The Single Life

It's quarter to 12 on Friday night, and you've handled your evening with the lissome brunette with the precision of a surgeon. She loved the Australian chardonnay you picked, she let you carry her piggyback across that deceptively shallow puddle and she even cackled at your joke about Brooklyn and pantyhose. What's more, you've finally waltzed her with the grace of Fred Astaire from your couch to your bed. Now, only a flimsy triangle of silk and Lycra keeps you at bay. All it takes, in the basest physical sense, is a quick tug and a smooth pull down her legs, and milk and honey are yours.

Rarely is there so much to gain or lose by making the merest misstep. With closing the deal in mind, here is an empirical guide to ensure that her thong—and not your rejected ass—ends up on the bedroom floor.

Limn the Edges

Leigh, 34: "My favorite foreplay-to-sex move is when a guy runs his fingers under the entire length of my pantyline. I like to direct him, starting below my belly button and moving him toward one hip, then the other hip, then around the back. The best part is leading him from my tailbone and down the back of a thong, between my legs and then up the front again. I think it drives him as crazy as it does me."

Take it easy, Cowboy

Jill, 30: "The worst, which seems to have happened to me a few too many times, is when I'm feeling safe and certain that I want to have sex. The minute I take my skirt or pants off, the guy immediately reaches for his wallet or goes running to the bathroom for condoms. Once I was going for this guy's boxers and he leaps up, runs to the stereo and goes rifling through his CD collection. He said he just had to find Sister Christian. He put it on, then disappeared into the bathroom for, like, five minutes. He came out with just a condom on, grinning. And there I was, listening to Night Ranger and giggling. I was completely not in the mood and ended up leaving."

Know the price of shock value

Dan, 29: "There was this one ridiculously good-looking girl I dated who had some kind of sexual embolism. Or maybe she had a mental chastity belt that prevented her from taking her damn panties off. I tried cajoling her, cleverly stoking her guilt in a hundred different ways, pleading, begging, but if my hand got within three inches of her panties she'd leap like a jackrabbit. One horny night I'm dry-humping her and just aching for it. So I roll off her, take my boxers off and ask her, 'Honey, have you ever watched a grown man masturbate?' She looks at me like I'd just told her a few decades with a Thighmaster would make her fit for public viewing. So I start to beat off, mad as hell. Thirty seconds later, in some kind of weird vengeful trance, she's riding my cock with the most unreal energy. Of course, I never talked to her again."

Deanna, 30: "I tell men to rip my panties off, and not just some meek tearing-the-strap shit. I've been into it ever since this one guy took the back of my thong in his fist and with one clean powerful jerk snapped it off—I loved his strength, and the balls it took to just do it. Yeah, I'm basically asking for a wedgie, but I'm so ready to fuck after a guy does that."

Rise to the challenge

Lauren, 29: "Every girl loves it when a guy gets hard in her hand. Making a man's cock go from a soft, mushy mass to this thick, stiff, pulsing thing is the greatest feeling for me, especially when I do it through his pants. I'll let his cock chill out for a few minutes, then start stroking it with my fingertips and my nails, then wrap my hand all the way around and start pumping away. When I begin to feel it throb, my other hand is already taking my panties off."

Be the Iron Chef

Stefan, 26: "Every time I have a third date I invite the girl over to my place and make her what my friends now call Chicken Take-Her-Pants-Off. It's basically chicken marsala with rice. Saffron rice. It hasn't failed yet, and, no, I'm not quite ready to reveal my secret ingredient."

Massage her

Alexandra, 25: "I was playing War one night in college with a close guy friend of mine and after a while we started tickling whoever lost. That turned into a little innocent kissing and pawing, and that's all I thought—what I think we both thought—was going to happen. He gave these amazing back massages, so I asked him to give me one before I went to bed. But the difference this time—what got me so hot—was his hand-massage technique. He would rub one finger from top to bottom, then stroke my palm, then another finger, and so on. By the time he was done with that I was already quivering. But then he lifted my top really slowly and reached under and rubbed my nipples really softly for about five seconds. I could feel his hard-on through his sweatpants. Well, I just couldn't take it anymore, so I turned over, unbuttoned my jeans and begged him to get inside me."

Simulate the experience

Anne, 26: "We were on the second date and I was (continued on page 162)Single Life(continued from page 35) down to my underwear. We had been that way for a while, too. I kept wondering why this guy wasn't just getting on with it. But he started to run little circles with his fingers on my bra, pinching my nipples lightly through the fabric. It was making me crazy. Then he moved slowly down to my panties, where he prodded my opening and rubbed my clit for an incredibly long time. He never once reached behind the cloth or even moved it an inch. But after what seemed like an hour of this, I was totally dripping—and so were my panties."

Susie, 35: "There was this one guy who had complete control over his penis. He used it like it was his index finger. I'm lying there, and he lowers himself over me, and while he holds my arms down over my head with his hands, his cock is stroking the inside of my thighs, my clit and then my vagina with this amazing dexterity and speed. Then he turns me over and starts to trace my perineum and my asshole with this precision instrument between his legs—still no hands—slowly and with exactly the right amount of pressure. I really thought I was going to lose sphincter control and have an orgasm at the same time, it felt so good."

Do it with music

Tania, 31: "I've never been one for music to get me in the mood, but for some reason the sound of John Lee Hooker or Bonnie Raitt—one of those really husky blues-singer voices—puts me right over the top."

