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07/13/2021 10:34 PM
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ping pong guy || dating disasters
“Do you like Metallica?” he asked as music rolled out of the car, my date shooting a grin in my direction.
“Um, Metalli--yeah.” I’m ashamed of myself even now for that joke. That was the level I had stooped to on this first date with….Brian? Looking back, he seemed like a Brian. Jeff? It was a man who was a decent guy. Nothing to write home about, otherwise I would have remembered his name.
The only physical characteristic I distinctly remember about him were his eyes. You know, his actual eyes. He didn’t bring a set of eyes on the date. (We don’t talk about that guy.) There was a touch of sadness to his eyes that he barely let me catch a glimpse of during the date.
He kept his attention on the game behind the bar and I kept my attention on pretending to know what the hell was going on in the game. Were we cheering for the red team? Blue team? Jeff continued to grumble everytime the blue team hit the ball, but then he slammed his hands down on the bar when the red team hit the ball. Ping pong is stupid.
I wasn’t attracted to him by any means. Did that stop me from saying “yes” when he invited me over to his place at the end of the night? I mean, not every first date is going to have fireworks. Wouldn’t this be a great story to tell our future kids? Dad barely spoke two words to Mom the entire night. Mom made a terrible Metallica joke and the rest is history! So---I went back to his place.
As far as dates are concerned, it wasn’t bad. Sure, he barely spoke to me. He wanted to go back to his place though. Maybe he was just shy and needed some privacy to really be himself. The house was gorgeous when we pulled up, lights lining the driveway, basketball hoop where we would likely have our first fight because I’m better at basketball than him… I could feel the ABC Family made for tv movie of our lives together playing as Metallica was shut off. (I assume it was Metallica. It would be stupid for Brian to ask me if I like Metallica and then not play Metallica.)
Noticing the corvette in the garage, I was beginning to find Jeff more and more attractive. “We should take that pretty little thing out on our next date.” I may have wiggled my shoulders. I may have been more turned on by the car than Brian. It was dark. He couldn’t tell.
“Shhh,” came the grown man I had gone out with that evening. He shushed me.
My shock at being shushed lasted from the moment he stuck his keys into the door inside the garage, to---well, no. The shock continued from here on out. “What?” and I whispered. I can’t believe I whispered.
“I don’t want to wake up my Dad.”
Now look. There’s nothing wrong living with your parents at the age of thirty-six. It’s economical. There are plenty of circumstances that call for it. Some people even genuinely like their parents. I personally would rather be kidnapped by Saw and live in one of his little traps, but thankfully I’ve never had to decide whether or not to live with my mother or be constantly asked “Do you want to play a game?” (That has to be annoying. No, Jigsaw. It’s Tuesday at 10:00PM. Let me go to bed.)
I didn’t know Jeff’s circumstances and refused to judge until I was face to face with his father. I did not wake that man up either! It was not my flirtatious advances towards a motor vehicle that woke him up. “You’re home late.” The words were delivered in a tone that could only be compared to “Bueller...Bueller…”
“Yeah.” Like father, like son.
“Did you watch the game tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you think?”
“It was alright.”
“Yeah.”
Literally, I felt myself relaxing. Obviously, I wasn’t here since no one was acknowledging my presence. This was an out of body experience. That was, until---
“We’re going to go up to my bedroom.”
“Have fun.” Ew.
Again, I wasn’t going to judge. I don’t know anyone’s financial state. Mental state. Nothing. To walk out right then would have been a d*ck move, right? Let’s be honest...the idea of riding in the corvette on a later date was keeping me there. As we moved up to his bedroom, I was imagining a loft. An adult male, living at home---surely he had some space. A nice little lounging area. A drink cart perhaps? Ohh, that would be so fancy.
However, when we walked into the room---there was a large four poster bed. That was it. Everything else was in boxes and no other furniture. Unless you count the television that precariously sat on top of a moving box.
Okay. Looking back--yes, this was a bad idea. It was a first date. I was in the guy’s bedroom. I don’t go around judging your poor life choices, so let’s just get that out of the way.
I sat on his bed. “Oh, it looks like you’re moving?” I sounded far too hopeful than I should have.
“Get off the bed!” yelled Brian/Jeff with more enthusiasm than he had shown in the entire game of ping pong.
“Ah! Okay, okay! I’m sorry!” And you know what? I actually felt bad. I sat down on the man’s bed without asking. To be fair though, I had never had a man tell me to get out of his bed before.Then again, never been told to ‘shush’ either…
The sadness crept into his eyes once more. It had been eight months since the chicken wing guy, crying in the Taco Mac---so, I was fully ready to have another guy cry on me.
