"When is the next one?" she replied.

That confused me. My friend had recently announced that she was "In Love!" Surely if one was in love, one didn't need or want to roll around with a roomful of naked strangers?

But over the course of the next month, I found that many young New Yorkers were plunging into a shopping mall of sex, in which it takes more than two to tango and a "the more, the merrier" attitude prevails. But unlike the past image of swingers as men in gold chains married to women with big hair, the new swingers were mostly indistinguishable from the young professionals you might find yourself next to on the Stairmaster or shopping for Sigerson Morrison shoes on Prince Street. And much of the initiative seems to be coming from the women. But these couples don't call themselves swingers-they call it "play." And they bring the buzz of ambition into the bedroom. As a young woman told me at a recent party, "I've got a list of fantasies to try before I hit 30, and I'm not wasting any time."

At the Chelsea loft orgy, I wanted to find out who these people were, and why they were there.

Around 11 p.m. I met a couple who were sipping red wine and sitting on a mattress covered in faux fur. There was a sense that they were waiting for something. He was 28, with broad shoulders and sandy brown hair, wearing just blue Calvin Klein boxers. He had his arm around a petite, busty brunette, in her mid-20's, who was wearing white La Perla. What did they hope would happen?

"I want to be turned into sandwich filling," she said. "You know, I want to be in the middle with two guys."

"I'm open to anything," he said. "And I'd like to maybe find a girlfriend."

The La Perla woman, who was apparently not his girlfriend, went to refill her wine. I asked him who she was.

"I saw this ad on Nerve.com which read, 'I'm moving to another country to live with my boyfriend in a month and there are some adventures I want to have before I leave. One of them is to be with two guys.' It was playful and witty and the picture was pretty cute! So I e-mailed my friend Mike and said, 'Dude, check out this ad.' The next evening, she and I met for a drink at Merchant's Bar on 62nd. Mike was working late, so he met up with us later at my apartment."

Was it strange to share a woman with your friend?

"If my only way to have sex with a particular woman is to have another guy there, then fine, no big deal. I mean, that's what she wanted," he said. "By the end of the night, we had switched for each position. Every position you can imagine. It was fun!"

I walked into the back bedroom of the loft. A couple was sitting on the mirrored canopy bed. They told me they had been dating for just over a year and hoped to find a willing couple with whom to have a "swap." She was a photographer and looked like Daryl Hannah in Splash , with cascading blond curls and blue sequined lingerie. He was rather plain, and said he was a professional blackjack player. He was wearing black silk shorts with "Caesar's Las Vegas" printed on the waist band.

"A few months ago, we almost had an encounter with a couple in Las Vegas," he said. "The four of us had a lot of electricity, but then nothing really happened. It was disappointing. After that, we were very curious about what it would have been like." He gave his girlfriend a look of adoration. But she had locked gazes with a husky fireman-type who stood on the other side of the bed, and so she missed it.

On a recent Wednesday night at 1:30 a.m., "The Imperial Orgy" at Webster Hall ($45 a person) was in full swing. Young women in short T-shirts and neoprene bustiers handed out free condom and lube samples and accepted cash only for items like pocket-rocket vibrators and designer nipple pasties.

A brunette in her late 20's in a white off-the-shoulder peasant blouse and black prairie skirt led her date, who was wearing green Banana Republic shorts and a white button-down shirt, by the hand toward a "spanking" room. She said she was the director of a Soho gallery. He worked in a gallery uptown. Who would spank whom?

"Oh, I'm spanking Chris!" she said. They both giggled.

Inside one room, people-mostly in their 20's-were clustered on sofas. Loud rock music commanded, "Shake your funky ass … Go! Go! Go!" In the back, one woman straddled another. The woman on top, a dark-skinned beauty with straight black hair, was thrusting her body against the other, a tall, thin blonde with red lips who wore an A-line skirt and heels. The blonde closed her eyes and leaned back into pillows. A crowd gathered and a camera flashed. When the song ended, the woman on top kissed her new friend tentatively on the mouth.

The crowd moved toward a young couple that were sitting next to each other on a sofa. She was a petite streaky blonde, her face covered by a Venetian exotic-bird mask. Her jeans were down around her black strappy sandals. Her boyfriend, in a T-shirt and jeans, was giving her a hand job through the outside of her white body suit. Cameras flashed. Encouraged, her boyfriend worked harder.

Back on the first sofa, the perspiring dark-haired beauty had dismounted and flung herself around a man sitting on her right, who turned out to be her boyfriend. He wore a blue collared shirt and dress pants. He said he was 28 and a research analyst on Wall Street. She was 26 and worked as a human-resources director for a small financial-communications firm.

"Let's see if she wants to have a three-way!" said her boyfriend, indicating the blonde his girlfriend had just finished straddling.

"Sure!" she said. She was shining and a little out of breath. "But she can't have sex with you. Only a blow job."

"O.K." he said, "No problem."

Had she ever given anyone a lap dance before?

"No," she said, beaming. "But I've always wanted to try it … and I want to have sex with a woman, too!"

In the light of day I met a 23-year-old fledgling film director who was sitting on a bench in front of Olive's on Prince Street. She brushed a crumb from a cookie off her low-low-low-waist Urban Outfitter jeans. She had long blond hair and blue eyes.

"My last boyfriend and I started having threesomes five months into our relationship," she said. "It wasn't because we were bored. It's kinda like a game. You have no idea if you can get her to go home with you. It's about teamwork. We tried to do it 15 or 20 times and it happened like five.

"Once, on my boyfriend's birthday, we couldn't find a girl, so we called a hooker. We were at my place. We found the number in The Village Voice . The first person we had sent over was not very attractive, so we said no-but you have to tip them anyway. We had four people come over. The last one was cute, so she stayed. It was $400 for an hour. She was very mellow. She brought some pot and we all smoked it. Then she was like, 'O.K., you can do whatever you want with me-just no anal.' It was pretty hot. I don't remember much, though. I was pretty drunk.

"I like girls. I would never have a girlfriend. But for physical and sexual purposes, it's fun," she said. "I mean, threesomes for me are like getting your back cracked if it needs it. And once it's cracked, you don't want to stick around and talk to the chiropractor. We had one girl try and sleep over once, and that was very awkward. I was like, 'We can't all sleep in this bed. This is my and his bed.' I think she had a little plan. I think she had a thing for my boyfriend and was using me to hook up with him."

