"Well, It Seemed Like You Might Be Asking."

I had the most INTERESTING conversation with Perfect last night.

Firstly, yes, you read that right—your tired eyes are not deceiving you—a conversation (text, albeit,) was had. The first multi-text conversation since he left for college, and it lasted for 6 HOURS. (There was driving and eating somewhere in between there, so I’ll trim it to 4 hours, but still—6:30 PM through 12:30 AM.

YES.

Secondly, against all my better judgment, and all Caiti’s better judgment, Perfect may now have a slightly scandalous picture of me in his possession. Now, before you go all medieval and shit on me (yes, you, Caiti), let me start from the beginning and explain.

Yesterday, Alli, Melissa and I went to Montpelier and Worcester for an end –of-summer weekend blowout. We cleverly called it the “Girls’ MON(tpelier)-(Worce)STER Adventure.” We did all the things we normally do: blasted music, took gratuitous amounts of pictures and video, got coffee, climbed on cannons on the State House lawn and offended families with our sexually-themed poses, skipped gaily through Montpelier without a care in the world of being yelled at to get out of town by Perfect from Capitol Copy now that he’s three and a half hours away in Massachusetts, bombed down Route 12 into Worcester, took some more gratuitous pictures, stopped for gas, took two new “field trips” around Worcester to further adventure, went to the Pots, went skinny-dipping, were caught by a family, walked down the road naked, went to Dairy Crème, had to hold myself back from slamming my medium chocolate/vanilla with rainbow sprinkles twist into the face of the girl who served it to me…you know—the usual.

I should make an aside here so you don’t assume I’m a normally violent or vindictive person. Although I love the ice cream at Dairy Crème, I fucking hate their wait-staff. It seems as though every girl who has ever left a flirty or potentially loaded comment on Perfect’s Facebook wall insinuating SOMETHING works there. Really. And the one who handed me my ice cream cone yesterday was the same girl who posted lyrics to a bump-and-grind song that due to the content that followed afterward, I can only assume she and Perfect ground it out together to some night this past summer. I know, I know….assuming makes an ass out of “u” & “me,” but really—I know Perfect. I know how he loves to dance. I know how he loves to grind. I remember his caveat to me of, “I see pictures later and I’m just like, “whoa, it wasn’t like that!” You know? It’s just dancing.” Yeah, it may just be dancing, but I am a dancing fool who loves to dance just as much as he does, and you know the only people I really grind with? People who I’d let get into my pants, because they might as well be, anyway.

It wasn’t that whole fiasco so much. I’ve gotten past (most) of my issues concerning what may or may not have happened, and channel it in a productive way: I downloaded that song onto my iPod, and when I’m running at the gym, if I start to think I won’t make it another quarter-mile, I put it on. And thinking about it, imagining them fused at the pelvis, well…that burns me through the next quarter-mile with energy to spare. It works. So it wasn’t so much THAT, as the fact that as she reached out, cone in hand, our eyes locked as I realized who she was, and her eyes flashed in recognition of who I was, and then…she smiled at me. This really nice, friendly smile that said, “oh, hey! I know who you are! We have friends in common.” And I just wanted to reach over the counter, grab her by her hair, and smash her forehead repeatedly against said counter with an identical perky smile on my face that said, “Oh, I know!”

But my whole psychotic tirade is an aside to the point.

While at the Pots, Melissa took a picture of Alli and me standing in our towels in front of the swimming hole and waterfall. And yeah, ok, so we may have been obviously not wearing bathing suits because of our blatantly bare backs, but I didn’t think much of it, because I sent it to Perfect later while we were at Dairy Crème with a note attached saying, “Wish you were here! (It’s fucking cold!)” Previously, I had fired off a spur-of-the-moment and not really seemingly important text that we were running a bet, and could he finish of one of the gigantic Dairy Crème large ice cream cones? When he replied back to that verbosely and in multiple sentences and thought processes, it was obvious he was feeling chatty. Maybe that’s what us going five days without talking to each other will do for him. I decided that hey, still parked in the Dairy Crème parking lot while Little Miss Pelvic Thrust was watching us through the glass service window, it would be a good time to send him that picture. So I did.

I should realize by now that Perfect is one of those very few people in my life who always manages to shock me. If I think it’s one way, he’ll be thinking in another direction. If I say “up,” he’ll be thoroughly “down.” When I finally get exhausted from being constantly on my tip-toes and throw in the towel and least expect it is when he always seems to pounce, and it always knocks me off guard. He knows exactly how to push my buttons, in what order, and how I liked them to be touched.

“That’s nothing! I’ve seen better pics!” he said.

