Talking to Strangers
Hooksexup asks deeply personal questions to people we just met.

Elle, 20

What do you do for a living?
Professional student.

And what do you study?
Italian.

Is Italian a sexy language?
Yes, when it's spoken by men. No, when it's spoken by women. Women sound like assholes when they speak Italian.

But men sound sexy?
It depends. I have a big, fat professor. When he talks it's just a big mumbo jumbo of nonsense. You can't tell when he's speaking English and when he's speaking Italian because it sounds exactly the same. But generally, yes, men sound sexier when they speak Italian.

Is there anything that guys do besides speak Italian that gets you going?
As an appearance thing, I like geeky guys. I guess the connotation of them being intelligent gets me going.

Have you ever been offended in the bedroom?
Yes. My ex-boyfriend told me that my stuff smelled funny.

At what point did he say this?
He was all for having sex with me — and I gave him head, I gave him a blowjob — and he was ready to go, and he was like, "What's that smell?" I freaked out a little. I mean, I got pissed. You don't say that, that's fucked up. You suggest taking a sexy shower or something. You don't say, "What's that smell?"

Had you showered that day?
I had showered maybe like, twenty minutes before I went to his house, which was the fucked-up part of it.

Maybe he'd never been with a woman before?
No, this was well into our relationship. This was like to the point where he stopped eating me out and I was like, all right, either you're going to start eating me out or I'm not going to give you head any more. And he was like, okay, fine we can compromise.

What a jerk!
It didn't smell bad. I smelled it. I smelled very nice.

Do you have any crazy hook-up stories?
I was dating my very first boyfriend, who I had known pretty much all my life. He was like my best friend ever. I was giving him head in the hallway of my apartment complex. It was really late. I thought people were asleep and my mom walked up the stairs and in her Spanish accent she was like, "Elle, could you please esplain to me what you are fucking doing?!" And then she proceeded to beat the crap out of me and beat the crap out of him, too. And then she made us break up. It was great. I mean at that moment it wasn't because she beat the crap out of me, but looking back on it, it was hilarious.

Gregory, 23

What do you do for a living?
I'm a carpenter.

Are you from around here?
I'm from upstate New York.

How is dating different here in New York City?
I don't know because I have a girlfriend. But I'm sure it's gotta be tough. A lot of judgment is passed in the city.

Do you have a favorite hook-up story to tell?
I was fifteen years old, going to a party at this kid's house who hated me. He was trying to charge me fifteen dollars for a cup, and I got one for ten. There were these two girls there, and one of them — she was that girl that everybody wanted, and I was this chunky kid and I had long hair. So we go to smoke some reefer at the bridge — this is like out in the country. One thing led to another, and I had her lifted up on the ledge of the bridge, like on the side of the road. Then her friend came and busted us, you know, freaked out, calling, "Kimmie, you slut!" There was a bunch of us, it was in front of people, but you don't care when you're a kid.

Wait, were you boning or were you —
Yeah, oh yeah, it was going down. It was happening. I was in my glory. The whole time I'm like, I can't believe I'm having sex with Kimmie. It only lasted two or three minutes, and I didn't get to finish. I'm sure she didn't finish. So we start walking back to the house; I'm all pissed and blue, you know? I walk into the house, and everybody's pissed at me. The kid who's throwing the party's pissed because not only did I bone the hottest girl there, but he hated me to begin with. And there's this girl lying on the mattress, Melissa — and she's like the second-hottest girl, banging hot, and I had gone out with her in the past and nothing had ever happened. She's like, "Greg, come lay with me." And I'm like, no fucking way. So I do and we start like, foreplay-ish, and the same girl who busted me before walks in, flipping out, "Why is everybody fucking Greg at my party?!"

That's a pretty good story. I honestly don't know if we can beat that.
I have another one. I was at this place called Red Bridge, everybody swam there, there's this big tree you can jump off, and I met this girl Nikki — she's cute. I'm like fifteen.

Fifteen was a big year.
Yeah! Ever since then I've had girlfriends. But, I was fifteen and we were at Red Bridge, we're all going swimming. So we all take most of our clothes off to jump in the water. Nikki takes all of her clothes off besides her bra and her thong. So we go into the water, and it's just me, her, and some other kid just wading around, and she like, wraps her legs around me and she had pulled her thong to the side and she had me touch it, and I was like, no way, and she pulled closer, and I was ready to go. You know, I was fifteen. And next thing you know, I was inside her, and all these guys are like, "Is this really happening?" We were going at it at the edge of the pond, and this kid — who's now dead — starts crawling across the branch of this tree, like right above us. He wasn't jerking off or anything, but it was weird. Everybody was watching, but he was like POV-watching. And while we're going at it, people are talking to me, they're like, "You want us to go kick his ass? You want us to go kick his ass for being up there watching?"

And I'm like, "Yeah, go kick his ass!" So they, like, rip him from the tree and drag him up the hill. They didn't beat his ass, but they probably left some bruises on his arms and stuff. I don't think I finished there, either. It was an uncomfortable situation, but it counted. It counted for sure.

It seems like when you were fifteen you boned a lot, but you never finished.
Right! But with that girl I ended up finishing multiple times later on.

Elle, 25

What do you do for a living?
I work in skin care. It's all right. I work the clerical side of the whole thing.

Have you ever used your job to get laid?
I used to be a bottle-service waitress in South Beach, so yeah. I got laid a lot from that! I had this flirtation going with a guy who worked in the club with me. Finally one day, we just took it to the bathroom. I was way younger though, way long ago.

Was that on shift?
It was right before we opened, so yeah.

Do you have any favorite hook-up stories?
Well, my ex-boyfriend and I pretty much acted out a rape scene to the fullest extent. I had him wait outside my apartment. I was pretending to be cooking when he broke into my apartment and it was full-on, chasing me around the apartment, me screaming. Thank God my neighbors didn't call the cops. It was pretty intense. I've never had a hook-up like that before. It was so hot. I'm pretty into acting out fantasies and dressing up.

What's your favorite outfit?
Schoolgirl. I think that's pretty standard, but I really feel sexy in the schoolgirl outfit.

What gets you going in a guy, besides rapists?
I like the whole foreplay thing. I like when guys massage and lead up to it. That really gets me going.

Has anyone ever offended you in the bedroom?
One guy I was hooking up with left his socks on. I was like, "Take them off!" That is like, the least sexy thing you could do in the bedroom.