9 posts from February 2009

What a difference an email makes.  I was, oh, 95% convinced Catherine was gone for good, and she sent me an email.

Catherine is charmingly direct when it comes to sex -- in a situation where another woman might at most have sighed, "I want to feel something inside me", she said, "Put your finger in my twat." -- but on subjects like relationships and emotions, she makes von Metternich sound plain-spoken as a cowpoke.  Her email went on for several paragraphs and I haven't a clue what she was actually saying, but the same way you can tell when even people speaking a foreign language are angry, I could tell it was good news.

Uh, I'm pretty sure.  I've told her the truth about me as best as I can, and she still seems to want to go forward.  I still don't have anything like an exact date, but hey, I'll see her again or I won't.  At least, it's still possible.

In other news, I called Laura, the lesbian I made out with at the party Saturday.  Well, she's basically a lesbian, but I'm hoping (and obviously, have reason to hope) that she isn't completely totally a lesbian, that she's like that vegetarian who's always haranguing people about how meat is murder and then sneaks into a KFC when nobody's looking.

She hadn't given her phone number, just her full name, but she's a moderately well-known attorney, so she was easy to find.  (Off topic but, does the fact that I think she's sexier now that I know she's a successful lawyer and I thought her oh-my-god-hot girlfriend Jasna slightly less hot when I found out that she works as a secretary make a feminist?  Or exactly the opposite?)

I left a voice-mail and she texted me back.  There was a crisis at her law firm (which I had actually read about in the paper) and she was in no mood to talk, but she would call me in a few days.  I texted back some (sincere) sympathy and we exchanged SMSs for a while.

Now, this is great.  I don't actually expect her to call me.  She may be a lesbian, but she's still a woman.  The important thing is, I can call her.  I've gotten over the first and most difficult two humps of a relationship.  The first, highest hump is the first 30 minutes after you meet a girl.  That's when she decides whether you're worth talking too.  I blew right over that hump: we had our hands on each other's reproductive organs, always a very good sign.  The next hump is when you have to call her.  There's all kinds of remorse that a girl has "about last night" -- especially if she can blame her own behavior on alcohol, and Laura was pretty thoroughly toasted.  This one (although, or because, it happened in the middle of a professional crisis for her) went well.  I can call her next week and we can celebrate or mourn the crisis's outcome.

A lot of things might happen now.  It's possible, though unlikely, she could back out of meeting me again.  It's more plausible that she will simply not like me -- my politics are very different from hers, and then there's the whole my-having-a-penis that might be problem.  However, it's also perfectly plausible that she will like me and want to have sex with me.  It's even within the realm of possibility that she and Jasna will have sex with me.

Which would be fine.

Catherine called again to tell me that she had just been in my neighborhood and had almost visited me.

Almost? Almost?  I haven't seen her for six weeks and she "almost" visits me? I compared her unfavorably to several species of domestic animals.  Not out loud, fortunately, because she had a good explanation.

She had a friend she had been seeing, and then decided he was not boyfriend material.  Of course, she couldn't just bring herself tell him, "So long, don't let the door hit you on the way out."  In the time-honored fashion of women everywhere, she just started ducking him -- not answering his calls, making excuses for not seeing him, the usual slow dump.  Saturday, she had gone over to see him, and he made himself so unpleasant -- even before she told him anything about their relationship being over -- that she walked out.  She felt a little relieved at not having to be the bad guy, but unsurprisingly depressed, decided to go home and go to bed.

I couldn't blame her for that, of course, and felt a little guilty for feeling better about her having bad day rather than a pleasant one.  Then she asked me a question.

A while ago, she had signed a letter "Love, Catherine".  I had to request she not to do that and now, she was asking me why.

I knew where this was going.  She talks big about enjoying casual sex but really, she is like any normal person in that she wants love to be part of her life.  Here's what I almost said:

The truth is, I'm afraid of love.  I've only been in love a few times and each time, I've gotten so badly mauled.  Look at my marriage.  If I weren't in love with my wife, I could probably either fix the relationship or, more likely admittedly, just part friends.  Love scares me, and I could only fall in love with someone very, very special.

Chicks eat shit like that up.

