The One - No one said it would be easy

by Goldsmith, J. F.

  Then – the next shock. Making out properly with someone for the first time, there comes the point when you first look down and give his thing an initial fleeting and brief visual once-over. I never like this moment and always feel like a silly giggly clumsy little girl, even though I don’t show it, of course. Take a deep breath, open your eyes and go for it. So far, I’d always been blessed with well-built and beautiful guys with matching equipment. But what I caught sight of on Number Seven was like the Addams Family version. Made you want to run away screaming. OK – we know that Number Seven was no handsome prince. But that was more than made up for by the kissing. However, once he was lying next to me, stark naked, things became a trifle more tricky. He had a podgy, wobbly body. Since he was red-haired, his skin was milky white. Not exactly beautiful. But at least his milky skin had an appropriately smooth and soft Cleopatra-like feel to it. Definitely a Brownie point. The milky surface of his torso was liberally sprinkled with light orange freckles. His nipples where ludicrously pink. I’d never in my life seen nipples so pink, a veritable piggy-pink. The piggy-nipples were surrounded by some few thin little chest hairs, all gingery blond, and the color scheme continued right down between his legs. It had never occurred to me that pubic hair could be red. Which is why I had such a shock when I was faced with the fire alarm down there! Man, that looks weird! Thick scraggly bright rusty-red frizz. All I could think was, oh shit! Which was not improved upon by what was lurking within this nest of red. A tiny little piggy-pink tail. I could never have imagined that such tiny penises actually exist. Honestly, the thing was as short and thin as my little finger. Up until then, I too had always sounded off about size being unimportant and all that, but as it turned out, I had simply no idea, seeing as my experience of potential size variations wasn’t exactly extensive yet. Well. When I saw what I saw, it became abundantly clear to me that size actually does matter. At the very least, as far as optical impressions go. This tiny little pink thingy in its rusty-red nest of hair was anything but erotic. It just looked ridiculous.

  Being quite a decent person, I am of course aware that any poor schmuck riddled with such a variation on a theme is not even remotely to blame. And the initial shock is quickly replaced by pity. I kept wondering whether it’s just me behaving mightily stupid or whether other women would be equally irritated when faced with such a sight. And so, what to do in a situation like this? Well – nothing, of course! Whatever evil nasty thoughts might run through your head, you pull yourself together and pretend that everything is hunky-dory. You can’t very well stand there and point at the horror vision between the poor guy’s legs and laugh like a hyena! Of course not! Even though, come to think of it, it’d be no more than he deserved: suddenly it became very clear to me why he was such a big-mouthed bragger. Compensation. The other interesting aspect was that his XXS-equipment was such a total mismatch for his overall physique. After all, he was extremely chunky.

  Once I’d gotten over the initial shock, I didn’t let it irritate me any longer and I went to work. I touched the weenie thing. It felt strange, because, unlike with the more usual specimens, you can’t exactly get a proper grip – it’s too thin and little. It requires a more delicate and graceful approach, more finger-work than hand-work. Anyway, it didn’t really feel very sexy. Nevertheless, we persevered. After a while we actually screwed, though I concentrated more on his balls thumping between my legs – a very much stronger sensation than that of his weenie inside of me. Again, I had never believed those rumors about how you couldn’t feel a man’s penis inside of you if it was extremely small. That can’t be, I’d always thought. But it’s true. In any way, I made the best of the situation, and being thumped by his balls was actually very hot, especially when it happened near my back passage. Which was what I concentrated on, discovering a whole new level of sensation and coming quite quickly and intensely. Number Seven was the undisputed ball-thumping champion and both our anatomies were very well suited in that regard. No other man’s balls have ever been able to make me quite this happy!

