1,001 Nights: Prologue 01

Sara knew it was a bad idea right from the start, but something about it appealed to her wild side. One thousand and one sexual encounters in one thousand and one days. The idea had come to her after reading portions of The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night. In the book, King Shahryar's wife is unfaithful, so he kills her. Believing all women to be unfaithful, he marries a different woman every day, spends the night with her, and then has her executed at daybreak. Scheherazade volunteers to marry the King, then begins to relate stories to husband, ending in a cliff-hanger right before dawn; his curiosity stays her execution for a thousand and one days, at which point he decides she's faithful and doesn't have her killed.

At the time Sara had thought, I could come up with a better thousand and one nights to distract the king. The idea had caught in her mind's eye, had transformed into a modern retelling, then from a woman distracting a mans' attention to that of a man distracting a woman, then to a woman using men to distract her own attention. The more she thought about it, the more it intrigued her, fed her endless sexual fantasies, wrapped itself tightly around her psyche like a constrictor disabling its' prey, until it consumed her imagination.

She had decided to write a book based on her own experiences in trying to accomplish the goal of one thousand and one lovers in as many nights. I ought to market it as a TV show on some adult channel, she thought, or a series of adult films. I could make a fortune. But abstractly, in writing, it could be anyone, even though many people would know the truth. On film it would definitely be her, beyond any shadow of a doubt, and she wasn't sure she wanted that kind of notoriety.

When it came down to it, why did she want to do it? She wasn't sure she could answer that in one sentence. Because I like sex? That didn't cover it; it didn't even come close. Because I'm addicted to sex. I don't just enjoy it, I crave it. I need it. I want it all the time. It's almost uncontrollable. That was a lot closer, but there was more to it than just that, too. Part of it was that, to the best of her knowledge, no one had ever done it before. She also wanted to disprove the myth that women don't want sex as much as men. She wanted to show the world a frank and honest view of life from a woman's perspective, from the perspective of a woman who craved sex more than anything else. She wanted to break the taboos that prevented honest, intelligent discussion on the topic of sex.

No, that's bullshit. Those ideas sound great, but the truth is that I just want sex, all the time. I can't even admit it to myself. I have a problem. But there are worse problems to have, right? I could be addicted to gambling, or drinking. I could be addicted to any number of drugs. It could be a lot worse.

She had thought about it for weeks now, had setup a framework in which to work, and now she mulled over her plan, her rules, her goals. One thousand and one sexual encounters in one thousand and one days, and no two could be identical. Something about each encounter had to be different than any of the previous encounters. It went without saying that they all had to be with different partners. Or items, she corrected herself, thinking of Big Black, her favorite vibrator. She'd also seen pictures on the internet of "machine sex," bound women being fucked by electric motor driven dildos. Something about that entire concept felt wrong, too deviant; even when masturbating it was her own human hand controlling the inanimate object. It wasn't programmed to satisfy her, it didn't move on its' own. Although she could count that as one of her nights, she was not convinced that it was something she wanted to experience.

Different positions went without saying. She couldn't just lie on her back and be fucked missionary style one thousand and one times. Different locations, that one was also a must. In bed, against the wall, on the photocopier, in an elevator, a hot tub... there were a lot of possibilities there. Multiple partners was another option, her with two guys, two girls, a guy and a girl, three guys filling every orifice, a whole group of guys... again, many possibilities. Mutual masturbation, voyeurism, public sex, videotaping, costumes, role playing, bondage, dominance and submission... the list was seemingly endless.

But was it enough to give her one thousand and one different encounters? Could she really get the variety she planned? And why had it taken over her mind some completely? She knew that something inside her needed sex as much as she needed to breathe, but was that the only reason? Perhaps she was looking for satisfaction from her never-ending desire. Would this satisfy her? Would it wear her out on sex so much that she would be free from her addiction? Having exhausted every sexual possibility, would she be satiated?

Maybe that is what it's all about, she thought. Maybe I want to get it out of my system so I can live a normal life, without this constant yearning, this never-ending desire. That could be it. The yearning for sex was overpowering at times, preventing her from living normally, compelling her to sneak off and masturbate in bathroom stalls, her office, emergency stairwells. Sometimes she'd see a man and just have to have him, right there, on the spot. Maybe if she got it out of her system she could say no to sex just once; that would be huge, and was probably the reason she really wanted to follow through with her plan. But did it really matter why? She wanted to do this, for reasons she knew she didn't fully comprehend right now, but that she hoped would be made clear before she reached her goal.

It was Tuesday night, and she planned to start on Friday. What better night than a Friday to start almost three years of daily sexual experience? She had laid some groundwork; she had responded to some personal ads that she normally would have ignored, frequented some online chat rooms that she'd only previously given a cursory glance, made some contacts through friends that might lead her to a 'swingers underground', others that might lead her to people interested in bondage and S&M. She had also met a lot of guys in bars that laid the foundation for her first few weeks. She was as ready as she'd ever be.

She'd start Friday.