So why didn't I say that?  It wasn't true, but you know that doesn't usually stop me.  Maybe I'm too much of a coward to lie to someone I like so much, however much I thought it would help both of us.

Instead, I made the foolish decision to try to explain the truth.  I told her about what happened in New Orleans.  I told her how love for me is devastation -- not because it might go wrong, that's trivial, that's nothing; but inherently, just by existing, love takes such a huge chunk of your soul.

I asked her where that left us and she chattered on so cheerfully I began to feel better.  Maybe, despite everything, she could be the woman I needed.

Then I realized I was hearing a series of explanations -- temporizations, pre-excuses about how busy she was, vague un-promises like "we'll see" and "the situation is evolving".

I wanted to cry.  I wanted to shout into the phone.  "Just dump me!  Tell me there's no future, tell me you hate me."  Anything but this torture.

I went to the pool, swam until I could barely move my arms.  I tried to have dinner, tried to watch TV, tried to sleep.

I got up, wrote her two emails, one about love and one about sex.  I reread them this morning, they're almost incoherent.  She must think I'm insane.

I don't know what I'm going to do know.  I'll be surprised if I ever hear from her again and I'm trying to force myself to accept the great likelihood that I won't.

The party was dull, but there was food.  Steak even.  Still, what's the good of steak if you can't sit down?  I gingerly threaded my way through the crowd, shielding the plate of food with my body.  I was ravenous, to the point I was considering just picking up the small T-bone in one hand and eating like a chicken leg.  Through a momentary gap in the mob, I saw an empty chair, over against a wall.  I elbowed some people aside and plopped down in it.  The plate in my lap, I did my best cutting my food with plastic knife and fork.

"That meat looks good," the woman sitting next to me suddenly said.  "Is there any more?"

I had no idea whether there was any more or not, but this woman was a slightly prettier version of Milla Jovovich -- with the same engaging accent -- and I didn't want her going off to get her own.  "I think I took the last serving."

She smiled coyly.  "Can I have some of yours?"  I cut her off a generous piece, held it up to her on the tines of the plastic fork.  She took it into her mouth with all of the suggestiveness I could have possibly asked for.  I appealed to the Pick-Up Gods for an advance on next month's allotment of Be Fucking Cool, Dude. 

"Since we're dinner partners, maybe you should tell me your name?"

Her eyes were closed, she was savoring the bite.  "I'm Jasna."

From the seat on the other side of hers, another woman leaned around.  "And I'm Laura."  Laura was pretty in a dykey way: short-cut hair, strong cheekbones, lean and strong-looking.  She put a proprietary hand on Jasna's thigh.  "Give me some steak too."

Ohhh-kaayy.  I cut off another piece.  Laura snapped it off the fork like a hungry dog would. She chewed and bolted it.  She whispered something in Jasna's ear and stood up.

Jasna rolled her eyes.  "We have to go to the bathroom for some reason."  Laura towed her briskly away.

I sat there and finished the little that was left of my steak, then got up and tried to mingle.

After an hour or so of drifting around the house, I spotted Laura on the porch.  I moved in closer to watch.  She was talking to an enormously fat man with huge mustache.  She was smoking and telling the man that second-hand smoke was a myth spread by the insurance companies.  I had only momentarily seen her standing up and now, with time to look, I was surprised.  She had seemed like the kind of woman forever in casual clothes, denim jacket, cargo pants, but she was actually wearing a very, very short dress, sequined and slinky.  She also had very nice long, slender feminine legs -- in fishnet stockings, of all things.  I left her to harangue the fat man and went in search of Jasna.

Jasna was alone in the pool room, not playing but just perched on the rail of the table.  When I walked in, she picked up a cue-stick and began to chalk it languorously.  I like unsubtle women.  In the almost empty room, we stood very close.

"You look a little lonely."

"I'm sometime alone, but never lonely."

I came even closer.  "You want me to leave?"  This must have been too theatrical even for her: she hopped up and began walking around the table, shooting random billiard balls into random pockets.

"You're cute, but you're not as cute as you think you are," she told me, executing a creditable massé.

"I know I'm not cute, but I'm good at acting as if I think I am."

She put the stick down, honestly puzzled.  "Why would you want to do that?"

