It was the stab wound scar that did it: "You're sick," just about sums up some of the email I got this week.

Sick? Moi? A bit of a lascivious perv, a lech, possibly a sex addict - but sick, no. Not unless you count the slight sore throat I've been contending with for a week now thanks to Saltmine sending me all over the place by train and plane to attend vacuous meetings. (Sorry if that ruins the fantasy of my rentboy lifestyle, lounging around all day and feasting on pussy in the evening - it's a sideline, an indulgence, not a full time gig).

OK, maybe I'm just touchy, but somebody got the idea that I am some sort of stab-wound fetishist. While I'm sure they exist (and I dread the traffic that will come my way via the search engines having written this) I'm not one. All I said was that I think that the various physical flaws we all have are much more interesting than the cold beauty of photoshopped models. Anyway, I'm ranting now... I promise more sexy stuff soon. Maybe the lesson is not to read one's email after having too much coffee.

The Perfect Body

"You write about women with lots different bodies," a reader emailed me, "but what's your idea of a perfect body?"

Easy: a shameless, horny, confident, self-loving, pleasure-seeking, generous body that smells nice. I hear you groaning: Yes, yes, guy wants to sound all sensitive and crap, but translated into guy terms that means big tits, small ass, long legs, no brains. But no, I'm not being all wishy-washy about this. I'm being as truthful as I possibly can, because the question cuts to the chase of what it means to fuck women for money. You can't have hard and fast prescriptions about what a body should look like. Why? Because if you're going to get it up for a woman, you must find something there to be aroused by. In my case, I think it's the simple and miraculous variety of bodies, and of the ways of inhabiting them.

The easily offended skip this paragraph, please: I've seen flab, bingo wings and bulging bellies; I've been with fat (but not disturbingly obese) women; (rarely) women older than my mother; I've seen stretch marks, sagging breasts, cellulite in all its countless incarnations and in places I'd not imagined it existing; caesarian scars, appendix scars, surgical scars, and (once) a disturbingly recent scar left by a stab wound and the resulting trip to the ER. The last one, a vivacious big-boned blonde in her mid-30s, got straight down to business over drinks, and asked me very bluntly if I got easily grossed out. Her ex-b/f had caused the wound, but in the year since she got out of the hospital she'd twice found herself undressing in front of men who, at the sight of her scar-crossed belly, had promptly gone out for a pack of cigarettes and never returned. How could she not begin to wonder if any man would ever desire her body again?

Marie, my first real lover, had small, flat breasts that had been perky once, but shrunk after breastfeeding, and her stretch marks reached from belly to the back, and down her buttocks. She joked once, as I maneuvered into position over her prone bottom: "I'm easy to fuck - just follow the stretch marks." Whatever, those marks pointed to a tight pussy and a highly sensitive asshole that she'd often beg me to poke, prod, lick, and occasionally bugger while she stuffed a vibrating dildo up the other way. She was indisputably a sexy woman, and she probably still is at 42, but no one would ever hire her for a skin-cream advert and plaster it on the side of a bus.

Are we losing our sense of acceptance, because the exceptional has become the norm? Advertising, TV, movies feeds us this neverending stream of identikit bodies none of us could ever really measure up to. Doesn't it do something to our shared sense of beauty seeing the bodies of models (exceptionally proportioned to begin with) photoshopped to flawless perfection at every turn?

Maybe, but the glut of those digitally corrected images shows us something else: They're boring, those coldly perfect bodies, and so is that fixation of the sexually frustrated on that perfection. The scars, the flab, the sag - I won't say I love them, but they don't stop a sexy woman being sexy in her very own way...

...but I won't compromise on smell.

I can't sleep, but I think I'll go to bed and have a hearty wank reminiscing about Marie, her sagging breasts, and the utterly fantastic blowjobs she'd give me while sitting on my face...

Yeah, you're pretty good looking - for a girl
Zoe (I think that's what I called her last time I blogged about her) was in town. This was a while ago, when it was warmer. We met late in the evening - she was out with some people, and I think it gave her a little tickle knowing she had a date lined up afterwards. I was waiting for her at a pub in Marylebone when she showed up in a black cab, a little tipsy from the night out, giggly, in a very good mood. Some business had gone well. She was celebrating. I noticed she had cut her hair - the blonde locks were slightly darker, the elegant cut a bit more restrained. And she had put on a bit of weight.

The flat was close by. Looked impersonal, maybe an apartment hotel. Lots of mirrors, I noticed - the bedroom even had one from floor to ceiling, at least a meter wide. "I've been looking forward to this all day," she said, her hand in mine as we entered the bedroom.

