Girl on girl, beads, and keeping my boobs in check.

My best friend P.J. and I spent an entire weekend making out for charity.

By charity I mean a foundation we created on Bourbon Street.

In the middle of Mardi Gras.

An organization dedicated to the promotion of more beads, if you will.

Specifically, more beads for she and I to merrily don around our necks as we swam along with rest of the crowd.

If her husband is reading this, I’m sure he’s intrigued.

Approximately twenty minutes after landing at the airport, she and I were whisked away to the apartment of our French friend.  He was living in New Orleans, decided we had to give the festival a try, and invited us down to the booze-infested mess.

It was awesome.

Except that I didn’t want to flash anyone.

I know, I’m lame.

So when the first group of guys on the crowded street came up asking to reveal our racks for the beads around their necks, I turned to P.J. and loudly proclaimed:

“I’ll kiss her for your beads”

Just for a frame of reference, P.J. and I were not in the habit of kissing each other.  At all.  She had no idea I was about to suggest we lock tongues for beads.  In fact, I had no idea this was my plan.  It just seemed like a good move at the time.

So, quite rationally, this statement threw her off guard.  Staring at me with huge eyes she blurted out:

“What?! You want to kiss me?  Here?! I don’t think I can…. Isn’t that weird?”

I bet you can’t guess what kind of audience we were collecting at this point.

Forever egged on by a crowd, I grabbed her hand, gave her a coy smile and said:

“Come on, it’s no big deal.  I swear I’m good.  It’ll be soft.  And gentle.”

Her expression now completly confused she nervously looked at the growing crowd of testosterone surrounding us and said:

“With tongue?  Like French kissing?…”

At this point a burst of chanting broke out around us.  Frat boys, men, and other creatures began pulling beads off their necks while hollering:

“kiss her! kiss her! kiss her!”

So, doing what any menace in my situation would do, I grabbed her face and kissed her.  With tongue.

It was really good actually, as far as kissing goes.  Far better than some of the other smooches I’ve experienced in my time.  It was soft and nice, and there was no tongue sword-fighting, just gentle twisting and turning.  Our rythm was incredible.

When it was over, we had many, many beads.

So it became the game of the weekend.

One of us would shyly announce to men who requested flashing, that instead we’d make out for beads. The other would instantly become offended and appalled at such a suggestion.  We’d discuss it as the crowd formed.  Eventually, we’d give in.

At some point someone said the kissing had to last at least a solid minute, but considering we both know what we’re doing in the lip department, that didn’t bother either of us.

At the end of the weekend, I had more beads than my little neck could bear.

What can I say, P.J. is the greatest best friend a girl could ask for.

Long. Live. Her. Smooches.

Sex, aliens, and courage

When I was ten, my parents rented a sex-ed tape from the library and made me watch it with them on the couch.

With candy.

It’s no wonder I only eat popcorn at the movies these days.

By the end of the film, my eyes had turned to the size of dinner plates.  Convinced they were from another planet, I stared at my parents in sheer horror.  Exactly 63 minutes prior to sitting on that couch, they were the loving providers of shelter, food, and buckets of presents.  By the time my father turned off the television, they had morphed into creatures from another planet who were concerned with topics I wanted absolutely nothing to do with.

Ever.

The two of them stared at me after it ended, curiously watching my response as if I were a case study.  Nervously tapping her fingers, my mother asked if I had any questions.  My father tilted his head.

By this point I was convinced that these so-called humans in front of me were alien sleeper pods.  I had questions-but you can hardly ask aliens what they’ve done with your real parents.  My knees shaking, I walked to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

The voice of the narrator branded in my head as I tried desperately to forget the phrase: ‘the sperm now travels through the penis shaft’.

Taking a sip of water, I feigned calm in front of the aliens.  My hands trembled as I mumbled the sudden need for a bike ride, and meandered towards the garage in what I desperately hoped would be a convincing act of cool and collected.

Once my feet hit the pedals, my imagination exploded.

A combination of scenes from the video and all alien movie plots I had ever seen infiltrated my brain as I pushed my bike further from the house o-extra-terrestrial parents.

Vowing to erase the images from my mind, I pedaled out to the treehouse to re-evaluate my family situation.  One thing was clear, my parents had lost their minds.  Whether or not that had something to do with spacecraft was unclear.  Further investigation was necessary.