Volunteer

Blair, 22: "This guy put his mouth right up to my ear and whispered with urgency, 'I've got to know what you taste like right now.' How was I going to turn that down?"

Follow her lead

Lupe, 24: "I'd been trying for a few weeks to fuck this girl, and somehow, because her roommates were home or whatever, I just couldn't close the deal. We found ourselves in the kitchen at a party one night, and I was standing behind her, kissing her neck, licking her ears, when my hand started up her skirt, tickling the backs of her thighs. I nudged her into the corner and lifted up her skirt. When I reached around to stroke her pussy, I found that she didn't have any panties on. To my complete amazement, she bent over, unzipped my jeans and took me right there, from behind, in my friend's kitchen."

Trust in Serendipity

Tom, 25: "On my third or fourth date with my girlfriend, she was lying on top (concluded on page 165)Single Life(continued from page 162) of me and her skirt had drifted up onto her hips. We were both topless, but I wasn't sure what to do. So I took her hips in my hands and just started dry-humping her. We were going pretty fast and furious, and I lost track of what was going on. All of a sudden we both realized that somehow I had slipped out of my boxers and gotten inside her. But by that point it was too late and we ended up finishing it."

Do it Glottally

Deanna, 30: "Any guy who can give me good head through my panties, especially if I can feel his tongue inside of me sheathed in a little silk, has earned the right to take them off."

Run interference

John, 28: "I always keep her occupied with something else. One hand will be on her breast, massaging her nipple, or on the back of her neck, scratching lightly, while my other hand sort of sneaks up on her panties. She's so consumed by what's going on up top that she almost doesn't realize that she's totally naked—or at least doesn't mind."

Wear a smile, Minus the wink

Whitney, 20: "I guess it sounds trite, but so many guys use the silliest, corniest, wink-wink lines to get me to take my panties off. One of my favorites is 'Aren't those a little too confining?' Or, 'Are you sure those are entirely necessary?' Or, once, 'Is your pubic hair the same color as the hair on your head?' I'm happiest, and most happy to comply, when a guy says, sweetly, 'Can I take those off for you?' "

Do it slowly

Dara, 34: "There was this one guy who started to slide my panties off really slowly. He'd slide them down so the elastic straps were around the tops of my thighs, exposing my pubic hair, then he'd pull them up an inch or two and slide his finger into the little space between the cloth and my pussy. Next, he'd pull my underwear down to midthigh, spread my legs a little, stroke my clitoris lightly, then pull them all the way back up, and lick me through the fabric. He would keep doing this accordion thing with my underwear, around my knees and then around my legs, and it made my pussy like a geyser. There was something about the expectation as well as the feeling of my legs being bound just a little that was unbelievable."

Torture her

Mark, 30: "What's incredible about that moment is delaying what's inevitable as long as possible. When we first started dating, my girlfriend and I were making out on the couch. I could feel that little moistness in her panties, so I started to pull down on them. She pushed my hand away and I tried with the other hand, but she wouldn't let me do it. So I picked her up, sat her down on a dining chair and tied her hands behind the back of the chair with a necktie. I think she was a little unsure but intrigued. Then, without touching her at all with my hands, I got down between her legs and started licking her inch by inch from her feet all the way up, each leg, behind her knees, nibbling on the little fleshy parts of her inner thighs, until my tongue was a millimeter away from her panties. Then I stood up and poured a Chivas and had a cigarette. By that point I could see the wetness of her pussy through the fabric, so I rolled an ice cube around in my mouth, and sucked a nipple. She couldn't take it anymore so she untied herself and flung her panties across the room."

Regina, 24: "I'd been flirting on and off with the guy I shared an office with—we were both dating other people. One summer afternoon I changed out of my suit into a little tank dress—in our office. I told him not to look, but I knew he was peeking anyway, and of course I wanted that. I started to put lotion on my legs. He asked me if he could help. So I walked over to his desk, handed him the bottle and he started caressing the lotion into my calves, then my thighs, and pretty soon his hand was brushing against my panties. We both knew we shouldn't, but after about 10 minutes of this I demanded that he take me on his desk."

Portuguese is the loving tongue

Damian, 26: "I was in the back of a car while traveling in Rio and had this profoundly sexy blonde next to me. She had somehow wiggled out of her bandeau top and I managed to get her little python-skin skirt scrunched up around her waist. She had these take-me panties on—they were totally see-through and she was completely shaved. Wow. So I pulled out my best Portuguese and told her how badly I needed to fuck her. She was shocked by my fluency, and it wasn't long before her G-string was wrapped around my wrist."

Let her do it

Jack, 29: "This cute blonde would flirt with me like crazy after my band's gigs at the bar we played. She'd say the dirtiest things to me like, 'Let's go down to the men's bathroom and I'll rub the neck of your bass against my pussy while I suck your cock.' Meanwhile, her hands were all over my crotch. But we wouldn't be alone for more than five seconds in a cab before she'd slide over to her side and tighten up like we'd never met. So after about three or four nights of this I just started ignoring her teasing. Then one night she came up to me and said, 'I'm going to the ladies' room and then I'm going home.' Good for you, I thought. She came upstairs, shoved something into my pocket and walked out. I felt around in my pants and found her panties. I ran outside and she was waiting in a taxi with the door open."

Pull

Regina, 24: "There's nothing like being in tight quarters—like a car—and being all tangled up and feeling a guy grab and pull, and then just being free."