Model F*cker

In New York there is a breed of men known as “Model Fuckers”; in Los Angeles, we like to call them “Producers”. When I first moved to New York, I had never heard this term before, and was unaware of the predators that lurked at the swanky bars I frequented. “Model Fuckers” are men, both young and not-so-young, who like to be seen (and sleep with) young beautiful women. These leeches hang out at all the bars where the naïve and innocent new girls in town hang out, buy them drinks, take them home, sleep with them, and then send the girls home before the sun comes up. Oh, and they don’t ever call the girls again.

I am embarrassed to admit it, but for a period of time in my wasted youth, I was one of these girls. I liked the attention and the free cocktails, and I have Daddy issues, so I was ripe for the picking. These guys also tended to live in expensive apartments and drive nice cars and like the finer things in life, such as food from restaurants, as opposed to the Hayden Hall Cafeteria fare I was normally forced to dine on. One night, while out at some fancy club that I practically had to blow the doorman to get into, one of these aforementioned model fuckers, let’s call him Daniel, made his move. He fed me a dumb line about having seen me at some restaurant I’d never been to and didn’t even know existed, bought me a couple rounds of drinks, and asked for my phone number. 

I figured I would never hear from Daniel again, but low and behold he called me the next morning at 10AM. This was unheard of; the movie Swingers had just come out in which long conversations are had about how long you have to wait to call someone so as not to seem too interested. I thought to myself, “well, obviously this guy doesn’t care about seeming cool, he’s just so into me he couldn’t wait the requisite three days. That’s hot”. (What can I say, I’m really great at being delusional, which is why I currently spend a lot of money on therapy.) Daniel and I made a date for the following Friday night, and then I hung up the phone and proceeded to run around my dorm room like a crazy person freaking out about not having anything cute to wear.

The following Friday, Daniel picked me up in his sports car, took me out for a fancy dinner at one of the best restaurants in the city and then invited me to come back to his place. I, of course, accepted, imagining his abode to be a modern TriBeCa loft. Instead, he proceeded to drive me to his parents’ apartment in Brighton Beach, where he told me he’d been living for the last few months since he came home from Paris after having broken up with his French fiancé. The fact that maybe Daniel wasn’t such a great catch started to dawn on me, but I didn’t want to go back to my dorm room and have to spend the night listening to my roommate have sex, so I figured I’d go with it. Well, Daniel’s Parents lived in a two-bedroom apartment in a cement block building like in the movie Crossing Delancey. And I’m guessing the size of the place was maybe 800 square feet. So there I am, sneaking into the parents’ apartment, and entering Daniel’s childhood bedroom filled with posters of 80’s rock bands, his drum set, and Star Wars sheets on a twin bed. Talk about not exactly making my love come down, if you get my drift. But I did like Daniel, despite the fact that he didn’t seem all that bright and he was a chain smoker. Ok, I liked that Daniel liked me, which was enough of a turn on at the age of 19 to get me into bed. Daniel and I started making out, things got hot and heavy, and soon we were ripping each other’s clothes off and getting ready to go all the way. I was into it! If I closed my eyes I couldn’t see the Metallica Poster or the fact that we were about to leave a wet spot on the Death Star. I couldn’t wait to get my groove on, so I told Daniel to stick it in, to which he replied, “it is.” Oh my God, this guy’s dick is so small I couldn’t even feel it. Apparently, he’d been moving it around down there for at least a minute or two and I had not felt a thing. I mean, nothing. This gave new meaning to the term “baby gherkin”. Daniel finished up, I did not, and then we lay in his twin size bed in awkward silence. While I may have enjoyed the delicious dinner, even $36.00 sea bass is not a good reason for bad sex in an outer borough (this was before Brooklyn was cool, ok people? So don’t send me hate mail from your hipster commune in Red Hook). I eventually managed to fall asleep after Daniel realized the twin bed would be more comfortable if one of us slept on the floor. And by “one of us” he meant me.

The next morning I woke up shivering on Daniel’s floor, with a shag run pattern imprinted on my face. I quickly threw on my clothes, shook Daniel awake, and told him I wanted to leave.

He said, “what’s your hurry, Alice? I thought we could have breakfast with my parents before I took you home.”

I said, “my name is Anna, you idiot, and I want to go home.”

Daniel refused to get up to drive me home, so he gave me cab fare and told me if I walked five blocks over I could catch a taxi headed for Manhattan. 

