Emily's Reasons Why Not

by Carrie Gerlach

  I shoot my gaze back to Stan. “You need to go,” I say.

  He looks at his watch. “Emily, it’s eleven thirty-five. We’ve had three margaritas, two Coronas, and a bottle of Pinot. I live an hour south on the 405. Driving isn’t wise.”

  He wants sex, wants to strip off my 501s like Reese should be doing right now, like he is most definitely doing with some baseball bimbette as I think about it. He is throwing her on the bed and …

  What am I thinking about? Stan doesn’t sound so bad. Why not? Go for it, a perfect distraction.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he says. “Don’t worry. I’ll sleep on the couch.” Stan looks down at me with his big, gray-blue eyes.

  Too late. The thought of having a body to spoon me when my head is spinning around with thoughts of Reese sounds like a great way to forget the highlights. No couch! It would be nice, even for just one night, to have him hold me. Besides, I can use some hot kisses, maybe an hour of over-the-clothes groping.

  “I promise to be a perfect gentleman,” Stan says, taking off his shirt to reveal six-pack abs. YUM!

  After putting on my pajama bottoms and T-shirt I lay, hoping that a new, hot lion can replace the potential of the old kill. I don’t feel awkward at all. It is almost comfortable, considering I am climbing into bed with a near stranger.

  Stan crawls under the covers next to me wearing only his boxers. He leans over on top of me, gazing a long time into my eyes, and proceeds to give me one small, uneventful kiss on the lips. He pulls me toward him, cuddles me in the spoon position, and promptly falls asleep.

  I lay awake, watching this uberhot male specimen breathing in and out. I couldn’t help but scream inside, “Hey, wake up and do me!,” but instead I lay motionless like a good girl, wanting. Always wanting.

  Can’t sleep. I get up, shuffle into the back room, turn on my computer, call Reilly, and explain the situation.

  “At what point did it become the woman’s job to provide shelter and lodging for her date?” she fires at me. “Doesn’t he have all those friends in West Hollywood he can call?”

  “I like it that he’s here. I just thought maybe I would at least …”

  “Get some action and put a Band-Aid over your broken heart,” she interrupts.

  “Well … yes. I just invited a stranger into my bed and he is getting a better night’s sleep than I am. Plus, I wanted to call you in case they find my body dismembered in a Dumpster.”

  “Love you. Go try to get yourself some,” and with that she hangs up.

  I click on my e-mail and draft a message to Reese.

  Dear RC,

  Nice homer. Saw you on the highlights, but that’s not really why I’m e-mailing. I guess I can’t escape my thoughts of you. And even when I do, I see you on the TV. Don’t you think God has an ironic sense of humor? I guess I’m just wondering how you are and if you ever think about me. Because I think about you.

  I look at the computer screen, shake my head “no,” and press delllleeete.

  After slipping under the covers and wrapping Stan’s arm around my waist, I sleep until he gives me a hopeful morning kiss. I shut the front door behind him and I sigh at the thought. Does no sex mean he really likes me?

  Why does this theory keep proving itself to be true over and over when all I want is someone to roll in the hay-ho with whom I actually care about?

  “I am not even going to get into the marathon of concerns this raises,” Dr. D. interjects. “You invited a stranger to your house. You let him sleep over hoping he’ll help you get over your ex. And you’re complaining that he didn’t want to have sex with you, which I clinically find unrealistic.”

  “It just leads me to wonder why he didn’t want to, well, you know, do it,” I say

  Reason #1: You should never have to wonder why a man doesn’t want to have sex with you. Because no matter what the answer is … it isn’t good.

  Dates two through five are equally lovely, but lack any mashing, mauling, chemistry, or naked behavior. We golf, surf down south, camp out on the beach. We basically do everything but penetrate. In fact, no real sexual anything goes down. Literally.

  But sex isn’t that important, is it? Perhaps I can live without the actual lovemaking, as it is the love that truly matters. There are so many things about Stan that lend themselves to a future behind a white picket fence.

  Reason #2: A man/woman relationship without sex is called …“just friends.’

