Courting Favor

When I moved my senior year, I tried really hard to make friends at my new school. Unfortunately, my niceness backfired and my unpopularity was such that I was basically a hunchback away from being exiled to the deepest catacombs by a torch-wielding teenage mob. Within a couple of months, I learned to hate all of my contemporaries. Then a funny thing happened: the more disdainful and dismissive I became, the more the cretins at my school ate it up. By the time graduation rolled around, my stock rose high enough to be elected to Prom court, though I'm still convinced that if I'd actually won that particular dog and pony show, it would only be so I could be the recipient of a pig blood bath when I mounted the dais to receive my tin crown and sash.

Fast forward fifteen years...

Apparently hating an entire class of people continues to be the key to irresistablity. For the past few months, I've been fielding propositions from past and would-be suitors that run the gamut from poor taste to downright offensive, the common thread being a selfless willingness to engage in casual, no strings attached fucking. Each unsolicited, unappreciated exchange, the more loathsome all men started to appear. True to form, the angrier I got, the stronger my unwanted attention magnetism. Then I got an offer I couldn't refuse: an honest to goodness date from a boy who insisted on calling it a date.

A DATE. I can't even remember the last time I was asked out for an activity more involved than late night judgment-impairing drinks, much less one that came with advanced notice and dinner. Naturally, I said yes.

It was every bit as cute as a first date ought to be. He dressed up and was a little bit nervous as he escorted me to the low-key Italian place he selected. We shared entrees, split a bottle of wine, then took a walk across the Williamsburg Bridge back to his place, where I passed out on his couch for the rest of the night, relatively unmolested (my date got to second base). All in all, a great night that didn't entirely negate the awfulness of dating in New York, but did a little something to redeem it

Backslide

"You look like a classic Playboy centerfold right now. From the late Seventies, when Hef still cared about actual beauty, not just generic blond hair and big fake tits."

Sprawled out on the black leather executive couch, naked except for a pair of fawn colored knee-high boots, I affected my most coquettish pout. It lasted for about thirty seconds before I broke sex kitten character to sit up and gratefully accept the glass of water Mr. Mysterio offered me. After a couple of hours being bent over and stretched out over most of his office furniture, I was parched.

After a month of relentless non-communication, Mr. Mysterio and I entered tentative friendship negotiations. Neither one of us enjoyed the constant fighting, but the deliberate silence was even more unsatisfying. Bottom line: we missed each other enough to work around the problems. One of the key perimeters we agreed upon was keeping everything strictly platonic. Ideally, removing sex from our dynamic would quell his (irrational) jealousy and keep my (excessive) anger in check. It took all of two hours and about six email exchanges before I picked a fight. Frankly, I blame the PMS for turning what normally would have been an opportunity to make fun of him into something akin to the Nuremberg Trials.
I was already failing at casual, big time.

A couple of days later, after I had to some time to work the crazies out of my system, I stopped by his office to make an in person apology. I thought he'd be more inclined toward forgiveness if he could see how contrite I was, in my tight pants and slutty shoes. When he got down to the lobby, I could barely get the words "I'm sorry..." out of my mouth before he grabbed my face and started kissing me like there was no tomorrow.

"That wasn't very friendly," he said, as we eased off, "no, as a matter of fact, that was TOO friendly. You hungry? C'mon, let's go eat."

Obviously I wasn't the only one who was having a problem dialing it back.

The full extent of this problem became apparent a week later, when I was waiting for him to wrap up a telephone meeting so we could grab dinner. The minutes ticked by with people saying their good nights until finally Mr. Mysterio hung up and we found ourselves all alone. In no time flat, I was undressed (save for the boots) and testing the stability of various conference tables.

Our little office romp and the post-sex pillow talk (we were stranded in the back room for an hour when housekeeping decided that was day to shampoo the rugs right outside the glass door where our clothes were) did a lot to illuminate the situation but very little to change our circumstances. Regardless, it's good to have him back and to be back, even if we're still crawling on our hands and knees through the emotional muck.

Nullus

Roughly four hours after my last post, I rendezvoused with my Secret Crush.

Approximately fourteen hours after that, he and I were waking up and showering together back at his hotel.



The events of those fourteen hours are an adventure for another day, perhaps when I'm feeling less sweet on my Now-Not-At-All-Secret Crush. The bigger deal is what I'm going to do now that I've closed that particular deal. Since that weekend, I've been in a very strange and unfamiliar place. On a happy note, the delusional self-confidence that kept my early twenties relatively drama-free (the "my way or the highway" philosophy doesn't leave much room for negotiation or hurt feelings) is definitely back, proving once and for all that the last bit of Southern's poison has worked its way out of my system. I ought to feel on top of the world, but no, I actually feel kind of bad about it.

