Having Sex with a Ninth Woman
Chelsea, my Brother's Roommate
(Previous Story: Gabrielle, Number Seven.)
Well, as of a few weeks ago, I had sex with a ninth woman. I'm shocked too. My brother criticized me heavily afterwards (please remember, my brother is 21, and has no desire to experience the male-female dynamic, as he prefers the company of men, if you get my drift.) Here's how it went.
Visiting Brother at College
This actually starts about three months ago. My brother goes to school about four hours away from where I live. I went to visit him some months ago and stay in his apartment for the weekend. He said that he wanted to introduce me to a few good restaurants around town. I'm so glad I don't have to do homework anymore.
My brother lives in an apartment with two women who are also his age. They've been friends for a few years now; they're named Chelsea and Jackie. I met them about 2 months earlier when I'd been visiting my brother's apartment for the first time.
Jackie was kind of cute. She didn't have a gorgeous face, but she was a solid 6 in my book. She, my brother and I hung-out for part of an evening. There was going to be a party later on that night, and we were all going; I was to meet Chelsea there.
My brother was telling me about Chelsea in the car ride on the way.
"Chelsea... well, she's been feeling a bit down lately." He said.
"How so?"
"Well, she's a fag-hag."
"A what?!" I don't like that 'f' word, but my brother uses it to describe himself all the time. I won't use it, but I'll let him say it whenever he wants.
"She hangs-out with gays a lot. Most of her guy friends are gay, me included. But I think it bugs her that not very many guys that she comes into contact with, you know, lust after her."
"Hm, odd that she doesn't hang-out with more straight men, eh? I'm sure that'd fix the problem immediately." Boy, it'd never dawn on her to maybe change her own behavior, would it? She just wants it both ways, I guess. I harrumph.
"That may be." He replied. "But, when you see her, it would really make her happy if you commented on how good she looks. Okay?"
Sure thing. Why not? I'm Nice.
So, Brother and I go to the party. There's some alcohol there, and I start slurping every Smirnoff's Ice I can get my grubby little hands on. About an hour into the event, a woman shows-up. She's about as tall as me, with blonde, curly hair. She's a little bit pudgy, but not unattractively so. She has a cute face and I'd give her a 6.5 or thereabouts. My brother introduces me.
"NiceGuy, this is Chelsea. My other roommate." I feign shock.
"Wow! You're gorgeous!" I smile broadly. She turns red and cups her hands over her nose and mouth.
"Oh, thank you! I don't know what to say!" I can tell she's very pleasantly surprised. I never get much of a chance to come into contact with her again that evening, however.
The party continues and is rather uneventful. I sleep well that night.
I visit Brother again, about three weeks ago
It dawns on me: I haven't had sex in almost 11 months. Not since the week before I broke-up with Whorebag, in fact. I miss the feeling of having someone close to me. I want to feel someone's arms around me... bearing that in mind...
I come to my brother's apartment a few weeks ago. I, Brother, Chelsea and Jackie have dinner together. Chelsea has cooked some very good lentils and flat bread (apparently, she has access to a tandoori oven somewhere...) I happen to love lentils, and she's a very good cook. We enjoy a late dinner. As we talk, my brother points-out a leopard-skin patterned rug on the floor.
"Doesn't this rug look like something out of a porn movie?" He asks me.
"I wouldn't know... what with my total lack of porn videos and all." I reply. "But I imagine it would look like a rug in one of those safari-themed pornos. Something with a title like 'Me Tarzan, You Ejaculate-Guzzler'.
"Well, we call that the 'porno rug'." He grins. "In fact, we have a bet going as to which one of us will be the first to get laid on it."
"Anyone won yet?" I ask. It is late November, after all.
"No. Not yet." Replies Jackie.
"Goodness." I reply. "Are you all that frigid?"
"No, the world is frigid." Chelsea harrumphs, folds her arms and looks pouty.
Hmm, interesting.
We stay-up late, watching Comedy Central. Chelsea and I start having some small conversations on her studies; she's very intelligent and has a lot of interesting things to say. As the evening wears on, I think she's starting to look more and more... sexy.
Sleeping With the Kitties
I want sex tonight. I just do. I'm sick of never getting any. I'm sure this is a normal way to feel when you've been going to bed alone for almost a year.
Brother has prepared a futon for me, but I noticed during dinner that Jackie's cat has made herself comfortable on the futon for most of the evening.
I start flossing and brushing my teeth in the bathroom. I see on the toilet tank there's a ceramic cup; I peek inside, and there are a few condoms at the bottom. I grin inwardly. Just in case the world stops being frigid, I guess.
