Erotica

"I can't tomorrow," I responded to K's now live-in girlfriend when she asked me this past Sunday if I would help with her resume, "I have a sex date."

"Okay," she responded, without a flinch of her 22 year old face.

"A what?!" P's girlfriend piped in, suddenly realizing I may have said something odd. "I mean I can only imagine, but what," she knowingly questioned. I nodded in confirmation of what I'm sure she had imagined, while she sat there, mouth still slightly agape. I think I caught her off-guard with my candor, but this was something I had been looking forward to for days.

***

It started with a dream: HG was there in my parents’ house, crying to me about his job; sporting a sheer crop top - black, trimmed with cream. My dreams take the last things in my head and go play for the night; he had texted just before bed. I’m sure my nightly lullaby of Golden Girls helped.

“Even your subconscious thinks I’m gay,” he responded when I told him the dream.

“I don’t think you’re gay,” I said.

He scoffed, as if you could scoff via chat. But he had a point: When we dated two years ago, I questioned his orientation because of his manner of dress. (And perhaps for a reason again after that, years later.) He dresses impeccably well. If you knew me better, you would take this as a compliment: Gay men just dress better on average. It’s scientific fact*. Previously, I had dated people whose best dress was likely a pair of drawstring sweats, but this kid brought in a new kind of sexy: gingham - mmm... gingham - proper fitting slacks, and a beautiful array of shoes.

Well, I certainly didn’t mean to insult him. "If it makes you feel any better, I think we had slept together the night before in my dream. That part wasn't part of the dream though, just an assumption the morning after - although awkward, considering we were at my parent's house," I said in an attempt to fix my insulting sub-conscience. "Your voice is too good to be gay," I continued like an honest band-aid, "It would be a tragic loss to the female heterosexuals."

"Thank you. That helps," he responded. I then promised I would work on a dream in which we would be having heterosexual relations. Because these are the normal conversations people have with other people, right?

Golden Girls was now on pause until I reached my new goal.

I tried to direct my dreams and instead I had a really awkward dream where he was balding - and badly. In the dream, I was at a picnic with my mom and, with hesitance, I responded to a text he had sent. He immediately invited himself to the picnic, showing up with his balding comb-over, awkward lack of self-confidence, and two huge kites made out of balsa wood and a baby blue fabric. He was chasing after me and it was uncomfortable. “On the plus,” I offered upon telling him this failed attempt at sexual dreaming, “there wasn’t even the slightest hint of sheer crop tops in this one.”  Little assurance of my sub-conscience, I added, “I’m going to need some better material.”

Some days later, the disturbing visual of his balding head was still in mine. Bothered still, the conversation came back up when I saw him pop up on chat just before I was about to shut down my PC for the evening and go to bed. What transpired was perhaps the most surprisingly delightful exchange in my gchat history. The quiet numbers guy took the challenge of “material” and wrote a mother fucking (not literally) erotic novel. Being that it was midnight and he was still at work we began the story as such: I was his financial consultant coming up for a late night consultation, past the security, I exit the elevators; he continued:

you hear a voice... (an awfully deep voice) say hello from behind you.

Oh, he’s good. Play to my wants, weaknesses and the strength of his voice; a baritone god.

you are already jittery from sneaking in, so you jump at first, but smile turning around to connect the voice to the smile waiting.

Oh, this was great. At this point we're about 50 lines in and I’m getting into this story, and never having been one for off-site (phone, skype, etc.) sexual relations, I was suddenly understanding why GFN is always reading erotic novels full of “dusky nipples” and random erogenous zones. Ironically, I never knew words could have this kind of effect. Realizing I'm actually digging it, he begins to think more about what he’s typing. And, thanks to Gchat and the power of technology, I can see him typing while I abide in a captive anticipation:

[HG] is typing…

He presses enter:

i naturally extend a warm "professional" handshake and thank you for coming, but with a bit of a look of mischief behind it.

