George called me the other night, drunk, as he has been these days.

It's summertime, he tells me, and there's just always something to do. I'm so busy.

I think it's more like he's bored in that hick town he lives in, and he has to keep drinking to make it all seem more interesting. Of course I don't say that to him. No one needs to hear something like that.

Anyway, George needed to spill his guts, that's why he called. He'd been having girlfriend troubles again, I guess. He always says he has a story for me, that he's telling it to me because he thinks I'll find it interesting. But really I just think he needs someone to talk to besides her and his brother.

"She told me a story from when she was younger today. This morning. Just when we were curled up so nice in bed, she has to lay this one on me. You girls, I tell you."

OK, go.

Sometimes I lose my patience with him a bit. I don't like his girlfriend stories that much. She sounds like she's crazy, and I don't like to be lumped in with her.

"So this was when she lived in DC, like maybe eight years ago."

I didn't know she lived in DC.

"Yea she grew up there, went to school there, stayed there for a bit after she graduated from school. She was waiting tables at some sports bar. She said they had to wear a referee uniform."

A very hot look.

"She could pull it off just fine I'm sure. Anyway she knew everyone in that whole town because she had been there forever and she was in a band in high school and had waited tables, and was just in the scene. So she could go to every rock club and dive bar and you know, basically anywhere where younger people hung out, and there would always be someone she knew. And she's not easy to miss. She's little, but she's really blond and got these huge tits. She's totally hot."

Lucky you.

"Yea well she's nuts so not so lucky me."

Go on, George.

"So she starts going to bars in other parts of town, more downtown, more yuppie, business-like, whatever, where she's less likely to know people. This is when she's just starting to think about moving, and she's getting sick of everyone she knows, and everyone knowing her, her business. She just goes to these bars and brings a book or a notebook and just gets drunk by herself."

How often is she doing this?

"I don't know. Like maybe once a week? And she said she was lying about it to everyone she knew. She would tell her roommate or her friends or whoever she was going to her mom's house for dinner. There was no reason for it, but she did it anyway. I think she just liked the feeling of having a secret."

Yes. Secrets are a good thing.

"The only thing you can truly own. I know. I've had this conversation before I think. Anyway one night she's in this bar where everyone's in a suit and she's wearing her little vintage dress and her hair in a bun - I guess she wore like little outfits when she did this - and for some reason people are freaking out on her because she's writing in her notebook. Like three people in a row walk up to her and ask her if she's a journalist. They just think it's totally weird to sit in a bar writing in your notebook."

DC is a weird place. People are paranoid there.

"Finally this guy sitting next to her catches her eye and smiles. He's doing a crossword puzzle. Says something about how stupid people are so of course my girlfriend likes him and then they start talking. He's a lobbyist. She said he was maybe 40 or just shy of it, looked pretty smart, was wearing glasses, a button down shirt, nice pants, nice shoes, had a briefcase. A grownup. She starts helping him with his crossword puzzle. They're flirting, sort of. Like he's not like guys she know who talk about her tits in the first five minutes."

Like you for example.

"Like me for example. Sure. Fair enough. No he's smart, and he's just making eye contact and I think she just flattered that this old, smart guy liked her. I think most of the people she knew then were pretty dumb, and secretly she always felt like she was smarter than them, and it was like, this guy got it, he totally knew that she was a genius."

She didn't get that forty-year-old men always like twenty-year-old women. Regardless of how smart they are.

"Well you never know anything when you're twenty, even though you think you know everything."

Right.

"So eventually he starts telling her this sob story about how he's married to this Swedish woman. It's his second marriage. She's someone he met through work, and they were friends for a long time, and they just sort of fell into it. She's got a kid, now he's a dad all of a sudden, and he totally cannot deal with it, so he just finds himself hiding out one night a week in this bar. And my girl is wasted at this moment but she gets it completely, connects with it, this feeling of wanting to abandon ship, you know? And then they start looking at each other like they want to fuck each other and she says she has to go home. I guess the trains don't run super late there?"

Most of them don't, yea.

"He says he'll walk her to the train, and then he walks her into the station, and she starts to say goodbye, and then he takes her arm and they go down to her train, but then he walks her down to this dark corner, and they sit on this bench. It's late and it's like maybe a Tuesday so there's no one around. And they kiss and then he kind of feels her up. She said she couldn't tell if she liked it or not. He was really different than the guys she usually was with, so it probably turned her on even if it wasn't any good. Then he takes her hand and puts it down his pants. He unbuttons his pants and unzips himself a bit just so there's a little room to move. And her hand is like, there, so she just decides what the hell, I'll get this man off. And she looks down and sees that he's wearing tightie whities, and like they're kind of grey and old, and the waistband is fraying, and she's just totally grossed out. Just then her train comes and she hops on it and leaves. And I'm like, Jesus girl, why do you tell me these things?"

So you're pissed because she was slutty?

"No I'm pissed because she told me about how gross it all was. I don't give a shit who or what she did before me, but that was just depressing. I totally lost my hard-on - my dick practically shrunk up inside of me - and didn't feel like having sex at all and I just really wanted her to go home."

George made her coffee, he said. But he lied and said his brother was picking him up to go to the records store, so if she was hungry, she should probably just go home. After she left he made himself eggs and bacon and even squeezed himself some fresh orange juice.

archives | w-w home | mail