Screw Everyone

by Ophira Eisenberg

  Our coffees turned into wines and day turned into night. His apartment was conveniently only blocks away. And we had sex. There was no hesitation on my part. His hands were like nothing I had ever experienced before. Maybe it was from working with delicate desserts or maybe he was born with it, but this guy had the most advanced sense of touch I’d ever come across. If it was learned, I wanted to call all his ex-girlfriends and thank them for their cumulative creation. I was helpless in his embrace. He knew when to caress lightly and when to add pressure, when to knead and when to baste, and when to add the right amount of sugar to make me want more. By the end, I needed a cooling rack. Plus, he was all about pleasing me, which in my twenties wasn’t often the way with the boys. In the bedroom, Roger wasn’t a messed-up 80s relic with a kid from a failed relationship; he was the romantic lead of every story. He wasn’t just good in bed—it was his superpower.

  Unlike me, who spent the majority of my life in my head analyzing, strategizing, and having fake arguments with dismissive store clerks, Roger had one sole purpose in life: to satisfy his senses. He asked what my favorite flower was, and I told him I loved that early summer smell of lilacs. The next night, he’d filled his bedroom with vases and vases of lilacs and replaced his nightstand light with a violet bulb. He was stunned that I had never listened to the opera La Boheme and played the CD loud enough so that we could take a steamy bath together while enjoying it. In the morning, he made me breakfast using cookie cutters to shape the hash browns into stars and hearts. It was the most sensual experience, and the sex got increasingly better. I was crème brûlée, and he was a flickering pastry torch.

  After the baths, the flora, and treating me like a raspberry tart between the sheets, Roger talked about applying for pastry chef internships at impressive culinary schools around the country so he could really jumpstart his career. I wanted to be equally swept up about something in my world, so I talked about committing to this comedy thing, or at least getting good at it. I had a new “finger in a dyke” joke about my Dutch background that was starting to get laughs.

  Roger and I dated for two months, but in a bubble. He did not clean up well, so there was no way in hell I was introducing him to anyone in my circle. We did not match or look good on or off paper, and it would be too hard to explain. I couldn’t say, “Please, just let him go down on you and you’ll get it!” And this was not one-sided. As far as I knew, he didn’t have friends. Occasionally, I’d think I was being close-minded or shallow and should let someone in my life know about him, and then he’d arrive to meet me for lunch with a baby carriage in tow. I noted early on that I didn’t particularly care for seeing him in daylight.

  Our apartments were in the same neighborhood, making my secret commute very easy. Since he had three roommates and I had to be at work very early, I’d often leave his place at four in the morning so I could shower and blow-dry in my own home and still get to the train on time. One morning I was walking down the street toward the train station, passing in front of his apartment as I always did. I glanced at his door, and through the inlaid glass, I saw Roger standing there, smiling. He opened the door, handed me a freshly made café au lait and asked me to come in for a minute. He’d taken notice of my routine and had been waiting, knowing I’d walk by any minute.

  He broke the news that he had been awarded a pastry internship at an exclusive hotel on Prince Edward Island and would be moving immediately. Again? Was I every man’s last stop? Yet, I could only imagine how much better he would be after professional training—it would probably blow my mind. I was so happy for him. He’d be back in a year, he said, but we both knew this was it. We hugged and kissed and had sex right there in his kitchen at five fifteen in the morning. People say breakup sex is great, but nothing compares to final sex. You try to squeeze out every last drop.

  While smoothing out my hair and using his phone to call Taxation Canada to say that I was running late due to food poisoning, Roger threw out the idea that I should take his room in the apartment. It would solve his immediate problem of finding someone, and it would set me free from the wrath of the livid landscaper. I agreed to meet with his roommates and talk it over.

  At the beginning of the next month, I was living in Roger’s room with the violet-colored bulb still in the nightstand lamp, and he was off to Prince Edward Island. My senses were starving. Now I missed two people that no one else in my life even knew about. A letter arrived from Roger, one scrawled page saying that he was so happy with his life, that the setting was breathtaking, and that he was learning how to shape strawberries into daffodils and make white chocolate lace. And that he missed his kid. And he missed me. I missed him too. Parts of him. I wouldn’t say what we had was love, but it was strong and it was chemical. More like emulsion.