I vowed to shelter my brother from a similar fate.  Whispering to him after dinner that night, I told him never to watch anything Mom and Dad brought home from the video store.  Staring at me from behind the red curls framing his chubby face, kid-Ginger obediently nodded.

Figuring that he was safe for the time being, I then lined up my stuffed animals to hold an open forum.  Not one of them provided much insight except Snoopy.  Being the oldest of the bunch, he just stared at me with those innocent eyes, willing me to take charge of the situation.

I had to save the human race from the aliens who were forcing children to watch this video.  Purpose of said video was unclear to me, but I was sure it could lead to nothing but tears, destruction, and the complete annihilation of mankind.

Tucking Snoopy under my arm, I fell asleep determined to warn the students of my class in the morning.  This situation was serious.

The next day, my teacher showed the video to my classmates.

As they watched in frozen horror, our loving teacher turned it off at the end and asked if any of us had already seen the tape.

Bravely, facing alien destruction, I defiantly raised my hand.  This creature was not going to shock me, no sir.   I had already seen the horror, now was the time for confrontation.

All my classmates turned in my direction.  It was clear, my hand indicated authority.  I was now the leader of these innocent sheep being sent to slaughter.

“I already saw it.  I already know what you’re going to say”.

That ladies and gentlemen, is how I became the playground expert on sex education and alien invasion.  The rest of the day, I was a celebrity on the swings, hollering out instructions on how we must unite against the adults.  My classmates eagerly hopped on board with this plan.  I was the shephard, and by God-I would not let harm come to my flock.

This lasted one day.

The next morning Joey Hunter brought in a copy of his father’s Playboy.

Turns out, the aliens knew how to get the boys attention.

Tequila, a bad-boy, leather, and my brief stunt as a muse

Trouble always finds me when I’m trying to drink tequila in peace.

I was 22, I decided I hated men, and I went out with my roommate to celebrate the recent discovery.

Sitting at the Irish pub down the street from our apartment, I ordered a round of shots for her and I, and the two of us began discussing why boys were stupid.  I can’t remember the details, but I’m sure it was an inspiring conversation.

Nibbling on a lime slice, I happened to look down the bar.

That’s where I spotted him.

Notebook, guitar case at feet, scotch on the rocks, dark hair, blue eyes, and tattoos.

Normally this would have done me in instantly.  But considering the festivities, I instead ordered another round of tequila and my roommate and I watched him from afar (ten feet down the bar).

Five minutes later my blood was happily flowing to the tune of a mariachi band.

So when Sexy McNogood beckoned me with his finger, I strolled down the bar to say hi.  At least that’s what I meant to say.  But what came out was:

“Hey, I’m out celebrating my hatred of all men.”

To which he responded:

“Interesting, I’m just out looking for a one night stand.”

Tilting my head at him curiously, I muttered: “ok then, I think we’re done here” before returning to the roommate.

Twenty minutes later, he asked for my phone number.

Two days later, he called.

We went on three dates.  On the eve of the third we were doing some hard-core smooching and yea ok-a little over-the clothing heavy petting was beginning.

I still had my jacket on though, to give you an indication of how far things had NOT progressed.

But for reasons still unclear to me now, he took this as an opportunity to utter the phrase:

“I’ve got something I want to show you.”

Standing up, he walked to his closet, opened the door, and asked me to come inside.

Peering into the former master bedroom closet, I saw various toys, whips, leather attire, masks, and some sort of swinging contraption in the corner.

For the record men, this is not the appropriate way to introduce this particular form of extracurricular activites to a potential mate.

As my Romeo soon discovered.

Speechless, I stared at him for some seconds before casually attempting to exit his house.  Muttering something about leaving the iron on in my apartment, I hopped down the stairs, yelled out something about not bothering to call me again, and left the house o’leather.

A month later I was back in the same bar with my roommate.  This time we were celebrating her hatred of men.

It was open mic night.

Out of nowhere tattooed leather man slimed onstage.

Staring directly at me, he began strumming his guitar while singing:

“You were out to hate all men, and I was just looking for a one night stand”

The song lasted about three minutes.

Thankfully it ended in time for my roommate and I to have one last round of tequila.

Taming the lioness

He looked like Johnny Depp.

He was writing in the corner of the coffee shop.

I was 22, I was single, and he was smoldering.

It was a recipe for disaster.

Donning his white t-shirt, faded jeans, and leather jacket, the perfectly messy bed-head and unshaven chiseled jawline were far too overpowering for my bad-boy prone nature.

