When I started avoiding sex, it was because I wanted him to truly love me first, but it’s gotten to the point where I love him so much that I’m just plain scared of having sex with him. Considering our past, I can’t help but worry that sex will be the end of all this. I would be crushed if he left me at this point. Now, I actually know what he’s like, and I’m happy! He makes me feel like a princess, which kind of makes me feel guilty for stringing him along. I mean, I am planning to have sex with him! I want to. I just don’t want all this to go away. I wish he would hurry up and tell me he loves me, already, or give me some kind of a definite sign, so I can finally feel secure about how attached he is to me.
~
Meanwhile, Lacey is going on multiple dates with Marty, and also not having sex with him. In fact, it seems she’s playing it safer than I am. She’s not even letting him get to first base. She proudly reports back to me all the ways in which she avoids his advances when they part ways, by jutting out her hand for a shake, or turning her head to give him the cheek when he tries to kiss her. The closest Marty has gotten to action is the time when he managed to steal a hug from her, during which he pulled her in so tight that—as Lacey put it:
“He was basically feeling up my boobs with his chest!” In her description of the situation, she adds that she made sure to tap him on the back during that hug, so he wouldn’t get the wrong idea about how close he was to getting lucky. Personally, I hate it when people tap me on the back in an intimate hug. It’s so condescending. I guess she made her point.
I’ve been secretly hoping that Lacey would get to know Marty so well that she would recognize what a great guy he is and fall for him despite his financial status. That’s why I haven’t exactly told her that when I brought up the idea of representing Marty to my boss, he didn’t go for it at all.
~
“You want me to take on a client who can’t afford to pay us up front?” Henry asks me incredulously.
“I was thinking we could work out some kind of a pro-bono, contingency deal. We set certain financial goals for his business, and after we help him reach them, he back-pays us at a higher monthly rate. Like double, say $6000 a month, instead of our standard $3000 to $5000 retainer.”
“And he’s a sexology teacher at U.C. Berkeley, you say?”
“A sexology professor,” I correct.
“I don’t know, Samantha. I just don’t see a big enough market to make it worth the risk.” Henry is all about the bottom line, but in this case, I think he’s wrong.
“It’s sex. There’s always a market for sex,” I argue.
“Maybe if he were Kinsey or Masters or Johnson, but this guy is unknown.”
“I know, but he’s good. And two of the three people you just mentioned aren’t even living anymore.”
“You know as well as I do that being dead doesn’t stop a person from being profitable.”
“Fine, but my point is that Marty is funny. He approaches biology like Jon Stewart approaches the news. He injects it with a humor, which makes it young and light and modern. He makes science fun.”
“And ‘making science fun’ is a great pitch for a biology book geared at elementary school kids, but adults either like to read about science or they don’t, and those who like it, don’t need for it to be fun.”
“I see this as more than a book though. It could be a conversation on the web, web shows, advice columns, sex toys. There are so many directions we could go with him.”
“You really have a strong gut feeling about this guy?”
“Yes! That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“Well, okay. Then what I think you should do, is when you have your own business, you should represent him. But so long as you’re working for mine, I don’t think this is a good use of your time. If he wants to pay for our services, fine, we’ll have a chance to see if you’re right. But I just don’t think there’s a strong enough guaranteed upside on this, to take him on contingency.”
My disappointment at this outcome helps me recognize that I’m not just upset because I’d told Lacey I would do this, I’m also upset because I really want to do it. I became so inspired by his book, and I could use a client once in a while who’s just plain fun to work on. So I guess one of the reasons I haven’t told Lacey about Henry’s response is because I’m still deciding if I’m going to take his “no” for an answer.
~
I decide to sneak out of the office and have lunch with Marty, so that I can talk to him about becoming his publicist. May as well start with seeing how that goes.
