"The problem is," Stan said, with that earnestness that I always loved, "The problem is that sex can never live up to our expectations, which in the end leads to disappointment and boredom."
We were having drinks before dinner at a small, intimate café in San Francisco. We had been best friends from grade school through high school in a small hick town in Colorado many years before a friendship that unbeknownst to our parents had blossomed into sexual intimacy during the last two years of high school. Then we had gone off to our separate colleges a few thousand miles apart, and neither of us had been inclined to return to South Park for school holidays. Then came work and careers and we had lost track of each other.
And then, that very morning, we had run into each other at a computer programming conference in San Francisco. We recognized the other immediately and arranged to have beers and dinner that night to catch up.
After the usual reports on family and friends, the subject turned to our long ago intimacies, both of us were now in our 30's. Stan had even been married for a few years and now lived with his wife here in San Francisco, and I lived in Boston with my boyfriend.
"Look," said Stan, warming to his subject, "sex is life's biggest disappointment. Oh sure when you get all horny and someone takes your cock in their mouth it feels as if you've died and gone to heaven. But the instant you cum, it's over, all that promise all that anticipation. Until, of course the next time."
"Stan," I said, "you are simply so wrong I don't know where to begin. For starters, if sex is so boring, how come so many people spend so much time and money on porn?"
"You make my point," he said, flushing with excitement, "if sex by itself were so fulfilling, who would need porn? All it does is feed and intensify the anticipation, thereby deepening the inevitable disappointment. What we really want is the anticipation, not the act itself."
Stan was still his tall, lean self. His black hair was perfect as it always was. His eyes were a breathtaking blue, alive, warm and passionate.
"Are you suggesting that you find sex with your wife boring?" I asked.
"Look," he said, ignoring the question, "I'm saying that sex is not like food appetite but more like a drug addiction. Food satisfies. Sex disappoints. It's the anticipation that provides the high."
"So are you saying that you find sex boring now?" I pressed on.
"Right now," he said, look deep into my eyes and stirring up old memories. "I get exited just looking at you and thinking about what it would be like to revisit those old times. The anticipation, that possibility makes me catch my breath, stirs my crotch. But if we piled out of there and into a room with a bed, within five minutes I'd be thinking, 'Is that all there is?'"
"That's not what we felt back in high school," I said, "…. Or was it?"
"Back then, no," he agreed, "but back then the whole world was so full of promise. If a particular orgasm didn't push Planet Earth out of its orbit, we knew the next one would. But now we know better. This is no ultimate orgasm in the sky."
"Dude," I said, "you have a bad case of post-coital tristesse."
"Now, come on," he said, snorting, "calling it names doesn't change the fact. We're older now and now we know that the build up is what really matters."
"Okay." I said, "Does this mean you don't have sex anymore?"
"What it means is that I do everything accept orgasm. I live in permanent anticipation."
"What does that do to your balls?"
"Well, I didn't say I never cum, I just do so judiciously, and by myself. It's easier to feel depressed by myself than to let my wife see the disappointment."
"You know, Stan." I said, "All of this is making me want to revisit old times with you."
"That's just what I mean." He said. "We think that if only we switch to another partner, or go back to one of yesteryear, some they're going to bring on Nirvana. Yes, I'd really like to make you cum, and I'd like to feel that intense desire again, but good God, don't force me to cum with you. I wouldn't want you to see me like that, in the pit."
Damn, I thought, he really serious about this.
"Stan," I said, "I hope you won't take this amiss, but I do still care about you a lot. I think you ought to see a good therapist to talk this through."
Stan laughed unsmilingly.
"Oh, I've been there. My wife pushed me into therapy. I was on every anti-depressant known to man, from Prozac to dark chocolate. This is not depression, this is reality. If anyone needs help, it's all you guys chasing what can never be caught."
By now our dinners had arrived and we ate for a while in silence. Our conversation resumed with politics and world affairs, and we finished the meals with a dessert liqueur and espresso.
As we reached the street to make out way to our separate hotels, Stan reached out his hand and gripped me by the back of the neck the way he used to.
"Look," he said. "Don't go worrying about me. I'm really fine. And for goodness sake don't let me spoil your happy illusion."
I took his face in my hands and kissed him full on the lips. We parted then without looking back.