  Grace, Reilly, and I meet at Atlantic for a drink after work. The place is empty, so we pretty much have it to ourselves. Bellied up to the bar, Ian the bartender pours us another round of Presbyterians, a cool, refreshing vodka drink made with Absolut Mandarin and half-and-half Seven and club soda.

  “He hasn’t touched her flower,” Reilly says to Grace.

  “They’ve had like ten dates or something.” She rolls her eyes.

  “Five.” I look at Grace, dumbfounded, in hopes that she can give me some doctorly advice as to why my potential mate has no built-in mating rituals.

  Grace swishes her Presbyterian and questions, “Nothing? Not one stroke? Fondle? Lick? Nothing?”

  Reilly and I shake our heads in confusion.

  “Plus, Sam hates him, won’t go near him, and has had diarrhea ever since I started dating the guy. Weird, huh?”

  “Dogs know.” Reilly drinks. “Then again, I knew when I met him and his creepy friend Adam.”

  “How does that make Stan feel about Sam?” Grace asks.

  “He doesn’t like dogs.”

  “You have your answer.” Grace’s face fills with shock and dismay. “Two words, buh-bye.”

  Reason #3: Animal haters need not apply.

  Date six. Still trying to liberate Stan’s libido. Early in week three we are having a few of his friends over for dinner. I am cooking. Fresh flowers and good wine abound. I peer out from the kitchen over a hot pan of lasagna and notice Stan bending down to pick up Sam’s tennis ball off the hardwood floor next to the couch where Adam is sitting.

  Stan moves in slow motion with a face scrunched in torture as if a proctologist has his hand up his ass. He eases the semi-slimy ball between his thumb and forefinger, holding it as far away from his body as he can, and then … drops it with a thud into the magazine bin. His body sort of shivers with disgust and he looks to Adam, who lowers my Pottery Barn catalogue. Adam and Stan share a mutual “eeugh, gross” wince.

  I get an image in my head of him leaping four feet in the air to pirouette like a ballerina and for the first time come to terms with the fact that my boyfriend has issues. I am not exactly sure what the issues are, but they are 100 percent there. Germ issues, dog issues, slime issues, sex issues. Gay issues?

  He turns and sees me standing, head cocked, looking at him in a bewildered state. My eyes squint and question.

  He breaks the stare and comes to me out of Adam’s earshot and murmurs, “I just, ah, don’t like things that are … wet.”

  Did he just say he doesn’t like things that are WET? Whoa, mental tailspin. I am a woman, for God’s sake. I am self-lubricating. How can he not like things that are wet? What does it mean?

  “It’s a big deal,” I explain to Dr. D. “He is afraid of my flower. Believe me, there’s no problem in the garden. It is a nicely tended, weeded flower.”

  Dr. D. shifts uncomfortably. “Why is sex so important to you?”

  “Besides the fact that it feels really good when done properly, it’s the one male/female thing we do in a relationship that we don’t do with anyone else. It’s the intimate closeness that bonds and connects us. It is what narrows our field of focus, the thing that is hot and beautiful and out-of-body and can only be fulfilled by another person. Of course, as with everything else, I can do it alone. It just isn’t the same.”

  “Your boyfriend may be gay-straight,” Dr. D. says, leaning in and touching my knee with sympathy. “Or he may just be a handsome, impeccably dressed straight guy with a plethora of issues. I’m not sure
yet.”

  “I was sooooo hoping he was Mr. Right. We look really sweet in photos together. Although he is more attractive than I am. Thinking back, he keeps ‘fixing’ me right before each photo (that’s when I noticed the whole eyebrow thing), my tousled hair, crooked sweater, complaining that I never wear socks with my Keds. Oh my God, he’s a fag! My boyfriend is a fag. Not that I have a problem with fags. I love gay men. I love Josh. If I was a guy I would be gay. But I don’t want to date one. I should have known. I should have seen this earlier when he tried to change my wardrobe, my hair, my style. He just seemed like, well … like he cared. No wonder I was so comfortable in bed with him.”

