Oil Me Up

When I learned crows and magpies don’t actually like shiny objects, I took it personally. I wanted to believe my attraction to anything that glistens made me more bird than human. Being human is embarrassing. I don’t know a single crow who’s searched “BIG OILED ASS” on Pornhub recently, much less required the video take place by a SWIMMING POOL. God.

Oil is my thing. I don’t like the word “fetish” because it’s often paired with “foot” (alliteration has no place in the bedroom), and I don’t like the word “kink” because half the people who use it have launched GoFundMe pages to get out of toxic roommate situations. Fetish and kink people are in community with those who like what they like. They have systems, languages. Containers for their urges. That’s why I’m a “thing” person. Oil is my thing, and there’s no way to contain oil. I mean, you’ve never sprayed a frying pan and only hit the pan.

The pool was where I first apprehended the erotic potential of oil, thanks to Tracy. Tracy was a woman for real. Uncontainable, her womanness. She owned a local dance studio, and she made all the Coldwater Creek moms in my small town visibly uncomfortable with her long, fake blonde hair, glittery six-inch heels, and 100 silver bangles, jingle-jangling with every sauté.

Tracy went to the same pool as my friends and me. She’d arrive in a tiny black bikini, still high-heeled and bangled up, and coat her body in oil to tan until sunset. Every so often, Tracy would clomp over to the concession stand for a Diet Pepsi. And I saw her buttcheeks like two disco balls bending light off the shallow end of the pool. I saw her legs glitter, and I bet there wasn’t a man breathing whom she couldn’t walk like a dog.

I wanted to walk men like dogs. In fact, at 16, that’s just about all I wanted to do. Shit, I thought, I gotta get some oil.

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Once you know you have a sex thing, there’s no use running from it. And if it’s not hurting anyone, why would you? I can’t be normal about oil. Not at this point. I’ve sexualized too many innocuous scenarios, heard the wet slaps of imaginary bodies mid-conversation.

A few examples of said slapping:

The second the masseuse pumps that warmth into her hands and kneads my back, a thick wall of professionalism between us, I’m a puddle. I’m taking it the wrong way. I am the guy who thinks the stripper likes him. One time I lingered after my appointment chatting the girl up, and she casually mentioned that she specialized in EROTIC massage and that I SHOULD COME SEE HER AGAIN. My instincts aren’t always wrong.

On the beach with girlfriends, passing around a bottle of tanning oil. Our bodies reflect off each other like a mirrored room. How do all my friends have perfect tits? Are there magnets in our tits? Is that how we got here? My thoughts become orgiastic, slippery. These are my friends, I remind myself. I take a big gulp of White Claw.

Have you ever noticed the big K on a Kérastase bottle isn’t so unlike the big KY on a bottle of lube? It’s just something I noticed.

Back home in Pennsylvania, I’d go to the Bloomsburg Fair every year. Rednecktopia. Come see the world’s biggest rat for a quarter. Or maybe the tractor pull is more your speed. Now, imagine a food, any food: You can get it deep-fried at the Bloomsburg Fair. And I’d watch them lift my battered, bacon-wrapped strawberry Pop-Tart out of the golden oil, dripping, hot, and suddenly that carny with two teeth and a glass pipe in his flannel pocket doesn’t look so bad.

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For me to enjoy sex, I need to be really relaxed. All the tension and chaotic energy that I carry throughout the day—and it’s a lot!—must melt in your hands. Thus, the holistic sensory experience is important. I want to be clean. I want to smell good. I need to like the sound of your voice. I want to feel so comfortable in my body that I can leave it for a while. The body as a vehicle for leaving the body: get into it to get out of it. Transcendence as the sixth sense. Pleasure should take you to the moon, at least. When I’m freshly showered, covered in oil, smelling like coconut and vanilla and skin and light, I am all the way gone, and I’m taking you with me. Look there: an endless white bed with a view of the ocean; something creamy and delicious and sweet, custard-based; a calendar so empty it echoes. I can take you there. And I will look more beautiful than I do right now after two kids, I hope. Tighter belly.

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June 29, 2026

The box hits my porch with a great THUD, an iPhone camera flashes through the window. Two bottles of Palmer’s body oil: one Tahitian vanilla, one coconut. Palmer’s is cheap—$23.76 in total. The orange logo looks like a diner sign, or a tanning salon. Imagine trying to make titty fucking feel “expensive.” That’s crazy work. Trashy sex is good for your marriage, anyway. It’s roleplay without contrivance.

I take an everything shower. At seven months pregnant, I can’t see my pussy anymore, but I shave it. Trust the process. I want to be the smoothest person alive. I scrub too hard. I moisturize. I finish with the Tahitian vanilla body oil, an extra pump or two on my chest.

“SMELL ME,” I command. He closes his eyes and smiles, tilts his head back, and drops his shoulders. Ahhhh. I lie on my back and push my boobs together, and he slides in. Together, we leave our bodies. I spread my wings and disappear into the sky, more bird than human after all.