“I just wanna take it slow. Keep it light. You know, not get too serious, too fast.” Who’s serious now, buddy-boy?
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. And sex is so much better once you have feelings for the person.” Ah-ha! He didn’t have feelings for me yet!
“Right. So let me know when you have feelings for me.” And if that day never comes, neither will our love-making. This is so much simpler than it felt when I was letting myself go with him.
“I will.” And in his smile, he seems to really mean it.
He gets up off the floor and kisses me some more. I can feel myself getting turned on all over again, so I know it’s time to call it a night.
“Maybe you should go.”
“Hey, what are you doing tomorrow?”
“I’m going to a book signing after work at City Lights.” It may look like “hard to get”, but I actually have some important questions to ask Marty about his theories.
“Well what are you doing on Saturday?” he tries again.
“Lacey has a work event party thing that I promised I’d go to with her.” With my clear sex and alcohol free mind, I can remember my whole calendar all of a sudden.
“Oh, so you’re busy?” he sounds really disappointed for a guy who’s going to cancel on me anyway, “cuz I know this great salsa place. Are you sure you have to go to your friend’s work party?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Then he kisses my cheek softly, as he tucks his bruised ego back into his pants and leaves. I may not ever see him again, but at least this way he didn’t hump and dump me. Not as far as he knows about, anyway.
Chapter 18
The next time Lacey and I show up to Marty’s book signing something strange happens. Like last time, there is no one else there, and like last time, Marty warns us to watch out for the crowds so that we don’t get caught in a stampede on our way to the author, and like last time, I find his joke hilarious, but one thing is distinctly different. This time, there is a giant bouquet of red roses on his desk. Those were definitely not there in the previous version of this day.
“That’s weird,” I accidentally say out loud, “where did those come from?”
“Oh, they’re for you,” Marty says offering them to me.
For a girl who’s made it abundantly clear that she’s not interested in Marty, Lacey couldn’t be more upset.
“You got my friend roses?! Well that’s no way to get in my pants!”
Lacey has always been clear about the fact that when a guy likes her, she claims all rights to him, whether or not she reciprocates his feelings. This is just part of her larger general pattern of needing slightly more attention from guys than the average girl. That said, I think most of us can relate to the minor sting of rejection that comes with having a guy suddenly stop being into you, even after you’ve hit him over the head with the fact that you’re never going to be into him. It’s weird, it annoys you when he calls, but it still hurts a little when he stops calling. Why is that? Anyway, this situation has nothing to do with that, because Marty didn’t get me those roses.
“No, that guy John brought ‘em by,” Marty explains. “The John from the bar the other night.”
I did mention that I was going to City Lights bookstore. He came all the way here? Despite my previous resentment, I have to give the guy some credit. Sending flowers is amazing, but actually delivering them yourself is above and beyond romantic! Why does he do this to me? Right when I think it’s over, he shows me why I don’t want it to be. There’s even a card with the roses. I read it out loud.
“I can’t stop thinking about you. I wish you could come salsa dancing with me Saturday night.”
“I don’t understand you,” Lacey protests, “you make up your mind to meet the love of your life on a specific night, and not only does he show up, he turns out to be perfect. That doesn’t happen to people!”
He’s not nearly as perfect as she thinks. Then again, nobody is, so he might just do… if only I can get him to love me enough that he doesn’t freak out and run.
“Honestly, Lacey, it could still all be nothing more than a play to get in my pants,” I admit, hoping I’m wrong. “It may be that all this overt romance is just because I’ve decided to wait until I know he loves me to sleep with him.”
Marty jumps in, “Just in case that takes a while, you might wanna pickup a copy of my book. It’s a masturbation guide—among other things.” Good on him for recognizing the opportunity to plug his book! In PR, that’s what you hope for from your clients, but some of them just don’t think that way.
“Oh, I’ve already read it,” I say proudly.
“You did?!” Lacey is shocked.
“And I loved it! But it’s so much more than a masturbation guide.” He should know not to downplay the value of what he’s got here. “It’s funny and it’s smart, and I loved finding out about the brain chemicals. You really know what you’re talking about!”
“Wow. Thank you. I like a woman who comes to class prepared to suck up to the teacher,” Marty jokes.
“Why didn’t you tell me you read his book?” Lacey exclaims, a little indignant.
I guess it would seem weird to someone who didn’t know that she gave it to me. It must look like I went out of my way to find the book and read it, so she’s probably wondering why I’ve taken such an interest in a guy who’s supposed to be courting her. I can see why she’d feel a little territorial, but I can’t exactly tell her what really happened. So I lie hoping that Marty doesn’t out me.
“Oh, it came into my work.” After all, we get a lot of books to read for possible representation at my PR firm. “I just didn’t realize it was the same book until we got here and I recognized the cover.”
Lacey seems satisfied with that answer, but Marty is now confused.
“It came in to your work?” he asks. “What do you do?”
“I’m in PR. We rep a lot of books, among other things and people.”
“That’s weird. I never sent it to a PR firm.”
Lacey shoots me a cockeyed look. I have to think fast.
