The Adventures of a Love Investigator, 527 Naked Men & One Woman (14 page)

~ Richard, 24, sales, single

“I can see women with each other saying yeah, I really have him hooked.”

~ Preston, 31, chef, single

“Most women I date are older. I like that because they know what they want.”

~ Justine, 22, waiter, single

“Women will do whatever it takes to achieve their goals. Whatever it takes to get close to a man or get rid of him.”

~ Ryan, 24, student, married

“The most insecure girl I ever met was the one girl in my life who had the least reason to be insecure. She had been a centerfold – actually had the staple in her navel.”

~ Vic, 50, lawyer, married

“You both have three or four drinks and you make love and tomorrow it’s rape.”

~ Greg, 31, single

Case 479 / Greg

A professional golfer, Greg looks the picture of tanned health. We sit in a clubhouse just off the 17
^th
green, somewhere in Destin, Florida. I listen, repulsed by the words that come from his perfect pouty mouth. His sun-streaked hair flops forward preventing complete eye-contact. He is adept at hocus-focus.

The thirty year-old sportsman continues his tale, “This gal that I’ve been seeing had a positive HIV test two years ago. It turned out to be a false positive. We lived through that. We kept seeing each other, in my case more out of convenience, in her case, I don’t know why.”

Greg wears a red, white and blue golfing shirt and tan slacks. His likeable face masks an alarming lack of common sense. “Three months ago, she told me that she had herpes. She never told me that during the two years we’ve been together.” He shrugs.

I get a vision of a man walking slowly with no destination. He is chasing the little white ball that is his life. Mentally I scratch my feet in the ground, ready for some verbal circling.

“She’s a very nice person and seemingly trustworthy.” He shrugs. “I was surprised she wasn’t honest with me.”

A cesspool of grunge opens before me. I don’t want to hear anymore but how would it look if I ran screaming onto the golf course?

Greg shrugs, feigning emotional absence. He is a false hard-case. “There are some women who enter a man’s life and just mess it up.” He shifts into high-confessional speed now, “The herpes she contracted in 2002. That really changed her life a lot. She started to have problems meeting men because as soon as she would tell them she had herpes, they went dashing away a hundred miles an hour. So she told me that she didn’t tell me because if she told me, I wouldn’t want to see her anymore.”

I’m very uncomfortable with this interview. As he watches my face, I fight to keep my guard up.

Another shrug, and he continues, “I’m in good health. I seem to be not much the worse for wear. I do show antibodies for the Simplex II virus. But that’s not definitive. I’m having this other blood work done. No telling how it will all end up.”

There is a distant look in his illusive eyes. We both know that’s not true.

Brain bruises form listening to this stupid guy, whom I will never see again.

Greg continues, “The HIV thing was probably the most devastating personal thing I’ve ever gone through. I withdrew from college. I continued to work, but I was utterly devastated. I had to seek counseling.”

I’m bearing witness to his suicide and there is nothing I can say. I must have the right blank expression on my face, because he continues to describe his adventures.

“I’m highly promiscuous in the most distant and safe way that a person can be.”

“What does that mean? Is it like being almost pregnant?” I ask.

He laughs, presumably at my naiveté. “I haven’t had intercourse without condoms in years. The HIV scare came in because we had unprotected oral sex. From a technical standpoint the risk is minimal, but it’s enough to make you paranoid.”

Only
paranoid?

“But I’m careful,” he says.

As if to prove his caution, he offers up one more facet of his sex life.

“In the past year I finally made the interesting step of going to swing clubs. I spent some time in Orlando. They have an incredibly active swing scene there.”

I choke on his words. I think of Orlando with its wholesome family façade.

He waits for me to speak. I have no comment.

“I was curious because I had gotten some magazines. I went to one place called the Packinghouse. It’s in an industrial park. It’s amazing. That was one of the most interesting sexual experiences I’ve had. I actually interacted with a fifty-five year old woman. She prompted the whole thing. She was there with her husband.”

“Wait a minute,” I say, “how can you be safe in a place like that?”

