Signals

My mother’s mother said to her and then she said to me:

Never call a boy, let him call you.

What I received: Boys are never friends. The only reason to talk to a boy is if you’re going to play the game. The only reason to call one is to tell him you’re available

Sexual Athlete calls and calls and texts and texts. I finally send him an email to tide him over, tell him I’m not generally seeing people but have a new way of doing things. The grasping fingers in me want his money, his legal advice, and very little else. Nothing else. Especially not his grasping fingers in me.

I finally call him. How’s his life, how’s his business, he just got out of a meeting and has a charming little anecdote about Navy aircraft carrier landings and the signs and gestures involved, including a slang gesture for “get your head out of your –“. Sexual Athlete uses this sign in meetings to indicate his displeasure with the speaker. Bet working with him’s as fun as fucking him for money. I’m sure the checks clear. I tell him about having seen a gentleman in another city, and how much more fun it was to spend real time, human time instead of rental time. Sadly, he’s interested. Guess it’s a better deal than I thought. I tell him I’ll send him financial information and quickly formulate a plan of delaying that as long as possible, ‘cause you know, it’s my body, I can’t stand fucking him, hate his rough hands, his spit that gradually smells worse and worse, his bad oral, and so the logical conclusion is to (as a liberated woman) take ownership of my body and deny him access by...stalling.

While I follow this train of thought through the murky Tunnel of Indecision, Sexual Athlete is critiquing my blowjob skills, he prefers less hand action and more mouth. I imagine giving him the Navy sign for “Well, tell me at the time, dumbass, you’re paying” Or better yet, the sign for “Secretly, I’m not interested at all, can we wind this up?” I tell him flat out, partly as revenge, but still nicely enough that I’m sure it doesn’t penetrate, that I don’t come from oral and I won’t be faking it. Now he’s babbling on about ice cubes again – I jumped back and said no in person, I answered his email question with no, too cold, and now he’s suggesting putting them on my nipples instead. Not a listener, our Sexual Athlete.

Why, LFM? Why do we keep going when it so clearly sucks, why do we give them another chance, another ten minutes, hoping it will get better or feeling obligated to see it through? He’s not attractive to me, though as far as clients go, he’s Brad Pitt on a bad day (some baby spit-up and a hopefully growing realization that he’s not having quite the same experience as his partner, but still hot) compared to the usual rank of pasty guys in pants with a partially-elastic waist. He’s not good in bed, he makes me sore, I don’t like his attitude or the way he sheds bodily hair, I feel like a service provider.

My mother’s mother said to her and then she said to me:

Always go out with a boy at least once if he asks you, he might have a nice friend.

What I received: don’t say no.