The framing of the event

Student--my nemesis for the past week and a half. I went out of town two weekends ago and said I would call her when I got back. I haven't called her yet.

Student has three big strikes with me, and I usually don't let it go past one. This isn't because I'm an uptight asshole or anything, unable to take criticism, or fleeing at the first sign of something must be worked for. It's because the street runs two ways: you are the person that I want to be with, and I am the person that you want to be with. People that hit my strikes are usually looking for someone that isn't me, and I have no problem with putting them back on their rightful path.

Student made the first strike, which should have been fatal, a few weeks after school let out. It was a drunk call at 2:30 in the morning on a week night. Her and a friend, already drunk, wanted to come over.

"Hold on," I said, then covered the receiver and asked my roommate: "How do you feel about two drunk, horny girls coming over?"

Ded (my roommate) wasn't too thrilled with it at first. Ded, you see, has a girlfriend. One that would be none too pleased to learn how many times he's cheated on her. But Ded cannot help cheating. Ded loves the game, and is full steam ahead behind her back. I don't really fault Ded, he's doing what he loves to do, but I do fault him for choosing to have his girlfriend. If he's playing the field, he shouldn't have someone on the sidelines thinking otherwise. It's going to bite him in the ass one day, and I have no problem being a part of that. I think it's the right thing for him to do. He just needs to realize that.

So when I wave a little easy play under his nose, he's usually pretty receptive. Of course, he made me swear that I wouldn't give him any shit if his girl turned out to be fat or annoying or ugly or something, and I gave him my word that I would never do anything like that. And since this is such a suspect situation already, I should add that it was a word truly given. This girl was sight unseen, and could turn out to be anything.

Student and GG came over, already stinking drunk. I was surprised that they'd made their long voyage from the outlying town. And the whole night went so downhill. Apparanatly, Student and GG hadn't seen each other in a while, and so spent the whole time catching up on their insular gossip that had nothing to do with us or the drinks that we were feeding them. This might not have been so bad, but the two were loud--really, really loud--loud in that way that only twenty-one year old Polish girls can be. Worse yet, they were having some kind of out-bitching contest, where they would talk shit about someone and see which one of them could be the biggest bitch. It was fascinating for a little while, Ded and I shared some good laughs at what they were saying, but as the alcohol consumption continued, and the morning came closer and closer to sunrise, my head was accepting less and less harping.

Harping aside, one fatal flaw Student made was that she told GG that Ded didn't have a girlfriend before they came over, so GG had some expectation of hooking up with Ded. But when they were both there, Student busted Ded out on his girlfriend, which pissed GG off to no end. I tried to cauterize the wound ("Ded, but she's not really your girlfriend, is she?" rolled eyes), but it was all over for Ded and GG. Fortunately, they went off somewhere, and left Student and I to our own devices.

Of course, the condom was mentioned, and I said I was sorry, and yeah we'd use a condom. Condoms suck, but venerial diseases suck more (didn't I know!). So we went at it. For awhile. A long while.

Look, I'm not going to brag, but I can fuck for a long time. First of all, I'm thirty-one. At nineteen I could fuck three times in a night, but at thirty-one, I can fuck all night long. Second, add any amount of alcohol, and it usually thins my blood just enough to keep me from coming. Plus, when I'm having sex with someone new, I am usually a little nervous. So, we fucked for a long time, in many different positions.

"Damn, you last a long time," she said, in a voice that was somewhat complaining. "Have you had sex recently?"

I was on top, looking into her face, and I just stopped. I hadn't had "the talk" with her yet about how I don't date just one person, I date around, and if that's not okay with you then you need to date someone else, but if you want to date me and be okay with it, that's what I'm looking for. I hadn't had that talk yet, one that I usually consider mandatory at the beginning of any relationship, and I'll tell you why: pure selfishness. I wanted to fuck a student! It's just that simple. I wanted to do it, and I cheated on my own rules to get it done.

Now it was fucking me back, and I realized it while mounted on top of her bored self.

"Do you want the honest answer?" I asked, still in mid-stroke.

Her eyes got all wide and surprised, as though her flippancy had uncovered something that she really didn't want to know about. "Yes!" she said.

So I told her. I told her how Issy and I had a bunch of sex over the weekend. Student practically flipped out. I tried to get her back in the mood but, oh no, that was all over with. Argument. Debate. Discussion. All of those concepts of vocabulary were used over and over again, and instead of having a nice post-coital cuddle, we were still arguing over this as the sun came up.

"God!" she said, "I can't believe I had sex with you without a condom! I'm such a stupid, horny girl!" She was disgusted, and I can't say I blamed her.

So, that's that, right? We kind of got to some sort of neutral ground, and I had a few hours of bad sleep. Being drunk and blue-balled isn't a good physical sensation, especially when it's coupled with the emotional guilt of having not played very nice with someone. We slept, we awoke, she and her annoying friend GG left, and that was that.

Two weeks later, another drunk call. I was up in my room, where I couldn't hear the phone, and Ded came up to tell me that, "those annoying drunk girls are on the phone again." He'd answered the phone call by refusing to speak English (he doesn't speak any other language) for five minutes, trying to annoy GG. It worked. He laughed sadisticly about it. I got on the phone and immediately GG asked if they could come over.

"Hold on," I told her, and covered the receiver with my hand. "Ded," I asked him, "..."

