How Long You Should Wait to Have Sex: a Novel (3 page)

“They just assume that you’re fat, and you won’t make their clothes look good anyway, so they don’t make cute designs in that size. And you can forget it if you’re a skinny 32 or 34-D like me! Then they assume you have fake ones and you don’t need to wear a bra—so there is literally nothing on the shelves. Having real boobs has always been such a burden for me… But now that I can squeeze them into a C, there’s like a whole new world of cute bras for me to try! Do you like this one?”

She pulls the top of her dress down, exposing her bra to me and The Apartment Sevens. I smile awkwardly at them.

“Yeah, it’s cute, now put those away.”

“What? I’m just trying to be positive about one of the great things that’s happened to me because I’m getting older.” Then, noticing my dress, “I thought you were supposed to wear purple?”

“Yeah, I know,” I answer, as we finally take our turn walking out of the building and toward the waiting taxi.

“Well I hope you’re not too disappointed if this thing doesn’t work out tonight.”
“Why wouldn’t it work out?”

“Because, Sam, you can’t just produce your life like it’s some PR event.”

“Sure I can. That’s what I do best.”

~

As we get in the taxi, I tell the driver where we’re going, “Do you know K-bar? On Union Street?”

“I looked it up on Google,” Lacey interjects, “and I realized that I know K-bar. That’s where I was the night I met that sexologist I told you about.”

“Oh, the one who teaches in the PhD program at U.C. Berkeley?”

“Yeah!”

“Didn’t you have sex with him?” That perks up our cab driver’s ears. There’s usually about a 50-50 chance they speak English, but I’ve found that talking about sex is always a good way to figure out if you’re speaking privately or not.

Lacey also notices that he’s paying attention, and that may be why she plays up her disgust, “Eiw! No! He’s gross! And he’s a sexologist! For a living.”

“That’s why I’m surprised you would turn him down,” I joke, “he probably knows some things!”

Lacey shushes me as she holds back laughter and signals with her eyes that the cab driver is listening.

We decide not to talk for the rest of the ride, but after we get out of the cab and pay him, our cab driver and his accent let us know that he has his own wicked sense of humor, “Back in my country, I was sexologist, too.”

Lacey and I let out the laugh we’ve been holding in since the topic was introduced, as we slam the taxi doors and run away toward the bar. I’m glad the cab driver waited until we were getting out of his car to chime in with that tidbit. The rest of the ride would’ve been really awkward otherwise.

Before entering K-bar, I take a deep breath to calm down and center myself, as I prepare to walk in and meet the man I’ve forgotten to look for, but have been waiting my whole life to find. This is it. This is my moment. This is my last chance. Here we go.

Chapter 4

K-bar, while not particularly crowded yet, is as expected, already loaded with hot, age-appropriate men. I’m pretty sure that I have something to do with this.

“Nice choice,” Lacey clearly agrees with my assessment as she looks around. Or maybe she’s referring to the cozy yet upscale atmosphere. The design is luxuriously clean, like a $500 a night hotel room in any modern city, and it has the kind of lighting that makes everyone look like they’re gracing the pages of Vanity Fair. It’s fantasy inducing, almost as if it were whispering into your ear that you are about to embark on a very special night. And it was right. We were.

A group of girls screams loudly for no identifiable reason. Then a flash photo goes off, taking their picture, and everyone in the bar turns to see what the commotion is all about.

“I hope I never come off that desperate for attention!” Lacey scoffs. Then in what can only be described as a desperate cry for attention, she whips off her coat, revealing her form-fitting outfit, throwing back her hair, and jutting out her size Cs that used to be Ds. She has clearly stopped worrying about whether or not her nipples are pointing straight.

As we approach the bar, she brings up the sexologist again, “The thing about him, too, was that he wasn’t the one night stand type, you know, and I just can’t afford to get involved with another guy who’s got no money.”

“If you don’t like him, then why are we still talking about him?”

“I don’t know. I mean, it’s so rare that you meet a nice guy who’s probably good in bed, and wants a serious relationship.”

“So basically, you just didn’t want him.”

“I wanted to want him. I just couldn’t get myself to want him because—" despite the fact that we are in a loud bar, she feels the need to lower her voice for this next part just in case someone might find out that she’s as superficial as the rest of mankind, “—he’s just not that hot, okay?”

