What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding

by Kristin Newman

  So, yes, if you want to screw on the front porch, you can still say you stopped at first base. Good, right?

  Anyway, Cristiano skipped high school second and went straight to high school third that first night, right there in that beachfront bar. (Which, in Grown-up-Lady Bases, is still just first!) I glanced around, embarrassed, at the hundreds of other people, but they were so focused on getting their own hands down each other’s pants that they weren’t giving us a second look. Emma and Kate were learning all of the same lessons about base stealing elsewhere in the bar, and it was a small miracle that we ultimately made it back to our hotel without any ballplayers in tow.

  I told Cristiano we would be going to another island in the morning if he wanted to come with and maybe fall in love for a few days. He couldn’t afford the boat trip, though, and so we said good-bye twenty or thirty times, and then I took his hands out of my pants and went home to my eco resort, like a lady.

  The next day, the girls and I hopped a little speedboat for Boipeba, an even tinier island nearby. It was off-season, and so when we arrived at the pretty little beach with a few restaurants and inns, we were among only a handful of tourists on the island. We wandered around looking at our housing options, and chose a pretty, brightly painted little set of pousadas—cabins—right on the sand.

  We spent the day on the beach with many caipiriñhas, and then, that night, wandered into “town,” which was made up of one main square with four churches around a park. There was a “café” on the square that consisted of four plastic tables and a folding table “bar” in front of someone’s house. We stopped for a drink with the three locals who sat out front, and ended up getting a little samba lesson on the quiet square. At one point, I went inside to use the bathroom, and I had to walk through the living room, where a little girl and her grandmother slept on couches in front of the TV.

  Relaxed and moving at island speed, we made our way home through the quiet village. And the next morning, I emerged from my mosquito net, walked outside, and found Cristiano in a hammock in front of our room, grinning as he waited for me.

  It turns out that Cristiano had a friend with a boat. He hitched a ride to our island, asked the first local where the American girls were staying, and they pointed him in our direction. Apparently even with our bikinis pulled up our butts, we were not blending. For Cristiano’s excursion across the ocean to find me, he brought the following items:

  1 pair of board shorts (on his body)

  1 T-shirt (on his body)

  1 pair of flip-flops (on his feet)

  3 condoms (in the pocket of his board shorts)

  0 dollars

  We used the first condom forty-five minutes after I found him in the hammock that morning, on a rock down the beach, in the shade of the trees, as the turquoise waves crashed around us. Like in freaking From Here to Eternity, but with better tans and bloodier knees. Bases? What bases?

  We used the next two condoms after lunch, very aerobically, under the mosquito net in my pousada. But we were now faced with our first crisis as a couple: we were out of condoms, which were arguably the glue that was holding our relationship together. Cristiano had no money. And, since for some reason my ATM card was rarely working in Brazil, I didn’t either. I had been borrowing cash from my cousin, which meant that Cristiano and I found ourselves knocking on her door, and asking sheepishly:

  “Heeeeey. Could we borrow some money for condoms?”

  (To be fair, I think I was the only sheepish one. Cristiano was looking pretty proud.)

  Emma happily did her part to keep her cousin Bahian-baby-free, and lent me the money for everything Cristiano and I needed that week. As a result, I called her “Sugar Mama.” Cristiano adorably got it wrong, and called her “Mama Sugar,” which is what I still call her to this day.

  During the day, the girls and I would go on excursions, on horses through the mangroves to even prettier beaches, in canoes through marshes into the interior of the island, and then I’d come back to my island boyfriend, whose manhood wouldn’t allow us to pay for him to come along (he was only comfortable with us paying for everything else). He’d spend the day playing soccer on the sand with the local restaurant staffs, and would be waiting on the beach for us to return, smiling and waving as he ran alongside our boat, sort of like a super-sexy golden retriever.

  I found out that he was a real estate agent … on a fairly uninhabited island. Which might have explained the lack of any money. In bed he was more enthusiasm than skill, but he looked great. And often he would literally throw me over his shoulder and take me into the jungle to have his way with me, which bought him an awful, awful lot.

  You may remember that Cristiano did not speak any English, and wonder how we were communicating as we fell more and more deeply in love. Well, we made our way through the week with a sort of Spantuguese we invented, combining our broken Spanish with Portuguese and a dash of charades in a way that worked well enough to do what we needed. He did speak a few words of English, but they were limited to a couple of impressions, like the 007 he did for us one night at dinner:

  “The name is James Bond. Bond.”

  Since he did this with no shirt on, we all applauded wildly. And when we told him it was perfect, we meant it.

  After a week with Rich Little, we said chau, and the girls and I flew back to Rio for one last night in Brazil. Ferris Bueller had told us to go to Rìo Scenarium, a restaurant/​bar/​club that he claimed was the best he had ever been to anywhere in the world (I agree). We arrived to find that the line for the club was two blocks long. As we stood near the entrance trying to decide what to do next, a blue-eyed, square-jawed, golden-skinned, broad-shouldered young surfer who was somehow even better-looking than Cristiano looked over, and smiled. In response, I gasped. I might have even said, “Jesus Christo.” He smiled bigger, and waved us to the front of the line with him and his adorable friend.

