How to Make Him Last as Long as You Want

Disclaimer: This article is for readers 18 and older. It contains explicit adult content and is intended for married women for educational purposes only. Reader discretion is advised. The church bells in Praiano ring every hour, and I heard them twice that afternoon. It was August, our fourth anniversary, and the fourth day of a heatwave the whole coast was complaining about. We’d rented a little house above the sea with green shutters and a lemon tree that dropped fruit on the terrace all night. That morning we swam off the rocks below the house. I floated on my back and watched him haul himself up the iron ladder with the water sheeting off his shoulders, and I thought, four years, and I still want to bite him. I wanted him the whole climb back up the steps. I wanted him through lunch, watching his hands tear bread. By three o’clock it was too hot to do anything but close the shutters and go upstairs. The room was dim and striped with light. The ceiling fan clicked on every rotation and did nothing. He laid me across the bed and started at my ankle, because my skin still tasted like the sea and he wanted to know how far up the salt went. His stubble dragged along the inside of my thigh, and I got a fistful of the sheet and quit pretending to be patient. He stayed down there until my back came off the mattress and I forgot the Italian word for stop. Then I pulled him up by his hair, kissed the taste of myself off his mouth, and rolled him under me. Four years, and I still want to bite him. I sank onto him agonizingly slow and watched his face while I did it. I was so wet from his mouth that he slid into me without any help, and the stretch of him took my breath for a moment. Everywhere we touched was slick with sweat, my knees against his ribs, his hands slipping on my hips. I didn’t bounce. I rocked forward and drew slow circles with him as deep as he could go, and I kept my eyes on his. For a long while the only sounds were the fan, our breathing, and the creaking bed. Then his breath held and his neck veins bulged. His fingers dug in and he tried to pull me into a faster rhythm. I felt him swell inside me, that last little warning, and I stopped dead and pressed my palm flat on his chest. “ Don’t move. ” He made a sound that was half laugh and half plea. His heart was slamming against my hand. He was throbbing inside me and I was dripping onto him. It took all my self-control to not move my hips. The bells began to ring four, so close I could feel them in the wall. He opened his eyes and looked up at me, and I watched him work out that I’d done it on purpose. My husband is not a man who hands over the wheel. He drives on every road trip. He orders for the table. He has never once asked for directions. He looked at me for one more second, and then he took his hands off my hips and laid them on the pillow above his head. Was he actually relenting? Oh my gosh, that’s actually kind of sweet. I climbed off him, and he groaned. I walked to the armoire across the room without hurrying. He likes that I’m half Brazilian. “ The half is all backside,” he once quipped. When I got there I turned, put my hands on the doors behind me and posed for him in all my naked glory. Then I turned my back, bent forward with my forearms on the antique wood, arched as hard as I could, and looked at him over my shoulder. He was up and across that room before I finished saying it. "Just one. Make it count. Then you lie back down for me." He ran two fingers slowly down the small of my back and between my cheeks, all the way to where I was wet. Then he dragged his hand across my bottom, as if searching for the perfect spot. Smack! The armoire doors rattled and I felt it in my teeth. I stayed bent over for a moment, breathing, feeling the heat bloom on my right cheek. Then he knelt behind me and kissed the spot he'd spanked. I smiled. I walked him back to the bed, pushed him down, and got back on top of him with a handprint I would still feel at dinner. I kept him there for two hours. Six times I took him to the edge, and six times I brought him back. Twice I left him lying there and went downstairs for water, taking the stairs slowly. Both times I came back to find him glaring at the ceiling fan like it had personally wronged him. The second time, I set the glass on his chest, sweating cold, and told him that if it spilled we were done for the day. I rode him so slowly the surface barely moved, and watched the condensation run down his ribs while he held himself still, and when I drank from it I let some run down my chest onto him. To his credit, he didn't spill it. I've never seen a man work so hard at nothing. Then he knelt behind me and kissed the spot he'd spanked. At one point I got a little too into the tease and had to stop him with my hand and a slow count of ten. Every time I started again he was harder and I was closer, and it got difficult to remember which of us I was supposed to be torturing. Near the end he’d given up on being dignified about any of it. He was shaking under me, soaked, cursing, begging. I’m not evil, really. I just like to torture him. Finally, I leaned down until my lips touched his ear. “You’ve been so good for me, baby,” I whispered. “Now I really need you to fill me up. Can you do that for me?” I sat up so he could watch. I moved