"There is no fucking way those bitches are coming over!" Ded said to me, with no doubt in his voice. Well, that was that.

"Sorry, but I gotta work tomorrow," I told GG.

"Aw, why you gotta do that to me?" she snapped back.

"Don't be like that," I said to her, giving her an opportunity to gracefully exit this conversation and potentially hand me over to Student. I was very curious to know what was on her mind after the last time.

"Well I'm gonna be like that!" she practically yelled at me.

"Fine, be like that," I said, undiplomatically. "Bye." Click.

That was strike two: having her drunk bitch friend call up and give me and Ded shit in the middle of the night, without so much as talking to me. Oh no, I don't take that kind of shit very well, so I knew for certain that it was over then. No one has the grace to call back after something like that. Ded and I both agreed that it was very rightfully over between Student and I, and good riddance.

A week or so passes, and Student calls me. It was around noon one day, and I was still in bed. She asked if I wanted to go to lunch with her. She sounded happy and hopeful that I would say yes. I drilled her a little bit about GG, and she said that she and GG weren't hanging out that much anyways, that they were on different paths in life, and that she knew nothing about the side of the conversation that was on the other end of GG that drunk night. This piqued my interest a little bit, and she also told me that she'd finished the Dave Sedaris book that I'd loaned her, which I had completely written off as lost. I agreed to lunch, wondering if there wasn't a bit more maturity there than I thought.

We had a nice lunch, friendly and talkative. We went back to my place afterwards and watched some of my recently downloaded "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" episodes. We snuggled a little bit, but didn't kiss or anything. Over the course of the day, I laid it all out for her. I don't date exclusively. I don't want a girlfriend. I'm not looking for a girlfriend. I never will be. I'm not boyfriend material. If that's what you want, look elsewhere. The girl had two strikes on her, but I decided that maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

Look, she enjoyed some things that I consider good things to enjoy, especially for a twenty-two year old. She likes David Sedaris. She likes Modest Mouse. In fact, we have a lot of similar musical tastes, mostly in the realm of downbeat progressive. She was an ex-hippy, so even though she didn't currently worship the petuli throne, she had a history of being in a semi-worldly culture instead of just growing up on the outskirts of a metropolitan city. There seemed to be potential here.

I had to work that evening, so I had her drop me off. I gave her a quick kiss before I left, to which she responded positively, and she said, "Thank's for taking me back and giving me another chance. I didn't think you were going to."

I didn't either, I thought, but her last statement told me something I hadn't realized: I was firmly in control of this relationship, and she looked to me for guidance in it. That sounds weird to say, and I will definitely be analyzing myself tonight for ego-driven, cult-leader tendencies, but it was true. She was totally new to this type of relationship, and how it can be a healthy thing, and kind of placed herself in my hands.

We made plans to meet the next night, and when we did, we just had a pleasant evening together. Nothing that involved drinking a lot, or controversial conversation, or anything that would disrupt the evening. We went back to my house and snuggled up in front of some more "ATHF." I could tell she wanted me to make a big move on her, but I wasn't ready for that, so we just cuddled and went to sleep.

The next morning, we woke up fucking. You just can't sleep next to warm, throbbing, lusting genitals all night without having it invade your dreams. I woke up, and she woke up, and I was hard, and she was wet, and 1-2-3 sleep clothes were off, condom was on, grabbing, kissing, grunting, shifting, and bam, it was over.

"Hey, you're in trouble!" she said, right after I came.

"Why is that?" I asked, knowing what she would say, and I would ultimately react to it.

"You were too fast."

Too fast? Too fast!? I was spent, so I wasn't going to muster up a lot of negative energy, but I said, "Well, last time you said it was too long, so which is it?"

"I was drunk then."

Here's the thing: ladies, when you're having sex with someone--man or woman--you've got to show them what you need to get what you need. Men are used to taking the big, dominant role, and it's much easier for your average man to get off than your average woman. A woman that isn't in touch with her pleasure centers shouldn't expect much from a man. If you can't do it yourself, how are you going to show a man how to do it. Now, most women that I know can do it by themselves, at least a little bit, but often fail at being able to show a man how to do it to them. They expect the man to be able to, I don't know, magically find their "O" spot and send them into exstasy. Ladies, this is the same story where the incredibly rich man in the military suit and nice hair comes riding up to you in a horse and leads you off to that life where you can sit around and host fabulous tea parties. You have to show your man what to do.

This is something that I am incredibly sensitive to. When I'm making love to a woman, I want everyone to be happy. It's not some one-way street here, but a pleasurable dance. I want the woman to feel happy, which in turn will make me feel happy, and if the woman wants the same thing, then that's the transcendant experience that I'm looking for. If a woman just wants to sit around and be a pin-cushion, well, that's what all the ropes are for, otherwise it just makes me incredibly bored in bed.

Student, even though we had a sweaty, horny awakening, was just being a pin-cushion. Furthermore, she was giving me shit for that fact. She was not bold, only horny, and, in the end, bitchy about it. That's the third strike.

I don't have time to train someone how to be a lover. That's one of the basic criteria that has to be met before I will consider you as a partner. What, do you think that it is untoward for me to expect that? Too bad. Did I mention all of the other relationships that I'm involved in? Training someone how to be a lover just takes too much time, especially when I am flush with lovers that need my attention. That's just the way it is. Maybe one day it will change, but not today.