birthday curse

so i shouldn't be too concerned with a curse, since it has only been two birthdays. and (at least for the second) not even the entire birthday but rather the beginning. but i feel like there is a curse on my new york birthdays. in the last five years, i've only had two birthdays in new york. the others were spent living with my parents between freshman and sophomore year and at sex conferences for my 20th and 22nd birthdays. but 21 and 23 were doozies.

at 21, my date to my birthday orgy decided to pull me into the other room (at full orgy swing) to tell me he'd come to realize he needed to be in a relationship with someone for a matter of months before he could have sex with them. we met on craigslist, for pete's sake. in casual encounters. he responded to my ad seeking new experiences with the suggestion of golden showers. although i never peed on the boy we had taken several physical showers together and shared a great deal of oral and digital stimulation, but apparently this wasn't sex. it was not so much that i disrespected his feelings but rather his timing, in a word, sucked. by the time he was done talking, we went back to my room to find everyone zipping up. then everyone left except him. he stayed! and slept in my bed beside me. i don't sleep with people!!! (okay, maybe rkb and dacia and one or two other lucky critters, but as a general rule post-sex moments are best spent alone.) so i started having major anxiety and had to drug myself up on xanax as he left in the morning so that i could stop shaking and ended up sleeping through my entire 21st birthday. i woke up at 2am the next day. i had messages of birthday songs from my family, but no one i could call that late. so i cried.

this year was not nearly so traumatic, but it still sucked and it still made me cry. the day before my birthday was spent on delayed flights, the last of which circled for so long we had to land in baltimore to refuel. when i finally arrived at almost midnight (as opposed to 8), i picked up dacia and food and headed back to my place. to sleep? oh, no. to clean! that morning my land lord had called to say she wanted to show the apartment that week (the week of our lesbian fieldtrip). it hadn't been touched since the morning after the party when garbage and moldables were thrown out. i had been out of town since the 36 hours after my graduation.

so, even though it is now almost 2am, dacia and i begin to giggle with thoughts of our houseboy. we laugh louder when the thoughts shift from him cleaning my place in pretty panties again to a shared slobberly blowjob (mmmm.... cock). we decide to call the houseboy in the morning. so i put his number in to my new phone (sorry to the world of people i have yet to call with the new number, i need to pause to catch my breath before i can start talking to the world again). only i don't have the controls down yet and instead of saving the number the phone is now ringing. at 2am. on a monday night.

a piece of late night (possibly drunk) dialing ettiquette. if you begin a call well past normal hours of existence and the phone has already rang, you must stay on the line to leave a message or respond to the groggy "what the fuck?s" with an apology. plus, you might get lucky.

the houseboy answered the phone. he was just leaving a bar in the east village. he couldn't come over in the morning but he could head over now. um, okay. that sounded great to my sleep-deprived cleaning-phobic exhausted sweaty mind.

"wait, he's coming over now?" dacia asked.

"yep."

"so no crashing in front of a movie naked, now?"

"nope."

"well, it is kind of hot, having a houseboy at our beck and call, even at 2:30 on a Monday night."

"yep."

so dacia did some laptop work and eventually crashed naked without me, as i began cleaning the apartment. an hour passed and houseboy still had not arrived. i called and he said he was two blocks away. so i put on a slip and sat on the porch steps (significantly cooler than my sweltering apartment) black thong in hand (as he was without panties at the bar). after about ten minutes, i called him again. he had taken a very wrong turn.

so i got in the car and drove to pick him up. i do get a thrill out of approaching corners with a window rolled down to pick someone up (it makes me happy in my pants). as he got in the car i said, "your panties are on your seat."

we were dismayed to find a complete lack of parking in my neighborhood. there weren't even spots on the side of the street that would need to be moved in five hours anyway. but the fire hydrant in front of my house had an extra half a space to either side. generally in my neighborhood, as long as the other side makes up for minor infringement, you can park a little bit closer to the hydrant than you should. plus i would be moving it in five hours anyways, because it was still on the wrong side of the street. add that i was hot, tired, and a little cranky, and you get an illegally parked car. "are you panties in your pocket?" I asked as we left the car.