“Hey, thanks for coming so far out of the way,” I say, as Marty sits down at the table in the remote diner I’ve chosen for our secret meeting. “I just didn’t want to risk running into anyone from the office… Yet.” My plan is to tell Henry about this as soon as I’ve made so much money for him, behind his back, that he won’t have any choice but to give me another promotion plus a raise. I’m gonna make Marty so big, Henry might even offer to make me partner! He’ll see that my instincts are worth trusting.
“I should be the one thanking you,” Marty says. “I don’t know what you said to Lacey, but she’s totally changed her tune about me. I even think we’ve been going out on actual dates.”
“You’re not sure?” I tease.
“Well she does this one weird thing at the end, which is… completely avoid my advances.”
He has the most endearing way of expressing himself. He’s never afraid to be honest about parts of himself or his life that most people would be embarrassed to admit. He just puts it out there with a laugh in his voice, as if he accepts the comedy inherent in the tragedy of being him--a great guy, with inoffensive but extremely average looks, and a profession that makes most women think twice about how trustworthy he might be. He’s simply jovial about all of it. His acceptance of his own lot in life causes you to naturally accept him for it, too. At least that’s the effect he has on me. I get him. Unfortunately for him, I probably get him better than Lacey does.
“Lacey just doesn’t realize yet, how lucky she’d be to get a guy as great as you.”
“Wow! Thanks,” he says, genuinely taken off guard by the unsolicited compliment. Then he adds, “What are you doing later?” again with a desperate humor that implies that he thinks you’re out of his league, but has been turned down so many times that he’s gotten in the habit of always taking the shot anyway, just in case. Obviously, in this case, the fact that he’s joking goes without saying, since we both know that he’s dating my best friend, and hitting on me would be inappropriate.
“I wanna help you get her though,” I continue on my previous train of thought about Lacey, “I mean, if you want that?”
“Yeah! So what am I doing wrong?” he asks, quickly adding, with perfect comic timing, “but don’t be too harsh about it, I’m more sensitive than I look.”
I chuckle and say, “It’s not a big deal. It’s just that you’re too… let’s say, ‘small’.”
He looks surprised, as his brown eyes drop toward his penis, “Did somebody tell you that?”
I protest, wondering why I phrased it like that, “No, I—“
He interrupts me to joke, “Because we know it wasn’t Lacey.”
I can’t help but laugh at his lightheartedness, which seems to inspire him to go on something of a comedic rant about it.
“Unless she saw those nudes of me on the internet. But I only did that to put myself through college! And they promised me the shots would be artistic. Okay, nobody said that. But they did say they’d Photoshop my balls bigger. You know society puts so much importance on the size of a man’s balls.”
I’m laughing hard, like the one-woman audience to the standup routine he’s kept bottled up inside ever since he decided to follow a career in sexology instead of comedy. My unabashed enthusiasm eggs him on.
“Oh, no!” he continues, pretending to realize for the first time, “There’s my problem, the giant balls make the shaft look small. Why d
idn’t I think this through better?... Wait, am I being unprofessional?”
This sends me over the edge laughing, because he is. In fact, this type of off-color humor, which I grew to love in his book, is exactly why I’m so excited about what he could become. Now I’m literally having a laugh attack, which he is clearly enjoying being the source of, so he doesn’t stop.
“Geez, I haven’t got a girl laughing this hard since—I guess since the last time one saw me naked.” See? Hysterical! “You know, with Mr. Small Stuff hangin’ out, and all. Okay, I’ll give it to you, it is pretty funny. I mean, to look at. It’s so teensy-weensy. You wanna see?” He pretends to unzip his pants to show me, and I protest as best I can through the laughter, which is making me fairly incomprehensible.
“No! Please don’t show me. I can’t have that on my conscience!”
“But wait,” he goes on, “if Lacey knows about my size, then the thought of seeing me naked wouldn’t scare her at all. Which leads me to believe, that can’t possibly be what you’re talking about… So tell me, Samantha, how am I too small?”
He brought it back full circle. He did not lose sight of what we were talking about, despite the five-minute detour. I didn’t even remember what we were supposed to be talking about, myself! Now I’m impressed.
