Baby, Can I Hold You

We Never Had Paris

August 8, 2025

relationships

Have you seen Casablanca? Do you remember Humphrey Bogart telling Ingrid Bergman ‘We’ll always have Paris’? I had the opposite. I never had Paris.

I met up with a friend a few months ago, just recently returned from Paris, and he was baffled and amused by the following story of how a trip to Paris essentially ended my marriage.

We were both really young when my ex husband and I got together. We had dreams about going on adventures and travelling the world. One of the first things we had planned on was buying a round the world ticket and literally travelling around the world to see it before we got old and had too many responsibilities and settled down. We even had the different destinations around the world picked out.

But before we bought the tickets, he had a change of heart. He suggested instead of the long holiday what if we used the money as a downpayment on a house? Looking back on it, it was a sound investment but honestly? We probably could have squeezed our pennies a bit longer and managed both. I agreed to the more sensible approach on the condition that we would still travel, if just on a smaller budget with time restrictions. He agreed.

We went on a long weekend to Prague and then he decided that Europe and city breaks just weren’t his thing. And from then on, he really only wanted to stay in the same cottage in the wilds of Scotland that we’d been to on our honeymoon. And we went there for four years in a row before I put my foot down and said ‘no more’. But after that? We just didn’t go on holiday.

At least until our 10th wedding anniversary. I think he understood that things felt rocky. He and I in the early days of our relationship lived in London itself. And I remember saying to him several times how weird it was that we lived so close to someplace like Paris and we’d never been.

For our 10th wedding anniversary, he brought up the idea that maybe he and I would spend our anniversary in Paris for a long weekend. He’d gotten the Friday off work, he’d sorted out childcare for the weekend and I had this flicker of excitement for the first time in a long time.

But instead of planning for the trip, my ex was fretting. He wasn’t sure if the weather would cause disruption in the travel there or back. He wasn’t sure if the childcare options would work out (it was family looking after them!). If there were delays, his concern would be the children then his work commitments.

In the end, the weekend never happened. No travel had been booked, no hotels booked. The planning began and ended at raising the idea (and therefore my hopes) and asking if his mother could have the children overnight for two nights (she was thrilled to have them). He cancelled his day off work and went into the office on that Friday. Eventually the reason he gave to me for not going to Paris was ‘wouldn’t it be nicer to wait until the children are older and all go together?’ For my romantic weekend getaway to celebrate our anniversary? No, I don’t think so.

That was 15 years ago and it felt like one of many reasons we ended.

It was never about Paris. But it was about promising me a certain type of life, one with adventure and travel that never materialised. I didn’t realise how one sided those dreams of travel were. And I didn’t realise how things might end up feeling like a slow death doing the same things, having the same routines, going to the same cottage again and again. Always living within the familiar, staying within someone else’s comfort zone.

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The ‘Exotic’

August 7, 2025

sex

I wrote previously about visiting a nudist spa with my ex which was an interesting and mostly positive experience.

Since then, I’ve also visited the nudist spa on my own. Sadly, for me the experience was not positive in any way.

It felt like a big deal to go to this place on my own. I really felt like I wanted to push myself to do scary things, not let my own fear or anxiety stop me from doing new things, trying new things or going places that feel scary. So I really psyched myself up to do this thing on my own. I drove myself there on a Sunday, I even bought myself flip flops.

I was really proud of myself for getting there, for walking through the door. And that’s when it all went wrong.

At the reception desk I was registering and I barely noticed a man who had interrupted my registration to tell the receptionist that he wanted to pop out to grab some food and that he would return. Aside from being aware that he had spoken I didn’t take in anything about this man. He was just some guy who wandered into the room I was in while I was in it. I was more focused on getting myself through the door and into the nudist spa.

