One definition of insanity is trying the same thing and expecting different results. The years that I’ve been sexually active have been great, but leave something to be desired. I’ve been getting it in, but I haven’t been getting off. Simply put: I have never experienced climax as a result of intercourse.

Sex with The Boy is almost always great, but the big book of sex positions he bought isn’t living up to its promise of mind-blowing orgasms for two. We figured we’d step back, break this down into its smallest parts, and take some of the pressure off ourselves. We’ve started with sensate focus exercises.

Created by sex therapists Masters and Johnson, sensate focus exercises are a series of steps used to get a couple comfortable enough with each other to heal sexual dysfunction. Sex therapists and psychologists love them because they let couples relax. It’s about studying your partner’s body to gather information, knowing what feels good to you, and letting go on expectations. I figured I’d try anything, even though most of our time spent together is in the nude, and I couldn’t imagine what else there was to know about his body; I could see in my mind the exact place of the tiny wart on his stomach.

In the first stage, we were supposed to lie down naked and take turns touching each other for ten minutes at a stretch. I lit a candle the first night and asked The Boy to go first. With the timer running on my phone, he started running his fingers along my back, and took a moment to playfully squeeze my butt. One source suggested the couple hold hands during the exercise, and the receiver give a squeeze when something felt good. We were not to talk.

When I turned over on to my back, I had a chance to really watch his face. He has thick, beautiful eyelashes and had a small sweet smile on his face. I’m very ticklish, so it was hard not to giggle. I had to remind myself to breathe deeply to clear my mind. Being a musician, there’s almost always a song stuck in my head, but silence was the soundtrack I needed.

My phone dinged and we took a moment to kiss before I took my turn. He rolled over and I started at his shoulders with just my fingertips, enjoying how broad and solid they are and how narrow his waist is, but after a few seconds of playing with his butt cheeks, it started to feel like I was in for a long 10 minutes and I peeked at the clock. It’s like when your teacher told you to give a five-minute speech and it seems like the longest five minutes of your life because when you run through it the first time, it’s only three minutes and nineteen seconds long. Still, as I continued, the slow, methodic process allowed was soothing to me, and I found myself really wanting to press my lips into his skin.

Somewhere between tickling his knees (he’s just as ticklish as I am, but respectfully stuck to silent laughter) we both got incredibly horny, and when my phone finally dinged for the second time, it was all we could do not to have sex. We settled for masturbating, but not before the Boy said he had been trying to focus on how our relationship made him feel.

Two nights later, we tried again, with him touching me first again. He made more full body contact, rest his face on my back and using the palms of his hands more than the fingertips. My mind was quieter during the touching this time. I surprised him with how much I squirmed and giggled when he raked his nails along the back of my thighs, my ankles, and the tops of my feet. It’s a tickling feeling, yes, but it’s intensely pleasurable, too. He cradled me in a spooning position just as the timer went off.

When my turn came, I really treed to focus on what I didn’t know about the landscape of his body and I matched my breathing to his. It was still rather playful in that I poked his butt and his underarms to make him laugh. I was a bit surprised Mr. Ever Ready didn’t reach so much as half-mast, but it didn’t bother me. The mood changed when he rolled over. I watched his face as I took pleasure in where his ribs meet at his sternum and started to think about how much I love him. Hard as it is to admit it, I got a bit teary-eyed when I stroked his hair and face while thinking about how I would do anything to keep him in my life. He caught the look on my face, and when the timer went off, he asked me what I’d been thinking. I laid on top of him, the excitement from a few days before completely gone, and told him. He was touched.