The Birth of a Name and the Anatomy of a Disaster
I saw him right away. He was smoking hot and 6’5" and it was still early, so he stood out (just a little bit). I gave him the “you should really meet me” look and he obligingly decided that it would be a good plan. No dummy, for sure. He bought me a drink, which I normally don’t allow, and we chatted. I guess I had met him before during the winter. He remembered me. Not my name, but details of my life. Pretty shabby of myself for someone this attractive, I thought initially. We went for introductions again, and I got a name which I promptly forgot. We will call him Tom, since I was, which was not his name. Oops.
So I'm dancing with Tom, close, and we were getting along famously. He had been working on another girl, who I was calling LBD (little black dress). It was funny, because it was a very casual bar and she was WAY overdressed and not as good looking as me. Tom must have agreed with that because LBD was forgotten, lurking on the sidelines. We danced, closer and closer, and the normal moves gave way to a bit of a more focused test. You have to love that part when dancing becomes the preview point for what might happen later if some excess alcohol or pure debauchery is involved.
Unfortunately it was a tad early in the night for things to be going that far that fast, and like any self respecting person pretending to not be a slut, I had to roll off. I joined my friends who finally arrived. One drink later and dancing with my friend I affectionately refer to as Awkward Rick (he is extremely shy and I didn’t know he danced at all, so I was having a great time), I see Tom dancing with LBD and eyeballing me. Also on the floor was a notorious local man-whore, that my best friend Angela refers to as STD (no joke), grinding on some poor 20-something victim with the disheveled look of a girl who will be walking home carrying her shoes in her hand.
Rick and I join the rest of our group when Tom grabs my arm.
“What were you doing dancing with STD!?” he says at a VERY high volume.
My face went absolutely white. Because:
A. I wasn’t dancing with STD.
B. I would have in a hot second.
C. I had been on several dates with STD, before sleeping with him two days before that night.
D. STD, despite his protests, and my best instincts, background checks, etc. made me really like him, but did turn out to be the skank that everyone said he was and now I was seeing it first-hand.
E. That highly anticipated sex turned out to not only be terrible and unsafe, resulting in my scurrying to the doctor for a shamed face confession (luckily the results were negative and STD did not, in fact, give me one).
F. After the bad and very brief sex, he went straight into “expectation management” and outlined that even though we would be running into each other the next two days, he would be playing it cool. Little did I know “playing it cool” means “I will be making out with skanky drunk tattoo girl two feet away from you for your viewing pleasure before leaving with her”.
Tom knew none of this.
“I was not dancing with STD, you fucking idiot! I was dancing with Rick. This guy right here! Who is also known as “Awkward Rick” because he is so shy! Probably the safest guy in the world for me to be dancing with! And who the hell are you anyway to be making any sort of comment on whom I chose to dance with. You were grinding on LBD like she was paying you! You are just some guy who is trying to hook up with ANYTHING that will have him, and bought me a drink! You don’t even remember my name!” I hissed equally loud.
“Wow! I totally offended you! I’m so sorry I lumped you in with STD! That was so out of line. I can’t believe how pissed you are. I am so sorry…” he gulped again, backpedaling like Lance Armstrong.
“What is my name, asshole?” I challenged, stony faced.
“Oh, shit. I am totally going to get this wrong. I know this isn’t right. It’s something like this, unusual, a little older… but this isn’t it. I know this is wrong. But it’s the only thing popping into my head right now. I totally don’t want to blow it with you. And I am about to! Oh god…. Priscilla?!?”
I turned and walked away.
Later, as Steve was waterboarding the STD story out of me, Tom came running up, blissfully aware of what was happening in front of him. He was totally confident Steve had zero chance. He had my name right.
I friended him on Facebook the next night and we had lunch on Wednesday, (right after I had skulked over to STD’s place for another shame-filled afternoon tryst, with slightly better sex, equally bad ending).
My friends howled over the story. Literally they were baying at the moon. Packs of wild dogs love it when the Alpha gets taken down, and the story of Priscilla tickled them in just the right spot. We all gathered for our midweek confessional, and myth became legend. And I had a new name.
Photo by Scott Gorski.
