Romantically Challenged

by Sami Lukis

  Everything was in place and I was ready. But within twenty-four hours of his arrival in Sydney, I realised I’d made the mother of all mistakes.

  Things with Ze German did not go as planned.

  A word of warning ladies: just because your fertility is declining rapidly and you meet a guy and he’s about a trillion degrees of hot and he offers to be your baby daddy, doesn’t necessarily mean you should agree.

  I had to learn this the hard way.

  I’d endured so much heartbreak on my quest for motherhood, but the day Ze German arrived in Oz, I felt like I’d won the baby daddy jackpot!

  He was super excited to be in Sydney as well. Australia is such a long way to travel for most Europeans, who can jump in the car and drive to Prague or zip off to Paris for the weekend. To them, the idea of sitting in a plane for twenty-four hours to get, well, anywhere, seems ridiculous. So I was really grateful he’d made the effort.

  After some pretty wunderbar, ‘we haven’t seen each other for a couple of months and you’ve just travelled to the other side of the world to help me make a baby’ sex, we went out for lunch.

  Sadly, two incidents that afternoon put a major fizzer on things. Fizzer number one: he saw a spider and shat himself.

  I’ll never forget the moment I turned around and saw Ze German standing there on the footpath, frozen on the spot, because he’d noticed a spider in a web about five metres above his head. I told him it was totally okay to walk underneath it, because the spider was not going to leap out of the web and kill him.

  But he shook his head and refused to move. He was too petrified to even speak.

  ‘Babe, it’s fine!’ I laughed. ‘It’s not going to hurt you! Just walk under it.’ But he clenched both his fists in tight little balls under his chin and crept, tentatively, like one of those cartoon character villains, across the road, where he could put enough distance between him and the arachnid to safely walk down the other side of the street, before crossing back to me, about two metres past the spider’s web.

  (Inside Voice: Da Fuck?!)

  So. I know those lucky Germans don’t have to deal with the kind of lethal wildlife that we do Down Under, but seriously, buddy, fucking grow a pair. Or at least pretend to! Watching a grown man carry on like that over one teensy weensy spider was a major turn-off.

  Still, I tried not to let it bother me. Because, well we had a baby to make.

  Fizzer number two: he didn’t have any money.

  We went to an ATM after lunch so he could get some cash out, but his card didn’t work. This didn’t really surprise me. ATMs can be quite temperamental about which foreign cards they’ll accept. So we just tried a different ATM. But the same thing happened. Then we tried another ATM, and another. But not one single bank would give him any funds. Strangely, he didn’t seem too fazed by it, even though he hadn’t brought any cash with him either. No euros. No Aussie dollars. Not one single cent.

  Look, maybe it was an oversight. I always forget to pack something when I travel. Either my sunblock or my toothbrush or my power converter (I always forget the friggin’ power converter). So this guy just forgot to pack money.

  I told him not to worry because he’d be able to use his credit card for most things. But he said he only had a work credit card, which he wasn’t allowed to use for personal expenses.

  Then I suggested he could go online and transfer some money into my account so I could withdraw the cash for him. But he said he didn’t know how to use internet banking.

  As a last resort, he said he’d just borrow the cash from me and ask a friend to somehow transfer it to me later. And we left it at that.

  However, I did struggle to understand how a 38-year-old man could travel to the other side of the world, where he only knew one person and he intended to stay for three weeks, with no cash, an ATM card that didn’t work, an unusable credit card and no access to any funds of any kind.

  Okay, I’m just going to go ahead and say it. That did set off some pretty big alarm bells.

  But I really, really, really wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Because my biological clock was on its final countdown, locked and loaded on its very handsome target.

  We had about a week before our appointment at the IVF clinic, which gave Ze German some time to explore Sydney before we got down to the business of making babies. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to play tour guide. The timing of his visit had worked in perfectly with my ovulation cycle. But I’d also just started a new radio show and the three hours I spent live on air each morning was the easy part of the job. The five-hour meetings every day after the show were excruciating!