As I watched the sun rise over the city, I’d never been so happy to be headed back to my dingy dorm room and sex-crazed roommate. Sure, my life wasn’t glamorous, but there’s nothing like sleeping on the floor of some loser’s childhood bedroom to put everything in perspective. Oh, and here’s the kicker: gherkin dick didn’t even give me enough cab fare to get home. Ultimately, the date with Daniel cost me my dignity and an extra twenty-five bucks.

Oh, Grow Up!

I’ve found that a lot of really profound events seem to happen in bathrooms: doing blow with a celebrity; discovering you’re pregnant; crawling through the window to escape a truly horrible date or, as in the case of this morning, finding your first gray hair. Down there. I know, you’re shocked and disgusted, but trust me, you are not nearly as horrified as I was upon discovering the renegade pube.

Until this morning I always thought I was ok with the whole aging thing. It’s not like I run around screaming my birth year out at the top of my lungs, but I’m not ashamed of the fact that I am a 30-something-year-old woman. In fact, I actually like myself a lot better now than I did when I was younger. What I don’t particularly like is when the proof that I’m aging is staring my vibrator in the face (and sometimes my Husband; like once every three months or so). While on the one hand I think it’s completely pointless to attempt to fight the inevitable aging process, I also don’t think you need to just throw in the towel and let everything go grey and sag. I plan to look my best at every age, which is why I hope my hairdresser lives a very long and happy life.

The ironic part of this is that when I was a teenager I couldn’t WAIT to get older (I also thought that if I hadn’t “made it” by age 30 I would kill myself, so obviously I was irrational). I thought that life would get so much better when I became an adult. No one would be around to tell me to go to bed, or get off the telephone, or to stop eating pints of Ben and Jerry’s Mint Chocolate Cookie while crying over 16 Candles. I couldn’t wait to grow up and go out every night and live my own, glamorous adult life. When I moved to New York to go to college, I started lying about my age, telling people (okay, men) I was 25, when I was in fact only 18. I didn’t want to go on dates with guys who thought buying me a combo at Mamoun’s Falafel meant I was going to sleep with them in their dorm room. One experience of “what’s a clitoris?” college sex was enough to convince me that I needed to grow the fuck up. So I started reading Vogue, bought myself some designer clothes on consignment, and got to know the doormen at all the clubs where wealthy men went to find young, pretty, very naïve girls. I got myself a lot of dinner dates that turned into breakfast dates, but that was as far as they went. Because even though I thought I was so worldly and sophisticated, most of those guys could tell I was just a teenager dressed in model’s clothing, and they saw me solely as a conquest. I was so busy trying to be a grown-up adult, that I ended up missing out on having a relationship with someone my own age who might have really loved me and would’ve been willing to learn that shoving a finger in a girls’ ass does not equal foreplay.

Now that I’m older and a little bit wiser, I’m not so interested in rushing through my life and trying to get to the next step. I’m learning to appreciate where I’m at and not be so focused on where I’m going. Yes, adulthood is wonderful in certain ways, but it also comes with a lot of negative stuff as well. I’m starting to wake up with aches and pains some mornings, and while I like the idea of going to a bar on a weeknight, usually I’m too busy working or too tired from working to actually motivate to do so. While the days of lying about my age are behind me, I’m definitely not going into the future without a fight; which is why I may soon be sporting a new hairstyle in my neither regions. Here’s hoping my Husband is into the Brazilian look.

You Suck

Several years ago some enterprising lads declared March 14^th as “Steak and Blow Job Day”; also know as Valentine’s Day for Men. For the last month my husband has been excitedly counting the days until delivery of his perfectly cooked steak and well-executed blow job. I realize for some of you ladies this is no big deal, but for me it’s a day I dread. First of all, the only thing I can cook is a very dry martini, and second, I have major blow job performance anxiety. And yes, I know how ridiculous that sounds, especially since I get less nervous at the prospect of telling jokes to people who may throw fruit at me than I do when confronted with my husband’s man parts in our bedroom.

My first experience in the blowjob department was less than stellar. Somehow I managed to get through high school without giving any blow jobs despite the fact that I was getting down and dirty in parking lots. Upon arriving in New York City and discovering that rich men liked to be seen with young, naïve and anorexic-looking girls, I began to spend my evenings eating expensive meals on assorted strange men's dimes. Unfortunately, I have really bad taste in men (present husband excluded, of course) and I found myself in quite a few situations that I now plan to warn any future female offspring about. One of these questionable men, Aaron, bought me dinner, took me back to his (very dirty) apartment, and then proceeded to announce that because he’d bought me dinner, he expected me to blow him. I figured it was a fair trade; the dinner had been expensive and I was into this guy (again, I have terrible taste in men) so I was looking forward to a little sexual healing now that I was no longer starving. Plus I was kind of interested in giving it a shot. I’d never gone down on a guy before; how bad could it be? Oh, if only I’d known.

