Five Stories: People I Never Intended To Sleep With

Tales of ugly ducklings who somehow talked their way into our sex lakes. 

By Nerve Readers 

Santa Claus

When he realized we were the same Chinese zodiac animal, one cycle apart, he groaned, "Oh, fuck." His consternation was funny, like his British accent was funny, like our mutual insistence that the fact that we'd met via our blogs meant one or both of us was an internet serial killer.

He had a dozen years, a dozen inches, and a hundred pounds on me, and with his glasses and prematurely pewter hair he exactly resembled Santa Claus. Stories of his ex-wife, told with the full force of fresh grief, only convinced me that he was closeted. We fell into one of those obsessive, shame-free, no-holds barred girl-and-gay-best-friendships. We shopped together, drank together, went to every festival ever, rented each other for weddings, whined about relationships and religion and family and work, and drew up itineraries for fantasy trips to Iceland and Japan.

I never wondered what he looked like under his paramedic gear. One big fat old guy, surely, was like every other big fat old guy. And Santa never did it with Mrs. Claus, did he? He seemed not just asexual to me, but anti-sexual, a twinkly eunuch who would only acknowledge his genitalia to soap it vigorously in the shower.

We got soaked on a weekend trip (to Comic-Con, of all places) and sprinted back to the hotel, collapsing into a massive sulk with cold pants and soggy socks. It was only natural to get off our wet things and wrap up in one of the fluffy hotel duvets. Finally the same height, I stared into his eyes — bright hazel, with a ring of sinister green — and the next thing I knew I was saying, around his tongue, in reference to my bra, "That comes off, you know."

On the drive home, we couldn't stop laughing about it — not at how funny it had been, more at how fun it had been. And how we'd never do it again, it had only seemed like a good idea at the time, we were cold, it was... our voices trailed off. When he dropped me off we kissed goodbye, ferociously, till we ran out of air, and it was like every Disney cliche in my life came true, about loving the inside instead of the outside, about beauty coming from within, about beauty not even mattering, just our connection.

And no, it didn't turn out to be a one-time thing. Which is totally awesome. — Premee