My ex-husband and I never texted each other about sex, despite being married for 16 years.
Sexting wasn’t that common when we got together in the 2000s, and when we both got iPhones ten years later, the only messages we sent each other were requests for more wine and cooking spray.
But once I got together with Eliot, I was forced to communicate in a whole new, sexy way. I should have been good at it, being a writer, but I wasn’t. I took too long to respond, agonizing over word choice. I worried about sounding stupid, too weird, or not weird enough.
It was a sunny Saturday afternoon when everything came to a head, so to speak. I was in my kitchen while my youngest daughter, Emi, aged five, was running in and out of the garden.
Once I got together with Eliot, I had to communicate in a whole new, sexy way, writes Annabel Bond
Eliot sent me a reel from Instagram and told me he was in front of his computer. I told him how beautiful the view was, all the flowers and ferns in full bloom.
Eliot then wrote: “I can’t concentrate on work. I keep thinking about you.”
“How lovely!” I replied cheerfully. My mind was still on the garden and the weeding I had to do.
“I think we need to set a date,” he wrote. “And get creative.”
“Mom,” Emi said, tapping the top of the phone. “You won’t believe what just happened! A butterfly just landed on my shoulder!”
“That’s nice, honey.” My fingers hovered over the touchscreen as I hesitantly typed, “What do you mean by creative?”
Eliot’s response was not long in coming: “I want to be standing next to you naked, while you sit there looking at me with your legs crossed and your glasses on.”
I was glad to know that my reading glasses were an advantage. So the scenario was a secretary and her naked employee. He had to be stern and demanding.
“That sounds like (hot face emoji),” I typed, wasting my time.
Eliot then wrote ten more messages in quick succession, each more explicit than the last, ending with: “I long for your touch. I want you so badly.”
He was much better at this than I was, perhaps because, being 27, sexting was a normal thing. He was direct and fearless. It was extremely exciting.
“Yes please to all of the above,” I wrote. “But Emi just plucked the flowers off my favorite roses. Can I get back to you?” “Haha, okay,” I wrote.
I hadn’t, but I needed some time to think and consult the Internet. WikiHow suggested I tell Eliot I had taken off my clothes, but that it would be weird with my daughter there. She also suggested I ask him, “What are you wearing on this warm night?” But he was already naked, at least in our sexting situation, maybe in real life too.
—Mom! —said Emi dancing energetically—. Are you still on your phone?
“Yes,” I said, feeling guilty. Emi wanted to show me butterflies in my stomach while I sat there agonizing over a sext. During the last few months I saw Eliot, juxtaposing the roles of mother and “sexy girlfriend” (when, approaching 50, I wasn’t even a girl) was still difficult.
Normally she made the transition while riding the hour-long train to her apartment, but now she needed to be a mother and a girlfriend at the same time. It was hard to be one without failing at the other.
I’d already been in the park with Emi for an hour today, drawn a mermaid and watched her perform on the trampoline. In order to be present for Eliot, I’d have to compartmentalize myself: ten minutes for the sexy girlfriend, even if I had to take them away from Emi.
She jumped up and shouted, “I’m so bored!”
—Okay, just a second. —I could feel Eliot waiting on the other end of WhatsApp.
‘One! One second is gone!’
“Can I have ten minutes?” I said sternly. Wait… that was it, that was the tone I was going for. “Go jump some more on the diving board!” I said. “I’ll keep an eye on you from here.”
I managed to think of a few things, including handcuffs, a bad office worker, and a boss who teaches him a lesson.
After Emi ran to the end of the garden, I grabbed my phone. It was time to switch roles again.
“You will do what I want,” I wrote to him.
“Yes, I will,” Eliot replied immediately.
Good boy. Have you taken off all your clothes?
“Yes,” he wrote.
-I’ll put on my high heels and tie you to your chair.
-Yes, please my Goddess.
Wow, it wasn’t that hard. It didn’t feel like Eliot was judging me on my literary prowess. Sexting was about playing with words and ideas, just like my day job, only this was the adult version.
“I’ll do it…” and here I came up with a few things, including handcuffs, a mean office worker, and a boss who lectured him. A bit like Fifty Shades, with the genders reversed, but it didn’t make me laugh because of literary cheesiness. And it was all done long before my ten-minute deadline was up.
- Annabel Bond is a pseudonym. Names have been changed.