The One - No one said it would be easy (24 page)

And then, all of a sudden, I couldn’t do it anymore. From one day to the next, I simply couldn’t bear him, I couldn’t stand having him around. Like a lake that suddenly dies when pollution levels reach a certain point. Or milk that suddenly turns sour – perfectly good to drink yesterday, a curdled mess today. Number Twenty-three had become unpalatable. He’d upset my stomach. Possibly it had to do with suppressing my disgust about his kisses all the time – maybe it just suddenly all came to the surface. I no longer replied to his e-mails, his text messages, his phone calls. Whenever I saw him at lunch, I pretended not to see him. I totally ignored him. I saw the question marks in his eyes but I didn’t remotely feel like explaining myself. Mind you, he didn’t exactly try to clarify the situation either. He seemed to lethargically accept my unspoken rejection. Theoretically speaking, we didn’t actually have anything that needed clarifying anyway. But with hindsight I think the least I could have done was tell him that I just didn’t feel like it anymore. It happens! But I couldn’t get myself to do that either – I just didn’t want to. And so I behaved like a complete asshole instead.

One day Number Twenty-three walked up to me to say good-bye. He said he had taken another job and he guessed we wouldn’t see each other again. I just gave a completely uninvolved ”oh right, I wish you good luck” and he stared at me in disbelief. “I miss you. And I miss us,” he said pointedly and walked off with his head bowed. I was shocked to realize that none of this bothered me in the lightest. The only thing that bothered me was the loss of our pre-sex lunchtime flirting. Sometimes sex really does wreck things. Pity.

Number Twenty-four: Pumuck
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(A quick word of explanation: Pumuckl is the name of an imp from a British radio play/TV show for kids. He is short, red-haired and funny, and a hell of a lot nicer than Number Twenty-four!)  

Oh what I wouldn’t give to be able to strike Number Twenty-four from my sexography! The memory of this interlude of utter idiocy shall rot buried amongst the roots of a Sibirian elm in deepest Kazakhstan, smelly moose and cackling snow-geese shall all crap on it, sour rain shall flood its burial place and not even weeds shall be able to grow on this vilest of vile memories. What rankles most about Number Twenty-four isn’t even the fact that this entire sorry episode was utterly superfluous and that the guy himself was like a dip in the sewer. What really rankles is the idiotic stupidity of unequalled magnitude that I myself displayed during the time I spent with Number Twenty-four. Looking back on it now, it is inconceivable and deeply embarrassing that the unpleasant affair with Number Twenty-four happened at all. But, as we all know, everything is so much clearer with hindsight, and we’re supposed to learn from our mistakes, and even grow wiser in the fullness of time. Still – I would love to be able to burn this part of my personal history on the bonfire of unnecessary emotional trials and tribulations.

When I got involved with Number Twenty-four, I must have been under the influence of some brain fog-and-masochism inducing drug that someone had secretly added to my tea. There is no other explanation for this lunacy, this absolute joke. I met Number Twenty-four – believe it or not – at work. Where else?! He was part of the film crew and had been hanging around me for days. I didn’t find him even remotely attractive, he wasn’t my type at all: short, goggle-eyed, a face like a fish and ginger hair. One of my friends, who witnessed the unfolding of this sorry tale first-hand, gave him the codename “Pumuckl”. But as always happens, the more time you spend with someone, and the more exciting that time is, the more this person suddenly appears to be interesting and familiar. And suddenly the ginger hair didn’t matter anymore, the goggle-eyes appeared to be much less goggly, and he suddenly no longer had a face like a fish – more like a hamster. Hamster cheeks are undeniably cuter than fish-type faces. Also I suddenly noticed that Pumuckl was astonishingly muscular, he had very nice looking well-muscled arms that led to the assumption that the rest of his body was equally well toned. We then embarked on a kind of kindergarten-type flirting routine: teasing, making stupid remarks, badgering one another, and every so often, eye-contact that lasted slightly too long.

