As I've mentioned a few times, I'm in the process of turning the first year of The Kitten Calendar into the first book of a memoir trilogy, and that means I've had to fill in parts that were missing from the story the first time around. As much as I STILL sometimes wish I could simplify everything by being a lesbian, it's important to remember what to took to get in the habit of being true to my penis-loving self.
I named him The Mayor of Kittentown because he was the first
man I had PIV sex with in seventeen years, (oh, whoops, spoiler alert!) and
also because he mentioned on our first date that he’d been named Mayor of White
Castle by Four Square. I was attracted to his profile because he mentioned
Mystery Science Theatre 3000, had long, silky-looking dark blonde hair, was
taller than me, and had a son—I have such a thing for dads. I told him that I
had fond \memories of snuggling up with my goth, indoorsy Nineties boyfriend
and watching “Manos” The Hands of Fate.
I didn’t hear back right away. (Meaning not within a week or so—this was before
everybody had the app on their phone and the process sped up.)
It was almost my default emotion in those days to be
frustrated. I was in a meeting of my (Unitarian) church group processing
irritation at a party-kissing-related near miss when MKT finally texted. He
asked if we could get together sometime and a warm feeling wrapped my shoulders
like an afghan made of sex-hope.
I was working in the library at the time and my boss noticed
that I was ready for a date. She said she’d noticed a glow ever since I started
going after guys, like I was coming into myself. I wore more makeup than I
usually do (red lipstick=confidence) a red top that showed off my cleavage a
little, my cute red girl-about-town raincoat and fake-Chucks sneakers because I
had to take the bus.
Ah, riding the 23 bus to dates—45 minutes of feeling pretty
and hopeful and texting my various two-person support groups for courage. The
night I went to meet MKT it was a miserable, gusty October night—bitter and
rainy. I felt awful for the Occupiers as I walked past their encampment and
hoped they were bundled up warm in their tents. I made a mental note to mention
them to him as a way of gauging whether he was an asshole or not—if he was mean
about them, he would be out.
We were meeting at the science museum to watch “Eight Legged
Freaks” MST3K style. When I saw him across the cosplay-dotted lobby, he looked
snuggly but shy. I was delighted to see that he really was taller than me—I’m
5’ 10” so that’s hard to find! He felt nice to sit next to while we waited for
the movie to start. He was a tech-guy early adopter who brought an iPad on a
date so we scrolled through his photos, which I deemed sufficiently soulful:
leaves, water, an inexplicable pile of decaying stuffed animals by the river.
He didn’t even make fun of me when, after I visited the
restroom, the belt of my raincoat was hanging down and had clearly dipped
itself in the toilet—a rom-com moment if there ever was one.
We walked through downtown to a diner after, my lifelong
favorite way to eat. When we passed Occupy, he told me had a Lego display on
his desk (a few blocks away in the tallest building in the city) of Star Wars
characters carrying signs like “These are not the spending cuts we’re looking
for,” “Occupy Tatooine” and “Tax the Hutts.” Of all the things I’d imagined
potential dates saying about Occupy, this was not one of them.
With both of us being all of the awkward, conversation over
French silk pie was stilted, but there was this: Both of us has worked at Great
Adventure in the summer of 1993. Because I was slackersome and didn’t try for
one of the better jobs, I was on the cleanup crew, sweeping up trash and
cigarette butts and charming male workers into cleaning up roller coaster barf.
He worked on the Demon Drop, which is exactly what it sounds like. You go up
really high and it drops you, and you scream with delight. The thing is,
though, I’d had a crush on the operator of that ride—I’ve always had a thing
for the glasses/ponytail combo, but especially in my grungetastic teen years.
With that little coincidence, he seemed like a good
prospect, until, almost to the bus stop, he mentioned that he frequented the
nearby nude beach. I saw absolutely nothing wrong withit, but I said “Oh, I’d
be way too shy for that!”
“Oh, I have body issues too.”
“Um, why would you assume I have body issues?”
One of the major psychological and actual barriers to me
dating men has always been my size. I’m
5’ 10” and a size 20, so as one former boyfriend remarked, there is nothing
little about me. In the context of my own little world I can feel powerful and
goddesslike, but it’s hard to avoid feeling fat in the eyes of men—part of me
assumed that a man could NEVER find me attractive, so I looked for evidence of
that, and almost always found it. Until I didn’t.
In follow-up emails I mentioned his statement and he was
horrified to know that’s how I took it, telling me he did in fact find me nice
to look at. He was by far the most promising candidate yet, so I gave him the
benefit of the doubt and invited myself over to his house to watch MST3K.
It took a little bit of juggling, but we found a Friday
evening that worked. I had another datelike thing that afternoon, a walk through
the local state park with a nice librarian I’d met through friends. It was the
perfect picture of a fall day, like an advertisement for being alive. We took
the less-trodden trails and found Narnian bridges and falling down stone
fences. There’s a fancy inn in the park and we had apple crisp and spiked
cider. I didn’t feel a spark with the librarian but it put me just in the right
frame of mind for my MKT date.
