Straight Up and Dirty: A Memoir (3 page)

Random bits of mail were shoved in a bag, DVDs in their sleeves, fuck music cued in the player. Fresh-cut flowers arranged in the living room, beside the bed, and yes, even in a Tiffany tissue vase, compliments of my wedding registry, in the bathroom beside the matches. I was ready for a sleepover. Well almost. I was running late.

Late meant Frizz-Ease and a hair clip. It meant one eye shadow, no time for a duo. It meant brushing my teeth and washing my
vaja
. There was no time for a shower and full makeup. See, there’s an attitude to being put together in a hurry—it’s a good one. All women should know how to do this. Febreze, fresh flowers, Frizz-Ease, a quick vagina cleaning, some sexy unmentionables, and you’re ready. Okay, some gloss out the door. Oh, yeah, perfume, but how French whore…I’d skip it. Okay, maybe I’d add a little.

Sometimes, you like the guy a lot, or you want to because he’s thoughtful and a gentleman. David was that “sometimes.” On our previous dates, our evenings would end with waitstaff clearing throats and glancing at watches. We’d outstay our welcome, chatting on until 1
A.M
. without noticing the time. When he walked me home, he’d insist on buying Gray’s Papaya hot dogs for Linus. This was his power move. Show her you’re into her dog and you’re guaranteed rank in the pair and spare lineup.

I really wanted to be into him—he was great on paper. Management Consultant, Ivy grad, lived alone and had a terrace, parents still married. David liked wine, my hair, and yes, even my dog. That whole half-stand thing when he pushes himself up from the table is overblown. I hear women add it to the retelling of their dates. They do it because they think it’s what other women will respond to. He did it, but who cares? He’d e-mail often, everything from articles concerning the re-org of my parent company, to town histories about Sag Harbor because he knew I’d have a share house there in the summer. His links to Citysearch write-ups on 5 Ninth, a hip new restaurant in the Meatpacking District, were much more impressive than any half-stand number. He could even kiss, although he improved once I put him on a regimented tongue-training program. Someone had to cure him from the world of small bird peck circles. Finally, he learned to hold my face with both hands, definitely shows you’re into it, and stick it in properly. I know. I’m a martyr.

SO WHY? WHY COULDN’T I BE INTO MISTER GREAT ON PAPER?

Because you don’t fuck paper.

Still, if there were a promise of a passionate sex life, it would all change. So enough talk. I needed to test his action.

“He’s showed such restraint, particularly when faced with three-hundred-dollar perfume quite literally made for a queen,” my friend Hannah told me when I complained I’d yet to size up one Mr. David Minetti. On our previous dates, he had walked me home, offering me his arm, and when we turned corners, he ensured he was on the outside, near the curb. Kissing him was delicious. Inviting him up seemed cheap. I was with a gentleman now, and it’s hard to really fuck a gentleman. Inviting him up felt too “this will never last.”

But, I’m here to report that after five dates of just rubbing up against each other, David Minetti finally, albeit timidly, touched my triangle. Five dates is a really long time to go before sizing a guy up. I was nervous I’d be disappointed, so I avoided it at all costs when we’d made out previously. I got bold and decided to go for it.

Minetti. His last name even sounds like it means “small penis” in Italian. You know he’s doing the best with what he’s got; you feel it in the stubble of his pubes. You’re certain he’s trimming to make it look bigger. He must know he’s little. But he doesn’t have a fancy car or fancy voice. He’s genuine, and it’s sad because you can’t move past it.

I’d done it once before. Gabe was a roll of quarters, and I’d spent too many nights wishing I could feel it in my stomach. In the same way you can’t imagine the taste of butter on your dry baked potato, you can’t fantasize the feeling of weight in your hands. Unfortunately, it’s not like the pimple on your face—it doesn’t feel bigger than it actually is. Been there, done a past life of that. Lesson learned.

This is one you just can’t compromise away. The careless leaving-the-seat-up thing is a nonissue. There’s therapy for a bad temper. Get a maid to deal with the socks. But a lifetime with a penis made of kibbles and bits is a deal-breaker. I’m just not willing to live with sexual disappointment again.