  In radio land, if you start a new show and it doesn’t rate its arse off immediately, the bosses start to panic. Sadly, our show was not having much of an impact in the competitive breakfast market, so we had to endure these unbelievably tedious meetings every day going over every single thing we’d said on air that morning and discussing every single thing we were planning to say on air the next day. And it was not fun. Not one little bit.

  While I was stuck at work, Ze German spent his days sight-seeing. But of course he didn’t have any moolah. So each morning, I’d leave him a hundred bucks on the bedside table, as I raced out the door. And I couldn’t decide whether it felt like I was leaving tuckshop money out for a small child before Mummy left for work. Or if I was paying for a cheap hooker who’d spent the night. I dunno. You decide.

  Ze German would come home every day and tell me what an amazing time he’d had. Climbed the bridge. Went to the zoo. Took the ferry to Manly. Went to the aquarium. Taxied himself down to Bondi for a swim and a picturesque lunch on the beach. Not bad for a guy who arrived in Sydney without a fucking cent to his name. And the whole time he didn’t seem to be making any attempt to work out how to do that online transfer.

  I didn’t tell him how much it was bothering me, but I was silently seething. The thought had crossed my mind that I was being scammed. I just didn’t want to believe it.

  I also started regretting the fact that I’d turned down an interview with Brad Pitt, so I could take Ze German away to the Great Barrier Reef.

  Yes. Let me repeat that: I turned down Brad Pitt.

  I had just booked the romantic weekend getaway when I got a call from Event Cinemas asking if I’d be available for a one-on-one chat with Brad Pitt, on that very same weekend.

  SHIT. SHIT. SHIT.

  It was the first time in my twenty-year career I’d been given the opportunity to meet the hottest man alive. And I knew it might never happen again. How could I possibly turn that down?

  But if I said yes to Brad Pitt, I would have to cancel the weekend away with Ze German. He’d understand, wouldn’t he? He could see the Great Barrier Reef another time. Or, like, never.

  It was a tough decision, I won’t lie.

  And in what surely has to be the ultimate example of sacrificing my career for my personal life, I turned down Brad Pitt.

  I know, right? Me = idiot.

  So I don’t know if it was a serious case of Pitt Remorse or the questionable money situation that finally pushed me over the edge.

  Things went downhill pretty quickly after we arrived in Port Douglas. I decided to speak up over dinner on the first night and I told him how uncomfortable I was feeling about everything. How could he possibly think it was okay to travel all this way without access to any money at all? Was he really that irresponsible? Or was he playing me? And was he ever going to pay me back?

  He cracked it! He took his watch off and furiously threw it across the table at me. ‘Take it! As security! If you think I’m not going to pay you back. Take it. Take it!’ he screamed. ‘How dare you accuse me of such a thing!’

  Oh my god. I’d never seen him angry before. It was scary.

  And suddenly it all became too much for me. Between the insane pressure of my new job, the ongoing disappointment of failing to get pregnant, the stress of worrying that Ze German was scamming me, and missing out on my mo
ment with Brad-fucking-Pitt, I just couldn’t take it anymore.

  A little voice inside me screamed, ‘Schnell, schnell! Get out of this nightmare immediately, you dummkopf.’

  Something in my subconscious told me it would be incredibly foolish to make a baby with this man. To be completely honest, I think a little part of me knew it was fucking ridiculous to accept his non-anonymous sperm donor suggestion in the first place.

  So I told him I was really sorry, but this had all been a big mistake and I was going to cancel the IVF appointments and it would be best if he returned to Germany. I booked myself on the first flight out of Cairns the next morning but I suggested he stay for the weekend and enjoy the luxurious hotel and the spectacular Great Barrier Reef. I couldn’t get a refund on the trip anyway.

  To this day, I don’t know if I read the whole situation wrong with Ze German. Maybe he was playing me the whole time. Or maybe he thought he was doing me a massive favour by offering to be my sperm donor, so he just assumed I would support him on his holiday in return.

