“You’re an experienced fister, right?” Amory Jane asked almost as soon as I sat down at our co-working date. She and Calico looked at me expectantly. “I have some experience, why?” I said, mentally running through my repertoire of advice. ”We want to get together a group of queer sex-positive femmes, have a party with snacks and games, and see if we can get fisted!”

I blinked.

Everything I knew about group sex I’d seen in campy comedies and porn: a group of cishet humans sliding their bodies together in ways I find boring. Until two femmes set out on a quest to find the perfect individuals to fit their needs, and the small group of sex educators, performers, sex workers and sex positive humans they came up with changed the game for me.

I showed up to my first sex party with a broken foot, a cat dress, some rosé and a bag of sex toys I wasn’t sure I’d have the courage to pull out. I was so nervous that I was two hours late and hovered in my car even longer. I walked in on a circle of gleaming faces, eating snacks and chatting about the resident polydactyl cat. It felt like… just a party? That I would normally end up at anyway? I took a seat.

A couple of drinks into the evening, we went around and introduced ourselves, gave our pronouns and talked about what we might be looking for that night. “I’m here to offer a gentle and understanding fist,” I announced with forced confidence. After making our way around the circle, Amory Jane proposed a round of spin the lube bottle: “It’s like spin the bottle, but instead of kissing when you spin on someone, you can propose any activity you want. If they aren’t totally into it, they can make a counter offer!” Someone set a bottle of Sliquid Sassy in the center of the table among the popcorn, donuts and vibrators, and I panicked once I realized I could spin on someone I didn’t even want to smooch. Before I could get too in my head, Rosie, a queer sex educator with blonde/blue hair and a killer laugh, found herself in that exact boat. Her proposition? To slowly eat a jelly donut from another person’s hand.

As the game went on, I felt myself relax. Everyone around me became more and more comfortable, and less and less covered with clothing. I watched beautiful people, my friends, shyly ask each other if they’d want to kiss. “Can we kiss with boobs?” Epiphora, a sex toy reviewer, asked between giggles. Cuddling, kissing, rolling, laughing, asking along the way if motions were okay. Amory Jane found her way to me and asked if I’d be interested in offering her my fist. “Duh,” I said, as I slipped a nitrile glove on my hand. Calico sat behind Amory Jane and held a We-Vibe Tango against her body as I slid myself slowly into her. Around us, everyone gently cuddled and turned their attention to what was happening at the center of the room. The audience made me feel like I had fallen into a familiar performative state of mind, and gave me all the more motivation to stay connected to AJ and let her know I was here for her, I wanted this for her, too. Her back arched, and my smile grew wider as I said, “You’re doing so good, babe,” and slid my thumb inside her to the tune of everyone cheering.

The way we were all together, showing support and communicating all our desires and caring for one another, was special. It was something I had never seen before. Amory Jane and I spooned on the couch and watched as Epiphora fisted someone for the very first time, repeating, “Oh my god. This is amazing! Oh my god! My whole hand is inside of you! You are a miracle!” with wild enthusiasm. I felt so whole. We had all joked about how witchy what we were doing was. “What if we called ourselves a femme fisting coven?” someone in our Facebook group suggested. We found a name for what we were doing that we all identified with and loved. It was like a secret club for which we invented our own language, talked about in our own code, and revelled in.

It had true gravity, and I needed it.

I had been trying to find ways to feel more closely connected to individuals in the queer community. The Portland queer scene is pretty big, considering, and I knew a generous amount of people in it. But I was still fairly new and didn’t have very many close connections. I was searching for the close group of friends I saw so many others have, and that I had had back home. I needed those connections to feel seen and sane, something that was becoming increasingly obvious with time. And after only that first evening with the coven, I felt like each and every person there could be someone I could call on to drink wine and gossip and cry with one night and throw a kinky party with the next. I felt so close to them, instantly, on a level I had never felt before. We all had a common goal and shared values and just wanted to lift each other up. It was everything I had been looking for, only better, because it came along with smooching and cuddling and spanking.

A month later, we gathered again, along with some new faces. And again. We started to give our gatherings themes, each of us offering something we felt we excelled at to share with the group. At our squirting-and-strap-on-a-thon, I offered myself and my ability to soak an entire bed within minutes. I had only just introduced myself to Rachel, who was delightfully bubbly with an affinity for chest glitter, but she crawled her way over to me as I started to try to squirt to say, “You look like you could use someone to kiss you as you do this.” She smiled and maintained eye contact with me, her hand on my cheek, keeping my focus away from the room of people watching me. She placed herself between my legs and, a few moments later, I bashfully asked, “Is that okay?” after realizing I had just used her sparkly chest as a backboard for an overwhelming amount of squirting. She gently said, “Yes, I love it. You’re beautiful.” The others laid back and told me and Epiphora, who was next to me with an Njoy Pure Wand and a shared skill set of soaking the sheets, how good we were doing. We ended our night with a bang; a lineup of five femmes in strap-ons, Calico riding her way down the line, giving her feedback on each dildo and teaching those less experienced to the strap-on game how to move their bodies under her.

With each gathering, our connections grew, and I felt more supported than I had in months, maybe even years. I wasn’t just there to play around with my rad hot friends. If I had a hard month, getting together with the coven and telling them about it felt healing. I felt seen and heard. I felt like there was space for me. And I wanted to give that to everyone else, too. The magic felt powerful. My insecurities around my body, what it looked like, and what it was and wasn’t capable of melted away — and not just in the hours I spent with the coven. My body didn’t scare me anymore. I felt a confidence I had never known, the magic of these femme witches had lifted me up and kept me there. They were so powerful.

In August, with group members about to head off for travel, we gathered again. It was bittersweet, and it felt as though this might be the last time we would all be together for a while. We made a nest on the outdoor deck of a beautiful home out of blankets and pillows, strung up some faerie lights, and all settled in. We held one another, talked about how we were all doing emotionally and confessed our genuine love and appreciation for each other. We spent the night talking about our future together as a coven in between rounds of twister and impact play. Amory Jane and I took a candlelit bubble bath after starting the night admitting our long standing crushes on each other, sipping on straw-ber-ritas while discussing the physics of bathtub sex and how inappropriate but seemingly perfect our boss-intern relationship truly is.

The coven became more than just a group of smart, beautiful, open friends who play together once a month. It became a steady pillar of support. We carry on a group text whenever we aren’t spending time together, updating each other on our days and our accomplishments, processing our relationships, seeking advice or words of wisdom when we needed it, building each other up and sharing nudes to brighten each others’ days. And now more than ever, we need each other. The coven is a constant that I can count on to be there for me and listen to me and lift me up, like a partner I didn’t know I needed and don’t know how I went so long without. We play together, work together, do projects together and show up for each other as best as we can, whenever we can.

I am so in love with my coven. It is the healthiest form of love I have ever known. I’ve fallen in love with a group of fifteen or so babes at once! I feel our connection grow each day, whether I’m spending time with the entire coven or just a few of them or even just one of them. They’ve seen me kiss and come and squirt and fist, they’ve seen me explore bottoming for the first time and show off how femme and toppy I can truly be, they’ve given me advice and watched me fall hard and feel heartbreak, they’ve seen me laugh so hard and cry so hard and held me through it all. My greatest loves, my closest friends. They are magic. I thank goddess everyday for them, and for my gentle, understanding fists.

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