Once I got in, I thought phew. I’m here. Time to relax, talk to people and enjoy myself. I got undressed, took a shower, wandered into the hot tubs. And I was lounging about, mostly on my own when he walked in. He was a tallish man, with a specific accent, longish hair, in relatively good shape. His face put me off in that way that certain people’s faces do when I can’t immediately tell if they’re kind or not.

Anyway, he was looking out for me. As soon as he saw me it looked like there was some spark of recognition. Like we’d met before? But I knew immediately that I had never seen him before. He asked if he could join me in the hot tubs and I nodded my head. I knew that I didn’t want to speak to him so I closed my eyes and went back to relaxing in the hot water, trying to ease my tired muscles.

I think he saw me massaging my own shoulders at one point and tried making conversation with me. I mostly just smiled but didn’t really interact. Eventually I got out of the hot tub (and he paid very close attention to seeing my fully naked body outside of the hot tub in a way only creepy men do) and I grabbed my towel and made my way upstairs to the bar area.

Not five minutes later, he joined me. He asked if he could sit at the table I was at which was large and had chairs for 5-6 people. I shrugged and said ‘okay’ and as soon as he sat down he was asking me questions. Did I live locally? Did I come here a lot? How come he hadn’t seen me here before? I kept things vague, I lived relatively local, I’d been there before, I didn’t often visit.

Eventually, without any encouragement, he volunteered a great deal of information to me. He told me about where he was from, where he lived, what he did for work, how often he attended the spa. He said he really liked my bone structure, that I looked ‘exotic’ – I didn’t know what to say to that so said ‘thanks’ and then turned away. During this entire monologue I had barely looked at him.

He went on to tell me he really loved ‘exotic’ girls, that he’d been with women from the Phillipines, from the Middle East, girls from India and Sri Lanka, Thai girls, and other countries within southeast Asia. He said to me, can I ask your ethnicity? You have such an unusual look. He said he spotted me the second I walked in, had I noticed that he was the man leaving the spa as I was speaking to the person at reception? No, I said. And he went on to say that as soon as he saw me he knew he’d have to eat really quickly and come straight back for me, I was exactly his type. And, you didn’t answer, he said. What is your ethnicity? I said I’d rather not say.

He said he’d seen me rubbing my shoulders, did I want to go with him to one of the rooms where there is a massage table and he’d give me a massage? I said ‘Look, I’m not interested, I don’t want to talk, I don’t want a massage, I’m just here to relax on my own’ and he probably took offence at that, probably insisted that he was just talking, just being friendly, he wanted to get to know me but I got up and left.

I wasn’t sure where to go, so I ended up in the pool. There were a group of people on one end of the pool laughing and talking together but I wasn’t feeling particularly social so I stayed on the other side of the pool. A few minutes later, my friend, the ‘exotic’ hunter, joined me in the pool. When he saw me he held up his hands and said ‘I’m just here to swim in the pool, same as you’ but he was always within a few arm lengths away from me and eventually he couldn’t help himself and floated over to me to tell me he really did just mean a massage in the private room if I wanted one, it didn’t have to be anything more unless I wanted it to. Again I said ‘no’

There was another single man in the pool that swam over to say hello. He had an open face, I liked his smile. I thought briefly if he was there to ‘save’ me from this other man. While I was talking to this man the first one seemed to back off a bit. But slowly, as the conversation went on I realised that both men were moving towards me, that I was being herded into the corner of the pool and that they were closing in on me fast.

Eventually, the first man touched my bare thigh under the water as he stood right next to me and the other man was fairly close on the other side. I said loudly ‘do not touch me’ and that’s probably what sparked the intervention of the group of people on the other side of the pool. A man came over straight away and asked if I was okay, if I needed his assistance, if these two men were bothering me.

I was in a panic at that point, I had been afraid at the men crowding me, I hadn’t expected to be touched without my consent. Briefly I thought, I’m naked in a pool with two men who are taller and stronger than me and what would I have done if this group of people hadn’t stepped in? I felt like I was on the edge of a panic attack and I said ‘I’m leaving’ before getting out of the pool and heading straight to the locker rooms.

