I left the hospital without the burden of guilt. I would say I even felt optimistic about life.
4
AROUND THAT TIME, MY FRIEND JASON JOINED A PICKUP artist group, where men talked about strategies for hitting on women. This movement was probably a kind of reaction to the rabid man-hate that was everywhere. The men exchanged tips and stories on message boards. Occasionally, the PUAs – as Jason called them – would meet in real life. He took me to their meet-up one night. There were twenty men in a basement, most of them young like me and Jason.
A paunchy man got up and talked nonsense. He wore a T-shirt that read Tool. He had black spacers in his ears. The name of the band combined with his overall dweebiness and the circumstances he was in did not escape my sense of irony.
Tool said he went sarging for HBs. He approached a warm-up set of two. He locked in, but then he got locked out by a third HB before he managed to give his number to a set.
Jason whispered “hot babe” when the HB term came up again. Other than that, I was on my own. My phone vibrated. It was a text from some girl that she must’ve sent drunk. Something about me being a dick. The PUA chief kept prattling on about his various failures with women. He recited acronyms with a forced casualness.
I looked around at all the other pasty basement-dwellers who would one day crawl out like the sad, wormy things they were and – armed with tips from message boards from other dweebs – crawl to their shopping malls. There, they would spread their slime around until some sad victim got stuck in it long enough for them to recite their lines. The humiliations they put themselves through – attacking women in shopping malls, bragging about their attacks, whining about being shot down, their language full of hurt and vitriol. It was horrifyingly stupid. Absurd. Unsophisticated.
I was not absurd or unsophisticated.
After Tool, another tool got up to speak. He was attractive, blond like a Viking. Why was he here? My guess was it had something to do with the size of his penis. The Viking looked around the room and smiled: “Men, remember, women want to be seduced, and a well-done pickup is a gift to women.”
“He is sooo good,” Jason said in a squeaky whisper.
The Viking told an anecdote about sleeping with a woman and telling her he had to leave to make it back to the bar before last call. All the men laughed. I didn’t get a chance to find out if this was a cautionary tale or a practice that was advocated because I got up and left. Jason told me later that during the break, the men joked that I was probably a fag or a feminist.
The truth was, despite its ridiculousness, that meeting reminded me how thrilling the pursuit of women actually was. I didn’t need a workshop. I didn’t want motivational speeches telling me how to seduce a woman. I didn’t have to read books about it, listen to tips about how it was best to fire in all directions because it was statistically guaranteed that I’d eventually hit something. I’ve always hit the bull’s eye anyway.
I decided to start dating. This time, I wanted to date beautiful girls. I don’t mean dogs in clingy dresses, with plucked eyebrows, Marilyn Monroe delusions, fake lashes and duck pouts.
Only dweeby PUAs would fall for that.
By beautiful, I mean actresses, models and club girls. I knew the methods of picking up beautiful girls were barely more sophisticated than methods of picking up one-nighter girls. The truth was most girls liked you to be direct, and most girls liked to be degraded. There’s a subtlety to it all that escapes amateurs like my friend Jason, who only offends girls by saying things like, “I like your moustache” to tease them, or by coming on too aggressively, saying, “We should go to my place and fuck.”
***
Around this time, I got a job through my father’s friend who ran a magazine for men. I set up photo shoots and wrote small articles about products: razors, nail clippers. Occasionally, I got to test a sports car and write about it, but mostly it was photo shoots and men’s clothing. There were lots of parties: launches of products, festivals, charity events. The women at these events were Eights and Nines, with long hair and long legs, bouncy tits and firm asses.
It was too much at once. It was time to settle on something. Someone. I couldn’t keep fantasizing. I’d atrophy my confidence and end up in some PUA basement.
One evening, I said to a Nine, “You’re nothing like those model types.”
She was definitely a model. Pouty. Honey-blond hair, big eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you are. But there’s something else about you. You look…too real to be a model.”
