San Francisco Stories - Part II, Story 1 - Don't Fall in Love

"So I will see you on Saturday?" She asked.

"Maybe." His answer was less than certain.

"Why?" She inquired.

"Because, don't you think it's too much, twice in a week. We set such a precedent, and everything after that will be downhill. I don't want you to get bored of me." He stated.

"Beside, you are coming over to sleep over next week. We will see each other next week." He continued.

He counted the days between this visit and the proposed upcoming Saturday visit. It would have only been four days. It's too soon. He didn't want to be that soon.

"Call me on Saturday day." He suggested. He was not sure whether she should see him, but made concession.

“Why not? I would be traveling soon. I just want to have sex." She was being frank. Her weekend was fully booked. She would be in his neighborhood later that evening. A stop would be ideal and convenient.

"I know what you mean. You already told me. The averaging math. I just don't want to overdo it." He continued.

She looked at him. Then she touched his face with both of her hands.

"I understand. You are right. I won't be seeing you on Saturday. You are right." She said.

This time, she was determined and was not going to renegotiate. She knew how to pick her battles. She didn't want him to see her as a needy, demanding woman. She appreciated his honesty. She understood a man should not be pushed. She did not want to become THAT woman.

THAT woman = a woman a man get bored of easily, the cliche.  She wanted him to want her. And she had learned from her prior relationship that as a woman, the more you pushed, the less he wanted you. You were only wanted when you were no longer available.  That seems to be the formula. It never failed.

He looked surprised. Her resolve unsettled him. It was as if by her agreeing with him, he all of sudden wanted her to see her on Saturday. She knew that. She knew that against her instinct, she must withdraw or she’d risk becoming a cliche, THAT woman. She was THAT woman once, when she was with B.

Earlier in the evening, they sat on the bench, where they first met, hand holding hand.

He said, “When I was younger, I got burned. I learned that women don’t want men to give into their demands. If men do, then the women would lose respect. If the men treat them like toys, they seem to want them more. It’s like a wolf pack thing. You don't want to roll over. Women don’t want men to roll over.  It’s just a slight twist in women’s mind. I do treat women like sex toys. I think of them as sex toys. But I can like them too. I like you, for instance.” 

She smiled.  

He liked her. He also wanted her. She’s new. She’s brand new. Everything about her was new to him.

She asked about his relationships. Past ones. Present ones. The booty caller. The girl who he saw on occasion. Now, and recently. He saw her when he got horny. A girl who was once his neighbor. A white woman. Some miscellaneous white woman. When he was with his last girlfriend, the German, the booty caller came knocking on his door one night, all drunk and upset. She wanted to see his other woman, the German. And he finally gave in and she stumbled into his house, went to see his girlfriend, who was lying in his bed, all naked, under the cover, and told her how he was bad for her. How she should not trust him. How she’d get hurt eventually by him. It was a scene.

The German and the drunken American woman from San Francisco. Fighting over him.

She laughed. Visualizing that scene. She then said, “I’d like to meet your booty caller. She sounded interesting. I wouldn’t mind meeting her at all. And if she tells me that you are not good for me, I’d agree with her. I’d tell her that of course you are not good for me. Of course not. You are terrible for me.”

“Yes, I think you are right. You two may even get along.” He looked at her. Squeezing her hand. And then he sat quietly with her on the bench.

“I met you here, on this bench I sat. You came over to talk to me.” She recalled their first meeting.

“I liked talking to you. You were interesting. I also liked your necklace.” He remembered it too. She was attractive and he was interested. The night was slow and she was sitting still, not animated like the rest of the crowd. She seemed, either bored or just stoned.

He told her earlier about his other girlfriends. He dated smart professor types. Women who were significantly younger than he was. She was in fact the oldest one he’s dated in a while. He liked them young. He was a lookist.  

Lookist: n. Someone who liked to look at women and is only turned on by good looking women.

He always appreciated women who were attractive, and smart. Women liked him. He was rather smart, and good looking. They went after him. He knew that. He was good with women. She learned that quickly. She learned that she fit his type. And men who were like him, fit her type.

Men who were players, not the jockey type of players, but those quiet ones, the ones who were smart, kinky, sexual and adventurous, they  were the hardest to find. They would appear to be almost too good to be true. They knew how to please women, yet they were intelligent and not at all demanding. They knew how to play the game. She knew. She’s fallen into those traps too.

Later in the evening she learned more about his stories. His love stories. He said that he didn’t mind her interrogating him. He knew she wanted to know about his past to learn about his pattern. He made it clear that it was okay for her to be with other men, and they’d just hang out until they no longer wanted to hang out with one another. There was no obligation or any type of emotional attachment. He didn’t want it to be a committed relationship. He told her that he was not there emotionally. Wherever "there" it was. He couldn’t do relationships.

The last two girlfriends, the German and then the Dutch, had spent years with him each, separately. They spent lots of times together, until he got tired. And he wished for them to move out, and engineered for their exits. And they did. They did leave him. And he was happier as a result.

He was fucking her. The way he fucked was different than other guys. He started slow, slow but steady rhythmic, he talked all the time, he expected her to be engaged in these conversations.  In the middle of the fucking, he decided that he should look at her. So he did. He was looking at her face, staring, turning her from one side to another, and then he sighed, “You are intoxicating. You have a beautiful face. You are hypnotic.” She tried to cover her face. He held her down in one hand and grabbed her long brown hair with the other hand, and stared at her as he made the above conclusion.  She was shy one moment and then she regained her composure.  She returned his stare and said, “Sure I am. You say that to every girl you bed.”

