I still can't hear a phone timer beep without getting worked up.

That evening he set a timer and put the phone on the nightstand facing me, so I could see the numbers. The rule: every five minutes he takes off one thing of mine, not a second sooner, and I'm not allowed to help, touch him, or ask. I had six things on — I was counting when I realized that meant half an hour.

The first ten minutes I was laughing. Earrings, watch — nothing. Then my top, and he took it off very slowly. Then my jeans. He sat next to me with a glass of wine, watching, not saying a word, and I lay there catching myself staring not at him but at the timer.

Before the last thing — I was already down to just my panties, my bra had gone fifth — the phone beeped, he slowly set down his glass, took my ankle, looked at the screen and said, "Oh. One more minute." He was lying. I could see the zeros. He lied just to see what I'd do, and I didn't do anything, just gripped the sheet in my fists and breathed.

When the minute finally passed, he didn't lunge at me. He slowly hooked his fingers into the edge of my panties and pulled them down, and with every inch he exposed, he kissed the skin: my lower stomach, the curve of my hip, the inside of my knee. I lay there naked, wet from waiting, watching him look at me like he was deciding where to start.

He started with my breasts. Slow, unhurried, lips and tongue, until I arched so hard my shoulder blades came off the sheet. His hand was between my legs, and he breathed into my neck: "You're tired? You've just been lying here for half an hour." I couldn't answer and his hand kept working. After thirty minutes of waiting it hit me fast and sharp, with a cry I didn't expect from myself.

He didn't let me catch my breath. He got undressed, lay on top of me with his full weight, spread my knees with his, and when he finally was inside me, we both went still for a second, like we were afraid to move. Then I was digging my nails into his back, driving him on with my hips: harder, deeper, don't stop. He came with his face pressed into my shoulder, saying my name, and I came a second time right before him, from the sound of his voice alone.

The next day I changed my phone's timer sound to something that doesn't beep.