Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me (10 page)

Warm Regards,
Tom

Lesson#14

I Am a Gay Man

by Dan Savage

Wendy had something special, a certain something very few twenty-one-year-old women have today. Wendy had pubic hair.

Wendy’s pubes were the only thing that came to mind after I spent two days wracking my brain trying to think of something nice to say about her vagina. Wendy was good to me. She gave me what she thought I wanted—no, that’s not fair. She gave me what I told her I wanted. She gave me what I had spent the previous three years trying to convince myself I wanted.

Pussy.

And how do I pay her back? Two decades later I write an essay about how thoroughly her vagina horrified me. (Please note: I said Wendy’s vagina horrified
me
, I didn’t say Wendy’s vagina was
horrifying
. It’s an important distinction, one we’ll be discussing further, at length.)

I wanted to open up by saying one nice thing about Wendy’s vagina—I didn’t want to come across as a gay cad (a gad?)—before I set off on a little stroll down Repressed Memory Lane. So here it is: Wendy’s vagina was well concealed. Unlike today’s waxed, shaved, defoliated, clear-cut vaginas, Wendy’s vagina was discretely hidden under what, by modern standards, could only be described as a Van Gogh haystack of curly brown pubic hair.

Wendy’s vagina was nothing like the glistening pink roadkill I’d seen in my older brothers’ porn magazines. It was so well concealed, I didn’t get a really good look at it. Not that I tried, mind you. Whether I failed to get a good a look at Wendy’s vagina because her pubic hair concealed it so completely or because my eyes instinctively shifted from her knees to her navel and back, skipping everything in between, well, that’s lost in the mists of time. Whatever the reason, whatever resulted in Wendy’s vagina being so well concealed—her pubic hair or my squeamishness—I am forever grateful for it.

A few relevant details about Wendy: She was twenty-one. She was my eldest brother’s ex-girlfriend. I lost my virginity to her in a tent, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the summer, in the middle of my fifteenth year. According to the laws of the great state of Illinois, Wendy was guilty of statutory rape. If Wendy were twenty-one and banging fifteen-year-old boys today she could easily do twenty-five years in prison and forever be labeled a “sex offender” when she got out. But back in 1980 the role of sexual initiator was still an honored one. So even when my brother and parents found out—and I made damn sure they all found out—no one thought to call the police. Not even my father.

Did I mention my father was a cop?

Now the details get more sordid: My first time? Sloppy seconds.

Alex, age twenty-three, was Wendy’s idea, but I didn’t object—not to Alex being there or to Alex going first or to Alex being so fucking hot. Wendy felt Alex should be first because Alex knew what he was doing and I didn’t. Alex elbowed me in the side and told me to watch him.

I watched Alex like a dog watches steak.

Then it was my turn. I remember thinking that Wendy’s vagina felt nothing like my right hand. It was . . . damper. More humid. And looser—much, much looser.

I humped away at Wendy. Then I started to worry. What if I couldn’t keep it up? What if I couldn’t come? If I couldn’t finish, I feared Alex and Wendy would look at each other, say, “Oh my God, he’s gay!” in unison, and then Alex would beat the shit out of me for watching him like a dog watches steak.

I kept humping, humping, humping.

My concentration began to flag, partly deflating my erection, as condensation dripped onto my back from the top of the tent. I think Alex was getting frustrated—it was hot in that tent, and he was ready to split—but he was too gentlemanly a statutory rapist to leave before I finished. So Alex did something that I, at fifteen, figured Alex could do because he was straight. To help me get there, Alex reached between my legs and cupped my balls.

It helped.

I slept with Wendy in part to scandalize my family with my blatant, and unexpected, heterosexual behavior. I made damn sure my mother “overheard” my late-night phone conversations with Wendy, theatrically whispered; I left notes and letters from Wendy laying out for my brothers to “find.” I stayed out all night. My family had long suspected I might be gay—asking my parents to take me to the national tour of
A Chorus Line
for my thirteenth birthday didn’t help—but my family was Catholic
and
religious. So even though I knew I was gay, and even though everyone else knew, and even though I knew they knew, we also all knew—knowed? —that I was never going to come out.