  We didn’t use a condom. Utterly idiotic. And we never even talked about contraception. I did take the pill, so at least there was little danger with regard to babies. Still, you ask yourself afterwards what on earth possessed you to act like that. Apparently, there are moments when even the most level-headed and responsible good girls and boys manage to disconnect their common sense. Sex without a condom happened quite a few times with me, also in some of the stories yet to be told. Surprisingly, nearly every time neither the guy nor I queried whether we shouldn’t better use something. Denial? Laziness? Not a clue – but the oh so sexually savvy “generation sex” really needs someone to read them the riot act and remind them what’s what! I didn’t introduce compulsory use of condom until I was in my mid-twenties. And realized that it really isn’t a big deal to take a condom out and offer it to the guy and ask him to pull it on. It’s not embarrassing, doesn’t disrupt things and during sex we women can’t tell the difference anyway. In fact it’s better, since you don’t have to worry about the mess between your legs afterwards.

  Sex with Number Seven was actually quite good. Despite his tiny pecker, despite his weird looks and despite the non-existent emotional depth. That’s another one of those discoveries you make during the course of your sexual career: the amazing diversity of people you can happily screw, and under what circumstances. Interesting!

  When we had finished, he fell asleep and started to snore. Oh lovely! Somehow, everything to do with Number Seven was quite bizarre. Then his phone rang. He didn’t answer so his answering machine kicked in. And naturally – nightmare! – there was his girlfriend’s sweet little voice leaving a message for him. What a crappy situation. Immediately, Number Seven grew all tense and I realized how completely I was in the wrong place. Neither of us said anything. With hindsight, I was mad at myself, twice over. I felt guilty because of my boyfriend (I had successfully managed to push that aside) and I felt guilty because of his girlfriend, which I hadn’t been able to push aside. And so I started to behave like an idiot. I acted as though this whole mess was just my fault and poor little weenie-pecker bulldog guy was my victim. It was his fault, too! And now he behaved as though he regretted it all and wished he could undo it. Dumbass. If you want a bit on the side, then fine, do it properly! And don’t park all the guilt with the other person – it takes two to tango! But stupid as I was, I just didn’t get it. Instead of waltzing out of there like a diva, cool, nonchalant and arrogant, and never ever contacting him again, I just packed my stuff together and left, feeling awful.

  Instead of forgetting about him, I started to imagine I was in love with him. Oh yeah – in love with an albino pit bull with macho tendencies and a teensy-weensy pecker. Some cosmic joker was having a particularly good laugh at my expense! I was properly lovesick, wrote silly lovey-dovey text messages and emails and missed him like crazy. Even though inside of me common sense kept yelling: “Are you nuts? Will you forget this guy! I can’t believe you’re actually running after this dork! Get a bloody grip!” But, as is often the case in those “help-I’m-in-love-with-an-asshole” moments, you don’t get it, you’re not capable of taking action, and you just keep making things worse by acting like this unbelievably silly little girl. With ever greater fervor and some kind of sick pleasure you get more and more absorbed into the exquisite pain of your love. I guess we all have to play this out at some point – me, I played it out several times! Total and absolute aberration of emotional taste. A fully blown disaster. Despairing of your own stupidity, you want to immerse your head in the toilet bowl for at least a hundred days by way of a suitable penance. And the most magical thing of all is: you are too stupid even to learn from one’s mistakes! Should a similar love constellation arise at a later date, equally stupid and entirely hopeless, you’ll be only too keen to throw yourself, fully consciously, into the same poo. Like a self-lacerating love-zombie, and despite all warnings from your friends and your mummy. Long live the absence of
common sense and long live the inability to learn!

  The one thing that confirmed itself again and again was that even the worst case of love-sickness will heal in time. And that afterwards you always ask yourself the same question: “What on earth was I thinking?!” Be kind to yourself: smile wisely and forgive yourself. Nothing else works. Smart people know that no one is immune from love’s irrational quirks – or rather, from what we mistake for love at the time. All that remains is the hope that eventually you’re going to be clever enough to recognize your own stupidity and that, next time an emotional mess beckons, you’re going to be more capable of getting yourself out of there under your own steam. Never mind the bittersweet deliciousness of heartache. This doesn’t exactly answer the question of why women keep falling for assholes, but at least it illustrates that possibly this might be due to a blind spot or a wiring fault within the female brain. Maybe we simply can’t help it.

