We eventually made our way back to her place. I expected a den of hedonism, whips, chains and all, but there was none of that. It was in fact, quite normal. She had a normal couch and a normal rug; a normal television framed by a normal chest; and a normal kitchen with a normal fridge that thankfully contained a normal bottle of vodka. I kicked my frat-boy seduction technique into high gear.

"We should do a couple of shots," I said.

"Why?" she asked, "Are you nervous?"

"No," I said, a little too readily, "just, you know. . . something to do."

She laughed and led me to the bedroom. "We can skip all that, I have something better to do," she said.

Her room was contained chaos. There were clothes strewn across the floor, her bed was unmade in a well-used sort of way, there was an overflowing walk-in closet and a makeup table filled with stuff. The walls were bare except for one, which had an oversized mirror placed just so as to reflect a full view of the bed. She stuck her tongue down my throat before I could make any comment. There was no mistaking that she was in charge. She knew it and I knew it; my only job was to keep up. I went into autopilot: I caressed the places you are supposed to caress, rubbed the spots that you should always rub and undid her bra without too much fuss. This was Foreplay 101, and I am good at it. So good in fact, I managed to surreptitiously switch off the light without breaking rhythm. Darkness would be my ally.

Before long we were both naked and it was time to get down to business. I had made it through a bout of enthusiastic tugging without her recoiling in revulsion, and I took that as a positive sign. Perhaps my worry was unfounded. Maybe I did stack up. But the proof, as they say, is in the tasting of the pudding. She reached across me and fished a bright gold sachet out of her night stand.

Great. Magnum XXL condoms.

"Hurry," she said.

It is hard enough to maintain any level of romance while fumbling around with a darned condom, harder still when your partner has put you under the gun and you are expected to produce big things. I could have bolted at that moment. I could have grabbed my trousers, and run out of the door, my pride a little dented, my reputation in tatters, but my all important sense of self-delusion intact. To paraphrase Lincoln: better to keep your zipper up and be thought poorly endowed, than to display your wares and remove all doubt. But I did not.

Instead I gave myself a little pep talk, tore the plastic off the condom and rolled it onto my penis. It must have taken me a while because I was barely done when she told me to get on with it already.

She was looking over her shoulder, her ass stuck in the air; nature's position one. There was nothing for it. I crawled above her onto the bed and gave her my best thrust; a top-of-the-line, grade-A, go-on-my-son(!) thrust. And in response I got. . . nothing. Silence.

I panicked. My worst fears were coming true.

Any moment now she would turn around and ask what the hell I was doing, or worse, say something that would haunt me for life and prevent me from ever having sex again, something like "is it in yet?" or "is that all?" I pushed as deep as I could and sent an impious prayer to the heavens: "Please God, give me an inch. Just for tonight, you can have it back in the morning." I willed all available resources to the regions where they were needed most, and began pumping for all I was worth.

Just when I was losing all confidence, she barked. It was unmistakable. She let out a little yelp, like one of those designer handbag dogs, what Eddie Izzard would call a little-yapper-type dog. It was a small sound at first — I could hardly hear it over the boing-boing of her mattress springs — but it got louder and louder.

Before long her bark was the loudest thing in the room, and far from making me nervous (was it a bark of pleasure or disappointment?) it relaxed me. No, it did more than relax me: it made me laugh. The whole situation suddenly seemed ludicrous to the extreme, here I was (let's face it) drowning in an XXL-size condom trying to impress a barking nympho. I began to giggle, then chuckle. Then I was bent over in fits of belly laughter.
 

---

Suffice to say, I could not continue with the task at hand. She of course did not call me. I did nothing to warrant a repeat performance, and beyond representing a (regrettable) rung on her sexual ladder — if she even keeps track of these things — I am pretty sure she rarely has occasion to think of me.

I, on the other hand, am reminded of our short bout between the sheets whenever I am buying my box of regular sized Trojans and whenever I hear the bark of a little-yapper-type dog. As it turns out, my neighborhood is full of them.  n°