When I was working for a major software company in the Pacific Northwest, I stumbled upon a guy that I was very interested in. we were both working incredibly long days, on programming and website material. We were working just outside of Portland Oregon, and the rainy cool weather was just fine with me; the man that I met had a really mellow conversation with me in the break room; and at the time I had been in Portland about 4 months. I had been out at night, trying to meet people, but the places I picked must have been wrong; they just didn’t feel right. The man’s name was Tony, and he had come to Portland from Atlanta. The reason that the tension between us was so nice was that when I met Tony, we were in a period where we were doing a lot of mandatory overtime and not getting out much.

Our bosses treated us really well and we loved the setting that we were working in, but lately the company had acquired work through a third party vendor. I really liked it in Portland, and the dining and restaurant scene thrived here; I had a couple of great nights out on my days off, but I always arrived late when everyone was really drunk and never met anybody special. The area was great and I was really enjoying the lifestyle in Portland, but at this point I was just ready to have sex with about anybody I lay my eyes on! And so the first night I was with Tony was after we both worked 12 hours and were staring at computer screens. It was about 10 pm and he approached me and asked if I wanted to get some food. We stepped out in the rain and went to get some diner food. While we were there we moved close together over the table to race and see who could get the cherry of a sundae first, and we kissed all of a sudden.

Our apartments were not close to each other, but Portland has a really great train. The first night I had sex with Tony was at my place, and I eagerly ripped his shirt off and devoured him. I loved his tall stature and dark black hair, and he reminded me a little bit of Christian Bale from the Batman movies. After we would have sex; I felt an ease with him and his body that I had never felt before with anyone else; I definitely was not in love with him but just had reached the highest of comfort levels. We continued to have lots of overtime piled on us at work, and about every third or fourth night we would take the train to the other’s apartment and have great sex; we would only stay over about half of the time. It seemed like he was really honing in on me and wondering who else I was spending time with; not inherently jealous, but still made me a bit uncomfortable.

Well after a night at his apartment we woke up and went for coffee because thankfully it was the weekend and we weren’t back at work. He suggested something a little strange; and said that he read somewhere that a sex agreement could make a relationship healthier. He proposed that we have an agreement where on paper we specify that we were going to be exclusive to each other. That was all his sex agreement entailed, that we would not have other partners; it was not a sex agreement that talked about how often we have sex, or how frequently. I wondered why he was doing this, because I was not seeing anyone else. I think it all began when we were in the break room one day and I was talking to another guy at work. I was not even attracted to him; I wished he would have been honest with me instead of bringing up this whole sex agreement idea. I told him I wanted to think about it, we weren’t at each other’s throats, but this just seemed a little weird.

Well, the next time I had sex with Tony I realized that I would sign the agreement. If this was what he wanted, then maybe it would be ok; I did love having sex with him so much and he satisfied me nearly every time. I could of course cancel the agreement and it was not legally binding, it was just a formality that I guess put Tony’s mind at ease. I wondered why he felt he had to do this because he was very attractive and outgoing; I felt that women would be coming after him more rather than men coming after me to get me to cheat. Nonetheless, I signed the agreement and for about three weeks, all was well. Since we were working so much overtime Tony really was the only one that I wanted to be with, and when we had time for each other we really dug into each other and had some great sex. But as time went on, I just started to really think about what I was doing. For some reason, signing this agreement was starting to get inside my head even though he wasn’t acting any different.

The next week at lunch I ran out to a place close by work to get a quick sub sandwich. I felt pretty sexy that day, wearing heels and a skirt. A very young man working there with long hair slipped his phone number in the sandwich, and winked at me. As the day wore on, I didn’t want to call the young man, I just wanted to be with Tony. But something was happening to me that I felt I wasn’t free. It was really conflicting me because I wanted Tony more than the shop worker, literally. I guess what happened is that as soon as I had that phone number slipped to me, I pictured a signed document, and nothing felt sexy, or sacred anymore in my life. It was the strangest thing; I never knew why Tony wanted to have this agreement and I was starting to not feel right at all about sort of being “owned” on paper instead of by mutual conversation and agreement. At least Tony and I didn’t break up; not right away. Even though I never cheated on him, he did agree to cancel the sex document stating us exclusive. In future days, we drifted apart, but I sure am glad he didn’t dump me right when I asked to cancel that thing. I am sure they work well for some people, but not for me. I never did go back for the guy at the sandwich shop…. But I guess I went back for just a little piece of mind and faltered independence.