“You’re the first woman to sit on the bed since her....,” his eyes fell to the floor, unable to look at me.
“Oh...Are you...divorced?” See everyone, you don’t know people’s circumstances. Poor Jeff/Brian was probably recently getting out of a marriage. I don’t mind being a rebound. Rebounds can be healthy! (I also don’t mind being a second wife.)
“No… My wife passed away.”
“Oh…” What are you supposed to say to that?
“Four weeks ago.”
“Four as in--.” and I held my fingers up because that’s what people actually do in these situations.
“...in that bed.”
He didn’t cry. He did, however, ask me to sit with him that night and watch recorded ping pong matches. Did you know that a ping pong ball can go over 100 mph when hit across the net?
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07/11/2021 09:03 PM
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chicken wing guy || dating disasters
“I don’t understand…” came the soft sobs of the man sitting across from me in the booth. Eyes red. I couldn’t fight the mental image of comparing him to a strung out lab rat who was about to attack the next person who made him run that damn maze again… Not politically correct in any sense.
The bartender came over with my third drink of the night. We had gone to high school together, so for whatever reason, I felt a bond with her. She was a woman. I was a woman. She had my back, knowing that alcohol would be the only way to navigate these salty seas.
“It’s not you...It’s me…” I had said it at least thirty times before. I guess I was hoping it would stick on the thirty-first time.
“How could you---,” a choked cry, which seemed gut wrenching at first---until my date’s wings arrived. “How could you say there wasn’t any spark between us?” A trail of honey barbecue sauce dripping down his chin, complemented by the saltiness of his tears, probably made a really nice sauce. Taco Maco isn’t advertising it.
“Um, I don’t know…I thought I, like, should be honest.” Isn’t that the goal? Honesty. Communication. Aren’t strong relationships built on a foundation of trust. I was setting us up for success!
“You had your tongue in my mouth, pulled away, and said you didn’t feel a spark!” Yeah. His outrage would have come across a little more intensely had he not spit out barbecue sauce onto my cheek from across the table. Or was that a tear? Can you have projectile tears?
People were staring now. Who am I kidding? The guy’s sniffles as soon as we walked in were merely the preview to this electrifying performance.
“I didn’t mean to make you upset. You seem like a nice guy. I--I---,” I started to panic. Who was I to know what the hell I was doing? I had dated like three guys in my entire life. Maybe this would be one of those stories that we told our kids one day. Yeah, mom made dad cry on the first date. Now look how happy we are?
But sitting before me was a man that, I kid you not, had his whole hand in his mouth in an effort to get the sauce off of it.
“I am a nice guy!” If he has to shout it at you in the middle of a restaurant, he’s not that nice. It’s like when guys say, ‘I’m a grown ass man’. If you have to say it... No, buddy. You’re not. How was I supposed to know any of this though? How was I supposed to know that I wasn’t the complete bitch? I mean, I made him cry!
“You are! I know! You really seem nice,” said the three purple drinks I had been given by the bartender. I didn’t ask what was in them. There was an unspoken force between us. She was giving me the courage to call this guy the f*** out… Alcohol doesn’t work that way on me though. Alcohol makes me adore everyone I meet. Oh, you’re the type of person who takes up two parking spaces? Love you. You like to open every bottle of foundation and put the bottle back on the shelf? Let’s make out. Your wife doesn’t understand you and I’m the love of your life? Yes, I am.
That is what alcohol does to me. So, obviously, it didn’t help this situation.
“I’m willing to give it another shot,” the guy added as though he was doing me a favor. Honestly, I don’t remember his name either. He was that unremarkable. When you sob for forty-five minutes in the booth of a Taco Mac, your name really isn’t the most interesting thing about you...
“Seriously? You think we can make this work?” I asked hopefully---again, I thought the bartender had my back. F*** her.
“I don’t know. It’s going to be really hard for me to trust you after this.” To trust me… as though I had betrayed him. Look, I didn’t take the last poptart out of the box, Skippy. I just told you that you suck at kissing.
That’s what I should have said. Instead, three-drinks-Virginia, hopeful that this would be the last first date she ever had to go on, grabbed those sticky fingers. “I promise you can trust me. I’m so sorry that I hurt your feelings.”
