Then because he had not gotten his fill of debasement, perhaps, he grabs one of our empty beer bottles and penetrates me. I don’t say no. I am not forced. But it is bleak, man. I would say the whole experience feels like a “consensually abusive” romp.
“I don’t want to date you,” I tell him eventually. “This is over.”
“Well,” says Carlos, always the master troll, “if I shoot myself in the head two months from now, it is not because of you.”
I shake my head and leave. He follows me for a little bit, but eventually, I lose him.
I WISH I could say that all these twisted and depraved sexual misadventures were wake-up calls for me. But no, all they do is make me wax nostalgic for my days as the secret girlfriend to a rich dude whose biggest relationship skill was in wasting a few years of my thirties. How the hell is Blaine anyway? On a whim, when Fashion Week rolls around, I invite him to a big supermodel party at Rose Bar. I don’t want to date him again. But I think that looking in his eyes will remind me of a simpler, depressing-for-totally-different-reasons time not so long ago.
When I spot Blaine across the room, I make my usual nightmare-grade inappropriate small talk (“Hey, guess what, I tried cocaine for the first time!”), and all the while proceed to slam down martini after martini. I find him boring, and I want to make sure he knows that. So as Blaine watches, I begin to flirt with everyone in the immediate vicinity—his friends, the caterers, my coworkers, gay men just trying to get out of my way—until eventually the night kind of blurs out. But I do have the photographic evidence to document what happens next. Because I go home with an actual photographer.
We apparently go to several more bars that night in which I pose and smile with empty dead eyes and duck face. The next morning, I come to consciousness again. I didn’t fall asleep this time. I was just—not there at all—even though I seemed like I was.
When I realize that this photographer is fucking me without a condom, my stomach turns.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I say, and race to the bathroom and begin vomiting.
As I’m puking my guts out, Garth the photographer compliments me all the while.
“I don’t think you realize how hot you are,” he says, which just makes me puke even more. “I’m never going to wash my fingers again.”
When I finally lift my head off the toilet, I tell him why I got so drunk, how stupid I am, how I invited Blaine to the party, and apparently all of this makes a very memorable impression. Because, I kid you not, a few days later, Garth texts me a picture—of Blaine. Garth runs into him at some socialite party he’s covering, and somehow, Garth puts two and two together that Blaine is the ex I told him about in between vomit takes.
“I told him I was shooting for Gawker,” Garth explains via text, “and he said he had a friend who had an ongoing battle with them who writes for the Post. To extrapolate, he mentioned your name, and I said we met once.”
God, how I love the coded message of man speak. “A friend.” “We met once.” So good.
But I have to be honest, I do kind of love that Blaine can’t help but bring me up at parties. I know him well enough to remember how he was always bragging about famous or interesting people he knew when he got a little bit of a buzz on.
That means I won, right? I’m now the girl he can’t help bring up when he’s tipsy. I rule.
But the next day, Garth sends me one final update. It turns out one of the pictures Garth snapped of Blaine at this benefit for the preservation of money or whatever the hell it was is now going to be published—on fucking Gawker. The gossip site that used to write about my column all the time and that Blaine lived in terror of being outed on.
“So I emailed Blaine to tell him he was in one of the shots,” Garth texts me, “and he asked me not to mention you. Nice guy, yeah.”
You know that feeling when you think you have finally achieved amazing washboard abs but then it turns out someone has actually sucker punched you in the stomach? That’s how I feel. So. Much. Ouch.
Of all the symbolic interactions I’ve had with Blaine, this one beats them all. Fucking Blaine brings me up. Fucking Blaine mentions me. Then fucking Blaine begs the fucking photographer he mentioned me to in the first place to “please please please don’t say I dated Mandy Stadtmiller.” Good God, man, stop being so afraid of life.
And me? Maybe I should start being a little more afraid of it.
Because I’m freaked out I woke up with this photog rando who wasn’t using a condom, I make the necessary Plan B purchase, but I also decide I need to make some kind of change. I know what I need to do, obviously. Stop drinking. So that’s what I resolve to do. It’s not like I have to go to some depressing AA meeting or anything. I’m not some weirdo alcoholic. I’ll just . . . stop. On my own. I’ve done it before.
Not too long after Gawker runs their beautiful non-Mandy-associated photo of Blaine, I get an email from him out of the blue. I’ve just written a groundbreaking feature on the “hot new trend” of threesomes, and what do you know, Blaine read the piece.
“Was reading the Post at the gym today, nice article on 3sums,” he writes. “How are things going, what are you wearing for Halloween?”
What am I wearing? I want to punch my fist into the computer screen. That’s what the fuck I’m wearing. Instead, I write a terse passive-aggressive reply: “I’m wearing a costume