She widened those big eyes. The large forehead wrinkled and stayed that way.
I knew enough about beautiful girls to know that their beauty destroyed them.They would fall apart at the smallest thing. I knew that my girl would see real as imperfect, perhaps even fat. I knew that from then on, she would think I held the answers to what she was. A model? A real person? Fat? Imperfect? I was subtler than Jason. I only served doubt, a delicate weapon like a long needle.
We dated for a month. Sandra. It was exhausting. I quickly realized that with beauty came demands and neediness so disproportionate to what I had to offer that my feeling of dread had me in its thrall almost the entire time.
“It’s not you, it’s me.”
“You can’t even try to come up with something more original, can you?” she said.
I could, but why bother my brain?
I went on dates with more beautiful girls, and it was always the same thing as it was with Sandra. The demands remained baroque, just like their beauty. Demands for more time, more attention, more everything, more me. I had no me to give. I’ve always hated sharing.
I reflected on how beauty affected girls. Beautiful women live beautiful clichés: models and moguls. Favouritism in the family, the pretty sister always somehow better than the plain one. Free drinks, free dinners, weekends in chalets. Free trips to Europe and free cocaine, free everything.
Beauty can be a ticket to a better life. Beautiful women expect more. It’s no surprise that they become indignant if more takes its time, become bitter if more isn’t happening, become tragic if it happens and disappears. Because once they understand their advantage, there is no turning back. There is no extracting Cinderella from her Louboutins and stuffing her back into clogs. As soon as they catch a whiff of their advantage, beautiful girls become obsessed with getting their ticket to a better life punched as soon as possible. And as a boyfriend, I was not punching the ticket. I dumped them. I left them open-mouthed in disbelief that I even dared. In the beginning, occasionally, it seemed the joke was on me and I would get confused, thinking it was stupid to let the Good Thing go.
But then I would remember the one rule of beauty: its simple presence made you feel as if you were receiving something special. Beauty’s greatest deceit – the same one I take advantage of – is that you shouldn’t disregard it. It is exactly how I use my own gift with women.
***
It was a relief, an expansion of space, when I went back to what felt most natural – being with girls to whom I was God’s gift. I had a rabid taste for plain girls. It came from the imprint of my first sexual experience. And, naturally, plain girls are easier to handle. Although there was some effort required, I was not resentful of it: I enjoyed seducing plain girls. They adored me. I remembered the power that I had with Caroline. I had to prove nothing to her to be everything to her. It was so easy to let go of her.
I decided to turn the seduction of plain girls into a lifetime pursuit. At that time, it wasn’t a conscious decision, but it became one later, once it was clear what gave me the most satisfaction.
My life opened to grateful girls. Girls with weight problems and with bad skin. Girls who had dreams, but who could forsake those dreams because they understood from the time they were born that the world would not give into their demands. The world was unapologetic about loving beauty, and it ignored the plain girls, if not downright rebuked them.
I had the power to be the
world to them.
***
Unlike Sandra, I don’t remember the name of the first plain girl I dated, but I do remember her gratitude and her lack of expectation. Even dumping her seemed easier. There was some resignation, some offhand comment, but that was that and it was done with. Months later, she sent me a nice letter saying that I was really special, that I had created one of her most treasured memories.
Katie. Cathy?
I suppose I should remember her name, but it didn’t really matter. She might as well have written on behalf of all the girls who followed and who declared me some kind of deity that – even temporarily – relieved them of their insignificance.
Then it was just a matter of time: getting used to their sloppiness and neediness, learning how to navigate properly so as not to set their hopes too high yet leave enough lovely memories and magic in their lives to make them forever indebted to me. It was back to, “So you want me to leave?”
“Do you mind letting the dog back in when you do?”
“Sure. Here’s my number just in case.”
