In this episode, I lie down with my housemate Elaine. Elaine is a consummate world traveler - it's quite the feat to catch her at home but on one of her brief stays at the Villa I got lucky. In between jaunts to her home country of Taiwan and remote islands, outdoor sailing adventures and the climbing of mountains, running races in Europe and engaging in other extreme sports and endurance activities, as she puts it, "like sex," we had the chance to don some robes and get horizontal.

Elaine lives in the room across the way from me, a space so tiny that it has only a skylight, and no window. She calls it a closet - but she means it as a good thing. She likes how cozy it is.

Elaine holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering and has done 10 years of stem cell research and patent prosecution for Biotech Startups. She cooks Taiwanese food that would make you wish she were your wife, and she has a deep and abiding love for turtles - so much so, that she doesn't travel the world alone, even when she's by herself - she always brings her stuffed turtle along. The turtle's name is Dr. Turtle.

I experience Elaine as unfailingly kind, possessing an incredible amount of grit, and her candid explicitness, combined with a voice that sounds like it belongs in an anime cartoon, delights me to no end.

In the first part of our episode, recorded in my loft bed, we talk about how she came to live at the Villa, sex camp, the differences between swingers and poly people, and Elaine's very first fetish party.

Hey, c'mere. Come lie down with us!

More horizontality, please:

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Credit where credit is:

Horizontal's badass theme music was created by Alan Markley, on Instagram as plasticcannons.

It's saucy cover art was designed and illustrated by Shana Shay. Hire Shana for character illustration and graphic design through 99designs.

Horizontal was mixed and mastered by Owen Muir of Self-Disclosure productions, right here in Brooklyn, New York. Stay tuned in August 2017 for Owen's own podcast, Self-Disclosure, a show where people talk openly for the first time about their experiences with mental health. You can find Owen on Twitter at @psychdisclosure

To sign up for the horizontal show notes, exclusive subscriber content, and sensual horizontal photos, head to horizontalwithlila.com