That meant I had to learn to like pussy. So I had to go out there and find a Wendy, a series of them, women I could fool, women I could take advantage of. And, yes, I was, at fifteen, taking advantage of twenty-one-year-old Wendy.

These were my options: fake being straight or join the priesthood.

While the big house, fancy dresses, and naïve altar boys were tempting, I had concluded the priesthood wasn’t for me. So even though I could never truly fall in love with a woman and even though every fiber of my being screamed “No!” it was my intention to live a straight life. I was going to find a slightly boyish, flat-chested woman, fuck her just enough to fool her, keep her busy with babies, and bang the occasional callboy on the side.

But could I do it? Could I fuck a woman? Could I learn to like pussy? I had to find out before I married one.

The first time I slept with Wendy was a success, it’s true, and I was relieved that I could do this thing. I could put my dick in a woman and leave it there until I came. But I also knew that it wasn’t enough for me to like pussy when it was full of some hot guy’s spunk, or some hot guy was cupping my balls and lying beside me. That set of circumstances seemed unlikely to occur with any frequency in, say, my anticipated heterosexual marriage. No, I had to learn to like how pussy smelled and how it tasted and how it felt all by its lonesome. Or learn how to tolerate it, like so many closeted gay men before me.

Alex wasn’t around the second time I slept with Wendy. We were at one of her friends’ apartments, just two blocks from my parents’ home. This time it was just the two of us. We started making out. Wendy got undressed. I got undressed. And there we were, standing together, in the living room, the two us, bare-ass naked.

I missed Alex.

Wendy guided my hand down.

I missed Alex more.

Today third base is—what? Double penetration? Pegging? Sucking off a she-male in the backseat of your dad’s Hummer? In 1980 third base was finger-banging—it was a more innocent time—and I knew what I was supposed to do when Wendy placed my hand over her vagina. I slipped a finger in.

Then two. Then three.

It’s hard to describe the sensation, but I’ll try: It felt like I’d slipped my hand into a large, lukewarm piece of lasagna that had been stood on its side. Only this lasagna had a pulse.

And hair, this lasagna was covered in hair.

I kept my fingers in Wendy’s vagina long enough, I hoped, to give her the impression that I liked hairy lasagna as much as the next guy. Then I executed what I, at age fifteen, thought was an exceedingly smooth move. I removed my fingers from Wendy’s vagina and pulled her into an embrace. I brought my hand up her back slowly. I caressed her—but just with the palm of my hand and my thumb and pinky, the fingers that hadn’t been in Wendy’s vagina. I brought my hand up to her shoulder. I leaned way in to kiss her neck, positioning my nose so it was angled over her shoulder. I brought my wet index, ring, and middle fingers up to my nose.

You see, back in the tent I hadn’t really got a chance to smell Wendy. By the time I got in there, Wendy already smelled like Alex’s sweat and spunk. Not that I’m complaining, but the whole point of my adventures with Wendy was, well, learning to like pussy.

Wendy’s vagina smelled awful. Really awful. Like no hairy lasagna I’d ever eaten.

I need to take a time out here.

For the record, I really don’t mean to be ungracious about Wendy or her vagina. I want to make it clear that I’m not stating Wendy’s vagina smelled awful. Although that is, um, precisely what I just stated. Hey, maybe Wendy’s vagina smelled bad—maybe she had a yeast infection or something—but it seems likelier that the problem wasn’t the vagina itself but the person smelling it, aka the vagina-smeller.

We know more about sexual orientation today than we did in 1980. For instance, no one knew way, way back in 1980 that gay men’s brains respond to male sweat, scents, and pheromones the same way straight women’s brains do; nor did we know that gay men’s brains respond negatively to female scents, pheromones, and sweat, the same way straight women’s brains do. Researchers in Sweden added that interesting new item to the ever-growing mountain of evidence that homosexuality is genetic, not chosen.