***
I didn’t have to feel badly about them, or even act as if I felt badly. They were always grateful. And knowing this made sex with them more meaningful. What happened in the beginning, with Caroline, and with all the easy women after her, was gone. There was no dread, no self-torture about how to keep it going, how to maintain the façade. I no longer lied to myself that this should mean more than it meant. No one would hold me accountable for not sticking around. The plain girls simply didn’t expect it. I pleased them. The end.
5
I WATCH THE BEACH FROM THE LIFEGUARD CHAIR I HAD installed in front of my beach house. I watch to see if I can find Dolores among the beach people. Even if she were there, I wouldn’t be able to tell her apart from all the others. All the sweet, chubby girls with round shoulders and bad dye jobs.
I picture her walking slowly, her feet splayed, sleep still clouding her lovely eyes, her cheeks getting red from the effort. Thighs rubbing against each other. There are many Doloreses on the beach today.
Later on, at the beach house, as I set the table, I see the actual Dolores. It’s her and the other two girls walking by, looking in. I back away from the window even though there’s no way they can see me with the light reflecting off the glass. Dolores’ mouth is slightly open. Eyes scanning the window.
I could go out, say hello, but the guests will be arriving any minute. I don’t want the girls, Dolores especially, to get the wrong impression. And she’d get the wrong impression seeing Gloria and her magnificent figure, the way she seems to be cut out of one of those luxury magazines about yachts. There’s little chance Gloria will be affectionate – she’s not the type – but you never know with Jason, who may say something about us, about me and Gloria being lovebirds or something like that.
The girls pass eventually, and I go back to making lunch: a salad with goat cheese, red pepper strips, spicy glazed pecans, apple slices on a bed of mixed field greens. Ryebread toast.
My phone rings. It’s probably Jason, dying to report the sort of sights you see as you enter the beach town: the rickety roller coaster and merry-go-round, the minigolf and the go-karts, all of it damaged, in need of a new paint job. Jason is a city boy, and the local folklore would excite him.
But it’s not Jason. It’s $isi. She sounds sleepy. Her voice is childlike, but already getting raw from the bad things she enjoys too much. “Guy. There was a situation.”
“With the video?”
“No. Not with the video.”
“With what then, sweetheart?”
“You’ll see. I’m sorry,” she says. “Some asshole took a photo –”
“What kind of photo?”
“Oh, you know.”
“No, I don’t know. Are your tits showing in the photo? Because if your tits are showing in the photo, that’s not really a bad thing.”
Silence.
“$isi.”
“Don’t say tits, please,” she says. “It wasn’t anything like that. But like I said, it’s not good.”
“You didn’t actually say that.”
“I’m saying it now.”
I want to hang up on her. I want to call Mark, her manager, and find out what kind of photo we’re talking about. But before I do that, I also want to get her reaction to the numbers on YouTube. It would be a good thing to hear her acknowledge the numbers. The biggest problem with $isi is that she’s not motivated enough lately.
“Did you see the numbers?” I ask. I hate it that she won’t say it first because asking her makes me look like I’m begging, like I’m begging for some kind of approval.
“Yeah. We killed.”
“Yeah. Good girl.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t call me that. That’s what you call me when you fuck me.”
“I don’t fuck you,” I say, and she slams the phone.
I call Mark. The photo turns out to be of $isi smoking a joint. As far as drugs go, this isn’t the worst, nothing like Amy Winehouse and her crack pipe, but fuck.
“She’s been dealing with a lot of things lately,” Mark says. His voice is wavering. I wonder if Mark is still mad about me being one of those things. I want to remind him that, thanks to me, $isi will probably become the biggest up-and-coming star of some month in the future – or if we’re lucky, a whole season. The new Britney. Now might be the perfect time to talk about a Thing we need for $isi – a signature scandal. Like a sex tape, or kissing Tila Tequila, or nipple tassels shooting confetti. A joint is not it.
“No, a joint is not it,” Mark sighs.
“Her estranged mother?”
“God.”
“Something else then. A stalker? A feud. With Rihanna?”
