A Thousand Tiny Failures : Memoirs of a Pickup Artist (15 page)

Vancouver
(Same
same
, but different)

It had been two years since I got my surgery, one and a half years since I moved to
Montreal
, and now I was back; more experienced, confident, and sexed. I moved around and crashed on various couches. One of my old friends, Dylan, let me stay with him for several days. I made him watch pickup videos with me. He found it interesting but thought it was a little creepy.

“No dude!” I told him. “It’s only creepy if you think it’s creepy.”

One day over beers he told me he preferred the old Sebastian. It hurt. I had a feeling that when I got back I wouldn’t be able to relate to my old friends. I was right. The guys I met still seemed the same: lost, broke, sad. I loved them but I was just getting started. I wanted to see the world, date hotter girls, do something impressive, get rich. Not smoke weed and go to rock shows where everyone stands around pretending they’re apathetic. I like live music too. I used to be part of that scene. But now it seemed boring and the girls were ugly compared to the ones I’d been dating. Luckily Dylan and I found middle ground at karaoke bars.

One night we went to a local pub, and were looking over the song list when a big girl passed Dylan a note reading, “Hey. My friend the brunette girl thinks you’re cute.” Dylan handed it to me.

“Bro,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We walked to their couch and his girl was all smiles. Dylan is sort of shy, even though he’s tall, tattooed and handsome. He’s got that sad artistic thing going. He’s like my brother. I’d lived with him for three years before I left for
Montreal
, and we’d been through a lot together. Even though he didn’t approve of my obsession with picking up women, there we were doing it together. I did the talking.

“We’re here to bring the karaoke party. I’m Sebastian. This is Dylan.”

There were three girls; a dirty blond, elfish, bad fashion sense, and cute enough, a sexy brunette and a very pretty but terribly thick, (I mean obese,) girl. They were all in their late twenties and very open to us. The big girl shoved over to make space, cutting me from access to the blond. I squeezed into the tiny space beside her.

“Are you a karaoke fan?” the big girl asked.

“Of course. I’m a rock star. Are you?”

“Totally. I’m waiting for my turn. I’m going to do Spice Girls. What are you going to sing?” she asked.

The blond was smiling at me from the other side of the couch.

“I’ve got something in store. Don’t you worry. Hey, what are your names? I’m Sebastian.”

“I’m Tina and this is Regan” she said, pointing at the blond.

I reached over and shook Regan’s hand first.

Tina was very, very interested in me. She was aggressive like big girls tend to be. She played the twenty question game, “Where are you from? What do you do? How old are you?” Then she would laugh at my answers and squeeze my arms. Every minute or so I would look across her vast expanse at Regan, and she would be looking back. I could tell by the eye contact that she was interested in me. But when I tried to talk to her, Tina would shift her mass in between us, blocking my view, and ask me questions like, “Have you seen the new Harry Potter!?”

Fat girls are often very aggressive gamers; they need to be to compete with the thin girls. “Hey do you want a drink?” Tina asked. I did, and she was off to the bar to get me one. I remembered the quote by Quagmire from Family Guy: “Fat girls need love too, but they gotta pay.”

Tina wanted to get me drunk. A sound strategy, but now I was alone with Regan. I only had a couple of minutes to work it.

“Are you a karaoke superstar?” I asked her.

“A superstar?
Ummm
. Yes I am!”

“Do you girls come here every week?”

“This is our second time. Do you?”

“It’s my first. But I love karaoke.”

“What do you do?” She asked.

“I’m an unemployed writer. I just got home from a trip to
Montreal
.”

“I
loooove
Montreal
. It’s so fun,” she said, reaching out and touching my hand to prove her enthusiasm. If a girl touches you with certain energy, it’s a green light. If you don’t move forward you lose momentum and game over.

“Yeah, it’s the best,” I continued. “Where are your favorite…”and then there was a great compression as Tina dropped her two hundred pound frame in between us, and we were separated like Moses split the sea. Tina handed me a drink. I took a sip and almost coughed. “Is this a double?”