Looking back, I’m not quite sure the worst part of that date. Was it the kiss that was so wet I had to wipe off my mouth? Could it be that the sports bar had to turn up fourteen televisions to drown out the sobs of my date? It could have been the fact that I ended up paying for the whole date out of guilt?
No. The worst part came the next morning when I received a text stating...
“You’re too dramatic for me and a bit sloppy. This isn’t going to work for me.”
Not even the worst of my dates.
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07/10/2021 12:58 PM
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tell me | nsfw
tw: mentions of sex, biting, smacking, choking. it's relatively tame, folks.
_____________
“Tell me what you want. Louder, babe.”
I hate it when he calls me that. One minute, Brad’s balls are bouncing against my bare thigh and the next, I have the image of Farmer Hoggett dancing around a pig that’s likely suffering from cat scratch fever. Can pigs get cat scratch fever? Is that even a real thing? Brad says something against my skin, in between gentle pecks.
A moan. “Hm?” No, I wasn’t just thinking about a pig. I was thinking of you, babe.
“Don’t be shy,” and it’s said with all the condescension a guy could muster. As though this is a safe place. We played ‘are those fireworks or gunshots?’ outside your apartment, Brad. This isn’t a safe space.
“Oh, yeah. Totally. Not me…” I lie, because it’s not his fault that I have no hope for this being a semi-decent experience. A slight arch of my back, slender fingers gripping into his skin, a not so subtle attempt at using a bit of force to liven up our evening.
“Do you like it like that? Is that what you like?” He’s not asking for suggestions here. Validation is what he’s seeking. He’s been validated all his life by women who are just too tired to tell him the truth. He’s boring.
“Mhm...you know it,” a grin, teeth sliding across my own bottom lip because someone has to do it. The gesture alone is enough to make me want two double A batteries and maybe a home improvement show running in the back. So many countertops. “You know me so well,” I say aloud to myself---which, of course, Brad thinks I’m talking to him.
His body, warm from his excitement (though you wouldn’t be able to tell by any other part of him), settles over mine, lips moving to my ear. He growls. F***ing growls. I’m embarrassed for him because he has done this for some girl before and she must have deserved an Oscar for telling him how sexy it was.... “Some guys can’t read women.”
I laugh in his face, but quickly throw my open mouth at him, so it’s not as obvious. Smooth.“Yeah, they are the worst.” My kiss is enough to wake up the rest of Brad and I’m envious that he’s so turned on right now. Envy and naked bodies are not a good combination. My hand slips down his chest, a less direct route, to then land on my own body. The sweat that’s been dripping on me during this foreplay session makes it seem like I may be wet.... Nope. “Could you just---?”
He’s all attentive now. Biceps solid as he does a push-up against my frame. Hello.“Tell me what you want, Ginny.”
Gross. Only my dad called me ‘Ginny’. But I’ve pushed through worse before. He genuinely seems to want to know what I want… So my hand goes to his mouth, covering his chapped lips in the hopes that he won’t ever call me that again. “Just--let’s put your hand in my hair,” slipping slowly down his bicep (hello, again), wiggling at his arm so he can adjust himself. His body is pushing mine deeper into the carpet, making it difficult to breathe. Don’t hate that one bit. I bring his hand to my hair, tangling it like the vines in Tarzan---it was on Disney+. It was a logical analogy. “Yeah, just like that.”
“It’s so soft. You’re so soft. All of you is so soft.” God, shut up. “You’re small, babe, but these hips of yours...” I’m not even mad that he’s alluding to my hips being the largest part of me. I can handle that, because his palm is also splaying out into the arm, acting as though he’s about to grab at my hips. Dig into my flesh. Cause me to cry out in pain from the sheer force. Maybe he’d even leave a bruise or two...fingerprints left as a reminder...
“Yeah?” My throat is dry, but other things are shaping up quite nicely.
And just like that...he lets me down, by gently caressing my skin.“They are so soft.”
He’s killing me. I’ve worked up a sweat from fantasizing, so I tug on his hand to go back into my hair.“Shh. Let’s move a little bit,” shifting under his body, until I’ve forced him to “pull” at my hair---if you could even call it that.
“---whoops. Seems like you tugged my hair a smidge. Wow.” My words are breathy, eyes make contact with his and even I think that might have been enough for me to carry on with this charade. “That, like, kinda did something for me.”
“Oh, yeah, babe?” Didn’t they make a Babe 2? Pig in the City? Was there singing in that one? “I can do that for you. Is that what you want?”
“Here, why don’t you give me a little kiss? While you’re there, your teeth could...give me a little bite?”
