Female fantasies are once again a topic of conversation among my friends thanks to Want, the new collection of anonymous essays edited by Gillian Anderson. I was fascinated – and relieved – to read that other women feel ashamed of what they think about when they have sex or when they are alone. I felt that way too for years.
I worry that my fantasies are weird, or too much, or anti-feminist, or a poor reflection of the sex I’m actually having.
Sadly, as my (now defunct) marriage progressed, the role of fantasy became more important to both of us. Locating Simon’s sexual fantasy was easy: he liked to imagine there was another man in bed with us.
I have since read that this scenario is very common, especially among married couples, although at the time it surprised me.
The reality was that I was the “good” wife and mother of our three children; the fantasy was that I was the “bad” girl, having sex with him and another guy at the same time. The classic Madonna/Prostitute complex.
Needless to say, the fantasy never came true.
“I worry that my fantasies are weird, or too much, or anti-feminist, or a poor reflection of the sex I’m actually having.”
But my fantasies were harder to express. I am tempted to say that my main fantasy was that Simon would take out the rubbish without complaint or organise the children’s haircuts. The long hours I spent watching Emi’s favourite programme, Operation Ouch! on the BBC, were enlivened by my crush on the two presenters, the Van Tulleken twins, in their colourful uniforms. They could examine me any day.
But the truth was that the more I became engrossed in domestic life, the wilder my fantasies became. And by the end of the relationship, I found it easier to lose myself in the fantasy inside my head than to be present with Simon. It made me feel alone and guilty. I had barely been in the room.
With Eliot, I didn’t need to fantasize at all at first – he was the dream. But eight months into our relationship, I found myself resorting to my favorite pornographic scenarios, only now it was different: instead of playing out the usual secret dirty movies in my head, I was still there. We were both in bed, having sex, only sometimes I would spice things up a bit.
Last month, after watching Braveheart in his north London flat, I imagined we were in Scotland in the 13th century.
Instead of taking off his jeans, Eliot had unbuttoned his kilt (it would look great on him). Instead of the slightly uncomfortable bed in his tiny rented room, we were in an even more uncomfortable cabin surrounded by ferns. His body was not unlike that of a young Mel Gibson, so it wasn’t too strange.
Sometimes I imagined we were being watched. Objectifying what our true selves did made it all the more exciting. I kept these things to myself, though: I wasn’t sure how Eliot felt about playing William Wallace, and I knew he didn’t like voyeurism.
But last week, while his flatmates were out and the kids were at school, we met up for an afternoon of naughty sex.
I loved Eliot for many reasons: he was funny, caring, successful, but also young and fit. And I knew that to him I was the older, sexier woman. I realized that our age difference was the ultimate sexual fantasy for us. We were living it anyway, but it would be even more exciting if we expressed it openly.
I leaned back and guided his hand to my chest, then pushed his hand lower. Then I took a chance and spoke. “I’m only here for one thing,” I said (not entirely true, we’d shared a sandwich earlier), “and you’re going to give it to me, with your young, hard body.”
Eliot looked at me with raised eyebrows, but I pressed on. “First you’ll do whatever I want, like a good boy,” I said. “And then, if you’re very good, I’ll let you do whatever you want, which is…” I listed a few things, explicitly.
Eliot gasped. “Tell me again,” he said.
I told him again, making it dirtier.
‘Yes, yes, please.’
It was really role-playing, but only because we were talking about the roles we played.
A little fantasy also crossed my mind: I would use Eliot mercilessly and then get up and leave unconditionally. But the truth is that when I left to pick up the children from school, my heart ached for days.
- Annabel Bond is a pseudonym. Names have been changed.
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