It’s been about fifteen years since I last had sex with my ex-husband. Now we’re both single, we’re good friends, and I find myself wondering how to get him thinking about me that way again. Slowly. I’m in no hurry to skip the part where we want each other.
I’ve picked up on what feels like interest from him. That’s my impression, though, not a conversation in which he has laid out exactly what he wants. He’s cautious. He thinks things through. The fact that we’ve been married doesn’t mean he would casually tumble back into bed with me, and I’m not expecting him to.
There’s something unusually exposing about wanting to seduce a man who used to be your husband. We aren’t strangers trying to work out whether we like each other well enough to keep talking. There’s already a friendship. There’s also a sexual history, but it’s an old one. Fifteen years is a long gap to bridge with the assumption that I still know what turns him on.
That’s where my curiosity has landed: the anticipation before anything happens. I want to give him something to think about after we’re apart, something that brings his mind back to me. Not a grand performance. More the sort of small moment that lasts a little longer in your head than it did in real life.
I know how powerful that can be for me. A brief, gentle touch or kiss on my neck can send a shiver through me. So can the thought of a man holding my face as he leans in for a slow kiss. Even putting that into words gets my breathing going. These are things I respond to, though, not things I’m claiming have happened between us recently.
And my reactions don’t tell me his. I’m curious about what women have done that stayed with a man: what felt inviting, what made the next meeting harder to wait for, what turned an ordinary thought of her into wanting her. I’m interested in the particular thing someone remembers, rather than a supposedly irresistible move that works on every man.
Part of the appeal is that neither of us has to treat the waiting as wasted time. From where I’m standing, we’re at a point where the slow build could be something to enjoy in itself. I don’t want to turn his caution into an obstacle I’m cleverly getting around. I want to know whether there’s room for us both to enjoy that anticipation.
The friendship makes this different from flirting with someone new. If I flirt with him, it will be inside a connection we already have, with all the familiarity of being exes. I can’t simply assume that what sounds suggestive in my head would land that way with him. Nor can I borrow someone else’s memory of a perfect kiss and make it ours.
So I’m still curious about the beginnings people remember. The small, deliberate gesture. The pause that made them want the next kiss. Or the thing they wished she had done before either of them made a bold move. I haven’t got a new encounter with my ex-husband to describe. Right now, I’m thinking about what might lead up to one.
