I will have to keep your parents at arm’s length because yours is the kind of family that goes on extended vacations in the wilderness together, and I’m afraid that if they like me too much, they will expect me to go with, and I am doing no such thing. You get only one chance to drag me to the woods, and I already let you take me to that isolated cabin in the middle of nowhere for three days with no phone and no Wi-Fi, so see you when you get back. I can’t remember the last time one of my sisters and I went to the grocery store together, and I can’t think of anything less relaxing than revisiting a fight that began in 1993 while slowly developing a bacterial infection from a wet bathing suit. I imagine there are two types of orphans: people who can’t wait to jump into a ready-made family or build their own from scratch, and the kind I am: get your heartwarming holiday cards away from me ASAP. You know what I can do, since I don’t have a mom anymore? Write “I love big dicks in my pussyhole” on the Internet without worrying about getting a disappointed phone call immediately after.
I haven’t had to justify anything I have or haven’t done to anyone in my whole adult life (PS: it feels amazing). I also haven’t had to suffer through a forced Thanksgiving dinner or Aunt Barbara’s retirement party or cousin Julie’s baby shower, and, sure, I have an iPad, but unless you let me stay in the car, your padre is totally going to be all “FOR REAL, SAMANTHA” and hit me with the “I didn’t raise you like this” eyes. And the thing is? No, he did not. And I respect that moms gotta mom no matter whose kid they’re talking to, so I’m definitely not inviting your girl over for a bottle of—I don’t know, what do moms drink? Sauvignon blanc? Costco wine?—so she can knit her eyebrows together in concern while waiting for me to offer up an explanation for why I wrote “LinkedIn is emailing people that today is my 14th anniversary at my job, but damn, I wanted to write my suicide note myself” on Twitter this morning.
9. How important is sex to you?
Is there such a thing as the opposite of important? Because that’s what I would choose. Maybe this is the depression talking, or maybe years of masturbating with the most powerful vibrators on the market have broken my vagina, but at the end of a long day, the last thing I want to do is stand up more. Or put on clothes that someone else might find visually arousing. Hopefully lesbian bed death is real and not another unattainable fantasy the Internet has lied to me about, like poreless skin.
10. How far should we take flirting with other people? Is watching pornography okay?
I used to bang this dude who was really into female bodybuilder porn. And while that’s not necessarily my bag, because I like to watch soft naked bodies jiggling like chocolate pudding on a spoon, I was totally down with it. I didn’t do a single triceps curl for the entirety of that relationship, either. I walked in on him jerking off to an ass like a library book bouncing up and down on some shriveled steroid dick, then walked right out and down the block to Dragon Gate. Because, listen—if he is getting what he needs from watching two leviathans bang into each other like bumper cars while oozing streaky orange self-tanner, then I am just going to get these eggrolls and post up in the other room with a pile of magazines.
—
I am partial to mature lesbian porn, because I’m old, and while I would never call it “lovemaking,” that is exactly what I wanna watch. I like watching two ladies (or men) with a few miles on ’em kissing passionately on the mouth and having real orgasms. I am forever here for gratuitous cumshots and clenched ass cheeks thrusting away for twenty real minutes (how do they do that?), but I have never been excited to watch two straight girls kiss like it’s icky while plucking at each other’s clitoris like a banjo string. I don’t need soft music or a backstory, but I would very much like to believe that these people are both at least marginally attracted to each other and experiencing legitimate pleasure. Porn is a quick and easy way for me to release some tension through a vaginal sneeze without having to undo my bra or take my shoes off, and I will never stop watching it, especially now that it is free, and I ain’t gotta hide my sex DVDs at the bottom of my sock drawer when company comes. Sex is messy and exhausting, and if you’d like to masturbate alone while I am sleeping or watching sports, have at it.
Flirting is one of my main forms of social currency. I don’t mean actual gross hitting on people, but if your mom comes up to me at a reading, then I’m going to look deep into her eyes and say, “You look amazing in magenta, Margaret,” without breaking my gaze, and she is going to swoon and buy six copies of my book and, duh, love me forever. I’m not kidding, Margaret is going to shout down the other members of her book club when they try to dismiss this trash as vulgar and disgusting (they might have a point) and storm out of Betsy’s house in a cloud of Chanel perfume because I wrote “I would love to toss your salad, girl” inside the front cover of her copy. Listen, I would never lead someone to think that I would actually want to have sex, because yuck, see above. But everyone loves eye contact and eating butts!
It’s so weird to me that adults in committed relationships have a problem with something so seemingly innocuous as flirting. I would never expect you to walk around with a paper bag over your head to avoid catching the eye of a stranger, nor would I discourage your making friendly conversation with whomever you might encounter during the day. And look, if you needed to fuck somebody else, we could talk about it. People change, our desires evolve, and it feels foolish to me to expect that what you’ll want two, five, or ten years from now will be exactly the same thing that fills you up today. I mean, the way I feel about fidelity has evolved over the last ten years of my life. It’s a hard-and-fast rule that we don’t apply to any other thing in our lives: YOU MUST LOVE THIS [SHOW/BOOK/FOOD/SHIRT] WITH UNWAVERING FERVOR FOR THE REST OF YOUR NATURAL LIFE. Could you imagine being forced to listen to your favorite record from before your music tastes were refined for the rest of your life? Right now I’m pretty sure I could listen to Midnight Snack by HOMESHAKE for the rest of my life, but me ten years ago was really into acoustic Dave Matthews, and I’m not sure how I feel about that today. And yes, I am oversimplifying it, but really, if in seven years you want to have sex with the proverbial milkman, just let me know about it beforehand so I can hide my LaCroix and half-eaten wedge of port salut. (“Milkmen” always eat all the good snacks.)
11. Do you know all the ways I say “I love you”?
I guess so, but the most important one is that time I came home after an Amtrak ride from the pit of hell and my pajamas were already laid out and my night banana and half-full glass of room-temperature water were waiting on the bedside table for me.
12. What do you admire about me, and what are your pet peeves?
Likes:
? You look real good in a pair of tight-ass jeans.
? You can eat more food than anyone I have ever met and I’m pretty old.
? Your laugh.
? That time you dropped your credit card at a tollbooth was pretty hilarious.
? You don’t stink even though you wear homemade deodorant.
? You scoop all the cat poops, which is sick.
? I asked you to learn all the dance moves in the P Diddy and Ma$e “Been Around the World” remix video and dance them with me and you did.
Dislikes:
? I do not enjoy being kissed in the middle of the grocery store.
13. How do you see us ten years from now?