Have you ever had sex in the shower?  Well don’t.

My Shower Is NOT A Mood Enhancer.

For years my wife has mentioned that she wanted to have sex while taking a shower, and I always managed to either change the subject or pretend I didn’t hear her. I don’t look good wet. I’m not sure she does either.  And the lighting’s too bright in our bathroom, so you can clearly see things that shouldn’t be seen clearly.

And our shower is not a sexy, movie type shower. It’s a 1950’s, small, your-grandmother’s-house-type shower with a shower head so low you have to duck down to get your hair wet.  And there’s just enough missing and discolored grout to make you want to  shower quickly and get right out.

But last Saturday night none of that was going to stop my wife from sneaking in while I was lathering up. So there she stood, naked and ready.  I’m cold, soap is burning my eyes and I’m more than a bit claustrophobic. My back is pressing up against the temperature knobs and no matter how hard I try… I can’t find a position that works for either of us. And then it happened.

I slipped and went down like a wet sack of potatoes.

I ended up in the fetal position on top of the drain, covered in loofahs and expensive hair product. My wife looked down at me with a mixture of pity and sadness, kinda the way you look at a new puppy that just peed on the rug. She got out of the shower, dried off and got into bed. I followed after her exaggerating a limp in an attempt to garner a bit of sympathy. She asked if I was okay and I said that I was, but clearly I had let her down.

Just as she was beginning to nod off, I asked her if there was any place other than the shower where we could make love that would make her happy. The living room sofa, the pool table, the trampoline? She said not to worry about it and went to sleep. But right then and there I decided that if my wife wanted to do it in the shower, well she was going to get to do it in the shower.

The next day I went out and bought a fold-up shower chair, a tub rail, two sets of wall grab bars, a dozen non-slip floor strips, and a pair of elastic water shoes.  Then I made sure our insurance was current. Now the shower is completely ready for our next date night … or a visit from my 73 year old mother!

So what should I do?

I’ve been married to the same woman for almost 15 years and the other night while we were making love, she tried something totally new. She did this thing…kind of a new position, her hands were … well let’s just say it felt good but … why now?

I'm still not even sure what happened.

So what did I do? I’ll tell you what I did. I got distracted. I started thinking, where did she learn that and when? Was it something she always wanted to try but kept forgetting? Was it something she saw recently in a movie and if so… what movie and where was I?

Or was it something she used to do with Leonard, the loser she dated before me and now she’s started fantasizing about him so she’s doing “it” to me! Or maybe a girlfriend of hers told her about it. Maybe it was Susan the redhead with the big, fake cupcakes. She looks like the type who would do it to her husband, and her husband Bob looks like he would like having it done to him.

Not that I didn’t like it, I just wasn’t expecting it. Not from my wife anyway. We have a pattern, an order to our romantic get-togethers that’s been established over a period of time. I think lots of couples do. It’s comfortable and relaxed and reliable… and one partner shouldn’t just decide to throw something new into the mix without consulting the other partner. I’d like to be prepared if  something new is going to happen during sex, especially when it’s with someone who hasn’t done anything new to me since the early part of Clinton’s first term.

Maybe we could discuss it beforehand, in detail. Its origins, how it will be performed, what the expected response should be. That’s not a lot to ask, right?