  Roger and Gene were the best temp relationships I’ve ever had. There was no upward mobility, no chance of a promotion, and no reason to settle in. We were mutual place-fillers for a real boyfriend or girlfriend, and it would have ended one way or another. I wish I could have created a Frankenmate, part Gene, part Roger, just add stylist! No one would ever believe at first sight that either of those two set the standard against which all future interactions in and out of the bedroom would be compared. I wondered who I was to them. Was I just an eager and willing participant wagging her tail whenever we hung out? A sounding board, a laugh track, a sous chef? I only hoped they thought I was funny.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE NICE FETISH

  At twenty-six I hadn’t accomplished much in my life, but I knew the difference between good and bad sex. People fail to mention that one of the side benefits of sleeping around is that you have a much better chance of stumbling across a gem or two. It’s the law of slutty averages. And once you experience someone with real skills, it’s very hard to go back.

  I’d drawn a couple of conclusions along the way: Anyone who claims that they’ve had mind-blowing sex in the shower is lying. I’m not talking about erotic soaping up; I mean actual quality sex sex. Unless the water in your town has high KY levels, or you have the type of shower that includes a chaise lounge, it’s impossible. Also, looks do not correspond with skill, and everyone has a fetish but me. I was even terrible at pillow talk. I couldn’t figure out how to make it original or personal, but neither could anyone else. Dirty-talk standards seemed to be exceedingly low, and the questions were always the same, prompting responses that sounded like recycled porn copy: “Yes, it’s so big. Yes, I’m yours. Yes, I like it. Yes, you’re so hot.” Ridiculous. It made me want to yell, “Quiet on the set! Stop asking and start working. If I like it, trust me, you’ll know!”

  I’d tried entry-level bondage, simply tying someone up to the four sides of the bed with some scarves. There was a certain amount of excitement to having him at my absolute mercy, until I wanted to free one of his hands but couldn’t get the stupid knot undone. He started to panic, helplessly shackled to my bed frame, while I ran around the room naked, telling him to calm down as I tried to find scissors. Needless to say, I pushed the boundaries—in the wrong direction.

  I had a theory that there were some things in life I shouldn’t try, because if I liked them, the consequences would be too dire. It was the reason why I hadn’t tried a strap-on dildo, shooting heroin, or disowning my family. Take the strap-on dildo for instance, arguably the tamest on the list: If I found out that having a plastic penis strapped to my abdomen unlocked a door to a room deep in my soul that had been secretly housing a miniature orchestra playing transcendent harmonies that moved me to tears of happiness, I would never again be able to settle for a simple C chord. Next I’d be seeking partners with similar interests, posting on Craigslist, and making room in my budget, let alone my closet. I wasn’t ready for that level of dedication.

  But if I’d ever been given an opportunity to explore with a boyfriend, it would have been with Mickey. Before I’d even set eyes on Mickey at a dinner party, the hostess made me promise that I wouldn’t sleep with him. Could there be
a more enticing buildup? She wasn’t putting me on high alert because Mickey was a terrible person; she just didn’t think our personalities would be a good match. I had no idea what she was talking about, plus I couldn’t help myself; he was genetically blessed, classically good-looking in that hunky Italian way, but mixed with a bit of nerd. To this day, he is still the only man I’ve ever met who managed to make a calf tattoo of a flaming sun look sexy. And he liked me, I think. The hostess reported that after that dinner he referred to me as IMAX, because I was larger than life. I needed to find out what that meant.

  Mickey stands out not only because he was so pleasant to look at but because he challenged me, in both good and not-so-good ways. I still love the things he introduced me to: the band The Magnetic Fields, the book Geek Love, and sea urchin sushi (uni). It didn’t hurt that he had “play money”—a sizable family inheritance that he liked to spend in inspired ways. Out of the blue, he’d pick me up on a Sunday morning and announce that we were driving across the border to buy American beer and watch the Oscars on a motel room TV—just to, you know, “change things up.”

