What we're actually thinking during public displays of affection

I’m not sure if I need to put a content warning on this post, but it’s probably the right thing to do. What you are about to read is pretty sexy and shouldn’t be read by, or to, children.

I’m not a particularly demonstrative person and public displays of affection were never really my thing. I wasn’t against them; I just didn’t do it much myself.

But fast forward to today and, with the help of a very inspiring special friend, I’ve unlocked a new level of passion and, it sounds corny but, a new joie de vivre that I can barely contain. (I totally recommend that everyone find themselves an "inspiring special friend," by the way.) With this new passion, I’ve finally realized what’s going on in many public displays of affection and, perhaps, why some people are so grossed out by them. Now when I kiss my companion in public, the outside world dims and all that’s left are her lips and tongue and teeth. A rush of warmth spreads from my chest and down.

It doesn't care where I am or who's looking. I could fuck her right there.

So here's a little vignette about my new special friend—written to my special friend as a bit of a love letter—that had been flashing through my mind. This is pure fantasy, but it's not out of the realm of possibility and I hope to experience it some day when we next meet.


It happened again over dinner tonight.

COVID is still a thing, so we were eating outside on a picnic table at this sort of surfer taco place. Sitting side by side, flirting intensely even though we should be past that point, each time our elbows brushed the other’s, a rush of excitement would wash over us. We should be too old to feel like this in the presence of a possible sexual partner, but here we are.

I feel like a terrible person for it, but far too often as you talk I drift off in your lips, how they hide and expose your funny little teeth as you mouth out words. I have to focus hard to keep up with the conversation.

You’ve learned to see it as it’s happening and instead of being upset that I’m not paying attention to your words, you’re excited that I’m hopelessly engrossed in some little detail of your body. Indeed, you swing one leg over to straddle the bench and face me, lean forward, chin prominent—as you do—with a somehow concurrently guileless and knowing grin, asking me silently to explore your lips with mine.

Obviously I take you up on the offer. I follow you, squaring my body with yours, and lean in as well, bracing myself on your thigh with my hand. There is an indescribable energy bouncing between us. As perhaps the hottest science nerd you know—besides yourself of course—I feel it like force-carrier particles mediating this attraction we feel. What's the Feynman diagram for a horny dude and a horny chick about to fuck?

My hand is open wide and feels like it’s going to wrap all the way around your leg—or I wish it could—as our lips make contact. I am instantly lost, but home.

I can never decide if I want more or want to savor what I have now. Do I stay, feeling the wisp of air on my mustache from your nose as you breathe harder, savoring the roughness of our lips? Do I push deeper, reminding myself how impossibly smooth your teeth feel under my tongue? I bounce from one to the other.

Out of a little frustration at the fact that I have to pick but one at a time, my thumb digs in to your inner thigh, a little too high and a little too “inner” than is appropriate for a horny couple straddling a bench in public. I realize and pull back, look into your eyes, darting back and forth and back again, and lean in cheek to cheek to whisper in your ear. “L, I want you so fucking bad right now. I’m afraid that if I kiss you any more, I’ll fuck you right here and now, in front of that poor couple over there just trying to enjoy dinner.” As I say “I’ll fuck you,” I slide my hand a little higher on your thigh and put my other hand on your other thigh. My thumbs wait achingly close to the confluence of your legs, and that energy between us focuses there.

At this, both of us see a flash of what that fuck would be like. The world turns and you're laying down, back on the bench, legs up, one calf hooked over the edge of the table. You're clothed in a dress, but since it's become our thing and it seems like every one of our sexy vignettes has it, one breast is somehow exposed. We’re fucking hard—the bench makes it easy to go deep—and that breast just shakes with every strike of my pelvis against yours.

I have to stop talking into your ear because I wasn't kidding about this getting out of hand fast. But I want to leave us with one little thing. Still cheek to cheek, I lick your ear and tug at your earring between my tongue and teeth. It surprises you, since you were focused on my hands. As your focus goes up to your ear and my tongue, I slide my hands forward, thumbs tracing deep through the crease between your thigh and abdomen as they move around to your hips and then up your back to a tight hug.

I want you to want me. I want you to need me as much as I know I need you. I get off in this feeling of fucking a woman that wants me to fuck her. The energy flowing between us is indeed flowing between us, both ways, and that is hot.