Fridae

They're coming out of the woodwork. My exes that is.

I get a text from an old flame as I'm falling asleep. "Do you want to go to Guilin with me next week?" Some 18 months ago, when I was Ms Y's mistress - she's an incorrigible player - my heart would have leapt the 21 shoddily built floors of my Beijing housing block. I hadn't heard from Ms Y in over a year - and in that time she had gone through two girlfriends, several puppies and multiple mistresses. All those broken hearts, I think. And some of them canine. But this time I am sleepily amused.

Is a trip to a romantic southern province where no one knows us a ticket to hot illicit sex? Or a recipe for disaster?

I am cool. I am calm. This is the woman that broke my heart, after all. I text back. "Maybe. Let's talk in a few days." My heart doesn't even make it into the lift never mind past the 21st floor.

But it gets me thinking. Is it a good idea to get frisky with a former lover? Or will sex with your ex fuck up more than just the sheets?

As a recent ex myself - goodbye Stud and oh! hello empty dildo drawer - this question has more than just singular relevance.

Now, I've always been a firm believer in the wisdom behind "it never pays to get laid by your ex." And I can honestly say I've never been tempted. Once a girlfriend gets the "ex" tag, I just can't get it up for her anymore. It's some built-in biological defense system that, truth be said, I've always treasured. It makes life a lot less complicated.

Ms X, a 30-something Beijing lesbian, has the same reaction to her exes.

"Usually I can't get aroused or feel attracted to my ex," she says, amused by the question. "In fact, I've already had enough sex with her, I don't want any more!"

Then why am I considering - it hurts to admit it - Ms Y's advances? Does that wily dyke still have the direct line to my clit?

I seek help from another ex - the wise-beyond-her-years, Canadian-Chinese Jockie.

"Don't do it!" She says.

"When it's over it's over. If you have any shot at friendship following the breakup, you need to stay out of each other's pants. No amount of wine and candlelight, or tequila shots and tears, makes it a good idea," adds Jockie, who has slept with what she describes as "far too many" of her exes. Dammit. I think. Why didn't I bring tequila?

"Sure, your ex already knows how you like to be touched and the sex is extra hot because you know you shouldn't... but I think in the end, seducing someone new ends up being far less emotional effort, even if you have to teach them a few tricks," she says.

And we all know how difficult it is for lesbians to divorce the sexual from the emotional. When I first arrived in Beijing I fell into bed with Ms Inner Mongolia after a heavy night with a bunch of rough drag queens in a frog hot pot joint. The sex was sextastic. In the morning I rolled over and she greeted me with a kiss and a "Zao an, lao po!" (Good morning wife!) I couldn't get her out fast enough. A shared early-morning bowl of amphibian soup and a spot of shagging, and in her mind we were already betrothed.

Even if you can have sex with no strings attached, maybe she can't. Indonesian dyke, Slim, tells me she's about to encounter this very problem.

"Sex is great with her [the ex] but I don't know if I should," she says. "My conscience says that I should just leave her alone so we both can move on but I haven't got laid in a while, and I think it really depends on how many drinks I have this Saturday."

At least she's honest.

My loopy friend, Ms L, a British lesbian in a serious relationship with a Xinjiang girl, is shocked when I ask her if she would ever sleep with her ex.

"No," she squeaks. "She's mad� and married."

That never stopped you before you got hitched, I think.

"It would be completely inappropriate," she adds. "It would give her hope for more and she'd have control of me. It's a bad idea in general. When you've ended something� it's mad to go back. It fucks things up. Never go back� always go forward."

But Naomi, a twenty-something American, who's in a committed relationship with a Beijing girl, is having none of it. She thinks sex with an ex is a great idea.

"First, you get laid," she says. "Secondly, the sex will be better than that with a random stranger in a bar because you know each other's bodies and thirdly, the post break-up sexual tension will spice things up."

Well, I dig the getting laid, but not the rest. Seducing a foxy dyke you've met in a bar surely has to be hotter than slipping back into that old routine and any post break-up tension tends to be more splenetic than sexual. I'd rather wring her neck than neck her ring, you could say.

But for some, temptation comes from two fronts.

Jessie, an Australian girl living in Shanghai ended up having sex not only with her ex but also with her exes' girlfriend when she went for dinner at their house.

"I spilt some wine on my top� my ex's girlfriend told me to take it off and she would clean it� when she came back she started to kiss me," she says. "My ex - was just watching us, and then started to kiss her on the back of her neck... things just went from there� and it ended up being a very hot night of sex all over their house... from the kitchen, to the lounge room, to the bathroom - where my ex's girlfriend cleaned me some more... and then into their bedroom."

I can't stop thinking about Ms Y's text. Isn't there any situation where sex with an ex is a good idea? I ask Jockie.

"There is one kind of ex-girlfriend you can sleep with - the 'never was your girlfriend in the first place' girlfriend," she says. "These include summer camp flings, travelling hookups, bi-curious old friends passing though town and hippies or anarchists.

"Dig out the dildoes and go for it," says Jockie. "As long as they are getting on the next bus or plane out of town in the morning."

Which reminds me. I better get on that ticket to Guilin.

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