I’ve discovered a pre-sex ritual my boyfriend knows nothing about

This week’s diarist is getting a kick out of reading (Picture: Myles Goode/ Getty) Welcome to How I Do It, the series in which we give you a seven-day sneak peek into the sex life of a stranger. This week, we hear from Esha*, a 28-year-old journalist who has been with her boyfriend Chad*, after meeting at a party two years ago. They have sex four to five times a week which Esha describes as ‘packed full of chemistry’, and ‘never something they’ve struggled with’. ‘I feel safe with him, we’re very attracted to each other, and there isn’t a sense that either of us has to perform,’ she explains. But recently, something’s changed. ‘A few months ago I started reading erotica,’ Esha says. ‘I discovered reading about sex did something completely different to me than watching it.’ Reading has now quietly become the prelude to Esha’s sex life, helping to turn her on before she sees Chad. So without further ado, here’s how Esha got on this week… The following sex diary is, as you might imagine, not safe for work. Sign up to The Hook-Up, Metro's sex and dating newsletter Love reading juicy stories like this? Need some tips for how to spice things up in the bedroom? Sign up to The Hook-Up and we'll slide into your inbox every week with all the latest sex and dating stories from Metro. We can't wait for you to join us! Monday Ask Metro Use AI to go deeper into the stories you care about – powered by Metro and trusted publications. We’re not seeing each other tonight, but I end up reading in bed. The book, Bared to You by Sylvia Day, is more romance than erotica, but I prefer that. I need tension first. Two people circling each other for 200 pages does far more for me than something explicit happening immediately. Anticipation turns me. By the time all the almost-but-not-quite moments tip over into sex, I’ve built the scene up in my own head. It’s the release after that gets me. As I read the sex scenes, I become aware of my own body, warm, slightly restless, and my boyfriend is on my mind. It’s like my brain has been nudged into a different gear. I text Chad: ‘You have no idea what I’m thinking about right now.’ He immediately asks. I tell him he’ll have to wait and find out. I quite like having this private world in my head, while he just thinks I’m being unusually flirty. Tuesday I’m seeing Chad tonight, so I pick up my book before getting ready. Before, getting ready to see him was just getting ready. Shower, hair, makeup, clothes. Now, I read for 20 minutes before getting dressed, and when I leave, sex is on my mind. It doesn’t make me want sex more often; I want it earlier. Desire used to kick in once we were together and kissing. Now, I’m thinking about him two hours before I arrive. He’s definitely noticed that I initiate more, and jokes about what has got into me. We get into bed, kissing and doing foreplay before having missionary sex, and then I get on top. I don’t think about fictional characters while having sex. Once he’s with me, Chad is all I think about. The book gets me into the headspace, but it doesn’t replace the person in front of me. Nothing we do is dramatically different from before I started reading erotica. The fantasy gets me there mentally; the intimacy afterwards is very real Wednesday Today is spectacularly unsexy: work, emails, coffee, staring at my laptop for too long and getting on with normal life. There’s no sex when I get home. Instead, I think about the difference between what I enjoy reading and what I actually want to do. They’re definitely not the same thing. A male character being intensely jealous or saying something territorial can be ridiculously compelling on the page. In reality, I would hate being with someone controlling. Something can be incredibly hot to read about while being completely unappealing in real life. In fiction, I know I’m safe, so I can enjoy the drama. In my own relationship, I want trust, independence and equality. My brain just likes a good story. Thursday I know I’m going to see Chad later, so I read on my phone in the bath. It feels indulgent in a way I really enjoy. Knowing I’ll see him soon while reading something sexual creates this prolonged build-up that never really existed before. By the time we meet, I’m much more affectionate than usual. We have sex, first spooning and then with me on top. I tell him I’d been reading something that put me in the mood, although I don’t tell him exactly what. He finds this hilarious and immediately wants details. I still refuse. Some things are more fun kept in my head. Friday I don’t read anything sexual today, and it gives me a useful comparison. I see Chad in the evening after work and we have sex which is still really good. We mostly stay in missionary before switching to spooning. It feels softer and more spontaneous than Tuesday because I haven’t been building it up for hours in my head beforehand. I feel relaxed and affectionate, rather than intensely wound up. I’m reminded that I don’t need a book to want my boyfriend. There are ordinary things about him that turn me on in ways a fictional character obviously can’t — his smell, the way his voice changes when we’re alone, the look he gives me when he already knows what I’m thinking. There’s also the familiarity of being with someone who knows exactly how I respond to him. He just has to be himself. Saturday I fall down a rabbit hole looking for something new to read and realise I’m surprisingly picky. If the writing is terrible, I can’t get past it. If there’s no chemistry, I’m bored. And if it becomes explicit too quickly, I’m less interested. I’m a sucker for a slow burn. I eventually start The Siren by Tiffany Reisz and read in bed that night. Chad isn’t here, so there’s nowhere for that sexual energy to go. Oddly, I enjoy that too. Not every feeling of desire has to immediately lead somewhere. Sunday Chad and I have a very ordinary Sunday together, with a late breakfast, coffee, a walk, some errands and dinner at home. By evening, we’re curled up watching TV when I mention that I’ve been writing this diary, and I tell him that I’ve realised reading erotica before seeing him has become a little ritual. He laughs and asks whether he should feel threatened by fictional men. Absolutely not. A book can give me a perfectly constructed fantasy; he can make me laugh halfway through kissing me, read my mood without me saying anything and has two years of familiarity with me that no fictional man can compete with. Later we have sex, kissing and foreplay first, then missionary, and afterwards we stay in bed talking. Missionary is one of my favourite positions, which sounds incredibly unadventurous. But I like the closeness: the eye contact, being able to kiss and feeling completely connected to him. It’s almost the opposite of the dramatic sex Ienjoy reading about. That closeness afterwards might actually be my favourite part of our sex life. The fantasy can be ridiculous, dramatic and completely detached from reality. Then I close the book and go back to someone I actually love having sex with. Do you have a story you’d like to share? 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