Initially I thought my sense of disquiet was because I'd lost some moral high ground by having sex with another guy less than 24 hours after nixing tentative plans to fly out and do exactly the same thing with Mr. Mysterio in his hotel room. I did feel incredibly guilty for what transpired, not because I fucked someone else (Mr. Mysterio and I live in the same city and hadn't had sex in four months, what did he think was going to happen?) but because I'd been adamant about him being the only one and I'm not a fan of high-level dishonesty, even if it's unintentional.

Then I thought it might have been the awful beginning-of-the-end feeling that always settles in when you realize your relationship was YET AGAIN falling apart due to severe negligence. The prospect of having to wade back out into dating waters teeming with guys who had the same issues as Mr. Mysterio with only a fraction of his finer points was enough to make my stomach curl up on itself. While both are definitely contributors to my unrest, there's a much bigger problem: having had real life sex with my fantasy guy, I am bored.

Secret Crush is the lead singer of a band and I'd been smitten with him for a year before we were introduced by a mutual friend. After that, I always considered it a personal coup when he recognized me at shows and stopped whatever he was doing to chat for a bit. I used to get such a rush when he came into town and each encounter would have me trembling at the gate, dizzy with excitement, never quite knowing where a particular conversation would lead us. Would we exchange number this time? Would he kiss me good-bye on the cheek or on the lips? The tedious process of dating the hoi polloi NYC bachelors could never elicit the same emotional frenzy as my full-blown juvenile crush. Every interface would leave me with heart palpitations, sweaty palms, and an almost paralyzing fear of having said something stupid - it was classic junior high all the way and I loved it. Now that the attraction is requited and consummated, it's like match, set, game: no more butterflies, no more anticipation, no more thrill.

As Citizen Kontessa of No Particular Importance, my Secret Crush should have remained an illusive impossibility, not somebody who planted sweet kisses on my fingertips as we drifted off to sleep. Sure, there's something to be said for knowing the concept of out of my league is illusory, but where's the fun in that? It's like being shown the hidden trap door on the most awe inspiring magic trick you'd ever seen. Everything I used to feel has been boiled down to little more than a waiting game and as magical as my night with my Unsecret Crush was, I truly do miss being wide-eyed and tongue-tied, dying to know what was going to happen next.

Instant Regret

Mr. Mysterio sent me an email with two key phrases:

SUITE UPGRADE

MIRRORS EVERYWHERE



I may never forgive myself.

Coast to Coast

So maybe Mr. Mysterio and I are not completely done with each other (I think I'm addicted to the drama and the fact that he's willing to jump through all the hoops I put in front of him). He's away on business this week and asked me to join him. At the time, I was swamped with work, so much so that I wasn't even getting weekends off, much less an entire week to lay up in a hotel room ordering room service and taking bubble baths until Mr. Mysterio wrapped up his professional obligations.

But yesterday I suddenly and unexpected found myself with nothing but time.

A quick internet search informed me that for the amazingly low price of $250, I could buy a ticket today and be on my way to decadent hotel sex a few hours later. Fucking with corporate sponsorship, away from the arctic blast of the northeast: tempting, VERY tempting. But there were a couple of flies in this otherwise ideal ointment.
First, his schedule has been packed and I'm not interested in flying 12 round trip hours to risk him being too busy to spend time with me. I get enough of that locally.
Second, this weekend my secret crush ("secret" because everyone knows I'm in love with him except him) is going to be in New York on business. My shrinker has successfully weaned me off long-distance relationships, but that's done nothing for my penchant for laying romantic groundwork with all the handsome, elegible men I knew, regardless of geography. Under the circumstances, who can fault me for carrying that kind of insurance plan?
Since Mr. Mysterio didn't offer to fly me out, it was really quite the conundrum with the scales being fairly balanced. Then they tipped: rain predicted all week on the west coast.

Problem solved.

Missing Pieces

I made us omelets for breakfast.

She brought me 18 of the most beautiful roses I've ever seen.

If we could just work sex into the equation, we'd be golden.

I love you, Pits.