She said she had started seeing a new guy three weeks ago and hasn't brought up threesomes with him yet. But she's getting ready to.

"If it turned him off, it would be a problem," she said. "I do want to continue doing this, but I like this guy. I'd have to see if I continue to like him more, or find someone who is more compatible with my lifestyle."

The danger of inviting a third partner into bed-that the newcomer may run off with one of the partners in the couple-is never far from the minds of the players.

"With threesomes, you're always worrying that a single woman is going to steal your guy," said Ana, a 30-year-old half-Brazilian, half-Italian art broker with long, wavy brown hair and brown eyes. On the day we spoke, she was wearing a sleeveless, tan DKNY camisole, a below-the-knee brown skirt and brown mules.

Ana said she liked "playing" with women. Her boyfriend, John, an engineer, likes to watch. So rather than chase single women in bars who might turn out to be man-stealers, they started looking for other young couples like them, using an e-mail group they found on Yahoo.com called "nyswingingcouples."

Indeed, Web sites like Alt.Matchmaker.com, LavaLife.com or Nerve.com cater to supersexed couples and singles by providing search criteria like "Play" or "Swinging" or "Intimate Encounters." Ana and John met some couples online, but most seemed to want to "full swap," which means they wanted to swap partners and have intercourse. But John and Ana wanted "Girl Play" followed by "Same Room Play"-which means that the couples watch each other have sex, but no swapping. Then Ana had an idea. She started a social club called Rendezvous for couples like her and John. She threw the first Rendezvous party last July at Bliss Bar in midtown.

"We were so scared that we would be the only ones," said Ana. "But then 12 couples showed up! Everyone was really nice and excited about it. People were very good-looking overall, and they were mostly lawyers, a couple of doctors, a kindergarten teacher, and a few were in finance. And they were like us; they don't go to bars or swing clubs."

The group has grown to 35 active couples that get together a few times each month at places like Drinkland, Fez and Prohibition. Sometimes someone will throw an after-party at their apartment. On a recent Saturday, a Rendezvous couple threw a "private party" in the man's apartment near Central Park West. They invited 10 couples. At first it was like a normal cocktail party, with the guests drinking wine and eating sushi in the newly remodeled kitchen. Then they moved to two leather couches and settled onto pillows on the Oriental rug. Someone turned off the lights. Candlelight reflected off a large oak-framed mirror above the fireplace. It was 11:30 p.m. Ana was there with John.

"We were all just hanging out, and then two women started kissing and a third joined, and then it just turned into an orgy," said Ana.

"It's a normal party up to a certain point, and then all of a sudden, boom-it starts to snowball," said the host. "By the end of the night, it turned into a-I don't want to say an orgy, because that's so … trite."

The mood was a little less cozy on a recent Friday night at Checkmates, a swingers' club on East 56th Street. A stunning 22-year-old with short curly hair tossed off her black silk robe and danced naked around a stripper's pole for her boyfriend. She wore spiky black mules and moved her body like a stripper, smiling shyly. She said she worked in fashion public relations. Her boyfriend was 25 and said he'd just passed the New York bar exam.

"We've never been to a swingers' club before," she said, surveying the room.

Pink, gold and white balloons blanketed the low ceiling. A topless, leathery woman with a perm straddled a man in Old Navy shorts on a love seat. A small TV monitor looped porn in the corner and the smell of baked ziti wafted up from a buffet.

"If we knew of a better place, we'd go there," she said.

What did she want to do?

"I want to kiss girls," she said, "Cute girls, because I haven't done it. And I want to have a threesome. And play with toys and have an orgy!" Her brown eyes sparkled.

What did her boyfriend want to do?

"I'm up for whatever!" he said.

Back to Caligula's Ball, where the party's hosts had orchestrated an "icebreaker" performance at 12:30 a.m. Two performers-"Caligula" and "Druscilla"-danced and caressed each other incestuously as the three dozen couples watched. The temperature rose. When the show ended, the guests complimented each other: nice bra, nice ass, beautiful breasts. Questions like "May I kiss?" became less verbal.

A lot happened quickly, and it was difficult to keep track. In the front room, the La Perla woman was getting her wish. The blackjack player and the blond photographer swapped with the fireman and his date. A tangled foursome harem of women reclined on a double love seat, kissing, touching and feeding each other green grapes. Seven people, males and females, tangled themselves on the king-size canopy bed. A solo twig-thin brunette pranced into the room sucking on a lollipop.

In my e-mail to my friend, I wrote, "All this promiscuity and pleasure; it's fun! … The rush lasts for days. You'll feel crazy, sexy, wild. You can do it again, or try something new. But it doesn't really mean anything; like the twentysomethings said, It's just sex!

"But back to that 'In Love' thing you spoke of. I wish you'd wait a day and feel it. Cuz all the crazy sex vibes can make you a little crazy, too. Maybe wait another day."

Two years ago, he said, he was subletting an apartment from a friend. He found a book on the shelf titled The Multi-Orgasmic Man by Mantak Chia.

"I've known women who have had six orgasms in a row," the Professor said. "That's always something I've greatly appreciated-I would be like, 'Wow!' It's a terrific turn-on, and something I didn't think was possible for men. I thought we were just wired differently. For me, orgasm meant ejaculation."

He read the book because he wanted the "Wow!"

"I wanted to have the sheer pleasure of that," he said. "And I thought it might be a way to understand women better, and improve how you are together."

He said he also had an occasional problem with climaxing too soon, and he hoped the techniques might help.

"A long time ago, I came after a few minutes," he said. "It was like, ' Whup ! Sorry !' And this particular woman I'm thinking of was like, ' Uck !'-and she slapped me on the back. It was a friendly slap on the back, and we just laughed about it. But the next time I didn't come so fast."

He read the book and started taking various Taoist meditation classes, including one called "Sexual Kung Fu," where he learned how to "retain semen." He practiced for about two years and just recently was able to experience his first orgasm where he did not ejaculate.

"It was breakup sex with a former girlfriend of mine," he said. "I knew we were saying good-bye, but subconsciously I didn't want to say good-bye. I wanted it to last. And I lasted for a mighty long time. I think we made love for one and a half hours. And then I had this warmth going up my spine. I was thinking, 'Hey, wait-something else is happening here!' I think it's similar to what women have."

Why didn't he ejaculate in the end?

