Nice Couples Do (3 page)

Notice that it is not necessary to speak, or even to face each other. Your embarrassment needn’t be obvious. You can pretend to be as suave as you like, although it’s probably unnecessary. Most likely your partner will be as nervous as you are.

Now relax and wait to see what happens.

What should you do if you are the recipient of a bookmarked article?

Smile. Your partner has just said something wonderful to you. She has just said, “Here is a secret that I haven’t shared with anyone. It’s a delicious idea that might appeal to you and might enhance our sexual and sensual time together. I want to share this idea. Does it appeal to you?”

There are, of course, two answers to that unspoken question.

If the idea doesn’t appeal to you,
read the book yourself and move the bookmark. Slip a note in the newly selected page and say, “How about this instead?” The book can pass back and forth until you find a mutually satisfying selection. Maybe you’ll find only a small passage. That’s all right, too. You’ve just opened a sexual dialogue, without words. Other forms of communication will grow from it.

It is most important that your body language reinforce your desire to continue to communicate in order to find a mutual pleasure. This is a very delicate moment and your partner has taken a risk. He has risked your disapproval. Tread very gently. If his idea of something wonderful is about as far from yours as it can get, that’s okay. Just don’t convey the feeling that there is something “bad” about what was just communicated. Remember one of the premises upon which this book is based: Nothing that two people enjoy doing together is “bad.” People’s ideas of what’s sexually stimulating are often different.

If the idea that your partner has suggested appeals to you,
that’s wonderful. Very often, two people have had the same fantasies for a long time but never knew it.

Now you have to figure out how to bring your mutual desires from fantasy to reality. What a wonderful problem.

First, get rid of the kids. Send them to their grandparents. Swap them out with a neighbor. Hire a baby-sitter and rent a motel room for the evening. Put a lock on your bedroom door, if necessary.

Then, set the scene, if that’s appropriate. Have a good dinner. Put soft music on the stereo. Have some wine. Anticipation is a large part of the fun, but it’s also a nervous time. Each of you is looking for any hint of disapproval from the other, so you must each continually and deliberately send positive messages. Smile. Touch. Kiss. Whisper. Take a warm shower—together.

Then, while in the throes of your new experience, continue to send positive messages. “That feels so good.” “I love it when you do that.” “Move over this way so I can enjoy you more.” Purr, groan, make the sounds that your partner has come to understand as positive feedback. Don’t expect your partner to guess. Tell him or her before, during, and after.

If you’re acting out a scene, get into it. Use the appropriate tone of voice, be young, old, masterful, subservient, hesitant, knowledgeable, ignorant, whatever is called for. And if you find you have the urge to giggle, do so. I was always afraid that my laughter would send the wrong message and ruin the mood. When a chuckle slipped out, I apologized. I was amazed how often laughing was my partner’s urge at that moment, too, and he was just as afraid about killing the mood. Don’t worry. A good laugh during sex is a great positive reinforcer. It also reduces the level of sexual tension a bit, so you can increase it again. And that’s an unexpected bonus that prolongs your lovemaking.

There is one more important thing—your reaction afterward. The question that will be on your partner’s mind, as well as yours, is “Was it really okay?” Each time you take a new step, you need to know and to communicate to your partner that it’s really okay. I still tell my partner that whatever new experience we just tried was okay and I still need to be told, as well. And don’t confuse okay with enjoyable. Okay means that you are not repelled by the fact that your partner tried something different. Even if you didn’t enjoy what you just did, be sure he understands that it was all right for him to try new things. It was the activity, not him, that you didn’t enjoy.

It’s possible that although an activity seemed all right while you were very excited, later, in the cold light of morning, you realize that it wasn’t something that you are anxious to repeat. Or maybe you were willing to give it a try since your partner seemed so interested but it didn’t work out for you. Talk this over, too. Be honest, and suggest an alternative for the future.