"It works on women.  You people like guys who think they're attractive more than guys that think that you're attractive.  Why, I don't know."

"You're giving away your secrets.  You aren't supposed to do that, are you?"

"You're thinking of magicians."  Someone walked by in the hall and she startled.

"Laura's out on the porch."  I meant, of course, that we were alone, but she seemed to take it as a suggestion that she go find her, and she headed out of the room.  I called out, "She's very possessive."

Jasna stopped at the door.  "She loves me," she explained without turning around.

"If you love something, set it free," I quoted, but she was gone.

I racked the balls, broke, and ran the table.

I usually stay away from loud music so I don't know why I ended up in the basement, where the DJ had set up.  The low-ceiling room was crammed with revelers, hopping and swaying in the deafening beat, and I strode through stolidly, looking for God knows what.  I saw the sequined dress before I saw Laura.  She was a good dancer, sinuous, intense.  I began to dance too, in my awkward way, moving closer to her.  An accident of the crowd's flow pushed us together.  She was tall, almost my height, and I put my hand on the small of her back, crushed her against me.  She writhed, rubbing me with her breasts, she nuzzled my neck, she nipped my ear.  She turned, reached back to rake my groin with her fingernails, and was gone into the crowd.

Jasna must have a thing for empty rooms.  When I saw her again, she was lying on top of the bed-covers in an upstairs bedroom.  She was lying flat, eyes closed.  She was dressed in leather -- slick leather pants and an elaborate leather bustier.  I thought she might be sleeping or feigning sleep, but when I stood by the bed, she said, "I was waiting for you." 

I put one knee on the bed and she instantly rolled off the other side and got to her feet.  "You were waiting for me to give me your spot in bed?"

"Maybe.  Maybe I wasn't waiting for you, just wondering how long it would take for you to get here."

"And?"

"Too long."

"What would I have won if I'd gotten here sooner?"

"I don't know.  What would you want?"

I couldn't think of any answer but the truth, so I just allowed myself a faint smile, and she did the oddest thing: she began to sing.  She had a lovely voice, clear and sweet.  The song was odd too, almost a chant, but with a lovely lilting music to it.

Put a little color, a bit of red
red like love, forever
and then a little yellow, for a sunny day
and for clear sky, you know

Laura came in while Jasna was singing, she slipped her arm around my waist as we listened.  She pressed against me and whispered, "Isn't she talented?"  I kissed her, her mouth tasted of menthol and smoke.  Jasna went on with her love song.  I backed Laura against the door-jamb, kissing her delicately but less delicately running my hands over her body.  I hiked up her sequined dress and slid my fingers under the lacy thong, running them back to front, from the cool silky skin of her buttocks to the much warmer clime of her groin.  She broke the kiss to tell me, "You're so bad."

"I'm Satan himself," I said, and pushed against her all the harder.

Tell me I am silly, singing silly songs
but you can't do anything, I am laughing
because I'm in love
because I'm in love again

As Jasna sang, she drifted closer to the two of us.  When she got within reach, I put out one arm towards her.  "Don't touch me," she spat at me.

Laura broke our embrace, gave me an apologetic shrug, and took Jasna's hand.  They walked out of the room and were gone.

Catherine calls me out of the blue.  She chatters about all sorts of things, so I know there is something particular she wants to say, but is avoiding it.  Finally, she says, "So, I'm consolidating."  Consolidating?  "Yeah, I'm consolidating my list of men-friends.  Pruning it, you might say."

Uh-oh.

I mean, uh-oh.  Bad enough there's a list, but now, apparently, I'm off it.  I am standing on my balcony to take the call, I can see my wife inside, industriously making the bed and neatening up.  I feel hollow, like empty clothes on a line in a cold wind.

Catherine continues, "So this is good for you.  I mean, not to be egotistical, but since I'm concentrating on quality over quantity, I'll have more time for you."  Oh, so I'm not off the list.  "It's all a matter of scheduling."  This is good, very good.

Isn't it?  Why do I feel ... off?