"Women need to realize that it's not important whether a man ejaculates or not," he said. "They have this idea that they've performed better when a man ejaculates. Well, they can let go of that idea now."

After the breakup sex, he said he's been focusing on his "solo cultivation."

"I like ejaculating!" he said, "But now it's a game: How long can I last?"

A more elaborate version of withholding semen is sometimes called "injaculation"-a technical term describing when a man pulls his semen up into his body and, according to Taoist teachings, it gets absorbed into his blood. Most of the men I spoke with did not claim they had actually injaculated; they said they are practicing "semen retention."

In any case, the Professor said that he's ready to take on even more.

"One of my fantasies has always been to make love with two women. That sounds completely horrible!" he said.

Perhaps not surprisingly, he's started seeing a woman from his class. He said she likes the threesome idea, too.

"A few years ago, I would have been more tense: 'Am I doing it right? What should I do? What do the women like? Will they make love with each other?' All of that. Now I've got my staying power. I can just let it happen, he said."

In between forkfuls of baked eggs at Café Gitane on Mott Street, a 29-year-old yoga teacher and graphic designer told me how, within the last month, Tantric sex has turned his relationship with his girlfriend of two years upside-down. And not necessarily in a good way.

He had swirly brown hair, brown eyes and a slight gap between his front teeth, and was wearing a blue denim shirt with the sleeve rolled up above a diamond-patterned tattoo that circled his forearm. We'll call him Aaron.

A few years ago, he'd read some books and briefly took classes with a Taoist master in the city, but there were no fireworks.

"It wasn't even sexual," he said. "He was like, 'Learn this meditation and that meditation.' We were moving energy up and down the spine. Up and down, up and down. At the time I was like, 'I want to get to the fucking good stuff.'"

About a month ago, he found a shortcut.

"My friend went to a one-day workshop with a teacher named Carla," he said, "and he was like, 'I learned the techniques and they actually work and it's nuts!' And in my own sex life, there were lots of limitations. I wanted to go deeper with my partner. Deeper with myself. Deeper with sensual experience, on so many different levels."

So he booked a private session with Carla, who describes herself as a "Tantra Teacher, Love Coach and Intimacy Guide." The session was at her house in Queens. The price was $300 per hour. "Well-spent money," Aaron said.

The modern semen-hoarders can trace their roots to two traditions: "Tantra" is used to describe sexual practices coming out of the Indian Hindu tradition; Taoist sexual practices come from China. Ejaculation control is an important aspect of both. Anton, a Taoist instructor in New York who has studied both Taoist and Tantric techniques, said, "The Taoist practices have created more state-of-the-art techniques for mastering ejaculatory control." But becoming a master non-ejaculator can take two years. Men like Aaron who want to get to the "good stuff" faster get impatient and switch to Tantra. Which is how he ended up in Carla's apartment.

"When she told me to take my clothes off, I was like, 'Oh, my God,'" he said. "I felt like a 3-year-old boy who was suddenly naked in front of the whole first-grade class. And she's strong and powerful, and that's the scariest thing: I'm naked in front of this woman who knows this shit. Who lives this."

But he went with it, and soon he was having a kind of naked psychotherapy.

"We got through some shit that was so raw that I would never have gotten to in therapy, or it would have taken years," he said. "So I learned these breathing techniques and movement techniques and started playing with it .'"

With it ?

"Yes, it," he said. His eyes widened and he leaned forward and lowered his voice. "I did have an ejaculation, but it took fuckin' two hours. At first I was a little creeped out, and I was like, 'Now's the time to get the fuck out of here,' you know? And she was like, 'You were very honest and vulnerable and sweet and strong, and you're a special person, and go out there and see if you can engage your partner. Try it for a while-and if you can't, get out and find somebody who will."

He hasn't been able to get his girlfriend interested in his Tantric explorations, and furthermore she only wants to have sex about once a week.

"It becomes a drag," he said. "Honestly-because you become needy. And that neediness affects the interaction. I'm not getting the connection that I crave often enough. Sex once a week is like, 'Oh, seven days have gone by since I've had this.'" He looked sad.

"She'll have an orgasm, and then she'll be like, 'Are you done yet? What the hell is wrong? What's wrong? Why didn't you come? Could you please stop with all this?'"

So he's been doing a lot of "self-practice."

"When you get the control, you get to that point where you drive the energy up the spine," he said. "You feel little contractions, but nothing's coming out. I've gotten myself there a bunch of times in the last month."

Michael, a 29-year-old art director and design teacher, took a coffee break on a recent Tuesday afternoon at Dean & DeLuca on University Place to talk about how he accidentally discovered Tantric sex. He had almond-shaped green eyes, freckles and longish, mussed-up brown hair. He said he didn't really know anything about Eastern sexual practices when he met a woman last summer during a two-hour meditation workshop with about 200 other people inside a "Temple of Ishtar" at Burning Man, the annual massive be-in of artists and seekers in the Nevada dessert.

"We ended up in the desert, and it was the most intense sex. It was out-of-body," he said. "Our breathing was somehow just right. When you start using that breathing, it's amazing. My whole body got lighter. All the attention was taken away from my midsection. I was having this moment where I was blown out of the top of my head."

He wasn't on drugs.

"Time looped," he said. "I can't tell you how long we had sex; I would say probably two hours."

I asked her name.

He blushed and wrinkled his forehead.

"There was no space for names," he said. "We were both in pure 'Yes!'"

Back in the city, he took a seven-hour-long Tantric-sex workshop at the New York Open Center, where he met a practice partner, whom he described as "an Isabella Rosellini type." They practiced at his place.

"We had sex in almost a workshop fashion," he said. "It wasn't like, 'I'm going to rip your clothes off as soon as you get home.' It was fun and mutual, but after a while it was like, 'Yeah, this is ritualized and I want a relationship.'"

And he was eager to put his new knowledge to use.

"I used to get lost in this space of ' Wooh ! Woman !'" he said. "I used to come too soon. Why was I coming so quickly? Look at all the things I'd done to get in bed with her! Why didn't I want to be there having sex longer? What was I running from?

"With Tantra, you're confronting things. It has a way of talking to your heart that completely bypasses all the bullshit that happens here," he said, waving his hands in circles around his ears.