Counting Blessings

It's true what they say about clouds and silver linings. While Mr. Mysterio loves cats, cartoons, Chinese food at 4 am, and deviant sex as much as I do, there are plenty of reasons why it feels sooooooo GOOD not to be his girl anymore:

• No one forcing me to listen to shitty artists like T-Pain
• The time between waxes gets measured in months instead of weeks
• Only hearing one person bitch about coming to Brooklyn
• Ordering milkshakes and grilled cheese sandwiches without anti-dairy tirades
• No more navigating his train station, which always seems to have one side or the other closed
• Never having to explain how I gave one of his best friends a blowjob back in 1999

New Year, New Starts

At least that's what I like to tell myself.

I bid farewell to 2008 lip locked with a woman who bore more than a passing resemblance to my favorite young Hollywood actress. An hour later, her far less appealing boyfriend whispered in my ear that they both found me bewitching and would I care to join them in the bathroom for some blow? Having reached a near perfect champagne buzz and not being too keen on the prospect of either sobering up or possibly rebuffing his advances because I was only interested in the feminine half of their package deal, I declined the offer. I pat myself on the back for already following through on my resolution to Make Better Decisions.

Five hours later I was at a disreputable level of drunk, celebrating 2009 on my hands and knees in front of a guy whose last name continues to be a mystery. Looks like my reign as Queen of Bad Decision Making will remain unchallenged in 2009.*


* It's actually not quite as bad as I make it sound. He spooned me all night, which was kind of nice even if it did keep me from really falling asleep, then offered to see me home after greasy brunch. Polite Midwestern boys are the creme de la creme of the one-night-stand business.

And So It Goes

After several break ups, needs assesments, emotional inventory, confessions, negotiations, make up sex, and a final resolution to stick it out, things with Mr. Mysterio seem to have heaved their final death rattle. Not that I can even say for certain since he's been MIA for over two weeks.

So there's another one down. Not with a bang or even a whimper, but slinking out under the cover of night with its tail tucked between its legs. Again.

Lost Boys

Ex-boyfriends are like vampires: you should never invite them in.

Caught up in the political fever of election night, I sent Austin, a rabid Obama supporter, a text message congratulating him on his county's overwhelming support of the right guy. In my emotionally overwhelmed state, I'd forgotten all the reasons we'd quit speaking in the first place. Alas, my refresher course would not be far away.

We filled each other in on the happenings of the past six moths amiably enough at first, but then the fangs came out. First a crack about a comment I made about not sleeping at home much. I meant I'd been out of town quite a bit, but his interpretation was that I'd been sleeping over at the houses of random guys. It was at least vaguely funny and employed some self-deprecation so I played along. Then came the dig on my (nonexistent) drinking problem, followed by backhanded compliments, and, after my replies turned terse, some self-aggrandizing observations about his power to effect a bad mood. Because it's never Mr. Perfect with the problem, is it? Every email I got from him set my own teeth on edge as I read each new misconstruction lobbed at me. After a couple days of increasingly pithy-on-my-end back and forth, the penny finally dropped: I don't like Austin. At all. Now I am far from sensitive and I'm hardly the type to be offended by cheap pot shots, but Austin truly is a bona fide prick who revels in his prickdom under the guise of being honest (as an aside, why does it seem that honesty is almost always objectively hurtful? Why is it never kind?) And I stupidly invited the sonofabitch back into my life.

UNVITE! UNVITE!
If only it were so simple...

I initially opted for the passive-aggressive garlic garland of ignoring him. Then I tried a splash of holy Don't Talk To Me Anymore. And when THAT failed, I sharpened my stake and hammered, yes, a Fuck You letter right to the spot where his heart should be.

You're not understanding me: the fact that you're like this, that you are the kind of person who gets off on being mean under the guise of being funny and expects your lame apologies to negate your unnecessary, asshole behavior, makes me not like you. Period.

And while your petty self-righteousness (hey, just being honest!) won't let you drop this without getting in one final dig at me, you should just stop now because any future correspondence from you is getting deleted unread.

It felt good for about an hour before it faded into the flushed shame of feeling just as petty as I'd accused him of being. I'd resorted to name-calling, profanity, and sarcasm. The only personal fighting rule left unviolated was talking about his momma. The facts may have been in my favor, but I'd suffered a heavy moral defeat by letting myself sink to his level. But true to form, Austin rose from the dead a couple days later:

Are we really not friends anymore?
You know.... Whatever I said... I said because I thought you'd be able to handle it and not because I wanted to get my jollies off by trying to elicit a particularly adverse/hurtful reaction out of you.