Skip to the next paragraph if you’re squeamish. So I was jerking him off because I wanted it to be over, but not so much that I was willing to go down on him. I’d had too much and not enough to drink because I wasn’t drunk at all, but instead, completely dehydrated. I’d no saliva to work onto my palms. I punctuated any forward motion with a stop at the bedside water carafe. Meanwhile, what the fuck, any time he got excited he completely abandoned me. He stopped rubbing me and was all about his pleasure. What, you can’t do two things at once? I so pegged him for a multitasker. Then he proved me wrong. He could, as it turned out, make verbal requests while he got jerked off. “Higher, please.” He said it as if he were politely asking for some ketchup.
Please?!
And I was thinking, higher? I mean there’s so little there to work with, he had to be kidding. I’d worked with bigger mushrooms in my salads.

Then he brought me toilet paper to wipe his mess off my stomach. Toilet paper never works. It gets wet and drags the mess around. Give me a fucking proper towel, the “spankerchief,” and then,
please
, finish me off. So he did. He tried going down on me, using just his tongue. Men don’t get this. When going down on a woman, there’s more to it than tongue. I needed a helping hand, or two.

Screw this. I yanked him up toward me, so his face was now beside mine. “Here,” I said as I slapped his hand over mine. I began to masturbate, pressing his palm over mine, so he’d learn how I liked it. I so didn’t need him there. That’s the worst kind of sex, when the guy adds nothing. He could have attempted to talk dirty. That would have at least been something. Somehow, though, I sensed his idea of talking dirty was telling me he had a cock.

I knew it would be the first and last time I’d orgasm with this man. It wasn’t just the size of his member. It was the “please.” Who says “please” in bed? I mean, unless you’re on your knees and your partner has you begging for it, “please” has no place in pleasing me. I like ’em dirty. Let him go be polite someplace else. I wanted him to leave. It was 2
A.M.
, and he liked me, so I couldn’t ask. He’d be hurt, and I’d seem rude. So I put on the new Guster CD and told him, “Shh, no talking.”

Just before falling asleep I giggled.

Mushrooms.

I WAS WEARING TURQUOISE, DESPITE THE CHILL OF
spring. Turquoise is for tanned skin, open-toed shoes, and girls with braids and bandanas. It’s not the making of spring. Besides, I was too lazy to shampoo that day—my hair was twisted, frayed ribbons. My makeup was leftovers. As I waited for my friend Smelly to meet me for a drink, I sidled up to the MOBar in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, and asked for a wine list. They were without a list and had only extended a verbal blur of choices.

“You know what? Even easier, do you have anything from South Africa, New Zealand, or Germany?” Negative. The female bartender poured me a taste of some white wine. I tasted oak and felt myself staring for longer than appropriate at her overflowing breasts. “I don’t mean to be a pain, but anything unoaked? Do you have something other than Chardonnay?” I know what I sounded like. I didn’t care. I wanted what I wanted—go ahead, say it.

“I hear they’ve got a nice Sancerre,” I like to believe were the words the man beside me offered. In truth, though, I can’t remember his first words to me, or if we even talked about wine. Somehow, though, he ended up paying for mine. Pleasantries were not exchanged. We didn’t talk about the weather or about jobs. We talked about his day, and he presented me with the proof. His day’s activities were wrapped in shiny black cardboard boxes and nestled into a Thomas Pink bag. The boy could shop.

“Well, you might as well show me what you’ve got in there, cause Jeez, you’ll have no chance of dating me if I hate your taste.” I can’t believe I used the word “Jeez.” Now, there’s no subtext here. This isn’t
Pulp Fiction
—it wasn’t his soul in there. I approved of more than just the shirts. I don’t know if it was his shoulders, his voice, or those liquidy overcast eyes. I was lost. Our banter was truncated upon the arrival of Smelly, my old college roommate. Her younger identical twin brothers lent me her childhood nickname, “Smell Adele, go to Hell,” in lieu of Adele, despite the fact that she now considers “hell” a swear word and smells only of Quelques Fleurs and Aveda lipstick. Introductions were made; my attention shifted. The wine kept coming.

I don’t understand how any woman can be seen in stockings and sneakers, even if it is a commute. There is absolutely no excuse for this. I told Smelly just this after she complained to me about her blisters. She was wearing Pumas with a skirt, and she responded with a wrinkled smile and raise of her glass. After we covered work, wardrobe, and weekend plans, I realized he might have to leave. I might have to leave. As Smell excused herself to make a phone call outside, I dug in. In my handbag, I found one of my business cards. I turned to him and smiled. He smiled. I pushed the card to him as if it were a bill. “Just in case I need to go, or you need to abscond, I wanted to give you this. It was nice not quite meeting you.” It wasn’t the wine.

