Straight Up and Dirty: A Memoir (15 page)

The boy had class, all of it low. He was cheap, but at least I knew what I was dealing with. He was pretty, very pretty, and smelled like packaged goods. I knew we didn’t have longevity, but for the night, at least, he was a cute guy who’d fill a need. It had been a few months. He was there, and he had dimples to die for. Okay, so the boy was nothing more than a Hostess Twinkie. Twinkies are easy, simple, and self-contained, but they’re concoctions, always leaving you unsatisfied. Oh God, I married a Twinkie, and now I was on a date with another one. Forget South Beach or Fatkins, I needed Sugar-Busters, stat.

HERE’S HOW IT WENT DOWN AT MY PLACE: HE DIDN’T.
That’s the point. Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I’d sent him the wrong message by changing into navy sweats in my bathroom. It was tricky, figuring out what to slip on before he slipped it all off. It was already implied that he’d be spending the night, but since we weren’t going at it yet, I wasn’t sure how to get from A (standing around) to B (messing around). We were mildly soused and about to
not
watch a movie. Let me be clear, this was a casual first time sleepover, not a let-me-at-you-now grab fest. So, I didn’t know what to wear to bed or where to change into my oh-so-(in)appropriate outfit. My armoire heaved with sexy underthings: garters, thigh-highs, and silk. But those are boyfriend goods, for when you’re keeping things racy. It’s not for beginnings. So I seized an itty bitty wife-beater, lacy boyshorts, and sweatpants.

I didn’t realize, by wearing sweats to bed, I was issuing a “don’t think of touching me” missive. I was so not stripping down to a t-back thong to not watch
Hope Floats
. Since I didn’t own anything with the name Orchid or Weeks in it, I could have gone as obvious as
Secretary
or
Unfaithful
. But really, make-out movies with erotic scenes are the equivalent of a high school date, where he’s cued up Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” on his car tape cassette player after our “let’s go ice-skating” date. I might as well have piped in some Morcheeba music and shrouded myself in black mesh. It’s been done. I wanted to be undone.

If I’d been to the gym or skipped a few meals, if my stomach felt flat, I would’ve disrobed casually as if I were alone. But I wouldn’t let him behold my behind because of the cellulite. If I were slightly more stewed, I might have made him watch me undress. I know there’s nothing sexier than confidence, that he wouldn’t notice the five pounds, but sometimes I’m overcome with shy. So in the meanwhile, I’d be an “I’ll just be a minute” girl toting sleepwear to the john. Yick. The john. I mean the loo. I thought it was all about the lace boyshorts. You know, as long as I was the one wearing them. Clearly it wasn’t.

Christian was wearing a black mesh pouch for underwear. No, not underwear, a thong, a full-on man thong. I can’t believe any man who isn’t in the porn industry would own this. He spent money on this garish display and wouldn’t buy me mussels. I needed to get my head examined.

“Kiss me here,” he said as he pointed to his pouch.

“I’m sorry, what? Can you have a beer?”

“No, come touch my junk. It wants you.”

“Your what?”

“You know, my stuff,” he said as he cradled his balls.

Okay, I gotta stop you here for a second.

I’ve heard of naming your penis. I don’t really get it. It’s not a car, but I know it’s done. What I don’t get is referring to it in the third person, as if it has a personality and sense of style. “Willy wants to come out and play.” Ew. That’s just wrong. Don’t do that.

Women don’t want to think of your penis or balls as stuff or junk. For starters, “stuff” evokes thoughts of the middle of Oreos, of a grandfather with his grandson drinking whole milk on a porch listening to the sound of a twisted cookie. And “junk” evokes thoughts of The Trash Heap from
Fraggle Rock
or Oscar from
Sesame Street.
Guess what? You can’t win with either. Oreos bring us back to roller rinks and Members Only jackets, and Oscar regresses us to the whole Big Bird Snuffleupagus conundrum. And there’s nothing sexy about an eight-foot-tall bird that wears a propeller beanie hat, whose legs look like ribbed condoms, and who drinks birdseed milkshakes from Mr. Hooper’s store. Now, Snuffleupagus, on the other hand, had quite a trunk, if memory serves. Still, ixnay on the unk-jay. There has to be a better word. I prefer “area,” which evokes a modern clean television show. I could at least work with that.

Okay. Play. Balls back in.