After he ended the "workshopping" with Isabella, he noticed that he was just generally living more in the moment. It wasn't just about the sex, though the sex was pretty good, too. Recently, he had a one-night thing at the Paramount Hotel with a woman he described as an "incredibly sexy fashion girl" from Chicago whom he'd known for just a few hours.

"I wasn't keeping score," he said. "I don't count orgasms. There were definitely peaks; there were waves and plateau changes. I was doing cobra breathing, where you're breathing strictly through your mouth as opposed to your nose. She was right in my lap, and we were able to really look each other in the eye. She was not aware that we were having a Tantric moment. I said, 'Slow down a second. Here. Does that feel good?' And she was like, ' Wooh !' It was fun! It wasn't like, 'Let's stop for a second and discuss the fact that we're going to have Tantric sex.' It was not like, 'Do you want to put some flowers by the bed so that I can be reminded of the fertility goddess?' Or, 'Let's fill a bowl of water so we can both look at it.'"

Alex bounded out of his office building just off Wall Street. He had an attractive, angular face and wing-nut ears, and he was wearing a dark suit, a purple dress shirt, purple socks, scuffed shoes and no tie. He said he was 30 and lived with his girlfriend of one and a half years in Park Slope. His mom is an energy healer in London, which explained his faded accent and maybe the purple socks. He didn't want to run into anyone from his office, so we took salads to Pier 17.

He said he first stumbled onto the concept of multiple orgasms for men when looking for information on the Web about Taoist meditation practices such as Tai Chi and Chi Kung.

"I was fascinated by the idea that I could have multiple orgasms for as long as I liked," he said. He took a seminar. He practiced the breathing and meditation techniques for four months. His first non-ejaculatory orgasm wasn't quite what he expected.

"The first time, I circulated the energy up and I had an orgasm on my tongue," he said. "It was like an explosion, like having Pop Rocks poured on my tongue, like an explosion of pleasure. I was absolutely clear that I was doing something off the chart. I was buzzing with energy.

"What you're doing is prolonging the millisecond before you ejaculate and keeping it going and extending it," he said. "So you have an orgasm, but you don't ejaculate. And then you can build up again and go further and higher each time."

Like the Professor, Aaron and Michael, Alex said several times that it's not just the sexual highs he's after, that he's also looking for intimacy and spirituality.

"I think guys are realizing that there is more to sex than just these tiny spurts of three minutes," said Judy Kuriansky, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Tantric Sex. "It can last longer, which can lead to tremendous benefits for them and also the woman. Guys are becoming more romantic and more spiritual and realizing this is cool instead of being goofy. "

"I do think men want to have more control over their ejaculation," said Sharna Striar, a sex therapist in Manhattan who sometimes teaches basic Tantric and Taoist principles. "Men want to be great lovers. It's not just about having a good erection; it's not about 'getting off' anymore. It's really about just 'getting on' with your partner in a very intimate and erotic fashion."

"I think what men are talking about with this is that it makes them feel more competent. Men want to feel competent, in control and powerful," said Dr. Frederick Woolverton, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and director of the Village Institute for Psychotherapy.

Does he think they're also using these practices to seek intimacy with their partners?

"Women are far more enthusiastic about intimacy than men are," he said. "This has just been demonstrated to me so many times. But despite everything, men yearn for intimacy. The problem is, when they get it, they don't know what to do with it. Intimacy, while desired, becomes threatening, and men sort of have to find their way out of that conflict."

Even if Tantric sex doesn't solve the male intimacy problem, it seems to make the lack of intimacy much more bearable.

"I think for a lot of guys, masturbating is like, 'Brush your teeth, wash your hair, jerk off, go to work,' said Aaron. "I think ejaculatory sex can start to feel that way. I know it has for me. To not have it feel like that is pretty cool. To maybe not even ejaculate-or if you do, to have brought it far enough so you're literally buzzing and shaking as opposed to feeling like, 'All right, grab a towel.'"

And maybe, without the climactic moment, it's not just the sex which is prolonged.

"When you're not ejaculating, it's hard to shut off," said Michael. "But it's nice. To not ejaculate and then get up and go for a walk with her after-that is probably the most incredibly romantic thing you could ever do. The city is dead. You're out, running around this grid, and you are just this live, electric conductor. You can hold on to her and feel really connected."

/

Pay for it.

Enter Jason, who doesn't want to use his real name, for reasons that will become clear. A 24-year-old yoga teacher and licensed massage therapist, Jason has developed a lucrative sideline in what he calls "sensual foot pampering." He's up to 15 regular clients, several of whom live near him on Manhattan's Upper East Side. He makes house calls. And his fee-$40 an hour-is recession-friendly, just $10 more than a pedicure. If there is a missing ingredient in the sex lives of New York women, Jason seems to be one answer.

"Each sensation was so different and seemed to run through my whole body," one of his clients told The Observer . "It was like he was loving my feet; he was making love to my feet with his face. And I was like, 'Thank God!' I didn't owe him anything but the money I had to pay him."

What, exactly, does Jason do? As his client relaxes in a comfortable chair or in her bed, he begins by giving her a foot rub. When he feels the timing is right, he kisses her feet. Then he nibbles, licks and sucks. His hands never stop massaging her feet. Jason says that sucking on a woman's toes can create enough sensory stimulation for her to have an orgasm.

Which is how Nikki (not her real name) got interested. "A friend at work told me about Jason. I thought she was crazy at first," said Nikki. "I didn't understand what she was talking about. She said it would be fulfilling. She thought it might help me with my depression. I was like, 'Yeah, right, it's just another thing.' Then she told me that I'd feel like my toes were having an orgasm-like I had 10 penises and I was getting a blow job on all of them."

Nikki is 31 and petite, with breast-length ash-blond hair and pretty Italian features. She works in sales. On a recent Sunday, she wore a white faux-fur-trimmed jacket, a blue baby-T emblazoned with a red rhinestone star, jeans and black Steve Madden knockoffs. She said she's originally from "down-home Brooklyn" but now lives in Gramercy Park.

A year and a half ago, she said, she was dating obsessively, not wanting to be alone, even though none of her dates was "any more appealing than the glass of wine on the table." She got depressed, stopped dating and started having one-night stands.

"I had good raw sex, plain boring sex, and then I had some bad, bad sex," she said. "I was searching for answers."