Really, Austin? Really? You say these things because you thought I could handle it? No, you said them because you're a DICK. Furthermore, what kind of fucked up individual reads an email like the one I wrote and thinks it's some clever jest between friends? A dick with dissocial personality disorder, that's who. The only reasonable course of action was to let my profound silence speak for itself.

Lost boys, you can get lost and fucking STAY lost.

Time Bandits

The past month and a half have been impossibly packed with work and social obligations. Not just for me, but for Mr. Mysterio too. I've been working insane 14 hour days yet somehow his schedule allows him even less free time. So little, in fact, that we can't even get together for me to call it quits because we're not spending enough time together.

Everything's great when I'm getting it, but the bits he can set aside aren't nearly enough.

Empowerment, Thy Name Be Go Fuck Yourself

I've often lamented the fact that bad exes couldn't be rounded up and systematically destroyed before they infected post-break up life with their poison. Today's email from Bronson made me want to drive a stake into the collective black heart of ever miserable, lousy sonofabitch I had the misfortune to meet and the bad judgment to fuck. Our exchange and notes follow:



From: Bronson
Date: Oct 11, 2008 12:28 PM
Subject: Are you still coming to LA?

if so hit me up at my other email address


----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Kontessa K
Date: Oct 15, 2008 9:48 PM
Subject: RE: Are you still coming to LA?


After you totally blew me off last time, why would I want to do that?

[I randomly bumped into Bronson while taking my annual trip to LA back in May. It was a pleasant surprise on my end, but Bronson, who was there with a date, clearly could not be rid of me fast enough.]

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Bronson
Date: Oct 16, 2008 9:37 PM
Subject: RE: Are you still coming to LA?

i didn't blow you off.. your drunk ass couldn't shut your mouth and i had to explain to the girl i was living with how i knew you and all about why i picked you up from the airport .. it was fun.. you know how bitches are.

[Never any cockblocking here, so I was going out of my way to be neutral and the opposite of flirtatious. The airport incident he mentioned took place over two years ago, when he picked me up at LAX, drove me to my friend's house and dropped me off. I haven't seen or even really heard from him since. You can see why he'd be afraid to tell his girlfriend about such recent incriminating behavior. But of course, someone who's too stupid to just say we're friends from NY deserves to squirm in the jealous girlfriend hell of his own making.]

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Kontessa K
Date: Oct 16, 2008 6:49 PM
Subject: RE: Are you still coming to LA?

So you're inviting me to start that back up again? I'll pass. Drunk or not, your desire to not talk to me was blatant enough that both my friend and her husband commented on it. I don't need some guy I'm not even fucking treating me like I'm his dirty little secret.

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Bronson
Date: Nov 1, 2008 6:17 AM
Subject: RE: Are you still coming to LA?


dirty secret.... thats funny.... you know thats how it was for awhile... i really trusted you to feel my energy sightwise and play it cool... i hated to hate on you guys but playing it off was my best play in that scenario and i would expect me and you to be so tuned into eacother that we would have some future shit locked in. like yes, we have fucked, but we'll act like we barely know eachother.... its hard i know... but i am fully into you but our circumstances are weird

no win i guess

[Oh. I guess I was unclear about my disdain in that last message. It's a mistake I won't be making twice. Also, if hate could be converted into real distructive force, a large sack of sledge hammers would have fallen from the sky and shattered his spine, leaving him alive but crippled, in agonizing pain every waking moment of his unable to get an erection life.]

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Kontessa K
Date: Nov 3, 2008 12:36 AM
Subject: RE: Are you still coming to LA?

Seriously Bronson, fuck you. How dare you bring up your shabby treatment of me as if it's something to get nostalgic about. Keep fucking your dumb bunnies and let me keep it moving with better men.

Please feel free to never contact me again.

[I think that just about covers everything I'll ever have to say to him for the rest of our lives.]

The Belly of the Beast

It had been two days of silence.
In the past month there had barely been two waking hours of silence so I had no idea what to make of this new development, to say nothing of my four unanswered emails. The last thing I needed on top of worrying about getting everything together for my week-long holiday abroad was to be assaulted abandonment issues clawing at my insides each time a text, email, and call came in that wasn't his. All I could do was remind myself that he was travelling for work and that just because the demise of every other relationship was precipitated by an instance of prolonged silence didn't necessarily mean this one was over now too. Also, if it was over, it wasn't even close to being the end of the world.
But still.
I mentally hyperventilated into my paper bag, willing myself not to give in to my knee jerk reaction to start emotionally disengaging. And definitely not give into the temptation to jump the first guy who caught my eye when my plane landed.

