For a very long time men made me miserable—in all the usual ways. There was nothing remarkable about what they put me through. They would act confused and surprised when I assumed we were in a relationship, because we were doing all the things you do in one. My friends would find their shitty profiles on dating apps. They would tell me they were in open relationships when they weren’t; I would somehow believe and fuck them every time. A couple men here and there, presumably for maximum shock factor, would threaten to kill me, and they really seemed to hate it when I laughed.
Eventually I vowed that someday I would meet a man and punish him for all the ways his predecessors made me miserable. Make him as miserable as they all made me. And then I met my boyfriend. He described himself to me as a golden retriever because he’s loyal and sweet, and I thought to myself that if you’re stupid and boring you could just say so. But I didn’t say that out loud because it would be a really bitchy thing to say. And if I did say it then he might even ask me what right do I have to call anyone boring? But I think I have every right. I think I’m more interesting than god.
I fantasize about cheating on my golden retriever boyfriend all the time—with men who would probably self-describe as bloodhounds, or lone wolves, or lions, or whatever the sexiest animals are. Maybe I’m into bestiality. But I don’t actually start cheating on him until my solo trip through Europe one summer.
There is a funny guy I meet at a pub in Paris. He mostly speaks French, speaks only broken English, but refuses to speak French to me on principle. In any case, it turns out he’s funny because he’s depressed. The same-old story. We go back to his flat and he can’t stay hard. Either he finds me hideously ugly or he’s on Zoloft. So, he eats me out for the better part of an hour. It’s the least he can do for me, for all the labor I’ve put in by that point. Like worker’s compensation. At some point we switch places; I suck his dick, nearly choke on it, an awful coughing fit like that of a truck driver spitting up gravel tears through my delicate form. He runs out of his room, to his kitchen, returns with a fistful of cough drops for me. You’re so funny, I tell him.
Next I go to Milan. I do some research on Reddit. Milan is supposed to be one of the only cities in Europe where they take their jobs seriously and going to work on a consistent basis is relatively normal. Milan is boring and beautiful. I walk aimlessly until I find myself feeding birds at the city center. I’m wearing a tiny sundress and it doesn’t take long to attract another man, this one not at all shy to speak in his mother tongue, to shower me in Italian words and saliva. I understand as much as I need to understand.
It occurs to me at a certain point as I lie on my back on his couch and he heaves on top of me that he could fuck me all night if he wanted to. He has been pumping away inside me for who knows how long by now, and it was nice enough until a certain point. Now I’m aching, straining the very functionality of my vagina. I try exaggerating my moans to turn him on more, to coax him past the finish line. Nothing happens. I ask him what he wants, what I can do for him. He doesn’t understand my questions. Instead he turns me this way and that, from the side, the back, missionary again but this time he gathers my legs around his head, my ankles clank against his neck like chains. I’m indifferent to these changes and eventually so is he. He never finishes. He yawns and settles beside me. I’m struck by a feeling of failure that surprises me.
“How do you say,” he begins, but trails off. He pauses, thinks, really thinks, finally says, “Medicine. Side effect.” When he falls asleep I find his prozac in the bathroom. I wonder for a moment what his troubles are, but deem it rude to wake him up and ask. As I sneak out of his apartment, I take mental note: Prozac can make it hard for a man to finish.
I’m steadily acquiring encyclopedic knowledge of the impacts of different medications and antidepressants on men’s dicks.
In Amsterdam, I meet a group of women who seem to be my age in the Red Light District, and they like me because I’m pretty but not beautiful. We do an assortment of drugs in one of their studio apartments. One of them lends me an ill-fitting leather jacket that she stole from her ex-boyfriend who rides motorcycles—or rode motorcycles. He’s either dead or alive, she’s not sure.
I lose the jacket at some point in a crowded club, our third stop of the night. Under the manic and desperately cliche strobe light, our eyes meet, me and some boringly handsome man. He reminds me of an actor who would play a high school student and piss off critics, they would say he doesn’t look like a high school student. “Too sexy,” they would complain, disgusted. Vampire Diaries, Pretty Little Liars, Euphoria, something like that. I pull out my phone and google Jacob Elordi, cross reference their faces. He and I sustain eye contact from different parts of the room for long enough. Eventually, I follow him toward the bathroom, watch him slide the security guard posted in front of the door a wad of cash, enough to buy us five minutes undisturbed. In the bathroom, unmolested by the strobe, he looks more human, prettier, somehow, and I feel a flash of irritation when I realize how easy his life must be. But we don’t have much time so I get over it.
He’s soft in my hand; he hardens in my mouth. He pulls me up, spins me with surprising force. My hand is the only thing that stops my face from slamming into the bathroom wall. I tell him that we have to hurry. We haven’t spoken to each other yet, so I realize he may not even know English, but he seems to understand. My back still turned to him, I feel him push inside me.
“Hurry,” I repeat. It turns out he doesn’t need my guidance. He comes almost immediately. And it turns out he speaks English well enough. “Lexapro,” he says.
He ejaculates on my lower back, on my skin, on the unwitting pink chiffon of my miniskirt. He makes a show of pretending to try to clean it but doesn’t really. He wipes some of it on his fingers, slides his fingers in my mouth, waits for me to swallow, and I do. After all, I don’t want him to hate me or, worse, think I’m uncool. Semi-apologetically, he offers me a bump of something. I accept this apology with my left nostril, then follow him outside, and we part ways.
I find one of the girls I came here with who saw me and him go to the bathroom together. “Do you think he looked like Jacob Elordi?” I yell to her over the loud, awful music. “What?” she yells back. I repeat myself. She frowns, says, “Um,” which I know means no, and that enrages me. “Yes, he did,” I yell indignantly, “he did look like Jacob Elordi.” I show her a picture on my phone. “Um,” she says again.
We find the other girls and leave. I fall asleep on one of their couches, angry, indignant. I dream about Jacob Elordi.
The escapades continue, the whole time I text my boyfriend pictures of what I’m eating and ask him how his day is going. His day is always good, which irks me, but I take comfort in knowing someday I’ll be the reason his day is bad.
In Brussels, I meet a man, freshly divorced, insistent that he isn’t looking for a relationship, he isn’t looking for a commitment, he sputters out 50 other things he isn’t looking for. At a certain point I wonder if he’s looking for a woman at all. Are you looking for a woman at all, I ask. He acts wildly offended by the question, insists he’s not a “fag.” His English is awful but he knows that word, at least. He strikes me as naive, infantile, someone who doesn’t know the market rate for things, so I convince him I’m a highly skilled prostitute and walk away with what translates to 5,000 USD for the night, which I read later on Reddit is a massive overcharge. He could barely even fuck me, he’d done so much cocaine.
I get back to New York the next day. In my head I plan the reveal, how I’ll break my cheating to my golden retriever boyfriend. I could show him sexts, I could show him videos, I could show him dick pics. I picture his face contorted in misery and laugh. I wonder if this is what it felt like for all the men I dated before him, if it felt this good to hurt me. I open the door to my boyfriend’s apartment and immediately walk in on him fucking a girl on his couch. Doggy style. He really is a golden retriever.