Later she was nude on the bed, me in my pants, massaging her shoulders, back. "I need a long, sexy massage," she'd said. "Happy ending?" I asked. She grinned, "of course." At this point she was relaxed, and I'd begun moving from her tense shoulders downwards along her back. I'd already put a pillow under her hips, and she'd begun wiggling her arse, impatient. I added some more massage oil on my fingers when I reached her buttocks.

"I feel fat," she moaned into the pillow. True, there was a bit more padding there than last time, but nothing unusual for her age, figure, etc. "My arse is turning into lard..." She was pulling away from my touch, her body had just been ready to open up, but now she was closing.

"Bollocks," I said, "you're soft and sexy to the touch." For emphasis I placed her hand on the bulge in my pants. "See?" I stroked her thighs, hips. "Spread your legs, and let me finish the massage - you look lovely like this."

Zoe relaxed, gradually opening up, relaxing into my hands. I began to work my way around, towards her anus and pussy, teasing, prodding, finally fingering her to a surprisingly quick orgasm.

I told her to stay still, got up to get a wet towel, and I began to wipe the massage oil off her shoulders, back and buttocks. When I was done she turned over, stretching out on the bed: "I want to see what you see." She wasn't joking. Getting off the bed, she pulled a small digicam out of her purse. I shook my head. "You know I don't allow photos."

"Not you," she smiled. "Me." She looked at herself in the mirror, studying her own backside, wiping off a few leftover smudges of oil. I went along with it, and told her I'd like to see her strip for the camera. She obliged, retreating to the bathroom to dress and retouch the makeup. When she came out she had put her hold-up black stockings back on, the black lacy see-through lace shorts and bra, and a slinky white silk robe.

We took a while for the shots, posing her around the flat - standing, sitting in a chair, lounging on the sofa, bent over the dining table, and finally on the bed. I told her to keep the stockings on (OK, I was having fun too), and she spread for me, lying back, teasing her pussy open, fingering herself - later on her knees, arse raised, pussy spread.

Then I got in and got some hardcore shots in: Me on my back, Zoe sucking my cock, then riding me, but the last few were the trickiest: Zoe on her knees, me fucking her from behind. You have any idea how difficult it is to fuck and keep the camera still enough for unblurred shots at the same time?

Zoe said she'd look at them after I left. I made her promise to email me one she liked.

She did. It's one where she's on her stomach, pulling her buttocks apart, spreading her arse and pussy for the camera. I remember crouching at the foot of the bed taking this picture. I was a bit shocked, because it's not particularly flattering. I emailed her back, asking why she'd sent this one. "Because it's filthy," she replied, "...but it looks so irresistable, like a different person."

I think I get it. But not quite.

Again with the virginity
At first I took sex far too seriously. It took me a long time to figure out how to have fun doing it. Not that it was a drag; no, it was an obsession, exciting, terrifying. But not so much fun. I worried a lot when I had girlfriends, about my looks, the size of my cock, and the precise technicalities of what to do, when, and how when you finally landed naked in bed with nothing between you and the other post-virgin but a shared sense of vulnerability.

Then I got lucky, and lost my virginity for real.

How and when I met Marie has to remain vague, for obvious reasons, but this much I can say: I was 18, she was 29. She had two kids, one recent divorce, a large white-painted flat that filled me with terror the first time I entered: What am I doing here? She's cooler, smarter, older, out of my league. I am about to be exposed as the impostor that I am...

By a stroke of accident, or luck, I had been partnered with her for a school project. OK, I'll say this much: it was for school. And no, Marie wasn't looking to rob any cradles. She was retooling for the job market after her divorce, and I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do in life. We got along great.

She had an air of experience, of knowing what she wanted, and she swung her unruly red hair around her head when she made a particularly important point. After all these years I think I'm still in love with her, a little bit. Nothing happened right away. We had to meet a few times for this project, we liked each other's company, a few times we ended up talking far too long into the night. At some point during these chats I figured out that she felt at sea emotionally and professionally after the divorce, and basically unsure of herself and everything in her life. My lust-addled mind picked up on every shred of evidence, and this gave me almost enough confidence late one evening to make a half-decent pass at her.

She'd said something about feeling unattractive, and I snatched the opportunity, stroking a stray lock of her hair with two fingers and blurting out "No, you're incredibly sexy." And she started giggling. Uncontrollably. Red-faced, struggling for air, helplessly lying back on the sofa incapacitated with laughter.

Finally, she managed to gasp: "Not me, you idiot - in the novel!" Indeed, we had been discussing a novel. About a woman. Feeling unattractive. And I'd still managed to hear whatever it was I wanted to hear.

Of course I was utterly mortified. Sitting there, right next to her, I felt my face reddening uncontrollably, my shirt soaking up the sweat, and my hands had suddenly become these alien appendages I had no idea what to do with.

She was still smiling though. "I think I should go home now..." I muttered. She nodded.

