My poise to delight Jenny expanded. She favoured positioning herself above me when we coupled; it allowed my hands to hold her petite tush. We embraced and built an emotional coalescence.
I recall a night working my butt off; to control my release to ensure Jenny's complete satisfaction.
So, it was a surprise when Jenny gazed contentedly at me and confided: "I never knew sex with the same person could be so different."
I adored her sexual exploration. Her post-intimacy open musings highlighted her complexity.
As she said, I never knew sex with the same person could be so different; I realised her frankness.
She expressed her thoughts about coupling after the act unguarded. Here, Jenny stated that sex is distinctive each time, including the same partner.
I enjoyed us together, no comparing, full stop.
Only later in life, I mulled Jenny's, so different.
I outlined as shadows other men who were Jenny's past bedroom entanglements — Guys who shared her body once. And Jenny added their bodies to her hoard of sexual experiences and responses.
Memories of past encounters lurk somewhere in the relationship of the moment. Jenny and I were positioned no different to anyone else in this fact. Still, our dominant thoughts are current partner-focused. We shared a centre stage, federated.
Yet Jenny's honest thought would one day trigger pondering of my own.
Who were these guys? What attribute of attraction or personality gave them access to Jenny's body and mind? What was Jenny seeking with them?
My comfort in my reflection, I passed her litmus test without knowing the criterion. Precisely what Jenny sought in a guy or me?
I never quizzed her. We liked each other and shared fun times. Throw into the mix awesome sex, and my world was shaped.
I should have asked myself the questions concerning the longer-term direction with Jenny.
Much later, I pondered her phrase, the same person.
Why did Jenny only have single-time partners before me to that point in her life? Why didn't she go back for more from these boys? Why hadn't some unnamed guy invited her for more? And if they had, why hadn't Jenny accepted their offer?
I sensed Jenny's self-determination. The intricacies, the human elaborateness, of anyone we share closeness with. At the time, I let Jenny's open voice of past partners slip by. I held my thoughts, too, on girls in my past.
My closest opening up about prior sex came during a walk in a park. A day wrapped in sunlight as we followed a circular path, holding hands, wending around a mini-lake and its spurting fountain jets. High leafy trees provided excellent shade.
Jenny inquired casually about my sexual past. A question out of the blue! So unanticipated I can't recall its format.
I responded, "A girl overseas, opportunity."
"Just a holiday fling," Jenny fired back.
She inquired, curious.
Unsure what she expected me to say, I kept it safe.
"Yeah, a passing holiday thing," I replied.
I reduced a young woman in a hotel room to a thing without a second thought.
Jenny, apparently satisfied, moved on, swinging our hands. I offered nothing else. We continued our leisurely park walk. Massive flower beds appealed to both our tastes and senses. Associations shared her mother's love of roses and mine of poppies and my bestie, far away on an art scholarship, whom I hoped one day to introduce to Jenny.
Following a different night of fun in bed together, I finally raised contraception as an afterthought. This came after several unprotected evenings between us. I needed to take some responsibility—even a late start.
I stated, "Do you want me to use condoms."
She assured me, straddled and full of my seed, "I'm on the pill."
I let contraception sail through my mind. Jenny was boy-ready before our first kiss! I rescinded my share of birth control due to irresponsible youthfulness.
I hark back to cute moments, too. One night after our pairing, Jenny rested across my pelvis and touched my chest, her palms open across my torso.
"Males are hard!" Jenny enthused.
She pressed into my chest with a gleeful delight—my amber-eyed lass, appreciative of maleness. She did not mean my recently excited 'hard on' or a taut six-pack, only a natural youthful firmness. Of course, I delighted in her soft spots but held my thoughts in.
Now, I know Jenny held the firmness of maleness as she sensed her femininity. And the raven-haired girl could share and separate the two.
Her free-spoken gems of personal perception bestride me like the doorway to her soul lay unobstructed, concluding sex. Her mind spun her pondering through a revolving door.
Forever, taking in, through her senses, my Jenny of the visceral life. It seemed that completed intimacy released her vulnerability — where she confided the concealed insights from her private self, her intimate feelings.
Including her thinking about our uniqueness versus the commonalities of existence.
Another time, after we completed lush sensual bonding. I prized the pleasure in her eyes.
"I feel great," she mulled, " but everyone has sex. It's there. How can it be more when it's so common?"
A blank smile from me in reply. I rarely responded to her open-minded ruminations.
I wish I had.
We might have bonded further and percolated in words, the thoughts swirling around each other's minds.
Another night, Jenny wanted to know if I felt good after a bout of first-rate action.
She prompted, "Mmm, that was great for me. What about you?"
Her thoughts bubbled, her appeased body above me.
"Fine," a shallow answer, "guys, get there easy."
I only desired time inside her eyes.
Jenny was constantly open in sexual communication, and I remained reserved. My inhibited self belonged to my upbringing and my nature.
I could express myself through my body. Sometimes in writing — rarely spoken words.
Neither Jenny nor I debriefed each other, respecting our deeper emotional state.
I once triggered sentiments in Jenny, taking her away from my planned mood foreplay. She appreciated classical music. I had a limited selection of composers in my record collection. I selected an LP and played it on my stereo. Jenny nestled into the pillows on my bed.
I planned to set the atmosphere to support an afternoon coupled. I chose Schubert's The Trout as background mood music. My turntable and speakers started their task of ambient reinforcement. Super-fast, I joined Jenny in cuddling and smooching, easing my body to hers.
Jenny stopped me in my tracks.
"Let me listen, please," she stated thoughtfully.
My background choice occupied her foreground thoughts.
Bummer!
I adjusted.
I could see her delight in listening as she tapped her thighs. Her investment in the piece as her torso swayed.
Sitting on my bed as we heard together, I wondered why Jenny was delighted with the composition.
In a pause between pieces, Jenny unfolded a background story.
"I performed the piece at college. A friend selected it to complete an assessment duet. I played the piano, and my friend the violin."
My lass knew the nuanced elements of the composition.
We continued listening together to other pieces. It became an afternoon of shared music, making out sidelined.
The richness of life is more than copulation.
We heard the same music, but the associations each of us made were unique. Jenny's thoughts included her playing and her duet. The Trout led me to the jetty, Coral, and Josh. Now, hearing it, my mind's eye overlays Jenny and me, comfy on my bed, absorbed in the cheerful arrangement.
How would I have replied if Jenny had invited me to share my thinking whilst listening?
I still can't articulate it beyond a feeling; I felt in the right place, being beside her.
I recall a blur of awesome, habitual sex. We expanded the dimensions of our own and each other's sexuality. Our crafty genitals operated to their capacity, leading to her true-hearted meditations on sex and broader life.
Now I confront Jenny's reflections; musing, I let them forego.
Letting slip these opportunities, I let pass the chance to understand ourselves together. I left our lives to shape in private, separate.
I return to Jenny's contemplation: ' Sex with the same person can be so different.'
Years later, pondering Sonder spurred the realisation sexual encounters are unique. Each consensual mating of the moment on this planet, multi-millions of them, is peerless.
Jenny may have meant different physically. My over-gentle first time or her initiated edge of the bed, rollick. The locations, my room, her room. Variances in the settings; lights off at my share-house and on in her bedroom.
I like to think Jenny's phrase encompassed the variety of lush emotions bound in togetherness.