I had just taken a shower and gotten changed when the man in the pool who had stepped in poked his head into the changing rooms along with a woman friend to ask if I was okay. I told him thank you and that I’d appreciated him helping when he had and he introduced himself, said he was there most Sundays and to look out for him if I ever needed help or just wanted a buddy to keep the bad ones away. I smiled but decided I’d never put myself in that position again.

Even as I was using a hairdryer before I finally left, a man placed himself in front of me to ask ‘leaving so soon?’ and I just side-eyed him until he left. There was a couple in the changing rooms with me and it made me laugh when the woman said ‘god, they never leave you poor women alone, you can’t even dry your hair without them sticking their nose in’ and it felt true. Sad, but true.

I felt like prey at the nudist spa this time. A hunter had seen me straight away and zeroed in on the kill moving from the hot tubs to the bar to the pool in a single-minded attempt to get what he wanted. Which appeared to be to tick off some other ethnicity on his list of women he’d shagged. He didn’t take no for an answer, didn’t seem to notice how uncomfortable he made me, and touched me without my consent.

It’s no wonder that I won’t be going to the nudist spa on my own ever again.

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Future Happiness

August 6, 2025

relationships

Something happened years ago that scared me. And when it happened, it was one of those things that stayed with me until I understood what it meant.

Based on a loose ‘relationship’ I had with someone online (where the other person ended up telling me about the way his future happiness looked like to him) I ended up closing my eyes and trying to imagine what my future happiness would look like. Who would be in my life in 10 years/20 years/30 years. What would I be doing? How would I be spending my time?

And I realised that when I closed my eyes, I couldn’t really picture it. I knew that I wanted my family with me, but I couldn’t picture my ex husband and myself enjoying our retirement together. That didn’t feel true to me. And I wondered what did that mean?

I think it’s clear what it meant though. I didn’t see a future with my ex husband. He didn’t feature in my own happiness either in the present or in the future. So I thought about it some more. I made decisions regarding my marriage and also I just thought harder about what things I’d like for myself.

And I did come up with a list. A good one. It was filled with beauty, laughter, friendship, a goofy dog. For a really long time this imaginary future didn’t feature anybody else in a romantic way and I was okay with that. I truly believe you can be fully happy with a life full of other things. I was okay with this future.

And then I met my ex. And sometimes when I dreamt or sometimes when I sat down to consider my thoughts and feelings and to think about my future, sometimes I’d have flashes of images where in my future I wasn’t on my own. These flashes of images grew and developed over time, usually within dreams I’d have.

And they weren’t always the same images. In fact, the images started and it didn’t involve my ex at all. They were just images of me dancing with someone. With only my face being visible in my dreams, but it was always of me laughing, of being happy, sometimes I was looking at someone really gently, with a bit of adoration.

The me in this image was sometimes in my kitchen. Sometimes I’m in my back garden surrounded by friends as though we’re barbecuing, sometimes I was in someone else’s space and celebrating a birthday perhaps. Sometimes it’s in the afternoon, sometimes it’s in the evening. Sometimes we’re in a tent outside, sometimes we’re indoors.

Once, I knew when I woke up that I was at my own wedding reception and I was dancing with the man I was going to marry. And sometimes the man I was marrying looked like my ex. There is a particular song playing during this image.

I don’t think I ever told my ex about that image. Not until after things with me and him ended. It always felt like a scary image to me. It feels scary to open my heart again in the way I’d need to to make this image come true. And when things ended with that relationship I figured that was it, probably. That branch of a possible future was closed.

But it might not be. Obviously it is closed with him. But I feel determined to not close myself off to the possibility of that image. The one filled with so much joy and happiness, filled with love and comfort. I still want that for myself.

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Sexual Frustration

August 5, 2025

sex

This morning I was so incredibly horny that I ended up wrapping myself in my duvet and doing breathing exercises for an hour in an attempt to breathe through a really difficult emotion. To try to breathe through an extreme need coursing through me.