“Let me catch my breath,” I pant, trying to calm down from the laughter long enough to refocus on the purpose at hand, which is my masterful, carefully prepared, don’t take no for an answer pitch. “I just meant that you’re a college professor, with a great book that nobody knows about. And you should be so much more.”
“But I’m happy at U.C. Berkeley.” Is he turning me down? “I love that young, influenceable kids sign up for my classes, and in so doing are instantly forced to memorize my every word and thought or I get to flunk them. I mean, come on, what more could a guy possibly ask for in life?”
“But don’t you ever wish you could grow into something bigger and reach your full potential?”
“Are we still talking about my junk?”
I laugh. How did I just do that again? There must be something about knowing that this guy deals in sex for a living that makes me sound like it’s all I have going in the back of my mind. Or maybe all this not-sleeping-with-John stuff is causing me to actually have nothing but sex going in the back of my mind. This is not good. I really need to get laid soon.
I bring the conversation back to my pitch, “I’m trying to tell you that in my professional opinion, you could be a sexology mogul.”
“A mogul! See that’s how I’d prefer to have what’s in my pants described.” This time he did it. That one really wasn’t my fault. It’s still funny though, so I still laugh.
Then, I use it to set up the hard sell, “And don’t you want an image to match? Because I could fix that. I can get you on TV talk shows and radio shows to promote your book. And we could do things to raise awareness of your website. Then you could make instructional sex videos, and sex toys, and do an advice blog. We could turn you into an empire! You could be rich. People want to know about sex. I mean, everyone is worried they’re doing it wrong!”
Marty looks serious for the first time since I’ve met him. He’s thinking about it, taking it in. He seems both excited and concerned. I wait silently, patiently. I’m giving him the opportunity to say yes.
“I do like where you’re going with this,” he finally concludes, “but are we sure people want to hear about it from me? I’m not exactly getting it that often.”
“Well I wouldn’t go around publicizing that, but yeah. You’re hysterically funny, you’re sweet and charming—“ I sincerely mean all this, and I would go on with an even longer list of attributes if he didn’t interrupt me.
“Did I already ask you what you’re doing later?” he jokes, calling back his earlier response to my unsolicited compliments, and reminding me how humble he is.
I’m starting to understand that compliments make him uncomfortable. But there’s only one thing to do about that, and that’s to get him used to receiving them, because if he’s going to be a client of mine, he’s going to get them a lot. I really do believe in him though, and I want that to translate into belief in himself.
“I’m just saying, I believe in you, Marty.”
If I didn’t know better, I would think I saw the beginnings of tears forming in his eyes.
“Wow…” he says, completely floored, “I’m flattered. I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’re in!”
“I’m in! I’m excited. Let’s do this.”
“Good! Great!”
“I’m a little scared,” he confesses.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” I console, “I’ll guide you through anything that intimidates you.”
He looks at me admiringly and says, “You’re not scared of anything, are you?”
It feels good to be looked at that way. It feels good to be seen that way.
“I know in my heart that this venture is the right thing to do. And when you know something is right in your heart, you don’t have to be scared.” This answer seems to appease him. It is just the right thing to say to gain his trust completely in this endeavor.
“So let me get this straight,” Marty confirms, “the reason Lacey won’t kiss me is because I’m not rich?”
Well it sounds really bad when you put it that way! Maybe I didn’t spin that quite right. I want to say, “No, that’s not it! She’s just taking it slow because she thinks you’re awesome and doesn’t want to mess things up!” Unfortunately, my face has already given me away, and anything positive I were to say now, would come off as an obvious lie.
I worked hard to gain his trust. Throwing that away now, isn’t in anyone’s best interest. But I can fix this. I’m just gonna have to tell Lacey that the next time she sees him, she has no choice. She has to let him kiss her.