I proceeded to venture into previously uncharted territory. I assumed the position, Aaron dropped his pants, and I almost passed out from the stench. I guess Aaron must have been absent the day they talked about personal hygiene in high school health class, but I don’t think this guy had ever used soap down there. After trying not to noticeably gag, I opened my mouth to offer some excuse as to why I had to get home and he just shoved that rotting piece of meat right in there and held my head down. I won’t go into details here, gentle reader, but suffice it to say the smell may have been bad, but the taste was oh so much worse. Every time I tried to get away his giant claw hand kept holding me down. Finally, I figured it was smarter to just get it over with, so I held my breath, went at it like a champion, and almost passed out from lack of air. All the while, Aaron kept telling me how bad I was at sucking his cock. Sure I was a novice, but I’m pretty sure I would’ve been able to rate at least a six had I been able to move my head.  Fortunately, Aaron was not a marathon lover and it was over quickly. Unfortunately, he was also an inconsiderate bastard who kept me locked in a vice grip while he finished the deed. Somehow I managed not to vomit all over him, but once he let me go I ran to his bathroom, and, while trying to avoid catching SARS from his filthy toilet, puked my guts out. After emptying my stomach of the expensive meal that had lead me to this low point, I returned to Aaron’s bedroom to find him passed out in the middle of his bed, snoring loudly. Just the sight of him brought bile to the back of my throat, so after one last trip to his germ-infested bathroom I grabbed my stuff and hightailed it for the door. But before I left I quickly scribbled a note to Aaron, because it would’ve been terribly rude to leave without saying goodbye.

Dear Aaron,

Wash your balls – they stink. Also, I think you should know that I’m having a herpes outbreak and had a sore on my lip when I sucked your dick. Here’s hoping you’re infected.

Cheers,

Anna

I realize that lying about having herpes was not exactly taking the high road, but at the time it felt good to give Aaron the (metaphorical) finger.

It’s been many years and many blow jobs since that “magical” night with Aaron, but I’ve never quite been able to shake that first sense memory from my brain. While I won’t ever completely forget the overpowering, unpleasant odor that emanated from Aaron’s nether regions, the part that still gets me is that he told me I wasn’t good at it. Despite the good reviews I’ve gotten since that experience, I can’t help but obsess over the one bad one, which is just further proof of my need for continued therapy. In the meantime, I appreciate that my husband uses soap and that he always gives me positive reinforcement. And I’ve found that a large vodka martini and an extra dose of my anti-anxiety meds is just the ticket to letting go of my neuroses and getting down to business.

Love for Sale

My college roommate was a hooker. 

I suspect that she would prefer I describe her as a call girl, but no matter how you try to sugarcoat it, she was selling herself for sex. I’m not quite sure how NYU decided she would be a good match for me; perhaps they read something in my application essay that revealed my propensity for no-strings-attached sex with inappropriate men.

I, of course, had no idea what was going on. My roommate, Melissa, looked nothing like how you imagine a call girl looks. I saw the Lifetime movie about the Mayflower Madam, and those girls were hot! Melissa, on the other hand, was five feet tall, 185 pounds, and in desperate need of a prescription for Acutane (seeing that men were probably mostly looking at the top of her head, I’m not sure that was a problem. She did have nice hair). Melissa was from Portland, Oregon. She was raised Catholic, had two loving parents, a boyfriend back home who professed his undying love for her on a daily basis, and had gotten herself a full ride to NYU’s business school. I, on the other hand, was raised in San Francisco by a single Mom who tried every religion except Scientology; had to work my way through college, and had a bit of a problem with the booger sugar. If someone had been taking bets on who would be the fuck up, the over-under was on me.

It's not really clear how Melissa got into the call girl business. I was pretty busy sleeping with various strange men for free, so I didn’t spend a whole lot of time in our dorm room, but about half way through the year she started to have lots of cash on hand. She said that she’d gotten a job at The Gap, but I’ve worked retail and as I recall I came home with more clothing than cash. Then she started to bring home men. At first I didn’t think anything of it. After all, it’s often hard to tell the difference between your average college co-ed and a hooker. I confess that I was flummoxed by the fact that she appeared to be more popular with the men than I was, but there’s no accounting for taste. It rapidly escalated to a different guy every night, and sometimes more than one guy a night. And a lot of them seemed to really like it when I was sleeping in the bed across the room while they were boning my roommate. I like a good porno as much as the next girl, but there’s a big difference between 20 minutes of Cinemax After Dark and several hours of my roommate faking orgasm ten feet from my extra-long twin bed. I invested in an industrial strength sleep mask and earplug combination, but Melissa’s antics rivaled those of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. Melissa’s “office hours” really started to impact me; I was reduced to having sex with broke and ugly college guys just because I needed a quiet place to sleep.