“Nobody fights with Rihanna. She’s too cool.”
“A shotgun wedding.”
“We don’t have anyone lined up,” Mark says.
“Let’s call Piglet.”
“Who?”
“Jennifer,” I say.
Jennifer lives in Los Angeles. She is one of $isi’s publicists who specializes in making up believable shit for the media whenever one of her many clients flashes her drunken pussy or holds a funny-looking vial, or a funny-looking cigarette, or falls into cactuses outside of Le Chateau Shitface. She also comes up with Things, and she’s a clean-scandal pro, more Almost-See-Through Dress than Sucking Off Famous Athlete.
I have never met Jennifer in person. We kept missing each other. The only reason I don’t freak out over never having met her is because she’s supposed to be the best. But I hate not knowing what she looks like – me not knowing what she looks like gives her an advantage.
I google images of “Jennifer Jones Evan Public Relations.” The only image that Google comes up with is the same picture of a laughing piglet that she keeps on the website bio.
“Why Piglet? Never mind. Oh, yeah, did you end up getting tested?” Mark says. My body goes numb. For a second, I even feel like crying. I don’t know what’s worse, feeling like crying or Mark knowing, but then I picture Dr. Babe, which is not her actual name but what Jason called her once and it stuck.
I got tested only a month ago. Dr. Babe peeled the top plastic off of the swab package. She was wearing a long skirt, a lavender blouse that billowed around her thin arms; her hair was straightened. No eye makeup. In my mind, I lifted her up and spread her legs, feet in the stirrups. I hiked up her skirt. I ripped a side of her panties with forceps. I stuffed the panties in her mouth. I kneeled and buried my nose in her dark little cunt. Her moans were muffled by the panties; she clutched my hair with her tiny hands. Good girl, I said, and she writhed. They love it when I call them that: Good girl.
The swab pinched inside the tip of my dick; it hurt as if a needle shot through my entire body, exploding in my brain before disappearing, along with my fantasy of Dr. Babe in the stirrups.
“Almost done,” Dr. Babe said sweetly.
After I got dressed, we talked about where she
was going to go on vacation. To the UK for her sister’s wedding. I imagined her sister in this office, watching us: Dr. Babe’s legs in stirrups as I ate her out.
The tests came back negative; I didn’t have a single STI. I don’t know why I panicked about that tiny rash, and I have no idea why I told Mark about it.
“I’m okay. At least you never have to worry about that stuff,” I say to Mark, who is perpetually single.
“Very funny.”
“Goodbye, Mark.”
The doorbell rings. My friends look crumpled, Jason especially in his pink linen shirt and white pants. “The longest fucking ride in my life,” he says.
“You look lovely,” I say to Gloria. This is true. She’s my showpiece, almost as tall as me, and in heels, a bit taller. She wears heels even here; she somehow managed to find a pair of strappy sandals that look sexy but also safe enough to carry her through sand. But I doubt Gloria will cross the street to go to the beach. Even if she did, she would probably not get in the water unless it was for some higher purpose. There’s no such thing as swimming in anything other than a pool when you’re her age. When you’re in your early forties, you’re in the water because it’s supposed to do something for you, whether it’s burning calories or healing some ailment – a skin condition, imagined or not – or giving you a spiritual experience. An older woman almost never swims because it’s fun. In contrast, a young girl swims because she swims – precisely because it’s fun.
Yet Gloria looks as if she lives on the beach. Her hair is highlighted in perfect streaks of golden- and white-blond.
Perhaps because she’s older than me, Gloria has never demanded anything of me. I’m grateful for this and reward her accordingly: an occasional sext to show her my commitment – I can’t stop thinking about biting the inside of your thighs – and dinners and flowers; nothing too explicit, no jewellery. As I said, I enjoy taking her out in public – with her ex-model looks and tiny wrinkles, she seems not only attractive but also full of essence. Though most of it is vodka and bullshit.
Guy Page 3