Christian smiled and pulled me to him for a kiss. He tasted like cologne and kissed like a whack-a-mole, poking his tongue in and out of my mouth to presumably give me a preview of his lingual lapping style. Men do this sometimes. However, I’ve been privy to one exceptional encounter. A man once instructed me to kiss him exactly the way I wanted him to go down on me. “That’s it,” he prompted, “long laps on the lips. Now show me what you’d do with the clit. My tongue is your clit. Show me.” Holy shit. Now that’s hot. In contrast, whack-a-mole kissing should remain at the amusement park with the clowns and carney.

Unfortunately, metrosexuals and their Eurosexual cousins can’t kiss worth their weight in manscaping supplies. They devour articles about technique, margin to margin in GQ, and call it a day. With so much focus on skill and style, they sidestep the passion it takes to receive an invitation back. When a man is all about technique it begins to mimic clinical and feels as cold as stirrups. Let me be clear on this, though, plunging in and becoming a sloppy moaning mess does not pass for passionate. It passes for proletarian.

I wanted a man who knew how to live without
Men’s Health Magazine
, who took what he wanted. Christian was not that man. I was certain he’d practiced his “I’m in control and going to have my way with you” stare in his oversized mirror; it wasn’t genuine. Then he’d probably spent another twenty minutes seeing how his sunglasses looked when pushed onto his head.

Perhaps he’d be skilled at other things. He struck me as the type of guy who, while performing oral sex, relied on the alphabet technique. I wouldn’t know. The closest he got to my “como se llama” was maneuvering my lacy boyshorts off my hips and declaring his grooming preferences. “I like a full-grown bush.”

Yes. I swear to God, he said that shit aloud.

Truth: that was as hot as it got. How animalistic, his wanting a nineteen-seventies bush. It seemed promising. “Now, let me slip off these saturated panties of yours and taste your nectar.” That would have been hot. Instead, it was, “Dahling, this runway bit is so nineties.” I wondered where he was hiding his Sharpee marker and which part of my body he’d criticize next.

I
had
wanted to drag him across my body and grip him in handfuls. Shoulders. Hip flexors. Skinning it. Pushing and pulling him over me with force, I was drenched in want. But, I’d stopped at the first mention of Terax Conditioning Crème. “It’s so important to condition the scene of the crime, dearest.” The scene of the fucking crime? I hate you. I felt like I was supposed to apologize. Jesus, if I wanted to feel like shit I would have gone shopping at Scoop and let anorexic saleswomen apologize that they didn’t carry anything larger than size twenty-eight jeans.

A man knowing and taking what he wants without apology is arresting and gets me going every single time. Mentioning products sold at Sephora is not my idea of foreplay and had me wincing with thoughts of Helga the Waxing Nazi. This was wretched. I refused to play through.

“Sorry, but I can’t do this.” I said it as if I were emotionally wrecked, not annoyed.

He stopped slurping in my ear and sat erect, his head tilted in question before asking, “Which bit?”

“All of it. I’m sorry, but I, I just can’t.” I deserved an Emmy. My bra was still fastened. I yanked my shirt down to cover the rest of me. I was surprised he was still incredibly handsome. Dimples, commas of hair, luminous cat eyes. None of it mattered.

“Dahling, I was only getting started.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” I whispered, hoping he’d think I was somehow scorned and deep in miss of a past he hadn’t learned yet. He didn’t buy it.

“Come on, I can learn. I swear.” He must have garnered this grievance before.

I wasn’t about to have any kind of sex with a man who was more waxed than I was. “No, I think it’s just best if you leave.” He looked like a wet seal.

“Please, seriously, I need to know how you Americans like it.” We like it circumcised for starters.

“You think it’s an American thing?”

“Yeah, my British birds don’t give a flick. I want you to teach me.” Coo Coo Ca Choo. I could take this shit on. Make it my mission. Martyr on up. That’s right, ask not what your country can do for you, but who you can do for your country. So, for the love of the USA, and under the influence of the French Châteauneuf-du-Pape, I would take the Brit between my legs and give him a proper afternoon lesson in the subtleties of linguistics. Just call me Paul Revere.

The British are cumming!

The British are cumming!

“I’M NOT GOING TO LIE TO YOU—THE BOY PULLED A DIANE
Keaton.” I can’t believe I was discussing this with the Phone Therapist. It’s what I paid her for, to get a complete picture so she could tell me just how fucked up I was.