At first, I was shocked. Then, affronted. Then, realization dawned and I realized what I had meant to be a friendly photo of something familiar and an “I’m thinking of you” was taken to a “yeah, I’m familiar with your naked back and now I want to think of you fully nekkid” level.

“Hahaha, please,” I texted back after I had recovered. “That was just supposed to be a pic from home. Believe me, if I were going to send you pictures to get your pulse racing, I’d know to send a better one than that.”

Perfect, in full button-pushing mode, called my bluff and raised me. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ve sent some well-appreciated pictures before, but only to the very, very good, and the very, very lucky.”

“Haha. Very, very?”

“A girl’s got to be discerning,” I texted back, with the sort of Victorian haughty sniff that I hoped he caught on to. “Can’t just give them away, you know.”

And then Perfect said the thing that just literally blew my mind right out of the water. “Haha, true, but I have had sex with you!”

Excuse me. Gentlemen in the room? Please stand up. Oh, Perfect, I notice you’re NOT standing? Good boy. Right answer. Although yes, I will admit, it, ahem, got the ocean below rolling when he said this (ohhh, I’m so easy), it got both my libido and pride going in tandem.

“So what?” I asked, maybe a little forcefully; I don’t know, you tell me after you read this. “You want a picture? Do you think you’re very, very good or very, very lucky? Just because I’ve had sex with you doesn’t mean you get a complimentary picture. What’s in it for me, hmm?”

I like to pack as much sass as I can into my 5-foot-3-inches as I can. Sass is something that I feel Perfect doesn’t get enough of in his daily diet. He’s more used to things and/or women just falling over in front of him. I don’t like to fall. As evidenced by the above.

There was about twenty minutes of silence from his end in which I started to worry if I had completely called our little game of non-penetration stimulation off with my loads of…sass. Up until this point, Perfect had been texting back seconds after I sent him a text. (I love that promptness. Nothing says “I’m home in my dorm room and bored and horny” more than a very prompt response. I live for those prompt responses. They are one of my favorite things. Especially if the subject matter built around them is naughty by nature.)

I also started to worry that I may be on the receiving end of a dick-a-licious picture text. So I did what was natural: called in a girl friend’s expert advice. Between the two of us, Caiti and I reached a decision: make sure he’s alone, is sober, and promises to not show any sent pictures to anyone else. Trust is key. Also, DON’T SEND ANYTHING WITHOUT GETTING SOMETHING FIRST. Also, men’s idea of sexy tends to be, literally, balls-to-the-walls. Men have, do, and will continue to think that sending pictures of their packages is hot. They expect titty shots in return. Women, on the other hand, think there’s nothing more tasteful and teasing than a pretty, sexy, and pretty sexy lingerie shot to get things rolling. Women tend to send progressive pictures, each with less clothing than the last. Again, it’s about building both trust and suspense. Men tend to go BAM! There it all is, all at once, and all in the front.

Understandably, I was having some performance-anxiety issues with the idea of actually having to send Perfect a picture if that’s what it came down to. The whole “I’ve seen better” had started to churn around in my head. A.) Oh, really? How many girls are sending you nudey-pics, Mr. Perfect, and B.) What is he used to getting, and so C.) What does he expect? Don’t get me wrong—like I told him, I’m not new to this. And my pictures in the past have been well-appreciated. I also have a nice stash of some pictures already on my cell phone’s memory that I took when Perfect and I were officially together on my birthday, the night that he was supposed to be able to spend the night but ended up not being able to. Let’s just say, the money I dropped in Victoria’s Secret that day was not wasted that night. He had asked for pictures that night, as well, but I heeded the advice of a different Caitlin—Cait—and kept them to myself. But this was an issue of: if he were to send a picture of his artillery, what the fuck was I supposed to counter with? This snatch ain’t seeing a cell phone camera, HELL to the NO.

Instead, I got a different kind of response: a major scale-back. After I read the sassy response out-loud to Alli and watched he face go shocked and slack-jawed, I had started to draft a clarification, but Perfect beat me to it. Wounded. (I forgot he was sensitive. Oops.) A bit affronted. Hurt pride. “LOL, I don’t know. LOL. I wasn’t asking.”

“Oh, well, that last text was supposed to be teasing, not harsh. Text doesn’t translate tone well, hahaha. And I seemed like you might be, so I was trying to decide if you were good or lucky.”

“Haha, am I good or lucky?” AHA. There we go. Back where I wanted. Good save! Carissa fumbles the come on, but recovers it to score a touch-down response somewhere in her end-zone. (Excuse me for a moment. I love football and sexual football metaphors.)