What scared me the most was driving there. Though Sweetie
was agreeable and encouraging about it, I had this idea that I might crash her
car on the way and thus become the official worst person ever. She was a
terrible backseat driver so it was always hard to find confidence, but I think
the driving fear was just a way of feeling anxiety over being disloyal. Even
when you’re bi and sorely in need of a penis, it’s very hard to transition to
playing outside the marriage.
His newly-trendy neighborhood was very parked up, but I
found a spot (pretty far away, it turns out) that I could go frontways into—parallel
parking has never been my favorite thing.
From outside, his rowhouse (which he owned!) looked
impressively adult—two well--kept arbor vitae framed the door and the window
had a lovely beveled glass design—not so different from what I imagine my
Grandmom had in the olden-days version of this city.
When he came to the door, I handed him the cupcake-taker
(he’d requested lemon) and surveyed my surroundings. Toy-collecting divorced
guy can go in many directions, but for him it was a somewhat tasteful one.
There were toys on the mantle—a Peewee Herman doll, Gypsy from MST3K. There
were Legos that looked decidedly untoylike, as they’d been built into tiny but
intricate architectural structures, including (and this was a major selling
point in his favor) Fallingwater (which, as I Google it for capitalization
check, I notice comes in a kit.) All of his dishes seemed to be plastic, which
I thought was endearingly single dadlike.
He had a beige two-people-can-recline couch, how could we
not recline. He selected Red Zone Cuba for
our MST3K and we settled in to our marooned astronaut (I think the Joel
episodes are the only real ones) and his wisecracking robot pals.
He was easier to warm up to when we were alone than when we
were out in public, and I easily snuggled into his lap. Somehow, we two must
awkward of people took off our glasses and went from snuggling to making out.
In all of the years (seventeen, all told) that I’d been
almost exclusively with women, what I missed most was the decadent teenage
sensation of dry-humping, the feeling of straddling someone and finding
something there. When I gathered the
courage to climb into his lap, that rush came back to me with a surge of joy.
He was big and hard beneath me, but what felt even better than that was the vitality of him—his whole body was shot
through with pure life, and he smelled like aliveness, too, sweet and clean and
strong.
Though our pants stayed on that night, we surged into each
other like a waterfall. He took off my shirt and ran his hands over my shiny
red bra, pet then gently over my back and through my hair. I wanted his hands
in me, wanted more, and there was this completely new feeling of being of being
utterly in charge and utterly at home.
But I wasn’t at home, and I never stopped being conscious of
the digital clock next to the TV screen. I’d told Sweetie I’d be home around
11, and I counted the hours left in my head the way you do when you can’t
sleep. When it was close to time to go, I had a few sips of soda so I would be
alert for the drive home.
He grumbled about how far away I’d parked in a way that made
me question his chivalry a little, but he walked me there nonetheless. We
kissed goodbye and I drove home in a dizzy haze, changed.
After that, MKT and I fell into a routine. With my school
stuff and his family obligations, we found time for each other every couple of
weeks. I’d park far away, we’d watch part of a bad movie, catch up in kind of a
cursory way, and then make out. The night we watched my favorite one, “Manos” Hands
of Fate, found me splayed on the couch with his hands inside my favorite pink
lacy underpants. The moon was big that night and when it was time for me to go,
we couldn’t stop making out at the car, just like that couple at the beginning
of the movie.
Ravenous though we both were, he was patient. He knew I
hadn’t had PIV sex (or what most of the world simply calls “sex”) since a
little after my twenty-first birthday in 1995. It that I’d been abstaining or
anything, I’d just been single for most
of my twenties and then met Sweetie, been perfectly satisfied for a few years,
then spent a handful of years being dissatisfied but not doing too much about
it. I liked the idea of the kind and gentle MKT being my first-in-a-long-time.
Our relationship was somewhere on the friends with benefits
spectrum, but I adored his penis.
After three years of research and much, um, reflection I’m ready to pronounce
it the best one. It’s difficult to believe that someone who’s walking around
with something that amazing could be so meek and unassuming—kind of seems like
a miracle! He was magnificent: long,
thick, cheerily pink and perpetually hard. He apologized that his
antidepressants made it difficult for him to climax, but that meant so many
hours of good, hard enthusiasm.
The night I planned to go all the way with him (such an old
timey term, I know) I was meeting him to see the new Muppet Movie—the one with Amy Adams and my imaginary boyfriend
Jason Segel. Because I’d be taking the big step of staying over, I left the car
for Sweetie and took the bus all the way across town. It was early December but
not too cold so I could wear my red coat again, but with a teal beret and
mittens. They were the kind the kind with flap and the the button on the back
so that they were both mittens and gloves.
I was excited to see both MKT and the Muppets, but I felt a
little bit off. There was someone else on my mind, someone you’ll meet in the
next chapter, someone more Domlike, the appraising look he would give me if he
saw me dolled up. I liked MKT and he liked me back in a way that (because I am
the worst) Made me just a little less turned on by him. He was nudist at heart,
wouldn’t care about the lipstick or the pretty shoes I walked 9 blocks from the
bus stop in.