What bowled me over was this: I once told our location manager, as a joke, that I wanted a horse and that he should go and get one right away. It’s part of a location manager’s job to work small miracles on set. I forgot all about it, but at the end of the day’s shooting Number Twenty-four suddenly appeared and handed me one of those little pink toy ponies, a My-Little-Pony thingy, with a turquoise tail and glittery stars painted on the side. It even glowed in the dark. He said: “You want a horse, you get a horse,” grinned and disappeared. I was speechless. And delighted. Speechless and delighted because, ever since I was a little girl, I’d wanted one of those pink-pony toys but I never got one. And now this Pumuckl just turned up and fulfilled one of my deepest little-girl wishes. Just like that! Number Twenty-four bagged me with a glittery pink plastic pony. And just like that, I was beyond salvation: I’d fallen in love with Pumuckl.    

After the surprise pony I sent him a text message, which started a game of lovey-dovey-text-message-flirting ping-pong. We made a telephone-date for the evening. The phone conversation lasted three hours until late into the night. We told each other lots of things about our respective lives and I was lying on my mobile, smiling happily. We made a real date for the next evening, when he’d simply come home with me after work. Like this was the most natural thing in the world. Not a date on neutral territory, no, we’d get right to it. I was in love, at least that’s what I told myself, and it all felt quite good and quite right. I resolutely pushed aside all of the following: that I would never ever voluntarily introduce this guy to my girl friends or, heaven forbid, to my parents; that the guy was a pleb; that he still lived at home, in the basement of his parents’ row house; that all together the guy was a total disaster area and that he didn’t remotely suit me. Love isn’t just blind; above all, it is stupid. Although in this case, love doesn’t even come into it. It was a clear case of total lapse of taste, induced by singledom.  

However, it’s pointless me kicking myself for this until the end of my days; it happened, I can’t change that. I have no idea what the point of it was – it remains a mystery to me to this day. Next evening, after an exciting day on set with much intense eye-contact and many flirty text messages, Number Twenty-four appeared at my doorstep. We kissed straight away. I can’t recall what that was like, I’ve repressed the memory. I guess it was OK. When he took off his shoes and his grubby clothes, I noticed a fairly strong and unpleasant smell. Exactly the sort of smell that used to emanate from little boys in kindergarten, unwashed and yucky. Boys smell after all! Abashed, I averted my eyes but didn’t say anything, although a “Holy shit that guy stinks!” shot through my head. Naturally I didn’t say this out loud, I was being way too nice again. I pretended nothing was the matter and when he walked off to take a shower that seemed to be the end of the matter. Oh how I wish I’d made a snide comment concerning his absence of olfactory finesse! Because, some time later we had sex, he stayed the night and the next morning the bed and everyone in it smelled like sex, such is life – you don’t come out of a night like that smelling of roses, and he wrinkled his nose and said it might be an idea if I washed every once in a while. He wasn’t being funny or sarcastic or anything – no, the asshole was quite serious. My jaw dropped. Who the hell did this fucker think he was? He dares turn up here smelling like a cesspit and then, after he’s squirted his smelly gunk all over me, he has a go at me! Instead of saying all that out loud, stupid cow that I was, I kept quiet. I was so taken aback by his impertinence I didn’t know what to say. That would have been a good time to kick the moron out of my bed and my life. But, as I mentioned, I was stuck in some masochistic phase of suffering. I turned into a complete pushover.

But back to the beginning. The stinker came out of the shower, he’d put on my fluffy white bathrobe, even the hood, and Pumuckl with dwarf’s hat on looked so cute and funny that I had to laugh. And he had me again. Minus his stink, he crawled into my bed all fresh and clean, where I’d already made myself comfortable. We went at each other and I seem to remember that it was quite good, and naturally one thing led to another. Number Twenty-four turned out to be quite handsome, very muscular, with six-pack and similar added values, and the equipment between his legs was quite handsome, too. Perfect shape, like a drawing. We were groaning and moaning and giving it all, getting down to business quite quickly, I sat on top of him and we just did it, and it was quite OK. When we were done, he looked at me and then he said: “Oh man, I didn’t want that.” I was confused. “You didn’t want what?” I asked. “Well, to sleep with you during our first night. I don’t do that kind of thing.” Sounding totally reproachful.

I looked at him in complete bafflement. What the hell is up with this guy? I mean, all right, it’s up to him if he wants to be Mr. Touch-me-not, but what isn’t all right is to go along with it all, enjoy the whole thing and then, afterwards, say, nah, I really didn’t want that, that’s not what I like. So now I was the baddie who’d cheated poor, poor Pumuckl out of his oh so noble principles. I was the bad nymphomaniac sexmonster that didn’t consider Pumuckl’s feelings. I was so taken aback yet again that again, I couldn’t think what to say. I should urgently take a course in quick-wittedness: “How to verbally knock out your idiot conceited lover instantly and immediately” – that’s what I should do. Plus, his I-don’t-want-to-rush-into-things rosy-posy behavior didn’t suit him in the slightest. Whenever the idiot was out and about with his mates from the film crew, he came out with the most crass stuff, and every passing girlie was given the once-over and hit on. But sure, he’d only come over to play a game of Uno.