He sighs. I’m trying his patience. “They have rules, couples and invited singles, groups and so on. Some of the places don’t allow single men.”

“And?” I’m still not seeing
safe.

“Get this picture,” he instructs as if it’s a golf swing. “I’m sitting in the open area with this couple. They invited me into the couples and invited singles room with them. The room is full of people fornicating and making love. It’s very natural, very primal. People in caves fornicated in front of each other.”

I’m dumbfounded and show it. I heard about things like this in big cities, but ... “In Orlando?” The words slip out of my mouth.

“That city is all about false fronts and backdoor activities.” He laughs as he tips back in his chair. I’m reminded of a boy imitating his father.

Greg raises the tone of his voice, excited by the memory. “Next thing I know there’s this grandmother type performing oral sex on me. A grandmother being every bit as intimate as any woman I’ve ever been involved with and it feels every bit as good.”

I can feel my eyebrows lifting uncontrollably.

“How do you define intimacy?” I ask.

He looks startled as if he had no idea he would be talking to the most naïve woman on earth. “Well ... it’s the things you do to each other.”

“Ah, yes ...” I mumble. “Of course.”

I am horrified and intrigued. It’s like watching a lobotomized rattlesnake bite its own tail.

Greg continues, mindful to speak to me gently. There are no four letter words, just references to fornication and love making.

He is so calm, so removed. I guess him to be patiently waiting for death.

I have to pee, but don’t want to break the spell he has woven.

“I was very uncomfortable with the situation,” he continues. “I was not attracted to her and I didn’t particularly like her husband.”

I think I may throw up in lieu of peeing. I’m slammed with nausea.

He’s speaking in a slow easy way. “There we are going at it when all of a sudden it hit me.”

Her husband?

“It occurred to me that I did not know what this woman had growing on her body.”

“Ugh.”
About time.

“Because of the tension of the situation, I was through in about forty-five seconds. I went up and stood in the shower for about half an hour like a rape victim.”

He just said what the grandmother was doing to him felt good and in the next minute he felt like a rape victim. One word comes sliding out of my mouth before I can catch it.

“Why?”

He shrugs. “Why do I do it? Intimacy.”

This guy is definitely dying for love.

What would make a man so self-destructive?

“Have you ever felt loved just for yourself?”

“Loved...” he repeats in a zombie-like voice. “Maybe my mother. No. She left me when I was two. No. She couldn’t have loved me. Do you believe in love?”

“I do,” I answer as I wonder how much of his story is true. My instincts tell me he isn’t lying. There’s too much detail, too much pain just below the surface. Why would someone try to lay this much ugliness on someone they weren’t ever going to see again? He couldn’t have had an agenda. I avoid shaking his hand as we part. Who knows where’s it’s been? Greg should come with a bio-hazard warning stamped on his forehead. Maybe he does have one under that mop of blondish hair.

Once back at my hotel I crumble and cry. I’m finding it harder and harder to like people.

This was a dumb idea that ran away with me. The plan was to take a year to interview one thousand men. It’s been over five years and I can’t stop. There’s been too much time invested. It would all be for nothing if I quit now. There’s a lesson here. Plus, I can’t accept quitting. I’ve never given up on anything. I make wedding gowns, I leap from airplanes, I am the love investigator. And I am very tired.

“What’s that annoying noise? Oh... you’re breathing.”

~ Barbara Silkstone, Love Investigator

It’s time for a cleansing experience, a new adventure, perhaps something more vertical? I shut down my laptop, throw an extra pair of jeans and a black turtleneck into my briefcase and take off with no destination in mind.

The next morning, shaking like a scared kitten up a tree, I step into a forty inch square of wicker basket. It creaks and drags along the ground, trying to scare me. I’m tough. I’ve been wading in raw testosterone. I hug the roll of leather with sweaty palms, the burner blasts and the giant balloon elevates slowly. I slide through the sky, courtesy of the wind and the only other occupant of the basket, Roger – the Silent.

