I always thought I was a one-marshmallow kid.
Back in the 1970s, a scientist ran an experiment with 4-year-olds. He put them in a room with one marshmallow on a plate, then left them alone with it for about 15 minutes. The catch? If they could resist eating that marshmallow for 15 minutes, then they would get two of them. He was interested in what young children who delayed gratification had in common. Most people believe that the ones who waited had some inherent trait that made them more successful in life, while the actual author of the study was intrigued by the fact that there WAS no inherent difference, just different delayed gratification techniques – distraction, imagination, and outright ignoring. Yet none of them enjoyed the waiting.
Usually when my husband and I are at home, I can pretty much have sex whenever I get the urge. For the past week or two, however, I’ve found myself doubly constrained. First, I’ve been on vacation, largely surrounded by in-laws. Secondly, my FWB and I have taken a sexual hiatus. Unfortunately, my frontal lobes know this, but my baser urges apparently don’t. I find myself fantasizing about being DP’d while having “regular” sex or during an intimate moment with the detachable wand in the cousins-in-law’s bathtub…
Even now, I’m fucking with myself. I’m typing this up in the car on the way to the airport, next to Ben, his brother, and their dad, all the while listening to explicitly-charged music on loop. I feel the sexual arousal build. Sexual fantasies drift in and out of my mind. Once again, I’m glad that I’m a woman and can keep these primal desires to myself; when they’re only obvious to the touch or close inspection, they retain an inexplicable force. I must constantly suppress the need to rub up on a man or shove my vulva in his face so he'll notice my arousal.
The airplane ride will only be worse – over 10 hours in economy class, often with little to distract me but my music, books, and errant thoughts growing ever more elaborate in my mind. And when my FWB picks Ben and me up from the airport, his cock will be there and off-limits. It’s like a ghost limb; even now I feel my facial muscles twitch around an exquisite fullness that isn’t there.
That’s what this torture is: exquisite. All the more so since I don’t know if those figurative two marshmallows will ever materialize. It’s a pressure, a pleasure that rises and fills and threatens to spill out, but I giddily hold it all in.