"Meow." Says the kitty as she rolls-over on her back. Her big, glistening eyes look at me while I floss. The feline rubs-up against the blanket I'll be using.
"Hey, offa there. I'm sleeping there tonight."
I shoo kitty off the futon and finish-up in the bathroom. I lie-down and as soon as my head hits the pillow, I get a mouthful of cat-hair. Ptooey. I don't want to sleep here. I brush cat-hair off my face. Hmm... well, Chelsea was complaining about lack of male interest before, wasn't she? I go into the bathroom, take a condom out of the cup and slip it into my palm. Hey, this might work. And if she turns me away, I can always retort 'oh, you talk about the world being frigid. But when you get an offer, you turn it down. That is why you haven't been laid.' It's important for me to have a clever retort handy when my ego gets bruised.
I quietly sidled-up to Chelsea's bedroom door, and I knock softly. She opens the door almost half a second after I knock; Chelsea is dressed in an oversized t-shirt. I use my most suave voice.
"Is there... room for two?" I smile mysteriously. I expected a laugh from her, but instead, she kissed me and put her arms around me. Wow, I'm a little surprised and I kiss her back. Sha-zam! Suddenly, my brother's door opens and we jerk-back as if nothing is happening.
"Everything okay?" He asks.
"No problem...she's just... um... showing me... the posters in her, ahem, bedroom. Salvador Dali and... um, melting clocks and... such..." Jeesh, what a dumb and pathetic excuse for a lie. No way would he buy that. And I just keep talking. "Um, and that Yellow Submarine poster with the... the... puffy pseudo-Peter-Max, lava-lampesque graphics that were so popular back... Oh, and she has a guitar in the corner, too..." Yeah, that's the ticket. But he shrugs.
"Okay." And closes the door. "G'night."
I turn back to Chelsea and start kissing her.
"What about your brother?" She whispers as she closes the door.
"I don't know." I held her close. "I'm not thinking about him right now..."
We stand there for a good five minutes, kissing each other on the lips and wrapping our arms around each other. It's getting chilly on the hardwood floor, and I suggest we do something to get warmer? She takes me over to her bed and we slip under the covers...
SexfortheFirstTimeinElevenMonths... HUZZAH!!
We lie there together; my back is against her chest, she has an arm spooned over me.
"That was very bold of you, coming-up to my door like that." She strokes my back. "I thought that was very sexy."
"Well, um, I've sort of been eyeing you all night." I kiss her hand.
"I could tell."
"Oh really? Have you been looking at me, too?"
"Sort of." I can hear her smiling. "I remember the first time I met you. You called me gorgeous. I was dizzy for an hour after you said that." She kissed my shoulder again. "Flattery will get you everywhere. Thank you."
"Oh, thank you."
"Want to know why I answered the door so quickly?" She asks.
"Why?"
"I was..." She giggles. "I was on my way out... to see you."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I was going to pretend that I left a book next to the futon... I knew you'd be alone out there, and I was going to try to... you know, seduce you."
"Really?" I voice surprise. "I would've loved that!" I turned-around to face her. "It feels so nice to have someone's arms locked around you. You're warm." I rub my way closer to her.
"Yeah, but my feet are cold. Feel?" She puts them on my leg and I yelp.
"Icyicyicy! Brrr!" I bite my lip and look at her. "I haven't done this since... um... last January, I think."
"It's been since March for me. He was a psycho."
I laugh. "Oh, you wanna hear about psychos? Let me tell you about Lying Whorebag..."
We Spend the Night Together
We get-up and spend the weekend acting nonchalantly. We're not sure if my brother suspects anything, and we're not really sure how to broach the topic anyway. But, all of us live-out the weekend as if nothing is going on.
We go to brunch together.
We go see a movie together.
We Also Hold Hands Sometimes
And, for two more nights, we have sex. And again Monday morning, too.
On Monday, she has to go to class and she won't be back until after I leave for home, but she throws her arms around my shoulders and gives me a long good-bye kiss.
"Write me, okay? I'll send you a letter. Not email, a real letter."
"Sure thing. It was nice seeing you, and I'll try to come down again soon." I kiss her back.
Ye Night Before I Leave
Brother and I decide to go-out to a nearby Applebee's and get a table. After we order, he looks at me accusingly.
"By the way, NiceGuy... we're out of condoms!" He announces to me loudly. I smile sheepishly and look at the table.
"Heh, sorry about that."
"So, when were you going to tell me, or were you just going to pretend that nothing was going on?"