[HG] is typing…

surely you are a busy woman and don't want to be kept waiting, so I'll offer to take you straight to my office where we can discuss the important financial matters at hand. in a more discreet setting appropriate for such matters.

My breath heavys, my heart races.

[HG] is typing…

Oh, for shit's sake!

the hallway ahead is dark, but lights turn on as we pass through, dimming again behind us. 

This visual, so clever and subtly seductive. More! I think, now nearly drooling.

[HG] is typing…

leading you through a frosted door into the corner office. i step in behind you after you've stepped through. quietly shutting the door behind us.
you can almost feel me touching you inches in front of me.

[HG] is typing…

Gah!

It was like dial-up porn: And in and out and wait and buffer and wait and there’s a nipple and pixels and wait and penis and wait and loading. In the moment I was piqued, curious and forgiving the pauses, wanting to see exactly what was going to happen once those frosted doors closed behind us - and as he went on, it became well worth the waiting. However, when I retold the story aloud, it was with an unexpected rupture of laughter in between the parts of organic, baited erotica and the breathless pause of a drooling Pavlov’s dog staring at the bone of [HG] is typing….

Regardless, I was so impressed with his erotic literary prowess that I insisted he come over the following week to meet for the conclusion of this tale. A financial consultation, if you will, of which I very much anticipated - all because of some words. Who knew? I bet if more erotic novels ended like this, they would be a lot more popular. Choose Your Own Adventure: The Notch in the Bedpost. Sex date, is that a thing? Choose your own adventure. It is now!



*No it’s not. It’s my own observation. And probably yours too.  

"Factotum"

It was true that I didn't have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?

Charles Bukoski, Factotum (1975) 

The Ambitionless, Talentless Happy

When I was young and they made us do the exercise in school where you were pressed to answer the question before you even knew what testicles were: What do you want to be when you grow up? I remember my answer being the same every time, with a few variations. Often, I would put "mother", I think once I may have put "vet" - likely in my bid to get an iguana - but always, no matter what, my response included the answer: "Happy."

In a recent discussion I had with Goomba, I realized that's kind of a big deal. He asked what I wanted to be and I told him the answer I'd always had as a kid. He chuckled and asked if I had seen his profile picture lately. "No," I responded. It was this:

I don't have recollection of my mother telling me this was the most important thing in life - or grandparents, or dad, etc. I didn't want to be a princess. Or a doctor. Or a wife. I just, at the age of 6, 8, 12, 14, 18, 25, 30...wanted the same thing: To be happy.

Perhaps it has been my lifelong fight with indecision that lead to this answer, but even with a more solid answer that response was always wiggled in there. Impressive for a 6 year old to recognize that the most important things in life aren't to be royal, pretty, rich, or society's standard of successful, instead: simply happy - in whatever form that takes. I always thought I was answering the question wrong, everyone else had a tangible response, but it's all I ever knew I wanted to be. It's all I still know that I want to be. It's just about finding it and staying there until I'm no longer happy and searching again.

***

Over Christmas my family was talking about my one cousin who is killing herself trying to get into med school. I suggested that perhaps she try something else, enjoy her young 20s and see if maybe there's another field that better suits her skill set. My sister (the PhD in behavioral science) and another cousin (in her 5th year of undergrad on her way to med school) shot back at me in an argumentative tone - protecting my struggling cousin's right to fight for what she wants. I felt attacked, I stood up for what I was suggesting: sometimes the paths we want are not the ones chosen for us and it's an impossible race to fight against nature. That is, until I quickly understood that their way of thinking, their ambitions and motivations, were of a different variety than mine. I'm not lazy, I'm just...different.

