SexDiaries: 2:05 p.m. I hop to the bar across the street for my lunch break to meet some finance guy I’ve been sexting for the past 24 hours. We’ve agreed that I will get him off in a bathroom but I suspect he will be too chicken to show up
Photo: James Gallagher This week, a woman trying to leave a toxic relationship by meeting up with random men: 29, painter/writer, straight, Red Hook, “almost” single.7:48 a.m. I jolt awake from another dream-slash-nightmare about my boyfriend B’s ex-wife, who, in my imagination, is a weird cross between ’90s Katie Holmes and my fourth-grade math teacher. I’m going to be late for work again …
1:08 p.m. I stand outside around the corner from the office and shout this morning’s drama over the phone to my sister, who is unreservedly ecstatic at the prospect of B’s departure from my life. He’s distracting you, she reminds me. 7:50 p.m. We’ll grab a drink and talk after he gets off work, B says. It will be my responsibility to end things, so I do my best to look devastating. I put on a dress and the lipstick he likes. I pour a handsome pull of 115 proof vodka an ex left at my apartment months ago.1:45 a.m. On the phone, he cries, I don’t. We agree to leave each other alone as best we can.
11:34 p.m. He is clinically attractive, boring, and clearly intimidated. Almost immediately, he starts to neg me about my “stupid” art writing job, my “enormous” height, my “pretentious” vocabulary. He’ll make for a good story later, so I stay. He switches from beer to whiskey on the rocks. This goes badly; he vomits on the street outside one of my favorite bars. I hold his hair back with one hand and consider the way his tight stomach flexes under his T-shirt. 10:45 a.m.
1:47 a.m. I can’t remember what this guy does for a living. Lawyer, maybe? He’s reluctant to fuck, which is strange, since we had sex six months ago, so we watch old episodes of Queer Eye on my laptop while he drifts in and out of sleep on my shoulder. Men often tell me that they feel comfortable around me, and safe. When he wakes up, I notice that my skin is damp with his tears. He divulges nothing, and I don’t ask what he’s crying about.
11:32 p.m. He hugs me from behind while I wait for our drinks. I crane my neck to kiss his head, drinking in his soft gray curls for what very well might be the last time. I hit on him, mostly to keep things upbeat, but he turns me down. He then bolts through the entrance, openly sobbing under streetlights as he marches home, offering nothing in the way of a formal good-bye. Minutes later, he reappears to apologize for his hasty exit. He cries into my parted mouth.
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