By Alicia Crews

I  love men, but I don’t love sex. I’m 27 and I think about guys pretty much all day long—dating them, kissing them, marrying them, cheating on them. But I don’t think much about fucking them. This is because, well, once I’ve fucked them, they don’t want to fuck me as much. And I want them to want to fuck me. It’s that simple.

Let me explain with an example.

A month ago I met Jack (not his name, but you get the idea) at the Black Rabbit in Greenpoint. I was with some girlfriends, but that didn’t matter, not after I noticed him in those baggy jeans and white shirt, downing shots with his pals.  I don’t like shot drinkers as a rule, but I do like a dude in a crisp white shirt.  He saw me staring.

He smiled, I got up, he wandered in my direction, we nodded. The next thing I knew (after an hour or two of pleasant chit-chat) we were lip-locked on the sidewalk. I felt his hand on my ass and it felt good, no question, but I knew what he wanted and there was no way I was going to give it to him.  Not tonight.

We met up the next night in Park Slope for dinner. But after two glasses of Bordeaux (I love my wine!) we bagged the meal and went for a walk instead. Again, kissing.  Again, fondling. Again, no question what Jack wanted.

Gonna stop here and say that Jack was a) an outstanding kisser and b) just right with the hands and c) patient as hell. I could tell he’d be good in the sack, and I fully intended to let him get there—but not until I could ensure a little loyalty. I mean, if I let him bang me on the second date, what would that leave for the third?

I’d been here before, and I’ve seen it happen again and again. Men want what they can’t have, and women have to harness that energy to get something more useful than a one-night stand. And over the years, I’d come to realize that the only truly useful form of sexual energy for me was desire.  I loved having a man want me, and the only way to preserve that emotion was to hold back the prize of my hot pussy. And when I say “hot,” I’m not trying to flatter myself – it’s just the truth.

Sometimes it’s on fire with desire, and I have to hold myself down with rope to keep from jumping a guy’s bones. But it’s the only way. Back to Jack. It’s our fourth date and we’re in the doorway of my apartment building now, kissing like crazy. It’s fucking incredible. The guy’s tongue knows where to go and what to do to make me nuts. So I invite him upstairs to my
cozy one-bedroom. We scramble for my mattress and shove off the piles of clothes and get naked in no time flat. No disappointments, he’s got a tight butt and nice dick and I can even deal with the coat of body hair that hides his chest.

But now there’s a problem.  He wants to fuck me. And suddenly my brain starts whirring and I wonder what will happen if I let him. Will he fall in love with me and be my boyfriend and start going to brunch with me and my girlfriends and take me out on Valentine’s Day? Will he brush his teeth, and will he not snore? Will he never, never, never ever check out other girls when we’re together?

Hell, will he even want to fuck me a second time? Let’s be honest: That’s what I’m worried about.

So there I am, staring up into his brown eyes and gripping his hair and contemplating the idea of giving in to the whole thing, when I realize that I just don’t want to.  There’s too much at risk and too little reward. Right now I have Jack exactly where I want him, lusting for me and imagining just how perfect I might be in bed. Why disappoint him and rob myself of that exalted position?  To me it seems like a waste of a great setup.

So I roll out from under Jack and prop my head up with my hand.

“Can’t do it,” I say, practically gasping.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” say I, lying. Obviously there is something wrong. I don’t want to have sex with a handsome guy naked in my bed next to me. That’s wrong, right?  I should want that. But I don’t. I just want the idea of it, the promise of it, the picture of it in my mind. I want guys to want me, not to have me. Is it sick or sensible or stupid? I don’t know.  But I do know that it should have hurt like hell to watch Jack pull on his boots five minutes later as he got ready to leave my apartment and my life, but it didn’t.  I’d gotten what I wanted from Jack, and now I was all done, and ready to go to bed.