Long distance is tough. We all know that, right? Well, it’s so much tougher when both you and your boyfriend are students who definitely can’t afford any trips unless funded by family. That’s why my one year of post-graduation was such a torture. My boyfriend and I had been dating each other for three years before I moved. He still had another year of college to go and even though both of us did not believe in long distance, we decided to give it a shot, for the sake of all the years we had spent together.
It wasn’t easy. There were fights about missed calls and the lack of any physical contact only made things worse. There is something so sad about wanting to hug someone, telling them about it but still not being able to do it. Nevertheless, we kept pushing on.
It was one night when my roommate was away for the weekend and I had the room all to myself that we decided to have a Skype date. We went all out, got candles to give us the whole ambience, wore formal clothes, ordered the same food and ate it together talking about everything. It was the happiest we had been in the past three months.
‘You know baby, if I was there, this would be the time I kiss you long and hard.’ he said. ‘What’s stopping you? Virtual kisses are our only saviour now!’ I replied pulling a sad face. ‘So is virtual sex?’ he asked with a raised eyebrow. ‘Shut up! We can’t do that, sex over video is just so over-rated’ I told him in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Where is your sense of adventure, love? Plus, how many times do you actually get the room all to yourself?’ he replied with the cheeky smile I had come to love. He also did make a valid point so we decided to give Skype sex a shot.
Neither of us had any clue how it worked. So I started with getting out of my dress (it was super tight anyway!) and he followed by stripping himself. I won’t lie, it was really nice to see him naked even if it was through a screen. ‘You look great!’ I told him. ‘You look better!’ he replied. So we sat there looking at each other, not sure what to do next. ‘What if I was to take you by the waist and kiss you right now?’ he grinned. I blushed and continued saying, ‘Then I would take you by the butt and kiss you back!’
And so it began but a minute or so later, while we were still getting the foreplay right, his voice began to crack. ‘Dammit! Wait here, must be the internet!’ I grabbed my bathing gown and went out to the living room, restarting the wifi and then ran back to the room. ‘Can you hear me now?’ I asked, but he was gone. It was after five Skype calls that we finally got the right network and could see each other again.
‘Sorry about that, the internet at my house was pretty bad too’ he said. I saw that he was wearing his shirt again which meant he would have gone out too. ‘Maybe we should just wait for when we actually meet?’ I asked him. ‘No, no, let’s start where we left off!’ he replied. ‘I just wish I was there to hug you right now and it really sucks that I am not – oh what – dammit!’ I stared at my screen as he moved about in a hurry on the other side. ‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘I – the candle fell!’ came the reply. I continued to stare at the screen where now I could only see the blue wall of his room with his Liverpool poster. ‘Baby?’ he peeked in with his head ‘Yeah?’ I replied, ‘I kind of burned the blanket a bit, I think… I have to go. Can I call you later? I’m so sorry!’ ‘Take your time!’, I said, before hanging up.
Sex over video is over-rated, I hated to say it but I had told him so. Even though the disappointment of getting turned on but not actually doing anything is quite tragic, I thought about how he would explain a burnt blanket to his parents and I couldn’t help but laugh.
Believe it or not, my twisted sense of humour is the only reason I said yes to him when he asked if we could give it a shot again, a week later. It was a firm no on candles, of course. I don’t know if it was the previous failure or the fact that we really missed each other now but the second time was much better than the first, it actually had a beginning and an end, giving us the option of a third time!
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