Sunday, November 20, 2005

Sex, Truths and Sticker Tape

Should lovers tell each other about their past sex lives? Huge, my ex, never minced his words. Today, driving by the Roney Plaza, I remembered Huge's tawdry description of having sex with two chicks when he was living there during his "bachelor days" many years ago. And this memory, which doesn't even belong to me, led me to the conclusion that your lover's past is never uncharted territory.

For example,Le Bouchon, a quaint little French bistro in Coconut Grove, where Huge went regularly during his "bachelor days" for lunch because not only was the steak with pomme frites excellent and well-priced, but because the waitress would give him a blow job in the bathroom. On the other hand, my experience at Le Bouchon consisted of a second date with a man whom, I would eventually learn, suffered from erectile dysfunction. Is that fair? But I have to wonder, was Huge's claim just an other order of steak and bravado?

Mapping out my own history in HoBe, there is a tiny beer joint just off Lincoln Road just brewing with memories, The Abbey, where I first met Huge in 2003. A year later, he asked me to be his girlfriend and we christened the commitment with a few amber bocks in the dark, smokey room where we first met. He held his arm around my waist and boasted loudly to all customers present: "I love this woman. We're together and we won't be with anyone else." Famous first words.

But The Abbey resonates with sordid stories, just like its poor acoustics. Before becoming Huge's girlfriend, I had met a gorgeous hunk of burning love on match.com. We made an impromptu New York style date at The Abbey around 11 PM. Easy for him, he was originally from the Big Apple. He looked like Robert Downey Jr, but even better, with the sort of biceps and quadriceps you only read about in romance novels ("generous, muscular loins and arms that could easily prop you against the wall!"). The retired surgeon-become-investor and I hit it off immediately. And after a couple of Chamays, we hit it off some more -- in his luxury high-rise apartment at The Waverly. I lost a pair of $40 cubic zirconia studs that evening, but in the morning all I could see was the stud who humped me, sitting naked on the sofa with his laptop as loin cloth, checking the first bell of the stock market.

Huge's history at The Abbey pales with mine in comparison. He would go to the girl's bathroom because it was a) cleaner than the men's and b) "it smells like pussy." I agree with a and don't agree with b, since I've peed at The Abbey many times -- and while not the powder room at The Ritz, the Abbey's toilet is completely inoffensive -- but if you're a man who's not getting any, I suppose that's as good as it gets. Or maybe you're just a man who can't get enough. As my brother puts it, "men are sluts."

Huge's love for the smell of a woman backfired once. One evening, to his surprise, a lesbian accidentally opened the bathroom door while Huge was inside. Her furious girlfriend, clad in a black leather jacket, put up her dukes against him, accusing him of making advances on her woman. Nothing like a jealous lesbian to put a man in his place.

But sexual desire takes awkward detours. On one of those nights Huge did not spend with me and I felt neglected, I took myself to the old watering hole for a little solace. Next to me sat an attractive twenty-something French man from Toulouse who spoke English well enough, although we all know they master the art of the tongue. My would-be French lover walked me to my car and showed me how to parler francais with a few, passionate and furtive kisses. In my "bachelor days," I would've let myself get to know France even better. Who knows, he might have been the first course followed by croissants and café au lait in the morning. Huge never knew about this and he never will. Isn't that much more elegant than a blow job from a waitress at a French bistro?

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