I look out at a sky of other brilliant bubbles. Everyone is smiling, sharing a secret. It’s easy to feel god-like and moral when you’re above it all. The forced perspective is clarifying. I can see that we have no more control over balloon flight than we do a love affair, but at least when a balloon crashes, you can almost always walk away.

As we drift along, I recall reading that some guys in France once built a hot air balloon in the shape of a giant condom. In someone’s mind that made sense.

I get that low growl thing going on in my chest. I can’t do this anymore. I’ve over-dosed on men. “You can and you must,” I mutter.

“Are you okay?” Roger asks.

“Just having a personal argument.”

“So Many Men ... So Little Time.”

~ Barbara Silkstone, Love Investigator

I journey back to Los Angeles. My list of men wanting to be interviewed has grown while my enthusiasm for the project is now the size of a wart on a bee’s butt.

“Babe, you sounded bad on the phone, but you’re looking worse,” Sal says by way of a greeting.

I haven’t felt like tinkering with my Clairol natural red-blonde hair, I could use a facial, my eyes are vampire red, and worst of all my feet hurt from these boots. I want to be innocent and trusting once more. I’m tired of investigating. I ache to ditch the jeans and wear sissy dresses again.

We sit in the bricked courtyard of a pleasant little restaurant that doesn’t seem to have a name. The menu is a chalk board neatly lettered ‘Meal Deals’.

“Pork fried rice or pizza?” he asks.

“Err. I think I’ll have apple pie and coffee. That’s a safe bet.”

Sal flags a waitress. She leaves a small silver pot on our table and runs away with our order.

I start in on him as if he’s the cause of my misery. “How can all those men take love so casually?”

“Ready to concede?” He asks.

“No. I know real love exists. It’s just harder to find than I thought.”

“For instance?” He clicks his lighter and disappears behind a cloud of smoke.

“Well, the guys seem to be scared of love and want it at the same time. It’s like little boys throwing rocks at a little girl because they like her.”

Sal laughs. “What’s wrong with that?”

I say the words that have been noodling through my head for weeks. “It seems the purest loves are our first loves. Naked and uncomplicated – the love that happens before we’ve been hurt. What I’m discovering is that once guys have possessions, once a career owns them, once they’ve known a broken heart, fear takes control. They weigh the risk of the loss of their possessions against any love they might feel. They’re terrified of being hurt again. The whole process becomes tainted.”

Sal is silent. He carries two days’ beard, and his dark eyes are bleary. His black tee shirt promotes some edgy rock group with an off-the-wall name I don’t recognize.

I rub my eyes, tired from the long flight. “Guys bring out the scales and take measure where there should be no measure. What does she own? What does she do for a living? How much can I leverage in this relationship? What does she want from me? Is she going to break my heart?”

“Women do the same thing,” he says.

“I’m too tired to debate.”

Sal gives me the key to his apartment and we part. He’s doing a grocery run. I’m crashing. During my last visit we carbon dated his pantry and determined there was nothing safe to eat.

Exactly one hour later, he pops in the door. I’ve showered and rehydrated. I’m padding around in the bottom half of my Daffy Duck pajamas and a blue sweat shirt.

“Cute.” He laughs.

“It’s a reflection of who I am right now,” I fling my arms and do a weak little spin.

“Cheer up. I’ve got a happy marriage poster-child for you,” he announces as he drops the food bags on the kitchen counter.

We quickly stash the groceries, and settle in for coffee and more second hand smoke.

“Who’s the happily married guy?”

“Chris my lawyer.”

“A Hollywood lawyer? How long has he been married?”

“Like forever. Well ... eleven years.”

I can tell Sal expected a more enthusiastic response from me. He fiddles with his mug, hesitant to speak. “Why don’t ‘cha quit?”

“Like hell,. I’m not letting go now.”

Sal studies his hands, finger tip to finger tip. I feel something peculiar hanging in the air between us. I wait to see what surfaces.

“How come we never got together?” He asks.

“You and I... in a relationship?”

“Is it that hard to conceive? It was just a question.”

“I know you too well.” It’s all I can think to say. It isn’t enough. “Lovers I can always get.” I touch his arm. “Good friends are ... good friends.”