“It sure is!” Tina said.

We talked while Dylan sang Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash. I didn’t mind Tina. She had some charm. I was thinking she was even sort of sexy and caught myself looking at her massive breasts when she wasn’t looking. I like big boobs, but these weren’t real big boobs, these were fat boobs. They don’t feel the same as big boobs, they’re all soft and doughy. Still, I was considering her until she tilted her head back and polished off a half pint in one swallow, followed by a putrid, Homer
Simpsonesque
belch. Genetics my ass.

Finally, Tina got up to sing her ballad. When she did I slid over beside Regan. This time I wouldn’t let Tina separate us. Regan was a funny girl. She’s a playwright and actress with a good sense of humor. She even let me practice my stupid palm reading routines on her.

“You’re going to meet a guy that sings really, really well. You will want to make love to him all the time, but he makes you buy him expensive dinners first and that becomes costly.”

Tina returned from her song and tried to shove herself between us. Not cool.

“Hey,” I said. “We were having a conversation.”

Tina pouted. “Well we were having one too, before my song came on.”

“Yeah I know. But I’m not here for only you lady. I gotta share the love,” I told her firmly.

Tina pouted again, and then went to the bathroom. Harnessing my alcohol-fueled courage, I stretched my arm around Regan’s shoulder. She snuggled into me like a girlfriend would, totally natural. Nothing would keep us apart this time, not even a two hundred pound drunk sexpot in full ovulation.

“I won’t let her destroy our love,” I said.

I didn’t want tension. I looked at Dylan and he was playing with his girl. Two of us, three of them. Something had to give… something big. Tina returned from the toilet and captured us cuddling; her face fell south. She plopped down beside us and pouted up at the karaoke screen.

“You two are going to have sex tonight,” Tina said.

I just looked at her and smiled, sorry-like. I understand Tina! I’ve been you
soo
many times, and it feels
soo
good not to be you! I’m a bad man, a fantastic and horrible person. If your friend wasn’t prettier and thinner and equally receptive, I might have been down. But that’s how men work. That is real. This great matrix, it’s a battlefield littered with carcasses, brothers killing brothers, vultures circling the triumphant victors, licking their chops and squawking their complaints.

Then she stood up and with one long gulp, polished off her pint and walked nobly out the front door.

“Is your friend alright?” I asked, pretending to care, but before Regan could answer I heard, “Next up, Sebastian with… Love Shack!”

I leapt up and grabbed the
mic
with narcissistic, victory-fueled energy, “I got me a car, it seats about twenty! So hurry up and grab your juke box
moneey
!” The girls formed chorus group singing, “The
looove
shack, is a little old place where
weeee
can get together!” They even did a little dance. It was cute.

They agreed to come back to Dylan’s to watch, “cartoons,”—and by cartoons we meant, “Sex.” It’s good to have some random reason rather than, “Wanna bang?
Hehe
,
hehe
, yeah…” It can’t be their fault. They’re not sluts! It just sort of happened?

 
On arrival, Dylan pulled his girl to his room and Regan and I had the couch. We yak-yakked for about thirty comforting seconds before kissing. A few minutes later we heard a quiet, whimpered moaning, followed by a, ‘
squeaka
,
squeaka
,
squeaka
,’ from Dylan’s room. It was really hot to hear someone else, and made us hornier. I put my hand under her skirt to play with her pussy and she undid my zipper.

“
Oooooooaahhhhhh
!!!
Ahhhhh
! Yes, fuck,
mmm
, yes!” Rolled through thin walls of Dylan’s room.

“Wow,” she said.

‘
Squeaka
,
squeaka
,
squeaka
…’

“Go for it bro.”

One of my greatest frights, other than Thai police caning, Nazi zombies and transsexual drunk drivers are
std’s
. I’ve managed to stay clean so far by avoiding raw-
dawging
.