I realize what it is: simple, stupid jealousy.  "The green-eyed monster that doth mock the meat it feeds upon."  Jealousy is always foolish, but this situation -- a married man possessive of another man's wife, a woman I have met twice in my life -- is beyond ordinary descriptions like "foolish" or "stupid".  It's the logic of some brute, a dog or an ape, shaved and taught to walk upright.  I can argue with the animal, ridicule its slavering unreason, defeat it in a debate, but Catherine says the name "Brian" (or "Richard" or "Jeff" -- other survivors from her list) and my hands reflexively curl into fists.

I relax my fingers, steeple them thoughtfully.  She's just a friend, just a friend-with-maybe-benefits, but exclusivity is anathema to her and if it weren't, it would be an exclusivity that excluded me first and foremost, so what exactly am I hoping for?

I tell her about Maura, hoping in a juvenile way to make her jealous -- she of course is so far from that frame of mind she doesn't even guess what I'm doing, for which I feel grateful, and even offers encouragement and advice, for which I feel grateful and guilty.

I get a call from a head-hunter (that is, a recruiter, a person whose job it is to find jobs for others).  She has, she says, a wonderful opportunity.  She describes it in some detail -- it does sound quite attractive -- and asks me to meet her at her office downtown to discuss it more.  A few days later, I do -- she sits me down and tells me straight out that, not one half-hour before, the client called, changed his mind about the job qualifications, and I'm no longer suitable.

This could be a very different story.  It's odd on its face: I've worked with two dozen recruiters or more in my life, never have I met one of them in person; they work on the phone, the fax, through email.  On top of that, the position being altered just in that brief window of time during which the meeting could not be canceled?  Implausible.  It's something: a scam, a trick, something.

But this isn't -- so far -- that kind of story.  I made the meeting not because I was curious about the job, I was curious about the recruiter.  Most recruiters are salesmen, and their voices are the honeyed, ingratiating voices of salesmen.  There are no jobs but "opportunities"; no company is less than "exciting"; no investor below "top tier".

This woman, her voice on the phone at least, was different.  She sounded friendly, open, innocent; she sounded like someone wearing cutoff blue-jeans and no shoes.  I was curious, as I said.  I wanted to confirm my suspicion that she was a forty-ish, with librarian glasses, overpriced sunglasses, thick makeup, and a pack-a-day cigarette habit.

When I actually found her, she was exactly what I didn't expect, exactly because she matched her voice so perfectly: open, angelic face;  long kittenish body, just slightly ungainly like an adolescent suddenly grown taller than her friends.

As we walked to the conference room, she told me her name, Maura, was from Gaelic; and she had just started working as a recruiter.  I already knew the first and guessed the second, but just smiled.

We sat across from each other and she drew a breath, giving away that bad news was coming.  Not, of course, that I cared.  She wasn't wearing a ring (thank you, God) but she was wearing a small gold cross (fuck you, God, I'm going to try to bed her anyway).  She concluded her long explanation of why the position was no longer open.  I was barely listening, of course, but had maintained a carefully manufactured look of alert interest and now it was time to respond.

"C'est la vie," I told her.  She looked puzzled.  "It's Gaelic."

"It's French," she blurted out, then realized I was teasing her.  "I mean, I was expecting you to be disappointed more."

"Life is full of surprises, most pleasant, but not all."  She seemed to melt a little at this fortune-cookie wisdom.

We talked for half an hour, mostly about jobs and work, but also about her.  She told me she had just "gotten back together with her boyfriend" -- I didn't know how to score that.  Was she skeptical about the relationship?  Or was she cherishing its fragility?

At the end, she said she would try to get me an interview with her client.  They had changed the qualifications but -- and she looked at me appraisingly and said, "You're special."

So I'm special.  I am special.  Am I special in the Maura wants to get me a new job way, or in the Maura wants to fuck me way?  We'll see.

That night, I sent her an email, thanking her for her time, telling her that I think I would be good for the job, and asking her to lunch to talk about it more.  She wrote back, very cheerful, saying lunch would be great and -- either because she sensed I might be getting too friendly or just because God really loves punching me in the same place twice -- that it would give me an opportunity to meet her colleague Achmed, who was working with her on the same account.

I'm going, of course.  Maybe Achmed will come down with trichinosis and won't be able to make it.