One Friday evening, while I was taking advantage of some rare peace and quiet to enjoy a much-needed nap, the phone rang. In my half-awake state it took me a minute to process what was going on, but then I woke right up; it was a collect call from jail. Well, this was very exciting! I’d never been called from jail before. I love bad boys! Was this one of the guys I’d picked up sometime last week? Had I finally made a guy fall so in love with me he would call me from jail to come and bail him out? (I think we can all agree I have issues. I mean, a guy who really loves you would totally take you with him on whatever adventure got him arrested in the first place; duh.) 

The jail bird on the other end was none other than Melissa, calling to tell me she’d been arrested for solicitation. Apparently, she’d been working for an escort service that had gotten busted by the cops and now she wanted me to come and bail her out. All of the sudden, everything started to make sense: the cash, the men, the fact that she was probably making a pretty penny telling guys they were going to have sex while her roommate watched. And now she wanted me, the poor, unsuspecting roommate who hadn’t slept through the night in almost six months to drag my ass over to the Sixth Precinct, use my own money, and get her out of jail? While the thought of possibly getting myself a date with a cute policeman did give me a moments pause, for the first time in my life I actually wanted uninterrupted sleep more than I wanted a free meal and sex with a virtual stranger. So I told her she was out of luck and that maybe she should think about calling one of her "boyfriends". Then I hung up the phone and had the best sleep of my college career.

The Ex-Wife Experience

Several days ago, while on a rare cultural outing here in the city of cement and broken dreams, I crossed paths with my Husband’s ex-wife. I suspected this day would eventually come. In my fantasies I pictured myself fresh from having my hair styled, wearing some fabulous outfit and looking like the picture of youth I imagine myself to be. In reality, I wasn’t wearing makeup, I was just getting over the flu and I was wearing yoga clothes. Real life, unfortunately, is a lot less attractive than the movie in my head. The ex-wife, let’s just call her “Medusa”, of course looked fantastic; despite the fact that she’s 13 years older than me.

I was completely and totally blindsided by this sighting of Medusa. She doesn’t even live in Los Angeles. In fact, I’m not even sure she could pick out Los Angeles on a map of the United States. What was she doing here? And why was she at the museum? No one goes to museums here! I moved to Los Angeles in the hopes that I would never see this woman again. Truthfully, I hoped to never see anyone from my past ever again (ok, except that one guy I slept with who was really cute and had a huge dick; him I’d like to get reacquainted with). But there she was, looking great and contemplating the artistic merit of some puce-colored piece of pottery circa 1945. My first instinct was to hide from her – find some large sculpture and hunker down until she got done looking at each and every tiny little thing in the museum and went on her merry way. But then I got a grip. I mean, for goodness sakes, I am an accomplished adult woman. Just because I have visible-panty-line, look like hell and stole this woman’s husband is no reason to be ashamed.

To be fair, I didn’t really steal Medusa’s husband. When I met her husband, now my husband, they were on the rocks. They’d already been separated twice, she had multiple addiction problems, and the Husband was tired of footing the bill for her online designer shopping sprees. Plus, she decided she was a lesbian and was having an affair with a woman. So you can see how the Husband was looking for something younger, fresher, and less interested in, well, women. Despite the fact that I knew she made him miserable for their entire seven year relationship, I’ve always been a bit intimidated by Medusa. I mean, she got him first! And she got to keep the brownstone in the West Village, all the antique furniture and a designer wardrobe. Not that I would trade my Husband for several hundred pairs of Prada shoes, but I really could’ve done wonders with that brownstone. Oh, and did I mention that she once threatened me with a butcher knife?

After taking a moment to do some deep breathing and center myself, I finally got up the courage to take the high road and acknowledge Medusa. I walked over to her, put on my most charming Hollywood smile and said, “Medusa, hi. It’s been such a long time. You’re looking well.” In response, she looked at me with confusion, frowned, and proceeded to ask me who I was. This woman, who I assumed had been sticking pins into a Voodoo doll that looked exactly like me for years, did not recognize me! And that, my friends, was my cue to exit. I muttered something unintelligible about mistaking her for someone else, and then I hightailed it out of there before she could figure out who I was and come after me with the switchblade I’m sure she keeps in her purse. Hopefully by the time my identity finally dawns on her she’ll have left Los Angeles. But just in case, I’m thinking this week might be a great time to leave town for a while.