Back at the bar, I finished my beer and flirted half-heartedly with Jamie a little more, but turned down her offer to meet up later. I just wasn’t feeling it. When I got home, I sat out on the front porch with a glass of scotch, thinking about the last time I’d been out here late at night.
Did Natalie really not remember what I’d said to her before I left for school? I guess it was possible, although sort of depressing. I’d never said words like that to any woman since. Was that why I couldn’t stop thinking about her? Was I subconsciously worried that I’d never meet anyone who measured up?
Not that I’d tried. I’d had a few extended fuck flings in my life, but nothing I’d call a Relationship. I had a lot of girl friends, Natalie being the oldest and most important to me, but I’d never had a serious girlfriend. Did I want one now? Was I lonely or something?
Frowning, I took stock of myself and decided not. I wasn’t the lonely type, not really. Sometimes around the holidays I got a weird hankering to snuggle with someone in a completely nonsexual way, and this felt kind of like that, but it was only June. Cuddle weather was at least four months away.
Leaning back in the rocker, I brought the glass to my lips and stared across the orchard in the direction of the Nixon place. I remembered much preferring their busy, cluttered farm house with its comfy couches to my parents’ drafty old Victorian with its formal furniture and silent rooms. And the Nixon house always smelled delicious because Mrs. Nixon usually had cherry pies in the oven to sell at their farm stand. Natalie’s new house will probably smell good all the time too. And she’ll marry Dan, and fill the house with kids, and it will be just as hectic and noisy and fun as her own house was growing up. Perfect for her.
But what about me? Did I want that? Letting the scotch roll over my tongue, I wondered if some part of me was tired of the parade of girls in and out of my bed and ready for something more. But that was crazy, wasn’t it? What twenty-seven-year-old guy would give up the freedom and fun I had just to settle down and be an adult? I mean, technically I was an adult, but I wasn’t a very adulty adult. I wouldn’t call myself serious or mature. Responsible? Usually. Good with a deadline. Hard working. But I liked sleeping in. Not wearing pants. Eating cereal for dinner. I made stupid dirty jokes, I used plastic forks and paper plates at home to avoid having to do dishes, and I’d been living in my apartment for two years already and I still had no curtains on the windows, no pictures on the walls, and no plants. Was that pathetic? Was I supposed to stop playing at being a grown up and start living like one? Commit to silverware? A woman? A rubber tree plant?
I thought about my buddies with curtains and girlfriends, and the one with a wife. Were they happier than me? I didn’t think so. Maybe the married guy, but they were still newlyweds. That glow wouldn’t last. It certainly hadn’t for my parents. Sure, maybe wedded bliss made for some cozy Sunday mornings in bed, but were the Saturday nights still as hot?
And maybe feeling that someone would love you unconditionally for the rest of your life would be nice, but wasn’t that a lot of responsibility? You had to make the same promise, right? How would you know if you could love someone forever? Did I even have it in me to love someone that deeply? She’d probably want me to do things like wear pants every day and have brunch with her Republican parents and answer my phone. I just didn’t see that happening. Frowning, I took another swallow.
One person. Forever.
Fuck that.
But what if that person was Natalie? said a voice in my head. You think you couldn’t love her like that?
“Well, it’s not her,” I muttered, tipping back the last of my scotch. “It can’t be her. So fuck it.”
Instead of going home, I drove to Dan’s condo after leaving Miles in the parking lot. I had it in mind to surprise him in bed wearing something sexy—except that I had nothing sexy, not at Dan’s and not even at my house. I slept in tank tops and shorts. One Valentine’s Day, Dan had gotten me a red lace nightgown but it wasn’t the right size. I took it back and picked out a fuzzy pink robe instead. Red lace wasn’t really my thing.
Now I was beginning to panic that sexy wasn’t really my thing. Maybe I was the problem in our sex life—was I boring? Passive? Uninspiring? What could I do to spice myself up a little?
I thought of Miles letting some woman tie his balls to a wall and felt like a cloistered nun. It wouldn’t even occur to me a man might like that! I could sort of understand something like a blindfold or whipped cream, but really? Being tied up felt good? Maybe I’d been missing out. Not that I was going straight to bondage tonight, but after bragging about our fire to Miles this morning, I could at least try to light one.