I got into a big fight with my wife.  And not our usual bi-monthly snarl-fest, but a true Battle of the Somme, bitter, unforgiving, seemingly endless.  As it happened, my kid and Selena's kid had a play-date that afternoon, so I looked forward to at least a sympathetic ear.  Not to be: Selena brought not only her son, but some friend-of-a-friend visiting from New Zealand of all places.  He looked a lot like David McCallum, if you remember him, and Selena seemed to be fascinated by him.

OK, it's never a good sign when the girl you are trying to get into bed brings a date.  I decided not to sulk and certainly not to mention the row with my wife.  Instead, I told them about my long-ago trip to Australia, one of the most disastrous and frustrating 10 days of my life, but funny in retrospect.

Funny enough that even I was cheered up.  When we (the kid and I) got home, I had mostly managed to forget that when we had left, I was half expecting my wife to be gone when we returned.

But she was there, sitting at the dining-room table, a dozen stumps of candles burning around her, hitting the bottom of an empty bottle of chardonnay with the flat of her hand, as if it were ketchup, trying to get the last few drops into her glass.  "I've been waiting for you."

Despite her state, she managed to efficiently bundle the kid off to bed.  She pulled me to our bedroom.  Things had deteriorated enough lately that I had been sleeping on the couch for the last week.  She pushed me down on the bed.  "I know what you think.  I know."

"What do I think?" I asked sullenly.

"You think you ... you think I don't love you."  What could I say to that? "But there's a saying: in vino vinta .. inverted ..."

"In vino veritas? In wine, truth?"

"That's it!  There's truth in card, shard..."

"Chardonnay?"

"That's it.  You can see I'm too drunk.  I can't lie, right?   Too drunk.  I love you, I do."  She kissed me, laid her head on my chest.  "Tell me you believe me."

I'm skeptical of anything anyone says drunk.  On the other hand...  I opened my mouth, hoping something helpful to say would occurred to me.  She made a strange noise, and I guessed at first that she was sobbing.  It was too rhythmic and sonorous and I realized she was snoring.

The next morning, there was no sign of the previous night.  She was in bed next to me, watching a morning TV-talk show.  I got up, looked around.  The dining room was clean: no candle wax, no bottles, no glasses.  Experimentally, I brought her a glass of ice-water; she invariably has a raging thirst after she's had too much wine.  She took the glass with a cheery "Thanks, hon."

I sat on the bed next to her.  "Do you remember last night?  What you said?"

She finished the water.  "I remember everything I said."  She took my hand and pulled it under the comforter, tucked it between her legs.  "Do you remember what you said?"

"I didn't say anything."

"That's right," she agreed.  "You didn't."

Finally met up with Selena and had a damn good time.  She acts so tough and doesn't realize just how vulnerable (appealingly vulnerable, of course) it makes her look.  Her life is unbelievably arduous compared to mine.  She's poor as a church-mouse, in poor health, stuck in a series of low-paying jobs, and unsurprisingly bitter about all of it.

We hung out all afternoon, even went (and I'm not kidding) shoe shopping.  The next day, she called me and we met for a drink at a gay bar downtown.  The day after that, she asked me to take her on some errands.
I had the day off and she left work at noon.  First stop was the drug store and she asked me to wait in the car while she ran in.  I said fine and turned on the radio as she left.

And I got to thinking.  Item one: she left work awfully early, we have four hours or more for what sounds like a half-hour worth of errands.  Item two: her kid is at school, so her apartment, which, hmmm, is only a few blocks from the drug store, is empty.  Item three: she asked me to wait in the car while she went into the drug store.  Why would that be?

Duh!  She's in there buying condoms!  Or something like that, something that she needs for sex and she doesn't want me to see her buying it (or doesn't want the clerk to watch me hovering around while she does).  That has to be it!  Doesn't it?

I looked through the windshield up into the empty.  "Please," I said out loud. "I know You don't exist, but I'd still appreciate this one little favor."

Apparently not.  Selena did not return for almost 45 minutes and when she did she was pissed.  There was some mix up with her prescription for something.  We drove over to her doctor's office and she went in; then back to the drug store.

Each stop took forever, and her getting a little bottle of tablets ate up most of the afternoon.  Then we did the most bizarre thing, just because it was so normal: we picked our kids from school and took them out for burgers.  The kids got along great, just fast friend in spite of the four-year age difference.

