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Just saw one of those sponsored listicle things with a headline about people revealing "shocking" things they overheard while pretending to be asleep.
I am immediately awash in memories of high school, when I was a theater tech geek dating an actor and partying with other theater kids, which meant co-ed sleepovers with minimal parental oversight and very ... well, progressive? teenagers. At one party in particular, in the wee hours of the morning, my high school sweetheart and I stole away from the drinking and loud improv to find any empty room for sleep and some private time. We found a parlor or living room of sorts occupied by one of our best friends.
I met them both on the same day, at another party. They were good friends with each other and I got invited by a friend of a friend. I developed an instant crush on both of them. They developed enough of a liking of me that we maintained contact after that party. I decided that I could not decide which one I liked best, so the one who would ask me out first is the one I would date (I did not know of poly back then, and likely one of them would not have gone for it, although the other might have).
So the guy who would become my high school sweetheart asked me out first and I put away my crush on the other one for many years, until we reconnected after college. But that's another story.
Back to high school. Our friend was sleeping on the couch in this parlor but no one else was there. We entered quietly, whispered to him to see if he was awake but not to wake him if he wasn't. Satisfied that he was asleep, we made our joined bed on the floor next to the couch.
And then, as teenagers in love without parental supervision tend to do, we got up to shenanigans. We tried to be as quiet as possible. We even stopped several times, thinking he had awakened, but got going again when we were sure he hadn't. And at least once we whispered his name just to make sure he was asleep.
Years later, in the days of the internet but before social media, I wondered whatever happened to our friend. So I did a search, probably on Netscape. After several days of dial-up searching, I found his name mentioned in an archived copy of his old fraternity's newsletter. I emailed the then-current frat president, explained who I was and asked for help locating him. He passed along my contact info, and a short time later, our friend contacted me.
We got to know each other again after our long absence, and we discovered that our adult selves were even better friends than our teen selves were. So we got to talking regularly.
Our conversations turned intimate, and on one late night call, that night at the party came up. It turns out, he had been awake for almost the entire time my high school sweetheart and I were having sex. He wasn't sure exactly when he woke up, but judging by how long we went, it must have been early into it, although after we had gotten started, since it was our sounds that woke him.
Apparently, he had not, up until that time, had any particular interest in voyeurism. I mean, he was a teenage boy, so he wasn't UNinterested, but it wasn't a capital I-Interest.
However, after revisiting that memory many times after that night, and with our conversation years later, he came to the conclusion that his strong feelings for the both of us (platonic for my sweetheart, not quite platonic for me but resigned to me being his best friend's girlfriend) added to whatever excitement he felt at hearing sex happening nearby, and it turned into a full-blown Thing for him to listen to sex after that night.
I'm not an exhibitionist. This may be surprising to some of you who know me for my frank discussions and comfort in public sex spaces, but I'm actually extremely inhibited when it comes to other people witnessing my sexual activity. Except for that night. Remember? I had a crush on him too. I merely put it aside because I was in a monogamous relationship and I respected both of them and their friendship with each other too much to fuck with it.
And since he similarly respected and cared for his best friend and our relationship, he just accepted that I was unavailable and never let on to me that he had anything other than platonic feelings, nor would he open any doors that might hurt his best friend, or risk insulting or offending me. So I filed my crush away and didn't act on it, but it never disappeared.
So, with my love and attraction for my high school sweetheart, and my admiration and attraction to our mutual friend, even though I genuinely did not want to disturb him, the thought that he might wake up (and not disapprove) was very appealing. It's possibly the only time I was not inhibited by the presence of other people during sex.
Except for that whole "don't want to disturb his sleep or make him uncomfortable" thing. But, I mean, I wasn't personally bothered by the idea of him witnessing and it didn't hamper my enjoyment of the sex knowing that he might. To find out later that he not only didn't disapprove but was awake and enjoyed the whole thing was ... exciting.
Neither of us knew if my sweetheart would have been amenable to a threesome at that time (or if each other was, for that matter), but neither did either of us want to risk our three-way friendship in that moment to find out.
He was content to merely witness in silence (figuring that he was there first so if we really didn't want him listening in, we should have gone elsewhere - a reasonable assumption, to be fair), while I enjoyed the feeling of not knowing if we were being observed by him or not but hoping we were.
Much later, as we reconnected and learned of the other's perspective in our little high school drama, I now have this wonderful memory of high school sex, sneaky sex, illicit sex, with a former partner whom I still have warm feelings for while a crush and later partner silently observed, planting a seed that would change the entire course of his sexual development and leading to the eventual culmination of our mutual crushes.
That memory, which was always a pleasant one because of my continued good friendship with my high school sweetheart, became one of my top treasured memories after hearing what that event was like from our friend's perspective. Every time I think of that night, remembering the fun time I was having and later learning about the fun time our friend was having, I'm filled with such a warm and fuzzy sense of nostalgia.
Imagine that - a clickbaity listicle headline actually produced something worthwhile, at least for me. So I'm going to go fall asleep now to rose-colored memories of one of the few things that didn't suck about high school, and a sweet longing for a departed friend.
Miss you, Sweetheart. I am forever grateful for my time with you and your continued presence in my life.
