For all the discourse about toxic situationships, little has been written about what usually keeps us in them: really, really good sex. The kind of sex that makes you tolerate a legal adult man, one who could vote and fight in a war, saying things like, “I’m just not ready for a big commitment, like a girlfriend,” and, “No, I haven’t told my parents or my friends about you,” despite the fact that you’ve been spending every day together for months.
And in my experience, there’s another, equally absurd thing that really good situationship sex once made me do: have it in public after jumping off a cliff into a pool of snakes. I can explain—I swear.
Just a few weeks before I found myself on top of a cliff riding a guy who wouldn’t call me his girlfriend, I had gotten a really big package in my college’s mailroom. No, not that kind (although I’m now regretting never having sex in a mailroom…). It was an admissions letter from the school I’d recently applied to transfer to.
I should have been thrilled—it was my dream school—but it was almost the end of the semester and I’d just started seeing Jon*, this guy I had insane sexual chemistry with. I knew I was going to transfer regardless, but when I told him about it, his attitude changed.
Suddenly, he was dodgy about whether or not we were even exclusive, let alone on the road to being boyfriend/girlfriend. What he wasn’t at all dodgy about was his obvious desire to keep having sex with me at all hours of the day and staying up until 5 a.m. talking and laughing on the roof of our shared dorm.
On one particularly warm day during finals, he found out that I’d never been to the reservoir near our campus. The “reservoir” was basically a huge swimming hole with cliffs surrounding it where his fraternity would throw parties during the hotter months of the year. A different frat dominated each of the cliffs surrounding the water, but they were all in full view of the others.
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Because it was finals season and we went to a certified nerd school, there weren’t parties happening the day we went cliff jumping. However, there were certainly more than a few people tanning on the ledges opposite us, less than half a football field away. We found an empty cliff and I stripped down to my skimpiest bikini before daring Jon to jump in.
He refused, saying he wasn’t taking the leap unless I went first. And while I am emphatically not a risk taker, my desire to impress this guy had fully eclipsed my fear of heights. Knowing 19-year-old me, I probably thought that if he saw me as some kind of brave adventure girl, maybe he’d finally think I was attractive enough to want to date me and make things official before I moved hundreds of miles away to a new school! Sigh….
I winked at him before running to the edge of the cliff, squealing as I leaped into the water. When I landed, I immediately knew I’d made a mistake—my foot hit a sharp rock and I swear I could already feel it bleeding. I came up for air, trying to make my hair and expression look more sexy surfer girl and less shark attack victim as I smiled and yelled, “Haha, hey! My foot hit a rock!”
I expected to see my guy beaming down at me, his expression conveying how sexy and brave he thought I was, before jumping in after me to make out in the water. But when I gazed up at him, I was instead met with an expression of abject horror à la Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”
“Snakes!!!” he yelled.
Snakes? I was confused—did he think the blood coming out of my foot was a snake? But as I started to swim towards the rocks that would let me climb back up to the cliff, I saw what he was talking about—a dozen or so water snakes were swimming towards me, and one was right next to my foot.
I swam as fast as I could to the shore and scrambled back up the cliff to meet my situationship-turned-horror-movie-castmate. “Do I still have to jump in?” he asked with the kind of earnest grin that made my heart beat even faster than it already was—you know, due to the snakes and all.
He examined my foot with a Boy Scout’s expertise—it turned out to be a barely visible scratch. So much for nonchalant adventure girl. Soon, he was helping me dry off my wet bikini-clad body and we were making out with the intensity of people who had just survived a near-death experience, rather than a few snakes.
He untied my bikini top as I slid my barely-there, soaking wet bottoms off and onto the ground. Within seconds, we were there too. Jon laid on the dirt so I didn’t have to, letting me be on top (perhaps the most gentlemanly thing he’d done at that point in our relationship). I ripped his swim trunks down to his ankles and guided his penis inside me. The sexual chemistry was like nothing I’d ever experienced before—I was beyond wet, riding him as he guided me up and down his shaft with his big hands firmly around my waist.
We had shifted our bodies back from the edge of the cliff, just far enough to not risk falling into the water below. My legs shook as he moaned with pleasure underneath me and I thought about how perfect this all was. I opened my eyes to look at the water and the cliffs around us, trying to take a mental picture.
…Aaand that’s when I realized we were in full view of a group of girls tanning on a neighboring cliff.
Reader, I never even thought about stopping. I didn’t look for long enough to see if they were watching us, but the fact that they could be with the turn of a head made the whole thing even hotter. Emboldened by this sudden ignition of my exhibitionist streak, I grabbed Jon’s fingers and placed them on my clit, instructing him to touch me as I rode him. The flawless friction of his hands plus the fact that I swore I could feel those women’s eyes on me sent a wave of erotic electricity through my entire body—a sex goddess power trip I rode right into a clifftop climax I fear can only be described as earth-shattering.
I laid on top of Jon after we finished, feeling the sun on our skin and basking in the afterglow of our girl-on-top-turned-girl-being-watched sex. Although I could’ve easily gone for round two, I told him that we should probably get going—or at least put some clothes on before the girls across the way started snapping pics. I walked back to campus with him like I was floating—and not in snake-infested waters this time.
We kissed and parted ways once we got back to our dorm. At the time, if you told me we’d never have sex again, I absolutely would have believed you. After all, what could top a semi-public display of affection by the water?
Reader, know that I’m the exception and not the norm, but Public Sex Water Snake Guy and I ran into each other after college graduation when we moved to the same city. He’s been calling me his girlfriend for the past three years—and recently, we exchanged knowing glances, trying not to laugh as we went cliff diving on vacation with his family.
*Name has been changed.