About an hour later I was sitting in the kitchen, chatting, and a subject came up again relating to this: Their ambition and the pull-your-hair-out stress it causes. In that moment I let out a sigh of relief upon the realization that I have no ambition - at least nothing like theirs. I work; I like to work; I'll never not work, but that insane drive, I just don't have - nor want. My uncle, who seems to have grown fond of my snarky nature and refusal to follow the marry-early, breed fast nature of my family, was listening when I said, "I guess I have no ambition," I paused for a moment, listening to my ambition-ful sister and cousin discuss their stress and deciding how to remark on my own words, then continued, "And I'm totally okay with that. I'm glad I don't, because it seems to drive people crazy." My sister stopped mid-conversation to confirm that it can, indeed, be a vex. My uncle, he nodded at me in what I like to think was a sort of approval.

***

When I was younger I always wanted a talent. I could only tout myself as being good at everything, great at nothing. And for me the idea of that used to suck. I tried to play the guitar but my fingers wouldn't fit; I was good at the clarinet, but nothing fantastic. I counldn't sing, dance, draw, paint or write better than any one else. I wasn't more attractive or smarter than the average bear. My imagination was is active, but mostly just wandering. I'm good at balancing logic, reason and it's counters - and that's about it: I have common sense. It's only recently that I have realized that being talentless is a blessing. With a talent, I feel those with them are compelled to chase them; to make something of their talent. And they spend their lives chasing these dreams, most of the time coming up empty-handed; dying feeling as though they failed. (Though anything that ends up with a story worth retelling is hardly a failure.)

Society says I'm doing it wrong - this lack of balding ambition, but, I have discovered that I am completely unchained: I don't have a talent that drives me to chase it, nor an ambition that tethers me to a target and barking motivation. I have simply to the desire to be happy, whatever that means. And when where I am no longer suits me, it's simply circumstance I need to change. That kinda sounds like fun game -a game a lot of people don't seem to understand. But six year old me was on to something, and I'm going to do that little girl justice as well and as long as I can. 

Bleeding Yogi and the Tenacious Jew

I promised to expand upon elevator yoga kid in an Atlantic City from last month and the guy who asked for my number in front of HG, while trying to follow me home at 2am. Here I am...expanding. These two are the delightful kinds of treats the universe likes to extend to me, while I remain completely single, and while some old train wrecks make reappearances just in time to bridge into the New Year. (I'll get to those two later.) Thanks, Universe.

The Bleeding Yogi 

During a night out in November, I randomly agreed to go to an Air Force holiday party with my friend and his girlfriend. It was going to be a spectacle for him to show up with two dames instead of one and he had this friend he was going to introduce to me. (Not that I was particularly interested in being introduced.) This is the same friend that tried to get me hook up with his brother on NYE: I’m single, not lonely and desperate, people.

The holiday party was a joke. We walked in dressed for a gala, and into the back room of a restaurant full of soldiers in civilian clothes, kids to trip over, crying infants, and women looking at us like we were hired hookers. I needed a drink. Fast.

::elevator opens, awkward moment::
 "what are you doing?"
"uhh...yoga?"

Even after this disaster, however, I was mindful of my consumption after we left and restaurant and went to drink in downtown AC. So having given the remainder of half my drinks to that guy I was introduced to - as he was annoying me - he ninja’d out around midnight. Soon after that, everyone else left. So the three of us (the friend, his girlfriend and I) headed back to the parking garage. He went to get the car while we warmly waited in the elevator lobby. It took him 45 minutes to return in a huff and announce that he couldn't find the car. After that, I repeated what floor he had earlier disagreed it was on and after a 30 second elevator ride, we found the car. (I win.) This wasn't, however, before leaving us girls to our own devices. In this time, I managed to give a kid a fat lip without ever touching him. Boredom and whiskey will lead to interesting outcomes, like teaching strangers to do yoga in an elevator lobby because they said it was a piece of cake. And, so, I picked a pose that required both strength and balance, surely, even drunk, he’d know when not to fall on his face – except that’s exactly what he did.

"I can do yoga. It's easy."
"Okay. "
"Show me how and I will."

These are the reactions after someone tries to
do yoga in an elevator lobby and subsequently
 falls directly onto their own face. 

He left and when he returned five minutes later without his friends, I noticed his teeth covered in blood. "Oh my god,” I exclaimed, “Your lip is bleeding!”