Let me back up.

I’ve always had a fairly high sex drive. I’d say ‘for a woman’ but I think I mean just generally high in comparison to other people. When things were ‘normal’ for me, I’d masturbate at least twice a day, three times if I could manage it. The differing sex drives to my previous partners had been a problem as was rejection.

Then something happened eighteen months ago and things stopped being normal. Since that day eighteen months ago, I’ve come across a bit of sexual dysfunction and I can no longer achieve orgasm on my own. I can masturbate, it feels pretty good. It just never reaches completion.

This, understandably, has proven to add a lot of challenges to my life and a great deal of sexual frustration. Sometimes it gets better but sometimes it’s gotten worse and I’d end up crying or having a panic attack in an attempt to get there.

I’ve found that I can (fairly easily) come when in the presence of someone else so for the past year and a bit, I’ve relied exclusively on a helping hand from other people to have something that I used to quite happily have three times a day. It’s been a real struggle and a hard adjustment.

Because of how I am (being demisexual and reciprosexual) and what that brings, it means that I don’t experience sexual attraction in the same way, I need emotional connection. But I also desperately want sexual satisfaction. And it’s two things warring against each other.

It’s been five weeks since I’ve had sex. Which means it’s been five weeks since I had an orgasm. And that is really fucking difficult for me.

I’m at breaking point.

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Writing Erotica

August 4, 2025

sex

There was this man, this was years ago now, that I matched with on Tinder. One of the most intriguing parts of his Tinder profile was that he dabbled in writing erotica. I was so curious about what this would look like, if I’d like it.

I matched with him specifically to read his stories that he’d posted on Literotica. And it turned out that they were all incredibly dull and uninspiring and how his partners were described, how the actual sex was described and the way this man put together words all put me off. My biggest takeaway from reading his erotic stories was …I could do it better.

And I had that thought for quite some time. There was always this little part of me that thought I could write erotic stories too. There was a little bit of that as the reason that I started writing this blog.

I’d met someone online who wrote a sex blog years ago and I read some of his blog posts about his experiences. And they were hot, they were. And at the same time I still thought I could probably write that better. Am I just competitive? Or deluded? I’m not sure.

Because I don’t think it’s true anymore. Before I started the blog I’d written out several fantasies that I’d shared with other people (Eye Contact and Wedding Guest) and on the basis of both of those I thought …this is a fun little avenue I’d like to explore more.

But what I didn’t realise then is that the descriptions of the actual sex is not my strong point. The sex itself seems secondary to everything else for me. I like the build up to sex, I like the emotional connection that sex opens up. And I like writing about those things. I don’t particularly love writing explicit content nor do I relish how much detail is needed in writing good erotica. It’s just not in me.

So it took me awhile. But I’m now at that point where I can concede that others do it better. But I still enjoy writing about sex, dating and relationships in my own way.

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Birthday Wish(es)

August 1, 2025

dating, life, relationships, sex

It was my birthday recently. It …was not my best birthday ever. But in an attempt to bring in some positivity, I spent an awful lot of time thinking about my birthday wish for the actual day and the upcoming year.

I think my birthday feels like a new beginning in the middle of the year. Almost like another New Year’s Day where the year starts again and I can think of different or better ways to spend my time.

And there are so many things that I wish for myself this year. I want my divorce finalised, some freedom in terms of my finances, my space, my choices. But those things aren’t always in my control.

So instead I think my focus will be on ways to bring happiness into my life. I want to spend the rest of this year with more joy in my life. I’d love it if I could go on adventures with my family, with my dog.

I’d like to make more friends, I’d like to feel part of a community or a network of some sort. People to lean on when times are tougher than they should be. I imagine this looks like renewed friendships with those already in my life but also new friends who are possibly in sex positive communities or the LGBTQ+ community.