I spoke about minimizing risk. When you and your partner have tried something different, you must reinforce the reward. You can say, “That was wonderful—I enjoyed it,” or you can just purr. Don’t forget to send those nonverbal signals, too. Touch and cuddle to ease doubts, both yours and your partner’s.

Alice and Tony’s story illustrates how one couple might have used this book to explore a new sexual activity that Tony hadn’t known how to discuss with his wife.

ALICE AND TONY’S STORY

It was pouring when Alice returned from waiting for the school bus with her three children. She shed her raincoat, put her open umbrella in the downstairs bathtub, and poured herself a much-needed cup of coffee. Cup in hand, she slowly climbed the stairs to make the beds, clean the bathroom, and tidy up after the children and her husband, Tony.

With a sigh, she walked into the bedroom and set her coffee mug on her bedside table. Then she noticed the book. It was lying on her pillow, with a bookmark on top and a note saying simply, “I Love You.” She picked up the note and looked at the book beneath. The cover was unmistakable. It was that book about kinky sex.

Heavily, she sat down on the bed and her hands began to shake. She knew all about the book but had never actually seen a copy.

Why was Tony giving her a sex manual? After all, that was what it was. What was Tony trying to tell her? Was he upset with her? Was there another woman?

She squared her shoulders. Don’t get yourself all worked up, she told herself. You’re overreacting. She looked at the note still in her hand. “I Love You.”

Tony must be telling me that he wants to spice up our sex life. She was amazed. She had thought that it was only she who was dissatisfied with their sex life. She set the note and the book down on the bureau and walked over to the full-length mirror on the back of the bedroom door. She studied her reflection.

Her hair was brown and curly and tended to frizz a bit when it was damp, as it was now. Her hazel eyes were surrounded by long lashes. She looked better with eye makeup, but she usually didn’t bother to use it except when she and Tony were going out.

Her nose was small, as was her mouth. Hers was not an exciting face, but not a dreadful one, either. Alice pulled at the back of her oversized sweater, stretching it tightly across her small breasts and flat stomach. For a woman of forty, she thought, I haven’t got a bad figure at all.

She walked back over to the bureau and looked down at the book—a sex manual.

Tony and Alice had been married for fourteen years and their sex life wasn’t very exciting anymore, but it was usually pleasant. Alice had read articles in the magazines she got at the supermarket about how to jazz up your sex life, and she occasionally considered actually doing something. But on the rare occasion that she had thought about something creative, she realized anew that she hadn’t a clue how to talk to Tony about such topics. So she had learned to be content, only rarely acknowledging her vague feeling that there could be more to her bedroom relationship with her husband.

With a sigh, Alice left the book on the bureau and spent the next hour tidying the house. After finishing the bathrooms, she wandered back into her bedroom.

As she pulled the sheets tight and stretched the bedspread across the blankets, her eyes strayed to the book still resting on the bureau. She threw Tony’s dirty underwear into the hamper and glanced at her bedside clock: 11:15. Still lots of time before lunch.

Slowly, she walked over and picked the book up. She sat down on the edge of the bed, turned to the first page, and started reading. By the time she reached page seven, she had made herself more comfortable and stretched her legs out on the bedspread. It took a half hour for her to finish the first chapter. Already, she had blushed and giggled out loud at some of the things she had read, but she was still reading.

“Someone is trying to tell you something wonderful.” The words from the book kept echoing in her head as she read. Tony is trying to tell me something nice. She turned to the next chapter and kept reading. Some of the activities discussed sounded so outrageous to her that she skipped whole pages. Occasionally, she looked around guiltily, as though someone might catch her enjoying other sections.

She heard the front door slam and glanced at the clock: 3:30. Where had the day gone? She hadn’t finished the book, but she knew that she would read the rest another time. And one story in particular had given her chills. Did she dare to do what the book suggested and bookmark that story before giving the book back to Tony?

She slammed the book shut, slid it under her bed, and went downstairs. All afternoon, despite two trips to after-school activities and one to the supermarket, that one story hadn’t left her mind.