“It’s our job to know what’s coming out on the cutting edge, so we have our ways.” God I hate having to do all this lying to cover up the inexplicable time loop I’ve entered! I admit that with John, a few of my lies have come from realizing I did something wrong on one pass, and trying to do it better the next time. That’s just me fixing stuff. But with situations like this, it’s like what choice do I have? I can’t very well say, “Lacey gave it to me as a consolation prize for getting dumped by the guy who just hand delivered a dozen roses to this book store to beg me to go out with him on Saturday night.” That doesn’t make any sense.
Wanting to take the focus off why I read the book and put it on what’s in the book, I start asking my questions, cutting off their chance to ask me any more.
“Is that stuff true about Oxytocin? Does it really cause a woman to feel unreasonably bonded to a man, just because she’s had sex with him?”
“Yeah! Why do you think we try so hard to get you guys to sleep with us? It’s because most of us know that we’re losers, and if we can just get you in the sack one little time, the Oxytocin will be released into your systems, and you’ll become completely oblivious to all the lame things we do.” Marty seems delighted to discuss the contents of the book, and that alone works to steer him away from any more questions about why I’ve read it. Lacey, on the other hand, still seems a little torn between letting herself get wrapped up in the interesting new direction of the conversation, and holding on to her doubts about my excuses for having read the book.
“But why doesn’t it happen in guys?” I continue, more because I want to know than because I think it will pull Lacey further away from her correct instinct that I have just lied through my teeth.
“It’s just biology… In fact, sex often causes the opposite response in men, because after his feelings of lust have been satiated, he goes back to his pre-arousal state of m
ind. You know, clear-headed and logical.”
That explains so much about John! He’s driven to have me by some animalistic instinct that causes him to do absolutely everything in his power to get what he wants. Romance, dinner, roses. He wants it so badly that he doesn’t even realize that he’s doing uncharacteristic things because he is in a heightened state of hormonal desire that doesn’t actually match his true level of emotional attachment to me. But he thinks the feelings of lust he’s having are real, or maybe he even thinks he’s in love with me. So he really means all the nice things he says about wanting to go on future dates, and being so excited to have met me, and blah, blah, blah. It’s all true in that moment. Until he has sex with me. That diffuses the hormones that have been driving him to act—for lack of a better term—“crazy”, and he goes back to his even and level state of mind, where he’s able to really assess me. That’s when, suddenly, it becomes all too clear that he doesn’t know me that well. In his previous state, he may not have been paying attention to who I really am at all! Now though, he has the mind-space to really see me for who I am (which, of course is still the same person I’ve been presenting to him all along). Now clear-headed, he realizes that he’s acted crazy for a girl that he’s basically invented in his head. All those pre-sex feelings suddenly feel like a lie. He’s embarrassed about it. He feels duped and betrayed by his own emotions. And why would he want to be around someone who has caused his emotions to take him for a ride?
I can relate to these feelings because it’s just like when I have PMS. I really believe that I’m fatter, even though I haven’t gained one pound. I really believe that I’m having a horrible day, even though the only bad thing that happened is that I spilled a glass of water on the floor. It doesn’t even have to be sticky soda or stain-prone red wine for me to think my whole day is ruined. I really believe that I can never accomplish anything in my life, and I should give up on all my dreams of love and wealth and stability, because I’ll never be good enough at anything, and I may as well just crawl into a cave and wait to die. And then I wake up the next day, I get my period, and suddenly, I feel fine. I feel great, like I can do whatever I set my mind to. But yesterday, the PMS hormones fooled me into thinking I was worthless. Those hormones betrayed me, and in the process probably caused me to do a lot of things I wouldn’t normally do—like cry at work and tell my closest friends and allies that I don’t need their shit and I don’t need them! Which of course is the opposite of the truth. And I hate my PMS for leading me down an untrue path, and driving me to make mistakes that I wouldn’t have otherwise made. This must be how John feels after sex.
Now I have to ask Marty the most challenging question a girl hoping for a love life could care to know.
“But if that’s what happens to men after sex, then how do you explain any of them ever getting into a relationship?”
“Men have more than one hormone running through their bodies. The one that gets dismissed after sex is only in control of the part of the mind that feels lust—which not completely uncoincidentally, is the same part of the brain that feels addiction. The hormone that relates to love and the desire to pair-up is a different hormone altogether, so it triggers a different part of the brain.” Holy shit. Marty actually knows the scientific answer to this question! So what does that mean for me?
This new information tells me that I’ve triggered the part of John’s brain that feels lust and addiction, but I haven’t triggered the part that feels love or the need to pair-up. That is super informative, but how the hell do I trigger that?
I know that we’re right for each other, because I—unlike some people—have been able to keep a clear head about who he is. I don’t have that lusty hormone controlling me and making me crazy before sex. I get to see that we think the same way, and want to do the same things, and obviously the attraction part is covered, since that’s what has been driving him. But how do I get him to see that we’re perfect for each other beyond that? More importantly, how do I get him to feel it, right there in that part of his brain that senses love and the desire to pair-up? Maybe Marty knows.