“Oh, you’re so kinky, babe. Yeah. I’ll bite you. I’ll bite you real hard.
Oh my God. This is it. This is when I find out that he’s just been nervous this whole time to show me what he likes… He didn’t want to scare me off. How considerate! We are going to look back on this day and laugh--might be a little tricky since hopefully I’ll have a ball gag in my mouth, but yay us! “Oh, okay.” Playing it cool. We are going to use the song from Babe as my walk down the aisle song.
“Tell me, is that what you want?” My excitement starts to dwindle when he asks again, but I won’t let this moment pass us by.
“Totally. How about this... let’s pretend, like close your little eyes and just imagine for me…”
“Yeah...yeah…” Brad closes his eyes, but like a kid who is afraid of the dark...
“I’m yours. All yours. To do exactly with me as you want. Whatever you want. Maybe I’ve even been...bad. Maybe I need to be punished…” And now I’m turned on, almost engaged, and nothing can bring me down.
“Woah. Woah. Punished? You want me to beat you?” He’s off of me with a sense of urgency I haven’t seen all night out of Brad.
F***. “Not necessarily beat. That’s not the word I would use here…”
“Is that what you want? I don’t go around hitting women, Ginny.” Gag. “That’s not my thing. I don’t do that. Is that what you want?”
“Jesus Christ, Brad! Yank my hair, bite my boobs, and spank my ass every now and then! This isn’t rocket science!”
And Brad left. The ironic thing is...once I locked the door behind him, slid into my bed, and turned on the tv….Babe was on.
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07/09/2021 06:47 PM
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father's day drabble
trigger warning: death, parental death, murder---I mean, it’s not super detailed, but it’s not going on a bad date with Brad level.
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I should have watched you die.
Granted, not totally the typical sentiment one should have about your father on---get ready for it---Father’s Day. Hallmark isn’t printing these in bulk (or at all). So it’s really like I’m doing the world a service as I blow upon card number three that is stained in sharpie with my much needed saying.
I should have watched you die.
No one is at the store at this hour. No one here to judge. To question. To report me to the store management ---which is totally a shame, because I dare someone to ask me why I’ve written in my own sentiments on a blank card. Blank in terms of no words. There’s still an adorable little picture of an elderly man and a dandelion. Not really sure the thought process behind the graphics. Your memories are fleeting like the life of a flower? Your old seed can still spread as far as a dandelion?
Obviously these are my initial thoughts. I’ll reach out to Hallmark after I deface a few more of these cards.
I should have watched you die.
You were in the hospital for 24 days. The stress did f*** up my cycle. So thanks for not making me bleed? Ooh! I scribble that in another card, because what a lovely Father’s Day sentiment for newly announced dads. Keeping those women period free. What champs…
You weren’t sick. You were forgetful. Foggy. What did the doctors keep saying? Confused? Which is a bunch of sh*t, because has anyone not been confused in a hospital? “Head east for room 243,” a nurse had instructed, like I was f***ing Lewis (or Clark). How is that not confusing on the best of days? I didn’t go into the room. I left. I couldn’t see you in the hospital bed like you were weak. You were never weak.
I should have watched you die.
I could have gone in on day 24 when we knew you were almost gone. I could held your hand or rattled on about my latest date as if they were anything more than white noise just like the beeps of the machines keeping you alive. I’m fairly confident they only needed like one of those machines and the rest were for show (which, I only heard about the amount of the machines, because if you didn’t catch on----I should have watched you die, but I didn’t.)
I didn’t want my last image of you to be at death’s door. Or even his driveway. Neighborhood. Whatever. I should have watched you die. Instead, it ended with a phone call. I didn’t see your chest stop moving.
I didn’t hear the painfully loud silence as the machines stopped breathing for you. I didn’t see any of it.
Suddenly, you weren’t in the world anymore Dad.
Everyone told me it would get better. That those we love find little ways of reaching out to us to make sure we are okay. And so he came to me in my dreams...giving me the closure I so desperately needed.The dreams were perfect. Everything I could have hoped for in an effort to move on.
I killed him with a pillow first. Quiet. Peaceful. A good warm-up. Next, I used a pen I stole from the nurses station to stab him in the throat--blood soaked hands transitioned to consciousness, tears of joy replacing that of blood. I’ve killed him so many times. I’ve lost count. I have control now. Death is like the ultimate form of control.
So now---I do watch him die. Nearly every night.
When you’re picking up a last minute Father’s Day card for dear old dad tomorrow, look in aisle 5 at the Walgreens.
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