by KD Robichaux
“Want to walk around and find all your classrooms? I took a few classes here just for the shits and giggles so I know where everything is,” Tony suggests.
“You’re like a gajillionaire; why would you be taking college courses?” I ask him as we make our way to what will be my first class next week: American History I.
“I’m not a gajillionaire.” He shoves me playfully into Mark. “I took some classes here just for fun. A couple of history classes, a basic computer class, just random stuff. The cool thing about it is if you’re enrolled, you get free access to the on-campus gym. Why not come and check out the cute college girls on treadmills instead of what you get at a regular gym?” He wiggles his eyebrows at Mark over my head.
I smack him in the arm, “Ugh, you’re such a Chester.”
We walk around for about an hour, find all my classes, the cafeteria, even the gym. We stay at the gym a little longer than I personally thought was necessary to get my key card set up, but hey…not only were there cute girls for my brothers to check out…there were quite a few good-looking guys lifting weights and playing basketball on the indoor courts. Maybe Tony had the right idea after all.
January 12th, 2005
After leaving the school yesterday, my brothers and I went and had some lunch and then Mark took me to Walmart to pick up a cheap bookcase. He helped me put it together and stand it up against an empty wall in my room, before he left me to my Virgo ways. I know I’m not the only person in the world who absolutely loves organizing her books. Or am I that weird? I opened up my boxes of paperbacks and carefully lined up each of my series in reading order. I keep a very neat list of my books in a sparkly pink folder that I stand on one of the book shelves. It’s a checklist of all my favorite authors’ books in the correct reading order. I have almost all of them checked off, but there are those few that still evade me. I try to find most of my books at used book stores, but some I actually have to go buy at the retail stores because no one wants to get rid of their copy. Hey, I’m a college chick on a budget.
The rest of the day went by the same way it had all week. Mark, Kim, and I would eat some dinner, hang out in the living room and watch some TV, then I’d go upstairs to my room and read, until I passed out. I’d been so busy unpacking and getting ready to register for school that I hadn’t really had time to think about much else.
Now, sitting in my room by myself, I just finished the latest Sherrilyn Kenyon book. I’m filled with the usual sense of joy for the couple finally getting their happily ever after, quickly followed by a slight swell of jealousy that I haven’t found my own. With Mark and Kim both at work, the loneliness I felt in Fayetteville is starting to sink back in. Yes, I had my family and the best friend a girl could ask for, but goodness, how could one chick have so much bad luck in the dating department? The only way to deal with the direction of my thoughts is to hop on my blog and write a Chick Rant post before I write my review for the book I just read. Most definitely my perfect escape.
Kayla’s Chick Rant & Book Blog
Blog Post 1/12/2005
In a town full of soldiers, how the hell did I manage to only find the biggest douchebags out of the thousands of men there?
The latest one was David. Let me tell you about good ole David. He waltzed into the car dealership I worked at like he owned the place. He was friends with Ben, who was one of the salesmen, so when he walked in, he went to talk to him about a car he was interested in. He wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous or anything, but he had this really happy-go-lucky air about him that I was drawn to. He had light brown hair cut into the military style that is so common where I’m from, and the biggest smile I’d ever seen on a man. He was also wearing glasses with a thick black frame. He had the hot-nerd thing going on. After he talked to Ben, our salesman, the two of them walked up to my desk to grab the keys to the cherry-red Chevy Camaro with the T-top out front.
When I looked up at him to hand him the keys, our eyes connected; I felt my face heat as his eyes gave me the once over. There was instant chemistry. I could see his eyes were bright blue behind his glasses once he was so close. He slid his fingers against mine as I handed him the keys to the Camaro, letting them linger awhile before folding the keys into the palm of his hand. He gave me that big grin of his and handed me his driver’s license to sign out a dealer plate so he could take the car on a test drive. His name was David and according to his card, he was from Kentucky. This was an everyday occurrence there; hardly anyone was actually from Fayetteville. People were just stationed in Ft. Bragg, serving their time in Fayettenam.