"Well, we weren't sure how to say anything... you know. I didn't want to embarrass Chelsea either. She was concerned about how..."
"Well you made me pretty uncomfortable, you know. I mean, am I supposed to pretend along with you that nothing's going on?" He doesn't sound angry, just amusedly irritated. Like I just spilled water on the floor.
"Well, I should apologize for that. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to say it." His margarita gets brought to the table. He sips it and flicks its little paper umbrella over at me. I pick it up and start fiddling with it absent-mindedly.
"Well you were being pretty obvious about it. Holding hands during dinner and sitting so close to each other. Feh, a blind monkey could tell something was going on between you two!" He hmmphed.
"We were sort of trying to be discreet..."
"You were about as discreet as a South-African riot-control vehicle."
"Heh. Well, she's very sweet and very smart..." I replied.
"Yes she is. So are you two together now or what?" He asks. "You're moving to Japan in a few months, are you going to have a long-distance relationship?"
"Well, I don't think we've planned that far ahead..."
"So what, you're just 'friends with benefits'?"
"Um... We didn't talk about it, but yes. I think we are." He looks surprised.
"Why did you decide to sleep with her?" He asks.
"Um... she turned me on and I wanted sex." I replied matter-of-factly. "That's why."
"I don't understand you straight people." He shakes his head.
"What do you mean?"
"You sleep with your friends. I mean, doesn't having sex require more emotional involvement?
"Ideally yes, but not always..." I sigh.
"How can you do that? Sleep with someone and not have emotional attachment?" He asks.
"I usually don't. I mean, the vast majority of the times I sleep with a woman, I at least try to have a relationship..."
"How many times in total? You've always kept that information very hush-hush."
"Well, um... I don't like to sound as if I'm bragging..." I smirk nervously.
"Just give me a number."
I look at the ceiling and think. "Do you consider sex to only involve penetration?"
"No, but use whatever definition you prefer. Come on, spit it out." He knocks the table for emphasis.
"I'm trying to remember, because I don't want to give an accidentally-false number."
"Your forgetfulness is almost Reaganesque." He chuckles.
"Okay, considering penetration to be sex: nine."
"Including Whorebag? Who else?"
"You don't know most of them... um... Gabrielle, who you've met three years ago but don't remember obviously. Miss 'Penis with arms?'" His face is blank. I guess he forgot her. "Well, then there's um... Jeane and Jianglin who I met overseas... and... hey, why should I make a list for you?"
"Well, I'm just making sure they're not all in your head." He grins. "At least you remember their names."
"Of course I remember their names. And no, they're not my imaginary women. And as I said, most of them I've tried to have emotional relationships with, but they didn't work-out due to the circumstances. I've only had a few instances that turned into one-night stands, and that was because the woman turned it into a one-night stand by disallowing me to see her again afterwards. I really try to have relationships, only it doesn't always work out."
"Oh, that's nice of you to try." He snorts. I think the tiny amount of booze is starting to kick-in. His threshold for getting buzzed is horribly low. "I think you're a predator. You're a sexual Velociraptor."
"A predator?" I'm semi-shocked. "How?"
"You're like 'oh, I'm a Nice Guy, but if you let me, I'll jump on yer bones.' You're a predator. No woman is safe with you."
"Hey, plenty of women have been safe with me! Gimme a break, this is the first time I've gotten laid in months! I have a huge number of female friends who I don't sleep with and I've never slept with a woman who didn't want me to."
"Sure, rationalize it that way. But if given the chance, you'd have sex with your female friends."
"Sex is shared! She bears responsibility for choosing to have sex with me, too! I certainly didn't rape anyone! You think the onus is entirely on my shoulders for the decision or something. And if I was just after sex, I'd have had more... I've turned-down a few women because I thought the situation was inappropriate."
"Is that the only reason? Not because you only liked them as friends?" He finishes his drink and orders another.
"Well, there were different situationally-specific reasons. Gee, you're making me feel really bad now."
"I'm not trying to make you feel bad, just telling you how I see it."
"Okay, let's step outside of the heterosexual paradigm for a sec so I can drag you out of the invulnerable moral defilade you've carved for yourself. Do you mean to tell me that if a really good-looking guy comes-up to you and says 'I think you're really good-looking and I wanna go to bed with you', you'd tell him no, that you'd want to be friends first?"
"No. I'd think he was nuts if he said that." He shrugs.
"What?! Why?"