  Okay so please don’t judge me too harshly for what I’m about to tell you.

  When I woke up the next morning in Port Douglas and rolled over and saw my hot German lying there in the sheets, looking all smouldering and delicious, I decided I would quite like one last shag for old times’ sake before I left him.

  It was a fitting farewell.

  But just before I walked out the door, I left my penniless German with all the cash I had in my wallet. Four hundred and fifty dollars. And this time, it really did feel like I was paying for a hooker.

  My ‘baby-brain’ had lasted for, oh, about three years. And in my desperate effort to fall pregnant at all costs, I momentarily lost my mind. But try as I might (and oh how I tried!) I could not fall pregnant. My fertility declined just as rapidly as the doc had warned and my crusty old eggs weren’t up to the challenge. Then, at the age of 43, I also found out I had chronic endometriosis, which had been making it virtually impossible for me to fall pregnant all along.

  So, I guess it really just wasn’t mean to be.

  A little part of me will grieve for the baby I never had for the rest of my life. However, the transition from trying so desperately to make a baby, to realising I wasn’t going to have one was surprisingly less painful than I imagined it would be. I accepted the fact that these were the cards I’d been dealt. I forgave myself for wasting way too much time (and my fertility) in dysfunctional relationships with the wrong guys. I made peace with it all. And I just got on with life.

  My trusty tarot card reader Poppy suggested that the reason I don’t have kids is because I was a mother of ten in my previous life and I’m giving myself a well earned, lifelong ‘mummy-time-out’ in this incarnation. I have yet to see proof that my soul has somehow been reborn. But if Poppy’s right and I did have ten rugrats in my last life, that would probably explain my aversion to cooking and cleaning and my affection for foot massages, sleep and gin in this life.

  (Hey, heads-up, Mum and Dad, you might want to skip the next couple of chapters.)

  I think we’ve already established that I’ve had a decent amount of sex in my three mostly-single dating decades, so far (especially during my panicked baby trying years). But I’ve never been into any of the kinky stuff. So I’m either a bit of a sexual straighty-one-eighty or I’ve just never been in a relationship that’s lasted long enough for us to seek out freaky new ways to peak the passion.

  I once found out that a guy I’d dated briefly had his own ‘Jungle Room’, a Fifty Shades–style secret sex dungeon he’d custom designed for his newly renovated house. I was never invited into the Jungle Room so I’m not exactly sure what goes on in there. But I’m really glad I never found out. You, Tarzan . . . me, definitely not Jane.

  The most adventurous stuff I’ve ever done is to join the dots in some unusual locations. When people ask me, ‘Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever had sex?’ I have a few options to choose from.

  Like that one time with a boyfriend in his hospital bed. Oh, and I should probably mention that he had a collapsed lung and a breathing tube sticking out of a hole in his chest at the time.

  I’d never fantastised about a hospital romp (other than with Dr Jackson Avery in the on-call room like they do on Grey’s Anatomy). But my boyfriend was surprisingly frisky when he ended up in the hospital only two months after we started dating. We could blame his spontaneous horniness on the mind-altering pain relief he was on at the time, or the fact that he simply wanted to finish what he started. You see, his lung had actually collapsed mid-shag, the night before.

  I’d like to tell you it was a night of wild chandelier swinging that caused the pneumothorax. But, in fact, he was just a prime candidate – tall, slim and in his thirties. That being said, I’d still really much prefer that it hadn’t happened while he was inside me. He says he’d felt a weird click in his chest while we were getting busy, which put an unexpected halt to proceedings. But instead of investigating further or seeking medical attention, Mr Tough Guy decided to ignore it and we both just fell asleep. We woke up the next morning to the alarming and rather unsettling sound of a loud rattle coming from somewhere inside his chest cavity. He said it was probably just a chest infection and not to worry, but when he left my place that morning, he panicked and drove himself straight to the hospital, where he was rushed into surgery immediately.