  During foreplay, Mickey would ask me what I wanted him to do, hoping that I’d suggest something wild. I never knew what to say. “Be nice to me? Hand wash my delicates? Explain the S&P 500 in a way that sinks in?” How do you say, “Just do the best version of what you’re good at”? I could tell my responses let him down. I wasn’t being very IMAX.

  Always seeking adventure, Mickey suggested we take advantage of a last-minute deal and fly to San Francisco for the weekend. After we walked Fisherman’s Wharf and enjoyed the audio tour of Alcatraz, he said that he’d like to check out the city’s famous sex store Good Vibrations. I’d always thought that sex toys and vibrators were for people who weren’t getting laid, but I didn’t want to be a killjoy or a prude. He was so cool, I wanted to please him. And really—what was my big hang-up? I’d paid money to see Annie Sprinkle in college. I should loosen up. But it was one thing to see it, and another to do it.

  I imagined a seedy store, full of middle-aged men in taupe raincoats stroking the plastic hair on the blow-up dolls. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Good Vibrations was the friendliest shop I’d ever been to, period. We were greeted by a woman with a face full of piercings and a huge grin, who handed us a pink shopping basket and a condom. The whole place was showered in sparkles. There was literally an entire wall of shelves proudly displaying an array of pastel-colored, glitter-filled dildos. It was like Old Navy meets RuPaul’s dressing room. Mickey held me close and told me to pick out anything I wanted. I wanted to hug him and say, “All I want is you, baby!” but felt I had to play along. I grabbed a white ostrich feather and placed it in the basket. All I needed was to find a bottle of self-heating massage oil and we were done. Mickey looked at the basket and through a brittle smile asked, “What else do you want?”

  I swallowed and looked around. A bottle of water would be nice. It was like shopping for food on a full stomach. Nothing looked appetizing. With some help from another overly enthusiastic sales girl who showcased each toy as if it were second prize on a game show, we dropped $500. I was petrified.

  Back in the hotel room, I packed all the new toys tightly into our suitcase; I didn’t want the cleaning staff accidentally stumbling across them. Mickey had a different idea. He suggested we cancel our dinner reservations and check out our new products, like it was Kinkmas Eve. We started slow, with an ostrich feather. It was sweet and innocent, a little tickle here, a little giggle there, but I had no idea how few steps there were between an ostrich feather and a butt plug.

  Mickey handed me a string of anal beads—which looked like a broken beaded bracelet—and told me to shove them up his ass one at a time and then slowly pull them out while he was coming.

  What?!

  I couldn’t wrap my head around the basic logistics of this. What if I couldn’t reach around? Would we need to drill holes in the bed or devise a pulley system? Wouldn’t the timing need to be perfect? Could he throw a yellow flag to alert me?

  We did it once, and then we did it again, and by the third time I sensed that this was going to be our new routine. Soon every sexual performance involved a prop. For the most part, I’ll admit, I enjoyed it. I certainly understood what the fuss was all about. The toys did exactly what they were designed to do. They were fast, efficient, and reliable. But they weren’t tender or sensual, nor did they unearth a secret philharmonic deep within my sexual soul. However, I did begin to associate an electric humming sound with an impending orgasm. I twitched in a room of fans.

  The toys did not have the desired effect that I had in mind of strengthening the bond between us. It was hard to know whom to thank: the battery-powered machines and molded silicon or the handler. Whatever the case, I began to fantasize about good ole’ basic sex. I don’t care what anyone says; it’s impossible to “make love” with anal beads up your ass.

  As time went on, I also noticed that there was something mysterious about Mickey. Often, he was unable to sit still, uncomfortable in his own skin. He’d leave rooms to take phone calls, have vague obligations that he wouldn’t discuss. I wouldn’t hear from him for a few days and ask what was going on. He’d answer, “Oh, I had to help a friend move some furniture.” I’d probe, “What friend? What furniture?” To which he’d answer, “Don’t worry about it. You don’t know them.” I couldn’t tell if he was cheating or was a spy.