“So if a guy already feels lust for you, how do you get him to convert that into love?”
“You can’t. Lust doesn’t convert into love, they’re two separate things.” I’m sure I look disappointed because he decides to elaborate, “Look, if you can get a guy to hang out with you long enough, one of two things is going to happen. Either he’s going to stop calling because he’s tired of waiting to get what he wants and has found someone else to give it to him, or he’s going to grow attached to having you around. Maybe in the process of getting to know you, he falls for you, or maybe he doesn’t. There’s just no way to know. But if he’s driven to have sex with you already, at least you have that to keep him hanging around. Most guys won’t give up on trying to get into a girl’s pants unless she gives him hard and fast evidence that it’s never gonna happen. I mean, look at me and Lacey!” He can never stay serious for too long, before throwing in some kind of a joke. I like that about him. Lacey not so much.
She takes her signed book, grabs my arm and pulls me to the door.
“Thanks for signing this. We have to go,” she casually announces to Marty as we walk away. He looks saddened by the sudden departure, and I can’t help but shrug my shoulders at him, signaling as best I can that it’s not his fault and I don’t know what to do about her.
When she gets me outside the store, Lacey is upset in what I would consider a possessive way.
“What were you trying to prove in there?” she snaps at me.
“Nothing. Although I really don’t understand why you won’t give him a chance. He’s a great guy and a true talent. It’s a shame more people don’t know about him.”
Oh my God! People should know about him. That’s my job. Here I was skirting around the issue of how I read his book because it came into my firm, and not once did it cross my mind that I should represent him! How did I not come up with this sooner?
“I have to give him my card!” I gasp, inspired by my new idea. I quickly dig a business card out of my purse and turn back toward the store to go talk to him, but Lacey grabs my arm, flipping me back around toward her.
“Forget it. He already likes me!” she says. Doesn’t she understand that I’m about to help her?
“Lacey, I could do this for you. I’m a publicist. He’s sex. Sex sells. I can sell him!”
“Do you mean, you think you could make him rich?”
“Between radio, TV, movies and the internet, I don’t see why not.”
“Well, if you can fix him, I’ll be the one to give him your card!” Lacey snatches the card out of my hand and walks back to the bookstore, but not without first telling me, “And by the way, you can go salsa dancing with John Saturday. You’re uninvited to my party.”
“Why?”
“I’m taking Marty as my date instead. I’ve gotta snag him now, before he knows he has money.”
“Now you’ve put the pressure on me to succeed,” I call after her.
“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna sleep with him until he actually has it.”
“Oh,” I practically yell down the street, “so I guess now, we’re not having sex together.”
I think my joke is pretty funny, and so do a couple of pervy guys walking by us on their way to the strip club across the street.
Now that I’m free to go salsa dancing with John, the question is: do I want to?
Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I want to!
Chapter 19
Over the course of the next few months, John and I start really dating. We do everything we talked about doing and it is amazing. We go salsa dancing. We go out to dinners. We cook together. We go to concerts. We go on bike rides, and hikes, and to fairs and festivals. We do every fun thing we can think of, except have sex.
When the topic comes up, which of course it does, I just say, “I’m not ready,” or “I’m enjoying getting to know you,” or “I really want y
ou, but not yet,” or, “Soon, it’ll be soon.” I just keep that carrot dangling in front of him, and those hormones keep him calling and courting.
On the surface, all signs would point to us being in a legitimate relationship. He opens my doors, and calls me every night before bed, and texts me his every move and whereabouts throughout the day. He tells me stories about his patients at the hospital, and dramatic close calls on the operating table, and what that disgruntled nurse Norma said today to try to ruin his day, and what the obese nurse Janie had for lunch, as usual setting a bad example for the patients she’s asking to eat healthy foods. We visit my parents, who adore his perpetual smile, his magnanimous chuckle, his good manners, and his ability to instantly diagnose all their physical ailments. How nice it would be for them to have a doctor in the family, just as their bodies start to degrade.
Most relevantly though, we laugh all the time. At everything that happens to us, good or bad. I was right about us being great for each other. We get along like we were made to be best friends. And without the sex, that’s exactly what we’ve become.
Don’t get me wrong, we still make out a lot, but if my clothes start to come off too much, I leave or ask him to go, depending on where we are. Once in a while, I let it go until we get incredibly hot and heavy. This is a bad idea, as it only makes it harder to pull myself away.
One time we came close. He had me so excited. My shirt was wide open, and he had me pressed against the wall moaning, even before he lifted up my skirt and kneeled down to kiss me in the land of no control. I considered letting myself go, as he kissed me once, twice. I didn’t see how I could pull myself away when all I wanted was to strip off his jeans and stick him inside of me. But I took a deep breath, thought about losing him, and suddenly found the strength to jump over his arms like a stuntwoman, somersaulting my way to the door, which I promptly opened to show him the way home. Had I waited another split second, I don’t think I would have gotten away from my overwhelming desire for him.
How Long You Should Wait to Have Sex: a Novel Page 13