  I raced to the hospital that afternoon to find my poor fella lying there, with a tube extending from a hole in his chest into a machine next to the bed, which was helping him breathe. He looked terribly unwell. I had brought him chocolates and flowers and all the latest issues of his favourite motoring magazines. But he told me there was only one thing that would make him feel better.

  Boyfriend was horny.

  I thought he was high on drugs and out of his freakin’ mind when he suggested a little hospital-style how’s-your-father. And he was very insistent. I guess I did feel somehow partly responsible for the collapsed lung, so when the sicko reached the point of practically begging, I reluctantly obliged. I closed the door (it was a private room, thank god), pulled the curtain securely around his bed and then I carefully climbed on top of him and maneouvred myself into a position where I hopefully wouldn’t knock the breathing tube out of his chest.

  He thought the whole thing was hilarious. I felt sick. There was no pleasure in the experience for me. At all.

  It wasn’t the kind of dangerously naughty ‘maybe we’ll get caught’ sex. It was just dangerous, period. It could have ended with a horribly awkward conversation with his parents: ‘Yeah, it’s nice to meet you and all, but look, I’m really sorry, your son suffocated because the tube helping him breathe accidentally popped out while we were having intercourse in his hospital bed six hours after his emergency surgery. My bad.’

  The parents didn’t even know I existed at that stage. Boyfriend had told his folks the lung collapsed while he was changing his duvet cover. Which actually does seem quite plausible, because you know how violently you sometimes have to shake those things to make sure the doona reaches every damn corner of the cover.

  His mates all thought I was tops, by the way. From then on, I was forever known as the shag who sent him to the ER. Something to be proud of? Not sure. But it was certainly a notable introduction to his friends.

  Sex with the patient (and his breathing tube) was a complete disaster. And, of course, the nurse also managed to walk in on us. Unfortunately I was still sitting on top of him at the time. She popped her head through the curtain, quickly assessed the scene and asked him, ‘Are you okay, sir?’

  To which he replied, ‘Yeah, I’m good, thanks.’

  She smiled knowingly and said, ‘Rightio then, I’ll come back later. Be careful.’ She seemed alarmingly calm about the whole situation. Perhaps the horny patient thing happens more often than we realise? I was mortified.

  Turns out that particular boyfriend was quite fond of expanding his sexual experiences beyond the b
ounds of the traditional bedroom workbench. He was also the guy responsible for my initiation to the mile high club. I had never been able to understand the appeal (or logistics) of two bodies and eight limbs having intercourse in an aeroplane toilet. It seems physically impossible, for a start. Plus, it’s got to be one of the least sexy locations for getting hot and heavy. What with the foul stench, the disgusting drops of wee all over the floor, the dirty shit stains in the bowl and someone else’s spit frothing in the basin, it’s downright feral.

  So I was quite relieved that my MHC experience didn’t happen in the loo. Boyfriend and I were on a long-haul flight to London and we were already ecstatic about being unexpectedly upgraded to the pointy end of the plane. Then, Madame Bollinger here wasted no time sculling around twelve glasses of vintage French from the comfort of her fabulous first-class seat. (I do not adhere to the ‘don’t drink alcohol on a plane’ theory. If it’s champagne. And it’s free. You can feed it to me on a drip. Thanks.)

  So I thought it was an absolutely splendid idea when the boyfriend suggested, somewhere over Uzbekistan, that we were at an altitude to remember.

  Now, I should point out that this was well before the introduction of the outrageously expensive luxurious first-class suites they have these days, which come with their own privacy doors and double beds. Those things are like mini-apartments. We were on a plane that still had the exposed open cabin with the old-school, povo first-class seats (how’s that for the ultimate oxymoron?), but we discovered that when reclined into their flat-bed positions, the seats were just wide enough for two people. So boyfriend jumped in, snuggled up behind me and we pretended to watch a movie. And with the assistance of some dim cabin lighting and a rather large blanket, I discovered that it really wasn’t that difficult to receive my on-the-spot membership to the MHC. No toilet-sex gymnastics required.