Nerve Endings: Female, 22, Sydney

"One morning at six a.m., after three years, he sent me a text message…"

Female • 22 • Sydney

I met him when I was twenty-two. I had just returned home to Sydney from living in Canada for six months, and was feeling the post-living-overseas-having-an-adventure-I'm-sure-I'm-cooler-than-all-my-boring-friends-back-home blues.

I'd seen him around before I'd gone away, but he'd had a serious girlfriend. I thought there was something outrageously sexy about him, but didn't even bother talking to him because of his girlfriend and because the only thing I wanted really was to get naked with him. So on my return to the country, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he didn't have a girlfriend any longer. I spoke to him. He spoke back. We flirted, and we could both tell something was brewing.

I was a late bloomer when it came to men and doing stuff with them and their private parts. He was only the second guy I'd slept with. I loved my new, grown-up sexuality, and I loved that with him, I was being the aggressor, the one to encourage him and pursue what was developing between us. Once we started sleeping together, it quickly became clear that it was solely a sexual relationship. But while I may have thought I was all grown up having wild sex (we really did have amazing chemistry) and hooking up with this guy with no strings attached, I was starting to grow strings and fall in love with him. I wanted more. I wanted to go on dates, to spend time with friends together, and to share hopes and dreams and not just drunken nights.

I tried all I could to make it develop into something more, and sometimes he'd gather up the courage to take me on a date to the movies, only to then crawl back into his cave and not call for three weeks. And all the time, while he really gave me nothing but sex and the occasional tease of something more happening between us, my feelings grew stronger and my heart broke again and again and again. When he didn't call, when I'd do the walk of shame home in the morning, or when my friends told me they saw him leaving a bar holding another girl's hand, my heart and my self-esteem plummeted.

And then one morning at six a.m., after three years of this unfulfilling arrangement, he sent me a text message. "Are you awake? I'm just on my way home and thought I'd drop by," and for some reason I didn't answer. For some reason, for the first time, I felt mad that he'd woken me and had thought only of his needs. I felt disrespected and then, like a light bulb coming on, like an Oprah a-ha moment, I realized that it wasn't me he wanted to see. It was my vagina. And if my vagina wasn't available, he would go and see any old vagina.

Not happy with my lack of response, he then called. I answered and asked him, "Is this a booty call, Steve?" and he said, "Yes, Chloe, I suppose it is."

“Well," I responded, "you'll have to find someone else," and hung up.

And with that, the spell was broken, and our strange relationship ended.

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