  Number Seven and I met up a few more times. It was always the same. He acted like a big shot (but no big shot in his pants), we had ball-thumping sex while listening to his oh so cool club-type music. I never felt very much at ease with him. Still, after a while I assumed that I was in love with him. I can’t even remember how I handled the thing with Number Five at the time. One of our meetings was particularly weird. For days, Number Seven had bombarded me with yearning text messages. He was longing for me, when would we be able to meet again, and all that kind of stuff. When we finally did meet, we practically tore each other’s clothes off, he whispered things like “Oh baby I missed you so much” and we had great sex.

  Turned on by how emotionally uninhibited he was, I had the grand idea of confessing my apparent love for him. During sex. While he was laboring and panting on top of me, I whispered my “I love you” into his ear. He said nothing. But I instantly knew that he thought only one thing: “Oh shit!” I spent the night at his place and again was very aware that I wasn’t really welcome in his life. Before, he’d made all these lovey-dovey slushy schmaltzy noises, and now this. Unbe-bloody-lievable! How could I have turned into such a stupid clingy cow! Next morning: total meltdown. He muttered something about how it wasn’t possible, he liked me very much but nothing more, and his girlfriend and blablabla and so forth. And that’s when the penny finally dropped. I was good for a screw, and the minute that was over, he just wanted me out of there again. Mad as I was at him, but most of all at myself for being so unbelievably stupid, I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I couldn’t speak. I grabbed my stuff and left. Which was the only sensible thing to do. I heard him hit the door with his fist and yell “shit!” – wow! Albino pit bull in action. Really very impressive.

  Tears streaming down my face, I drove home. I was so mad. Simultaneously I imagined how I’d leave Number Seven to stew if he’d ever got in touch again. Not a peep out of me, nothing, never, I swore to myself. Oh, how much I would have loved to believe this! If Emotional Disaster had a sister, she would definitely be called Inconsequence. All my promises to myself and all my good intentions went out of the window as fast as the conviction with which I had made them was deep. Long live unreasonableness and sweet self-deception! I actually managed not to contact him for several days (always a big deal among girl friends in the wake of an affair with an asshole: “Be proud of me, I haven’t contacted him for two days now!”). Then I received an e-card from him. A dog with a stupid expression on his face said “sorry”, plus a little message from him. And since we’d been on the same wavelength intellectually from the start, and had a lot of fun together before all this sex stuff hit the fan, his message was just right. I started to giggle and I couldn’t be mad at him any longer.

  Naturally, I wrote back and forgave him. Also, his two semesters abroad were just about to begin and we managed to be grown-up enough to make up before he left. We met for dinner, he handed me a bunch of “please-forgive-me” sunflowers and we had almost as much fun as during our pre-sex times. We didn’t mention our botched affair.

  Several years have passed since and we’re still good friends. We don’t see or hear much of each other, but when we do, we are just as silly and have just as much fun as in the olden days. It seems incomprehensible now that I once got into such emotional turmoil over him. And when one day some female colleagues and I, during an attack of shrieking silliness, decided to use an online social network to show each other our most toe-curling affair under the heading “I’d never introduce him to my girl friends!” I was the absolute run-away winner.

  And: the thing with Number Seven confirms once again that sex always comes between men and women. Normal sexless friendships are simply not possible. Always there’s this underlying attraction and the question “what if...?”.

  Number Eight: The dream guy I just couldn’t fall in love with

  Nothing much happened with Number Eight but I have really nice memories of him. It was one of those brief summer-magic numbers that last but a few weeks. I seem to remember that this lovely little affair happened just after I broke up with Number Five. I can only recall his first name and that he was unbelievably cute.