It was a long, humiliating walk across the room to the door. I put my jacket and shoes on. Facing her, my hand on the doorknob, I opened my mouth, but she interrupted me: "That was so sweet." She put her hand on my arm. "But I have the kids home, and..." she pulled me in, her mouth to my ear, "...can you make it over here Friday evening?"

This was Tuesday. I have no recollection of Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday itself until I found myself at her door, freshly showered, with a bottle of wine in my hand.

Marie opened the door, smiling expectantly, wearing a lovely short off-white dress, her hair teased out in an explosion of red. I stood still, looking at her.

She was nervous.

I stepped inside, feeling awkward, out of place - suddenly the possibility of sex had turned this familiar space strange. We usually kissed hello when we met, a friendly kiss. This time she didn't touch me, didn't invite contact. I grinned uneasily, held up the bottle and she took it into the kitchen to open it while I took off my coat. I stood in the door to her tiny kitchen (strange for such a large apartment), and watched her fiddle with the bottle opener for a while. The bottle was resisting her attempts to open it. Finally, I walked up behind her and put my hands on her shoulders - she tensed, then slowly relaxed into my touch.

I can't remember the conversation - it was banal. But I do remember holding her against me, wispering "you're beautiful" over and over in her ear for what seemed a long time.

Then I felt her hand on my ass. "You wore those for me?" she asked. I had on a pair of tight leather trousers (my excuse: I was in a band at the time, and it was the early '90s). And something seemed to come loose between us, a playful feeling - it felt like the most natural thing when she tilted her head to kiss me. Her lips were warm, moist, and I will remember their shocking softness vividly as long as I live. That moment of the lips first touching, hesitating, expecting, and the impatient emergence and probing of the tongue seeking out its counterpart in desire - at that precise moment I could sense that we would have sex beyond anything I had ever tried.

We pulled apart: "OK," she said, holding me playfully at arms length, "let's get one thing straight: I'm not going to be your girlfriend. I don't want to meet your friends, and certainly not your family." She grabbed my shirt hard in her fist. "This is just for the two of us."

I nodded, flabbergasted, and she pulled me to her, quite roughly and kissed me again - this time hard, aggressive. We push-pulled our way out of the kitchen into her bedroom, wrestling each other down onto the bed. I noticed she had cleaned up, put fresh sheets on, and lit the stage in advance with the warm, soft light of a bedside lamp. On top of her, I kissed, stroked, sought out her nipple under the smooth fabric of her dress. Kissed some more, enjoyed her hands all over my body, stroking the leather over my crotch.

She stopped. "Strip for me." I stood up, in front of where she lay casually propped up on one arm, her other hand tracing circles around her breasts. I undressed, leaving the trousers until last. Peeling them off, and then my underwear, I felt a mild twinge of fear, even panic at the sight of her eyes fixed on me.

I still think it's one of my great sexual achievements not to have just come outright when she took my cock in her mouth and sucked it. Out of pure surprise and nervousness I managed to ride out the overwhelmingly pleasurable temptation to fill her mouth with my come right there and then. And when the sensation became too much, I had the willpower to push her away, playfully. Marie grinned mischievously, knowing exactly what she was doing. "Come lie down here," she purred. I got on my back, and put on a condom. She stood up, pulling the dress up over her hips to take off her knickers. Then, dress still on, she straddled me and sank herself on to me. I slid in easily, into her wet, hot pussy, and she began to ride me, pulling all the way up until her labia just about kissed the glans of my cock, and then all the way back down again, deep inside.

Right that moment, I remember thinking: this is the best sex I've ever had. I'll die if she never wants to do it with me again. And with that, terrified and ecstatic, I came uncontrollably as she rode me. She didn't stop until I grabbed her hips and pulled her to me. Giggling, breathing hard, she lay on top of me for a moment. "Was that good?" she laughed, kissing me. "Yes," I muttered.

"All right, then. Now you can do something for me." She got on her back, finally giving me a good long look at her gorgeous, bright-red bush. The lips were large, stiff, bright pink from arousal and fucking. She traced a finger around the glistening opening, and I crawled in between her legs to follow those teasing fingers around with my tongue for a good long while, until she came shuddering and gasping, holding my head against her sex.

After she had come, and I pulled away, slightly unnerved by the force we had unleashed in her small body, she began to laugh. Giggly and vulnerable she pulled me to her, kissing and laughing from pure joy.

That's really what I wanted to tell you about - laughing together at the silliness of our desires. Simple as that.

Virginity
I got an excellent question in the mail a few days ago: "I think you have a thing for older women. How did you lose your virginity?"

