RECONSIDER THIS


Down in a subway station is the last place you’d want to try to find a date during September in New York City. If the temperature above ground is 97, then where you are is the best metaphor for hell on earth. Down here, mid-towners stand around sweating through their business suits. They look like they just ran a marathon wrapped in designer tissue paper. I once saw a kid wring out his T-shirt and leave a puddle on the ground. Women’s nipples show.

Nonetheless, while waiting for the downtown 6 train at Union Square a woman introduced herself to me. She was wearing a black business suit with Pumas on her feet. Model-like in stature, with long, straight red-red hair, she moved in true New York fashion and did not waste time.

“Hey,” she said, “My name’s Erin. You look like someone I’d be interested in getting to know. Dinner or drinks tonight? I know a great little place. My treat.”

A bead of sweat hung on the tip of my nose.

She smiled and wrote down a time and address for dinner, stuffed the paper into my pant pocket. “I’m making reservations, so don’t keep me waiting,” she cooned.

It seemed that I was acquired, like a business trust or an auction piece. The risk must have been very minimal, however, because she just sort of strolled a few feet away and resumed waiting for the train like nothing happened. I looked around. Did that really happen? But people were just staring down the dark tunnels of the subways, seeming not to notice me, and hoping to see a refrigerator car or giant Popsicle emerge and sweep them away.

We met for dinner at The Kitchen Club on Mott and Prince, in Soho. I didn't recognize her at first. Instead of a business suit, or something casual, she was wearing a leather red choker with spikes to match the color of her hair, which was tied up like bondage with a thick black ribbon. Her eyes were colored black, as if with crushed coal. Across her tiny black tank top it read "Angry Little Dead Girl." Great...

She actually turned out to be a very interesting conversationalist. We talked about her career in fashion marketing, where we’ve traveled, and what we liked in various parts of the world. So far we were actually getting along great, and she wasn’t as poised and assertive as earlier. I began to find her beauty and personality attractive.

But, I couldn’t help feeling that she was well prepared and rehearsed. She had an answer for everything. With a few probing questions, interlaced with sexual nuance, I admit, I was able to get her to tell me her motives.

“How’s the fast life in LA?” I asked. She traveled between New York and LA a lot.

“Business is good. Friends are great,” she said happily, “ but the sex sucks. My husband turns 45 next week.”

“Your—Uh?" I looked at the choker around her neck. "Well, that's gotta suck. Stick with younger guys.”

“I try to. Less medication.”

“Ah... So, how old are you, anyway?”

“28. I'm still young and he's over the hill. He's always busy with work anyway.”

I processed the possibilities. “Wow. Approaching 30 and not getting the attention you need, huh?”

“Something like that. Hey, are you dependable?”

“Huh?”

“I need someone really dependable, someone who’s going to be around when I’m in town."

"Oh, like a mutually beneficial thing?”

"Yeah, that's exactly it. Mutual benefits."

“Oh. Well, that doesn’t sound very appealing to me.” I wasn’t about to get involved with someone who casually sleeps around, especially when that someone has a husband from southern California. They shoot each other out there for cutting one another off on the highway. Shit, no way was I going to take it a step above road rage.

“I’d pay for everything, of course. Dinners, movies, drinks, trips, shows, toys..."

"Toys?"

"...you just need to be available, and have a sense of humor!” Her stern, assertive voice was creeping back.

“A-oh, hee-hee,” I giggled, nervously. "You were just joking." Oh shit—how do I get out of here?

“No emotional attachments or baggage. Just just clean, safe fun.”

"Um, no thanks."

From under the table she put a hand on my thigh, leaned forward slightly and puckered her tight little black lips. Light freckles stretched across her face. “A couple of my female friends could visit too, you know, for threesomes and stuff, if you'd reconsider.”

Now, what exactly is it that makes a man stop and think about things? Is it the hope that truth can be knowable and worth pursuing? Is it the fact that in this world there just isn’t enough love, man? Or is it some Lucanian circular equation shit, like: “To desire is to want knowing. To know is to want having. To have is to want conquering. To concur is to want desiring.”

Well, I, for one, haven’t the slightly clue. And at that dinner table, I was like a Windows program: I was working just fine a moment ago, and then, suddenly, I was frozen and not responding.



(As it turned out, I tactfully and purposefully dismissed the topic, which ended our evening early.)




Downs - Copyright © 2005


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