The Love Shack: Open For Business

After a long and desiccating first quarter, my love life was finally starting to look up. I had gotten two separate proposals for threesomes within one day—the first being a coworker whom I sit across from for eight hours a day, five days a week after he took three too many Sambuca shots at a company happy hour; the second being Jeremy, who still refused to jump ship on his eight month-old proposition that I had yet to take him up on, despite his undying, everlasting inclination for me to have clear pores and plaque-free teeth.

Once Friday at 5:30pm hit, I was ready to get my prowl on. I met up with my girlfriend Lindsay and her coworker Jason at a bar in midtown for a few weekend kick-off drinks. Whether it was the four vodka sodas on an empty stomach or the fact that I hadn’t been touched by a man aside from an ass grab so graciously bestowed by Paco, the Mad River barback, in over forty days now, I instantly fancied Jason.

He was in sales of some sort (completely irrelevant at this point in my sex hiatus-turned-slump), sporting Diesel jeans, a ratty Bob Marley t-shirt, and sneakers that he had either owned since 1995 or had just returned from a minefield in Iran. He was a cross between Jesse Metcalf and a Berenstain Bear—and he couldn’t have been more attractive at that moment in time.

Not only did I find it perfectly normal that one of Jason’s parents may have been a children’s book character who dwelled in a tree, I was excited by his compulsive and lively behavior. One minute he was demanding the bartender to turn on The Mets game so he could watch Jerry Manuel’s failed attempts of putting together a batting order that would fail to produce even one base hit over the course of nine innings; the next minute he was chain smoking and slamming shots of tequila—my night was looking up. What girl couldn’t resist a Marlboro-puffing, Cuervo-chugging, maniacal Mets fan?

Eventually we made our way uptown to meet Annie Smalls, Jenny Saurs and the Joe-mance at Danny & Eddie’s on 85th and Second for a few late night Bud Light bottles and some nudie photo hunt. Jenny and Annie were slightly confused on both where and when I had picked up such an inebriated calamity of a drinking sidekick who wouldn’t stop rambling on about the Mets while intermittently drooling on himself and doing a few spin moves for every refrain of Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” but nonetheless, they were happy that I had found a potential slump-kicker (for my sake), who was extremely entertaining (for their sake). I was just glad he didn’t smell like a burrito.

Eventually our seven-some turned into a twosome, leaving Jason and I at the end of the bar, un-sober and famished. We headed to Gracie’s on the corner for some late-night French toast and mozzarella sticks, a great end to our seven-hour stint of heavy drinking.

It was a nice night, and despite my four-inch Mary Janes that were on the verge of severing my ankle from my foot, I decided I could skip a cab and stumble the few blocks home. As Jason and I arrived at the stoop of the Love Shack, I was ready for either an awkward goodbye or a forthright game of tonsil hockey.

Instead, Jason said, “I’m about to piss down my leg. Can I use your bathroom?”

Well he surely wasn’t romantic or smooth, but he wasn’t an ass-grabbing barback or a random accountant who, based on his stench, seemingly moonlighted at Taco Bell, so I led him to my front door. I was hoping his bathroom line, albeit uncouth, was just a way to get his foot in the Love Shack’s door.

Turned out that I was right…