Miss you, Love. The world is a little dimmer without your presence in it anymore.
I am immediately awash in memories of high school, when I was a theater tech geek dating an actor and partying with other theater kids, which meant co-ed sleepovers with minimal parental oversight and very ... well, progressive? teenagers. At one party in particular, in the wee hours of the morning, my high school sweetheart and I stole away from the drinking and loud improv to find any empty room for sleep and some private time. We found a parlor or living room of sorts occupied by one of our best friends.
I met them both on the same day, at another party. They were good friends with each other and I got invited by a friend of a friend. I developed an instant crush on both of them. They developed enough of a liking of me that we maintained contact after that party. I decided that I could not decide which one I liked best, so the one who would ask me out first is the one I would date (I did not know of poly back then, and likely one of them would not have gone for it, although the other might have).
So the guy who would become my high school sweetheart asked me out first and I put away my crush on the other one for many years, until we reconnected after college. But that's another story.
Back to high school. Our friend was sleeping on the couch in this parlor but no one else was there. We entered quietly, whispered to him to see if he was awake but not to wake him if he wasn't. Satisfied that he was asleep, we made our joined bed on the floor next to the couch.
And then, as teenagers in love without parental supervision tend to do, we got up to shenanigans. We tried to be as quiet as possible. We even stopped several times, thinking he had awakened, but got going again when we were sure he hadn't. And at least once we whispered his name just to make sure he was asleep.
Years later, in the days of the internet but before social media, I wondered whatever happened to our friend. So I did a search, probably on Netscape. After several days of dial-up searching, I found his name mentioned in an archived copy of his old fraternity's newsletter. I emailed the then-current frat president, explained who I was and asked for help locating him. He passed along my contact info, and a short time later, our friend contacted me.
We got to know each other again after our long absence, and we discovered that our adult selves were even better friends than our teen selves were. So we got to talking regularly.
Our conversations turned intimate, and on one late night call, that night at the party came up. It turns out, he had been awake for almost the entire time my high school sweetheart and I were having sex. He wasn't sure exactly when he woke up, but judging by how long we went, it must have been early into it, although after we had gotten started, since it was our sounds that woke him.
Apparently, he had not, up until that time, had any particular interest in voyeurism. I mean, he was a teenage boy, so he wasn't UNinterested, but it wasn't a capital I-Interest.
However, after revisiting that memory many times after that night, and with our conversation years later, he came to the conclusion that his strong feelings for the both of us (platonic for my sweetheart, not quite platonic for me but resigned to me being his best friend's girlfriend) added to whatever excitement he felt at hearing sex happening nearby, and it turned into a full-blown Thing for him to listen to sex after that night.
I'm not an exhibitionist. This may be surprising to some of you who know me for my frank discussions and comfort in public sex spaces, but I'm actually extremely inhibited when it comes to other people witnessing my sexual activity. Except for that night. Remember? I had a crush on him too. I merely put it aside because I was in a monogamous relationship and I respected both of them and their friendship with each other too much to fuck with it.
And since he similarly respected and cared for his best friend and our relationship, he just accepted that I was unavailable and never let on to me that he had anything other than platonic feelings, nor would he open any doors that might hurt his best friend, or risk insulting or offending me. So I filed my crush away and didn't act on it, but it never disappeared.
So, with my love and attraction for my high school sweetheart, and my admiration and attraction to our mutual friend, even though I genuinely did not want to disturb him, the thought that he might wake up (and not disapprove) was very appealing. It's possibly the only time I was not inhibited by the presence of other people during sex.
Except for that whole "don't want to disturb his sleep or make him uncomfortable" thing. But, I mean, I wasn't personally bothered by the idea of him witnessing and it didn't hamper my enjoyment of the sex knowing that he might. To find out later that he not only didn't disapprove but was awake and enjoyed the whole thing was ... exciting.
Neither of us knew if my sweetheart would have been amenable to a threesome at that time (or if each other was, for that matter), but neither did either of us want to risk our three-way friendship in that moment to find out.
He was content to merely witness in silence (figuring that he was there first so if we really didn't want him listening in, we should have gone elsewhere - a reasonable assumption, to be fair), while I enjoyed the feeling of not knowing if we were being observed by him or not but hoping we were.
Much later, as we reconnected and learned of the other's perspective in our little high school drama, I now have this wonderful memory of high school sex, sneaky sex, illicit sex, with a former partner whom I still have warm feelings for while a crush and later partner silently observed, planting a seed that would change the entire course of his sexual development and leading to the eventual culmination of our mutual crushes.
That memory, which was always a pleasant one because of my continued good friendship with my high school sweetheart, became one of my top treasured memories after hearing what that event was like from our friend's perspective. Every time I think of that night, remembering the fun time I was having and later learning about the fun time our friend was having, I'm filled with such a warm and fuzzy sense of nostalgia.
Imagine that - a clickbaity listicle headline actually produced something worthwhile, at least for me. So I'm going to go fall asleep now to rose-colored memories of one of the few things that didn't suck about high school, and a sweet longing for a departed friend.
Miss you, Sweetheart. I am forever grateful for my time with you and your continued presence in my life.
Miss you, Love. The world is a little dimmer without your presence in it anymore.
