If the unshowered scent of her sends your girly parts a-spinning, if she makes you laugh so hard your ears hurt, if she can see the core of you through the thickest of defense mechanisms, if you still think she is the most beautiful girl in the world when she wakes up in the morning, if she feels the same way about you and if you both invest the time to learn the nooks and crannies of each other’s bodies, chances are you are going to have the best sex of your life, right?

The cynic in me would love to say no. But the mushy, truthful, Catholic insides of me won’t let me sit here on the guilty bed on which we have fucked away incredible afternoons of pixie-dust-exploding-sex and lie. After five or six months of wild, good, uncontained consistent sex, I had to do some serious investigation.

So I pinch my arm and when I don’t wake up, I ask myself if the sex is really as good as I think it is. I compare notes with friends and count the orgasms I seem to be having non-stop. This part is important because lesbians tend to create a narrative — complete with imaginary people and events — just so they can live inside the U-Haul happily-ever-after version of the tale. Since the reality still lines up with what I have floating around in my brain, I make a catalogue of the things I have done right and write them down — so when I need to, I can make it happen again.

The first rule of the game is to give the space between you some space to do what it will — and that means time and freedom and a whole lot of room for things NOT to go the way you are planning it. And that really means you cannot plan anything, or expect anything in particular to happen. Leave room in the unfolding for whatever. Chances are if your love is a vice grip around her pretty heart, her pussy will clam up very soon after.

Then you have to be honest. Speak the truth about what you want and what you feel from the very beginning. And because you aren’t married from day one, you don’t risk much — and if she falls for you, she’ll fall for the real you and not someone you have to live up to later. And if you last through this phase, it means you both want things that can co-exist. But you have to remember that the truth does not guarantee that she will fall in love with you. The only truth I have learned is a thing built on honesty is harder to shatter in the face of change.

Then you have to commit to friendship. I know, I know, it feels like a lot of work for a little sex, but this is one route we are talking about to really, really, deeply moving, wonderful, rip my panties, fuck me in the car, on the way to the airport, over the phone, in your parents’ living room. So bear with me. Corny as it sounds, an honest friendship keeps both of you safe. If you are truly friends, you won’t lose each other, no matter what. So work on a friendship.

Then learn the way her body works. Knowing what works generally gets you past the first encounter, but knowing what works specifically on her keeps the encounters coming. Listen to her moans, her gasps. Pay attention to what makes her buck and scream and whimper and groan. Stay away from the things that get no response. If you tickle her navel and she goes really still, or if she says, “Ouch,” don’t do that shit again. And don’t expect her to respond to what you last lover liked. Some women like to be spanked, some don’t. Some like to be bitten, some don’t. Some like to be pinned against a green wall, others may prefer a red door — just be open to new way of getting your rocks off. An open mind makes for other open orifices. After that, the rest is semantics and logistics and the kind of sex that will render you pixie dust after she’s done with you.

So yes, the sex does get better when she gets you. And it absolutely gets cosmic when you are not simply trying to bag her.