Could she? Did Tony really mean that she should use the bookmark he had left for her? Did she really want Tony to know what she was thinking? Would he be shocked or angry? Oh God, she thought, what should I do?

“Someone is trying to tell you something wonderful.” Over and over, that message echoed in her head. Tony wants to try new things. He must really want to know what I want or he wouldn’t have given me the book in the first place.

As Alice stirred a pot of spaghetti sauce, she made up her mind. She dashed upstairs and retrieved the book from under her bed. Before she could change her mind, she found the section she wanted and put the bookmark in it. Then she put the book on Tony’s bed table and half-buried it under some magazines.

Without looking back, she scurried downstairs.

Tony had spent the day at work unable to concentrate. Why had he left that book for Alice? he wondered for the umpteenth time. But he knew why.

It had all started two weeks earlier in the steam room at his health club. He had just finished a particularly hard game of racquetball and was enjoying the heat and a few moments of relaxation.

As he sat, he tuned in to a conversation that two men across the room were having. It was so steamy that he couldn’t see them clearly, but he could hear every word.

“She really went down on you?” one man was saying.

“She not only sucked my cock but she seemed to enjoy it,” the second man said. “I’ve wanted her to do that for as long as I can remember. And that book was the start of it all.”

Tony was fascinated. He had always wanted Alice to touch him and put her mouth on his penis. He had never dared ask because he was sure that she would be shocked and repelled. A few times, she had touched him during their lovemaking, and each time he tried to tell her how wonderful her hands felt, but the words wouldn’t come out. He had hoped his exaggerated body language would show her what he wanted, but, unfortunately, his message had never gotten through to Alice and the touching was not often repeated.

“She really wasn’t turned off when you gave her the book?” the first man was saying.

“Not at all. She read it all but paid particular attention to the section I had bookmarked.” Tony could almost hear the man’s grin. “The rest is history. She’s going to mark a section for me next.”

“Nice Couples Do… ,”
the second man said. “I wonder whether I could give a copy to Jeanmarie?”

Tony had heard about the book. If it would only work, he thought.

It had taken two days for Tony to get up the nerve to buy a copy and three more before he finally had opened it and started reading. He had had his lunch in his office for the next few days while he read and debated with himself.

He had wanted to mark a section for her, one on touching, but he hadn’t been brave enough. She won’t be as negative if I give the book to her and let her select something, he had reasoned. Will she understand? I don’t want to louse up what I have, but I know we could have so much more. That morning, he had gathered his courage and placed the volume, with the bookmark and the note, on her pillow.

Tony had been jumpy as a nervous bride all day and had put off leaving the office until he ran out of work on his desk. Hesitantly, he got his raincoat and slowly made his way home. During the trip, he agonized. He could tell her it all had been a mistake. He hadn’t understood about the book. A guy in his office thought she might enjoy it. He could make up some excuse and take the book back.

He walked into the house, ready to offer some explanation, but when he saw Alice standing in the kitchen making dinner, he knew he had done the right thing, whatever the outcome. I love her so much, he thought. I want to recapture some of that wonderful newness we had when we were first married.

It was obvious from the strained tone in her voice when she said hello that Alice had found the book, but Tony couldn’t gauge her reaction, not with all the children regaling them with tales of their day at school. There is still time to bail out, he thought. No! I’m going to see it through.

During dinner, neither Tony nor Alice said much. Each of the three children had a long, involved problem that had to be discussed. It was lucky that they didn’t have to make conversation. They were both too nervous.

As the children started to clear the dishes, Tony asked, “Did you see the book I left you?” His voice was barely audible and Alice had to strain to hear him.

She nodded. “I read it,” she said. She stood up and picked up the empty spaghetti bowl. Her hands were shaking so hard that she almost dropped it. “It’s on your bed table.”

As Alice watched, Tony fumbled with his napkin, pushed his chair back noisily, and hurried upstairs. He’s as anxious and nervous as I am, she thought. I wonder whether he’s as excited.