A Year Straight (5 page)

When I found the lawyer back in the living room, he was wearing his coat and holding mine. I guess the dance for straight people is more like the two-step. One, “You're single?” Two, “Me too.”

“Looks like the party's over,” he said, holding my coat open behind me to slip into. “I live right down the street. We can get my scooter and I can give you a ride home if you'd like. I just got it.” I smiled to myself, sliding my arms into the ripped lining of my sleeves.

It's hardly necessary to say that we ended up in his living room, on his couch, for yet another foot massage. Outside his apartment door, he'd invited me in. Once inside, he'd offered me a drink. Each question provided an opportunity for me to turn back, but something inside compelled me to say, “Yes, yes, and yes.” His apartment was sparsely decorated in a stark, minimalist style. The walls were painted cloudy sky gray and were bare but for a giant psychedelic poster of Buddha. The kitchen was open to the living room, separated by a full island bar, bachelor-pad style. I couldn't help comparing his kitchen to my ex, Amy's. When we'd first met, I'd felt right at home at her place, scattered with tea lights, plants, and incense sticks, her cat Kiki roaming around. In comparison, the lawyer's place might as well have been Mars.

I sat myself down on a bar stool and watched him pour two drinks. I giggled, giddy from rebelling against my customarily prudish disposition, my lesbian identity, and my brother.

“What's funny?” he asked, wielding the cocktail shaker like a pro.

“How long have you lived here ?” I asked, swiveling around on the stool and changing the subject. I felt like a teenager again, like we were stealing gin from his parents' liquor cabinet for a party we shouldn't be having.

“A few years,” he answered, leading me into the living room. It was the dawn of fall, during a week that felt more like winter, so he threw a couple of logs on some kindling. We had a fire going in no time.

He grabbed my foot again and picked up where we'd left off at the party. Then he leaned over to kiss me. I closed my eyes and moved toward him. His face felt scratchy, like an old frayed toothbrush. I realized I'd been spoiled by women's silken flesh. Even so, there turned out to be an abundant amount of chemistry between us as we made out in front of the fireplace. It was hot. When he went to touch my boob, I stopped abruptly and sat up.

“I want to take it slow because it's been years,” I said. “I haven't been with a man in many years. But I haven't been alone either. I've been with women, and I'm not sure I'll remember what to do.” And before he had a chance to respond, I tackled him. I jumped right up on top of him and slid his shirt over his head in one swift motion, impressing myself. We made our way up to his room, and as he pulled my shirt up, I tried to get out of my skinny jeans, twisting and turning to peel them off.
When I went to lie down on the bed, he stopped me and placed a condom in the palm of my hand. I hadn't practiced that part with Megan. I tossed it back at him.

“I want to watch you put it on.” I fell onto the bed in what I hoped was a flirtatious fashion.

And then we were having sex. And it felt good, and it was fun, and it was true what Megan had said: It was just like riding a bike. But his bike didn't feel all that different from those of the women I'd been with—combine the right material with the right rhythm, and a dildo does the trick just as well. Sorry boys. We navigated each other like any two strangers would, trying this way and that, standing up, lying down, sitting up, spin me round. Sex is sex is sex. What was different from being with a woman was how he acted afterward. He pulled back the covers and we crawled underneath. Starry eyed, I shifted over to his side of the bed and flung my arm across his chest. He grunted, moved my hair out of the way, and rolled over to face the opposite wall. Me Man. Man No Cuddle.

The next morning he woke me very early for a Saturday. He had to leave for work and offered to buy me brunch beforehand.

“We can take my scooter,” he said, beaming with pride. We headed outside into the brisk, bright morning. He was still cute in the glare of sober daylight.
Phew.