"yes, mam" he replied.

i took him upstairs and said, "look, i can be the sexy dommey jane and we can clean and play or i can be the exhausted hot and sweaty jane that wants to take a shower and go to bed." he said the second option sounded grand, giving me a big hug which i used as an opportunity to begin removing his shirt.

brief interlude for mutual shower and soapy boobs. soapy boobs are the best texture ever. except maybe a freshly buzzed head. maybe their tied. but yeah for soapy boobs!

when then dragged a sleeping bag up to the roof and passed out (this was necessary as a sleeping dacia was indelicately sprawled across the bed, plus it was much too hot anywhere in side.) we cuddled a little but i pushed away because of the repulsion to all things hot, including bodies. and we passed out talking back and forth, like a slumber party. when the sun rose around 5:30 i peeked over the roof top to check on my car (no ticket, tralala), went downstairs to pee, and passed out for another hour and a half.

it happened when i woke up at seven.

i looked over the rooftop edge, and norm, my dear precious car, was gone. only a white drag mark on the pavement testified to her kidnapping by the man. bonus: my cell phone was in the cup holder from picking up the houseboy. double bonus: so was my credit card from pulling norm from airport parking the evening before. dacia and i were supposed to leave that morning for our lesbian field trip so all the camping gear was in back. plus, her car had failed inspection and was in the shop so we no longer had any ride.

with the help of dacia and the akward helpless glances of the houseboy, i tracked down the car, the location, the hours, the fee, and yes, i could go into my car to get my credit card to get it out of hock. then i left, without a phone bc i needed some way to reach dacia in case of an emergency, and walked to the gypsy cab stand.

when i got to the pound the folks who worked there were very pleasant. granted, it wasn't even eight o'clock so maybe they were faking it, but they seemed compassionate. the lady behind the desk even grimaced when she told me i couldn't pay the fine with my entrapped credit card because i was not the primary name on the registration. i would need to pay cash.

so i walked two avenue blocks uphill under the bqe on a path paved with dirt and broken glass (and not even the safety kind, i'm talking shards) and seven blocks over through an industrial neighborhood, yawning the entire way. a smart ass amongst the horn blowers and hecklers asks if i need a cup of coffee.

"i need two hundred bucks," i snap, then smile provocatively as i realize that, hey, i would blow him to avoid walking any further in this heat and murk and cheap summer shoes. he just shakes his head so i continue on my way to the nearest atm, which happens to be in a bank.

it also happens to be that the bank doesn't open until nine and as the atm is inside the bank, it doesn't open until nine, either, the manager so kindly informs me. so i kill time eating a pastry and sipping a soda in the pizzeria across the street.

finally, the bank opens, i get the cash, and i walk back looking all the sidewalk loiterers in the eye and greeting them before they have a chance at a second round of snide comments. i pay the fine and am handed a slip to give to the security escort to retrieve my car.

as she walks me towards norm, i am too overwhelmed at the fact that i'm getting her back to look around. i chirp the keys and thank the guard. as i slip behind the wheel i turn on the ac and some music. i glance around. credit card, check. cell phone, check.

houseboy's slinky black thong: check.

splayed on the passenger seat like a four year old with no shame.

i shove them in my purse and begin to laugh/cry for a moment. then compose myself and drive home, stopping for gas, a cooler, a tarp, and an oil change on the way. dacia, sweet beautiful dacia, has cleaned the apartment so all i have to do is jump in the cold shower to maintain some reasonable body temperature while she loads the cooler, throw camping clothes in a bag, and drive away.

off, on our lesbian field trip, en route to camping and whales and lobster, we leave the neighborhood before noon.