  This was Rodrigo.

  My second Brazilian boyfriend was a big-wave surfer in his late twenties who was just a few days away from moving to Sydney to learn English. Now fluent in Spantuguese-charades after a week with Cristiano, I gave Rodrigo my drink order and he led me through the club, as Emma zeroed in on his curly-haired young friend. The club was a three-level converted antiques shop. There was still a huge array of old, cool stuff everywhere, and there were thousands of gorgeous people of all ages eating, drinking, and dancing. Several varieties of live music poured through every level, from traditional Brazilian music to clubby DJs, and Rodrigo took me to the first floor, where couples danced to a slow, sexy samba band.

  If there is anything more ridiculously sexy than a young, blue-eyed Brazilian surfer who knows how to samba, I just don’t know what it is. He pulled me close, and that’s when I felt his body. It kind of made my eyes water. Suddenly feeling like a frat boy, all I could think of was how badly I wanted to see him with his shirt off. I’ve never really understood men’s interest in feeling boobs (everywhere but Brazil)—there are no erogenous zones on the palms of one’s hands, after all. But all I wanted to do was Tune in Tokyo on Rodrigo’s chest, immediately.

  As we swayed to the music, and I felt certain that things couldn’t ever be better for the rest of my days, Rodrigo leaned close, inhaled my hair, and tried to whisper his first English in my ear:

  “You smell bad.”

  I gasped, and Rodrigo immediately realized his mistake: “Oh, no, good! You smell so good! I make wrong word!” I had to take a minute while I bent over in the middle of the dance floor, holding my belly and laughing, and then, less than twenty-four hours after I said good-bye to my island boyfriend, Rodrigo took my face in his hands.

  “I can kiss you?” he said, hopefully.

  He got that one right.

  Regardless of how I smelled, our night continued on until dawn. Now, again, I had been naked with another man less than twenty-four hours earlier. And, no, I’m not excited that my father is reading this right now. But, for all womankind, and to take
a stand against slut-shaming, I’m going to continue. Yes, I was with two men in one day. But, Dad, I will say in my defense that there was a (domestic) flight in between them—nearly a thousand miles and close to twenty-four hours—which I feel effectively separates them in a way that feels less, you know, disgusting.

  Although less disgusting is not the way the rest of this story goes.

  Rodrigo took me back to the little two-bedroom apartment he shared with his grandfather, where his baby pictures hung in the hallway. His things were all in boxes for his move to Australia, and there was just a mattress on the floor of his bedroom. The sound of his grandfather’s snores drifted through the walls and over we young and not-so-young lovers.

  Rodrigo and I took off each other’s clothes, and things were just as spectacular as I imagined they would be. All I wanted to do was rub my face on his chest and stomach, and all he wanted to do was flip me upside down so that we could nuzzle each other’s genitalia. Sessenta e nove is the sexier, Brazilian way to say it. Now, I was a guest in this country, and my mother taught me to eat what is being served, but I’ve always found this move to be in the “more-is-less” department. Do you focus on the giving or the receiving? In my opinion, both suffer.

  But there I was, on top of Rodrigo in his grandpa’s house, exchanging pleasantries with the lights on (my idea, due to my interest in seeing him, which I was now regretting given the view one has in this particular position). After a few minutes, I tried to flip around for the Main Act, but Rodrigo held me securely in place, still enjoying the overture, apparently. I’m sure Freud would have some things to say about Rodrigo, as from the feel of things he seemed to have a desire to crawl back into the womb, face-first. Which was not unpainful. A couple of “Ows” might have popped out of me as the young surfer tried to dive into me much like I imagine he dove into a wave. My repeated attempts to flip around were repeatedly rebuffed, so eventually I gave up and just let the guy attempt to split me in half.

  Eventually, in not a small amount of pain, I righted my ship, and faced my new close friend. And that’s when I noticed what looked like a scratch mark on his nose, covered in a bit of blood.

  “Oh, no, did I scratch you?!” I said, kissing his nose.

  “No! Is from you!” Rodrigo chirped.

  I gasped. I bled on his nose? It was not that week.

  “Is your ass!” Rodrigo said, as cheerful as a Mouseketeer.

  It was not my ass, but it was certainly Ass-Adjacent. The boy had torn me open, and I had bled on his face. And he was thrilled about it.

  Oh, Brazil.

  A couple of weeks after we got home, I got an e-mail from my island boyfriend, Cristiano:

  RE: TUDO BEM?

  TUDO bom!!!!! I find money for fly to Los Angeles!!!!! I stay with you????? You can pay for three weeks food and party?????

  The man from the carless island without a dollar to his name had found the money to fly to Los Angeles. But the nice thing about not being twenty-one is that you know what happens if you ship them home. Inviting a penniless Brazilian into your house for food and parties is like inviting in a vampire, but with more drum circles. Once they’re in, you’re powerless and they’re not going anywhere. And, as was the case with my other Brazilian, they may very well draw blood.

  I told Cristiano I would love to see him if he made it to Los Angeles, but that I couldn’t help him with the food and parties. And I never heard from him again.

