See The Imprinter, Business or Pleasure?, Spellbound, No Picnic in the Park, Squatter Love, Who Falls First?, Trouble, Purgatory, Pre-Disintegration, Sanity Takes a Turn and In Heat for the background on this one.
Now might be a good time to catch up with the adventures of Zoe. She’d gone to meet Big Willy in Philly for the July 4th weekend. While I was in the midst of my insanity, she was on a Peter Pan bus hurtling toward the City of Brotherly Love and simultaneously texting me off the ledge. But then she went silent when, presumably, she'd arrived and come face to face with Big Willy. She resurfaced a few hours later with an initial report: “Hi darling I am having fun the willy is big. x"
Knowing Zoe was fully taken care of, and feeling that I was now off the ledge, I waited until the next day to text #126 back about the bed. I told him that I’d ordered it and that the bed people would be calling him to schedule a delivery. He seemed happy about it.
#126: Slamming
#126: !
#126: What’d we get?
Me: Simmons beautyrest pillowtop plush yumminess.
#126: Sweeet!!! We’re practically married…
Me: Yup. And most likely it’ll be a shotgun wedding.
#126: Who’s holding the gun?
Me: My father.
#126: I’m getting a woody.
He was headed out to Long Island with his friend Mike and said he’d call me when he was back in the city. I fixed myself up in a saucy halter dress and headed to a rooftop party on the Upper East Side, where I met Kevin and Nora. The fireworks started at about the same time I got a voicemail from #126 saying he was back in the city.
I texted a reply, saying he could either wait for an hour until I was back downtown or he could come uptown to meet me.
“He’s not going to come uptown,” Kevin said.
A few minutes later, #126 wrote back: “I’m on my way.”
I held my phone up so Kevin could see.
"Touche. Is he in heat, too?"
"Guess so."
After the fireworks, I went across the street and sat on the steps of the church to wait. I saw #126 turn a corner and, as he walked up to me, he ran his hand through his hair and tried to squelch a hungry grin.
“You look gorgeous. And I’m, uh, not just saying that. I mean, yeah, you look, uh, beautiful.”
Sitting next to me, he nodded heavily and started to speak, “So, uh, yeah….what do you want to, uh, do?”
I leaned back, crossed my legs and started to speak. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him survey me—and please excuse me because I’m purely going for alliteration—from tits to toes.
Just then Nora and Kevin walked up and asked if we wanted to get some food. He refocused his attention on my face and said, “Yeah…yeah…let’s get some, uh….food.”
He continued to scan me as we walked to the car. If he'd been an X-ray machine, I would have had a tumor by now. The two of us sat in the backseat and he told me a story about how an old girlfriend of his had hooked up with his friend while they were dating and then she went off with him and married him.
“Were you upset she did that?” I asked.
“No, I just took one of my other girlfriends to Colorado with me.”
I flinched.
“Do you have other girlfriends...now?”
Then he flinched.
“It’s totally OK if you do,” I said. “You can tell me.”
“No…no…” he said, shaking his head but not making eye contact.
We went to a diner in Chelsea where #126 and Kevin ordered like girls (salad, an egg white omelet) and Nora and I ordered like gluttons (chocolate chip pancakes, fries and French toast). Unbeknownst to #126, Kevin and Nora knew the full details of our tryst and began volleying questions to him across the table, all of which #126 hit effortlessly with anecdote after anecdote.
About a girlfriend from 17 years ago: “She used to have to pack my lunch for me and send me out the door in the morning. I was useless. And she’d never told me, but she decided that if I didn’t ask her to marry me within a year, she’d leave me. And I didn’t, so she did.”
About responsibility: “I can barely take care of myself, youknowwhatImean?”
About how he functions in the world: “I’ve pretty much relied on girlfriends to do everything for me.”
About his maturity level: “That’s probably why I get along with kids so well, I really never grew up.”
About his standard of living: “I mean, I don’t even know how to live. I sleep on a pee-stained mattress and live out of a suitcase, for godssake.”
Just a few dinners ago, he was telling me about how he once owned three houses. Now, he was saying his most prized possession was a urine-scented mattress. He might as well have turned to me and said, “I’m trying to turn you off right now. Is it working?” Little did he know the strength of my self-delusion.
After the diner, Nora drove us home—to my home, because that is the strength of my self-delusion—and as soon as we walked into my apartment, he said, “We need to talk.”
To be continued…
Signs of Hope: He used the word, "married"?
Red Flags: All his stories featured #126, The Narcissistic Dirtbag.
Turning Point: When he said it was OK that his girlfriend ran off with his best friend because, when it came to girlfriends, he had some spares.
Diagnosis: For him: We already knew he was unavailable, but now we're finding out exactly how deep it runs.
For me: Am I really OK with him having other girlfriends? Really? Am I?
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