Rather forward, this reader, but I'm in the mood for some nostalgia. I was fifteen, she was a year older, I was uncool, she was cool, but our bands shared a practice space and one evening we all went to a party at someone's house. Turned out she liked gawky boys with guitars, and she thought I was older anyway. I didn't disabuse her of that illusion, and we ended up in someone's kid sister's bedroom. Being young and unprepared we had no condoms around, but she unzipped my jeans and took my cock in her mouth with a greedy little squeal of pleasure.

I didn't know what to do or how to behave, but it felt great. I was utterly helpless with pleasure for a moment. Then my nerves kicked in - I remember the utter strangeness of this sensation of having someone else touch me there, sucking, stroking, licking. Maybe I figured the best way to hide my nerves was to divert her attention, so I gently pushed her away from my cock, and onto her back. She misunderstood and started to panic a bit - thinking I wanted to fuck her with no protection. I said I just wanted to return the favour, and she laid back and took her trousers off. So, my first proper look at a woman's aroused pussy was in semi-darkness, but I still recall the slight shock when she spread her legs: between the dark curls of her pubes I could glimpse a little slit of bright pink.

Right then, I was hooked for life.

I could smell her, strong and salty, and I couldn't take my eyes off this wonderfully strange body. Carefully I touched her with one finger, and I remember being utterly terrified when I felt her labia and found her wet. It was the delicious fear of going somewhere I had never been, and not knowing what to do next, having to rely on some clumsy intuition and the primal sense of pure lust shared between the two of us. When I touched her I trembled because I knew that now there was nothing to stop us, we had to move on. I traced one finger around the pink lips, picking up the sticky wetness. She let slip a quiet, deep moan of pleasure - and again, I was hooked for life.

Then I shocked her by putting it to my lips, tasting her on my finger. "What are you doing?" she asked, and I couldn't come up with any words in reply, so I leaned in and put my tongue on her warm, pink slit. She stiffened up, and I had a dim sense that this was the first time for her as well (which it was, I later learned), and for a brief moment of panic I thought she would push me away and put a stop to whatever this was we were doing. And then she relaxed, bit by bit, and I began to explore her pussy with my tongue, very carefully at first, then a little more boldly when I found she liked it. I put a finger inside her, and only then, after a long long while of licking and sucking, I found the hard nub of her clit underneath my tongue. When I touched it she let out a sharp gasp of pleasure-pain and pushed me off. For a moment nothing was said. She covered her mound with her hand, and I moved up. She lay back, eyes closed, hand covering her sex, curling up against me, pulling me closer until I had both arms around her and she put one leg and one arm around me. I held her for a long time.

That mixture of intimacy, vulnerability, and lust - that for me is more essential to sex than the banal mechanics of which orifices were stimulated or penetrated and how. We did have "proper" intercourse some days later, and in our brief time as a couple she even managed to have a couple of orgasms with me. But this night at the party was the first time I had sex with someone, even if neither one of us came. Whether or not a hymen remains intact afterwards is irrelevant. Learning to give up enough to let someone else bring you pleasure, and giving that back in turn - that's the gain we prudishly call a loss of virginity, innocence, believing against all the evidence of our senses that this is a fall from grace, rather than a first step towards it.

C, my gigolo mentor, is getting his love handles taken care of. Mind you, I don't think he has any - at least nothing that would count as overly lardy if he'd take the time to waddle into the nearest burger chain franchise. He told me about this the other night when I called to congratulate him (not!) on the election results. He lives in a "blue state," and even spent election day getting out the vote. Speaking Spanish on street corners - and his side still lost. Poor bastard. When I asked him if he'd join me for a phone-drink (it was late in London, cocktail-hour in the US midwest) he declined: "Nah, can't - got surgery coming up."

Now, I'm one of those people who think "voluntary surgery" is a contradiction in terms. They'd have to put me under before taking me into the operating theatre. I even had to be coaxed into the emergency room to have some stitches put in when I fell off my bike once. I'm still not quite convinced it couldn't have been fixed with a big sticky plaster and a few painkillers. So I started to make fun of C: "You know how they get certified, those cosmetic surgeons? They do facelifts on the severed heads of corpses."

This did not go down well (even if it's true - I saw it on Nip/Tuck). "Yeah, whatever..." he muttered, so I changed the topic. C, bless him, is still seeing that surgeon-lady. No, she's not going to be vacuuming out his bingo wings and mudflaps - someone else in her practice is doing the deed. They are now officially an item, and apparently Doc Chopper is not happy about C keeping his job as a personal trainer. She wants him to get into something not involving well-off ladies admiring his pecs while he introduces them to the mysteries of the treadmill and free weights. "She's got an issue," C said. "Not like I'm fucking 'em or anything."

Don't think that just because he's having some lipo to please his sugar mama C is a girly man. He's totally manly! Hunting with high-powered firearms kinda manly, in fact - right after the surgery heals, he's off into the woods to polish off a few Bambis.