“I don’t have a rubber,” I told her.

“
Ohh
.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

I still have fingers! So I used them. I entered her and she stroked me back. We met in a chorus of unified hand-love. We stared into each other’s eyes while we did it. Sometimes not having sex is good too. I think she pretended to come. It was great fun anyway and we spooned ourselves to sleep, laying in a little pool of joy and guilt.

In the morning, Dylan cooked us eggs and pancakes then he drove the girls home. We all exchanged high-fives like sixteen year olds, and I left him that morning to look for an apartment and job. It was going to be a good summer, or so I predicted.
Nostradamus
I am not.

A spent a few days hanging out with old friends. I went to the beach to lie on the sand, gaze at boobies and work on my poetry book. I used to dread the beach—where people might stare at my funny chest. Now I loved to swim again. I even practiced approaching girls at the beach. It was much easier than clubs or bars—at least for phone numbers.

The next morning I was taking a leak and noticed a funny bump at the base of my cock. I inspected it closer with a hand mirror and saw another one… and another one. “Fuck me, no, no, no!” I yelped.

Dude! You bastard! Nein, nein, nein!

What was it? Herpes? HPV? I counted five bumps in total. I bussed to the local clinic and the doctor swabbed my wiener, then he left me in the room to sweat it out. What could it be? I didn’t even bang that girl. Is this what I get for being a promiscuous man slut? I suppose I deserve it for making all those girls cry. But shit, they’ve made me cry plenty of times. What about all the ones that wouldn’t call me back, or mocked me? I’m not a bad guy. Why me? Am I going to have to cut my nuts off? Will I need to tell every girl I ever sleep with that I’m a disease carrier?

The doctor came back after twenty long minutes. He stared at his clip board, then at me, then at the clip board again, put his gum in the garbage, adjusted his collar and said, “Well Mr. Newton, it’s a wart cluster called
Molluscum
Contagiosum
.”

Mini-terror deep down in my guilty gut. This is what I get. This is what I receive for trying reaching beyond my station. I don’t deserve pretty girls. I’ll just get a normal job, like construction work, or the postal office, and I’ll save up for a few years and go to
Tibet
and live a sexless existence with monks on a mountain, where no women and their pretty feet and shoulders and eyes are. The doctor gave me a soft smile. “It’s a common std,” he said. “Small children often contract this on their legs and arms but for some reason it is spreading through sexual contact. It’s not permanent, and with proper treatment can be healed completely in six to twelve weeks. The virus will not stay in your system.”

Not… permanent. I heard the magic words, the soft whisper of a genius doctor. I figured it must be days like this that keep him going, all fulfilled like, when he informs a frightened man that he will indeed retain use of his penis. Then the horrible second part—six to twelve weeks. I repeated it silently to understand its significance, “Six to twelve weeks?”

“Yes. I’ll give you some antibiotics,” he said, scribbling on his notepad.

“Not permanent?” I asked. “I heard HPV stays in you forever. So does Herpes.”

“No,” he continued. “This is not Herpes or HPV. It will not linger in your system.”

I walked outside the clinic and called Regan to tell her about the
Molluscum
. “Oh my god! I’m so sorry!” She said. “I had a one night stand on New Year’s Eve, but I had it treated. The doctor told me it was gone. I’m sorry!” She was crying.

“Yeah, it’s not. I’ll talk to you later, ok? It’s fine.” I said goodbye and hung up.

As I walked home I thought about my dick. My poor, poor dick. He was done for the summer! I felt like a Jedi that had his light saber confiscated. All I did was finger her. Six to twelve weeks!? I spent the last two years studying pickup and now I’m shelved. Karma? I didn’t do anything evil. Did I? If I met a girl that was girlfriend material, I would stick with her. She just has to be beautiful, interesting, feminine, fit, witty, funny and intelligent. Is that too much to ask?