Someone I actually like.

Something rather unusual has happened; I had sex with someone I really like. Shall I elaborate?

I met Claire over a year ago at a party. We were introduced, and even before we started talking I knew that something strange had come over me. I'd never met anyone before who had this effect on me, I was captivated. She's mid40s, very unusual features, elegant, a permanent curious half-smile in her eyes. We talked, and got on incredibly well - we had had some shared history, as it happens. We must have spoken for about 5 minutes, but I felt incredibly light-headed afterwards. I did have the presence of mind to get her number.

In the 5 minutes we chatted I had told her that I was in a relationship. A long-distance one, and it was with a man. (More about this later. His name for these purposes is Sam.) She took this on board without giving much away, and I think I was put in the 'sassy gay friend' compartment.

For about a month I was like a love-sick teen. If I was going to call her I'd have to summon up all my reserves of courage; if she called me I'd be hysterically happy. I'd walk past her shop (she owns a business) and would feel my pulse race. But the really strange thing was I never really thought about her in very sexual terms. I wanted to experience waking up next to her, and not neccessarily the whole having-sex thing. She told me that when she has guys over and they end up fucking, she always kicks them out; she doesn't like anyone sleeping with her. This made it worse.

We kept in touch. I'd see her from time to time, we'd go out for dinner or drinks. My thing with Sam ended. I knew that whatever it was I had with Claire, I didn't want it to become a relationship. Why? Much as I adored(d) her, I also realised pretty quickly that being in a relationship with her would be bad for me - she's surprisingly dogmatic and judgmental, and I'd had enough of that. I'm quite wishy-washy on a lot of things, and I'm perversely attracted to people who seem really strong and grounded. But it ends in tears.

The highlight of this crush period (and quite possibly of my life so far) was about a year ago she took me shopping. We went to a big department store, she scoured the menswear floor and we had an armful of clothes each. She marched off to the fitting rooms. The attendant told her there was a maximum of 4 garments, and you couldn't have two people in the room at a time but she fobbed him off. We got into the changing room and she said to me "I hope you're not shy". To this day I don't know if she had any idea how I felt about her (I play my cards very close to my chest) but the next half-hour was exquistely surreal; it felt like time had slowed down. I stripped down to my underwear (grateful that I was wearing something decent that day. CK ribbed hip briefs. No holes, no saggy band) and tried on pants, shirts, t-shits, jackets.

I confided in my friend Prudence, another charming woman I met when I was going out with Sam. She told me that Claire really liked me, but also wanted to control me. Which I thought was a pretty good read except for the bit about really liking me. Then about six months ago I started falling for Prudence instead. That's another story.

Over time my crush on Claire subsided as I'd hoped it would. We'd go out, we'd banter and have fun. I suspect I was better company; I was no longer like a deer in the headlights. I liked the way it had settled down. I met some of her friends, they all liked flirting with me. Once or twice I started to wonder whether she was starting to like me.

We had dinner last night, then we were going to go to the movies. She suggested, as we were finishing dinner, that we go to her place instead to watch a DVD. Good idea, I thought. The movie we were going to see sounded like it sucked anyways. So we went to her place, watched "Gladiator", her favorite movie. We sat on the couch together, barely touching. We drank some wine. She suggested I stay in the spare room instead of getting a cab home at midnight. Good idea, I thought. I also quite liked the idea of being in her space, the place she lives in. There's something so intimate about that.

I was starting to think to myself "is this normal?" Then, after the movie finished, we looked at each other, and she said "what do you want to do?". I hesitated for what felt like about half an hour and then said to her that what I really wanted was for us to sleep together but not have sex. All I could think about was touching her, holding her. Plus, I could tell that I just wasn't all that horny. Not just for her, I mean generally. I've been wallowing in sex for a while and I'm a little sick of it; I'd even told her that over dinner. Amazingly enough.

Her idea was the exact opposite. Sex, but not sleeping together. I kissed her full on the lips, for the first time ever. It was pretty good. We went upstairs.. I undressed her as I kissed her and she was just as gorgeous as I'd imagined. Then I got undressed and... my cock wasn't working. Arghh! I suspected that was going to happen. I had jerked off that afternoon, I was a little confused about the situation, also very anxious... this doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. But with Claire? She's naked, she's horny as hell... and my cock's gone on vacation?

Of course the worst thing you can do when this happens is to let it get to you. It's that cycle of doubt. And for about half an hour I was flaccid. I kept myself busy playing with her, and eventually I was enough in-the-moment to make it all work. Experience has taught me that if I'm in that situation the best thing I can do is to focus on getting the other person worked up, and that's often enough to make me forget my anxiety.

Afterwards we slept. She said that I could stay in her bed (hooray!) but it turns out she snores (boo!). We woke up in the morning and my cock had been restored to normal service, so we had a very agreeable morning fuck.

All day, I've had a little voice in the back of my mind saying "dude! you fucked Claire".

So what next? Well, she's coming to pick me up in about an hour, we're going to a party one of her friends is having. She said that our having had sex doesn't mean anything, and I'd really love to believe that.