Scream if you want to go faster

So, readers, a quick straw poll: in the throes of passion, are you a) a screamer/shouter, or b) a quiet, heavy breather?

Of course, you expect me to answer this, too. I would say that until recently, I probably fell somewhere between the two. But then, I didn’t make a great deal of noise in childbirth, either, not that your chosen way to display extreme pain is any barometer for how you channel extreme pleasure.

Is it better to let it all out when you are going at it, or keep it in? I have stayed in hotel rooms with thin partition walls, where it’s impossible to ignore the moans and screams of a copulating couple next door. I have also lived in a flat, where I heard my portly neighbour giving a lady what sounded like a very satisfying evening.

But for me, early days of intercourse were fairly quiet events. I would breathe heavily, sigh a bit, maybe talk about getting cramp or leg ache, but there was no screaming, howling or neighing. The most noise a person on the other side of the wall would have heard would be the bed creaking, a headboard hitting the wall, or the thud of one of us losing our balance.

Marital intercourse was more of the same, with the added need to do it quietly when the small people came along.

It is only in recent times that I have felt comfortable enough to vocalise my joys. In fact, this is probably proportionate to actually experiencing the inner explosions I had missed out on for so many years.

Being in a position to discover these things a little later in life than other women has been a revelation. Until a few years ago I wasn’t sure I would meet any man willing to put the time and effort into taking me to ‘the big O’. Now I know that there are a few chaps out there who do want to see a woman judder and pop, who will persist until it happens.

So, perhaps my relative silence was just down to being stuck in second gear for so long. Now I have discovered fifth, my engine is fully revved and turbo-charged.  I have heard myself making sounds I never knew were in me – “aargh”, “ooh”, “fuuuck”, “Go-o-o-d” or “ye-e-e-s”.

The downside is that it is almost impossible to ‘make whoopee’ with the kids in the house, as I am now one of those annoying couples who keep other hotel guests or neighbours awake at night.

Now you tell me!

Now you tell me, after five years of waiting and hoping, five years which made me question everything. Five years of hurt, self-doubt, endless tears and heart ache.

I gave you my body, my heart, my soul. I sacrificed time with friends, time with my kids, time for me. I looked deep into your eyes for even a speck of the love I craved, but it never came.

For years I waited, hoped, wished, but it never came. “Forget him, move on, find someone who really cares,” inner and outer voices told me. But no, I carried on hoping; feeling that nothing, no one, could match up to you and the feelings you ignited in me.

You were my world and every decision I made – what I said, wrote, planned, dreamed – was for you or because of you. I was utterly, hopelessly under your spell.

Yet still, you were indifferent. You left it to me to contact you, you never even told me you liked me, or held my hand in the street, never called me your lover or girlfriend. Everything we did was down to me. Weeks, even months, could have passed before you contacted me.

And now the spell is broken. I am bled dry of love for you.

All these years of digging for the treasure of your heart have exhausted me, left the soil dry, empty, spent. I have finally accepted that the inner and outer voices were right. Only now I ask myself why I defied them for so long, for years of my life which I will never get back; years of my life when I could have been happy with someone else.

I am finally moving on, planning a brighter future, without the second-guessing, endless waiting and pain you caused. There is someone else who cares for me, who wants me, whose heart is open. It is early yet, so the buds are only just starting to form, but I can finally smile with true hope.

YET NOW YOU TELL ME YOU LOVE ME. After all this time, all this hurt, now you tell me. It is too late. You bled me dry, used all I had for you. You say love is an infinite resource. Not so when you rip out someone’s heart and stamp on it. You cannot fix it, but someone else may have a chance to help me grow a new one. I cannot and will not go back.

I wish you well, but please do not tell me you love me.