Esha, a 28-year-old journalist, has been with her boyfriend Chad for two years, and they have sex four to five times a week, which she describes as 'packed full of chemistry' and 'never something they've struggled with'. But a few months ago, she started reading erotica, and it has quietly become the prelude to her sex life, helping to turn her on before she sees Chad.
A new prelude to intimacy
'I discovered reading about sex did something completely different to me than watching it,' Esha explains in Metro's How I Do It series, which gives a seven-day sneak peek into a stranger's sex life. She says the book, Bared to You by Sylvia Day, is more romance than erotica, but she prefers that. 'I need tension first. Two people circling each other for 200 pages does far more for me than something explicit happening immediately. Anticipation turns me.'
On Monday, when she and Chad aren't seeing each other, she reads in bed and texts him: 'You have no idea what I'm thinking about right now.' He asks, but she tells him he'll have to wait and find out. 'I quite like having this private world in my head, while he just thinks I'm being unusually flirty.'
Building desire before meeting
On Tuesday, she reads for 20 minutes before getting dressed to see Chad. 'It doesn't make me want sex more often; I want it earlier. Desire used to kick in once we were together and kissing. Now, I'm thinking about him two hours before I arrive.' She says Chad has noticed she initiates more and jokes about what has got into her. They have missionary sex, then she gets on top. 'I don't think about fictional characters while having sex. Once he's with me, Chad is all I think about. The book gets me into the headspace, but it doesn't replace the person in front of me.'
On Wednesday, she reflects on the difference between what she enjoys reading and what she actually wants to do. 'A male character being intensely jealous or saying something territorial can be ridiculously compelling on the page. In reality, I would hate being with someone controlling. Something can be incredibly hot to read about while being completely unappealing in real life. In fiction, I know I'm safe, so I can enjoy the drama. In my own relationship, I want trust, independence and equality.'
Ritual or not?
On Thursday, she reads on her phone in the bath before seeing Chad. 'Knowing I'll see him soon while reading something sexual creates this prolonged build-up that never really existed before.' They have sex, first spooning and then with her on top. She tells him she'd been reading something that put her in the mood, but doesn't tell him exactly what. 'He finds this hilarious and immediately wants details. I still refuse. Some things are more fun kept in my head.'
On Friday, she doesn't read anything sexual and sees Chad in the evening. 'It feels softer and more spontaneous than Tuesday because I haven't been building it up for hours in my head beforehand. I'm reminded that I don't need a book to want my boyfriend. There are ordinary things about him that turn me on in ways a fictional character obviously can't — his smell, the way his voice changes when we're alone, the look he gives me when he already knows what I'm thinking.'
On Saturday, she starts The Siren by Tiffany Reisz and reads in bed, but Chad isn't there. 'Oddly, I enjoy that too. Not every feeling of desire has to immediately lead somewhere.' On Sunday, she tells Chad about the diary and the ritual. He laughs and asks whether he should feel threatened by fictional men. 'Absolutely not. A book can give me a perfectly constructed fantasy; he can make me laugh halfway through kissing me, read my mood without me saying anything and has two years of familiarity with me that no fictional man can compete with.'
Closeness over drama
Later that night, they have sex with kissing and foreplay first, then missionary, and afterwards they stay in bed talking. 'Missionary is one of my favourite positions, which sounds incredibly unadventurous. But I like the closeness: the eye contact, being able to kiss and feeling completely connected to him. It's almost the opposite of the dramatic sex I enjoy reading about. That closeness afterwards might actually be my favourite part of our sex life. The fantasy can be ridiculous, dramatic and completely detached from reality. Then I close the book and go back to someone I actually love having sex with.'
