the lumberjack

the word I hate to say and the sound I hated hearing

Photo by Abby Savage on Unsplash

I’m on top of a man who’s facial hair can’t hide the insecurity his eyes give away. He’s tall with a lumberjack-like sexiness, but underneath all that flannel lies a crippling belief that he’ll never make his father proud. He has the same sense of humor as me: mean. I like it. He’s asked me out several times over the years, but the timing was always bad. And by bad I mean it’s because he’s always asked me out when he’s had a girlfriend he momentarily forgot about, then suddenly remembered about an hour before our scheduled date. They all look like they could be related to me.

One night he asks if I wanted to come over to “listen to 80’s music and talk shit.” I don’t know how often he uses this line, but it worked on me. This is the only thing I ever want to do. It was winter and I was horny, and again, he was mean. This time, no girlfriend. He didn’t waste any time talking shit and instead started talking dirty, which I appreciated. I’ve wasted 1/4th of my hottest years waiting for a man to make The Move. And sure, I could make The Move, but I’ve already done everything else. I picked the place, I drove the conversation, I listened to them bitch about their co-worker who bitches about everything, I nodded along while they play devil’s advocate on a liberal social issue, I ask them to come over, I light the fancy candle, I say “I’m putting on a playlist called “sex jazz” and then laugh a little, I sit close to them on the couch, I move in and sit a little closer on the couch, I play with my fucking hair, and worst of all, I laugh at their unoriginal jokes. The least any of them can do is put their hand up my seasonally appropriate top from Zara.

But back to me being on top of the lumberjack. Usually when I’m on top I say “do you like the view?” in hopes that will get him to give me some compliments. But he doesn’t take the bait and just says “yes.” I need to start asking more open-ended questions in bed like “describe the view” or “how does the view make you feel?” The lumberjack grunts something about his cock. I hate the word cock, but men always want me to say it. I don’t want to hear it and I don’t want to say it. Am I the only one? Maybe. Probably. I think I’m actually more prude than I want to believe, and I hate admitting that. But as Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Do one thing everyday that scares you,” so I say “your cock is good.” My knees are scraped because I’m fucking him on top of a wool blanket, decorated in those national park stripes. His apartment looks like a little cabin in the sky, littered with red buffalo plaid, complete with a taxidermy deer head. His candle makes the place smell like the woods. He lives on the fourth floor and his windows are open, so while I ride his good cock I wonder if I’m giving the lesbian-skewing, bicycle-commuting people of Park Slope a free show. I don’t really care. When you live in New York, you just assume at least one person is looking in your window at all times, and some of that time you’re gonna be naked in some way. That’s the social contract you sign in exchange for an overwhelming amount of coffee shop options and proximity to Broadway shows you’ll never attend.