Joshua Wheeler

Instructions for Sex in an Automatic Carwash 

Think about it. 

Make up your mind that thoughts are not enough. 

(This is the hardest part.)

The conveyorized-tunnel carwash is the glamorous kind, the one in all the movies, the one in your thoughts when you think of carwashes and sex. Be wary. The conveyors roll at a predetermined pace, demand control of the vehicle and move in the most boring way—they convey. They finish in less than two minutes. You’ve never finished anything in less than two minutes, especially sex, except for maybe the first time when you finished before you even began. But after that sex did not happen much and when it did you made a habit of taking your time, not slow but thorough, an arc of passion with varying speeds and positions and moments of repose with brief interludes back into foreplay then quickly again into pounding and sweat and muscle snap as sighs become whispers become screams become frantic grasps for any hold of her body that doesn’t feel like she is slipping away; catch her hips, wrap a fist in her hair, crash and grasp again—you’re the one slipping away.