GIRL 73
TOGETHER GIRL
I told my son once, as I looked over the burnt-out wreckage of my life, that some lives serve as warnings for other lives. I'm a buoy marking shoal water, I said, you are the ship.
Nothing could confirm that sad theory more than Together Girl. By this time I was admittedly desperate. Rocket Scientist Girl (Girl 69) made me believe that a girlfriend was close. Underwater Girl (Girl 70) made me imagine that my life's love was right under my nose. The sex from Google Girl (Girl 71) left me an empty shell. If frustration had a speedometer, mine would read 148 mph.
So, incredible as it may seem, I found myself pushing a wheelbarrow full of cash into an office called "Together." It's an agency founded to introduce people. A matchmaker. The woman started it off with flattery: "Aren't you a tall, dark, handsome devil! I'll have an easy time matching you up! The girls in my rolodex will be fighting over you!" Yeah, right. After I gave the woman an interview, I handed over my girlfriend spec, which spoke of needing a slut who was insatiable. The more sex she got, the more she wanted. For whom nothing was off limits. It specifically mentioned anal.
The interviewer, an ex-model now driving a minivan after squeezing out three kids, still cute but gone to fat, asked if I liked my women blonde, brunette or redhead. Thin, tall, stout, short. Professionals, artists, or stay-at-home moms. It made me imagine I could "dial in" the girl.
Give me a tall, slender, platinum blonde, I said, as I signed the check for an amount that, to this day, makes me nauseated. As they say, kids, don't do this at home.
They don't even use email. Or a fax, for God's sake. You have to go to the mailbox and get a sheet of paper. The first said: DORIS IS A SLENDER BRUNETTE, 5'3" TALL, WITH NO KIDS, PROFESSIONAL, INTERESTED IN WALKS ON THE BEACH, MOUNTAIN CLIMBING AND MOVIES. (732) 867-5309. Okay, I wouldn't back out of my driveway for a description like this. Didn't they know that a picture is worth a thousand words? That one ended up wasting two weeks of my pursuit energy, with phone calls, voice mails. I finally faxed the "feedback" form to the Together agency stating the bitch was too busy for me or didn't like me. Interestingly, Doris got in trouble and leaves me a voice mail and apologizes and tells me when she's available. Fuck her, I thought. I got on with the Together clerk and asked for a new wench. This one read, as cryptically as the first: "MARY, SLENDER BLONDE, 5'6" TALL, TWO CHILDREN, PROFESSIONAL, INTERESTED IN FINE DINING, THE BEACH AND CONCERTS." I sighed. The frustration meter was up to 180 by now.
Perhaps the worst thing was that they were listing home phone numbers, not cell phones. You cannot romance a girl by her home phone. She checks the voice mail once per month whether she needs to or not. And if she does check it, it is at the end of a long annoying day, and the voice mail from some male clown attempting to get into her knickers is just another annoyance. Romance is done with cell phones. Caller ID. Text messages. Voice mails, available at lunch or breaks. Phone calls that can be conducted during commutes. And via email, for receiving whenever the girl is in the mood. Not by home phones.
The very idea of leaving a "hey baby, how YOU doin'" voice message on a home answering machine, blaring loudly while the teenagers listen in horror is enough to make the cock permanently soft.
But I found out that there are far worse things. Like this transcript of a phone conversation with Mary-Slender-Blonde:
(Dialing) (9...0...8...8...6...7...5...3...0...9)
(older woman) Hello!
(me) Hi, is Mary-Slender-Blonde there?
(woman) No! She's not here! Who is this?! What do you want?!
(me) Never mind, I'll just call her back later -
(woman) Listen, mister, you give me your name and why you're calling right now!
(me)
Fuck that. I wrote yet another nastygram to the Together clerk with a complaining phone call to the Together Fat Model Interviewer Girl. You gotta be fuckin' kidding me, I say. This is ridiculous.
So I go to the mailbox for the third time.
FRANCINE. SLENDER BLONDE, 5'2", THREE CHILDREN, PROFESSIONAL, LIKES MOVIES, DINING OUT, LONG MOONLIT WALKS ON THE BEACH.
Jesus, do they think I'm an idiot?
(Dialing) 6...8...9...8...6...7...5...3...0...9
(woman) Hello?
(me) Hi, my name is Michael and I'm calling from that totally messed up Together Agency. Let me guess, you're Francine-Slender-Blonde's mother and you're about to scream at me that your daughter doesn't date men from introduction agencies. No problem, I'll go quietly. Maybe I can get the absurd amount of money back from these lying scoundrels as soon as you either hang up on me or scream that you're not interested.
(woman) (laughing) Oh my God, I love you already! I'm Francine.
(me) Oh, well, in that case, let me start over. Hey, baby, how YOU doin'.
(woman) (still laughing) Okay, so, mister, where are we meeting?
Well, that went considerably better, I thought. Perhaps this Together thing would be worth the money. Perhaps my Hundred Girls project would be coming to a swift conclusion.
So there I am at Jose Tejas, a theme Mexican joint, drinking a Corona with my face buried to my ears in the damned chips and salsa (my weakness) waiting for Francine-Slender-Blonde, whom I redesignated Together Girl. She walked in and I stared at her.
I was constantly amazed at the miniscule difference between beauty and plainness, and between plainness and downright butt ugly. A few centimeters are all that matter. There was nothing really wrong about any of her features. But together, they played an out-of-tune cacophony of a song. It was all wrong.
In addition, the woman acted like she had just swallowed a pound of ground coffee. I'd never seen anyone so hectically, jerkily nervous.
So, I asked, what did you have to eat today?
Nothing, she replies, smiling. Just two packs of cigarettes and four Diet Cokes.
Figures, I thought.
We sat down to dinner and I was a gentleman. I tried to entertain the girl, and afterwards she wanted a kiss. I obliged, but I was a very crappy kisser that night.
Afterward, we had perhaps three phone calls, all initiated by her. I wasn't sure how to get away from her. I didn't want to say, look, you're ugly. So I did the girl thing. Find a flaw and blame the incompatibility on that.
So, I asked, are you into anal sex?
Anal, she says, no way!
Bingo.
Well, I say, there's no way I can date a woman who doesn't take it up the ass, I'm sorry.
It still didn't work.
But I'm willing to try, she says.
Dammit.
Listen, I told the Together people this. If you're not into anal, we're a mismatch.
In a way it was true. I didn't talk about it out loud to Together Fat Interview Girl, but it was all over my girlfriend specification I'd printed out for her. The Girl had to do more than accommodate anal. She had to crave it. Cum to it. Write poetry about it. Like Girl 6.
Damn. Girl 6 again. She was still fucking up my mind, I thought.
Finally Together Girl let me go.
It was my first and last Together date. This is a place for people who don't want to let someone look at their picture. For the obvious reasons.
I turned my back on all that cash I'd dumped on the Together interviewer's desk and put it in the ledger under both the Stupid Expenditure and the Chicks columns. Later I would add it up. The project cost was astronomical.
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