DANA BATH

“They were in fact fucking, maniacally and silently as possible, their faces pressed deep into pillow or each other, nothing but strained whispers escaping them. Aileen had—she was twenty-four years old—had sex with many men, beginning with Gregory’s father when she was fourteen and including, most recently, her boyfriend Robin, who was not a good lover but was nice to her, but she had never experienced anything like this. Gregory had no technique; he was sixteen, and for all she knew she might be the first person he’d ever slept with—she felt sure he would have told her the moment it had happened, if it had happened before—and no one had ever, in terms of skill, lived up to Max, who had either made love to an unrivalled variety of women or spent all his free time reading sex manuals, because his repertoire of tickles and thrusts seemed endless. Gregory was more of a bump-and-slam type, but Aileen had, not once but twice, had spontaneous orgasms while breathing on the soft golden hairs on the back of his brown neck.”

Resident at A Week in the Woods
December 10-13, 2001

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