EDGED FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME

Yep, you read that right.  This’ll be about the first time I was edged.  Continue at your own peril! Today’s story is equal parts BL drama and Queer Ask Folk (The original english version) It’s nonetheless the first introduction I had to the fine art of delaying gratification. I hope you find it both informative and titillating

Imagine if you will a twenty one year old Gatsby. I’d just moved to London to train as a contemporary dancer. It was the two thousands. Sprayed on denim flares were in fashion and it was the epoch of the metrosexual.  All men were starting to embrace more adventurous fashions. This city of dreams opened up and welcomed me in ways I hadn’t imagined. I made lots of friends who felt like family almost immediately.  A mixture of beautiful artists and intellectuals, I’d found my tribe. I was a bohemian.  I was living in Covent Garden with a ridiculously handsome Italian flatmate who was a popular gogo dancer and spent almost every night out with him. It was exciting to be in the world and I felt very bit a part of it finally. I was training at the London Contemporary Dance school and spent my days training my body and contemplated life, love and the human experience. It was a dream! At nights I moonlighted as a door host at Soho house, a private members club where I rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous. While I was sometimes living hand to mouth and worked a second job as an art model during the day, life was kind of amazing. I met writers, producers, directors and artists of all kinds. I met heroes I’d admired as a teenager, had drinks and nights out with artists I aspired to be like one day and a hand full of those became lovers. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that I was in the heart of creative London.  “A fabulous nobody” as my my friend James Piaf used to say, was sometimes “enough to open private doors into beautiful homes and part the velvet ropes to any VIP area in London.” He wasn’t wrong. 

It was in these heady days of fantasy come to life that I learned so much about myself. Because of the way London opened itself up to me, I was able to shed my suburban past and recreate myself to be very different from that shy teenager who left Sydney to follow his dreams. A one way ticket in my pocket, a working holiday visa and wild ambitions and there I was. Thankfully that was enough.  In hindsight I think being largely naive, young and a bit cute may have been like catnip to the all the panthers lying in wait I met those beautiful years. I was definitely ready to be consumed! 

For those uninitiated, “edging” is practice of keeping your sexual partner/s close to the edge of climax.  It’s a patient, exciting and thrilling process of keeping your partner aroused, sometimes seconds away from cumming over and over again for a period of time, sometimes a whole night, sometimes weeks. When orgasm comes, if it comes at all,  is all the more powerful because of the suspense, teasing and build up of sexual energy.  

Like all young men, at the time I thought I was a good lover. When I feel back to that younger self I remember being full of uncertainty, insecurity and truthfully, full of sexual trauma.  I still had a gag reflex then and was in all likelihood a terrible shag. Sorry about that. My parents and I never talked about sex, relationships and definitely not about feelings. That awkward and hilarious conversation I’d seen played out in films between parents and their mortified teenage kids never happened for me. I’d come out on TV a few years earlier in the worst possible way. That’s a story for another time. My family and friends really didn’t get an opportunity to come to terms with my revealed identity.  I came out very publiclly then left the country. Because of this my folks and I were on eggshells whenever we talked.  It took many years of talking and my return to Sydney a decade later to rebuild those relationships.  Having my queerness rejected, my relationships shunned and my “lifestyle” made unspeakable I didn’t have anyone to really talk to about romance, love and sex. Most of my friends were around my age and equally clueless.  While we celebrated each other’s relationships, we didn’t really know how to support each other in the finer details of things. Our hearts were in the right place but we were the blind leading the blind.  Online Gaydar hookups, handsome men met with a smile across a crowded bar and long line of one night stands was where we haphazardly learned problematic things about sex and how not to have relationships.  While that’s largely true, It’s also the city where I learned to define my own ideals on love and learned about the things I liked in the bedroom and so it turned out, also in broad daylight at Hampstead heath.     

In the olden days, dear reader long before location based mobile apps tracked potential partners to within a meter’s distance a young person had to chat, charm and exchange phone numbers fixing an exact time and location to meet. Many people looked nothing like their pictures but thankfully there were others who surpassed their online presence. 

It’s at this point that I’d like to personally thank Gaydar for continuing the fine tradition of making a safe-ish space for young, gay men to find themselves through other men. Safe, sex positive queer spaces matter!  

Now back to the story.  It’s on this app that I met Oliver.  Tall, dark and handsome with a swimmer’s build, his profile didn’t give much away. Versatile, 6ft tall, an architect. Very British, in his main picture he sat in a beautiful room smiling and smartly dressed in a corduroy jacket with elbow patches. That was enough! As an aside, elbow patches get me every time FYI. We exchanged a few messages that were oddly non sexual and I gave him my phone number. He invited me over to his place in Hampstead for a drink a few days later and I accepted.   

