Like a Puppet on a String

I had a number (albeit a small number) of "no-strings" sexual relationships with women after Samantha and I broke up two years ago. Typically, they worked out pretty well, and by "pretty well" I mean that I got laid and I didn't go through a bunch of trouble to do it. More than half the time in these relationships it ended on less agreeable terms for the girl involved, despite my important qualifier "I'm not looking for anything serious right now."

The last of these relationships was with a girl I wrote about previously, who I call Cynthia. Cynthia was alright-looking, but certainly not anything I would have let through the gate in the long term. She was pretty flirty, and although I didn't think she was too smart or interesting, she liked The Beatles, which gave her bonus points. We met at the restaurant I had been working at, and despite the fact that I was moving to the other side of the world in just over a week, she was showing all the signs, and after we had a drink one night after work, we went back to her place to "watch a movie". Imagine my surprise when we actually did watch a movie, and that movie was Breakfast at Tiffany's. When the movie was over, it was about 4:30 a.m., and I was just about ready to call it a night. Instead, we started making out somehow, and she asked me if I wanted to stay over. So we jumped into bed, and were on the road to Humpsville, when I asked her if she was sure that she wanted to do this, since I was leaving. Hey, I wanted a clear conscience, OK?

Anyway, she told me that part of her willingness to do it in the first place was the fact that I was leaving--she didn't want anything serious right now, either. That was enough reassurance for me, and we went on to do it twice that night. After it was over, she told me, and I am not making this up, that

"That was incredible. You are fucking incredible."

I took the compliment, and we ended up doing it something like nine times in the seven days before I left.

There's something about certain girls that just makes me want to show off, like "See what you think about this!" and then do some move that she's never experienced before. For whatever reason, every time I tried something new, it just happened to be one of her buttons, and it reportedly rocked her world.

When I left, I left with the understanding that we were effectively finished with each other, and it was kind of like a mutual "Well, thanks for that. See you around," kind of thing. When I got to New Zealand, I got the occasional e-mail from her, and I kept her updated on my travels. Imagine my surprise when I heard from a friend who told me that she'd been spreading filthy, slanderous lies all around my former place of work.

It seems that she'd begun sleeping with a different guy at the restaurant, and was telling people that he was way better in bed than I was, and that his dick was way bigger than mine. I was pretty surprised, to be honest. I mean, maybe he is way better in bed than I am, and if he is, then hats off to him. I know that it's popular to be self-deprecating about penis size, but in this arena I feel pretty confident--I had serious doubts that this guy was beating me. Either way my feelings were that if he is, then goodie for him, he's the cream of the crop. But why would you go around telling people that?

"The whole thing was a fucking charity case in the first place!" I exclaimed after my friend told me what he heard through the grapevine.

"It's pretty stupid," he said.

Strangely, I got an e-mail from her that same day. Nothing special, just your basic how's it going question-and-answer thing. I should have just ignored it. I should have just left it alone. I should have, but I didn't. Instead I wrote back with this (and here's where I begin to self-deprecate):

. . . Speaking of comments, word sure travels fast, doesn't it? Even as far as New Zealand, it seems. I suppose it's none of my business if you sleep with ____, and to be honest, I think it's just fine. What IS my business, however, is a strange rumor circulating about how he's MUCH better in bed than I am, and that his dick is MUCH bigger than mine. For argument's sake, I'll assume this is true. (Obviously it's your opinion on whether or not he's better in bed than I am, and if his dick actually is bigger than mine I guess he should be awarded some kind of certificate or something.) Why would you feel the need to go out of your way to tell people that? Were you, for some reason, upset with me? Did you just want to stroke ____'s ego? (These are all rhetorical questions, by the way. Don't feel like you should answer them.) I suppose people have their reasons for doing things, and I'm sure you have yours. Maybe it was something said in confidence to someone that just ended up getting around. Maybe you meant it with malicious intent. In general it just seems petty and immature.

If and only if both or either statement ISN'T true, then you almost certainly said it with malicious intent, in which case, stop slandering my good name around, you lying bitch.

As I read it now, I shudder with embarrassment. It was as if I knew that even mentioning it was just asking to be made a fool of, but I couldn't stop myself. It was like I had some kind of sick destiny to play the role of the guy who was supposed to be angry that a girl he slept with was talking about his sexual prowess in a negative light. I really didn't care. I just couldn't help it.

From there, we went on a brief back-and-forth in which she denied ever saying any such things, and blamed it on a mutual friend who frequently pulled mean-spirited but usually-hilarious pranks not unlike this one. For a brief moment, I believed her, and thought that it could have been a misunderstanding--until it was later confirmed by three other people who would have no reason to lie about it. I gave up and ignored her subsequent attempts to rectify the situation.

There really is no such thing as no-strings sex.