She read books with titles like Finding Your Path and Seat of the Soul. She paid 150 bucks for something called a holographic patterning session. "She did weird stuff with pens," said Nikki. "She wrote her name. She wrote my name. Then she muscle-checked me. It was ridiculous! But she was really into it."

On the advice of her friend from work, Nikki called Jason. Right before her first session, she was extremely nervous. She cleaned her whole apartment, took a shower and drank white wine.

Jason arrived. He looked very young. Very innocent, peaceful, clean. The fact that he was young helped. They chatted for 45 minutes and she drank more wine. Then they began.

"I was totally enthralled with how he was into it," she said. "One toe felt penis-like, one toe was more clitoris-like, and the pinkie one was kind of tickly."

She's become a regular. "It's, like, real intimacy," Nikki said. "Something is being exchanged ." She added that seeing Jason has helped her stop acting out sexually and lifted her depression. "When you find a way to connect yourself with human life and life energy and flowing, depression doesn't happen," she said. "The more healthy flow you have in your life, the better."

Jason's evident enthusiasm for what he does seems to be the hook. Lisa (not her real name) is a 32-year-old nurse with bobbed brown hair and gray eyes who lives on the Upper East Side. We met on a recent night after she had attended a hospital fund-raiser; she wore a navy knee-length skirt and a striped sweater.

She said she's had a foot fetish-for her own feet-for 11 years, ever since a college sleepover guest snuck "down there" early one morning while she pretended to sleep. It became her primary fantasy. She tried to get boyfriends to do it-she'd maneuver her feet up toward their faces during lovemaking-but even if they gave it a shot, they didn't seem to enjoy it, and she always felt like they were doing her a favor. She went to a fetish club once, but found it disgusting and left right away. She visited foot-fetish Web sites, but all of them catered to men. She was starting to feel like a freak, so she gave up. Then six months ago, a friend gave her Jason's number and she promptly tucked it away. Shortly after Sept. 11, she gave in and booked a session.

The first time Jason came to Lisa's apartment, they sat and talked for a bit. She asked him if he honestly enjoyed doing what he did, and he said yes. That's what she needed to hear.

"It felt like his mouth and tongue were really talking to me," she said. "It felt like he was really into it. You know how some people are so mechanical and they just go through the motions? It felt like Jason was into me and exploring me . Like he was really listening. It felt like he was there . Not to say that Jason is someone I'd want to have as a potential boyfriend. But you know, it's the way a girl should be treated."

The first session tends to make women nervous. Which is why Lauren, a 26-year-old fashion-events planner, asked a friend to join her. She'd heard about Jason from a colleague who told her that she was using a trainer who was into "reflexology" and "other foot work." She thought that Lauren would be a good candidate for what he did. So Lauren called Jason to book an appointment; he explained that he had "a foot-fetish thing."

Jason guided Lauren and her friend through some basic yoga poses, followed by meditation. Then he gave them a good hour of reflexology, which included toe sucking.

Now, a year and a half later, Lauren feels comfortable enough to see Jason alone, on average three times a week. Except for a few close friends, she tells people that Jason is just a yoga trainer and reflexologist. During the session, she likes to wear a short Pucci nightgown and silk leggings with bare feet. She said she likes to vary the program: sometimes more yoga, sometimes more meditation, always toe sucking. She said it has reduced stress and helped her sore back.

"It's been really erotic, and it's been enough for me to get totally wet," she said. "And there's nothing I could do about that. At times, it's been really, really good for me. It's released a lot of energy that's pent up. Maybe it's a bit of foreplay, but it doesn't go that much further."

Lauren hasn't told her boyfriend about Jason because she's concerned he'd get jealous, although she added, "I think some guys would probably enjoy it, to know that their woman is getting pleasured like that."

She said she knows seven other women, mostly from her office, who also see Jason.

Meeting Jason

"I am not a trained reflexologist," said Jason, "but I do invariably hit some pressure points as I go along." Jason is half-Indian, half-Hawaiian, but was born and raised on Long Island. He is 24 and single. His eyes are large and brown, his features exotic and warm. He listens carefully and seems almost compulsively honest. He still can't quite believe women pay him to practice his foot fetish, which he's had since the summer when he was 8. That's when a 12-year-old neighbor used to come by his house and take off her shoes. He just couldn't take his eyes off her beautiful feet. By the time he turned 13 and everything was "functioning properly," it started becoming a more sexual thing. He thought he was nuts.

Before Jason started his foot-pampering business, he taught yoga and offered a combination of Swedish and shiatsu massage. He tended to avoid the feet during massages. Then an attractive, curvy, blond 33-year-old yoga student of his booked him for a private massage at her place.

"I started to massage her. It seemed like she was getting excited, but I wasn't sure," said Jason. "I put a towel on her and asked her to flip. She flipped over and left the towel off. So her breasts were exposed. Then I started massaging her feet, at which point I think we both got into a more sexual state. I was getting turned on. And she was getting turned on and started moaning. I was biting myself. I was like, 'Should I do it? Should I not?' I wanted to use my mouth on her feet because she had nice feet. I was kind of getting green-light signals, and I was just biting myself. And then I just went for it. And she totally got into it. I just stayed there, and then I asked her if I should continue and she said yes. Then I started going up her leg with my mouth. And then she wanted me to have sex with her. I stopped at that point. Afterward she paid me, and I was like, 'What are you paying me for?' She said, 'What you did with my feet was amazing! Here, take the money.'"

The blonde called back to book another session for herself and also to arrange a foot session for a 21-year-old friend. How much would he charge for just the feet? Jason decided on $40, even though he charges much more for a massage-when it came to feet, he preferred to see many women as frequently as possible. The second client referred five new clients. "A lot of girls say that they've always wanted to try something like this. It's amazing," said Jason.

Four of his clients openly masturbate during the sessions. Three others orgasm without even masturbating. Jason doesn't know about the others, who only tell him that it was a great pleasure. He also has several regular massage clients who don't know about his specialty.

One regular foot-pampering client, a redheaded, green-eyed model who lives in the East Village, called him once at 5 in the morning. She said she had four girlfriends at her place, they'd been up all night dancing, would he come over and do their feet? He jumped in a cab.

"I showed up wondering, 'Are these girls really going to be into it?'" said Jason. "They were all fucked up on something-maybe Ecstasy. And they were all like, 'My turn! My turn!' They kept calling me over to do them. I couldn't believe this was real."

