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You’re lying in bed watching a Sex and the City rerun when your mate reaches over and absently starts stroking your rear (or neck, or whatever used to get your juices flowing). “Can’t we just finish watching?” you mutter, thinking that your sex life has become as stale as a slice of day-old toast. But before assuming it’s time to show up in your man’s office in head-to-toe leather, why not consider giving your love life a makeover?

“The little touches are what add up to the big effect,” says Frank Hajcak, Ph.D., a West Chester, Pennsylvania, couples therapist and author of Hidden Bedroom Partners: Needs and Motives that Destroy Sexual Pleasure (Aronson, 1995). “If you keep having to come up with bigger and better gestures, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.” Below, seven little tricks that can take your sex life from nice to knockout.

Take a field trip. Maybe your love life feels sleepy because you’re always making love in the bedroom—where you sleep! Why not drag your mattress into the living room for a change? In fact, any room in the house can provide a steamy new backdrop, says Avodah K. Offit, M.D., a New York City psychiatrist and sex therapist and author of Night Thoughts: Reflections of a Sex Therapist and The Sexual Self (Aronson, 1995). Lara, a computer consultant from Greenhills, accidentally stumbled upon this secret when a brownout caused by a terrible storm forced her and her then-boyfriend to spend the night in his barely-furnished townhouse. “We just had one big sleeping bag, plus a flashlight and a book of erotica. Our little adventure not only distracted us from the raging typhoon outside,” says Lara giggling, “but it also led to mildly kinky role-playing in which I was the helpless princess trapped in the dungeon and Robbie was the knight who would rescue me…as long as I complied with his demands!”

Mix things up. Is your lovemaking starting to feel like a play you’ve acted in more times than the curtain’s come up on Cats? The memory of “a guy who didn’t stick to the same old rigid sequence of making out, then heavy foreplay, then intercourse” still makes Makati-based illustrator Terry hot. “We were on the couch watching television, and he had his head in my lap. I was wearing a sundress, and he started lightly stroking my inner thigh with his fingers, and then without warning, he pushed the crotch of my underpants aside and started going down on me. But just as I was really getting into it, he stopped, sat up, and started kissing me. Talk about a tease! This went on for hours and I don’t think I’ve experienced such as intense orgasm.” If your guy isn’t this inventive, Hajcak suggests teaching him by example.

Strut your stuff. One of Hajcak’s patients cured her husband of his topless-bar habit by performing her own striptease one night in their bedroom. Her floor show was so effective that peep-show evenings are now a regular part of their sexual repertoire.

And brassy exhibitionism is even sexier if there’s a chance that you might get busted. Restaurant manager Alexis recently discovered the thrill of going semi-public while playing basketball with her husband, Roger, and his buddies: “Every time I was supposed to guard Roger, I’d make ‘chancing.’ Roger loved how ‘bad’ I was being, and I got excited by the fact that his friends sort of knew what was going on. Needless to say, the second we got home that afternoon, we tore each other’s shorts off.” Other little public displays Hajcak recommends: flashing him in the car while you’re driving or skinny-dipping in a semi-secluded beach.

Change your time slot. “On the list of most couple’s daily priorities, sex ranks fairly low,” says Dr. Offit. “So they’re saving it until they’re in bed, exhausted.” Still, no schedule’s so airtight that you can’t occasionally cut out of work early to meet your man for some between-the-sheets action worthy of an afternoon telenovela. Besides, you can always log a couple of extra hours of desk time the next day. And consider the payoff: Twilight trysts make for flattering light; a lunch hour spent indulging in a quickie can make even the most staid relationship seem like a steamy illicit affair!

Play to win—or lose. Anything he can do, you can do better—or at least you’ll have fun trying to prove it. Tanya, a college student, recently devised a sexy scavenger hunt for her boyfriend, Eric. “I handed him a list of ‘treasures’ to find: my lace thong panties, massage oils, Swiss chocolates. The challenge was for him to find everything by the time I got back from the gym in two hours or else he’d get no play that night!” Tanya’s ingenuity paid off big time: “I guess Eric felt he had to get back at me, because the sex was definitely a lot more aggressive than usual. But that only got me more turned on.”

Let’s face it: Competition itself is sexy. “It gets the hormones flowing,” says Hajcak. Challenge your guy to a game of tennis, pool, even wrestling. You can decide ahead of time what the stakes are: If you win, you get to tie him up; if you lose, you have to fulfill his teacher-student fantasy.

Make like the Energizer bunny. You know how it’s a sin to down a gourmet meal in 15 minutes? Well, sex is the same; you should savor every bite. “Look at sex as a succession of foreplay and afterplay, with fireworks in between,” suggests Hajcak. This advice worked for Jean, a florist. “Lovemaking used to be a 15-mintue thing,” confesses Jean. But the express sex came to a sudden stop one recent Sunday when she joined her husband, Jay, for his usual postcoital shower: “Soaping each other in the downpour, we wound up having sex all over again.”

“And because we both had already climaxed, we were able to make it a more sensual, languid experience. There wasn’t that urgent feeling of I’ve got to come.” These almost instant replays have also boosted the couple’s self-confidence: “We feel sexually powerful because we can arouse each other again so quickly. Plus, long sessions of lovemaking only make us feel closer.”

Picnic in bed. Didn’t your mother always forbid you to eat in bed? Well, when there’s a man on your mattress, ignoring Mama’s rules can add a deliciously wicked flavor to your lovemaking. Whether you order Chinese or go the strawberries-and-whipped-cream route, the trick is to put yourselves on the menu. When the partner of a Quezon City-based woman poured honey on her nipples and began licking, she actually climaxed. So go ahead: Munch a bunch in bed.