- R

The bar called out to me, and not just because I needed a number of drinks before I could fly without becoming wildly psychotic. Airport lounges during early morning hours were something to behold. Never were they treated with any kind of respect. Only two types of lounges opened this early in the day: The kind with nondescript entry ways and anonymous faded beige walls that opened at 6AM and were populated by elderly vets who needed a drink during every waking hour to expel whatever horrors of war they brought home; and airport lounges, the haven for those with lengthy layovers and poor souls suffering from jet lag. There was a third type in this scenario. The kind of traveler needing liquid sedation to ease the fear of flying. This was my type. But my kind was barely a blip on the radar. My kind could take a train if it were truly that debilitating a condition.

I mistook the guy behind the counter restocking the bar supplies for a bar back until he adjusted his apron and with a stereotypically thick Brooklyn accent normally reserved for Robert DeNiro or Chazz Palminteri asked me what I’d have.

8AM was too early for Scotch. Even in these circumstances, three fingers of Scotch before noon was bad form. Gin was the work of the devil. I never liked the stuff. Too bitter. It always tasted like lime zest to me. I brushed off some lint gathered on the lapel of my Banana Republic winter coat while I considered my options. (more…)

“Important email?” Doug asked. He took a corner hard trying to maneuver around the half-drunken homeless man in the road who decided no red light could contain him.

“Yes, but no,” I replied as I deleted the mail from my inbox. “Same problems…more women, more problems.” I paused for a moment. “These two have excellent racks, that might be the only difference this time around.”

Doug shook his head in disapproval. “You are like that song - ‘Might as well face it, you’re addicted to love.’ That song is you.”

I smirked. “Well, that is a better option than Dancing Queen.”

Another turn, this time onto Flower. “Shut up you homo,” Doug scoffed in as prissy a Just Jack alto as he could muster. (more…)

My dog is no different. Sophia knows she is responsible for the perimeter and the safety of the pack – in this case, my mother and myself. The locations have varied, being at one point my apartment, and another my parents’ home, but the charge remained the same all along. That said, Sophia went to great lengths to do her job and do it well, but always sought our feedback and praise that hers was a job well done.

I say this because at the moment she is chasing a squirrel around the back yard, a squirrel that has deftly navigated the maze of oaks on the sixth fairway beyond the wrought iron boundaries of our yard, squeezed through the red blanket of bougainvilleas running parallel to the course sand traps, and has found itself in the domain of a sixty pound ugly dog.

Ordinarily, Sophia took silent delight in ridding her fortress of its trespassers, but knowing both her charges were home and awake, wanted us to know that she was taking her job seriously. She also wanted to be told how well she was doing her job and for us to realize she was pulling her weight with her contributions to the pack. So she did what any other dog would have done in this situation: Sounded the alarm. (more…)

“And you can’t reschedule for another time?”

“No,” I replied. “I’m on his clock.”

There was a rattling of noise nearby; Michelle quickly escaped from its direction, walking briskly towards me with an oh my god look on her face.

“Geez, you think the guy would need to travel with an entourage or something,” she remarked as she plopped down in the seat beside me.

“I hear a woman’s voice. Who is that with you?” (more…)

The aggravation was almost self-explanatory: I hated flying. I hated it so much that the only way I knew to deal with it was through mass volumes of alcohol. If I was lucky I’d fall asleep and miss out on the flight entirely but that was rarely the case. This time the aggravation was even more so after finding out from Jenna at Wired that I could only get on a flight as a standby passenger, and that always meant the worst seat on the plane, as if there was any other.

Fatigue was almost self-explanatory as well: From the moment I got off the phone with Kevin Kelly of Wired magazine regarding his assignment, I’d been racing to get things ready and make arrangements to leave town 24 hours later. By the time I was at the airport I realized I’d left half of the things I’d meant to pack at home. I’d forgotten to make some phone calls. And when I made the most important one – to Stacy, the girl I had been dating recently – she didn’t sound the least bit surprised when I told her we’d have to postpone my promised weekend in the mountains.

(more…)

For a moderate-sized girl there should have been less weight crushing down on me but for some reason she felt heavy. I couldn’t blame it on something secondary like excess clothing, because there wasn’t much she was wearing at the moment. She swayed from side to side while trying to keep her balance, using her thighs to anchor herself to my body. She’d been drinking the wine with more speed and efficiency than I and was feeling the effects whenever she swayed. I cupped my hands around her waist and ran my fingers across her silky skin while trying to help her with her balance issues.

“Nuh uh, no touching. That’s part of the rules,” she said as she slapped the backside of my hands away from her body. I retreated, all in the name of fun and games, and she continued to rhythmically grind her pelvis into various parts of my body while she groped my chest and ran a hand through her hair with her free hand. This went on for another few minutes until whatever Keith Sweat album she had playing in the CD player came to an end.

Normally this would be some sort of a seduction, a great lead-in to sex on the couch, the kitchen table, the counter, and any other relatively clutter-free surface, but that had already taken place on our last date. Still, for some reason she thought it was still part of the routine this early into whatever type of relationship you wanted to term this thing.

(more…)

The phone rang far too early, during the fleeting moments when the body knows it will soon be roused and yet manages somehow to get its best sleep. Those moments when REM cycles flash at a feverish pitch and the mind concocts visions both real and make believe. It was early enough that it was still dark outside, but presumably late enough for my phone to be ringing. I let it go a few times before reaching an arm out from under the covers to retrieve it.

“Mmm mmm,” I mumbled.

“We have a problem,” said a nervous voice on the other end. It was Vanessa, the bride-to-be who was getting married in only a matter of hours.

I shot up in my bed half expecting to find lying next to me one of Vanessa’s bridesmaids or a visiting relative from Australia who I’d scurried off to my room during the alcohol-filed haze of the previous night. Seeing nobody, I felt around the blankets and bedspreads to confirm the visual before responding. (more…)

After sharing numerous glances from across the room, Cowgirl decided to make her move. Perhaps she wasn’t entirely grossed out by the way my eyes tirelessly poured over her body, sizing her up for the vixen I’d made her out to me in my mind. She calmly pushed a few in her path out of the way as she slinked towards my side of the room where I relaxed on a couch next to some random guy whose girl was perched on the couch’s arm as she balanced her weight delicately on his shoulder while whispering lewd comments in his ear, comments just loud enough for me to hear. Every so often she would pull back from the hand she had cupped over his ear and gauge me for a reaction. I smiled as fake a smile as I could muster. (more…)

The previous day I had run into some former co-workers I shared job duties with at Chiat/Day advertising, one of whom – a wallflower named Amy – had always captured my attention despite her rather plain appearance and demeanor. There was something undeniable below her surface, a frightened girl at odds with her smoldering sexuality. I’d always thought there might be a way to flip the internal switch on Amy and reveal the woman inside who she kept walled up, but I had a self-imposed rule about not dating co-workers. Call it disaster aversion; the last thing I needed given my speed dating style was to be in an office filled with exes. But now that I no longer worked there I was free to pursue whatever course Amy was willing to take, and when I ran into her at Starbucks I leapt at the opportunity to ask her out for the following night to dinner, something simple, something I could ease her into. Amy’s type couldn’t be rushed, as it would only cause her to retreat further behind the wall she put up. She would have to be calmed coaxed and moved along at a comfortable rate. Amy wasn’t long for the Los Angeles social scene and its parties, clubs, or long rosters of dateable people. She was very un-L.A, unlike myself. We were from two different worlds. (more…)