It was spring and the nights were warming up with the promise of a hot summer. I swept up my long black hair with wax, put on a fitted black shirt, skin tight grey flared jeans, Italian brogues and my favourite midnight blue velvet jacket.  It was the two thousands!  I looked hot! With My A-Z pocket map in my back pocket I jumped on the tube to hamstead. I arrived at a beautiful house on a small street not sure I was at the right place. I knocked. Ollie opened the door. He looked better than his picture.  He smiled warmly and invited me in.  He was house sitting his boss’s place while they were out of town.  A stylist mid century home with minimalist interiors. Danish furniture, a large low coffee table and what looked to be Japanese wabi sabi earthenware pottery here and there and some abstract paintings.  It was a little bit intimidating.  It looked like a page straight out of Architectural Digest. We sat down and he offered to make me a drink.  This was a first. Most of the men I’d met before on Gaydar were matter of fact in their desire and had my cock in their hands as soon as the door closed behind me. He was warm, but also a bit aloof.  Now he was making me us a gin and tonic. I could get used to this. We talked about midcentury design and I drank my strong gin too quickly.  I think I must have blushed red because he opened the door to the garden and suggested we sit outside as it was a warm evening.  We came out of the garden and sat at a stone bench underneath a large plane tree. The sweet smell of jasmine filled the air and as the alcohol lit a fire in my empty stomach I felt like I was on fire in the best possible way.  I smiled to myself and called counted my luck. I told him about my recent move to London, dance training and talked about my friends. He was interested, asked questions and made my life feel more interesting than it really was. He didn’t talk much about himself and when I asked about his life his answers were vague in details so I didn’t press for more. I was happy enough that there was a comfortable chemistry between us and glad that he wanted to take his time.  As we talked about art, films and theatre things he surprised me with his knowledge of contemporary dance and the time flew. The tall trees around us grew dark and the stars came out. He took my hand.  It felt warm and confident. He leaned in to kiss me.  Impatient, I met him half way wrapping my arms around his neck and pulled him in closer. His lips were soft and unexpectedly hot.  After kissing each other breathless he slowly started to unbutton my shirt, kissing his way down.  I asked if he wanted to go inside. He said no.  “I want you here.” When he said that my cock twitched hard at the urgency in his voice.  He took out of his jacket pocket a folded bandana and asked if he could tie my hands together.  This wasn’t my first time with restraints so I nodded. I stood up and he tied my wrists together firmly and started to pull down my pants. 

Looking up at me he took me in his mouth. I won’t write a blow by blow account of what happened, pun intended, but I will explain that it was the first time I was aware of having my body enjoyed and played with such intense focus.  He played with my cock first with his mouth, then his hands, alternating the play to keep me on edge.  When I reached for his cock which I could see straining to get out of his trousers, he would say later.  Later did not come that night. The pleasure and proximity to orgasm drove me crazy.  Just when I was about to climax he would pull away, or move my body.  With my sexual partners previously I was more focused on pleasing them.  More often than not they would cum before I did. This was the first time I met someone so hell bent on pleasing me without reciprocation. And he was clearly having the time of his life. The ways he touched me alternated from soft and tender to fast and percussive. He was driving me crazy.  I made noises I didn’t know I was capable of making and was nervous the neighbours would hear me.  Ollie wasn’t concerned in the least. His focus, control and taking pleasure in the sounds he would solicit me made me unusually emotional.  I found tears crept out of my eyes.  My heart raced more than it did usually.  I was also frustrated that he didn’t want me to please him. Highly emotional, unbelievably horny and very confused, it hadn’t occurred to me until many years later how special that night with him was. I didn’t have the understanding or language at the time to know that my body was a landscape of trauma, shame and so much insecurity. That night under the stars in a not so quiet suburban garden I spent five hours being pleasured without the expectation to reciprocate. As innocuous as that may sound, there was a healing power in that pleasure. In letting myself be pleasured without having to think about reciprocating, without having to perform,  something inside me moved. Something inside me changed.

After sending me home drunk with sex, but also frustratingly horny still he asked me to come back tomorrow night with a promise that I wouldn’t orgasm til I saw him again.  I promised my orgasm to him and reluctantly left. 

All the next day I could think of nothing but his fast hands and the eyes he made when he please me with his mouth. While I advocate for seeking balance in giving and receiving pleasure with your partner/s, It can be wholeheartedly fulfilling to be committed to one or the other in a chosen moment of intimacy. It’s HOT! We don’t always have to play an octopus and be all things. As a skilled multi- tasker and eldest son I think people pleasing and over-performing is my default.  We met up that night and many afternoons, mornings for years.  Oliver introduced me to the joys my body was capable of and because of that I’ll always have a special place in my heart for him.  While we didn’t work out as romantic partners, we’ve kept in touch over the years and the spark between us still remains.

I wasn’t going to share my embarrassing orgasm,  but it’s also part of our story.  When I went back to Ollie’s that second night he had two bandanas and blindfolded me with the other. There was far less talk and more purpose. He undressed and I could finally feel his skin on mine. Eyes closed, hungry for his body, his cock and also very eager to please I was like a dog set free at a sausage factory.  I was a slut!  The blindfold and wrist restraints freed me of having to be all things and it was strangely was liberating. Only being able to move in certain ways by Andy made my body responsive, not knowing what would happen next. After hours of hungry, thirsty devouring of each other I finally came. It was so intense my whole body shook and my balls and asshole ached. I came so hard. Equal parts relaxed now and well and truly exhausted, I farted…  not a silent fart, but a loud roar that announces itself. After a mortifying moment of silence that felt like forever we both laughed. I though I’d spoilt the moment and reached up to take off my blindfold but Andy took my hands away from my face with one hand and pressed them into my chest as he pulled me into a tight embrace and kissed me.  He held me close til our breathing slowed and we stuck to each other with the hot wet glue I’d sprayed all over us.  I could feel his big hard cock pressing against me, not yet exhausted.  It would be a few more trips to that house before I would learn how he liked to be pleased.  That’s be a story for another time.

These days I have a bandana on me almost always… to tie wrists together or to blindfold my lovers. If you haven’t tried edging, grab some hot coconut oil and make some time with yourself/ friends…

Oliver showed me that intimacy, connection and sex do not not require either of us to orgasm. I think that first night of pleasure free from the pressure to climax or to please was medicine for me.  It was the first intimation that perhaps I wasn’t so great at receiving pleasure. It helped me see that I had a lot to learn when it comes to pleasing myself and my partners.  It continues to be an ongoing subject I continue to devote hours of academic research and scholarly learning to.  I hope you do the same. Receiving pleasure can be medicine. so can giving.  Have at it!  

Gatsby Lim