As I was going through my things, I found a short story I wrote years ago after an embarrassing experience with a one-night stand. Just another example of me turning lemons into lemonade. And an example of what's probably out there for me. Eesh.
Also, this is before I had two dogs of my own. Correction: before WE had two dogs who are now living with him in our old place. Sigh.
Here's the story:
I have a problem reading signs. Stop. Yield. Slippery when wet. Danger: Co-Dependency Ahead. The signs that you pass on the road to relationships. I once dated this guy—head of his division at Xerox, beautiful home in a gated community—who suggested fun evening activities like watching The Empire Strikes Back with no pants on. For no good reason at all. Other than to have no pants on. He was fun. I liked him.
We were starting to develop a real rapport. But I couldn’t operate his coffee machine. Somehow coffee grounds would end up in the pot or the water would over flow or the machine would explode, sending chards of glass everywhere. The first time it happened, he laughed. The second time it happened, he sighed. And the last time it happened, he pressed pause on the VCR. He just stared at me, not making a sound. I don’t even think he was breathing. By that time in the relationship, we weren’t even having sex. So I don’t think it was that big a deal that I pulled up my pants and walked out the door without saying good-bye. I should have apologized or sent him a new coffee machine via UPS. But he hadn’t gotten it up in five weeks. I figured we were even.
My inability to operate his coffee machine, which translated into my inability to incorporate myself into his home routine—and eventually his life—was a sign. A big, glaring, flashing neon sign: YOU DON’T BELONG HERE…AND NOW I’M FLACCID.
**** “Maybe it just means he’s impotent.”
I was having lunch with my best friend, Coral, who thought I was making too much out of the whole situation. To try to figure out my problem with men, I decided I would enlist the help of my most trusted advisors, who sometimes know me better than I know myself. Coral was first because I knew she would have a lot to say on the subject. As I was about to launch into the list of signs I had written down and brought with me, Coral grabbed me by the wrist.
“If his dick doesn’t work, it’s just not meant to be. Maybe that’s the sign. It’s not you.”
Coral took a sip of her iced tea and went back to her salad.
**** Coral wasn’t the right person to talk to about this. My friend Janine, on the other hand, wrote an advice column for Salon.com and probably heard stories like this all of the time. She asked me for another example of how I failed to read these relationship signs. Then she started taking notes because she thought it would be a brilliant idea for her next column. Besides, her deadline was the next day and she had run out of ideas.
I told her about the MTV VJ I dated about six months ago. Smart, witty, went to Vassar undergrad and Columbia grad. He also wrote articles for Vanity Fair under a pseudonym. Probably the smartest/coolest guy I ever dated. We’d go to art galleries and movie premieres. He took me to various shwag trailers at Sundance where I got five pairs of True Religion jeans and Ray Ban aviators in every style. I had only graduated from Berkeley and NYU, undergrad and grad respectively, leaving me with knots of inadequacy whenever I went out with him. I didn’t think I was smart or cool enough.
One night, after we ran into his close personal friends 50 Cent and David Sedaris at dinner, I crawled into bed—tipsy off of saketinis—and fell asleep. I had this crazy dream where the VJ and I ran into my close personal friends, Grace Jones and Rip Taylor. Rip and I left the boys alone so we could go into the bathroom and smoke a joint. Once in there, I had to pee. Rip dropped to his knees and opened his mouth. Since the other urinals were taken, I reluctantly unzipped and let it rip—no pun intended.
When I woke up I realized I had wet the bed. Before the stank of urine became unbearable, I tapped the VJ on the shoulder. He looked over at me and smiled, probably thinking that I was ready for action. But I just put his hand on the wet spot.
He told me not to worry and got up, changed the sheets, brought me a new pair of pajama bottoms and told me to get some sleep. In the morning he made me a big breakfast and even cracked a joke about “the incident”, comparing it to that Season 3 episode of Sex and the City where the politician asked Carrie to pee on him. We did the dishes together and then I accompanied him to the subway station where he left for a meeting with his editor.
When I got back to my apartment in Brooklyn, I found a beautifully wrapped box waiting for me on the steps of my brownstone. Inside were my toiletries and a pair of aviators I had left at his apartment the night before. There was also a card with his assistant’s contact information—specifically asking me to contact her in case I had forgotten anything else.
Janine leaned back in her chair. The waiter brought the bill, which she quickly snapped up. Lunch was on her. She handed the waiter her Amex Platnium card and thanked me for supplying her with material for her next five columns. When I tried to prod her for any insight, she said that she had to rush home to start writing. And that it would all be in her column—which comes out on Tuesdays.
**** Finally, I went to the person who I should have talked to all along. Dan is a Jesuit priest with a degree in Psychology. And my ex-boyfriend—who freaked out when I started researching adoption agencies in China and then joined the priesthood. Maybe Dan was the source of my relationship trauma. After all, he was my last serious boyfriend and ran away from me to be with God. How could I compete? More inadequacy issues. But regardless, he knew me better than anyone else. As a priest, he had that whole spiritual insight thing working for him. And he’s been in me.
Dan listened intently, asked me some significant questions about what I felt I needed at this point in my life. Then he asked me to say two Our Fathers and three Hail Marys.
“I’m kidding!” He took a sip from his martini. “Why is it that people think priests have no sense of humor?”
After two more cocktails, I finally worked up the nerve to tell him the real reason all of these questions had popped into my head recently. I met someone. And we sparked. I think. But, like always, I was second guessing myself. He seemed really great on paper, but is someone who’s great on paper great in reality? Am I cute enough? Smart enough? Interesting enough? Was he? Is this too much to be thinking about after a few weeks? From that point on, I had an avalanche of questions. An avalanche that kept me up nights, eating store bought, overly-mayonaised potato salad.