Chapter 20
On our next date, John and I go backpacking. I told him I liked backpacking because I knew that he liked it. Obviously, I had never done it before. I’m a fan of car camping. You pull up, put up your tent, make a fire, cook your feast over it, listen to the birds chirp in the trees, look at the stars, smell the pine, and if the conditions get too nasty, you just put down the seats and sleep in the car. You can bring pretty much everything and anything you think you might need, a stove, a lantern, an outdoor shower, a table, some chairs, your car charger and electronics, a stereo, a blow up mattress—basically anything you can fit in your car. Backpacking is the opposite of that.
Whatever you need, you have to carry in and out on your back—including your food and your poop wipes. It’s hard and strenuous and sweaty and dirty. It does not make a girl feel pretty.
As we arrive at our campsite in the woods, I plop down my bag. It pulls me to the ground with it, and I’m not sure I can get up again, no less gather firewood and make a fire to cook what little dinner we could fit in our packs. I thought this would be a lot more similar to car camping, with maybe a little hike thrown in. I hadn’t accounted for all the work and heavy lifting!
“I’m just gonna let you take care of dinner tonight,” I say from my spot on the ground.
John laughs at my pain, “I guess it’s been a while since you’ve done this, huh?”
“Oh yeah, it’s been a long while.” 30 years, 3 months, and seventeen days to be exact.
He takes the tent out of his pack and throws it on the ground.
“Why don’t I go gather some wood, so we can get this fire going before it gets dark,” he offers. And with that, he prances off into the forest, with the leftover energy of a Tasmanian devil.
I figure I’d better make myself useful, so I get up off my ass and put the tent together. It’s something I know how to do from regular camping, and it’ll make it look like I’m both an experienced backpacker and a team player.
As the tent comes together and I make up the beds, laying our inflatable mats side by side, and unrolling our sleeping bags, something dawns on me.
We are going to have to sleep next to each other tonight. I can’t kick him out if it gets too hot and heavy, and I have nowhere to go if I wanna leave. He hasn’t said “I love you” yet, or given me any other definitive signs of being out of control crazy about me, so unless it happens tonight, I’m going to have to stay very alert all night to avoid falling on his penis.
To make matters worse, when night falls and the fire is lit, it gets naturally romantic. After dinner, John comes out of the tent with a small blanket, and comes up behind me where he wraps his arms around me, cuddling me up in the blanket. I feel so warm and cozy in his arms.
He kisses the back of my neck, sending a jolt down my spine and right into every erogenous zone in my body. I shiver a little too obviously, and it’s not cold out here. John takes this cue to softly cup my breasts, as he continues kissing my neck. Oh that feels nice. He gently massages one breast, his other hand making its way down toward my belly. Well it didn’t take much, but I want him. I’m not gonna make it through a night of laying next to him without cracking. If only I had some proof that he feels attached to me, that he’s driven by the need to be with me… I need for him to tell me he loves me, and now!
“This is nice,” I say, trying to steer the conversation toward sweet nothings, “I love being out here with you.”
“I know. I love being out here with you, too.”
Did that count? Subtract a few extraneous words and he did say, “I love you.” I battle with myself inside my own mind until the reasonable part of me is able to convince the insane part of me that by every definition of “I love you,” that would be a stretch. I try a new tack.
“I like it when you tell me how you feel.” Nudge- nudge. Hint-hint.
“I feel turned on,” he says, thinking he’s giving me what I want to hear. In his defense, I should’ve seen that coming.
“No, I meant—I mean, I’m glad that you feel turned on, but—” Maybe it would help if his hand weren’t cupping my boob right now. I can’t just remove it—that would be weird, so I turn around to face him, which naturally forces his hand to rest on my back. This is also good because now we can look each other in the eyes. No one ever says I love you the first time without looking into the other person’s eyes. You have to. You wanna make sure you see the true reaction that spontaneously occurs in the other person’s soul, and that can only be seen through the eyes.
How Long You Should Wait to Have Sex: a Novel Page 14