the way he’d been begging me to for an hour, fast and deep, and I squeezed him. The orgasm I’d been holding off since the bells rang four broke so hard I had to grab the headboard. That was it. He came with his head thrown back and both hands locked on my waist, and the only way I can describe the feeling is sitting on a bottle of Dom Pérignon someone had shaken seconds before. His shout went out through the shutters and probably down to the beach. When the bells rang five, he was flat on his back with one arm over his eyes, and I was lying across his chest listening to his heart try to climb out of it. The sheets were on the floor. A scooter whined up the road below us, and neither of us could have stood up if the house were on fire. After a while he lifted his arm and looked at me. It was the look from our wedding day, the one where he can’t believe his luck. “How am I still alive?” he said. Then, a minute later, very pleased with himself after checking his Rolex: “Two hours.” I kissed him and let him have it, for about a day. Then, over a plate of grilled octopus, I told him the truth, which is that I had been driving the entire time. I knew every time he got close. I brought him back down before he knew it himself, and when I was ready for it to end, I ended it. He put his fork down. “You can do that?” Yes, baby. And so can every wife reading this. Why You Should Handle It Researchers once handed stopwatches to five hundred couples in five countries and asked them to time themselves. The median, from the moment he entered her to the moment he finished, was about five and a half minutes. Meanwhile, most of us need around twenty minutes of arousal before our bodies are even ready to climb. You can see the problem. Almost all the advice for fixing it is written for men, and nearly all of it tells him to leave the room mentally. Think about baseball. Do long division. Use a numbing spray. My husband confessed that during our first year of marriage he used to silently recite state capitals, and I promise you, if your husband looks like he’s thinking about Montpelier, he is. That advice works, technically, but look at what it costs. The man you love is inside you and he is somewhere in Vermont. I want him here, feeling everything, which means somebody else has to mind the clock, and I’m the one with the better view. When you manage his arousal, he gets to stop gritting his teeth and you get the time your body actually needs. Trust me when I say he will not resent this arrangement. Talk to Him First, With Your Clothes On Do not spring this on him mid-thrust. A man’s pride lives very close to this subject, and if what he hears is “you finish too fast,” you’ve lost him before you’ve begun. Bring it up somewhere neutral, like the car or the kitchen, and make it a game you want to play. Say something like, “I read about a way I can keep you right on the edge for as long as I want. I’d love to try it on you this weekend. All you have to do is lie there and tell me your number when I ask.” The number is the only thing you need from him. Ask him to rate his arousal from one to ten, where ten is the point of no return. Men have a real physiological line, and once he crosses it he’s coming no matter what either of you does. Your job is to keep him between six and eight for as long as you like and never let him touch nine until you’ve decided. For the first few sessions, ask out loud. “Where are you?” “Seven.” It sounds silly. It becomes incredibly hot, and after a month you won’t need to ask. Learn His Tells His body announces a climax well before it arrives. Here’s what to watch for, roughly in the order it shows up: His breathing gets short and high in his chest. Then he holds it. A held breath means he’s at eight and climbing. His thrusts change. They get shorter, faster, and deeper, and he stops varying them. His thighs, stomach, and bottom clench. Put a hand on his glutes and you’ll feel it. He gets harder inside you. There’s a final swell right before he goes. Once you’ve felt it a few times you won’t miss it. His balls pull up tight against his body. They have to rise before he can ejaculate, which is going to be useful in a minute. Any two of these together mean it’s time to act. Take the Edge Off Early Two things before the main event will buy you more time than any technique. First, you come first. Have him go down on you or use his hand until you’ve had at least one orgasm before he’s ever inside you. You’ll be swollen and relaxed and halfway to your second, so you need less time from him, and he isn’t carrying the pressure of having to outlast you. Second, for a special occasion, consider a first round that’s just for him. In Praiano I’d taken care of him with my mouth that morning after our swim (the outdoor shower had a very convenient ledge). A man’s second erection of the day is a different animal. It’s a little less sensitive and a lot more patient, and that alone can double his time. Get On Top and Stay There You cannot control the pace from underneath him. In missionary and from behind, he sets the depth and the speed, and those are the two positions where most men finish fastest, because deep, fast thrusting is exactly what his body needs to get there. Save them for the end. Grind, and you climb while he idles. For lasting, you want positions where you do the moving. Cowgirl