  “You shouldn’t change your style.” Dr. D. reinforces. I pull the stupid red bow that Stan gave me out of my disheveled ponytail. “Granted, there is compromise we all make to have a successful relationship. Some people quit smoking and ease up on the alcohol intake, but style? Never change who you really are, as sooner or later the old style just creeps back in, leaving your partner to wonder who they fell in love with. It is what makes you unique, special, and it is part of what makes you Emily. Habits yes, style never.”

  “So, what do we do?”

  “The first thing,” Dr. D. says, “is to find out if he’s phobic of women or germs. If he’s just a Howard Hughes type, then there may be hope. Well, if you can live with that.”

  I leave Dr. D.’s office with at least a glimmer of possibility and a list of potential ways to decipher my man’s issues.

  On the way home, I dial Grace on the cell and she asks me about my promotion. “Did you get it?”

  “Yeah,” I say, aware that my tone falls somewhere between depressed and comatosed. I don’t know what my problem is. Maybe it is the fact that another potential boyfriend is biting the dust while the one I really want is sliding into home somewhere.

  “So, what’s your first move in your new position?” she probes, as if searching for a pulse.

  “I’m promoting JJ to manager, directly reporting to me. Won’t win her any friends, but she doesn’t need to worry about friends. I do.”

  “What are you the VP of?” Grace asks. “Busywork?” she laughs.

  “No,” I shoot back at her, defenses bristling.

  “Jesus, lighten up. I know you’re climbing the corporate power ladder. I am just trying to get a laugh. What’s up?”

  “I just came from therapy.”

  “Ohhhh.”

  “Sorry. The job’s good, I mean I am spearheading all of the PR on original movies, which are terrible but hell, it’s TV We’re on our fourth installment of the Bible. I’m supposed to make Ben Kingsley look cool as Job. If I can get him nominated for a Golden Globe, my bonus will be huge. I took on the extra stripes and drama in hopes that someday I’ll get to do something, anything, with Clooney. Plus the extra cash is much needed on the house-saving road, as God knows when or IF I’ll ever meet someone to buy a house with so I need to start planning for my life now. The tradeoff is a lot less ‘life’ and a higher volume of tyrannical egos to deal with.”

  I take a breath.

  “Here’s an example of my typical day. I get my ass chewed by an executive who thinks he’s superimportant and should be on page one of the Hollywood Reporter, instead of page seven, when in reality nobody gives a shit about him because he makes bad B movies. To top it off, his name was spelled wrong, which he is completely pissed about. So my conversation with him after he saw the magazine went something like this … me patronizing him for an hour, explaining I know how he feels, telling him that I’m going to read the editor the riot act, a lie, and somehow slipping into the conversation, nonchalantly, that his name was spelled right when I sent it out in the press release. Thus covering my own ass while making him feel like he is completely justified for acting like a total prick. Then I pick up the phone, call the editor, and the first thing I do is apologize for calling, explaining that I’m just calling because my executive is an idiot and he’s making me call. We share a knowing laugh and I tell him that I am grateful that the story was ever written in the first place, which I am. I throw myself on his mercy, ‘cause I realize he’s my bread and butter for future good stories. I mean, without the editors and writers, we’re fucked. They won’t write anything we want, and then I beg him to do a correction … which I might add is simply the fact that the E comes before the I in Weinberg. The editor agrees, as hack-n-flack (journalist/PR exec) must get along, which I do with my guys, as I have more in common with them than the dick in Armani who works at my company. It’s not like the editor demoted Weinberg or called him a he-she or something.”

  Wow, that was one long rant about work.

  “Speaking of gay guys,” Grace interrupts, bored, “… how’s Stan?”

  I switch gears and take a deep breath. “He’s coming over after golf Sunday afternoon to celebrate my promotion. I am going to put him through Dr. D.’s sponge test.”

  Seeing Stan one week after the wet ball experience gives me pause. Breezing through my front door in golf attire, Callaway visor, carrying his clubs, I realize that I have been overreacting. Maybe Stan is not gay. I see him walk across my living room and want to maul him. He sets his clubs against the wall and gives me a hug and a kiss on the …

  FOREHEAD. FOREHEAD! FOREHEAD!!!