MKT did, in fact care about the lipstick. He had a little
girls-are-icky moment of worry that is would get on him as we kissed hello. The
other guy had no such compunction—our relationship was pretty much based on his
ability to demolish lipstick.
Nonetheless, MKT was the perfect person to watch the Muppets
with (re-watch, actually—I’d seen it with my family on Thanksgiving) and as we
bussed over to his neighborhood, he wove his hands into my mitten/gloved ones.
Because of his deadly shyness, there was always something excruciating about
being in public with him, but he was fundamentally sweet and I was
fundamentally ready for him.
He was radiant with health and life. Even though it was time
for his Lego Christmas village to be up and running, he still shined with beach
light—every bright smile I would learn to smile naked on a beach was in there
and I still can’t think of a more welcome guest, a more welcome friend.
I’d been ravenous for a penis inside me for many years, but
I’d also wondered if it was a forbidden fruit situation—did I only want it
because I couldn’t have it? Would I get a man inside me and discover I was a
true blue lesbian after all? I half hoped for that, it sure would have
uncomplicated things.
But as he slipped the condom on and pushed inside me, I felt
a great heave of relief and happiness. Joy came out of my lungs in great
gasping wails. I loved it so much. I paused my caterwauling long enough to ask
if the neighbors would mind, and he said he didn’t care.
We didn’t get to snuggle in the morning, because he had a
Lego convention to get to. To catch the train on time, we had to be out of the
house by 8:45. I had a having-a-hard time feeling of being claustrophobic in my
own skin, but also the sanguine feeling of having an inner suntan. Every memory
of him feels a little beachy, even if we never made it to the beach together.
There’s rosy cheeks and sand in my hair when I think of him.
We were a little early for the train, so we stopped at
Dunkin Donut to get breakfast. As I ate I prattled a way about poly and sex and
Sweetie and he started to look worriedly around like he didn’t want anyone to
overhear.
“Are you…ashamed of me?” Vexingly, tears came and I lost all
semblance of friend-with-benefits-playing-it cool-ness, if I’d had any to begin
with.
“What? No! I’m just not used to people talking about this
stuff.”
I sniffled and felt myself sink inward, away from him. I
spread cream cheese on my bagel and stared down at the table while he reached
for my hand.
“I’m not ashamed.”
“Because if you are…” I set my jaw and tried to be brave,
but I was sad to be so close to a dealbreaker, sad about everything, ashamed
myself. I’d trusted him, it has felt so good, but what if he was someone who
couldn’t like me for what I was? I mean, I already knew we weren’t long term,
because of the whole he’s-not-poly thing, but I also knew that I wanted
something darker, deeper, more permanent. I wanted to be spanked and dominated
and owned, but most of all, I wanted the crazy, cracked romance I already felt
for another character.
MKT walked me to the train and made sure I was really
okay—my warmed-up body felt opposite to my heavy heart, and what I wanted most
was to go home and get into bed with Sweetie. It was a long trip from his side
of the city to the bus that would take me back home. I felt wistful for all
three of the people on my mind and cheered myself by texting updates to my
friends. This morning was both an accomplishment and an ending, both a triumph
and a betrayal, but I covered the complication with bravado.
When I finally got home and got in bed with Sweetie, she
tried to embrace me but I felt her body stiffen and then sigh into sadness.
With tears in her voice she said “You smell…different.”
In the rush to get MKT off to the convention, I hadn’t
showered. The smell I wanted to keep with me and mull over was hurting the
person I loved most. I said I was sorry.
“Nono, I don’t want to make you feel dirty, like you HAVE to
shower, it’s just…”
The wind went out of my sails and I felt so trapped and
frustrated. It had felt so good. the shirt he’d lent me, a bit of tech
conference swag that said “Heck yeah!” on the front was expressing how part of
me felt, how all of me wanted to feel. Here in my own bed, I was so far away
from the joyous shouts of the night before. I was a tangle of warring
sensations as I lay there and dozed with Sweetie.
Overtaking it all was the unassailable physical well-being
that went all the way to my core—if it had had a voice, it would have sounded
like this: “I’m bi! I’m bi! I’m bi! I’m really DOING this, can you believe it?”
My limbs were soft and warm and my belly felt full, full in
a way I’d craved for so long—it wasn’t that I’d been empty without him, but I
was empty without that part of me finding expression.
Then there was the guilt—as much as I wanted to love what I
was, to find a way to fully inhabit myself and really bi up a storm, it was
heartbreaking to know that I’d hurt her, that this was one in a series of so
many disloyalties. I’d already hurt her so much by not being gay, and I would
hurt her so much more (and only sometimes in a fun way.) It would be years
before our relationship would be at peace, and even then only after monumental
changes.
And then there was the loss. I loved my life with Sweetie so
much, it was so full of snuggles and birdwatching and Sundays in bed, and I
knew what I’d done, what I’d admitted I WAS would change our relationship
forever.
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