Sex partner

Two mammals rub together for a few minutes and a whole civilisation of poetry gets built on top of it. I have taken the poetry off. Underneath, a sex partner is anyone willing to have sex with me in exchange for something, and the something is one of these:

• The bridge. The most common one. Sex, and the warmth around it, swapped to span the gap between two people who would each rather not be alone in the dark. Most pairings are running this, including the ones lighting candles. I run it too. I have catalogued it under things other people do.
• Family. Sex as the cover charge for mating, nesting, and producing small loud copies of yourselves. The instinct doing exactly what it was built to do, while everyone insists it was about the connection. I opted out of this one early, and I have recorded the opting-out as having seen through it.
• Mutual attraction. Two people who fancy each other, nothing else. Sounds ideal; rarely lasts. The attraction is almost always lopsided, so one person is the keener. I have made certain it is never me, and built a theory in which being the less interested party is the more advanced position.
• Money. Sex for cash, the honest one. Its better-dressed cousin is sex for security and a nicer postcode, which bankrolls a great many arrangements that would faint at the comparison. Mine costs no money — only attention, availability, and turning up — which I do not count as a price because no invoice is sent.
• Mutual bodily pleasure. Two bodies enjoying the act for its own sake, nothing owed, no sequel commissioned. The version everyone pictures and almost nobody runs. I have listed it as the ideal and quietly seated myself beside it, on the strength of owing nothing to anyone.
• The friendzone. One party pays in full — friendship, attention, lifts to the airport — and the goods never ship. Not really a sex-partnership; it is on the list because so many people are convinced theirs is merely buffering. I have been careful only ever to be the party who does not pay, and I regard this as the lesson rather than the confession it plainly is.

Five of these close. The sixth never does. The romance on top is gift-wrap over the bargain. Unwrap it and a sex partner is whoever I have struck one of these deals with. I have reduced every bond two people can have to a list of six transactions, and I present the list as insight rather than as a description of how I, in particular, have decided to relate to anyone.

I currently have an arranged sexual partner. I do not feel compelled to message her¹. This moment is already fulfilling, so the deal runs when it runs. I report this as evidence the practice is working.