In an adorable twang that I wasn’t used to he said, “Thank you, ma’am,” as I handed him back his license and Ben the dealer plate. It sounded different from the southern accent of North Carolinians. I couldn’t help but smile back at him since the butterflies in my stomach were tickling the shit out of me. Nope, I do not have that “play it cool” bone in my body.
A couple of hours later, David bought the Camaro and was shaking hands with Ben when I saw him make his way over to me. He crossed his forearms as he leaned on to the high front of my receptionist’s desk. “Kayla, right?” he asked. I simply answered in the affirmative.
“I have this new car, you see. I’m thinking you should help me celebrate buying my dream car by going out with me Friday evening. Would that be something you’d be interested in?” he asked with that smile.
“Well, that depends. What would we do to celebrate your new purchase?” I asked him.
“I was thinking we’d go get some dinner, maybe go see a movie since there’s not much else to do in this town. But this new car I just got, it has T-tops. What I’d really like to do is just cruise around and see that long gorgeous hair of yours blowing around that pretty face.”
Wow. Thinking back, that was actually a pretty good pick up line. Definitely creative. After my brain stopped stuttering, I finally told him it sounded like fun and we made plans for Friday.
The date had been super fun. I had never been in a convertible before; it was kind of exhilarating. My hair was all blown to hell and back but I’d had the mind to put my hairbrush in my purse. After a dinner with conversation that came easily and lots of laughs—David was ridiculously funny—we went and saw The Day After Tomorrow. He took me home at the end of the night and gave me a sweet kiss that definitely left me wanting more. David had game.
We dated for a couple of more weeks before we became intimate. But something was…off. Then one Sunday, we had dinner and went back to his barracks room. We cuddled up in his bed to watch a DVD and I did the international girl sign of ‘time to get it on’ by pressing my butt up against his front. He tensed up and actually scrambled out of the bed. Turning off the movie, he told me it was probably best if we called it a night. I was so confused I kind of just looked at him with a dumbstruck face. “Is something wrong?” I asked.
He looked sheepish as he reached behind him and rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t have sex on Sundays.”
“Excuse me?” I was thrown off guard.
“I don’t have sex on Sundays. Pre-marital sex is bad enough; I’m not going to have sex on the Lord’s Day,” he told me, completely straight-faced. Somehow I knew this wasn’t some kind of joke. I didn’t want to disrespect his beliefs or anything, but damn! Way to make me feel like a tramp! I told him we didn’t have to have sex, that I’d like to just cuddle up and finish the movie we started, and he said that was fine. I ended up going home afterwards without even a goodbye kiss.
Things weren’t the same after that. Before our ‘no sex Sunday’ incident, he used to be super funny and make me feel like the prettiest girl on the planet, but since then, he seemed condescending, like he looked down on me. He no longer flirted with me, or made the effort to make me laugh. Shit, he didn’t even open doors for me anymore. Apparently, even though it took two to tango, it was me who was the sinner for wanting to have sex out of wedlock.
Needless to say, we broke up soon after. But wait! That’s not t
he end of the story about Saintly David. A few months later, after I made plans to move to Texas for my semester of school, he found out from Ben, the salesman, that I’d be moving soon. I received a call from David after not having spoken to him for months, asking if maybe we could date until I left.
“Wait. You’re asking me to date you until I leave? As in, you want to break up before I move; you don’t want to continue a relationship long distance?” I ask incredulously.
“Well, yeah…” he answered stupidly.
“So in other words, Mr. I-Freak-For-Jesus, you want to have me around to fuck whenever you want EXCEPT FOR ON SUNDAYS, knowing I’ll just be moving in a couple of months. Fuck you, David. Look up the word hypocrite, you asshat. Don’t call me again.” I hung up furious and immediately called Anni for a girls’ night out. We went to It’z Nightclub. It was a pretty epic night, filled with accepting many drinks from various cute guys, straight from the bartender of course: I’m not stupid. Well, I say that until I ended up going back to hottie number 5’s barracks’ room. It wasn’t bad though. I was woken up with his head between my legs the next morning…it was Sunday.
