Was I loud?

I have a handful of nearly completed posts that've been filling the silences in my head, if not the ones on this blog. I just haven't gotten around to cleaning them up yet. I will, but not tonight. Tonight, I want to talk about this:

The single most astounding aspect of watching men with other working women is their degree of gullibility. My friend was not faking in an over-the-top, porn-style screaming way. But she was amping up to orgasms very quickly and then not doing much shaking or trembling to indicate coming. She’d simply say “wow, did you feel me come?” or let her “you’re going to make me come”s do the work for her. She also did a funny thing that I’ve only seen from blondes: swear to indicate her pleasure’s intensity. Are there women who do this naturally, genuinely? I don’t mean that she was dirty talking, simply that she was saying “oh fuck” or “fuck yeah” to encourage him in an affected, simpering voice. Not whimpering, which would be hot.

(via Nightmare Brunette's Tumblr)

Well, are there women who do this naturally, genuinely? I must confess, yes. But more on this in a moment.

The above Nightmare Brunette post reminded me of a night, few months ago. I was lying naked next to someone in a bed in an antiseptically designed (though pleasantly decorated) condo in an unpleasantly distant suburb of my city. We heard the mewlings of some poor woman directly upstairs from us and I began to smirk. She was all "Oh, Baby! Fuck me! Fuck me harder. Yeah. Fuck me. Fuck me harder!" in a painfully redundant loop that never crescendoed, never slinked down into murmurs, never released into gasping inarticulation. Her exclamations just flat-lined at a put-on frenzy that in no way mimicked the rising and falling action of orgasmic sex. I mentioned this to the person lying beside me in bed. He said he'd heard her "histrionics" (his word) a few times before, but it had never occurred to him that she might be putting on a big ol' porny show for the benefit of her gentleman caller. Astounding, indeed. It is baffling to me that some men really can't tell.

The truth is I'm largely unconscious of my own mid-coital sounds. Often, afterwards, I'll notice my throat feeling all scratchy and strained, like I've been working the heavy-duty ujayyi breath for a couple of hours. "Was I loud?" I'll squeak out over roughened vocal cords. Mostly, they tell me I vocalize at an average decibel level. Loud enough to seem appreciative, but not shriekingly expressive enough to draw a visit from the police. But the ones who're self-conscious about it? Who have roommates or thin walls? They whisper, "Shhh, shh..." to me and sometimes try to cover my mouth. That, of course, eggs me on. After all, the exhibitionist in me loves the layer of erotic charge a roommate's ear can cause to accrete atop our furious trysting. However, for the most part, mid-fuck, I'm not thinking about the sounds I make and can scarcely hear myself. As it should be, I think.

Still, yeah, I have heard myself say, "Oh, fuck!" now and again. In a manner nothing short of authentic, no less. I think I say it much in the same way I would if I stubbed my toe or if I crumpled into a chair at the end of a day. "Oh, fuck." Whispered, like punctuation to sensation. Off-handed and directed back to myself-- a decapitated sliver of inner monologue escaped into the outer conversation. Neither simpered nor whimpered, but breathed. Well, maybe occasionally it's whimpered. When whimpering is that for which it is called.