“Wait here,” he said, jogging around the corner of the
building. I heard the sound of a motor revving. He returned on his shiny new Vespa, approaching me very slowly, wobbling like Bambi on ice. I could tell he didn't know how to drive it, but in the tradition of poor discernment, I hopped on the back and strapped on my helmet. I grew up riding on Vespas in Italy. I knew what it felt like to ride with my cousin Marco, a seasoned driver, at the helm, and riding with the lawyer was not it. Just when I was about to suggest he drop me off at the nearest subway station, we hit a patch of wet leaves and crashed. The bike slid out from under us and landed on my leg, burning a hole right through my pants and through my skin as well. I screamed. He strained to pull the scooter up off me, and I hopped to the sidewalk to inspect my leg. The muffler had burned his first initial into my calf. The lesbian gods were angry.

“It's just the first layer of skin,” he consoled.

You would think getting burned on my first date with a man would have scared me off, but I am a very stubborn person with a high threshold for pain. Besides, when I told Megan about it, she didn't seem adequately phased.

“But he was kind of a jerk about it.” I said, trying to get her to understand.

“Elena,” she put her hand on my shoulder and gave me a look of condolence. “If you want to go out with men, you have to lower your expectations.”

“That might be the worst advice I've ever heard.”

THE LAWYER AND I had been dating for a couple of weeks when he invited me upstate for the weekend. I accepted the offer, hiding my excitement. I took it as a turning point. Until then, there wasn't much opportunity to talk, having spent most of our time in bed on the few nights he left the office before midnight. It was lights out and clothes off. And in the morning we took the subway together during rush hour; hardly the chance to chat. I was looking forward to us getting to know one another.

On the train to Hudson, I made little comments here and there about the pretty scenery passing by the train window, but he didn't take the bait. Instead, he nodded and continued reading the
Wall Street Journal
and sipping his coffee in silence. Accustomed to the chatter of women, I fidgeted in my seat in discomfort. I searched my bag, not looking for anything in particular except perhaps some understanding of the foreign species seated next to me. I'd always heard, “Men don't talk,” but was it meant that literally? I noticed my squirming bothered him, so I did it more.

His friends greeted us at the train station in their Toyota Prius. They were a cool couple, a graphic designer and an environmental engineer, hence the hybrid car. The lawyer suddenly appeared to have plenty to say, updating his friends on his work woes and recent obscure music discoveries. We headed to their house and dropped off our bags. They were staying down the street with some friends in order to give us
the place to ourselves. We freshened up and joined them for a feast of Mexican food.

“My friends and I made tamales from scratch the other day,” I said, reaching for more salsa, surprised to feel so nervous around new people. “They really take forever. My friend grew up making them with her m—”

“
Th-am-alez.
That's how you say it. I had the best
th-am-ale
z in
Co-lombia,
” the lawyer interrupted, annunciating dramatically. I sat with my mouth gaping open, the last words of my sentence suspended in midair. It was the first of what would turn out to be many interruptions that weekend as he and his friends talked about Noam Chomsky and meditation and art. For the lack of talking the lawyer did on the train, he made up for it with his friends. I felt small and stupid and unseen. It had been awhile since I'd felt so insecure. I recalled feeling that way when I was younger, around guys I wanted to impress, walking on eggshells, trying to say the right savvy, intelligent thing. I wasn't that malleable girl anymore but rather a confident, self-assured woman. But I had grown accustomed to the company of women, with whom I generally felt included and heard.

We went for a hike, at which point I gave up entirely, walking alongside them without saying a word. Instead I took in the landscape, the river and trees that saw me. It was jarring how seamlessly I could resort to that dark silent place inside, like it had been awaiting my return all along. By evening I was on the verge of tears.

The house we were staying in had grown cold, the sun no longer casting streams of light across the floor. So we ended up right back where we'd started: in front of another fire. Only it wasn't so hot. We sat in silence for a while, and I wanted more than anything to go home. The lawyer eventually placed another log on the pile and to my surprise scooped me onto his lap.