I’d like to grow this blog more. If you like what you’ve read, I’d appreciate more subscribers, more likes, more (gasp) comments. I like the creative outlet this space gives me. I like having the ability to process and give some real thought to my experiences, to my feelings.

But maybe most of all, I’d like to find regular sexual enjoyment. Whether that looks like regular pleasure with one particular person or if that’s a wider net with multiple people I don’t mind. But I feel better when I have sexual connection with others and when I have pleasure to look forward to. I want more of that in my life.

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Best Friend

July 31, 2025

life

Do you have a best friend? I do. I’ve never met her though. She lives on the other side of the world and we met ten years ago in a chat room. I do this thing sometimes where instead of a person’s name or what they look like I sometimes think of other people in the way they make me feel. And my best friend? To me, she feels like the sun. She makes everything brighter.

Right from day one we’ve had a friendship that was based on really open and honest communication. There’s never been judgement between us. We’ve supported each other through new jobs, new houses, new relationships, sex with strangers, stints in hospital, through complicated family dynamics, her marriage, my end of marriage, her children being born, mine leaving the nest.

Whenever things are tough in my life, at work, with my family, within my relationships I think of escaping and I’m often online to find out how much it would cost to fly to Melbourne. That I might text my best friend to say ‘I’m coming to you, pick me up at the airport at 8pm on Thursday?’ And I know that if that ever happened, I’d walk out at arrivals and she’d be there. Whenever things are really great in my life I want to share things with her too.

I’m currently in the middle of a divorce and I’m often thinking of what it would be like to spend time with her. Quite often I imagine us just lounging about talking and laughing. Having the longest catch ups ever where we fill each other in on every single detail of our lives. Or walking around in the nearby park, walking with her small children running around us, swinging one of them between us as we’re talking.

Before she was married and had children my thoughts of her were different. I’d think of us in her kitchen, perhaps. She’d be cooking and I’d mostly just be standing around keeping her company. Or maybe we’d be on the sofa together watching a film together, the both of us pressed against each other, my head on her shoulder, her hair falling into my face. Sometimes the thoughts would take other turns where she’ll be talking to me and time slows down and I end up hyper focusing on her mouth, the way her lips form words as she’s speaking. Or smiling. Or laughing.

I often think of watching her. Touching her. Sometimes it’s my thumb on her lips, sometimes I touch her cheek. Or brush her hair out of her face. It’s always just been something between us. This question mark of what would happen if we were ever in the same space together. What I have never questioned, and will never, is the impact it would have on our friendship. Which is that there wouldn’t be one. I might be naive in my feelings but I just feel a sense of acceptance that we were always meant to be friends, found family even. A friendship that also strays into more physical intimacy given half a chance. I find the lines of my friendships are often blurred and with her, I welcome it.

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A Fantasy vol. 2

July 30, 2025

dating, relationships, sex

I mentioned in another post that something I daydream about with others is about falling asleep with them and today I thought I’d share a little bit more about that.

There’s something about falling asleep with someone that I feel is incredibly intimate. I had someone I was briefly having sex with recently that kept inviting me over to his place. Like, to stay overnight and I just found the very idea of it too much. It felt like too much too soon in any case. So it never happened.

I think part of that is because I’ve only ever ‘stayed over’ with one person. My ex husband, who I was married to for literal decades. And now that I’m in this situation where I might stay over with a new sexual or romantic partner? It feels a little bit scary.

Which isn’t to say that I’m not into the idea of it. I’ve talked a lot about my English teacher friend. How much his friendship meant to me in me figuring out things about myself and what I wanted in life. What I didn’t want in life. And at the same time I was having this epiphany in my romantic and sexual life I was going through the actual worst time in my personal life. My dad was very poorly and he wasn’t getting any better.

