The Washingtonienne (14 page)
I
had a buttload of stuff to do before taking off for Miami that weekend. Besides packing and all that, I had a lunch date with Fred and a dinner date with Marcus. Then my ex-boyfriend Kevin actually had the balls to e-mail me, asking if we could get together while he was in town with his wife.
We had some unfinished business, so I agreed to see Kevin and cancelled on Fred, telling him that it was “my week off.”
“Couldn’t we just lay down a towel or something?” Fred pleaded over the phone.
“Ew, no!” I replied. “I hope you don’t do stuff like that on a regular basis, Fred. That’s, like, a biohazard.”
“I thought
next
week was your week off.”
How the fuck did he know? Was it on his Outlook calendar or something?
“Well, it came early,” I lied. “That happens sometimes.”
“But that’s not supposed to happen if you’re on the Pill,” he argued. “You
are
on the Pill, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m
trying
to get pregnant,” I said sarcastically. “Of course I’m on the Pill! I don’t want no fucking baby.”
“I hate it when you talk that way, Jackie. It sounds terribly low class. I hope you don’t talk that way to people at work.”
I wanted to tell Fred to go fuck himself, but I didn’t dare. You couldn’t talk that way to the man who paid the rent unless you were his wife.
We rescheduled for next week, and I was free to meet Kevin at his hotel.
He and his wife were in town for some campaign law seminar at the J. W. Marriott, where they were staying.
“Maybe we could get a room across the street at the Willard,” Kevin suggested, nervous that his wife might walk in on us.
I pretended not to hear him as I removed my clothes, throwing them on the floor.
“This has to be quick,” he said, pulling down his pants.
I knew that Kevin liked doggie, so I bent over and waited for him to find the right angle, as men with not-so-large penises often had to do.
But I didn’t really care if we fucked or not. I had already accomplished what I had come here to do.
My G-string was hidden behind his wife’s Vera Bradley totebag, waiting to be found. And if she somehow missed it, then my sparkly Urban Decay body powder would do the trick: It was on Kevin’s face, in his hair, and all over the bed.
If his wife truly loved Kevin, she wouldn’t leave him over this. But if she wanted a divorce, I hope she got everything.
WHEN I GOT BACK TO MY
desk, there was an e-mail from the Staff Ass in the front office. She wrote:
What was this shit?
Bad day?
Please, bitch.
I wrote back some bullshit telling her that I was superbusy doing my own job. If I was dragging myself to the office every day, pretending that everything was nice for eight hours, then everybody else had to do it, too.
Here’s a secret: I hated my job.
But I was no quitter. I resolved to hang in there until I got promoted, since the only thing worse than having a job you hated was looking for another one!
Dating Marcus was a de facto promotion in itself: When you coupled up with someone on the Hill, you formed an alliance with them. I was somebody’s girlfriend now, which made me a somebody by association.
In turn, the wild sex rumors I had started put an end to speculation about Marcus’s sexual preference: He was a white heterosexual male, just like all of the other guys in the office. The legislative director couldn’t call him a “fag” or “girl” anymore, because everyone knew that Marcus was banging the mailgirl.
Since we had already fucked, he didn’t hesitate to invite me over to his house after taking me out to dinner that week. Nor did I hesitate to jump into bed with him as soon as he let me in the door.
We were totally hot for each other, and never once did he do anything I thought was creepy or misogynistic. So I had to know: Did he like anal?
“Not really,” he said. “It’s sort of unsanitary. Do
you
like it?”
I had never really asked myself that question.
I suppose I enjoyed the “nastiness” of it, but it was something I did only to please my partner, and it really depended on the size of their penis. It was counterintuitive, but the big ones hurt
less
than the small ones. (Less jabbing.)
“Do you want me to fuck you in the ass?” he asked me.
“Yeah,” I told him. (He was big enough.)
“I want to hear you
say
it.”
“What is this? Some sort of legal thing?” I asked.
“No, just
say
it.”
I assumed the position, lifting my ass into the air.
“Please,” I said, looking over my shoulder at him, “fuck my ass.”
Instead, he rolled me over and kissed me on the forehead. I looked at him incredulously.
“Take it easy,” he said, putting his arm around me. “There’s nothing wrong. I just prefer regular.”
I didn’t know what to think.
I excused myself to the bathroom, and upon careful inspection, did not see (or smell) anything wrong. What kind of mind games was this guy playing?
I stalked back into the bedroom, ready to dispense my usual indifferent attitude toward the men I fucked, but I couldn’t do it this time: I was so happy that I had found a guy who just preferred regular.
When I awoke the next morning, I wished that I wasn’t leaving for Miami in a few hours. Then I realized I had to stop myself before I got in too deep. A millionaire with a huge dick wanted to take me to my favorite city, fuck my brains out, and buy me expensive gifts—but I wanted to stay in bed with Marcus and watch television all day instead?
What was I thinking? I was a smart girl, so I told Marcus that I was going home for the weekend and got on that plane with Phillip. I had to straighten up and fly right. (First class, of course.)
W
hy doesn’t everyone just pack up everything and move it down to Miami? The government, the stock exchange, everything. We’re all just going to end up moving down here when we retire anyway. Why not just get it over with? Or at least put a man-made beach in Washington or something.
I loved the beach. Everyone went topless in Miami, so you just had to take it off, or you’d look like an uptight bitch with body image issues.
It wasn’t as if anybody was looking at me anyway. While I may have been a head turner in Washington, I was totally invisible here: There were fucking models everywhere! They were jogging on the beach, playing volleyball, and swimming in the ocean. I wished I were more the active type. At least it would give me something to do besides constantly obsess over my life.