Without hesitation, he responded, “No it’s not.” Solid argument. Just then our guy got back to announce he'd lost the car. Superb timing.


The Tenacious Jew

I went on a holiday bar crawl last month with GFN and GFC. (As well as GFR, a long-time friend of GFC who I've know for a while and just moved to DC.) They had a specific set of shirts they wanted to wear and, so, I obliged. Apparently, if you dress like a complete idiot, the men just come rolling in.

The bar in the photo, the event photographer kept taking my photo and complimented me on how well and confident I was at "showing" my "assets". Okay, dirty old man, pipe down. And at the next bar, a 40 something dirty old man in a blazer asks me up onto the stage area with him. I smelled free drinks. And so, up there we were.

Around closing time, I get a text from HG. The bar closes, I hop on the metro to head home and meet up with HG. This Jewish guy sits down next to me - me, still dressed like an idiot elf on LSD. He starts chatting me up and I oblige in a conversation. (I was apparently feeling very obligatory that day.)

He tells me how funny I am. I relay it back to HG via text. He tells me his name. I forget it. He asks me questions. I answer. This goes on for 20 minutes, all while I'm still texting with HG telling him my ETA since he's waiting in the cold for me. As I reach my stop, I provide one last update and add: "gotta lose this Jew". He was seriously unrelenting, the drunken tenacity of which I would soon find out I had only just scratched the surface of.

At my stop, I get off of the train and, to my surprise, the Jew follows me. I see someone at the bottom of the elevator and when I realize it's  HG, I call out, "Oh hey," awkwardly, considering this other dude in tow, "I expected to see you outside."

"It was cold out there and I've been waiting for 20 minutes," he said. Clearly, this meant we had planned this meeting. I introduced HG to the Jew, whose name I had apparently bothered to memorize up until then. The Jewish kid gets on the elevator with HG and I, rides up to the top, and gets out with us. I stop because clearly, at 2am, I'm not taking two people home with me. And with HG standing a foot away, the Jewish kid asks for my telephone number in front of someone markedly more attractive than him (and with a lovely baritone voice), whom I had planned to meet at my metro at 2:30 in the morning on a Saturday while drunk. What could possibly be happening in this scenario?!

After scoring my digits, he turned around and pressed the elevator button to go back down. "What are you doing," I asked.

"Going home..." We had passed his neighborhood four stops ago. I still can't decide if he was incredibly obtuse, incredibly drunk or incredibly tenacious. I'm going to give him tenacious, even though he never called. (Thank goodness.)

The Tale of the Traveling (Dirty) Underwear

My Christmas was nice. Anytime the stress of others being stressed in a house with all those people and children under four got to me, I put myself in a bubble. Woo-saaaaaa. I was proud of myself. I left when I still wanted to be there and returned to DC for New Years. And a New Years I was aware I was going to be spending alone. And, actually, I was really okay with that. I rented my Redbox movies, had my wine in the fridge, posted my facebook:

was supposed to go to times square for nye and then plans changed and i wasn't consulted on the change (eh-hem!). and being that i am unwilling and unwanting to spend new years in a crowded place (thanks for the offers tho) that i was forced to pay an overpriced ticket to get into, then fighting for bar space and elbow room, followed by the horrible task of trying to catch a cab after midnight in the cold, i have opted to spend the night on my couch; my date - a lovely bottle of white - chilling in the fridge. i'm looking forward to these nye plans as much as any i've had in a while. except house parties; nye house parties are the best: let's bring those back. 

My step-dad called this "maturity". My maturity plans were set. And I was happy.

On that Monday (when I returned), my first friend I ever made in DC was back and visiting (he moved last year). We decided on a 6pm dinner New Years Eve to catch up since it was the only time either of us were free. Two other friends joined us. So I got home from work, changed clothes and put on something that was just good enough in case I got coaxed out and quickly, I was out the doo--- wait. Underwear. I should change my underwear if I'm going out tonight, I thought. Nothing says 'whore bath', 'Irish shower' or 'French shower' (depending on who you want to offend today) like baby wipes to the pits and an quick change of the undergarments. So, I threw a new pair of those in my purse, just for good measure.