He did not want to argue. She did not know if she was right, or he thought she was too jaded. Either way it did not matter. Sex was a lei surly activity, which he engaged in with her, and she knew that she was attractive in a sexual, erotic way, unlike his other women, who were smart, down to earth, and dressed like normal, good women, she did not. She only came to see him in dresses, seductive dresses that were not appropriate for workplaces, in those incredibly sexy high heels only high end call girls wore, she wore her long hair loose, curvy at times, and mostly straight, she was dressed as if she was going out for the evening, when in fact she was going to be undressed and fucked in his place. She never wanted it to be ordinary. She wanted him to see her as a call girl, someone whom he had to pay money for. She didn’t want her to be remembered as an ordinary woman. She wanted him to feel aroused the moment she walked in, in her six-inch heels. He liked that. She knew he’d like it. ALL men liked that.

She was a kind and thoughtful woman. She always brought a bottle of wine, sometimes treats, and other times gifts that only he would appreciate. Gadgets. She was always generous to the person who she was involved with. But only if they impressed her. She only did sweet things to those who deserved her kindness and engaged her intellectually.

She brought him presents. Presents that made him giddy with joy, like a little boy. She knew what he wanted. She gave him exactly what he wanted. She knew him. She knew his type. She knew them like the back of her hand because she dated many of them.  She had a type. The type liked her back. It was a symbiotic relationship.

When it was over, he wanted to talk. He enjoyed talking - before, during and after. He loved to talk to her. From Russians getting beaten up by the Fins on skis and white coats during WWII, to Norwegian's WWII shipwreck diving sites. It started when he told her about his second to the last girlfriend, the Dutch, left him to move to Helsinki for a tenured position job at an university, and how he didn’t want to move with her to Finland, to leave San Francisco, thus ending their three year long cohabiting relationship, and how he was relieved, to his surprise, when she finally left with a man she met with him at Burning Man. She was a pretty girl, who was young, smart and wanted to get married and have kids. She taught at Stanford, where he worked. He worked on her for six months, nearly every lunch every day, before she finally became his girlfriend, then they lived together for three years.That seemed like a good story. A man who decided to keep his bachelor lifestyle, giving up an exciting future in Scandinavia with his Dutch girlfriend, a professor on an tenure track.

He meant to impress her. She thought, by throwing Stanford around. He should know that she dated men with pedigrees. Stanford did not make to that list. He asked if she was interested in coming to visit him at work, on campus.
  
She said, "No, I don't do Stanford." He asked, "Why?"

"I have a history with that school. I dated a man. He was a John Knight Fellow. I was terribly in love with him. He broke my heart, I was 22, he was 39. I then dated him on and off, on a casual basis, until he moved back to New York. Then he moved back and lived in North Beach until September 2010. He moved back east again, this time for good." She paused. Then she continued, more talking to herself at this point, "I knew, because I googled him. He's the only person I ever consciously googled."

He laughed. He said, "You must be really hot when you were 22. Have you done it in his office, on campus?"  She corrected him by saying that the 39 year old man never had an office, he was doing a fellowship, not teaching, not like his ex girlfriend, a beautiful, smart Dutch woman who was actually teaching there.

But then she realized the boyfriend she had when she was 22, was then holding a powerful job in New York, and he also taught college. He taught at the graduate school of Journalism at Cal. That she knew because they were finally Linkedin.

Then came the German, a "technically" married woman, who also left him to move back to Germany, and how relived he felt when she finally took off.

She asked questions. And then she listened. He said that he nearly had a threesome experience, with this bisexual young stripper he was dating, but then he met the German and they got together so he had to break up with the stripper. Six months after the break up, the German moved back into his place because she had a terrible injury and he was the one she called. She was an artist, and did not know many people. So he took care of her, like her nurse, and then when she recovered, he couldn't wait for her to leave. He didn't like people living in his place. He wanted his space, alone.

When that story was over, she said, “Well, you missed out. You see, every relationship ends. You should never put your eggs in one basket. You should have done the threesome with the stripper and her girlfriend, and kept on seeing your German.”

He nodded his head. "Yes, you are right. I should have.”

She mentioned about a club that she belonged to, the hosts threw wide parties in his neighborhood, orgies and swinger parties, you name it, they’ve got it. But based on the participants in the past, he might not find anyone particularly attractive there. However, he agreed to try it sometime with her.

She was happy, “Great. It’s a date. All the guys I dated in the past didn’t want to do that with me. What’s the big deal, really?”

She knew he couldn’t figure her out. She was kind, successful, pretty, sexy, sexual, erotic, caring, and smart. She had traveled to many parts of the world, had her own money, and she was the relationship kind, but she did not seem to want a relationship. A man recently came into her orbit called her a walking conundrum.

To him, she was his intriguing supergirl. She wanted to keep it that way. To have a persona that was both distant and affectionate; caring and nonchalant. Perhaps she was a walking conundrum. 

It was late and she got up to leave. He wanted her to stay but she had not ever wanted to do that. He knew not to push her.  She wanted to stay but she didn't want it to become a real relationship. The only person she ever spent evenings with on a semi regular basis, was the person she fell in love with. And look where that ended up. A fucking mess. She's not going to do that again, not soon anyway. But he did not know that. He needed not to know that.

“Good night. I will see you next week. I will stay over then.” She said. As if to assure him that it was okay to not see each other on Saturday.

He kissed her tenderly, as if to tell her that he was regretting his decision to not see her on Saturday night.

She had removed her dress and put back on her business suit. He squeezed her tight. 

She caressed his face with her delicate hands, and she said, “Promise me, don’t fall in love with me.”