Okay, let’s get back to the hairy lasagna. . . .

After quickly pulling my fingers away from my nose I began to caress Wendy’s back again. But this time I used all my fingers. I was pretending that I was passionately caressing her when I was, in fact, vigorously wiping her juices off my fingers. I thought this sequence of moves—strip, finger-bang, caress, position nose, bring fingers to nose, smell fingers, wipe fingers while pretending to caress—was pretty slick.

“Did you just wipe your hand on me?”

“No,” I lied. And then we had sex. No sloppy seconds for me this time. Tidy firsts. And I could do it. I didn’t need Alex there, my balls in his hand. I could do this thing; I could have sex with women. I could pass.

We fucked around a dozen or so more times. Summer turned into fall, fall into winter. Wendy soon noticed that, despite her coaching, my sexual repertoire was shrinking, not growing. I ignored her breasts, I kept my fingers out of her vagina, my mouth never ventured south of her collarbones. Then one day Wendy called with two important pieces of news. First, it was over. Second, she had missed her period.

I spent a week flipping out about the injustice of it all. How could I have gotten her pregnant? Didn’t shutting my eyes and pretending that Wendy’s vagina was the ass of this boy I was in love with offer any protection at all? Why didn’t my gay sperm, realizing where they had been deposited, turn tail and start swimming in the opposite direction of her eggs?

I didn’t have to stress for long. The next day Wendy called to tell me she got her period. She also wanted to let me know she was seeing another guy now, someone her own age.

“It was fun,” she said, comforting me. “I like you. You’ll meet another girl.”

God, I hope that never happens,
I thought to myself, listening as Wendy let me down easy.
It wasn’t fun. I can’t like you or any girl the way I’m supposed to. I thought I could do this, I thought I could fake it. I thought I could pass. But I can’t, I don’t want to, it’s not fair. My heart isn’t in it.

A month later I had sex with a guy for the first time. In his apartment, in the middle of the night, in the middle of my sixteenth year. Jeff was twenty-one, with shaggy brown hair and big blue eyes. I guess he’s just another of the statutory rapists I have known and loved. Jeff smelled great. He tasted great. And no one needed to cup my balls.

Lesson#15

Nine Years Is the
Exact
Right Amount of Time to Be in a Bad Relationship

by Bob Odenkirk

This is a transcript taken from a recent Bob Odenkirk Rocky RelationShip Seminar.

Hey. How are you doing, couples? Are you all ready to hear about my plan for you to get the most from your rocky relationship? I see one man over there who isn’t nodding. Sir? Oh, you’re a lesbian? Oh, I thought you were a man [
really awkward laughs
]. You’re here with her? Oh, I thought she was a man, too. I thought you were a gay couple. No, I understand you are gay, just . . . well, okay, let’s keep moving on.

As I’ve promised in my brochures, I speak from experience. Everything I am about to share with you is based on real-life experimentation. My theory has been tested in the lab called “My Past” by a doctor named “Me.”

Is there a time limit for relationships? How long do you “hang in there”? What’s a good “rule of thumb” for exploring every avenue before breaking it off and moving on?

The answer is simple. Nine years.

Now, I see a lot of heads not nodding at that. Probably you’re thinking nine years is overdoing it, especially if you broke up for the first time at one and half years and then broke up again at five years and then, even though you were living in different cities thousands of miles apart, you somehow forced yourselves together again for another four years of difficult unpleasantness. Many people would say three years of general unease is enough, that it’s time to “move on.” No. You’re wrong. You’re wrong and you’re pathetic. Nine years, you bitches. Nine fucking years. Who’s laughing in the back? That was a cough? I fucking hope so, because goddamnit I am speaking from some hard-won experience here and you’d better respect that shit.

Here, my friends, is the only path to a “healthy breakup.” Though before I proceed, I would like to remind everyone that this seminar is 100 percent nonrefundable.