The unpleasant affair with Number Twenty-four took its course, for a few weeks we tried to be something resembling a couple. I admit to trying to keep this a secret for as long as possible, because I felt embarrassed to be seen with him. Naturally, it didn’t take long before it was all over the company and I was distinctly uncomfortable with everyone knowing that there was something going on with us. Of course there was gossip. And I allowed it to really get to me. At the time, my self-confidence was buried someplace deep in the Kalahari desert. Number Twenty-four and I met up a few more times, always at my place since he still lived with his parents somewhere out in the sticks. How un-sexy. Deduct another hundred points. And STILL it didn’t make me run screaming for the hills. In spite of a zillion minus points, I stoically continued to endure Number Twenty-four.
 
Bizarrely, Pumuckl also worked part-time as a sales assistant in a sex shop. When he first told me, I thought he was shitting me, but no, the shop belonged to a mate of his and so he worked there sometimes. I seriously must be in the wrong movie. I mean, hey, the guy works in a sex shop – what more is there to say? I decided to be practical about the whole thing, and about the presents he brought from the shop. There followed my first encounters with lubricating jelly and penis rings. I loved the lube jelly but the penis rings were funny. Pumuckl pulled one of them on, and it pinched off half his little Pumuckl. The squashed look didn’t do it many favors visually, but if it helped to prolong sexual pleasure – yo well, why not? Apparently, the plastic knobs on the ring thingy were supposed to boost stimulation for the ladies, but I never noticed any difference. Just amazing, the useless bits of kit the sex industry keeps thinking up. In any event, none of it made the sex any better. And since I am none too keen on long drawn-out screwing sessions, the effect of a penis ring on me is more one of amusement than of heightened sexual arousal. Number Twenty-four and I also tried my favorite sex combo: smoking dope and sex. But even that was kind of stupid with him, I was astonishingly turned on and he just screwed away halfheartedly and made fun of me for being so on heat.  

 
Actually, Pumuckl constantly made fun of me, and not in a good way. Not tongue-in-cheek or nicely wicked, like you do when you’re a couple. No, he was downright mean and nasty. Once, as I stood in front of him, he looked me up and down and said in all seriousness, that they were slagging me off at work because I’d stacked on so much weight, and that they were quite right, and that he really only liked skinny grunge girls. Pow! That hit home. And yet again I stood there, stunned and speechless in the face of such meanness and audacity. Yet again one of those moments when I should have kicked his ass from here to eternity and chucked him onto the nearest hazardous waste disposal site. But now, what does she do, the silly stupid girlie? She stands there, crestfallen, tears flooding her eyes, and she doesn’t show how hurt she is. She smiles crookedly, pretends to have misheard and tries to choke back her tears. She tries to convince herself that he didn’t mean it. Oh I wish I could go back there, by time machine, and stand in front of me and shake me, and yell at me: “You stupid-ass victim, fight back, goddamn it! Don’t let this fucking goggle-eyed moron get away with it! Give him hell, kick his goddamn ass, wipe the floor with him!” Sadly, there are never any time machines when you need them.
Oh, I could list a zillion similar humiliations. Even the ending was miserable and nasty. He just didn’t get in touch anymore. Just like that. And instead of heaving a sigh of relief to finally be shot of this moron, what did I do, undignified goose that I was? I panted after him, wrote him letters (I even mentioned love – how could I!) and would have been the certain winner in any clinging-idiot-of-the-year competition. I, usually blessed with a big mouth to suit all occasions, let myself be treated with such nastiness by him, I lost my dignity, I wasn’t me anymore. And the only one to blame for this sorry state of affairs is me – only me. It’s my own fault that I allowed myself to be flattened emotionally to such a degree. But there are times in a life when we are vulnerable, for whatever reason, and some asshole comes along and takes over and wreaks havoc with our heart and mind. Let’s just make sure it doesn’t happen too often – in fact, not ever again!