"Who wants to come to New York with me?" was all Lola's email said. It was addressed to all the girlz and without even knowing the details I immediately hit reply.
"I DO I DO I DO PICK ME PICK ME PICK ME!" Subtle, right? I was all but desperate to get out of Boston. What bigger sea than the Big Apple? "So... why is it we're going to NYC?"
Lola soon responded that she was heading down to see Stan, visit her sister and she thought some company on the car ride down would be fun. We left Saturday morning. Ginger and I met up at Park Street to catch the red line out to Alewife where Lola'd be waiting for us.
"Did Roxy come with you guys?" Lola asked, looking at her watch, anxious to get on the road.
"No," I answered, "she texted me this morning as I got on the train and said she'd be a few minutes late, but if we needed to leave, no worries, go without her."
Twenty minutes later, Roxy came slinking up the stairs from the subway, carrying nothing but her oversized leather clutch bag, her sunglasses over her eyes despite the overcast morning.
As she slid in the backseat behind me, Ginger looked her over and said, "Are you wearing the same clothes from last night?"
Roxy smiled. "Yup."
"Doing the walk of shame this morning are we?" I teased, turning around to see for myself.
"I prefer the stride of pride," Roxy retorted.
"Nice," Ginger replied, "So what happened to you after we left?"
"Nothing much. I had a few too many glasses of wine and agreed to meet up with Chips at the Holiday Inn downtown," Roxy confessed.
Chips was about 14 years Roxy's senior and was the owner of a popular New England snack food company.
"Oh, so you guys finally sealed the deal, eh?" I asked, knowing that Roxy had yet to sleep with him despite their weeks of on again off again casual dating.
"Uh, no," she said, obviously disappointed, and obviously with a really good story as to why not.
"I don't know why you like him. He's old," Ginger said expressing her disapproval.
"He's mature," Roxy clarified, "and we have a really good time together."
"He's creepy! He's almost 40 and dating a 23 year old. He's just using you," Ginger said.
"Hardly, if anything, I'm using him. Mama likes her sugar daddies," Roxy defended. It was true. Roxy knew what she wanted - she wanted a rich man to spoil her and she never had any trouble getting what she wanted.
Wanting more details about what transpired the night before, I tried to change the subject. "So, the Holiday Inn? Sounds like he had a romantic weekend planned for the 2 of you?"
"He won't have sex with me until I get tested," Roxy blurted out.
"Tested? For what?" I asked.
"Everything. Specifically, he wants me to get an AIDS test."
"When was the last time you had one?" Lola questioned.
"My senior year of college," Roxy answered.
"Well, it's been about 2 years, shouldn't you do that anyway, if you're sexually active?"
"I give blood every month. I'm clean. Besides, it's not the point. I'll get tested. Fine. No biggie. What is a biggie is that he won't get tested."
"What? Why? That's ridiculous!" Ginger snapped.
"Because he says he's been in a monogamous relationship for the last 15 years and I'm the first woman he's been with after his wife," Roxy said.
"Wait. He hasn't technically been with you, though, right?"
"Right. Apparently it's fine to do everything but sex without being tested, but sex is no deal."
"If he wants you to be tested, he should be tested. That way you both know you're both clean. Besides, who knows what his wife and him may've been trading back and forth for the last 15 years!" Lola stated matter-of-factly.
"Yes. That's ridiculous to expect that of you and not of himself," Ginger agreed.
"I guess the worst part of it, he just made me feel like a whore. He didn't even stay with me last night. Like I'm now suddenly dirty or something. I mean, why invite me up to the hotel to question my status as an undiseased/diseased person, and not even sleep over?"
"If he didn't stay with you, where'd he go?"
"I dunno. I don't care."
"Did you stay?"
"Of course! He paid for the room. He's also going to be paying for the room-service I ordered last night. And again this morning," Roxy smiled.
We spent the rest of our ride down trading war stories of boyfriends and bed-fellows past. Traffic snared up just before the exit to the Throg's Neck bridge.
"What's a Throg?" Ginger piped up from the back seat.
"Throg? What are you talking about?" I asked, not having a clue as to what she was asking about.
"The sign. It says throg's neck bridge. Sounds like a disease," she answered.
"Great. Wonder if Chips wants me to get tested for that, too," Roxy joked.
"Throg... sounds like an insult to me. Like, you're such a throg," I suggested.
Ginger agreed. "Totally. We should start calling all the losers who come up to in the bars throgs."
"I know!" I interjected, "Throg - guys who make you wanna throw up and gag at the same time!"
Roxy laughed. "That's hysterical."
"Love it," Ginger said, turning back to her issue of InStyle magazine for the duration of the ride.
Lola was nearly jumping out of her skin to see Stan. None of us had yet met him, and Lola hadn't seen him for weeks. She could hardly contain herself. We had barely parked the car when Lola took off running down the street towards some guy half a block away. Before we knew it, she lept into his arms, throwing her arms around his neck and wrapping her legs around his waist. The guy didn't seem to mind the attention.
"I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that's Stan," Ginger said.
"Either that or Lola just can't contain her hormones any longer after being locked up in the car with us for 6 hours and he was the first guy she saw," I suggested.
"Yeah, I'm gonna go with that's Stan," Roxy laughed, looking at the happy couple now walking hand in hand in our direction.
