ages.
In this scene there is a very apparent, noticeable and deliberate age gap: Chase is an older man; Belinda is young and hot. I know it’s there for a reason, but I had to stop and think for a second. Couldn’t quite get into the scene without adjusting myself a little.
The scene doesn’t have this problem, because it starts with very enthusiastic fellatio! Wasting no time there, fellas!
In fact, most of this scene is enthusiastic. The soft porn blowjob lasts for 45 seconds, and it mostly consists of head bobs (which is what a real blowjob looks like; soft porn blowjobs usually look more like a very slow kiss, so this is different) before moving to sex in the astride position. This isn’t actually a mix or a cut – we see her mount him, which is also pleasant.
She performs fellatio; he performs “the grasp”.
Belinda rides Chase for a while, which is also done with a fair amount of gusto – fast and bouncy, but believable – and, at this point, we get to see Cassidey’s face (she’s beautiful!) and famous butterfly tattoo (which is her trademark). Anderson is reacting fairly well, both facially and with positioning of his hands, so clearly Chase is enjoying himself just as much as Belinda is.
There’s a break in the action for a little breast-kissing during which Belinda makes a curious “ooh” noise (yes, seriously). Chase gets in on the noise-making himself when she starts to ride him again, although the noise he makes is more like “ow!” than anything else – painful much? – and the sex, as energetic as before, is now accompanied by some moans from Cassidey, which adds something.
Hair holding. See, I do notice things.
Throughout the entire preceding scene she has been holding her hair back with one hand. Maybe she’s into that? In any case, it’s one of those details which have just been added in for ILB to notice, so of course I’m mentioning this.
At 01:48 we get a mix to the position that I was expecting – doggie style – which both allows Belinda the chance to get bumped and ground (grinded? Ground sounds wrong. Never mind.) and highlights the amount of body hair that Chase has (he brings gorillas to mind). At 02:04, she shoots him a sultry, lustful look: it’s brief, but it’s hot. A series of quick cuts shows us his face (he looks like he’s concentrating a lot), hers (she looks fine), and both bodies – with, again, the noticeable age difference.
At one point, there’s even a bit of dialogue, which is
Belinda: Yes! Come on, baby! Chase: Uuuuuuurrrrhhh…
Scintillating, I know.
There isn’t much more to say about the rest of the scene. It’s more of the same; sex in a variety of positions performed with a lot of energy and enthusiasm from both actors. Belinda moans and is sexy; Chase grunts and is there; the sofa gets fucked on; the soft porn candle gets its paycheque for the cameo appearance, and the scene ends when Matt knocks on the door. The whole scene is almost four and a half minutes, which is a healthy length for a sex scene in this genre.
“Oi’th got thome hair in mah mouff!”
Hot as this scene is (and it is; it makes me hard, at least…), one wonders exactly what it would have been had the music been different. Throughout, it is a soft, synthy thing with occasional percussive beats, whereas I’m more used to energetic sex like this being accompanied by electric guitar slams and drum lines! Maybe it wouldn’t suit the overall tone of the film – after all, it’s a thriller and not Passion Cove – but what we’re given is not the soundtrack I’d be expecting.
Minor quibble. It just might have been hotter, that’s all.
Overall, though, I really like this! It’s lengthy, dirty, sprightly and vibrant, and a worthy addition to my library… so thank you, kind reader SA, for suggesting I do this one!
