An Intimate Life Read Online Free

his toes to his head with my hands and observe all the particularities of his physicality. I notice skin tone, temperature, freckles, scars, and the other attributes that make each body unique. Sensual Touch gives clients an opportunity to begin to learn about which areas of their body are the most responsive. Clients are often surprised to find that areas outside of the genitals can feel arousing or pleasurable to my touch. For example, more than one client has told me that the backs of his knees are a particularly sensitive area.
    I explained Sensual Touch to Mark. Although he was paralyzed, he still had sensation all over his body, so he would feel my hands moving up and down. Typically, I explore both the back and front of a client’s body, but with Mark I was limited to the front and the left side of his back because of the way he needed to stay positioned. I encouraged him to try to recognize four common reactions: feeling neutral, feeling nurtured, feeling sensual, and feeling sexual. “Sensual feels pleasurable, but not necessarily sexually arousing. Sexual is arousing. There are only two rules: Do your best to stay in your body and in the moment, and let me know if something doesn’t feel good. When you realize that your attention has drifted, bring yourself back into your body, to where my hands are.”
    I ran my fingers through Mark’s hair and told him how soft and wonderful it felt.
    I slowly got up and walked to the end of the bed. I took his feet in my hands. They were narrow and slightly clammy, and his toenails were a bit too long. I made another mental note to ask Vera to trim his nails. I lightly kneaded the balls of his feet with my thumbs and he wiggled his toes.
    “Does that tickle?”
    “No, it feels good,” Mark replied.
    I worked my way over the tops of his feet to his ankles and up his shins, which had only a sprinkling of down-soft light brown hair. I slowly swept my hands over my thighs and inched my way up to his groin. Mark was already hard and his scrotum was bulging and had turned a deep brownish red. I gently took his penis in my hand and circled around it lightly with my fingertip. As I released it and started up his abdomen Mark let out a little yelp and came. He squeezed his eyes shut and said “damn it” under his breath. Then he said, “I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t worry. It’s okay,” I said.
    It was clear that Mark was going to need some help in prolonging ejaculation, and this gave me a perfect opportunity to explain the human sexual response cycle and the arousal scale.
    “The human sexual response cycle has four stages. The first is Excitement, which begins with the first twinge of arousal. It’s when physical signs like erection happen. Plateau comes after that. This is an exquisite stage that can be prolonged. You’re fully aroused at this point. You may notice some pre-ejaculate and you’ll typically see some muscle tension and your heart rate will pick up. The third stage is Orgasm; and the last is Resolution, when your body returns to its pre-arousal state.” I explained to Mark that we would try to prolong the Plateau phase.
    In order to keep himself in Plateau longer, Mark would also have to understand the arousal scale. “The arousal scale measures where you are in the Plateau stage. It goes from one to ten. One is the very beginning of arousal and ten is orgasm. It can be difficult at first to recognize the gradation, but with practice it gets easier, and it’s a good tool for prolonging arousal,” I said.
    I grabbed a few tissues from my handbag and gently wiped away the semen from Mark’s penis and surrounding area. It was time to finish Sensual Touch.
    I traveled up Mark’s abdomen to his chest and up his neck. I dragged my fingertips over his Adam’s apple and the left side of his jawbone. I circled around his eye and then down his nose and chin. Carefully, I made my way to his feet again.
    When I finished exploring the front of Mark’s body, I