End Rant ;-)
I snap out of the memory with a chuckle. I click Publish and log out of my blog. I’ll write my book review later. I wander around the house for a little while, look at all the pictures Mark and Kim have framed in the living room, pour myself a glass of milk and grab my package of Double Stuf Oreos—dinner of champions—and make my way back upstairs.
David was just the latest in the long string of dickheads I had dated. Am I ever going to find my soulmate? Am I ever going to find the kind of love like the ones written in the books I obsess over? Surely there’s gotta be a guy out there who will think the world of me. I always treat the guys I date like gold, but you see, I’m starting to think that’s the problem. I treat them the way I’d like to be treated, and then they end up taking advantage of me. I show how much I care about them, really listen when they talk so I can pick up on little things about them, small things they may mention they want or like so I can surprise them with it.
I lie in my bed for a while daydreaming. Maybe it’s me who’s the problem. I was a pageant girl when I was younger. It’s like I was living two different lives. In the pageant world I was kind of a big deal. I was North Carolina’s Miss USA. I sang for talent and almost always won that portion of the competition. I won scholarships and savings bonds, along with the trophies, crowns, and sashes. I had all the best dresses, had a modeling coach everyone wanted who also did my hair and makeup flawlessly.
But then back in the real world, my everyday life, I was kind of awkward. I was always being picked on for being so skinny. I remember a boy even making me run home crying because he wrote me a nasty little poem. “Roses are red. Violets are black. Why is your chest as flat as your back?” I never wore anything but pants, never shorts or skirts, because the one time I did, I was called Olive Oil and asked if I threw up my food. Everyone is more careful to be nice to people who are overweight, watching their feelings. They never think about the girls who can’t put ON weight no matter how much they eat.
So during my early teenaged years, I was super self-conscious. It wasn’t until I hit about sixteen that I started getting noticed by guys in their twenties. The guys who realized that after high school, the “hot girls” were the ones who usually gained thirty pounds when they stopped cheerleading. I never once dated a guy from my high school. The first guy I really dated was twenty and a Specialist in the 82nd Airborne. God, Doug was ridiculously handsome in his BDUs. When he rolled up the sleeves of his camouflaged top and showed off his huge biceps covered in tattoos, I didn’t stand a chance. I lost my virginity to him after three months of dating. We were serious for about a year before he got stationed in Ft. Richardson, Alaska. We tried the long distance thing but it didn’t work out.
After him, I dated a few more guys. No one special in particular, some I can’t even remember their last names. I slept with most of them. What are your teenaged years for, right? I wasn’t an idiot though. I was on birth control pills, always used a condom, and always careful. That’s the one good thing about dating soldiers. You know they’re tested practically every week. But one thing was definitely missing when it came to sleeping with these guys, and I’m not talking about mushy shit and feelings. I’m talking about the most important thing of all: I have never once in my life had an orgasm with another person. Yep, I said it. I’m one hell of an actress because each of those fellas ended up thinking they were God’s gift to women by the time I finished my porn-star groans and screams of ecstasy.
In reality, I was kind of embarrassed. What the hell was wrong with my vagina? In the books I read, the man can just look at the woman and tell her “Come” and she’s writhing on the floor having the best orgasm of her life. Me? If it wasn’t for my massaging shower head, I wouldn’t even know what an orgasm was. Now don’t get me wrong. I’ve had some really fantastic sex. Like toe curling, eyes crossing and rolling to the back of your head, scream till your lungs get sore sex. But even then…just…couldn’t…reach it.
That has to be it. This has got to be the reason that all I ever find are the dickheads. It’s not all their fault that they’re dickheads. I make them that way! I put them on a pedestal, get them sweet little presents, and scream their names out during sex like I’m in orgasm-city…well fuck! The solution is easy, right?
