Good scientific method means that occasionally your experiments are going to be a failure. The results will sometimes surprise you, and your theories may be overturned. It’s these unforeseen consequences that make experimentation, particularly sexual experimentation, worthy of some healthy obsession. I’ve written about this before, but I was reminded of these thoughts this week after I received an e-mail from a devoted reader who had tried a couple of the wife’s experiments herself…with not entirely satisfying results. I replied that experimenting itself is its own victory, and that I hoped she’d keep at it.

When I started these sex experiments with my wife, I had no idea if she would be willing to attempt one, much less a dozen. The results have exceeded my wildest expectations, but this reader’s e-mail made me want to give you a (fleeting) glimpse behind the scenes. My wife is a marvel and has proven to be extraordinarily adept at sexual improvisation, but there have been a couple of failures in there. Perhaps she wasn’t in the mood or perhaps I asked too much. Again, without failure there is no success. Perhaps I should have written about those failures, which tend to be funny, or sometimes just boring, with nothing much to say about them other than it didn’t happen, but there are a lot of distractions out there on the Internet and I chose not to waste your time (or mine) with non-events. You come here looking for fantasies fulfilled, not for the daily routine of another couple. That’s why I come here too. That’s why I’ve promised myself never to tell you what we just had for breakfast or what movie we just saw, unless there was an orgasm involved. And maybe we’ll get back to those experiments one day, maybe we’ll have an opportunity to turn them into something that will turn you (and us) on. That’s always my hope. So to all those brave experimenters out there: we’re not freakishly perfect, she doesn’t have magical powers (well…), we’re just leaving out the (very) occasionally boring parts. Let’s call that a philosophy of life: though the boring parts come every day, do your best to leave them out. So: although what happens here is true, other things happen too. Now forget that paragraph: it was a boring part I should have left out.

As Mr. X, I have little communication with the wife other than the e-mails you read here. I think we both sensed that our relationship is made sexier without chitchat. But there have been occasional insignificant back-and-forth’s that have given me a bit of back story I needed to keep the (somewhat compromised) mystery of Mr. X intact. I mention this only because last week she sent me a little piece of information that’s got me very excited about this next experiment. For one, I’ll get to be on hand to witness it myself, not as my alter-ego with superpowers, Mr. X, but as my wife’s uncaped, unmasked husband. Here’s the way I put it to her:

Dear Intrepid Reporter,

Have newspapers become a fetish? Do you find it difficult to concentrate on the editorial page? Do your eyes glaze over reading the comics until the bubbles over cartoons’ heads fill with dirty talk and get you hot? I hope so, and before I’m finished with you, I hope that not just newspapers, but every object in the world will turn you on.

Do you want to hear what’s turning me on these days? The knowledge that the photos taken of you by your inspirational photographer have been developed and exist in the world. Did he capture your charm? How natural is au naturel? Did you let yourself go as far as you feared during the session? Can you see the lust in your eyes? And how did your husband respond to naked photos of his wife appearing out of nowhere? Was he jealous? Did looking at them turn him on? I would give up sex for a month for a glimpse of those photographs, and although I know the odds of that happening are long, perhaps because of those odds, your challenge this time will be to give others a glimpse.

It’s time for a dinner party, don’t you think? The nights are balmy and made for a cold glass of wine. Like me, your friends are probably in vacation mode, taking it easier, sleeping later, dreaming more than usual of bodies in bathing suits. Well, I want you to invite another couple over for cold wine on a balmy night and (undoubtedly) dreams of you in less clothing. Maybe it’s a couple you see often, or maybe it’s one you’ve been meaning to get to know better. What matters is that they be open-minded and attractive. The man doesn’t have to be a full-on lust object, but the thought of fucking him needs to be somehow pleasing to you. The further requirements of the experiment will make it clearer whom you should invite, I think.

Cook steaks, mix a salad, order takeout, whip up new recipes, serve red or white or margaritas. The details of the evening are entirely up to you. I have only two requirements. The first is that somewhere in your house, whether on a wall of family portraits, or on the mantel of the fireplace, or on shelves in the living room, you display at least one of your naked photographs. What matters is that it be sufficiently obvious that your guests won’t be able to miss it. The photo can show you from the front or the back or in profile, revealing as much of your lascivious soul as you dare. Make it an image that you’re proud of and that shows you off in a way you like to be shown off. That’s the first requirement. Sell it to your husband however you need to sell it.

The second requirement is that at some point later in the evening, when with your feminine powers of observation you’re certain that your guests have had an opportunity to observe the photograph of your naked form (whether they’ve commented on it or not), I want you to maneuver yourself alone into another room with your male guest. Maybe you’re washing up together, maybe you’re showing him something he absolutely needs to see, but you should be alone and you should be flirtatious. I want you to prepare a line for this moment, something bold enough to make him want you right there, but subtle enough to make him doubt his ears.

How’s that? Oh, you want more? Then as you deliver this line, I want you to touch him with your hand. Where you touch depends on you, and may well be determined by whether you’ve been drinking wine or margaritas. Let’s call that little touch punctuation, and this experiment, my dear, is one that could really do with an exclamation point.

Got it? Have I crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s? I hope so, and I hope that stripping indirectly like this will excite you as much as it’s sure to excite everybody else, including yours truly.

Taking pictures in my mind,

X

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