He said he thinks women enjoy his foot work because he pays full attention to their pleasure. He gets into it, breathes with it and puts his energy into it. He said he sees it as transferring a sensual, erotic energy-as opposed to sleazy-over to the women.

Lauren sees no reason why she should ever stop seeing Jason, even if she gets married. "I'm a lucky girl," she said. "I don't feel like it's anything close to cheating. And it really does help my body."

Lisa said that when she finds a boyfriend, she will probably stop seeing Jason. If a guy really loves her, she said, then he'll love her feet, too. And then, she said, she won't need Jason.

Rabbit convertible. Cecilia had never driven the car much further than the

Hamptons. But now, we were all suddenly unemployed and single. Top down, we

sped down Broome Street toward the Holland Tunnel, three women in our early

30's singing, "Ain't No Stopping Us Now!" and snapping digital photos, on our

way to New Orleans.

A few hours down the road, the exhaustion started to set in.

The three of us had each spent the past five years in the dot-com start-up

trenches. (Cecilia and Jennifer both founded successful dot-coms; I produced

Internet shows.) All three of us had had dreams which didn't materialize. Paper

wealth that vanished. Cecilia recently shut her company down, which she

described as "so painful." We had an unspoken agreement: no talk about work.

As the companies crashed, relationships fell apart, too. The

three of us were getting over relationships with dot-com chief executives. Like

a lot of women we know, we dated obsessively within the industry.

As we raced south on the Jersey Turnpike, I couldn't stop

talking about my ex. Cecilia, Jennifer and everyone else I know are tired of

hearing about him. And I'm the last person on the planet who wants to talk

about him. I was embarrassed that he was on my mind. I was on a road trip with

two of the most generous friends a girl could have, and here I was dragging

them down with my delusional baggage.

"His Jewish nose," I said, "I loved it. It reminded me of my

father's."

"Look, wildflowers!" Cecilia called out.

"I'm really going to miss the-"

"Pretty yellow flowers!" Cecilia said emphatically,

pointing, probably imagining that I was going to start talking about his cock.

"-synergy," I said. "The brainstorming, the ideas."

"Listen," said Jennifer from the back seat. "It was a huge

turn-on to date people in the industry. Especially if you were workaholics like

we all were. I remember many nights hanging out at the Mercer after work with a

dot-com date. He'd be edgy. I'd say, 'What's wrong?' He'd say, 'My site isn't

sticky; I'm losing too much traffic.' I'd throw out three suggestions. He'd

relax, and I'd take him home for sex.

"You were dating someone in a tight-knit community where

everyone was obsessed with their work," she continued. "We breathed and dreamed

the Internet. If we didn't date our peers, we wouldn't have had sex for six

years! But after the market crashed and the lights came on, you found yourself

with some flabby guy who's basically a jerk and who cared more about losing his

money than he did about you. Get over it. Move on."

But it was great while it lasted. The $750-a-plate benefit

dinners for Hillary Clinton. Being seated next to Anna Sui, Annie Leibovitz,

Goldie Hawn. Living in a loft. The maid came every other day. We never cooked.

Food arrived via Dean & DeLuca. Exotic cheeses. One day my ex came home

with 20 different kinds of toothpaste. Have you ever cleaned your teeth with

$20 toothpaste?

"And the parties!" said Cecilia. "Veuve Clicquot,

Nobu-catered spreads, dinner at Mercer Kitchen. And how about that fishing

trip, on a 60-foot boat with its own chef, masseuse and yoga instructor?"

"I introduced my ex to Zegna, Yohji Yamamoto and Richard

Tyler," said Jennifer. "Then he started getting $120 haircuts."

I started thinking of our current financial dilemmas. "You

know, our weekly unemployment checks will just barely cover a cut and color at

Laicale," I said.

We all laughed nervously.

We sliced and diced our lives through New Jersey, Maryland

and the Carolinas. Welcome to Athens, Ga. Dave Matthews on the car stereo. We'd

be catching a Dave Matthews concert in New Orleans. We'd had many discussions

about Dave Matthews. His lyrics are so sensitive and sincere-qualities that

were lacking in the guys we knew. What kind of guys would show up at the

concert? We hoped for passionate lovers.

But I'm not quite done. My mind floats back to a recent

party, thrown by Nerve.com, where I bumped into Laurel Wells, former marketing

chick for SonicNet and gURl.com, as she fled the building. "Gotta go home and

feed the cats!" she said. Inside, the thud of the music was annoying. A blonde

wearing a green bean suit was writhing on a platform. Some of my friends from

the past five years were standing around awkwardly: Marc Scarpa, the founder of

JumpCut; Rufus Griscom and Genevieve Field, the founders of Nerve.com, who used

to date; Nicholas Butterworth, who's at MTVi and who never dates in the

industry; Craig Kanarick and Rebecca Odes, who founded a dot-com together and

got engaged. No one was really talking; we were all just gaping at each other.

Cecilia was sleeping in the back seat, curled up, looking

about 12. I was thinking about her recent boyfriend, basically a good guy, who

was shutting down his company.

I turned to Jennifer.

"How do you think the guys are feeling right now?" I said.

"Shitty," she said. "Major psychological fallout. Think

about it: Many of them grew oversized egos to match their overinflated

companies. Imagine trying to squish a giant-sized ego back into a normal-sized

head. Internet guys used to imagine they could get laid all the time. Remember

back in 1999, when the guys started breaking up with us so they could date

models? The real problem is that most of them are broke. Now they're selling

their lofts and Audis to pay for margins lost on the market. Some can't even

pay the rent."

Speaking of paying the rent, it was time to make our weekly

call to file our unemployment claims.

Cecilia had turned on her red Nokia.

"I got a signal!" she said. "Ready, set, go!"

Our three phones speed-dialed the same number. I heard the

familiar recording: "Welcome to the New York State Department of Labor's

Tel-Service Line."

"I got in!" I yelled.

"Me, too," said Cecilia.

"Busy signal," said Jennifer.

Two days later, outside the Dave Matthews concert, Jennifer

and I were killing time in the sweltering New Orleans sun. A woman who said she

knew voodoo was teaching us how to cast spells. I almost blew the week's

unemployment check on 10 vials of "Swamp Power Potion."