“Abscond, huh? I hope this doesn’t mean you’ll be departing for the evening. I still want to talk.” I think that was a blush.

“I’m not leaving.” What I meant, of course, was “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

Smelly had to return to her office, kiss, kiss, I’ll call you tomorrow. He asked if I would join him for dinner. We were, after all, in a hotel bar, beside a hotel restaurant, and I was, after all, hungry. Okay, let’s face it, had I just eaten a full-course tasting menu at Danube, I would have feigned starvation to break bread with this man. Suddenly, he was ready to leave. “You didn’t think we’d eat here, did you?”

We were in a cab headed south. Blue Ribbon. Oysters were slurped. Even more wine, something unoaked and perfect. He asked about work, and when I mentioned “artist,” he did what all men do. “Oh, have I seen your work anywhere?” It’s their way of asking if it’s a job or a hobby.

I didn’t falter. “Not yet. I’m still working on my craft.” Then I smiled knowing exactly what someone who calls her hobby her craft sounds like: affected. I didn’t care. “Web designer in advertising” seemed too nerd, skullcap, canvas shoes. “Artist” seemed to cover me better, and I suddenly felt powerful in my conviction. It was as if we were in candlelight, surrounded by our favorite colors. The streets of Manhattan were flecked with gold, never mind moonlight. It was rapture.

We were in a cab headed north, and he was headed south. My pants were pulled to my ankles. I assumed he tipped the driver well. We’d arrived at his apartment, and suddenly we were past his doormen and in his elevator. I was going home with this guy. I’d never in my life done anything like this. I crossed my ankles, read the
Times
on Sunday, and enunciated the
t
in the word
bottle
. I wasn’t the type of lady who accompanied a gentleman home upon first meeting. This wasn’t a bend in the rule—it was a snap. This behavior was reserved for girls with daddy issues, plagued with low self-esteem, for women who wore leather hotpants.

The view from his thirty-second-floor apartment was panoramic. He was an adult: I saw it in the lack of futon. His chestnut paneling and saffron accents were as impressive as his ability to use area rugs to help define the massive space. It was surprisingly nonbachelor-padesque, save for the black leather sofa near the office area. Still, it wasn’t fur or synthetics. It was comfortable and impressive. Then, he suddenly had to excuse himself. There I was, standing in his adult apartment, this man I met only a few hours ago, and he had to get something from the doorman. Dry cleaning, some FedEx, condoms? I didn’t know what was going on, only that I had to leave.

I knew if I pressed the down arrow in the hall, there was a chance the elevator would arrive with him in it. I took the stairs down a level to prevent our crossing. On the thirty-first floor, I pressed Down, then floated past his doormen. They told me he’d just gone up. “Oh, yes, fine. It’s okay, he knows,” I spouted with the flip of my hands. I said it as if we’d discussed it already, with authority.

I was in a taxi at a red light, my forehead in my hand. What the hell am I doing? I’m not this girl. I have a doggie at home wondering where I am. This guy won’t take me seriously. I won’t even be a real option. You can’t have sex with the ones you really like, or it’s over before it even starts. Men. Chase. Things. Men like the hunt. Right? I stared into the yellow glow of the taxi driver’s identification window and wondered how many one-night stands Mohammed had. BOOM.

He was there, pounding his palms on the taxicab window, his tie loosened and hanging open. He was undone and fixed with passion. His blond, barely-there eyebrows said “please” for him.

“Please, don’t go.”

“This isn’t me. I don’t do this.”

“It doesn’t have to be. Please, take my hand. Let’s go upstairs. We’ll figure it out.” He was calm when he said it, patient and loving. He did, after all, come outside to get me. Okay, it was drama. It was wonderful.

When I took his hand, I had the this-is-it’s. This is the making of movies, tissues, and piped-in music. He took my hand, and I knew. I knew I didn’t want to let go, knew I could have a future with him. I knew all this before knowing his middle name or if he drank coffee at night. I was in
like
, and I didn’t care anymore about tomorrow. I just wanted that moment.