Which is when a pleasant male voice decides to join our conversation, “Who’s not hot?” He walks up behind us at the bar, “Because if by any chance you are thinking about me long enough to talk shit behind my back, I seriously could not be more flattered by that!”

Lacey pulls some girl-a-tude as she turns to face our mystery man, “That is the worst pick up line I—“ She sees him and screams, shocked! Her surprise causes her arms to flail, knocking the man’s drink, and spilling it all over my carefully selected dress! Lacey speechlessly stares at him. He quickly grabs a cocktail napkin from the bar and begins blotting my dress.

“Sorry,” he says, before adding in jest, “but really it was her fault.”

Meanwhile Lacey is standing behind him, frantically pointing and mouthing, “That’s him!” Hi-larious. How did this happen to her? The one person who hears her comment, is the one guy she is trying to keep it from. And she actually went to the trouble of lowering her voice! In a bar!

Before I get a chance to ask, our new friend breaks it down for me, “Hi, I’m Marty. Marty Lowenthal. Lacey and I are old friends.” He instantly realizes that’s not true, probably taking his cue from the incredulous look on my face. “What I mean is, not really. We met the last time we were here. So we go ‘way back’ in a colloquial way. And when I say, ‘the last time we were here’, that’s not entirely true either, it’s more like the last time we were both here at the same time, because I’ve been here quite a few times since, even though she hasn’t.” Okay, now I’m starting to understand why she didn’t have sex with him. He may have picked up on that because he keeps going, “That sounded weird. It’s not that I’ve been looking for her, or anything…” his words fade off, as he realizes he’s just making things worse, and he somewhat changes the subject. “Nice people at this bar.”

As fun as it is watching him squirm, I’ve had about as much as I can handle. I stave off his continued wiping and blotting of my dress, and excuse myself, “Thanks for trying, Marty, but I need to fix this mess. I’ll be right back.” I head to the bathroom to clean myself up.

“What are you doing, Sam? Where are you going? I should go with you!” Lacey exclaims in a panic as she chases after me, clearly trying not to be left alone with the charming but dorky Marty Lowenthal, sexologist PhD.

~

When she finds me in the bathroom cleaning myself off, Lacey is rightfully freaked out, “Why would you leave me alone with him?!” Then, not waiting for an answer, “Do you see what I mean?”

“Well at least now I’m wearing purple!”

This leads Lacey to realize another thing she doesn’t like about him, “Was he drinking a Cosmo?”

I’m actually starting to feel bad for the guy. And I can’t help but wonder if Lacey’s self-esteem wouldn’t be lifted by dating a guy who worships her for once, instead of all those hot guys with “hot guy” attitude that she’s usually attracted to. Marty is the kind of guy who deserves to be seen with a girl like Lacey. And if Lacey ever dated someone smart like Marty; that would be a lesson to all those jerks who thought she was nothing but a hot body with a pretty face propped on top of it. I decide to defend the poor guy.

“Come on, Lacey, Marty isn’t so bad. He’s really cute in a ‘nothing special’ sort of way. And I’ll bet his baby pictures are adorable!” Lacey once told me that it helps her to know what a guy looked like when he was younger, because most kids are cute, and by visualizing a guy’s younger self, she can see past his old rough skin and the layers of age-related fat he’s accumulated, to what was adorable about him before he grew to look so tired. I kinda get that.

“You think?”

“Yeah! I mean he did just put a major damper in my plans to meet the love of my life tonight. But his whole over-sharing thing is hilarious!”

“Really? I find it pathetic.” I could see where she gets that. But as far as I’m concerned, that type of pre-judgment, based on superficial quirks is what leads her to her whole problem with men. She always falls for the games, and in so doing, she always ends up dating jerks.

“You just don’t like him because he likes you. But I’ll tell you one thing, Lacey, a guy like that will never cheat on you.” She considers what I said, and I think I may have gotten through to her.

~

Unfortunately, Marty blows all my brilliant prepping by looking like an eager beaver waiting for us as we come out of the bathroom.

“Oh look, you’re here,” Lacey remarks sarcastically, while shooting me a look that says, “Do you see what I mean?” And I do a little bit.

“Well you did spill my drink,” Marty retorts, in good fun, “so I was thinking that you probably want to buy me a new one.” And that’s the kind of thing you should say if you want to be introduced to Lacey’s icy death glare. I respond to the humor of his comment, of course, but Lacey is not amused. Marty isn’t dumb, though, he quickly understands that the humor was lost on her, and finally gets to the thing he was trying to say from the start. “Look if you don’t want to buy me a drink, I was thinking that maybe I could buy you one.”

