Unwifeable(58)

“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t want a Post reporter to die on me, man.”

I wish I could say the same.



* * *




NOTHING REALLY FILLS me up anymore, so I decide I might as well just say yes to everything.

As I’m on my way home to my apartment one evening, carrying some groceries I’ve just picked up at the store, a good-looking man approaches me.

“Excuse me,” he says.

“What?” I ask, looking into his eyes, which approach a color close to blackness.

“I wanted to ask you,” he says, looking at me and my bag of groceries. “Would you want to get a drink sometime? I find you very attractive. My name is Carlos.”

“How does now suit you?” I ask.

With me still carrying my bag of now-spoiling groceries, we walk together to Spring Lounge.

“I should tell you something,” Carlos says when we sit down. “About three years ago, I hit on you when you lived in Park Slope.”

He then repeats line for line everything he said and how I reacted. I have to admit, I’m a little weirded out.

“Wait, you didn’t, like, follow me and find out where I live to hit on me again, did you?”

“No,” he says. “Nothing like that.”

I’m not entirely convinced, but he can’t be any more dangerous than all the assorted strangers I’ve kept company with of late in my little apartment-cum-sadness brothel. Fuck it. Who cares.

But when the two of us finally go over to his apartment, I see laid out on his desk a bunch of clippings from the Post scattered around, Homeland theory corkboard style.

“What the hell,” I say. “You are stalking me, aren’t you?”

“You think too much of yourself,” he says.

We go into his bedroom, which is painted completely black, and lie down on his air mattress.

“Can you grab me a beer?” I ask. “I think I need to drink in order to hang out with you.”

We drink and talk and drink and talk, fool around a little, get naked, come close to having sex, and eventually we are talking again. He asks me why I got divorced.

So I tell him how my ex cheated on me and then maybe I veer off into sadness, talking about being sad and trying to have the courage to be an authentic human being.

“I want some attention,” he says. Then he gets on top of me and thrusts his uncircumcised cock into my dry vagina. He groans and it’s over fairly quickly.

“What the fuck,” I say. “I wasn’t ready for sex.”

“That was not sex,” he says. “That was rape.”

I turn to him, aghast.

“It was a joke,” he says. “You do not get my sense of humor.”

No, I get it all right.

Then because he had not gotten his fill of debasement, perhaps, he grabs one of our empty beer bottles and penetrates me. I don’t say no. I am not forced. But it is bleak, man. I would say the whole experience feels like a “consensually abusive” romp.

“I don’t want to date you,” I tell him eventually. “This is over.”

“Well,” says Carlos, always the master troll, “if I shoot myself in the head two months from now, it is not because of you.”

I shake my head and leave. He follows me for a little bit, but eventually, I lose him.



* * *




I WISH I could say that all these twisted and depraved sexual misadventures were wake-up calls for me. But no, all they do is make me wax nostalgic for my days as the secret girlfriend to a rich dude whose biggest relationship skill was in wasting a few years of my thirties. How the hell is Blaine anyway? On a whim, when Fashion Week rolls around, I invite him to a big supermodel party at Rose Bar. I don’t want to date him again. But I think that looking in his eyes will remind me of a simpler, depressing-for-totally-different-reasons time not so long ago.

When I spot Blaine across the room, I make my usual nightmare-grade inappropriate small talk (“Hey, guess what, I tried cocaine for the first time!”), and all the while proceed to slam down martini after martini. I find him boring, and I want to make sure he knows that. So as Blaine watches, I begin to flirt with everyone in the immediate vicinity—his friends, the caterers, my coworkers, gay men just trying to get out of my way—until eventually the night kind of blurs out. But I do have the photographic evidence to document what happens next. Because I go home with an actual photographer.

We apparently go to several more bars that night in which I pose and smile with empty dead eyes and duck face. The next morning, I come to consciousness again. I didn’t fall asleep this time. I was just—not there at all—even though I seemed like I was.

When I realize that this photographer is fucking me without a condom, my stomach turns.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I say, and race to the bathroom and begin vomiting.

As I’m puking my guts out, Garth the photographer compliments me all the while.

“I don’t think you realize how hot you are,” he says, which just makes me puke even more. “I’m never going to wash my fingers again.”

When I finally lift my head off the toilet, I tell him why I got so drunk, how stupid I am, how I invited Blaine to the party, and apparently all of this makes a very memorable impression. Because, I kid you not, a few days later, Garth texts me a picture—of Blaine. Garth runs into him at some socialite party he’s covering, and somehow, Garth puts two and two together that Blaine is the ex I told him about in between vomit takes.