When he sauntered over and gave me the napkin with his handwritten poem, smiled, and asked me to dinner, I stammered a yes while gazing doe-eyed at him.

silly doe, you have no idea what you're doing...

 

For the record this was not the first nor last time my idealism would get me into trouble.  But that is neither here nor there.

Three days later I met him at a restaurant.

Donning stilettos, dark jeans, a sexy top and my own leather jacket I met up with Casanova at a bar.

It took him approximately two minutes before it began.

At first I didn’t think I had heard him correctly, so like an idiot I leaned in across the table.  Pressing his lips next to my ear, the guy I had gazed so longingly at whispered this into my ear:

“What’s it like knowing you have the attention of every man in this room?  What’s it feel like to be a woman with that much power?”

Leaning back and glancing around, I double-checked my outfit.  No one appeared to be noticing me.  The restaurant was near campus, so the place was crowded with hot girls, I was hardly a rare commodity.  Keeping a safe distance from his cigarette whispers, I responded:

“No one here is looking but you (clears throat, blushes a bit-silly young Ryan).  So should we order some wine or-‘

I got that far before he unleashed an intense monologue.  Shakespeare could not have written a longer pile of metaphorical nonsense.  During this speech, I slowly lowered myself in my chair-willing the table to come to life and eat me in one solid, painless bite.

The opening line was barked with such intensity I did a double take at my formerly sexy tablemate:

“Ryan, you are like a lionness”

Clearing my throat, I tilted my head to one said and began to ask a question but was instantly interrupted again-

“Every man in this room.  Every one of them, including me, is your prey.  You move, we watch.  Wanting to be devoured.”

Let’s take a moment to note his voice was loud.  Seriously loud.  Loud enough that now people were starting to stare.

I’m pretty sure most of my fellow diners just wanted their chicken wings to arrive, but his volume made them turn their heads-which convinced him of his initial interpretation-that they gave a damn about what he said.  Not true, but lets just agree-this guy was delusional.  The sauntering bad-boy (who was rapidly becoming a typical freak my magnet loves to attract), seemed to picture me as this creature:

Stoic, graceful, proud. Ability to kill in an instant.

With growing embarrassment, I was feeling more and more like this version of his story:

Naive, idiotic. Maintaining ability to follow moron to dinner.

When he started referencing the primal nature of fornication as if he were the first man to conclude this theory (neanderthals the underworld over simultaneously turned in their graves); I left to go to the bathroom.

I couldn’t bring myself to sit staring at him while he uttered words like raw, natural, wild, and animalistic in reference to what he had hoped would be our after dinner plans.  Each whisper was so creepily rehearsed I was sure he’d given himself a peptalk in the mirror earlier in the evening.  Locking eye contact, he tried to stroke my cheek with his forefinger while proclaiming his desire to ‘tame’ me.

Wrong girl Tarzan, wrong girl.

I called my best friend from the bathroom, scheduled the appropriate emergency phone call for five minutes later, and returned to the table.

At this point I had been in the restaurant a total of ten minutes.

He may have looked like Johnny Depp.

He may have been a writer.

But even at 22 I could tell-this tribesman was far from warrior.

Post-shot face

When I was a bartender, my friend Casey and I came up with an entertaining game to pass the time.  It began with our fascination in watching the look on Frenchmen’s faces directly after taking a shot of alcohol.  Well, I suppose it’s not fair to say just Frenchmen.  We were watching all of them-English, Irish, American, French, Italian (Casey, I know you remember the Italian), Slavic, you name it-we watched it.

We were both tending bar and had rows of alcohol at our disposal.  So naturally, we played around with different shot varieties and got ourselves into random mischief, usually at the expense of one of our male patrons.  It was during a rather slow evening when we poured out shots of whiskey and watched two of our regulars take them.  Immediately their faces were forged into combinations of pleasure and disgust.  The squinted eyes, the wrinkled nose, the long exhale. The beating of a fist on the bar, a grunt from one-it was all very primate-esque.

It only took seconds after our laughter subsided to come up with the game.

You see, we had discovered the parallels of the post-shot face, and the o-face.  That’s right boys, we were watching your faces each time we happily delivered free shots to see what would happen to your eyes, mouths, noses, and all other animated features during sex.

The next time you’re bored at a bar, I highly suggest you try it out.  Only, don’t tell anyone what you’re up to, just sit back and enjoy the show.  Works on both sexes.  Doesn’t bode well for those who dry-heave, cough, burp, or get teary-eyed.