Enough was enough. I hadn’t had a solid one-night stand since October, making it one of my biggest dry spells since college. The drought had to end.
KG, Ron, their wives, and myself (the perennial fifth wheel), hit a local club late on a Saturday night. The two couples left around 12:30, but since Ron’s place (where I’d be crashing) was just a seven-dollar cab ride away, I stuck around to do more slithering.
It was a disaster: 0 for 10 became 0 for 20, then 0 for 30. I did manage to make out with a tall Czech woman, but she had dog-poop breath and lacked a deodorant application within the last twelve hours, so I didn’t count that as a success. As it was, I found myself waving down a cab in the hysteria of the club’s aftermath just before two a.m.
Ron lived in one of those obnoxious apartment complexes that make you call in at the front gate just to get into the damn parking structure (as if stalkers and robbers wouldn’t be patient enough to wait to follow someone in), so he gave me his key card just before he left. He told me some instructions also, but I have selective hearing, and I involuntarily ignore anything having to do with electronics, office jobs, or cars.
After the cab dumped my sorry ass off, I fished the key card out of my pocket and searched for the scanner. On the right wall next to the gate was a panel of buttons with speaker holes and some other crap. There were no slots or anything, so I hovered the card over the entire panel. Nothing. I continued to frantically wave the card everywhere like an Asian tourist with a camera, but was getting no results. I heard a car pull up behind me, accompanied by a quick door slam. I turned around.
As many of you know, my hook-up career is blemished with catastrophic disasters: I’ve blown multiple threesomes; I’ve been cockblocked by rabid goalies; chicks have pissed and shat my bed; and I’ve gotten head from a girl who turned out to be a guy. The list is endless. I think I’m due for something good.
My time had come. Walking toward me was an attractive 30-something brunette wearing a miniskirt and heels. Judging by the greasy Del Taco bag swinging gracefully from her left hand, this brown-haired beauty had just come from bars, where she had been hit on by a hefty supply of lushes and meatheads, which had led to bitching among her friends and subsequently sent her straight to the Del Taco drive-thru. Now here she was, fresh from a frustrating night in which every guy had failed her who-is-going-to-fuck-me sweepstakes, and she was walking directly into my domain: Post-two-a.m. Resident Parking Structures.
“I can’t get this thing to work,” I barked at her.
“Here, let me do it.” She took out the same card as mine, hovered it in a spot I had already tried (only slower and more patiently), and the door buzzed open.
“Sweet. Thanks.”
She smiled at me and walked around the corner and into a hallway towards Ron’s place. I followed her.
“So who are you?”
“Who am I? I’m Polly. Who are you?”
“Psh. Not your name. What’s your story? Why are you getting dropped off at this hour, and why aren’t you at a post party?”
I snuck a fart. She looked back at me, still walking. Then she smiled and said, “Went to bars with my girls, but it was getting late, and my friends were complaining.” Shocking.
“Do you have any wine?”
“Yes, I have wine. Why?”
“Because I want a glass.”
“You do, do you?”
“Yep. Have one with me.”
Her phone rang.
Apparently the cab was loaded with her reject friends, who had seen me follow her inside, and then appropriately judged me as outright scum. “Hi,” Polly said into her phone. “No, everything’s fine.” Brief pause. “Yeah, he just wants a glass of wine, and then he’s going home.” She looked back at me as I followed her up the stairs in an increasingly uncreepy manner. The voice on the other line became audibly louder as Polly continued to fend off the phone goalies. “Don’t worry, everything’s fine. I’ll call you tomorrow.” Pause. “Okay, I will.” She hung up.
We were now walking down the third floor hallway, one story above Ron’s place. Polly spoke. “Just one glass, okay? I need to get to bed.”
“Yep, same here.”
“Wait a minute, have you even told me your name?”
“No, but don’t worry, I will. We have a lot to talk about.”
She laughed. “Who the fuck are you? Do you even live here?”
I smiled. “No, I’m staying at my friend’s place on the second floor, but he’s sleeping and I don’t want to wake him. And I need a glass of wine.”
Polly shot me a thoughtful look, and I raised my eyebrows sarcastically back at her. She turned and unlocked her door.
I was welcomed to her pad with a huge gust of cat litter. I watched as two of her three cats weaved between her legs; the other one sat in the corner of the living room and glared at me with fluorescent eyes, reminding me of myself at a nightclub just before my first 0-fer.
While Polly went to the kitchen counter to fire down her tacos, I went straight to the couch and flopped. Between bites she asked about my night and how I ended up alone at the gate. I diffused her suspicions by telling her the truth: I had gone to the club with my married friends; they wanted to leave early; I wanted to stay.
“What’s your friend’s room number?” she asked.
“I dunno–two something?”
“You’re not some sort of weirdo are you?”
“Depends how you define weirdo.”
Polly stared at me as she worked down her last bite. Then she violently crumpled up her taco wrappers, which for some reason gave me a semi. “I mean, you don’t go lurking around people’s apartment complexes at two in the morning every Saturday night, right?”
“No. First time.” I smiled. “And I’m hoping you aren’t one of those girls that likes white wine.”
“Oh God no.” She turned towards the cabinet and grabbed a fat bottle. Truth is, I know nothing about wine; I only use it to get laid. You could give me a thousand-dollar glass or a two-dollar glass and I couldn’t tell the difference.
But I made fun of her anyway. “That bottle looks cheap. What is it?”
“It’s all I got. So stop whining.” She winked at me.
“Nice pun. Haven’t heard that one before.”
She laughed. “Can you open this for me?”