is the obvious one, and the motion matters. Grinding in slow circles with him deep inside you gives you all the clitoral contact you want while giving him very little stroke along his shaft, so you climb while he idles. Bouncing does the opposite. Lotus, with you in his lap and your legs wrapped around him, is even better for slowing him down because nobody can thrust much at all. Spooning is the gentlest of the three, and it’s my choice when I want to keep him simmering for a long, lazy time. The Stop This is the oldest technique in sex therapy and it works on every man alive. When you see his tells stack up, stop moving. Completely. Stay right where you are with him inside you, put your hand flat on his chest, and say, “Don’t move.” Then bring him down. A man racing toward orgasm is breathing fast and clenching everything from his jaw down, and both of those speed him up. Slow your own breathing where he can hear it, long and low, and tell him to match you. Tell him to relax his bottom. (My exact words are “unclench your butt, my love.” He laughs every time, and the laughing helps too.) A relaxed pelvic floor is much slower to fire than a clenched one. Kiss him. Look at him. It takes somewhere between twenty seconds and a minute for his arousal to fall a couple of points, and you’ll feel the urgency drain out of him when it does. His breathing drops back into his belly. His thighs let go. Then you start again, slowly. One warning. Do not squeeze him with your pelvic floor while you’re stopped. It’s tempting, and it will send him straight over. Stay soft. The first time you try this, you’ll probably stop too late. He’ll say “wait, wait,” and then it’ll be over. That’s fine! You’ve just learned where his nine is. Next time, stop earlier than you think you need to. Change Something When the stop alone isn’t bringing him down far enough, change the sensation entirely. Climb off and use your mouth for a while, lightly, staying away from the head. Move up his body and kiss him for two full minutes. Switch positions, because thirty seconds of rearranging limbs is a reset all by itself. Or leave the room. That’s what the water trips were for. He complained both times. It worked both times. The Squeeze This one is for when he’s at eight and a half and a pause won’t be enough. Lift off him and take his penis in your hand. Place your thumb on the frenulum, the little ridge on the underside where the head meets the shaft, and your first two fingers on the opposite side, right on the rim of the head. Squeeze firmly and hold for a slow count of ten. Go firmer than you think. It doesn’t hurt him when he’s fully hard, and it shuts the reflex down almost like a switch. He may soften slightly, which is normal and temporary. Give him half a minute, then bring him back with your hand or mouth and carry on. The Gentle Tug Remember how his balls have to draw up before he can come? You can politely decline on their behalf. When you feel them tighten, circle the top of his scrotum with your thumb and forefinger, ease them gently downward and away from his body, and hold. Gentle is the key word. You’re guiding, never yanking. It won’t stop a climax that’s already started, but at a seven or eight it buys you real time, and most men find the sensation lovely on its own. Turn Down the Show Everything that makes sex hotter for him also makes it shorter. The sight of your breasts moving, your moans, and the filthy thing you whisper in his ear are all gasoline. When he’s running hot, take some of it away. Everything that makes sex hotter for him also makes it shorter. Lie flat against his chest so there’s nothing to look at. Go quiet. Tuck your face into his neck. Keep your words sweet. Then, when he’s cooled to a six, sit back up and give him the view again. You’re working a dimmer, and he’ll never know there was a switch. How Long Is Long Enough? Let me be honest about those two hours. They included a lot of kissing, two trips for water, a long stretch of my mouth and hands, his mouth and hands, and one intermission where we lay under the fan and argued about what to name a daughter. He was inside me for maybe forty minutes of it, in pieces. Nobody wants two straight hours of intercourse. You’d both be sore for days. On a regular Wednesday my goal is simple. He lasts until I’ve come, and then for as long as we’re both still enjoying it. Keep lube within reach on the long nights, because your wetness won’t always last as long as your enthusiasm. And one loving note. If your husband regularly finishes within a minute or two no matter what you try, and it bothers him, he is in very large company. It’s the most common sexual complaint men have, doctors treat it all the time, and everything in this article still helps. Be kind about it, and remember, you’re probably just too hot! You’re Driving Now Once he trusts you with the clock, he stops worrying about it and becomes a better lover. He gets to feel everything. You get all the time your body wants, plus the particular pleasure of watching a grown man lose the power of speech. My husband still brings up Praiano. He looks at me the way he did when the bells rang five, like he can’t work out how I did it. I’ll tell you what I told him. I paid attention, and I practiced. You get to practice on your husband, and I have never once heard of one complaining.