  That afternoon I try a sponge test on him, as recommended by Dr. D. First, I wet a brand-new yellow sponge and leave it in the sink. Then in the middle of cleaning the table I holler to Stan that I need a sponge. He makes his way to the kitchen and I peer from the hallway, and I peek around the corner to watch him take one look at the soggy sponge, basking in a sink full of what he must imagine contains a sewer of bacteria, before he …

  He searches through the contents of the cabinets until he finds a fresh sponge, which he promptly brings over and hands to me.

  “Honey, could you get it wet for me?” I singsong like Mr. Rogers.

  Reluctantly, he wets the half of the sponge that he is not touching and brings it back. Weird. He’s weird, but hot.

  Reason #4: Tests of any kind set your partner up to fail.

  After dinner, he takes a shower while I plot with my girls on the phone about how to get my boyfriend to visit my secret garden.

  Stan walks to the kitchen with a towel wrapped around his waist, pops the cap off a Corona bottle, passes me in the hallway with a little smile, and settles on the sofa, flipping between two baseball games.

  “Beer? Baseball? Couch potato? This is so confusing,” I say under my breath to Grace. “I gotta go. I’ll call you later.” I click off the phone and walk into the living room, where I lay on the couch next to Stan and gingerly place my head on his lap so as to appear to be napping, when in essence I am trying to tease him a little—my head on his LAP. I playfully kiss him on the tummy.

  He looks down at me. “What’s on your mind?”

  The question is what’s not on my body. “Honey, I need some passion, intimacy, followed by bonding.” I blink as innocently as I can.

  “We’re having dinner with my mother tonight. I got up early for golf. Let’s just have a nap.” He says this ignoring that I am silently screaming out for sex. Sliding his body down on the sofa, he proceeds to cuddle me and fall asleep.

  I see the problem, feel it deeply, but somewhere inside I want to go to dinner with his family. I want to have a handsome boyfriend who comes over at 3:00 P.M. on a Sunday after golfing and naps with me on the sofa. I just want the nap following vigorous lovemaking. I want this to work. I close my eyes to sleep and something bigger than anger or frustration hits me.

  Rejection.

  I am lying in the arms of my new boyfriend and he won’t do me. I feel shitty, so I get up and call Josh. He’ll know what to do.

  I explain every sordid detail, of which there aren’t any, of my potentially gay-straight boyfriend. Josh listens carefully before saying, “Kitten, speaking strictly from a guy who posed as a straight boy all through high school and two dreadfully wasted years of co
llege, it sounds like you have a lot of signs, but gay or straight, it doesn’t matter. You’re not getting what you need.”

  Josh and I hang up and I stand over Stan while he sleeps. I want to whack him with the phone, hard, right in the middle of his forehead.

  Reason #5: Rejection from your partner is unacceptable.

  I lay back down with Stan, wrap his arm around my waist, and spoon into him. I study his sexy forearm and think to myself, Why can’t I listen to my friends about shitty men? Josh told me everything I need to know, yet here I lay, trying to make my fluffy poodle into a macho German shepherd.

  Sam nuzzles his muzzle into my leg on the couch and I give him some love. He’s been sick. I thought it was Stan-induced diarrhea, but I know it’s more. I search beneath his thick coat of fur, rubbing his frail body, and find more lumps. I hug him for a good long second and he gives me a little howl. Damn, he puts on a great façade for a sick ole boy

  Sam lies back down next to the couch and I think to myself while lying motionless with my sleeping gay/straight boyfriend. I always ask my friends for their opinions only to discard any good advice that they may throw out. Why? These are the people who only have my best interest at heart, and I ignore them. Why is it that we never listen to the people who love us?

  I decide at that moment that I will have a party, a dinner party, a judge-n-jury party. I will invite my entire gay circle of friends, Josh, Gary, Bill, my lovely lesbian couple friends, Dena and Natalie. I will pepper them throughout a crowd of about ten or so straight friends along with a few of Stan’s friends and let them determine what I am afraid I already know but refuse to accept as I will not be dateless, loveless, and futureless when my best friend walks down the aisle. It will be like group therapy, only with an insular friend posse. No matter what happens, I will listen to their advice and act accordingly. I have a plan, a good plan.