Oh, yes, I knew that I was self-absorbed, and incredibly so. But if I wasn’t paying attention to myself, who was? Phillip sure wasn’t. It was as if he had brought me all the way down here just to ogle other women. He couldn’t help staring at all the hot bods.
When I got up to readjust my lounge chair, a woman dressed in Helmut Lang approached me. Obviously, she was from New York.
“Would you like to be in our magazine?” she asked me.
I looked at her as if to ask,
Why me?
“It’s for
Glamour
magazine,” she told me. “It’s for our makeover issue.”
“No thanks,” I said, waving her away.
How dare she imply that
I
needed a makeover. As if I would want to pose for some awful “Before and After” pictures. How humiliating.
“Wait a minute!” I shouted after her. “How much would I get paid?”
“Nothing, but you would get to be in
Glamour
magazine!” she replied.
“Sorry, no thanks.”
If I was going to be humiliated, I should at least get paid for it.
“You’re a smart girl,” Phillip said, taking my hand in his as I sat down. “That’s why I love you.”
“Whatever!” I said, snatching my hand away from him.
How dare he patronize me.
It started getting cloudy, so we went back to the hotel to shower and change clothes for dinner. We were going to China Grill on a Saturday night, so I had to “do it up,” as they would say in Bay Ridge, or else we wouldn’t get a table.
I put on a bright green silk Diane von Furstenberg cocktail dress with a plunging neckline to show off my new tan. It was the perfect “arm candy” dress, and I had several like this one, all purchased in hopes of living a life that I had yet to lead. Mike never took me out anywhere, and it was too garish for Washington, so I was happy to finally have a place to wear it.
I blew my hair out straight and put on my big Kenneth Jay Lane bracelets and earrings. Going to Miami was like Halloween for us Yankee girls. You could really go OTT with the
bijoux
and no one would blink an eye.
I put on my gold strappy high-heeled sandals, and I was ready.
“You are gorgeous!” Phillip told me when I finally came out of the dressing area. “You should wear that dress more often.”
I smiled as I took his arm.
This
was the life I wanted to lead.
DESPITE MY EFFORTS TO
look as fabulous as possible, we still had to wait for a table at China Grill. The competition was fierce. Models, movie stars, athletes, even the nobodies looked like they were
somebody.
As I had noticed on the beach earlier that afternoon, every woman had breast implants and these perfect bodies to go with them. They wore Versace and tons of jewels and were not ashamed to be glamorous and sexual.
I just couldn’t compete with women like these. Thank God I lived in DC, where I could let myself go and still get dates.
When we finally got a table, it was worth the wait: right in the corner, so we could watch the room. Phillip definitely had a wandering eye. Whenever he looked at me, I felt as if he was wondering how he might be able to trade up for someone just a little bit hotter, and I shifted in my seat. How humiliating.
Where was that cocktail waitress? I needed a drink ASAP.
As always, I felt better as soon as I had a few cocktails. Once I was drunk, it didn’t bother me so much that Phillip liked to look at other women. So what? He couldn’t help it. That’s just what men did.
Besides, Phillip was taking
me
back to Washington tomorrow, so it didn’t really matter who he wanted to fuck tonight.
Phillip had all sorts of interesting things to say when he was drunk, especially on the subject of marriage. I wasn’t sure, but I thought Phillip may have been married more than once. His advice sounded so cynical.
“Never sign a prenup,” he told me. “If a guy asks you to sign one, refuse to marry him. He doesn’t love you.”
I laughed at this.
“What if
we
got married?” I asked. “Wouldn’t you ask me to sign a prenuptial?”
“I’m too old to marry you,” he said.
I was somewhat disappointed to hear him say this, but it was true, and I had to respect anybody who could tell me the truth up front.
“I’m not sure I want to get married,” I told Phillip.
“Of course you do,” he said. “And if you’re smart, you’ll marry rich. You’re a beautiful woman. You can do that.”
I just couldn’t marry
him.
At least I knew where I stood.
As we waited for the check to arrive, Phillip asked me where I might like to go “clubbing” afterward. Of course, I loved the nightlife as much as anyone else, but the idea of partying with such an older man made me cringe.
“I don’t know, I’m getting pretty tired from all that laying out we did today,” I lied.
“Well, I’m going without you,” he said. “I’ll put you in a cab so you can go back to the hotel.”
“Uh, okay,” I said, suppressing my rage.
I went back to the suite alone, cried for about twenty minutes, and changed into jeans and a T-shirt. I sat on the king-sized bed, wishing that I had come here with someone like Marcus. What was I even doing with Phillip in the first place? What kind of girl lets strangers pick her up off the street?
I realized that, for the last few months, I had been walking a very thin line.
Phillip was out until six in the morning, doing who knows what with who knows who. By then, I was already in Washington, back in bed with Marcus.
I WAS SO RELIEVED TO
find him alone when I showed up at his house in the middle of the night, and he didn’t ask for an explanation as to why I was back in town so early. He just assumed that I missed him—and I did—but there was still so much he didn’t know.
That was one big difference between me and him: He wanted to believe that I was a good person, and I wanted to believe that he was just another asshole who wanted to fuck me over. That was the hell that cheaters created for themselves: I had to assume the worst about people because I knew firsthand what horrible things they were capable of.
Nevertheless, I was really an optimist deep down inside. Despite everything that life had shown me, I always believed in love: I wanted someone to take me away from these simple feelings I knew.
I was just another stupid girl waiting for Prince Charming to give me true love’s first kiss, and I hated myself for it.