A Bad Man in a Bad Place

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I got a direct message tweet from the 5′9 blond as I was on my way back from the Astoria beer garden saying that she was in my neighborhood and asking where I was. I got the tweet in my email, dutifully pressed the reply URL, and proceeded to direct message her back. I realized, seconds later, that I’d sent it from my Bad Man account instead of my regular daily life account. I immediately lost my mind, much to the chagrin of Legs who was sitting next to me.

“Oh fuck. I didn’t mean to do that.” I began to sweat. “She doesn’t know who I am. Oh christ.”

The subway, still above ground in Queens and moving slowly, gave me ample opportunity to freak out and try to cover my tracks. Until I realized that much like a misfired email, a twit, once sent, is gone.

I got a twit back to my real account. “Did you just DM me? Who the fuck is badmanbadplace.”

And then the train went underground.

I started pacing, and panicking. I told Legs that I needed to get off the train, that waiting was problematic, and that I didn’t know this woman well enough to know what the situation was going to be. I was minded of Philip Clark’s admonition to just stop bothering with the dual identities, but I wasn’t, and am not, ready for that yet. They’re more permissive in Canada, Philip. When we got out we caught a cab and I tried calling. No answer. So I texted, and while I was she left me a voicemail. The cab couldn’t move fast enough for me, and I discovered that she was at Café DeVille. I recognized the location, and the bar, but when I got there there were velvet ropes and a line. I put up with the indignity of them both in order to get in and see her, to explain.

I sat down and our conversation started off in the typical small talk vein, my heart pumping much faster than I wanted it to. We talked about the people who were there, the fact that this was a new development in this particular space and that I didn’t fit in in my “I’ve been rejected” t-shirt and jeans. I watched as women pointed and giggled at me and then showed it to the men they were with. I debated whether I thought they were laughing with or at me. I decided it didn’t matter, I was with a 5′9 blond and they were looking at me.

I turned the conversation quickly to my twitter account and revealed that I had a dark side, and an alter ego, and a dual identity. She took it well in stride, asked a few questions about it, and then seemed to mentally shrug her shoulders. It’s New York, everyone’s got secrets.

She asked what I was doing later and I told her I was likely going home, I’d been on my way home already and just stopped by to explain. “Why, do you want to come home with me?”

“No.”

“Ok.”

“But you should come home with me.” I laughed. Troy asked me once if I always hosted. I thought it was a strange question until I realized that yes, invariably, I host.

“How about I walk you to the bus and we take it from there?” She agreed.

We kissed at the bus stop, and I debated going home with her. From everything I gathered, she’s a very nice girl and kind of innocent, but then, in recent days my innocence meter has been reconfigured a bit. Perhaps she’s less innocent than I thought, but perhaps my days of innocence are entirely gone.

She told me, before her bus came, that if I wanted to come over, we wouldn’t have sex. That suited me fine. “I’m not currently sleeping with new people.” I wanted to say that I wasn’t accepting applicants, but that made me sound too much like a bank teller. Also, too much like a douchebag.

When the bus came, I got on it with her, up for an adventure as I often am, and we started to talk about things, like the fact that she professed a crush on me, and that I’d been with dozens more women than she’d been with men. I did wonder at this, revealing that one girl I know told me that she’d been with seven guys, and later revealed it was 12 if you counted the one night stands, but I accepted that I’d been around more than she had. This happens. I felt a little dirty, but got over it.

When we got off the bus and walked towards her apartment, she told me that we were going to walk by a bar that she goes to regularly and at which she’d shot down lots of the guys there because she said she had a boyfriend. If any of them asked, could I please tell them it was me? Of course I can. I make a great fake-boyfriend. We walked by the bar, but didn’t see any of her regulars.

At her front door, she turned to me and pointed at the bodega next door. “Why don’t you go buy condoms.”

“I thought you said we weren’t having sex.”

“Just in case.”

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