She looks at him annoyed, “Fine, Marty. But it’s going to take a lot more than one drink to get me to sleep with you.”

Marty isn’t scared of that, “Good to know.”

Suddenly I realize that I left my purse in the bathroom. Lacey’s not going to like it, but I have to leave her alone with Marty again, “I’ll meet you guys over there. I forgot my purse in the ladies’ room.” I point to the bathroom as I whip around and bang right into another man, who spills yet another drink on me!

“Oh, no! So sorry,” he says. This night is not going at all like I planned. I try to maintain my sense of humor so that I don’t lose all hope of meeting someone great tonight. Men are not attracted to girls who are in pissy moods.

Half to myself I mutter, “I guess it’s only appropriate for a dress I pulled out of the dirty laundry.” And then I look up at him… I only wish I had looked at him before I made that stupid comment about the laundry because He. Is. Perfect.

His deep dark blue eyes stare at me sympathetically, as he flips his brown straight hair off of his forehead. Without giving him too obvious of a once over I can tell that his body is slim, his stature is confident, and he has a smile that goes on for days. How can I fix what I just said?

“When I said ‘dirty laundry’ before, I meant that as a metaphor.” He laughs sweetly. “Sure, I’ve got dirty laundry,” I go on, “who doesn’t?” I should stop talking, but his adorable way of laughing complicitly at every awkward thing I say, inspires me to continue, as if I were some hilariously funny stand-up comic, “I mean if this dress could talk!” Then, quickly correcting myself, “--Not that it would say anything bad about me… if dresses talked…” I taper off, not wanting to add any more nonsensical banter to his first impression of me. I’m starting to understand how Marty must’ve felt.

That said, this gorgeous stranger crouching across from me is chuckling throughout my silliness. He has apparently completely overlooked the fact that I’m making no sense whatsoever, and I actually think he’s enjoying my embarrassment in some sick, twisted, and deeply charmed way.

“Actually, this is the second drink that was spilled on me tonight,” I admit.

“I’m so sorry,” he says sincerely, “let me make it up to you. What are you having?”

“Anything that’s clear,” I reply, “seeing as how it’ll probably end up on my dress.”

He laughs once again. I’m starting to think he likes me, which is great news because I like him, too. Why wouldn’t I? He laughs at everything, and he never stops smiling, which is totally endearing because it makes him look like he’s always having fun, or perpetually happy. That’s the kind of person I need in my life. Is it too soon to be thinking about marriage? Well, I don’t even know his name, so probably yes. Thankfully, he is ready to overcome that obstacle.

“I’m John. You’re funny.”

“No actually, I’m Samantha.” He laughs again, as I realize that my name might ring a bell for him, after all, I did make a plan to have a plethora of eligible men whom I don’t know meet me here tonight. I decide to explain further, “I was supposed to wear purple.”

He stares at me blankly.

“Samantha. Purple. K-Bar. That means nothing to you?”

He shakes his head no, still smiling happily.

“Okay,” I give up, “I’m gonna go clean up, and I’ll meet you at the bar.”

He nods, and we go our separate ways.

O. M. G. that was exciting! He is so hot. And his smile is so sweet. And those eyes, they’re so kind and innocent, like a puppy dog, begging to be loved. And the way he laughs, like he’s enjoying life, like he’s enjoying me… I can’t believe my plan is working. I put it out there that I wanted to meet him, and I made it happen, with three hours left to go! Even if, in this case, I didn’t actually “make” it happen. Whatever. It is happening!

Chapter 5

John and I have been drinking, talking, and laughing for a while now, and so far I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping my cool despite the fact that I’m already crazy about this guy. The way he smiles all the time, and laughs sympathetically at absolutely everything I say, good or bad, makes me feel like he totally gets me. He gets my sense of humor. He gets what makes me angry, and passionate. And somehow, he manages to keep a positive attitude about everything. He even manages to find a positive outlook on my boss, when I explain all the ways in which Henry is indisputably, out of his mind sadistic. I wish I could look at everything as optimistically as John does. Well, maybe if I get to hang out with him enough, I’ll be forced to meet him at his level of optimism. I’d love to figure out how to do that.