  How I felt about Mickey became synonymous with how I felt about Vancouver: There was something casually transient about all my encounters there—people seemed to drift in and out of one another’s lives with no operatic drama, like smoke passing through a screen door. I was skimming the surface and could never dig in. We were all unmoored ships aimlessly floating around. There was nothing anchoring me down, other than my vague double A–battery relationship, and I started to think about moving again, this time to Toronto. This would continue my little dance of moving to a new city every time a relationship seemed doomed or fell apart. At least I was consistent at something.

  Another day at the sewage-pump place ended, and I went over to Mickey’s apartment, dropped my satchel, and sunk into his bean bag chair.

  “I think I want to see what Toronto’s like. Everyone says the stand-up scene is really good there.”

  “Oh yeah? I’ve always wanted to live in Toronto. This place is driving me crazy.” Mickey’s reply was unexpected. Was he suggesting we move there together? I felt as ambivalent about the idea as I did about our relationship.

  “Well, do you think I should go out for a couple of months and see if it’s any good?” I asked cautiously.

  “Why not? You can store your stuff here for that month if you want. See what you think, and then I’ll come out.”

  That made things almost too easy. I took his offer at face value and left a couple of boxes. Once again, I packed up my big blue backpack and headed east for an exploratory visit.

  I’d only been in Toronto for two weeks, staying in a friend of a friend’s apartment, when Mickey called to say he was coming to visit. He didn’t ask, he told me, probably because he sensed that I was enjoying my new life without him too much and would protest if given the option. The second he arrived, it was clear that we were hanging on to each other by a fraying thread. He brought the sex toys with him, which I thought was a pretty ballsy move, considering he had to take them through airport security. I can only imagine what their outlines looked like on the TSA’s monitors.

  On his first night, I took him out for a nice dinner, hoping to lighten the mood, but he could barely conceal how pissed off he was at me for making him fly across the country to deal with the ambiguity of our relationship, and lashed out in bizarre ways. I’d lost five pounds due to stress, a rather insignificant amount, but Mickey commented that I was acting too proud of my “new body.” I should have given him a gold star for noticing.

  On the second night, he refused to leave my apartment. I couldn’t understand why, and after
we argued about how senseless he was being, I stormed out to do a spot on an open-mic comedy show. When I returned, I found him sitting in silence on the couch, holding my journal.

  I froze. I knew what he’d read. It was my last entry from a few days earlier. I’d hung out with some improvisers after watching their show at Second City, and wrote about how one of them was particularly handsome. During the show, when he went into the audience asking for suggestions, calling out, “Can I get an object?” I yelled back, “How about my feelings?!” He thought that was hysterical, which inspired me to introduce myself after the show. The next thing I knew, we were kissing. And I described that. In detail. It was more than anyone should have to read.

  Mickey was outraged that I’d broken his trust, and I was furious that he’d read my diary, but in the contest of who was the most wrong, we both lost. He called me an unfaithful bitch. I told him that he was a fucking lunatic. And thus began the most epic breakup of my decade, if measured in volume and destruction. We screamed and swore at each other. I called him a fucking asshole; he said I was a fucking bitch. It was unoriginal, fury-drenched dialogue, but I can tell you, we really sold it. This was the kind of dirty talk I could do.

  He picked up the bottle of wine that we’d bought for dinner and threw it. It smashed on the ground, glass shattering at my feet. I couldn’t believe it. He looked at me, pleased with himself. I threw back the closest thing to me: the cheese it paired with. He tossed the camera he’d given to me as a going-away present while I madly ripped up photos of us and let the pieces fall in the air like confetti. There was a necklace, a T-shirt, and crumpled-up cards and love notes, all hurled through the air, but it wasn’t until I felt a butt plug ricochet off my forehead that I knew it was O-V-E-R.