A Year to Remember(39)
“Caleb is romantic and smart and compassionate. We visit art museums and the theater and debate politics and religion. He already knows and can tolerate my crazy family. But when I’m with him, I don’t have any urge to jump him, if you know what I mean. I enjoy kissing him. I don’t have any yearning to go any further with him. We don’t have a passionate relationship. It’s comfortable and easy, like I am with you, only with kissing. He stimulates my mind, but not my body.”
“Well, maybe, that’s because you haven’t done anything other than kiss. Maybe, if you made love, you’d find the passion you’ve been missing,” she advised.
Even though I had surpassed the four-date rule with each of them and I could technically have sex with them, I couldn’t sleep with two guys. I had limited our physical relations to kissing and heavy petting over the clothes only. This way, I didn’t feel like a slut.
“I haven’t made love with Ryan, but I want to. God, I want to. With him, it’s passionate and hot and sexy. Most dates we don’t say more than hello before we’re grinding on my couch. When we try and have a conversation, it doesn’t go very well. I know he has a degree in marketing and he’s bartending in between jobs, but he doesn’t seem to know a lot about the world. For example, I asked him his opinion of the United States’ lack of involvement in Darfur and he asked me why our country needed to meddle in the fur industry when it keeps people warm.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” She laughed and slapped her hand on the table.
I shook my head. “Honest to God. He’s not very bright. Caleb stimulates my mind and Ryan stimulates my you-know-what. I’m so horny after he leaves, I feel like I’m going to explode. It’s not an old wives’ tale by the way. Cold showers really do work.”
“What’s more important to you?”
That is the question isn’t it? If I could merge the two of them into one man, I’d have everything I’ve ever wanted. I want someone to challenge me, someone to comfort me, and someone to ignite all my passions, both physically and emotionally. If I want to get married by my thirtieth birthday, I had to choose between Caleb and Ryan soon.
“Caleb isn’t Jewish, either. I’m worried it eventually will become a problem.” I sighed.
“Decisions, decisions,” Missy teased.
“Why can’t you make the decision for me?”
“No one can make that decision except you. You know that.”
Of course she was right. I knew it intellectually.
“I’m not going to make any decisions tonight. Tonight we’re going to meet up with Jill and the girls and watch men shake their booties for us. Not your cup of tea I know, but you’ll still have a good time making fun of us putting dollar bills down the stripper’s pants, right?”
Jill had grown up in the same neighborhood as Missy and me. We went to school together from kindergarten through twelfth grade. We were never best friends with her, but we still hung out with the same crowd. The smart but not valedictorian smart, social but not popular, Jewish crowd. We had been to each other’s birthday parties, bat mitzvahs, and graduation parties. Now that she was getting married, Missy and I got invited to her wedding showers and her bachelorette party and of course, her wedding next weekend.
As of now, I hadn’t chosen a date for the wedding even though I had RSVP’d for it plus one. I couldn’t decide between Caleb and Ryan, but I was leaning toward Ryan because he’s a lot of fun, gorgeous, and Jewish, so I could show him off. I just had to make sure he didn’t talk to anyone.
Tonight, Jill’s close friends had arranged her bachelorette party at a strip club in Windsor, Canada, which was only a half hour away from our neighborhood.
Since we turned nineteen, we’d often crossed the border to partake of the lower drinking age, cheaper drinks, and the strip club that catered to heterosexual women. We used to visit the strip club all the time when we were younger. I hadn’t been back to it in eight years, but I had to admit, I hoped for a wild and crazy night. I needed to forget all of my problems. Maybe, my answer would come to me tonight, when I least expected it.
One thing I hadn’t counted on feeling at the strip club was old.
But I did.
For the first hour, we drank watered down long island ice tea and giggled over the various penises on display. The hotter the guy, the more muscles he flaunted, the bigger the shlong he possessed, the louder we’d hoot and holler. We saw the male appendages of practically every race, creed, and culture, both circumcised and uncircumcised. It was obviously an equal opportunity establishment.