And it was during this time that I started having daydreams about my English teacher friend. And they mostly just involved me putting my head on his shoulder until I fell asleep. Because I was always tired at that time. I wasn’t sleeping well from the stress and worry. And I wanted to be with someone who would just be there with me and with whom I could do what I needed the most. Sleep. Sometimes I thought about him hugging me or falling asleep nestled into him. But mostly it was just me leaning on him and dozing off. Knowing that I was safe to do so.

It always felt like ‘fantasy’ was about safety, about comfort.

Years later, when I was with my ex, my daydream had changed. I still thought about falling asleep leaning against him. And once, when we were together he did fall asleep. It became one of the things that I think back on our relationship and remember really fondly. But it wasn’t what I ended up thinking about with him. We had so little time together that my thoughts of him ended up taking on other paths.

With him, I always thought of waking up and seeing him. I vividly remember fantasies where I opened my eyes and there he was. For me, with him? It was always about him still being there. About him staying. That I could close my eyes, that I could sleep, and the dream was that when I woke up, he’d still be there.

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Does ‘Normal’ Exist?

July 29, 2025

sex

I was talking to a friend earlier and I said something like ‘if I’d had a normal journey through sex this wouldn’t have happened…’ and quite rightly my friend pointed out that someone else’s ‘normal’ will look very differently to mine. Pointing out that normal likely doesn’t exist.

I think what I meant is a type of normal that is expected? But expected by whom? And who is creating this narrative? Again, I get it. Normal doesn’t exist. But it sort of does, right?

When I talk about ‘normal’ I mostly mean the people that started having sex at a reasonably young age (young being left vague here for a reason) and then exploring sex and dating and relationships as a young person into adulthood. And going through those formative experiences. Of knowing stuff about yourself, about other people.

And when I say that my own experiences haven’t been normal I mean that I got married to the first person I had penetrative sex with, we got married ridiculously early and until a few years ago my ex husband was the only person I’d had sex with.

And now here I am, in my 40s, and I feel ridiculously inexperienced. I feel like I’m only just now gaining some sexual confidence. That I’m only just now slowly learning what I enjoy, how to communicate with people I’m having sex with, how to navigate sex. Do I tell potential partners that I don’t want them to spit in my mouth? or just let that happen/not happen naturally?

In the past year and a half, I’d say that I’ve gone through the biggest developmental phase of my life in terms of learning what I want and don’t want during sex, with sexual partners or what I’m even looking for within relationships. And I feel like it’s tough. Everything feels so confusing.

Thank you for being on this journey with me. I feel like I’m not getting it right and I’m not being intentional with it in order to chase content. I’m just naturally shit at it. But I feel like I’m making some progress. In large part because I have this safe space.

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Lingerie

July 28, 2025

sex

I buy a lot of lingerie. Like, a lot. I’m currently expecting a delivery of new lingerie today and I’m really quite excited about it. And sometimes I think to myself, it’s a bit weird how much things have changed about how I view my body.

A thing has happened throughout the last few years and that has been that I’ve taken pictures of myself and shared them different places. It was usually just individually. A long distance friend had a thing about legs and liked seeing my legs in thigh high stockings and it kind of went from there.

I’ve liked the responses I’ve gotten. And I’ve wanted more of the responses. Which has meant both sharing the pictures more widely and more exploration with the type of lingerie I’ve been wearing. I see it as a sort of mini-exhibitionism. I get a thrill at the idea of someone (some people) seeing me in whatever I’m wearing.

I’ve found that I also just really like lingerie. I’ve barely ever worn it for someone in person. But I like the design of lingerie. I like the different colours, finding out which colours look better against my skin tone. The different designs and what they do to emphasise by assets or not. I like different fabrics. I like scalloped designs, and halter neck designs. I prefer green, or colours that are a little bit different. Paler colours don’t do enough to stand out. I like floral designs.

And I guess the thing I like the most is that every time I take a little bit of a risk with the lingerie I find that I end up appreciating my body and the way that I look just that little bit more. I’m doing it for myself and if other people are enjoying it too, that’s an added bonus.

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