“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks. “You’re just jealous. You’re a jealous little boy who doesn’t want to share his plaything.”
“She’s not a plaything,” I snap. “You know what? Why don’t I just take you home? Tonight’s turning to shit in a real hurry.”
“You’re telling me,” she says. “Why don’t you call me when your fucking balls drop?”
“Oh, fuck off,” I tell her. “Every time I don’t want to go along with your psycho bullshit, you talk like it’s because I’m not a real man. News flash: it’s because you’re out of your goddamned mind.”
“News flash? What is this, the 70s?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Just drop me off here,” she says. “By the way, it’s bullshit that I can’t smoke in here.”
“It’s a rental car!” I shout.
“Why would you rent a car anyway? It’s such a waste of money in the city.”
Ah, the age-old male dilemma: do I blow the whole thing up by telling her I was trying to take her out on something that resembled an actual date, or do I lie and figure out a way to make up with her so we can keep having sex?
“I wanted tonight to be special,” I tell her.
What the hell am I doing? I decided on the lie.
“Special? Giving you a knob bob in the parking lot of a baseball stadium is your idea of a special night?”
“I wanted to take you to the game,” I tell her. “I was trying to take you out on a date.”
“Pull the fucking car over,” she says.
This isn’t the easiest task where we are in the Bronx this time of night.
“I told you I didn’t want any of that,” she says. “You crossed the line, Dane. Let me out!”
“What? You’re going to catch a cab back to Manhattan right now?” I ask, finally managing to double-park.
“Don’t call me,” she says. “Don’t come by. Stay out of my life, you fucking freak.”
With that, she throws her door open and gets out of the car.
She’s hailing a cab by lifting her shirt. It works well enough, but the woman is fucking insane.
When she gets in the cab, she doesn’t get in the back, but the front seat. At least I know she’s getting home safe as I pull back into my lane and drive off. I just wished I’d spared myself the glance in the mirror, seeing her head dipping below the dashboard.
A few weeks ago, I would have told you that Wrigley was the perfect woman for me: no worries about monogamy, a little crazy, insatiable. Now, though. I don’t know.
There’s got to be something more to it than that.
I can’t believe that I’ve actually grown bored of a woman with a sex drive higher than mine.
I know I’m paying by the mile, but I drive around the city for a while. Most of the time, it’s stoplight after stoplight, waiting for that shade of green that means I can drive free for the next couple hundred feet before I have to stop again.
Every once in a while, though, I hit a few green lights in a row, and I start to let things go. I start to forget all the nonsense.
It never lasts.
I couldn’t tell you what brought me here now, but as I’m pulling into the parking lot of l’Iris for the very first time in a car driven under my own power, I know where I’m going. For the first time in a long time, I know where I’m going.
I’m through the back door and standing outside Jim’s office before anyone sees me.