SEXT SLAVE

I sleep better after a great orgasm. Maybe that’s why I was so enraptured by our explicit electronic exchanges. But more likely it was because I love having a private language with a man, and I craved connection. 

I didn’t expect our relationship to evolve with the intensity and speed with which it did. When we started sexting we’d only seen each other in person three times, with maybe a year and a half between the first and second times. Maybe longer.

It didn’t take long for our texts to turn sexual in nature — initiated by who I’ll call Carter. At first it was subtle; he was testing the waters to see if I would bite. 

When I cautiously welcomed it he became more bold, like when he flat out said to me, “I can’t stop thinking about what our sex would be like.”

I was happy he said it because I’d been thinking about it too. Reading it felt like the first stroke. It relieved me and made me lose my breath. I immediately became drunk with the idea of being with him, mentally chained to it like a slave.

Carter was the first one to send a video of himself, followed by two throwback recordings of him having sex (he made sure I couldn’t see the girl). His forwardness shocked me and turned me on.

Eventually I began to send things too. First just a photo of a towel I’d wet from masturbating, then something more explicit. The next thing I knew we were vividly describing what we wanted to do to each other.

Let me rewind a bit. 

Our initial meeting was a chance hangout, a spontaneous linkup after a date I was supposed to go on fell through. We had a brief conversation on Tinder before he invited me to a bar in Los Angeles.

I remember getting cocktails inside before going back out to the entrance area to talk where it was quiet. Our conversation flowed easily and we found that we had writing in common. In fact, he was so interested in literature that he read one of my personal essays on the spot, right in front of me.

We made a loose plan to go out for tacos the next day, but when the time rolled around neither of us initiated meeting up. We hadn’t exchanged numbers after coordinating our linkup through Tinder, so eventually we lost touch. It was more than a year before we matched again on a different app — Hinge this time. I came across his profile first and sent a message: “You owe me tacos.”

He gave me his number, ensuring that we wouldn’t lose track of each other again, and we began following each other on Instagram. We sporadically flirted via DM for nearly a year, never seeing each other in person because he lived across the country.

Some long-distance, intangible teasing was a safe bet. I never expected it to go anywhere, so I was caught off guard when Carter said he was making a trip to LA. It felt like my bluff was being called after months of aimless chatter. 

We met for tacos at a small, trendy cantina and just like the first time, there was no shortage of things to talk about. We covered everything from Octavia Butler to our formative sexual experiences, all while getting tipsy as we filled up on drinks. Although curiosity and sexual tension between us was building, we went our separate ways that night. The same went for the next time we hung out, a couple nights later. 

When he went back home to the east coast our communication ramped up and we were texting a lot. I loved our conversations. Without seeing his face or hearing his voice, I was stimulated. We made each other laugh and I bounced creative ideas off him. It was foreplay. When we got into sexting it felt like an artistic collaboration. We were essentially writing stories together, punctuated by peaks of orgasm. I never knew cyber hookups could be so satisfying.

We covered all kinds of ground, exchanging our kinkiest moments with each other. Carter told me his fantasy was to have sex in front of other people; I told him mine is to be in love. He told me he liked sloppy sex; I told him I like it slow and contained. Despite our different preferences we wanted each other. He said he thought our sex would be ‘passionate and addictive’ and I couldn’t have agreed more.

My digital sex life with Carter almost made me forget I hadn’t had sex in months. Our sessions made me feel like I was getting piped down in real life. It was nearly just as fulfilling as the actual act of fucking, and ironically it came from a connection with a man I hadn’t even kissed. Despite the lack of physical touch, I was still getting the emotional reward of human-to-human bonding. I loved ending my night with a shared climax, even if we were thousands of miles apart.

It gave me boosts of serotonin and dopamine. But with the regularity of our sexts the tension got to be too much for me. After two weeks I was getting antsy and I wanted to know when we would see each other.

I was anxious to confirm our chemistry in person. I needed to know our interactions had potential to go somewhere, and not just live and die on our phones. Plus, fantasizing about sex with Carter had begun to dominate my thoughts. I found it hard to focus — it was on my mind day and night. When we weren’t texting I found myself looking through our thread and poring over videos he’d sent.

The most frustrating part was Carter didn’t feel the same sense of urgency I did. He seemed to be more than happy to sext endlessly. He said he liked the tension. He never asked me to fly to him. When I asked when he was coming back to LA he gave me a vague window of time that wasn't comforting. He treated the distance like we were across the world from each other instead of a five-hour flight. 

I had to pull the plug. The last thing I wanted out of my love life was to be someone’s digital friend with benefits. When I told him I was going to start transmuting my sexual energy into creativity Carter didn’t object; he simply told me he was going to transmute his ‘into more sexual energy.’ I felt annoyed and disappointed, but there were no hard feelings.

I’m not completely over sexting him. After a few weeks off, we did it again. He’s never been pushy, and I know it’s always on the table. It’s fun to be spontaneous about it and leave the door cracked. I still think about how explosive our sex would be if it ever were to happen but the chains have been broken, freeing me to find the real life connection I so deeply desire.