"You must be Stan," I said greeting the guy standing now standing next to us with Lola.
"Stan? Who's Stan?" he asked. Seeing the sudden look of horror and confusion that crossed over my face, he smirked, extended his hand and said, "Yes, I'm Stan and you must be Christine."
"Lola must've said I'd be the gullible one, huh?"
"I think her words were easily confused," Stand teased. I liked him already.
In order to give the love birds some quality time together, we agreed to drop our stuff off at Lola's sister's place, freshen up and go our separate ways, meeting up again at the end of the night.
Ginger, Roxy and I were meeting up with some of their NYC living friends. First up was "V", a friend of Ginger's from college. V was one of a handful of guys that attended their historically (and predominantly) woman's college. He was tall and handsomewith twinkling brown eyes, a sparkling smile and pick-up lines that'd make any woman giggle. He was as Ginger put it, Trouble - as in trouble with a capital T.
"He's really good-looking!" I whispered to her as he went to the bar to get our drinks.
"He's a player," she said.
"So?"
"So, he tried to sleep with every one of us, and our friends, in college," Ginger told me, trying to talk me out of a very big mistake she knew I was on the verge of making.
"Then he's probably very good at his craft," I smirked.
"You missed the part where I said he tried. As in he didn't succeed." Ginger gave me a stern look, not unlike one my mother would've given when trying to pursuade me to not do something, without coming outright and saying not to.
"Hunny, he's hot. He's big, he's black, he's bald and I really just want to rub his head."
I had just admitted to Ginger one of my most bizarre turn-ons. Bald guys. Not bald as in Mr. Clean shiny slick bald, but that just shaved ever-so-slightly bristly bald's that on a guy with a beautifully shaped head just drives me mad with temptation with wanting to touch it.
Imagine coming up to a guy in a bar and asking if you could touch his head. Not something that'd likely get taken the right way, and more likely than not to lead to one of those confusing instances where the guy truly would believe I was asking for it.
Yes, there it was, one of my most forbidden pleasures was literally sitting across from me in a New York City bar and I had an "in." I was nearly giddy with antici... say it... pation.
Much to Ginger's dismay and slight amusement, V and I flirted shamelessly for nearly the entire time we were there. By the third cocktail, Ginger, unable to stand the display any longer, stood up and whispered in my ear, "Don't say I didn't warn you," and went to sit in the lounge with Roxy and her friends.
"What was that all about?" V asked, flashing his boyish smile my way.
"What? That?" I asked feigning ignorance, hoping to stall till I had a good answer. "Ginger? Oh, that's nothing. She just warned me about you." My mother always said honesty was the best policy.
"What? Shiiiit," V said laughing. "I'm harmless."
"Actually, that was exactly what she said. She was warning me I would get nowhere with you," I teased, placing my hand gently on his knee as I gave a flirty laugh.
V laughed again, shaking his head. "Ginger is always causing trouble for me," he said, and started to tell me some story about something that happened with him and Ginger at college. I have no idea what he was talking about because my mind had wandered and zeroed in on his big bald head.
It was taking every ounce of strength I had to not just reach out and touch it.
Do it, The Banshee goded. C'mon, do it! Any guy would be flattered if you touched his head.
You do realize I want to touch the head on top of his shoulders, not the one in his pants, right? I said to The Banshee.
Yes, I know what head you're talking about you dirty girl.
So you do you realize what kind of a nutjob I'd come across as if I just reached up there and started rubbing his head, right, you do...
My conversation with The Banshee was cut short by V, who was now looking at my very strangely.
"You didn't hear a word I said, did you? Am I that boring?" he said, slightly teasing, slightly offended.
Not wanting to lose my chance with him, I confessed everything.
"You have a beautiful head and I kind of want to touch it," I blurted out.
He burst out laughing. "Are you serious?"
"Yup. I dig bald heads and I especially dig yours," I managed to say straight faced.
"And you wanna touch it," he said skeptically.
"Yup."
"That's the most bizarre compliment I've ever gotten, not gonna lie."
"Yeah, I'm a freak."
"In the sheets?" he said with a cheesy wink.
"You do know I'm talking about your head, right?" I clarified, reaching up to finally touch my temptation. It was just as I imagined. I was hooked and wanted... needed more.
V laughed. "Yes, I know what you're talking about. I'm not as bad as Ginger said I was."
"I'm sure," I said, taking a drink of my martini, trying to keep my hands busy. I fumbled my phone out of my purse and checked my text messages. The Bartender texted me an hour earlier.
Wanna meet up later?
"Message from the boyfriend?" V inquired, trying to gauge my true availability.
"I'm single," I said, flipping my phone closed, ignoring the message.
Just then, Ginger and Roxy returned. "Ready to go babe?" Roxy asked, putting her empty martini glass down on the bar behind me.
"You guys can't take her away from me just yet!" V objected.
"Sorry dude, we've got places to go," Ginger said, leaning down to hug V goodbye.
"Where you guys goin'? Maybe me and my boys can meet up with you later?"
"No idea. We're meeting up with one of Roxy's friends in the Village," Ginger said, trying not to committ to anything.
"Can I get your number?" V asked me, hoping I'd still be his "in" for the night.
"Yeah, give me a call sometime. Ever come to Boston, give me a call," I told him. I scruffed his head one last time and headed out the door to wherever the night would take us.
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