And then there was the matter of his two dogs, an Italian greyhound and a Shitzu.
“You’re thinking the dogs are a sign. That he’s a big lady.”
“He’s not a big lady. He goes to the US Open every year. But it might be a sign of something else.”
“Like if he’s able to love his dogs, he’ll be able to nurture a child one day—one from China, for example.”
“Not funny. There’s something I need to tell you about the dogs.”
“They smell.”
“No.”
“They poop everywhere.”
“No.”
“He doesn’t like to leave them alone, so you’re always at his house and you feel like he’s hiding you from the world. You feel like he’s ashamed of your relationship and maybe has another boyfriend.”
“Jesus Christ, now you sound like me. But that’s not it.”
“Another girlfriend?”
“NO!” I took a deep breath. “Dan, you have to listen to me with an open mind and an open heart.”
“Honey, I’m a priest. That’s in the job description.”
“The Italian rimmed me.”
“I thought you said he was Jewish.”
“The Italian greyhound! The greyhound ate me out—by accident! I think.”
Dan flagged down the waiter. “You don’t happen to have any holy water on tap, do you?” He turned back to me. “I’m kidding!”
**** I had decided not to mention anything to the guy about the Italian. Because then I just want to die of embarrassment and wet myself…or destroy a Krups XP 1500.
The molestation, if you will, only lasted a second…or two. When I realized what had happened, I turned around and made the guy—let’s just call him Philip—spoon with me.
After the management at the restaurant kicked us out for having “inappropriate conversations” in their “distinguished establishment”, Dan came home with me for the post-game wrap up. I badly needed his advice, as both my priest and my ex-lover. But all Dan was looking for was details. He went into my bedroom and came back out with the teddy bear my niece had left behind during her last visit.
“Okay, show me where the bad dog licked you.”
I closed my eyes and pointed to the area right below the top of the crack and above the anus. Since teddy bears aren’t made with ass cracks and anuses, we had to use our imagination. Dan just stared at the teddy bear’s backside with a mixture of awe and envy.
Even though the story was highly traumatizing for me, I felt like it was my duty to supply Dan with exciting stories from the front lines of the dating world. He hasn’t had sex in six years and the effects of chronic blue balls had started to wear on him. I felt bad…until he wanted me to demonstrate with my tongue what the dog had done to me. Then I had to send him home.
I stared at Teddy’s face. I thought I noticed a smile that wasn’t there before. Like he liked the anal tickle. Maybe I liked it. Maybe subconsciously I wanted it and the dog could smell it on me, so he went for it. There’s the distinct possibility that I might have leaned into it a bit too long before I turned around and made Philip spoon with me.
Another part of me thought he had planned it. Like it was just something he was into—like golden showers or fisting. Maybe light bestiality is the new bisexuality. Philip could be incredibly open-minded. I could stand to have some of my horizons broadened—whether or not those horizons include my anus, remains to be seen.
The other possibility is that Philip thinks I’m a total pervert who’s accusing his precious doggie of raping me with his tongue. He could be one of those dog people who put presents under the tree and has sweaters knitted for the winter. If I mention something to him, he might think I’m crazy. But I can’t imagine having to sleep with one eye open, two hands over my crotch and one ass pressed against Philip for the next twenty years. It’d be defensive spooning, which somehow seems dishonest. Besides, what would happen during the summer when it was too hot to cuddle?
I invited Philip over for dinner. That way we’d have some privacy and the Italian wouldn’t hear us talk about him. Oh wait, I kind of forgot to describe Philip. Is that good or bad?
He’s 6’2”, blond hair, blue eyes and this face that’s so sweet and clean that you know there’s something dirty behind it. Aside from that, he loves his friends—he talks about them all of the time— and he throws these big Sunday dinners. He also has five friends in his life that he’s known for over twenty years. If that weren’t enough, he describes his brother, who lives in San Francisco, as someone he’d want to be best friends with, even if they weren’t related. That’s almost too sweet.
And I think he might be funny. He likes to make silly faces at me across the dinner table when we’re out with his friends. And when I brought out matzo ball soup at the start of dinner, he started talking like the Jewish grandmother he never had.
The best thing is that he makes me more clever whenever I’m with him and I can’t help but smile if we’re in the same room. I’m practically a 16-year old girl when I’m around him (Oh my God, I just realized that I could totally like him). We banter and exchange knowing looks and lots of puns. I feel so well written around him.
It’s those sharp verbal skills, plus a sip of wine and a little prayer (Dan’s suggestion) that will serve me well when the moment comes for me to say something. I set my glass down and open my mouth right as Philip gets up from the table. Great! Exactly at the moment I finally have liquid courage and God on my side, he has to get up to pee. But instead, he comes over and grabs my hand. As I’m about to speak, he gently puts his finger over my mouth.
“Shhh. Let your eyes do all of the talking.”
That’s sweet.
“Plus, I need you to save your voice for later.”
That’s hot.
“Thanks for having me over tonight. It wouldn’t have been the same with the kids here.”
The kids? Did he just refer to his dogs as—
I decide to shut myself up. Okay, calling his dogs his kids might be a sign. But the fact that I let him lead me into the bedroom without thinking about anything, except the warmth and strength of his hand, was a sign too. It was a sign that I was still willing to be romanced despite all of the screwed up relationships I’ve had. It’s a sign that I’m not cynical, that I still believe in possibility. Maybe Philip does too.
And the dog thing? For some reason, it doesn’t seem like that big a deal any more. I’ll just wear boxers to bed next time. And if worse comes to worse, we’ll keep spooning.
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