I will never fake an orgasm ever again.
About twenty minutes ago, I realized I had been talking to my lovebird, Screwy, for about an hour straight and decided that if I didn’t get out of this house, I was going to go insane. But what does one do with no friends and in a giant-ass, unfamiliar city? Well, this chick got on Plenty of Fish. I just completed my profile, uploaded my picture, and now I have access to everyone else’s. In my About Me section, I simply put that I was new in town, here for school, and wanted to make some friends to hang out with. I checked the boxes for Friendship and Dating, and lifted a perfectly tweezed eyebrow at the box for Casual Encounter. Did people really check that box? Clicking through the different profiles I learned that, most certainly, people do.
I identified Houston as my city, of course, but quickly realized that Houston included a million suburbs spanning across God only knows how many miles. I found a picture of a guy I thought was pretty good-looking, but when I typed his location into MapQuest, it said he was more than an hour away. Well that wouldn’t work. Click…click…click…too old, too short, too far away, Casual Encounter ONLY? That dude wouldn’t even need me to turn him into a dickhead.
Is there any way to narrow this shit down? AH, jackpot. I narrow my search to within forty-five minutes away, people looking for Friendship and Dating, and between the ages of 20 and 25.
This narrowed my search down to two hundred and eight people. Hmmm, still too many to go through. I found the box that allowed me to only search profiles that had been logged on in the past thirty days. There. Seventy-six people. I read some pretty hilarious About Me sections, but still, I need to get rid of a few more that just don’t apply to me. I go to the Advanced Search page and click the boxes for people who are Single (you’d think all people on a dating site would be Single, but nope, there are boxes for Single, In a Relationship, Married, and Swingers), people who do not have kids, and who are straight. Although I’d love to have a gay guy friend, that’s not what I’m really looking for.
This time there are only twenty-nine people I have to weed through. Some look pretty promising so I send them a short message introducing myself. I’m clicking past a couple of people who have obviously lied on their profiles and my screen lands on one that makes me pause, tilt my head, and blink like an idiot. “Well, hello there, Spanky83.” I read his profile and he seems just as charming as his Paul Walker looking ass portrays in his picture. His blond hair is cut short—maybe just a tad bit receded, but no biggie—and his bright blue eyes made all the more stunning by his dark tan. He’s got perfectly straig
ht and blindingly white teeth he’s showing off with a friendly smile. Wearing a simple plain black t-shirt and a pair of jeans, he’s sitting on a bed, just like he snapped the picture with his webcam spur of the moment just so he’d have one on his profile.
I send him the same message I sent the few other people who didn’t look like rapists, and continue looking though the last of the profiles. I check my messages to see if anyone has written back yet and two of them have. But for some reason, Spanky83 just won’t get out of my head. Spanky83. That sounds like an email address…or a messenger name. I log on to my AOL account and see if there is a Spanky83 listed in the messenger search engine. Sure enough, there certainly is. His real name is Gavin and he isn’t currently online. I send him a quick message saying I saw his profile on Plenty of Fish and was interested in chatting whenever he wanted.
I was about to log off of the computer when my AOL messenger notification went off. Spanky83 had sent me a message.
Spanky83: Glad you liked my profile ;-) What’s your name?
I do a little happy dance in my seat.
VampBookBlogger: Kayla, you responded pretty fast!
Spanky83: I have notifications sent to my phone. I’m changing the oil in my truck. Lol!
Truck….he has a truck. Oh, Texas boys.
VampBookBlogger: You can do that? I just have a Nokia flip phone. Just figured out how to text!
Spanky83: Yeah, I have one of those new Blackberrys. I can get email and even get on the internet on it. Crazy what they come up with these days. Had to have it for work.
He has a job that requires a fancy phone. Picture is hot, has a truck, has a job…let’s go for it.
VampBookBlogger: I just moved here from NC. Been bored out of my mind since I don’t know anybody or where anything is. You have any plans tonight?