Does Hot Sex Trump Intimate Cuddling?
“How was your night with Liam?” Lana walked back into her studio as I set my backpack down, ready to curhat about my latest sexploit.
“Umm. It was okay. I mean, the sex was good. Like ridiculously good. He finally used the handcuffs on me too!”
Lana whipped around. “Oh ya??”
“Iya, biasa aja sih.” I demonstrated the position, with my wrists behind my lower back. Then I rolled my eyes and laughed. “He took them off after like 10 minutes. I don’t get all the fuss. But anyway, after we were done I asked him, ‘are you going to cuddle me? Because if you’re not, maybe I’ll just go home now, since I won’t be able to sleep’. And he said, ‘Well now is a good time to go because there’s no traffic’.”
Lana’s jaw dropped.
“I know right? I told him, ‘your words…are like sandpaper.’ So KASAR you know?”
Lana grimaced and shook her head. She waited for me to continue.
“So I got upset, I really wanted to leave. But I couldn’t, I was too tipsy and my eyes were so heavy, my body so tired.”
“Terus?”
“Terus he apologized and then cuddled me for like five minutes but then once he fell asleep, he turned around, stayed on his side of the bed gitu and it felt like I wasn’t even there. I felt so anxious dude, like what am I doing here…in some stranger’s bed, next to some guy that obviously really doesn’t give a shit about me. So disconnected — once the sex was over. It was awful, I was so restless, I couldn’t sleep at all. I don’t know, I think Adriel broke me.”
Lana let out a soft laugh. “Maksudnya?”
“Yeah I don’t know, somehow just cuddling and feeling safe and intimate with someone triumphs good sex. It’s better. I left Adriel’s place on such high vibes, I was so happy. This morning I felt…I just felt really awful.”
“Akhirnya?”
“Akhirnya as soon I was good to drive, at 6am I grabbed my shit and left. I didn’t even wake him up or say goodbye.”
Lana made sad puppy eyes to empathize with my pain. “I’m sorry Chris. That’s kind of a sad way to end it…you said he’s leaving right? This was your last night with him?”
“Yeah, it’s okay. Now I know better. If it’s just a one night stand, I should leave right after sex. But I guess because we were doing such couple-y things together, the lines got blurred and I got a bit attached. No, no it’s not that I got attached. It’s that I allowed myself to have certain expectations.”
I opened the box of Putri Salju cookies on the table and plopped a sugary half moon in my mouth. Lana always had the best stash of baked goods. I loved knowing I could walk over at any time and steal some sweets. I was gonna miss these catch-ups when I moved to Jimbaran.
“Anywayyyy,” I mumbled through a mouthful of my third Putri Salju, “Tell me about youuuur mooorrninggg!!!”
Lana had finally made conversation with her mystery crush. Six months of flirty eye contact on their morning beach walks — that’s a lot of build up! I listened eagerly as my hand kept reaching for more cookies.
She told me about how she gathered up the courage to invite him to walk with her. She lamented about how she did most of the question-asking. She said that he didn’t seem interested to know her background or what she did. In the end, her long-awaited meet-cute left her sorely disenchanted in the span of 5,000 sandy steps. No sparks, no laughter, no follow-up. The only interesting thing about him was that he was a self-proclaimed Men’s Sex Coach. But…he couldn’t even stimulate one engaging conversation? I disliked him already.
“I built up this whole world about him in my mind, and finally, I discovered…I’m actually so much cooler! And it made me realize, that next time, I won’t wait so long to make a move.”
These stories from my girlfriends filled my soul, they charged my batteries and kept me high for hours.
“Terus, terus, terus?” We would prod.
When there was nothing left to say; no “and then”, and only a “ya gitu deh” to sum it all up, we’d open our laptops and go back to doing that boring stuff called work.
But those minutes filled with emotional narration, wild hand gestures, gripes and groans and laughs, and the final cumulative sigh — those few minutes of ‘Curhat’ filled me with pure pleasure.
Anyway — Hot sex or intimate cuddling? There’s obviously no objective answer, and that it depends on the person you are with.
I thought back to my night with Karl.
The door must have been slightly open because the drapes were rustling intensely.
“It’s the wind,” he said when he saw me glancing at the curtains.
We were intertwined, facing each other, my hand in his, our noses touching, lips just inches apart.
“Fireworks,” he murmured.
“Oh already?” I glanced at the doors again.
“What?”
“They’re already starting the fireworks here?”
“No.” He held my hand and moved it from his chest to mine. “Here.”
“Oh, right,” I giggled.
He kissed me softly, but I kind of wanted him to pull my hair and flip me over instead. Save the romantic stuff for when we actually cared about each other. Right now he was just a stranger, and all the nice things he said were empty words; all the glittery courting wouldn’t matter if he didn’t keep in touch with me after tonight.
The days leading up to our date, he was the perfect gentleman. He messaged me every day, and he called every few days. CALLED! Like, on the phone! I didn’t realize men still did that anymore.
He said, I want to take you to my favorite restaurant. I want to get dressed up and get to know you and connect with you.
He ticked off all the boxes. Handsome, well dressed, that suave European sense of style. Blue linen button up, tan pants and loafers. Dark hair, white teeth, megawatt smile. Didn’t drink, did breathwork once a week, favorite book: Think and Grow Rich. Sold his company in Belgium, already investing in Bali real estate. We had the same taste in music (RnB, Soul, Dancehall). We had a few too many things in common. And even though he was a little bit too perfect, I was looking forward to our date so much, I almost bought a new pair of heels!
I didn’t. I’d grabbed the wrong debit card. Thank you Universe.
Back to the end of the date, the part where we went back to his place:
More cuddling, more eye gazing, more sensual slow kissing. I felt nothing. I felt like an actress playing a part on stage, and I couldn’t wait until my scene ended so I could go home to snack on my Astor and drink teh kotak while falling asleep to Emily in Paris.
One last obligatory morning text, an “I had a wonderful evening with you, have a lovely day”, and then I never saw him again.
So, hot sex or intimate cuddling?
There’s always one thing that trumps both.
It’s the morning after when you meet up with your girlfriends, whether you’re grumpy and exhausted or coming off a sweet romantic high, and you share every juicy triviality because they ask for it, because you’re obliged under the besty contract to be honest and specific, and in return they’ll guide your raw emotions, the ones you left suspended in the air between breaths.
They’ll try their best to cross-examine your ponderings with ‘maybes’ and ‘hmms’ and ‘as long as you’re happys’ — plucking your thoughts from obscurity and maneuvering them into ideological boxes for your psyche to refine and purify.
They’ll pick up the conversation where you put it down to serve equally delicious narratives of their own, so you can nod or gasp heatedly while scarfing down cookie after cookie.
Then as you come back down from the rush of fervent storytelling, you pose those timeless questions that will never get answered:
Do men come off as arrogant because they’re afraid to be vulnerable?
Is he shy, or is he completely uninterested? Uninterest-ing, maybe.
And lastly, is he really an experienced Sex Coach, or is he merely reading off a script for his Youtube Channel?
Only one thing was truly certain. Handcuffs are overrated.
Bahasa Indonesia Glossary:
Curhat: Confide — or, story sharing session (Chismis in Tagalog)
Biasa aja sih: Just alright / Nothing special / Normal
Maksudnya: Meaning
Akhirnya: Finally / In the end
Terus: And then — or, Keep going
Gitu Deh: That’s all / Like that