"I mean, look at me." I did. His greasy mop of hair. His unshaven mug. His grotty, holed clothes. His pudgy physique. "I know what makes a man good-looking, and I'm not it. I look like the guy in a carnival who bites the heads-off chickens! If a guy found me attractive, I'd swear there was something wrong with him."
"What a terrible, terrible thing to say about yourself."
"It's true. Straight women are always like 'oh, hot guys always turn out to be gay!', but I'm not hot! I don't conform to their damn little stereotype of what I'm supposed to look like!"
"But still, it's a terrible thing to say about yourself."
Ye Waitress Brings Another Pair of Drinks
"Why can't you be friends with a woman first before you sleep with her? Why do you have to sleep with someone so soon after meeting them?" He asks.
"Friends-first is a one-way ticket to lonely Loserville- population: you. Women sometimes decide in the first ten minutes whether or not they'll sleep with a guy they've just met; ten minutes isn't enough for them to be friends first, is it? I mean, if you're good friends first, do you think that the woman will just wake-up one morning and magically say 'Gee, I've known NiceGuy for two years now. I think I'd like to have sex with him all of a sudden!'?"
"Yes! That's the way my ex-boyfriend and I did it!"
"Really?" Damn. I'm impressed. I didn't know he was ever intimate with anyone.
"Yes. Really."
"Well, that's never happened in my experience, and it's not because I didn't let the woman-friend decide at her own pace. It's because when I'm friends first with a woman, I stay friends. Permanently. They don't want to go the extra mile and have a relationship with a guy who's 'just friends'. They won't want to have sex because they won't want to ruin a friendship. Aren't you familiar with this principle at all? Being 'just friends' is a romantic cul de sac. When a woman says she just wants to be friends, that's it. That's the Kiss of Death. Game over, dude. Do svidanya, she don't want to fuck you- ever."
He still insisted that I was going about it all wrong, however. Friends first, he insists, is best.
I agree, but in practice it's well-nigh unworkable.
"What would make you want to sleep with a woman who's your friend? Why would you spoil a friendship with sex?" He asks.
"Simple: hormones and/or booze. Those two'll do it every time. Look, I agree with you. It would be ideal if female friends would let me have a relationship with them, only they won't go for it. If a woman and I feel the situation is appropriate, then I will sleep with a woman who I like. And you know what the worst thing is? Most straight men are just like me!"
Ye Dinner Conversation Continues
"You know, you don't treat women as equals. You put them up on a pedestal and encourage them to take advantage of you." He jams a fistful of french fries into his maw and talks with his mouth full. I see five potato wedges being crushed and rolled around his mouth into pulp before my eyes; they get washed-down with neon-green, frothy margarita.
"I thought I was just treating women special. If I have strong feelings for a woman, of course I'll treat her special." I pick at my baby back ribs, slightly put-off by the spectacle in front of me.
"Just treat her like a human being. You're always like 'oh, honey! I'll do anything to make you happy!' Don't treat her as more than human. With Whorebag, I mean, it's like she was trying to see how far she could push you. You know? She would be as big a brat as possible and you never said anything. You almost invited her to treat you like crap." He's got a point.
"Whenever I did say anything to criticize her, she'd throw a hissy-fit. I mean, you've seen her when she loses her temper. She fucking threw things! She was an emotional terrorist!"
"Then you should've left her sooner."
"Well, I was really in love with her."
"How could you have been so absurd?"
"I know it sounds cliché, and I once scoffed at this, but love makes you do stupid things. Don't scoff, it's true. I was so in love, it blinded me to her ridiculous qualities."
"Well, how do you know it was love?"
"Well, it was love. Have you ever been in love? I think you haven't, so you can't understand what I'm talking about."
"I've really liked a guy once, but I don't know if I'd have called it love. What is love?"
"I can't define it, but I know it when I see it." I smile. That's what Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said when he was asked to rule what falls under the category of 'offensive'.
"You're not a Supreme Court Justice being asked how to define 'what is offensive?', just answer the question. What is love?"
"I can't answer that question, love is ineffable. It's one of the great human mysteries." I reply. He snorts derisively and shakes his head.
"That's a cop-out answer." He crams more potatoes into his gob.
I looked him dead in the eye. "You're asking me to define the indefinable. People have been asking how to define love for centuries. It can't be explained because it's too many subjective, complicated things at once. It's not logical; in fact love is totally irrational. There's no equation for it. There's no nice, neat one-sentence explanation and it means a lot of different things to different people. It is sublime. It is enigmatic. It transcends words. It's like the Holy Trinity in Catholicism or the Tao in Taoism." I smack my palm on the table. "The closer you get to defining love, the more it recedes away from you! It's ineffable!!"