“What do you mean, a Diane Keaton?”

“Every frickin’ time I watch the Oscars or Golden Globes, the woman shows up a la
Annie Hall
, in an uglyass vest with a wide tie, or a damn bowling hat, forcing us all to reassess femininity and traditional gender roles. Please. That’s not her job anymore. Someone has to get the men to wear menswear, not the women. I mean, really, would it kill the woman to wear a dress?”

“So you have views on the topic, then.”

“My point is this. Every year, she thinks her fashion sense is improving. She’ll say things to Joan and Ugly Rivers. Something like, ‘See, see how cute I look? No more worst-dressed this year, right Joan?’ Then Joan changes the subject by making a joke about how she just stepped on her sagging boob.”

“I don’t understand, Stephanie.”

“I don’t either. I mean, can’t she hire a stylist? Clearly her friends and family are of no use. Sure, they give her support when she gets bad reviews, but are they there when it counts? Are they there for her in her time of fashion seppuku? I think not.”

“No, I meant I don’t understand what this has to do with Christian.”

“He asked me to teach him stuff in bed. So I tried, communicated with him about what I liked. Schooled him on placement, pressure, and the precision of timing, and then he emerged from the sauna that happens when you’re pleasuring someone under the covers with this arrogant face. He looked like Gabe. I didn’t even stiffen. I could have been doing my nails. He really thought he’d improved, pulled a frickin’ Diane Keaton. I’m telling you, he must have thought he was signing up for fashion lessons, not passion lessons.” She wasn’t amused.

“It’s interesting. Did you hear what you just said?” Of course, I love listening to myself talk. “You said he looked like Gabe. Did he remind you of Gabe in any other ways?” I sat thinking, twirling the phone cord with my finger. “Let me ask you a different question, Stephanie, why did you decide to become intimate with him to begin with?” Ugh. It was going to be one of those sessions, the Catholic kind.

“Because he was handsome, and it has been a while.” It had been four months.

“Why else?”

“Because he wanted me. He was handsome, fashionable, and educated.”

“I see.” I hated when she did the “I see.” It meant something big was coming, and she’d make it come out of my mouth. “So this Christian is a handsome man who has told you he likes you, yet he didn’t pick you up for your first date and asked you to pay for half of it, right?” I didn’t need to answer her. “Would you say he put your needs ahead of his own at all?” Fuck. “I wonder, does he remind you of anyone else?”

“What is wrong with me? Haven’t I already learned this lesson with Gabe? Haven’t I suffered enough? Why did I even start dating this foreign clone?”

“Because it’s familiar. It’s what you know, and nostalgia feels good.” This is why I paid her. “You’ve become so used to emotionally unavailable men, Stephanie. Men who put their needs before yours every single time, and whenever you asked for anything for yourself, do you remember what happened?”

“He’d tell me he didn’t want drama.”

“Which really meant he didn’t want to discuss anything emotional.” I picked Confrontation Houdinis every time. If there were a problem, he’d sooner escape it via the trap door labeled Passive-Aggressive than face anything as emotionally strapping as a discussion with the word
need
in it.

“And this is the type of man who feels familiar to you. It’s what you know, but it’s not what is best for you. I caution you to recall what we discussed in our last session, remember?” In our last session, Phone Therapist lectured me on milk. Told me an infant fed on a diet of sour milk, who is subsequently nursed with fresh milk, will spit out the good in favor of the turned. “We are programmed to find comfort in what we know, even when it’s not in our best interest. Fighting that programming takes work, but if you don’t do it, you’ll keep repeating your mistakes.” I hated that I had to fight my natural inclination, had to be aware, assess things, unearth patterns. Clearly, a relationship isn’t all that takes work. Being single should come with pay stubs.

“I feel so broken, like I can’t do anything right.”

“Stephanie, this has been your programming all your life. You can’t expect to change overnight.” Fine, I wasn’t broken; I was under construction. And that Christian boy would not be touching my golden globes again.

“Stephanie, Christian isn’t the only one who pulled a Diane Keaton, you know.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you say she must have friends who tell her what’s right, and she still makes the same mistakes?” Touché. “Eventually, if you want to change badly enough, you’ll make it happen.” A tear slid down my face and slipped into my smile.