West Oakland: Fourth date

“Don’t get drunk,” she reminded herself every night before. “Don’t be loud. Don’t exhaust him yet.” He’d been with only one woman before, a girlfriend of 7 years. Despite herself, she found this charming. He hadn’t asked how many men she’d been with, for which she was grateful. She joked about sex, called herself a slut. She loudly criticized the virgin mystique. The day after she woke up with the man who had been her tenth partner she stared out the window and chainsmoked mindlessly until the waves passed.

She had met him the month before at a party. During their first date they talked about books and gentrification and the recent election. He had chastely kissed her goodnight. She reminded herself to feel cherished instead of impatient.

It was the longest he had dated anyone since the breakup he called The Divorce. He was coming to her house for dinner and a movie. “Bring some wine or something, if you want,” she’d said, hoping she sounded offhand. She wasn’t sure if a man who’d been with one woman for seven years knew what that meant.

“I’m not even sure I know what it means,” she told her best friend on the phone. “I don’t DO this. I’m not . . . I feel like this is someone else.”
“It'll be fine. You have to calm down.”
“It’s just -- this isn’t me. I don't do this part.”
“Why are you?”
“What?”
“I mean it. Why are you? He sounds like a great guy, and all, but . . .”
“I - I mean it’s”
“No, I mean, I’m sorry, just, he sounds great, and he’s cute, you showed me the pictures, it’s just, since I’ve known you --”
“No, I know. Yeah. it’s just like -- I don’t know. I’m 25, you know? It’s what people do. I - he’s great, and tall and he’s so, it’s just like -- he’s not the guy I get. I feel like, maybe if I don’t ruin this”
“Yeah”
“I don’t know. Anyway. I don't - I have to clean my bathroom.”

The bathroom didn’t look any different after she scrubbed it. She gave up and turned on the shower. By the time he arrived she looked, she told herself, as well as she could. She turned on The Talking Heads and opened the door to the tiny balcony. She regretted her decision not to cook - she had nothing to do with her hands. Should she put out some chips and make salsa? She was halfway to the kitchen when the doorbell rang.

God, she thought. He’s so tall. She wondered if there was anything significant about what he’d chosen to wear.
“Hi.”
“Hey!” she smiled, stepping aside. He followed her in, leaned in and lightly kissed her on the lips.
She’d forgotten, they did this. People who are dating did this.
“Come in, honey!” Honey, she thought, helplessly. Honey. But it was too late, she couldn’t take it back.
“I brought wine,” he said unnecessarily.
“Great! I was just, I was thinking about dinner, what did you want to order?”
“Anything that’s good with you”
“Oh . . . well, there’s a good Thai place down the street, I think I’ve got their menu.”
“Sounds great.”
“Have a seat, sorry it's such a mess. I’ll open the wine.”
Just like grownups, she thought, searching for the corkscrew she’d purchased the day before, the new wineglasses she’d shoved next to the half empty bottles of cheap whiskey and tequila that sat above the counter.
“How was your day?” she called suddenly, aware of the silence, of him in her living room, alone with her books and DVDs.

She was afraid that they wouldn’t have anything to talk about, that three dates had exhausted all they had to say to one another. She was relieved to look at the DVD player and realize that hours had passed, and the curry was cooling in front of them. The movie, carefully selected to be both arty and accessible, sat unopened in the Netflix envelope. They’d started watching Twin Peaks after he’d admitted he’d never seen it. Their knees touched. She was brave as she pushed aside her empty wine glass and said, with a disarming candor she’d trained to sound natural, “I have to admit, I’m not really a wine person. I just bought these glasses yesterday.”
“Why’d you ask me to bring it?”
“Well, I’m more of a whiskey kind of girl. You can’t just ask someone to bring a bottle of Jack Daniels on a date.”
“You could ask me. I like girls who like whiskey.”
“Well now I know for next time.” She could feel herself blushing, and turned slightly away, fiddling busily with her napkin. “I suppose this is my way of asking if you want a real drink.”
“I would love a real drink.”

As she poured the familiar portions of whiskey and coke into battered tumblers she told herself Don’t get drunk. Don’t be handsy. Don’t be too much.

“I’ve been told,” she observed some time later, the bottle now on the table after they’d both decided on a second drink, “that I can be a little . . . much.”
“Hm?”
“That I, I guess I exhaust people.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. So you know. Fair warning.”
“Well, I’m not exhausted. I like . . . I don’t think you’re too much.”
“Yeah?”
“It takes a lot to exhaust me.”
He’s going to kiss me, she thought. He’s going to kiss me and I’m going to kiss him back.
“Don’t drink any more” she reminded herself as his hands slid from where they cupped her face to her breasts.
“Don’t go too far” as he pulled her leg over his hip.
“Don’t be too much” as she straddled his lap and arched against him.
“Baby” he groaned, pushing her shirt up.
“Please,” she breathed against his lips, “please.”

He knelt between her legs and fumbled with the condom as she stroked his arm. “You're - this is okay?” he whispered into her mouth, bracing himself over her. She put as much certainty as she could into her gaze. “Please,” she said again. “Please.”
He pulled her leg over his hip and gasped as he pressed his lips to hers. “Okay? Are you okay?”
“Yeah . . . yeah”
She tightened her legs around his back.
“Oh god . . . oh god”
He pushed inside her again and she tightened around him. His mouth found the pulse at the base of her neck.
“Oh,” he groaned. “Oh.”
She pulled his face to hers and moaned into his mouth.
He pulled back and she braced herself, spreading her legs slightly, his lips resting on hers.

“. . . honey?” she asked, after a moment. “Is . . . is everything -- ?”
“I . . .” he rasped, “I”
“Is . . . did you . . . “

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and she felt air gust against her lips as he stuttered.
“I, it’s okay, just”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t-“
“I don’t love you. I can’t do this.”
He pushed away and stood up, a stranger in the darkness.

The sound of the bathroom door closing was loud in the apartment. She knew, after a moment, that he would not open the door until she left. The room was bright with lights from outside. She pulled on her tank top and panties, then wrapped herself in a blanket. It was unthinkable that he see her skin.

She blinked at the harsh light of the living room. The house was still, an artificial calm she remembered after childhood fights. She was afraid of it. Somewhere she heard the bathroom door open, footsteps in the bedroom. She drained the dregs of whiskey from a tumbler. She did not know the taste at the back of her mouth. The blanket slid as she knelt and fumbled with the takeout boxes and wine glasses.

He stood in the doorway. She felt his desire to speak against the terrible quiet.

She stared at the base of the wineglass, at her fingers against the stem. I bought these, she thought. She saw the words printed on a blank screen stretched in front of something she did not want to see. I own wineglasses, she thought desperately against whatever was behind it. I was not too much.

Whatever was behind the screen grew louder and louder. She could barely hear the front door closing over the roar.