“I'm sorry if I've been cold with you,” he said, “but I'm taking it slow because I'm not sure where I want this to go.” He fiddled with the fire poker. The log he had just put on was too long for him to close the glass fireplace door. We were sitting in front of an open flame. He grabbed the burning log with the fire prod and shoved it to the back of the pile. Sparks flew, and I knew instantly it was my split ends that had been singed, because the smell of burned hair is unmistakable. The too-big log balanced precariously on top of the ashes of the wood we'd already burned. He jammed the door a few times, and just as I was about to interject and suggest that brute force might not be the best approach, the door shattered into a thousand shards of glass.

I had to hold back laughter, because in the little time I'd known him, one thing was crystal clear. He hated looking like a fool.
Maybe all men do?

“Go to bed,” he offered. “I'll clean this up and wait for the fire to burn down.” On my way out of the room, I tossed him a pillow to sit on while he waited. I was trying my best to be
nice. But it missed his lap and bounced off his face, sending his glasses into the pile of ash. It was impossible to hold back laughter after that. I erupted into hysterics, finally releasing all the tension that had been building since we boarded the train. He didn't laugh along.

“I'm sorry,” I said, in between cackles.

“Just try to be a little more careful next time,” he replied condescendingly, retrieving his glasses and wiping off the lenses with his shirt. I felt like a kid being reprimanded. His tone sent me into even stronger muffled convulsions, so I ran into the bedroom and let the laughter loose into my pillow. And then I passed out happily, alone.

In the morning the tension was palpable. We said goodbye to his friends and offered to pay for the broken door. I was dreading the talk we would inevitably have on the train, the one where we'd discuss our differences and decide to go our separate ways. But I was still thinking in girl mode, where, you know, you communicate. Upon boarding the train, he affectionately adjusted the tag on my shirt, rested his head on my shoulder, and drifted off to sleep. I was baffled.
Did he really not realize something was terribly wrong between us?
It dawned on me that having sex with guys and relating to them are two very different things. At Grand Central, I pulled him aside at the subway entrance.

“Thank you so much for this weekend, but I think we are too different to continue to...” And then the tears came.
I attempted to explain how I felt, but I was too emotional to form the words.

“You barely talked to me. I felt invisible. I just want to go home,” I said.

He was dumbfounded and pulled me toward him.

“I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were having a bad time.”

“That's the point,” I said in between sobs. “You didn't even notice. It's like you're in your own world.” And for a split second he softened.

“You're not the first person to say that to me.”

And then he stepped away from me and said, “Well, I would have liked to spend some more time together, but I didn't think you were the girl I was going to marry or anything.” He looked down and smoothed out the wrinkles on his shirt.

I laughed and shook my head, feeling like myself again, back on my New York turf. Then I turned to head toward the Q train, which I'd grown to count on to take me home.

I
wasn't late and I'd always used protection with the lawyer, but it had been a while since a penis had come within three feet of me. I was paranoid. When I darted into my neighborhood pharmacy for a pregnancy test, I felt like I was back at Babeland, overridden with guilt and acting shifty, as if I were planning to shoplift. Of course, I found myself face to face with a lesbian couple I knew, in the middle of the magazine aisle. Thankfully, at that moment I had been innocently browsing
Us Weekly,
stalling my purchase. Even so, my cheeks flushed to match the pink boxes that sat on a shelf two aisles over. I'd walked by the pregnancy tests three times already, conjuring up the courage to grab one and bring it up to the cashier. They lived right next to the UTI medicine, for which I'd limped into the same store the month before.

If you've ever had a UTI, you know what the initials
stand for—urinary tract infection—and you also know that you have to run to the bathroom every five minutes for a phantom pee. When you finally do collapse onto the toilet seat, it feels like you're pushing out trickles of battery acid, accompanied by muffled howls of disbelief: “Oh My God, Oh My God, Oh My God.” I'd had UTIs in the distant past, when I'd dated guys before. They are usually the result of too much friction (not enough lube), dehydration, or stress. If you feel one coming on, you can often chase it off with cranberry juice and vitamin C. But that one had come out of the blue.