He looks at me and says, “I don’t have any condoms.”
At which I point I lean back and a flash dance of potential ensuing scenarios simultaneously create a cacophony of, “Hey, mom, what’s the best decision I can make here?” Mom never answers the question, so precariously I sit on the edge of the bed trying to preempt any awkward silence with the right, sexy, drunken thing to say. Does that mean that I stamp up, put my clothes on and storm out? Do I say something catty? Or do I smile like a trooper and take it with my eyes closed?
This is a consistent problem. I think for me, and most of my female friends, very few of us ever expect a guy to have the condoms. I don’t know why this is, but in the name of Girl Scoutly caution, I always keep a few floating around the bottom of my purse. So when the, “I don’t have any condoms” bomb drops, I can quickly maneuver my private parts out of harm’s way and into properly protected sex. Maybe this is just indicative of a larger issue, namely my lack of faith in humanity to ever make educated, unselfish decisions, but, meh, life moves on.
Speaking of moving on, it just so happens that I don’t have condoms on me right now. Which means that I’m not going to root around my jacket pockets and grinningly pull out one of those condoms that I got from that free condom basket at the teen sex booth at the street festival.
And whenever I’m pulling that condom out with that look on my face of, “You’re not getting away with it this time, asshole!” I always try to look into his eyes so I can fully relish the, “This dumb bitch did not fall for my unprotected sex routine” look on his face. And then, even after that, even on the off chance he rips the condom off for “whatever reason” (aka his coke dick went limp again, or the supremely assholeish “It doesn’t feel good so I took it off two seconds ago”) the second time I dive back into my purse and pull out another – it’s just like, hey, I know you tried this once before, but it’s not happening again, okay?
I mean, I don’t even know why it’s an issue in the first place. We’re both lucky enough to be having sex tonight, I don’t understand why you’re putting so much effort into poo-pooing my extremely rational, extremely altruistic need for you to wear a condom. It’s not like I just asked to pee on you. (Not to diss golden showers, but, you know, when you try to pee on a one night stand, and he’s not into it – the weird looks ensue.)
This time, however: Nothing. I’m feeling in the bottom of my purse. Oh, god. My sluttiness has yet again left me with a purse with no condoms in it. No condoms in the jacket pockets either. I’m fresh out.
So I look at him and say, “Well…”
And he looks at me and says, “You know what we could do…”
I shake my head. I look away. It’s the golden moment. It’s time for truth. It’s time for years of public education to waltz out of my mouth in a moment of glory, the fruition of years of putting condoms on bananas.
Or, of course, I could crumble to the everpresent pressure of wanting people (aka this dude right here) to like me, and there’s also the fact that I absolutely love having sex, because it’s fun and it feels good. It’s a sudden war of ration versus passion in my mind, and while I notice that I am, indeed, quite drunk, I am proud of myself for having the mental capacity with which to spend five seconds thinking about how dumb it is for me to let this random ass dude stick his dick in me, just so I can sleep for five hours in his messy bed, wake up way too early tomorrow, catch the bus back to my house, sit there in shame and silence while I try to remember what happened last night, catch up on my text messages, let my friends know I’m okay. And then the ensuing weeks of, “Should I get tested? Is that itch in my crotch the sign of the onset of herpes? Or HPV? What if it’s AIDS? Am I being paranoid?” All for a bit of sex that, at the end of it, probably isn’t even going to register in my top 10 sexual experiences.
So I look at him again, and without making eye contact, I come to the realization that this is probably going to be just another one night stand, so, fuck it, what’s the point? I might see him at a bar some other night, and we might try it again, but it’s not like I’m going to win any overwhelming sense of self validation or ego boost from lying on my bed and trying not to laugh at his sex noises.
So I do the right thing. I dial a cab, ask him his address, and when the cab’s waiting for me out front, I straddle him, as he sits there in his underwear, given him a kiss, rub my tits in his face and say,“Sorry about your loss.”
And as I sit, swirling inside my head inside the cab, the thought comes over me once again – why is it always my responsibility to have the condoms? I wish for once when I ran out, he (whoever he is) would say, “It’s okay, boo, I got you.”
Opinions expressed on Condom Monologues are the author’s own.