The Cows. Dawn O’Porter

think I’ll do the stir fry.

       Cam

      Lying on her bed, Cam watches Mark sleeping, his hairless body glistening with post-sex sweat, his muscles like a mountainous desert of smooth, sweeping vales, orange from the glow of streetlights flooding the room. He is the perfect lover. The kind of lover authors give to rejected housewives in filthy novels. He’s perfect for what Cam needs right now.

      She wonders if she should kiss him gently as he sleeps, but reminds herself of the boundaries of such relationships. Sex should be tackled with abandon; affection should be handled with care.

      Instead, she reaches for her computer. Having a younger lover is the kind of blog fodder she can’t deny herself.

       The mid-to-late twenties, it’s such a prime age for a guy, don’t you think? Post-teenage disaster, pre-any desire to sow their seed and have children. Often at the peak of fitness, finding their way in the professional world and working their way through women like a snow plough with a penis.

       I love them. For women like me, dare I tell you again – thirty-six, single, happy – they really are quite the gift. I recently found myself one whilst queuing in Whole Foods. I was buying organic frozen pizza and he was buying protein shakes. Our eyes met, we made general chit chat and an hour and a half later we were in bed. It wasn’t our stilted conversation that pulled us together, it was lust. Just lust. If you judge me for that, then I don’t think you understand how mutual adult relationships work. It’s healthy and consensual; there really is nothing to have an opinion about.

       But we love it, don’t we? Judging other people’s sexual choices, especially if they have an air of controversy. We laugh, we question, we put on our halos and tell anyone doing anything we don’t do ourselves that they’re wrong or weird. But really, if it feels good and everyone is happy (and legal), then who is anyone to say it isn’t right?

       How is it that such a private and intimate act, like sex, gains so much social traction? It excites people in the physical sense, but it excites them even more when they can gossip about someone else’s deviances. It makes no sense when society is as diverse as it is, that some still feel uncomfortable when others don’t behave in a way that is considered ‘normal’.

       But we were just told what was normal, weren’t we? It was written in the books before we were born, that monogamy was the way to go, that we are supposed to find ‘the one’, get married, have kids. But maybe monogamy isn’t for everyone. Maybe some people, like me, really don’t have any fear of being alone. In fact, it’s the end goal.

       I’m so happy not to be normal. At thirty-six, I have no intentions to settle down. There are some people in my life that find that unbearable. I can’t be any other way.

       There are more single women in their thirties and forties than any other point in history; we are the fastest-growing demographic, but being single doesn’t mean you want, or deserve less sex. My choice is to have a younger lover, to give me the physical attention that I crave, but the emotional freedom that I rely on. That’s my choice, and as I sit here looking at a beautiful creature, asleep in my bed, here when I need him, gone when I don’t, I feel proud not to be normal. In fact, I recommend it.

       Sweet dreams,

       Cam x

       Tara

      At 11.36 p.m. we’re outside the Sanderson, getting off with each other like we are very much not on a London street in full view of anyone walking past. ‘Come back to my place,’ Jason says gently. ‘We can watch TV together. I’ll lend you some pyjamas. We can talk about feelings?’ He pushes even closer into me and puts his hands on my face. ‘Or we can just fuck in this doorway and deal with how much I fancy you that way.’

      He kisses me. Our mouths taste exactly the same and go together like jigsaw pieces. Like when you’ve been trying to open a door with the wrong key for ages and when you finally use the right one it just slots in so easily that you realise how wrong you’ve been getting it for so long. My sexual desire powers down into my pants like the lights and music on the set of a TV gameshow. My crotch is pulling me towards this guy with a force that feels as good as sex itself. This is the connection I’ve been pining for every Saturday night that I’ve spent alone after Annie has gone to bed. Feeling cold, empty and rejected by my own choices after yet another shit date the night before. All I’ve wanted is to at least feel genuinely turned on. An actual, full body, one hundred per cent real impulse to shag someone senseless, rather than just because of a distant hope that sex might give us the connection I’m looking for.

      I pull away. ‘Old fashioned’, ‘wife and family’, ‘a free kid’. His words ring in my head. If this is really happening, then it can wait.

      ‘Stop,’ I say, stepping out onto the street and away from him. ‘Let’s stop. Let’s not do this tonight. Let’s wait.’

      ‘Oh God, you’re crazy?’ he says, his mouth glistening under the street lights.

      ‘I’m not being crazy. Let’s not do this tonight. Let’s go out again, next Friday? Date. The “old-fashioned” way?’

      Even if I never see him again, I can at least walk away from this amazing night with no sexual shame.

      ‘I want to see you again,’ I say. ‘I just think it’s OK to be sensible sometimes.’

      ‘You know they still had sex in the old-fashioned days?’ he says, adjusting his crotch but giving me a smile that shows he understands. ‘At least let me get you a cab?’

      ‘No, I’ll get the train, honestly a cab will take ages, I don’t live far from the station.’

      ‘Where do you live anyway?’ he asks.

      ‘Walthamstow,’ I tell him.

      ‘Walthamstow, I’ve never been. Maybe next Friday will be the night I take the Victoria Line all the way?’

      ‘Maybe you will,’ I say. ‘It’s a pretty sexy train.’

      I loop my arm through his, and we walk to the station.

      ‘Take my number,’ I say, when we get to Tottenham Court Road tube. ‘I promise I am not trying to make a polite excuse, I really want to see you again. I want to do this again.’ I kiss him, showing him that without any doubt I really do fancy him. After a few seconds, he pulls away and takes his phone out of his pocket. He taps in my number as I tell it to him.

      ‘Is text sex allowed?’ he says. To which I laugh and nod my head.

      ‘Any text is allowed. Just text me.’

      ‘I will,’ he says. ‘Answer the text.’

      ‘I will.’

      He kisses me again and doubt nearly makes me say, ‘I’LL COME BACK TO YOURS AND RIDE YOU ALL NIGHT.’ But I think of my feelings, I think of Annie, and I manage to control my urges somehow. As I walk away, I feel so good about myself – wildly turned on and like I could turn back, rip his clothes off and shag his brains out in the middle of Oxford Street – but also, so good about myself.

      Just as I get to the bottom of the escalator, I get a text.

       Tonight was perfect. Can’t wait to do it again. Jx

      I stop. I have one bar of signal and want to send a reply before I go further underground. I’ve made my point, there isn’t really any need to hold back any more, I don’t want to leave him with any doubt about how I feel, so I just go for it.

       I’ll not be so polite