  I met him at a small cozy party given by a friend of mine. I noticed him immediately because he was so damn handsome, like a mixture of Tintin, top model Markus Schenkenberg, and a Monchichi. His behavior was kind of boyish but who cared! He had a huge tattoo on his back, which, prompted by the knowing host and suitably embarrassed, he had to show to the assembled guests. I was majorly impressed; the tattoo added a sexy and wicked note to this seemingly sweet and harmless guy. Plus, he had a very beautiful, well-toned, strappingly tasty physique. We girlies are so easy to impress! Even though I really liked this guy, I didn’t flirt with him that evening, it never even occurred to me. Which meant I was relaxed and easy-going, just having a great evening and lots of fun. I didn’t have to impress or woo anybody, I was free, independent and happily myself.

  Apparently, that’s the best love charm ever, because, big surprise next day: my friend called and asked if she could give my phone number to the Monchichi – he had asked. Baffled, I said yes. Seconds later the phone rang. He was so sweet and bashful and apologized for phoning around after me, but said he’d really wanted to get to know me better. Enchanted by so much cuteness, I didn’t exactly make it hard for him and we arranged to meet that very day, for a walk and some ice-cream. Very romantic. I was a little bit high – after all, isn’t this every girl’s dream: to get the most handsome guy of the evening to jump through hoops to acquire your phone number and to take the first step and dare to call you up, and all without you having made any moves in the first place! That takes some balls! I was most impressed.

  Everything about him was cute. Our initial hellos when we met on our date were sweet, he seemed so wonderfully awkward. And me, I was very pleased to be seen with such a cutie-pie. We wandered about in his village, down the pretty pedestrian zone where he bought me ice-cream, and found a big bolder near a lake in a small park, upon which we sat and talked. That’s more or less all that happened. Some days later, we had another date and he picked me up in a fab purple sports car. Up until then I had never thought that a car could impress me, but it was actually quite grand to be cruising around in such a swish car with such a beautiful guy. I was however somewhat irritated by my newly apparent superficiality and the associated interest in beautiful things. Even my dad – this was during my last few weeks at home, just before I moved into my student digs – whistled appreciatively through his teeth when he saw the swish car and its swish driver. We went to a swish club in the swish city. After an unspectacular evening we went home to his house. He had his own beautifully furnished little flat within his parents’ villa. And he had a gigantic dog. We were hungry and decided to prepare a midnight feast, spaghetti with tomato sauce. Once we’d done away with that, we kissed. He kissed well, but even then I could only think one thing: how cute! Everything we did was lovely, everything about and around him was perfect. But, sadly, for the first time ever and even though he kissed well,
I experienced nothing at all else during the kissing. No further excitement. Nothing else happened that night. Or any other night.

  We went on a few more dates, cooked meals in his perfect flat, I met his perfect (and very nice) mother and we took his perfect dog for a walk. Everything was perfect. We made out a lot and that, too, was perfect. And I so, so much wanted to fall in love with this perfect young man. But it just didn’t work. I got really cross – he was just too cute. But however hard I tried, it just didn’t work. You can’t hurry love. I can’t actually remember how we broke it off. I think I wrote him a long email and explained that he was the most wonderful man on the planet, but that sadly I was not in love with him and therefore it made no sense to keep seeing each other. Number Eight replied with a very cute email – how else? What he wrote sounded so grown-up and mature it quite threw me. Then I felt even more cross that my heart refused to fall in love with this really fantastic dream guy. Falling for a God-awful albino pit bull almost to the point of self-sacrifice – but downright refusing to allow any butterflies in the stomach for an all-round carefree dream-package like this guy. Sometimes your heart simply doesn’t know its ass from its elbow!

  Number Nine: Sex with a best friend

  During my time at university I got to know another cute guy. There were actually quite a few cute guys on campus. A rather strange but still very nice story developed between me and Number Nine. Number Nine was very sweet and totally nuts and we ended up with a very chilled friendship. I was really proud of this; at long last I too had something like a “male best friend”. Although Number Nine was very attractive, I didn’t actually find him sexually attractive. The main reason being that I didn’t like his smell. Not that he smelled bad, rather the opposite – he was always groomed und styled from top to bottom. But something bothered me about his smell. I couldn’t define what exactly it was. But, as science has proven again and again, the first thing that has to be compatible about a potential couple is their smell.