He is unimpressed. He shrugs. "Fine, avoid the question."
"I have to avoid the question because that question is unanswerable! 'What is love?' It was a mystery in Shakespeare's time, and it is so today!"
"Okay, what does love mean in your definition?"
"An intense mixture of emotions. A lot of wonderful emotions at once. You'd do anything, give her anything to make her happy. You feel this empty hole in your heart when she's not around. The sight of her smile just lights you up. If you love someone enough, you'd just do anything they asked to make them happy. You want to make them feel special and..." I sigh. "In the beginning of the relationship, I loved Whorebag that much. If we were in a situation where I would've had to have sacrificed my life to save her, I would've done it without a second thought. I really felt that way. Logic went right out the window, I know."
He smirks. "That's why you always get women who treat you crappy." He says.
"Pardon me?" Oh, and just how many heterosexual relationships have you had, sir? Or maybe this is one of the times I have to step outside of the problem to look at a fresh perspective?
"I mean, one of the reasons why women treat guys in ridiculous ways way is because straight guys encourage them to do so!" He says. Hmm, I suppose he's got a point.
"Look, if a woman doesn't get special treatment, she won't consider you as a prospective mate. Unless he's extraordinarily wealthy, famous or good-looking, women won't sleep with a guy who treats them with ambivalence fer chrissakes!" I insist.
"No, but it might intrigue them. I mean, a the coffee shop where I work sometimes women get surprised by the fact that I won't treat them special."
"Really?" Fascinating. "How so?"
"Well, every now and then a girl will come-up to the counter all cutesey-like and say 'I don't suppose I can get a free coffee from you?' That's when I look at her and say 'well, it'll be free if you forget the fact that you'll be giving me the exact dollar amount.' I want to tell her freeloading butt to hit the road. Sometimes women are a little surprised that I don't treat them special."
"Interesting."
"A woman won't necessarily restrain herself, NiceGuy, because she's human. You can't always trust her to moderate her behavior. That's why you have to stand up to them from time to time."
I s'pose he's got a point.
Ye Drive Back
On the car-ride back to dropping Brother off at his apartment, he's reminding me of the importance of not hurting Chelsea's feelings. As he lectures, I'm growing suddenly curious about his reference to his ex-boyfriend.
"Um... with your boyfriend... do you mind if I ask... what exactly did you guys do? Er, I mean, just the thought of having something go into my ass just sends shock-waves of pain up my spine." I cringe at the image.
"Maybe you might enjoy it?" He asked. "You'll never know if you don't try. The prostate-"
"Er no." I interrupted him. "I have a tight anus and I aim to keep it that way. My anus is a sacrosanct and sacred one-way exit portal. You don't have to answer my question if you don't want to."
He laughs and thinks for a second or two. "How much detail you want?"
"Um... as much detail as you feel comfortable giving?"
He thought for a second. "We didn't do anything to each other that a lonely guy wouldn't do to himself."
I nod. "Okay, perfect answer. Perfect level of detail."
I drop him off and drive homeward.
Ye Frustrated Epilogue
What a dilly of a situation that was. Fortunately, my brother is very tolerant of me. As I am of him. Chelsea wrote me a letter, in which she said how glad she was to met me and she wouldn't be upset if I decided I didn't want to have a relationship with her due to circumstances. I wrote back, saying how glad I was to have met her, and that if I wasn't going away to Japan... well, you know. I also voiced my wish to see her again soon.
She wrote me a letter back, saying that Brother had a little talk with her about the importance of not hurting my feelings. So, apparently, he's lectured both of us on the topic of not hurting the other. I think this is also his way of hinting he doesn't want either of us to hurt his feelings, too. Heh, I don't like putting him in these uncomfortable situations, and I'll apologize to him for any undue discomfort he might've been in.
Apart from that, reader: do you know what this means?!
I'm going to Japan in a few months and I shan't be back for a year. In the meantime, I've met this really smart, generous girl who likes me a lot. And she's a good cook on top of it. Why the hell couldn't this have happened before I decided to move away? Confound it!
Bah! Consternation! Uproar! Fate can be cruel. (Oh, and let's see an update on the matter, shall we? Added 02/08/02)
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EvilGuy springs from his den, so move-on to read Eleven and Ten.
"A new study has shown that men and women have different food cravings. Men tend to crave meat, while women typically crave sweets. This dates back to cave-man days when men would go out and hunt for food, while women would sit on their fat asses all day eating chocolates." -- Norm MacDonald, Weekend Update, "Saturday Night Live".
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