“Well, from what I remember, you were good, and I’d say you’re pretty lucky, but it all depends on a few things.”

“Like what?”

“Are you asking now, for starters?”

“Well, I am if you’re offering, haha!”

Oh no. I wasn’t going to let him escape with this one, oh no. This was not my horny little doing, my friend. His sex-mind was what got us here in the first place. I was just doing a “friendly” thing, which he turned into a “hey, we fucked and I’d like to see where we can still go” thing.

“You were the one who brought it up. And you should know this isn’t a one-way thing. If I send you something, I expect something in return. Can you deal with those terms?”

“Well, I’m not in a place I can do that now with my two roommates in the room, so I guess that means tonight’s a no, haha.”

My libido cried at the same time I considered saying, “That’s what cars are for. Or bathrooms. Or vacant rooms. Or a dark bike-path devoid of passers-by.” Instead, I reigned it in, leaving him to do the thinking on his own.

“Aww, that’s a shame. Well, if you get creative, let me know. I’m down for it.”

“LOL, alright.”

I put down the phone.

An hour later, still thinking about it, I picked it back up, took advantage of Perfect’s now 24/7 coverage that was the only thing that kept me from doing naughty things like this when he lived at home in Worcester, and sent him one of the pictures I took the night of my birthday. Before you kill me, especially Caiti—let me explain. It’s tasteful. I’m covered in a pink-orange lace teddy and flouncy matching underwear. I’m wearing heels that make my legs look a deceptive mile long. The lighting is low, I’m tan and toned, and half of my face is covered by my hair. It’s very Victoria’s Secret catalog, maybe because the lingerie IS Victoria’s Secret. I figure, give him something to think about so he doesn’t go off texting those other little hussies who will apparently send him pictures no questions asked. (To this, I think, really? I can’t see One Time Girl firing off candids of her boobs, so who does that leave? Dairy Crème girls? Grrrrrrrrrr…)

“There’s a little something to start you off,” I told him. “I’m making you a tab. I expect you’ll pay it off when you can. Sweet dreams.”

“Haha, oh, that’s a little better,” Perfect responded back.

“Well, enjoy it killer, because that’s all you get fo’ free, hahaha,” I said. He remained quiet for the next twenty or so minutes, which from previous knowledge is about the time we’ve decided it takes for him to sneak off to whack off. When he texted me back, it made me hoot with raucous laughter.

“Haha, who took that? LOL.”

Now, Mr. Perfect, you can hide behind your “haha”s and your “LOL”s, but really, by now, I know that’s how you dress up, disguise and hide what you’re really trying to say when you’re a little bit unsure of how it will go over. And this “Haha, who took that? LOL,” had concern, jealousy, and just the right amount of delicious male possession all over it. I couldn’t resist baiting him a little more. So easy.

“Hahaha—one of my other lovers. No, I took it myself. I’m holding my cell, see?” And it was true. Almost front and center in the picture, shining in my hand was my cell phone, outstretched to catch my image in my mirror. (Yes, I had to Myspace it up to take the picture in the first place—I’m so, so sorry.) But it felt good knowing my nearly naked body was so captivating he didn’t even notice it until I pointed it out.

“Haha, oh, ok.” Blatant relief.

So. Excuse me, again. Here I am, thinking he’s sleeping around with all the new freshmen girls, getting ready to expect the worst, and yet, apparently, he’s still feeling possessive over my body and worrying about other people seeing it? What is not adding up here? Could Perfect be—gasp—holding on, too? I try not to lead my train of thought down that road, but really—what gives for his concern and desire to make sure I am not passing myself around like I am thinking in a worst-case scenario he is passing himself around?

As I told the lovely Miss Sarah, men are hounds. I like to keep this in mind, which may not fit with the whole "think positive" thing I was supposedly trying to, but I always, ALWAYS keep a little part of my mind that tells me, "He's off sleeping with another girl. Right now. Possibly, two. Possibly, he's sleeping his way through his college/local bar/city/gym."

I have found that if I keep this possibility in my mind, I am never quite so shocked and pissed off as I would be if I didn't consider it a possibility in the first place, or train myself to expect it.

Maybe it's teaching men a bad thing, though. Maybe it's teaching them that we expect bad behavior from men. But honestly, even while I'm intimately texting or talking to Perfect, I can't help but wonder what other girls he's also texting/talking to/looking at pictures of. Maybe I'm guarded. Maybe I am a pessimist at heart. But maybe, it's also smart.

I would cry “double standard” if it wasn’t for the fact that this new development makes me feel deliciously tingly inside. Perfect is still somehow, even just a little bit, attached. Hostage relationship, we have a win!

XOXO