Inside, it turns out that Cecilia had tracked down three

shirtless and firm frat brothers: Chuck, Dion and Otter. Chuck was dancing

tantalizingly close behind me, singing into my ear as he rubbed a block of ice

on my shoulders. But he was too young! And so not my type! What was my type? He

whispered into my ear in a Southern drawl. Kind of adorable. He told me that he

was an entrepreneur. Uh, oh-not again. He explained: He and his buddies owned

Dough Boy Pizza in Biloxi, Miss. I told Cecilia and Jennifer; we were laughing.

"Dough Boy!" we said, now really laughing-not in a mean way, but with joy.

A few days ago, I was lying next to Josh. You could log on and watch in full-motion video as I woke up, tossed on my purple robe, brushed my teeth and fed Neuffy. We'd planned to live together in public–every minute of our lives in the loft, documented by 32 cameras and microphones–for 100 days. By day 60, I had to get out. By day 78, still unable to find an apartment, I chose couch surfing instead of remaining in a very public nightmare.

For four years, Josh and I were Silicon Alley's "it" couple. We met in 1996, when he was running the Internet entertainment site Pseudo.com and throwing Warhol-scale parties. I loved his galvanizing personality and wild ideas. He said he loved my ambition and spunk. Soon, Josh had convinced me to quit my corporate job and start an online animation company to make erotica tailored to women, my dream when I'd moved to New York just a year before. Silicon Alley was flush with cash. Anything was possible. I'd never been happier.

Then, last March, he told me that he wanted to find out if I was the one. We'd already tried living together three times, but I packed for what I hoped would be the last time. By then, Josh's first company, Jupiter Communications, had gone public, and he had worked himself out of a job as founder of Pseudo to become a "full-time artist." I had become an Internet TV producer, making digital videos and hosting my own show on Pseudo.

Two months later, instead of asking me to marry him, Josh asked me to go public. One morning, as I was putting on my robe, he announced that he was planning to have cameras installed all over the loft–above the bed, behind the bathroom mirror, inside the refrigerator, even in the litter box–and wire them to the Internet in the name of art. Art? More like porn, I said. But Josh calmly explained that we would never do anything that made us uncomfortable, and that he eventually hoped to sell unedited tapes of our lives to a museum. Factor in the public's "pent-up demand for personal celebridom," which would lead exhibitionist viewers to buy camera kits so that they, too, could live before the masses. Did I see the potential business model?

I was terrified, but I knew that I wanted to share this experience–or rather, this experiment; to find out, as Josh put it, whether life was better lived in public or private. I somehow imagined that this would bring us closer together–just us against the World Wide Web.

Being watched wasn't the issue. I'd been on camera five days a week for the past year as the host of TanyaTV , an Internet show I created for Pseudo about real New Yorkers facing their sexual insecurities. Over the course of 52 episodes, I broke out of the hermit-girl-from-Maine mentality and grew to like myself. I quit therapy. So maybe a few more cameras would be good for me. Besides, I thought, who was going to sit at a computer and watch people putter around a loft?

As we were gearing up for the November launch, Pseudo tanked, as did the rest of the tech stocks. Josh's share in Pseudo was now worthless, and the fortunes he made from Jupiter Communications were slashed. Meanwhile, he was sinking over $1 million into Living in Public, hiring me to produce the Web site, manage press and plan a launch party (I was not paid to live in public), and bringing in a team to rip open the walls and fill them with a complex nervous system of wires, cables and cameras. New, more mediagenic furniture arrived. I bought highly visible Pucci underwear.

Josh wanted us to be able to interact with our visitors. We bought laptops with wireless Internet cards so we could tell who was watching by looking at the user names on the screen. We couldn't see them, but we could talk back via cameras and keyboards, giving us a flimsy sense of control.

Josh liked to tease me that he'd be the most popular. Getting press is one of the things Josh does best. Since living in public was his idea, he positioned himself as the "visionary" and me as "the hot girlfriend." I would have preferred to be presented as more of a partner. But it was Josh's project and money, and he was starting to freak out about the latter, so I let it go.

DAYS 1-6: THE EXPERIMENT BEGINS

At midnight on Nov. 21, Josh and I were curled up in a curvy Herman Miller chair in the control room, surrounded by 42 mini-monitors and 18 VCR's that were about to begin recording the next 144,000 minutes of our lives. Michael Auerbach, then a producer for WeLiveInPublic.com, called to tell us we were live.

I refreshed the browser. The video started streaming. Text flowed onto the screen.

Within minutes, there were 15 people in the room. Josh and I froze. We hadn't announced the site launch yet, so who were these guys? Before long, we got weirded out and retreated to bed, the camera whirring into focus overhead as a pack of strangers watched us cuddle.

The next morning, Bob Stratton from Controlled Entropy, the company that designed the camera infrastructure, called and woke me up. "I just wanted you to know that there are 62 people in the chatroom, and they are all speaking Chinese," he said.

Soon we were being watched by the French, Swedish, Germans, Canadians and Australians, too. The first season of Big Brother was just ending, and there was an onslaught of homeless reality-TV addicts scouring the Web for a new life to click on.

Josh and I became celebrities–albeit in our own little world. Visitors thought Josh was a genius. They thought I was cute. They wanted Josh to talk to them. They wanted to see me naked. For the first week, Josh and I spent evenings in the control room hamming it up and talking to them through the camera. Then we started calling them on the tapped phone. Both sides of the conversation went out over the Internet; if we wanted to order food to be delivered, we had to do it by cell phone in a closet or everyone would know our address. It was invasive and bizarre, but it felt cool.

DAYS 7-13: I LEARN HOW TO SHOWER

Life under surveillance was making me jumpy. I started looking for hidden cameras in public places and friends' apartments. I bought Mace and stopped answering the door. I began spending a lot of time outside the house, focusing on yoga and friends while maintaining the press schedule Josh had set up.

A lot of people came to the site in search of sex. Josh had told Wired that we would conceive in public, although until that interview we'd avoided discussing children. The chatters got angry when Josh and I wouldn't perform for them. "Gee, Josh," one said, "she looks horny. Why don't you go do her?"

We felt pressured to do something "interesting," like say the name of whoever had asked. Newcomers were so surprised that they could make their computer talk to them that we were constantly fielding juvenile requests of the "Show us your tits!" variety. I wore a bikini in the steam room and was forced to read that "Tanya looks better with her clothes on."