I stepped out of the shower at the unholy hour of ten til five in this morning, just in time to catch the phone ringing. It was Mr. Mysterio, half dead with exhaustion from a very bad day that had just ended, calling from his hotel room to apologize for being MIA, catch up, and wish me a bon voyage. Monster of anticipated rejection: temporarily caged.

Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

Just when I thought it was safe to re-enter the Manhattan waters, Gekko rears his shark-like head. His explanation for the lapse this time was a lost cell phone.

The first text message came on Friday night. Simple, friendly, asking if I was going to be in the city later and if I wanted to meet for drinks. I politely declined, truthfully citing under-the-weatherness and a work-filled weekend. On Saturday I got another text, this one inviting me out for drinks at his favorite bar. Between his inconsiderate behavior the first night, the advent of Mr. Mysterio, and his inability to come up with anything better than last minute invitations to impair my better judgment with alcohol, my disinclination to see him had reached its apex. I thought about blowing him off with an extension of the sick excuse, but I was meeting friends for yes, drinks and I was afraid to tell him I was in for the night then inadvertently bump into him while out. Because karmically, that's what would happen. So I told the truth again and was rewarded by a volley of presumptuous text messages telling me to leave my bar and meet him at his.

I'm sorry, but a one night stand that couldn't end fast enough plus a lone conversation a month later reiterating his one-side interest in me is insufficient to make me respect his imagined authority. After the first six text demands, I told Gekko I wasn't leaving and to stop bothering me. After six more texts about how he just wanted to see me, I told him I have a boyfriend and it's not going to happen. This set off the most psychotic behavior I've witnessed since law school.

Pouty texts congratulating me and wishing me luck.

Sycophantic texts about how cool I am and how he just wants to hang out again.

Reassuring texts stating that he really did/does like me.

A disbelieving text about how incredible we were together.

An expository one explaining why he'd taken so long to contact me again.

Shaming texts about the [minimal] trouble he went to in order to find my info.

After his exhausting text tirade -including the one checking to see if I was there once I quit responding- he called me at 3:20 in the morning and seemed baffled at my anger. There's zero satisfaction in rudely hanging up a cell phone, so I pecked out an angry message before going back to sleep:

I've been in bed for two hours and your attempts to get in touch with me all night are obnoxious. We have nothing to talk about.

When I awoke, there were more messages from Gekko, again telling me how cool I am and ASKING ME TO THE MOVIES. In less than 24 hours, I'd amassed no less than 35 unwanted texts, 5 calls screened into voice mail (including one the morning after asking why I was so upset by the texts), and the lone call answered for the express purpose of telling him to quit fucking calling.

Seriously, I should link his facebook page in case my remains are found hacked to bits in the East River.

Pitseleh, who was with me during the worst of it, suggested I simply tell him to fuck off and leave it at that. But the last thing I need is a mentally unbalanced guy armed with my full name, email address, and phone number running amok through the city on an anti-Krunk campaign. No, I was going to have to handle this with a defter hand to ensure there were no hurt feelings ....and, more importantly, no acts of the bunny boiling variety.
The next afternoon I called him to break down some essential facts, to wit, he and I are strangers. There is no "we", there never was a "we" and, even if there was, the psycho ex act is always out of line. He apologized, reiterated all the same shit that was in his voicemails and texts, and promised it wouldn't happen again. Then he said the offer to take me to the movies still stood.

WTF.

I may have to have him killed.

Stagflation

Pardon my absence; I had to suspend the blog in order to focus on my economy. While I was away, I managed to find a new place in the nick of time and have been occupied with all the rearranging and replacing that's the by-product of any move.

So the other thing you're probably wondering about: Mr. Mysterio. Let me tell you allllllll about Mr. Mysterio.
He's a disgusting, shameless pervert and an reactionary who thinks everything is fucking stupid. He despises pretty girls and ugly manners, literally laughs in my face when he beats me at video games and talks nonstop about the most asinine topics, from the near impossibility of finding unbranded clothes to the history of party scenes in various major cities. He listens to bad TV radio when he's by himself, waxes indignant about people pluralizing the word "email" by tacking an s onto the end, and answers my calls with a cheerful "what do you want?" He suffers from a Napoleon Complex despite being average height, he takes twice as long as I do getting dressed, and the first time I came over, he came to the door in boxer briefs and showed me his appendix scar within five minutes of me stepping into the apartment.

In short, he's perfect for me.