In fact, it now looks like my kid is going to babysit for her kid.  I don't know whether to add "of course" or "whaaa?"

I had the oddest conversation with Selena.

First, I picked her up for lunch.  I hadn't seen her in five years and didn't have a clear memory of what she used to look like, but she had obviously been under considerable strain.  She told me, in an amused voice, her litany of woes: her own poor health, her poor job prospects, the ordinary and extraordinary difficulties of being a single mother.

We sat in the tiny restaurant perched precariously over the Bay, and talked about happier things.  She is an odd, odd girl, but she made me laugh and I wanted so much to kiss her.  Her phone went off -- a timer, not an incoming call, it was time to pick up her son from school.  I offered to drive her over and she visibly relaxed a degree.  I thought about the strains of getting half-way across town, picking up a small boy, and getting him home, without a car, and without cash for a cab.

So we drove over and I told her a little about the Project.  Actually, I just told her about Ella and about getting assent from my wife.  She seemed truly interested in the project, but if she grasped what it had to do with her personally, she gave no indication.  I left a conversational pause where she might drop some sort of hint.  Finally , I said, "I'm trying to get up the nerve to proposition you here."

"Yeah," she agreed conversationally, and launched into a long disquisition of the subject of "sex as fun", at the end of which I hadn't the slightest idea whether she wanted to sleep with me or not.  I tried taking her hand.  She brushed it off.  "Hey, this is supposed to be fun, not romance.  How much luck have you had?"

I gave her some of the less gory details, including a fair amount about Catherine.  Selena was very enthusiastic about Catherine, gave me some advice (which, in my opinion, seemed much more practical to apply on Selena herself than Catherine).

We picked up her boy and she continued to give me advice.  I was mortified, the kid was only about eight or so, but very bright, and his mother was in the front seat, giving an obviously married man advice about picking up girls.  Selena had to run into the store for something, and the boy and I chatted.  He seemed to have ignored his mother's discussion with me, but wanted to tell me which TV shows he thought were "inappropriate for a small child" like him.

"If they're inappropriate for a small child, why are you watching them?"

"Well I think they're inappropriate," he explained blandly, "but Selena doesn't."  Obviously, there's a lot to the relationship between a single mother and an only child that I don't understand.

Selena came back with her purchase.  She gave me a peck on the cheek.  "We're taking the bus the rest of the way."  It was only a half-dozen blocks or so, but still: wouldn't a ride in the car (my wife's Subaru again) been easier than the bus?  Somehow, I didn't think I should object.  The boy gathered his stuff and popped out of the car without demurrer.  I watched the mother and child rush toward the arriving bus.

Selena had clearly been dodging me.  After being so excited about going to Paris, she again and again put off seeing me and didn't return a few phone calls.  I decided to leave a message on her voice mail and here's what I was planning to say:

It's been a while I haven't heard from you.  If this is the slow-dump, please send me an email and I'll stop calling you.  If you just need to back down from some things we both said [meaning the trip to Paris], that's cool.  All I really wanted was to be your friend.

I don't know if that would have been a good thing to say but as it turned out, it didn't matter.  I call her, got sent to voice-mail, but before I could say anything, Selena called back.  I hung up on the machine, talked, for better or worse, to the real girl.

It was a very strange conversation: the old opaque Selena was back.  It was like reading a newspaper in a dictatorship: reports of how healthy El Supremo is means he's ill; stories of prosperity and success means the economy is getting worse.  Selena would say things like, "I am certainly not the kind of person to tell you your troubles are trivial compared to mine" or "I'm not one to judge other people" -- meaning exactly the opposite of course.

I felt that old fascination.  Who is this mysterious, troubled woman?  What is she? What happened to her? Could I save her?  I have changed enough, though, so see the futility and aridity of the attraction.

And I realized I was not going to Paris with her -- and that even if I did, I would rather go with Catherine.  I began to wish I had never invited her, or at least, never told Catherine I had, because now if I do what I want and ask Catherine, she'll think she's my second choice.

I'm having a house party next week; both Selena and Catherine are invited.  I'm betting 3 to 2 that Selena will show up, and 4 to 1 that Catherine won't, and I wish it were the other way around.