Copyright 2003
I lost another boyfriend.
I swear, this one was NOT my fault.
I am …"older" and he is 21. When a man says, "You are crazy. You never should feel old. You are not old. You are beautiful." Well, a girl might listen up. (I liked him saying YOU four times in a row.)
I met Troy at the Laundromat. Boyfriend Hal had puked all over my new comforter and it is too big for my apartment-sized washer. I made the mistake of letting Hal lay down on my bed to sleep off a drunk. He crawled to my place after I busted him over the phone regarding his DATE! with Shelly Steinberg. My "one strike you're out" policy still holds.
So there I was in the Laundromat sweating my ass off in the August heat when this dude walks in with two duffles jammed with jeans and t-shirts. He looks good but I am in no mood to meet a new pal. "Yeah. Hi. " I say back to him.
"Aww. What's wrong?"
I'm feeling abnormally generous so I tell him the Hal story.
"You don't need that." He says. "Why would you have a thug in your life?"
"Good question."
Okay, so this laundry dude opened me up when I was totally disinterested (no small feat) and I went on blabbing about my life. He did too.
Troy wears glasses and I never had a boyfriend with glasses and for some reason I am mesmerized by the way they move when he talks. It's an almost imperceiveable wiggle. You need to watch very closely or you will miss it. I like the words flowing out of his mouth and he folds t-shirts into the tiniest little "packages."
Yes, I did meet him later, at 7 for coffee, then a nosh over at Gino's. We were stuck mid-conversation at a quarter-to-ten, so I had to ask him to my place. How can you leave something so up in the air?
I know you are thinking boytoy. Troy actually likes me to call him that, so I do. Boytoy…roll left. Boytoy…let me be a cowgirl. Boytoy…NOW!
Rolling under that newly-washed comforter was nice. Well, okay, at first he got overly excited, and the second time was a brief three-note crescendo, but after that we were cooking.
He noticed my patch-----a small white square stuck on my bicep. He thought it was birth control, but it's me trying to give up smoking like a monkey. I pulled it off my arm and covered his belly button with it. Oh! Alien dude…never born…hit me up babe. Troy is inexhaustible and wham! there we go again. This time was the best.
Afterward he literally jumps out of bed, grabs a shower, invites me in for an encore, then asks if I want to go for a walk to watch the sunrise. Whew!
I am thinking I cannot keep up with him. I AM getting old. When he looks into my eyes and says, "You are the most amazing woman I have ever been with…" he pauses and adds, "and the buzz I am getting from this patch is awesome."
Ha! The stoopid patch.
I saw Troy for six more weeks. He always was wearing a patch, sometimes two. I don't know what it feels like for a nonsmoker but it must have been good. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Troy hypered himself right out of my life. Boytoy became an addict.
Last I heard he was up to four freaking patches. Not my fault. Really. I swear.
