I knew a woman for a number of years. We were uncomfortable together most of the time. Conversation stalled and stilted. Little commonality, as hard as she tried to force it into being.

Our common ground was drinking and sex. She was insatiable and I gave out like a dude half my age. The compromises and sacrifices I made never got any credit or respect, nor did they make me a stronger man. But when I was expected to fuck, I fucked.

It became a bit of a comedy. One minute we’d be sitting at the bar, socializing or just minding our own collective business. Not doing anything, really, but fiinishing off our drinks and leaving.

10 minutes later we’d be naked and fucking like our lives depended on it. This was what I guess you’d call the prime of our years together. Sex was redemptive and satisfying. I did most of the work. Her softest, tenderest gesture was probably unintentional, so I never asked her to repeat it. She would softly touch her fingers to my back. It made me fuck her harder, deeper, until she would say “You found back.” I never said that the soft touch of her fingertips on my back drove me to dig deep, dig and dig, pushing the head of my cock into every corner.

One minute we’re paying our tab and cheerfully saying good night to the bartender and anyone else we knew. Ten minutes later we’d be snarling and fucking, fucking and snarling, snucking and farling.

I thought of this today when my Morning Mas went a little late. Normally I’m out of the apartment by 7. Today it was 7:15, thanks to a lengthy session in which I was determined to cum however long it took. I licked myself every place I could reach, remembering the ways I did the same to the women who let me, and whose acreage was far more within reach than is my own to me. I would not be denied this fundamental privilege of singularity.

10 minutes later, after slipping on the necessary accoutrements of non-nakedity, I blast off into the public space, clothed but still feeling the waning hardness, my heart still pounding from the morning absolution. Could anyone who sees me be the wiser? Could anyone see me and say “That dude just took a half hour to shoot a load.”?

I looked around the subway car, making perhaps unkind generalizations about who among us might have masturbated that morning, just 10 or 20 minutes earlier. I assumed the 20- and 30-somethings at least tried, or thought about it, If they had partners they probably did nothing. The 60-year old women, though? Am I biased or presumptive in assuming they stolidly commenced their diurnal routines with no stroke of stroking? No outline and caress of that tiniest nation?

But I see 60-year old men and think “Of course.”

Is it possible I have biases? Do I make ignorant assumptions? Why do I assume the 60-something Chinese woman, always beaming with a senseless, rictus-like smile, why do I assume she masturbates to an easy, frictionless passion morning after morning and twice through the day; while I assume the dowdy, phone-obsessed, rail-thin Peruvian has never experienced orgasm?

Someone should recognize my behaviors here. I consume gallons of water to relieve the cloud of hangover. I snuck in 3am vodka shots, with water chasers. The water really does soften the hit. I woke to two half-full shot glasses at my bedside. I expected to sleep well after a long stramble to Jamaica and Cambria Heights. But the sleep was not so well as I expected. Some crazy dream I meant to document but now it is gone. I think it involved a woman I used to know, but there was no sex. I’d been watching a marathon cocksucking session online during the day, a small Asian woman taking as much of a big black cock as she could, obviously loving it, loving being called a cocksucking whore and a slut. She was in it, and so was he. I even trusted the dude.