Oh no. I just realized I hadn’t used one of those corkscrew things in years, maybe decades. If I couldn’t open it, she’d know I was a fraud.
“Sure.”
I clumsily tried to take the cork out using the top because it looked like a bottle opener; Polly gaped at me like I was a lunatic. I lost my composure, became nervous, and fumbled the bottle onto the kitchen tile where it shattered like purple vomit. “You’d better leave,” she told me.
Just kidding. I was clutch this time. I uncorked the bottle like Casanova, and poured the velvety liquid into our glasses with stunning ease. No spill.
We migrated to the couch. She laid down on one end, feet propped diagonally across the coffee table in my direction. I sat on the other end and petted the cat that was sniffing my pants. “One glass and you’re out of here. Got it?” she asserted.
“Yep, that was the agreement.”
I continued petting in silence, waiting for her to initiate things. I had done my share of question-asking; it was her turn. Finally, Polly began. “So what’s your story? Who are you and what do you do?”
Perfect. I gave it a 95% chance that my “high school math teacher” thing would seal the deal, and I was spot on. At first she didn’t believe me. She even made me show her my Teaching Association cards I had in my wallet solely for such purposes. Then the questions started to pour in: Are you a cool teacher? Do you give a lot of homework? Do you give out detentions? What’s the worst thing a student has done? Do your girls hit on you? On and on–they were the same inquiries I always got, so I was a pro at answering them.
As I gave my teacher spiel, I began rubbing her calf–which had made its way to the couch. After I felt I’d done enough talking, I asked her about her job, which I ignored, and then about her cats, which I listened to. After another couple minutes of chatter, I’d had enough of the small talk. I leaned over and went in for the kiss.
She stopped me. “Um no. We’re not hooking up,” she announced. “I don’t even know you.”
I sat back up. I guess I had to get to know her some more. “So do you have any brothers or sisters?” I asked robotically.
She began laughing hysterically. Between her laughs, she again asked, “Who the fuck are you?” Moments later she got up and went to the bathroom.
There was a time when I would have been angry with myself for making such a premature move, but at this point I was too intoxicated to be so calculated. That, and I already knew there was no way she was kicking me out after “one drink.” She wanted it bad tonight; I could sense it.
When she returned to the living room, she set her quarter-filled glass of wine on the kitchen counter and started doing the dishes or something. Then she leaned against the wall and asked me the infamous I’m-going-to-fuck-you-in-T-minus-thirty-minutes question, “Okay, so I barely even know you. Seriously, though, who are you again?”
After answering her redundant question with essentially the same response as before, I realized my glass was empty. I got up and took the glass to the sink, giving her ass a nice smack on the way back to the couch.
“Come sit down with me,” I told her.
“No, I think it’s time you leave now,” she said weakly, not a hint of finality in her voice.
Instinct took over. “NO. Sit down!” I demanded. I shot her a jokingly serious face and pointed to her old seat as if I were commanding a dog.
She appeared stupefied, gazing at me as a young girl might look at her father after getting caught in a petty lie. Then she grabbed her glass from the counter, took a long sip, and walked slowly back to the couch.
She spent the next five minutes “getting to know me”–basically asking me again about teaching, where I lived, where I went to college, brothers and sisters, etc. After I repeated myself for the twentieth time, I made a decision that I was finished talking for the night. From this point on, either we hook up, or I go home. I leaned in for the kiss again. Success.
She tasted like wine and tacos, but I didn’t care. I was monstrously horny; any flesh would do. “You’re not staying over,” she told me between kisses.
“I know,” I said, kissing her neck.
A few minutes later she got up to pee. Again? Usually it was me who did all the urinating. When she returned, I pushed her up against the wall and started making out. I put my hands up her blouse and squeezed her nipples. We were now in a mini hallway area where the rooms forked off. I noticed one room had nothing in it except newspaper all over the floor and a couple litter boxes. Her cats had their own room! “Who’s room is that?” I asked.
“It’s nothing. Come on, let’s go to my room.”
We entered her room only to find another cat sprawled out on her bed like a fourth grader watching cartoons. Polly picked the animal up and dumped it into the living room. I immediately took the cat’s spot on the bed. Polly returned, shut the door, and looked at me. “You’re staying over tonight.”
Whiskey dicked but maintaining good wood, we fucked gloriously for nearly thirty minutes. She even had a moderate bush. Though I’m usually not a fan of such laziness in the form of hair, a nicely groomed forest is delightful to look at once in a while. It makes me think of rookie year of my masturbating career when I spanked it to Penthouse Letters and old Playboy mags of Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy–both with muffy mid-nineties beavers.
I awoke the next morning a little past nine. After answering some more of Polly’s mundane questions, she made the absurd claim that I was her first one-night stand ever. I laughed at her and called her a liar, but she held her ground, stating she’d always been a one-guy kind of girl. Before leaving, she told me that I had to come over and fuck her at least one more time, so she could remove the “one-night stand” label from last night. Without asking how many two-night stands she’d had, I told her she had a deal and left.
I usually don’t write actual success stories like this, but after my Salsa Debacle story, I got a lot of heat from my friends. “I’m sick of reading about fucking handjobs!” “Get it together, man!” “We need more fucking!” they told me–all valid points. But in light of my one-in-a-million gift from the hook-up Gods, I’d like to think things are starting to turn around. Could this be the beginning of an epic run of sane hottie after sane hottie? I sure hope so. I have a vacation to Croatia and Russia in about a month, and it would nice to ride this momentum into the European bedrooms. In the meantime, the next time I strike out at bars, you’ll know where to find me: at a parking structure near you. Picture me lurking…