Flash by Vida Bailey

I've never understood it, the attitude some have to condoms. To me, they're just part of sex. The 'is it time for a condom?' breathless pause, then the scramble and fumble and the reconnection as it's handed over and I smooth it on, or watch his hands dressing himself. The cool warm slippery latex length against me, and then that first push inside - I love the blunt, wrapped sensation of it. More intimate, somehow, than a naked cock is one that's been prepared for me. Readied. Primed! And then any ensuing mess is mine and mine alone. 


Vida Bailey

Backing

‘Like having a bath with your wellies on,’ Dave said, with the corners of his mouth curling up like day old ham. ‘It’s bareback or nothing, for me,’ he said, shrugging.

So later, when I rode him on the persian carpet, I didn’t use the saddle or the stirrups. I straddled his naked back with my naked legs and dug my heels in. I wriggled until he cried. Kept him on his knees, bore down until he begged.

‘Only with a rubber,’ I said.

‘Course,’ he said, when I held out my palm, two packets lying on it like sugarlumps. 

 

 

Nikki Magennis

From Madeline Moore

Back in what Jack Nicholson calls "The Golden Age of Sex" (post- pill, pre-HIV) we believed in free love. But I believed the pill might be very bad for me. Who could trust the drug companies, hm? So condoms made good sense, as birth control. I wasn't wildly promiscuous or even promiscuous, in my opinion, but a shudder ripples across my shoulders at the thought of some of the babies I might have mothered had I not used proper protection. As it turned out, my two babies were both planned.
Nowadays condoms are used as much (or more?) for protection from STDs as they are for birth control. A quick trip to the drugstore for three or more and a guy is good to go. The sexual partners share in the responsibility for preventing unwanted pregnancies and STDs.
All of that wrapped up in a packet the size of an old fashion photo slide. Condoms are cool. They always have been and I'm guessing they always will be. Amen.

Madeline Moore

Excerpt from 'The Art of Fucking', Nikki Magennis

Stop, stop, wait.' I said, remembering one of Sandy's rules. 'We should use a condom.'

He nodded, beyond speaking now, only leaping up nimbly to find his jeans and check the pockets. He sprinted back to where I lay with a foil square in his hand.

'You brought one to work?' I couldn't quite believe it. Was I the only person in Glasgow who didn't anticipate a casual fuck at lunchtime? My model grinned, biting at the foil to rip it open. He had a wicked smile.

'Boy scout motto. "Always be prepared". You never know who you'll bump into.'

I wasn't in any position to argue, and I just marvelled at the sight of him, cock in hand, unrolling the rubber down his length and checking to see it was on tight. I lay back. 

 

 

Nikki Magennis

A love story written in rubber

So, those French letters, if you laid them all out on a bed – a king-size bed, say, line after line. What would they say?

They might start with how we were cautious, how we cared enough to bear the blush produced when near-strangers discuss the practicalities of sex. They might continue to say silly things – strawberry flavoured jokes that tip you into bed.

That gap there, the little space big enough to make a child. The absence makes me smile. And now?

The letters continue, fewer, maybe, but no less urgent. No less wonderful. And always, always sent with love. 

Nikki Magennis

Mexican Standoff

Rick visits the chemist that afternoon, buys a stock of extra-strong. Smiles at the pharmacist as she slides a paper bag across the counter.

After midnight in the dim-lit nightclub toilets, Danny drops a coin in the machine, rattles the drawer open, pockets the box.

They meet at the bar. Knock back a couple of tequilas. Rick pushes Danny’s hair behind his ear and lets his hand rest on the other man’s neck. He can feel his pulse, hot and steady.

They kiss hard enough to get stubble burn. Both reach for their back pockets. Smile.

No-one loses this draw.


Nikki Magennis

Excerpt from 'Le Petit Dejeuner' by Jeremy Edwards

As we make love, I imagine that we are in Paris. That there is a bidet in our bathroom. That people are speaking French on the sidewalk below. That around the corner is the little pharmacy where I had to resort to an earthy pantomime to indicate that I required a box of condoms. Where the pharmacist, a handsome woman of about 35 with dark, humorous eyes, smiled at me when I paid for them.

“Tell me about the pharmacienne,” Lisa requested our last night in Paris, just as I was penetrating her slick hole with bedtime vigor. “Fuck me and tell me how she looked at you.” Lisa got off on the idea that the druggist had watched me as if she wanted to personally administer the dose of condoms she had provided. She still asks to hear about it some nights, three years later.


From 'Le Petit Dejeuner', Jeremy Edwards