Before the project began, I was hoping I'd be able to do absolutely everything in public, even masturbate. But I never got comfortable with being naked or using the toilet (that was Josh's specialty), and especially not having sex. Josh wanted to have wild simulated sex, but that felt too manipulative. This was about real life, real feelings. So we did it under the covers late at night, or else we'd cover the cameras. Once we had dirty-talking sex with the camera covered, still unaware that the audio had gone out crystal clear. We were mortified. Viewers went berserk.

They finally got what they wanted one weekend when we went upstate. One of the site's engineers invited people over after a swingers' party and had an Internet sexcapade. When we got back, viewers said, "I wouldn't sit in that chair if I were you …."

Once, I changed my clothes on camera, and dozens of weird e-mails instantly flowed in. From then on, I used a ridiculous gym-class technique: new clothes on top, old clothes removed from underneath. Showering was easier, since our steam room fogged out the cameras. I had programmed the cameras myself, so, unlike Josh, I knew where I could hide in our interactive zoo. I'd jump into the steam semi-clothed and strip down, keeping a robe on a hook right by the door. It felt like cheating, but staying sane was more important.

For a few minutes a day, I visited the chatroom, where I began to recognize some regulars who treated me with respect. Soon I would only engage when they were around, giving them power to kick out the horny interlopers. Feeling more comfortable, I threw some parties and started inviting friends over, some of whom loved the attention.

By now I was answering hundreds of fan letters. Josh was apparently too busy to reply. Soon he was only getting three or four a day.

DAYS 14-54: JOSH WITHDRAWS

I went skiing with friends for a few days while Josh stayed home "alone." Traffic took a nose-dive. When I called, Josh seemed depressed and distant. Life, we agreed, had become more exciting with lots of people watching: There's nothing like knowing 300 people are checking you out to make preparing your morning protein shake feel like an event.

When I got back, I was determined to develop a rapport with our viewers. At a friend's suggestion, I started hosting nightly video chats. I awkwardly answered questions, which ranged from stupid to valid: "When are you going to have sex?" "Why isn't Josh chatting with us anymore?"

I couldn't tell them that instead of stepping into the role of host of the online loft party he'd created, Josh had withdrawn, frustrated that he had so little control over his uninvited guests, who weren't afraid to say that they thought he was a snore. I heard him say to the press many times that he was "totally weirded out." He was ignoring the cameras and chatting less and less. I got even less of his time. In fact, the only way I could find out how he was feeling was to log on and eavesdrop on his interviews. He'd occasionally try to interact with viewers in his "Luvvy" character, talking to them in a freaky falsetto. There were clown faces involved.

Van: Why doesn't he talk normally to us or chat?

Odilon: This is getting scary.

Jwest: Josh, chill out.

At one point, they wanted to vote him out, just like on Survivor.

If I'd left the chatroom to interact with Josh, things might have been different. We'd had communication breakdowns before. But we'd just see a movie, have sex and things would magically improve. Now we couldn't even have sex without planning it. To make things worse, the chatters were constantly commenting on our behavior, asking me why I let Josh say shitty things or ignore me. The chatroom became my confessional, the chatters my friends and therapists. They showed me what I had refused to see: My relationship was empty.

DAYS 55-77: SCENES FROM A NON-MARRIAGE

Things quickly spiraled into Bergman territory. Almost 100,000 friends and strangers were privy to our fragmented lives.

On day 55, Josh and I had a yelling match. He accused me of being boring in bed. I told him he was fat. In a momentary truce, we logged on and watched the flood of commentary.

Extirpator: They are not arguing just about sex, but about Josh not "living in public" enough too, and Tanya's loneliness.

Timike211: We love you Tanya.

Jill1968: Go to her now Josh!

Jwest: Forget all about us in the chat.

Out of loyalty to the viewers, I wanted to stick out the whole 100 days. But I realized I couldn't endure another month just because people were watching.

On day 60, much to his relief, I told Josh I wanted to move out. We agreed to part as friends and see what would happen. A week later, I went skiing with a girlfriend. When I got back, the vibe in the chatroom was weird.

WeLive: Where have you been Tanya?

Tanya: Skiing with a girlfriend.

WeLive: And who else?

WeLive: We heard that you were having sex with either Bill Clinton or Leonardo DiCaprio.

Tanya: What?

WeLive: You're not cheating on Josh?

I laughed it off. They must've been very bored to make up such crap. But an online friend told me that Josh had gone into "Luvvy" mode on camera and told the chatters in his squeaky voice that I was off on some tryst. My friend said that when he questioned Josh, he started yelling at him. When was the last time your TV screamed at you for questioning its statement?

DAY 78: I'M SCARED!

Five days before my scheduled move, Josh gave his publicist his approval on a Page Six item reporting that he had ordered me out. It referred to the observers as "creepy Internet guests," which offended me and many of the 90,000 WeLiveInPublic.com members. When I confronted him, he said that I should just be glad that they'd spelled my name correctly. Then he left.

I got it: Josh would say anything to get attention, even if it meant betraying me. I don't know if it was living in cyberspace that had caused him to lose his bearings, but it was too dangerous to stick around. There was no knowing what he'd feed his publicist next.

DAY 80: I PREFER COLD STORAGE

I slept better on my friend's couch than I had in almost three months. I rented a storage space so that I could go to Colorado and deprogram myself before looking for an apartment. In my tiny storage room, I closed the door and lay diagonally on the cold concrete floor. I was truly alone. I stayed there for several minutes, exhausted and smiling, squeezing my new lock and key in my fist.

DAY 81: JOSH PROPOSES, KIND OF, IN PRIVATE

I went to the loft early to finish packing. An uncharacteristically wide-awake Josh caught me off-guard with a cheerful hello. His eyes were big, glassy and bright. The cold, calculating man had suddenly found his sensitive side.

"I was up all night looking at your packed bags," he said. "I've been thinking. I know I've been avoiding the whole marriage thing. I've been stressed about money. Will you change your mind and stay?"

I shook my head gently no. We were aware that the cameras were temporarily down, unfortunately depriving visitors of the big, weepy finale. In the past, I would have coached him into saying the sound bite I needed to hear. But after 73 days in a chatroom, I was sick of words.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

I shook my head again.

Josh plans to stick it out in public for the full 100 days, maybe longer. He must be scared in front of all those strangers, who desperately want to know him intimately, as I once did. I hope he makes a connection with them. He probably has something else in mind. But I won't be logging on to find out.