As we sat down to dinner the three asked if was coming out with them. I told them about the underwear I brought "just in case" this exact situation happened. At dinner's end, I was worn down and in the bathroom changing my underwear in the stall, while an employee chugged her mini bottles out of her purse. She paused as I walked in and caught her, but hey, we all gotta have our ways to get by when you're fighting for bar space and elbow room. No judgement here.

After I changed into a fresh pair of undies and shoved the used ones in the pocket in my purse, we were off. I made a quick stop at CVS for some baby wipes, "showered" up on the walk to the bar and enjoyed a really low-key New Years. I got to finally hang out with PI again and we had an on-going joke for the evening, looking at each other with a comical grimace on our faces and exclaiming: I COULD BE ON MY COUCH! like curmudgeonly old men. And then the clock struck 12 and I happily headed home just after midnight to watch my Redbo--- Nope. I didn't get home until 4pm the next day because my friend's brother was in town and after midnight, just about when I was ready to leave, they texted to say they just left their overpriced party to come to my low-key bar. Why? Because, I would soon find out, he was trying to get me to hook up with his brother whom I drunkenly made out with at a bar once, ONCE, in the summer of 2012. My friend, his girlfriend, and the brother kept me from catching the metro and when I learned that they had had 16 drinks a piece to "get their money's worth" out of their overpriced tickets - and I had had four ciders in seven hours - I volunteered as tribute DD. This was my New Year's good deed.

The one-breath outcome: He tried to "rub my back", while I laid facing away from him until he snored in my ear and I slept on an air mattress, on the floor with layers for warmth while listening to music to drown out the snoring until the next morning when he made breakfast for us all and then the three of them fell asleep and I had to wake them up hours later, before I hit him with a bat for snoring in my ear again (this time on a couch), to take me home.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

So when I finally agreed to go on a Tinder date (not the crush) last night out of pure curiosity and the terrible inability to say 'no' without good reason, it wasn't until I was on the metro that I realized I was taking the pair of dirty New Year's Eve underwear with me. I chuckled, tucked them away and bundled back up to brave the cold. Once at the stop where we were to meet, we couldn't find each other. I was looking for a tall man; a little beefy; likes to build things and drink beer; with a deep voice and interest in everything stereotypically manly. I couldn't find him. I soon found out why: My imagination had run away with me.

When he called to find me, as soon as I heard his voice I wanted to tell him that I had explosive diarrhea and needed to go home. I was immediately uninterested, but it was too late. He had spotted me from the other side of the tracks. Damn platinum hair.

Once at the bar, we each got a drink. I got my secondary go-to: vodka tonic, two limes. In his higher-than-desired-voice, he ordered a FireFly and water. By the time I got home it was 12 degrees outside: This isn't the time for that kind of lady drink. Or for talking at me for three hours. This guy was nothing like I had imagined.

WHERE IS THAT EXPLOSIVE DIARRHEA WHEN YOU NEED IT?!

I'm too polite to be so outright with my severe disinterest, even though all I could think was I COULD BE ON MY COUCH!  I thought my looking around and not asking him questions, even though he baited me, was hint enough, but nope - High-Pitch Harry, The Obtuse Ostrich went on and on until finally, at 10:30p, the check. A whopping $13.52, because: after three hours, the three (free) soft pretzels he ate, the three waters he ordered, and never asking if I'd like another drink while he sipped on his H20 in between rambling on about his rental properties and anti-religionims, all he had to pay for was a cocktail a piece for each of us. If they're not drinking then I'm not either, but I've never gone out with someone where I so desperately preferred to be drunk. Maybe if I was drunk, he would have been interesting. But probably not.

I got home, took the underwear out of my purse, and sat on my couch. Where I should have been all night.