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THE SEX DIARIES: 'I will put on my high heels and tie you to a chair,' I wrote. 'Yes, my Goddess,' he replied...
My former husband and I never sent a sext to each other, in spite of being married 16 years.
Sexting wasn’t as ubiquitous when we got together in the 2000s, and by the time we both got an iPhone ten years later, the only messages we sent to each other were requests for more wine and kitchen spray.
But once I got together with Eliot, I was required to communicate in a whole new, sexy way. I should have been good at it, being a writer, but I was not. I took too long to reply, I agonised over word choices. I worried about sounding stupid, too weird or not weird enough.
It was a sunny Saturday afternoon when things came to a head, so to speak. I was in my kitchen while my youngest daughter Emi, five, ran in and out of the garden.
Once I got together with Eliot, I was required to communicate in a whole new, sexy way, writes Annabel Bond
Eliot sent me a reel from Instagram, told me he was at his computer. I told him how lovely the view was, all the flowers and ferns in full bloom.
Then Eliot wrote: ‘Can’t concentrate on work. Thoughts of you going round my head.’
‘That’s nice!’ I replied brightly. My mind was still on the garden, and the weeding I should get to.
‘I think we need to sort out a date,’ he wrote. ‘And get creative.’
‘Mum,’ said Emi, tapping the top of the phone. ‘You won’t believe what just happened! A butterfly just landed on my shoulder!’
‘That’s lovely darling.’ My fingers hovered over the touchscreen as I tentatively typed: ‘What do you mean, creative?’
Eliot’s reply came swiftly. ‘I want to stand next to you naked, while you sit there and look at me with your legs crossed, with your glasses on.’
Nice to know my reading glasses were a plus. So, the scenario was a secretary and her naked office boy. I was to be stern and demanding.
‘That sounds [hot face emoji],’ I wrote, stalling.
Then Eliot wrote ten more messages in quick succession, each more explicit than the last, ending with: ‘I crave your touch. I want you so much.’
He was much better at this than me, perhaps because being 27, sexting was normal. He was direct and unafraid. It was extremely hot.
‘Yes pls to all of the above,’ I wrote. ‘But Emi has just picked the heads off my favourite roses. Can I get back to you?’ ‘Haha OK,’ he wrote.
She hadn’t, but I needed some time to think — and consult the internet. WikiHow suggested I tell Eliot I’ve taken off my clothes, but that would be weird with my daughter there. It also suggested I ask him: ‘What are you wearing on this balmy evening?’ But he was already naked, in our sexting scenario at least, maybe in real life, too.
‘Mum!’ said Emi doing an energetic dance. ‘Are you still on your phone?’
‘Yes,’ I said, guiltily. Emi wanted to show me butterflies while I was sitting there agonising over a sext. Over the last few months of seeing Eliot, juxtaposing the roles of mother and ‘hot girlfriend’ (when, approaching 50, I wasn’t even a girl) continued to be hard.
Usually I made the transition as I travelled the hour on the train to his flat, but right now I needed to be mother and girlfriend at the same time. It was difficult to be one without failing at the other.
Today I’d already been to the park with Emi for an hour, drawn a picture of a mermaid and watched her performance on the trampoline. In order to now be present for Eliot, I’d have to compartmentalise: ten minutes for the hot girlfriend, even if I had to carve it out of Emi’s time.
She sprung up again. ‘I am so bored!’ she cried.
‘All right, one second.’ I could feel Eliot waiting at the other end of WhatsApp.
‘One! There, a second has gone!’
‘Will you give me ten minutes, was what I meant,’ I said sternly. Wait — that was it, that was the tone I was striving for. ‘Go and bounce on the trampoline some more!’ I told her. ‘I’ll watch you from here.’
I managed to think of some things, involving handcuffs, a bad office boy and a girl boss who teaches him a lesson
After Emi ran to the end of the garden, I picked up my phone. Time to change role again.
‘You will do whatever I want,’ I texted.
‘Yes I will,’ Eliot replied immediately.
‘Good boy. Do you have all your clothes off?’
‘Yes,’ he wrote.
‘I will put on my high heels and tie you to your chair.’
‘Yes please my Goddess.’
Wow, it wasn’t so difficult. It didn’t seem as if 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 X-rated version.
‘I will . . .’ and here I managed to think of some things, involving handcuffs, a bad office boy and a girl boss who teaches him a lesson. Little bit Fifty Shades, with the genders reversed but he didn’t pull me up on literary cheesiness. And it was all done well before my ten-minute deadline expired.
- Annabel Bond is a pseudonym. Names have been changed.