Toby
One Month Later
Not enough meat on her, I concluded. She was beautiful, very beautiful, that was the reason why I was talking to her, and I would never tell her to her face that her body was in any way lacking, it wasn’t. It was more my preference that wasn’t being met.
She was tall, almost as tall as me in her heels. Her dress was low-cut, and her breasts were fantastic. Her legs must’ve made up half of her height. She was stunning and I was going to be a lucky man to take her home tonight, but that was only if she met my requirements.
“So, you have a backup plan?” I asked her. She wrinkled her nose; an action I was surprised she was able to make since I figured she had probably had some injections done.
“Backup plan? Backup for what?”
“Just in case the modeling thing doesn’t work out. Do you have a plan B?”
She laughed, she laughed so hard that she tipped her head back and I had to grab her midsection. “What if the modeling doesn’t work out? Of course, it’s gonna work out! Have you seen me?”
I had. It seemed like she had all the ingredients to be successful. She was a pretty brunette with long legs and that was more or less all she needed. I was just trying to help her give her a reason to keep me in the conversation. I thought she would surprise me by telling me that she had gotten a degree in computer science and intended to have that as a day job while she pursued modeling. Or maybe she had a passion for cooking and she wanted to run a catering company on the side as she modeled. Something like that. Something to make her just a tiny bit more engaging than every other woman like her in the city.
The real reason why she wouldn’t need a plan B, even if she did fail to make it in the ultracompetitive modeling world was that women who looked like her had absolutely no problem finding wealthy benefactors to fund their lifestyles when they weren’t getting paid off of modeling. I was no chump. I knew that that was the reason she was talking to me. The reason I didn’t feel bad about it was that there was a specific reason I was talking to her too.
Not that I had enough information to truly judge her, but if I wasn’t wearing a Versace suit tonight, she wouldn’t be anywhere near me, and if she didn’t look like a Victoria’s Secret Angel, I probably wouldn’t be talking to her either. As soon as I knew that our desires weren’t in line, I was out. She’d find who she was looking for with or without me and so would I.
“Well you live in New York City; the opportunities are endless. Is there anything else you want to do or pursue?” I asked her. She rubbed her slim shoulders and gave me a little smile.
“No, not really. I feel like you have something in mind though, for me.” I had had something in mind. I was wondering how much conversation it would take to get her home with me, but my intentions had taken the steep nosedive. For all her beauty, she was just a little bit dull. Usually, that wasn’t an issue. I had been with plenty of dull but beautiful women, that type was a dime a dozen in the city but all of a sudden, it was a problem.
“Yeah… take care of yourself getting home tonight,” I said to her. I took out some bills to pay for her drink and ride home. She looked at me, confused.
“You’re leaving?”
Yes, I was. Turned out, it was her, not me. Not the fact that she was dull, she probably couldn’t help it and it wasn’t the way she looked either, she was gorgeous, but she wasn’t her. I made my way back outside. It had been like this for almost a month.
It was so weird; like I had lost my mojo or something. Heading out to a bar or club had been my routine after work for years now. A lot of the time I was looking for some company to join me for the night, but other times I just didn’t want to go directly home. Usually, I managed to take a different woman home every night. Like clockwork, if I ended up going home alone it was by choice and not from a lack of options.
Saying that I hadn’t been laid in a month was strange for me. At first, it didn’t bother me, but now it was. I had finally gotten to the bottom of it. I flagged down a cab and climbed into the back, giving the driver my address. Another night alone. I was mad about it, yeah, but more than that, I was a little confused.
The last person I brought home was the redhead. Missy’s assistant, Maggie. It was that night when Easton proposed and Maggie was the only person at the dinner party without a plus one. I had brought a date, but I ended up going home with her instead. What happened there was the most mind-blowing sexual experience of my life.
Somehow, by giving me my greatest lay in history, she had ruined everything. That was the problem. I was looking for her in every woman that I talked to now. The easy way around this was just to find her number and call her up. I could get it easily from Missy or Easton. If I played my cards right, I could have her at my penthouse tonight.
If only she was that accessible to me.
Our deal was one night only. When I had agreed to those terms, I hadn’t expected to be thinking about her now, almost a month later. Not to be callous, but generally, I didn’t have that problem. One-night stands where my modus operandi. I didn’t do relationships, I didn’t date women, and I made that very clear from the outset. I knew the way that I did things could get me some pretty negative labels, so I made sure everything was clear from the word go.
If a woman wanted more, I cut it off right there. She didn’t need to get her hopes up, and I didn’t need things to get messy. That had worked for me now for years. Was it the most efficient way to get things done? Well, the answer to that was complicated. In a city as densely populated as New York, it was literally impossible to be alone. I could see as many women as I could pick up, literally. The rush of having sex with somebody, especially a rotation of people made it so you didn’t feel that alone. You were always doing something, talking to someone, waking up to someone new.
This was the way it was going to have to be. I wasn’t going to do the other thing. Getting married and settling down just wasn’t for me. Even the long-term dating thing, moving in together and getting a dog; that wasn’t it either. My best friend of many years, Easton had just proposed to his girlfriend and I was happy for them. Maybe it was possible to be happily married, that was for Easton to find out, but I already knew the answer for me.
I trained my eyes outside the window as the cab moved down the road. I had had the conversation with so many women already. More so than the conversation, it was usually just them giving me a psychoanalysis I never asked for.
I was scared of commitment, I was scared of vulnerability, I didn’t want to appear weak, I didn’t want to risk giving anybody the upper hand on me by revealing my feelings.
It was all true but I didn’t know what they were trying to prove when they spelled it out for me. I wasn’t going to change my mind. I didn’t want to be vulnerable with anybody. I didn’t want to risk commitment. I had learned the hard way that love was not worth it. You gave away too much power and the person you gave it to had the power to destroy you whenever they wanted.
The story wasn’t mine, but it was my parents, which i
n a way made it worse. It all happened when I was in high school. My parents had met, and gotten married, and had me all in the span of two years. They were perfect for each other. I never saw them fight or even argue around me. They were always affectionate and told each other that they loved one another.
My dad suddenly leaving was as much of a shock to me as it was to my mother. She was the one who had to tell me, he had already left, fucking coward. All she told me was that he wasn’t happy and that he wasn’t going to be living with us anymore. When I was an adult, I learned that because of how fast everything had happened with my mother and my birth, he felt like he lost out on his youth. He decided, as a married man with a teenage son that he was going to relive it. He had a new girlfriend in a different part of the country, and around the time I was graduating, he and that woman ended up having a child.