  So, here is why I really want to tell this story, despite some shame: Brazil was fantastic. Was it sordid and revolting? Yes. Am I horrified that my father is reading about it? Tremendously. Would I recommend the exact same experience to even my very own daughter someday? If she spends as much of her life worrying and overanalyzing as her mother does, absolutely. Everybody needs a little bit of that’s crazy, a little bit of way too much. Balance, Dad, like you said.

  So, the deep and profound moral of this trip? If at all possible, at least once (or twice) in your life, get as naked as possible with a Brazilian.

  Oh, Brazil.

  7

  “Dominican Surgeons Are Not Half Bad”

  Los Angeles International → La Republica Dominicana, Aeropuerto Internacional General Gregorio Luperón

  Departing: December 26, 2007

  2007 was the year I had emergency surgery in an island nation and sex with a Finn, in that order.

  Ferris’s New Year’s trip in 2007 was to the Dominican Republic, and it fell smack-dab in the middle of the hundred-day-long Writers Guild of America strike. The strike was just and necessary; TV and film writers were not getting paid when our work was aired on the Internet, and, soon, the kids told us, no one would be watching TV or movies anywhere else. When you work in a career that has the same average lifespan as a professional athlete’s, you want to make sure you’re getting paid. Those dollars have to last for a lot of years after one is deemed too old to write dick jokes. So we struck against the companies who were telling us that they weren’t making a dime off the Internet, while telling their shareholders (publicly, and in writing) that profits were through the roof because of the Internet.

  Despite the just cause, things on the picket lines could get awkward. Other unions would come out to picket with us in support—teamsters, nurses, airport workers. So … people with real jobs. People with the kinds of jobs where you sometimes had to do things like, well, stand up. And who made way, way, way less than writers do. So there were days spent marching hand in hand with The People, united against The Man, before heading to The Palm for lump crab meat, steaks, and martinis. Or sometimes we slummed it and went to have free food at a nearby diner where Drew Carey ran a tab for striking writers. The postpicketing conversation was invariably about how much more exercise we were all getting on the picket lines than we had during our days spent gorging on free food in a writers’ room.

  Gross. We know. But that’s what happened.

  At work that year, I had been operating under what is called an “overall deal.” What this means is you are paid a lump sum to work on shows for your studio, as well as develop original shows for them (which you then shop to the networks). I had sold the studio an idea for a show that was basically Cheers in an expat bar in Buenos Aires (all in the hopes of getting to shoot it there), but the networks all balked at a show set in another country. Americans, they feared, wouldn’t relate to people who wanted to do something as crazy as leave America.

  As part of the deal, I was also working on a sitcom produced by the Farrelly Brothers, the guys responsible for movies like There’s Something About Mary. Because it was a Farrelly Brothers show, in the pilot, the lead got ass-raped by his date’s pet monkey. This meant days in a writers’ room where my talented, serious boss would shake his head and say things like, “I don’t know, you guys, I just don’t think we have the monkey-ass-rape moment of this episode yet.” And so we would hunker down and try harder.

  That show only made it six episodes, and my expat show hadn’t sold, so I was not exactly “working” for a living when the strike hit and made me stop working.

  You can see why the nurses and truck drivers should have hated us.

  As for my personal life, I had spent the year going on a lot of first dates. There were a few months spent with an overly emotional French writer, who absolutely made it into my Top Three in the bed department, but who called his own writing “beautiful.” He would call late at night, tortured, wanting to make a confession:

  “Tonight I feel like an emotional vampire.”

  I did not know what that meant, but we still talked about it for two or three hours. There was also an unfortunate crying hand-job incident. (I was giving the hand job, he was crying.) Again, though, when he wasn’t crying, Top Three. I called him “Frenchie Summer 2007” because we met on the Fourth of July, and I had promised my friends I wouldn’t keep him past the equinox. I extended the relationship for a couple of weeks into the fall for previously explained reasons, and then he was gone.

&n
bsp; But other than Frenchie Summer 2007, they were coming and going pretty rapidly. There was a charming, guitar-playing development executive for a couple of months before we realized we were just supposed to be friends, an Israeli landscaper whom I fought with and kissed at the dinner table on our first date (in that order), and a tall, heavily muscled capoeira instructor I called the Black David (à la Michelangelo), whose body in my white-tiled shower will be seared into my mind until the day I die.

  While the relationships did not blossom into love, all of these experiences were really yielding fruit in my career. That monkey-ass-rape show was about newly divorced people going on terrible dates. The year before, I had written on How I Met Your Mother, another show about missed romantic connections. And I found that, in both instances, I had some stories to contribute. Stories I couldn’t have contributed just a few years earlier. A lot of them. Like, maybe enough already. Remember when Robin went to Argentina and brought back a hot Argentine on How I Met Your Mother? That’s a trip paying for itself.

  Meanwhile, Sasha had just had her first baby, making the wildest child in my life now officially a mother, and on to a different life, while I was still amassing stories with my husband, Hope. I realized my life was changing when I called myself a “serial monogamist” to my friend Dan, part of the Ferris Bueller posse who had only met me at thirty, after my decade spent entirely with two long-term boyfriends.