Chapter 5: the last seduction

Yeah, she called me at work. It seemed harmless enough. So far as I knew Dick's influence didn't work over the phone. It let me focus on my plan to be an asshole without worrying about Dick sneaking up on me.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.

"Hi!"
I didn't recognize her voice at first. "Wendy?"
"No, Rebecca."
"Oh. Hi."
"Who's Wendy?"
"Just a customer." Damn. If I was trying to be an asshole, I should have said My Fiance. Or maybe My Fuck Buddy.
"Okay." Said in that I Don't Believe You But I Refuse To Let You Argue Your Case tone.
I went silent as I pulled up another email.
"I'm sorry if I got emotional last night."
"That's what girls do." I cringed. Being an asshole wasn't easy. It was a lot like being Dick.
I could hear her giving me the benefit of the doubt: maybe I was just a little rough around the edges. "I didn't mean to freak out on you like that."
"If you say so."
"Well, if we're going to be neighbors we're gonna have to get used to each other."
"Right."
"Anyway, I wanted to let you know I'm okay now."
"Good to know."
It was quiet for a long time. Maybe a couple of minutes. I pulled up one of my favorite little Shockwave games. I didn't bother to mute it.
Finally, she spoke. "Well, I'm sure you're busy, so I'll let you go."
"Bye."
Click.

That'll teach her to call me.

My smug satisfaction lasted about two seconds.

I'd just taken a girl's interest -- a rare commodity before the days of Dick -- and thrown it back in her face. And I'd congratulated myself for it.

I tried to tell myself the only reason she'd showed any interest at all was because Dick had gotten to her. And even now as I'm writing this I wonder. I mean, consider the evidence. Rebecca -- young, beautiful, sweet, cheery. Me -- not young, soft where I shouldn't be, plain, grumpy.

And I tried to tell myself that since a girl like that never would have given me the time of day in the first place, treating her badly to get rid of her was not only doing her a favor, it was almost poetic justice.

Yeah, right. That helps so much with the I'm-a-right-bastard feeling.

Then work saved me from myself. My boss, who insists on having God-level access to everything because he's the man in charge even if he doesn't know how anything works, forgot he was looking at the server's remote console instead of his own desktop and shut it down. (He always shuts his machine down at lunch.) So I was busy for a while calming people down and cleaning up the mess, and I forgot about what I'd done to Rebecca.

Until she called me again.

"You're cute." Right out of the blue. No "Hi," no "Why were you mean to me," just "You're cute."
"That's what all the girls say."
"And you're the first guy I've met here who's respected me."
"I slammed the door in your face."
"But you don't stare at me."

Maybe it was the email I'd just read from a stupid user making the same request that had already been denied a half-dozen times. Or maybe I was stupid.
But I fell right into her trap. My wit came out to play.
I started flirting back.

"If I stared at you, your beauty would blind me." Okay, that wasn't wit. That was completely ludicrous over the top lame-ass line-tossing.

"Are you gay?"
Damn, was my line that bad? Yeah, it was. Then I realized her question wasn't a response to my line -- she'd been gearing up to ask me that anyway.

I supposed it was a good question, considering the indecipherable way I'd been behaving.

I thought about answering "yes" for a long time. Maybe it would fix things. Then I remembered Alec from my last job. Alec had girls coming around all the time, hanging all over him, dragging him out for drinks or dinner or a chick flick. One day I asked him if he'd mind if I asked Rachel out. "Why would I?" he answered. "You'd be great together." Well, Rachel shot me down. Hard. You know it's a smack-down when you offer to meet her at the theatre for a matinee showing of the latest Steve Martin movie and she says No. I mean, you can't get more neutral than Steve Martin. And before I blame it on the fading humor of the once-wild-and-crazy guy, Alec had already told me Rachel loved The New Steve Martin. So I asked Alec what his secret was. "What do you mean?" Well, the girls, they love you. "Hello, I'm gay."

The last thing I needed was Rebecca suddenly feeling totally comfortable around me like I was One Of The Girls -- how long until she showed up on my porch in a baby tee and tiny panties with coffee and muffins and the latest Cosmo in hand? "Help me take this quiz!"
No thanks. Dick would have her naked and screaming "Harder!" in about ten seconds.

Or even worse, she might not believe me and go into Full Seduction Mode just to prove I was lying.
No thanks. Dick would have her naked and screaming "Harder!" in about two seconds.

"No. I'm not gay."
I hadn't even finished saying the 'y' in 'gay' when she spat out her next question:

"So then what's wrong with me?"
Uh-oh. The gay question was just a ruse. A lead-in. A take-away.

I don't know what it was that I'd ever done to deserve this -- the determined attentions of a beautiful woman. A dream come true. A horrible nightmare.

Yeah, I knew what I'd done. I'd been an asshole. It didn't drive her away. It only made her more interested.

I thought back to every time I'd been a nice guy. Everybody knows the cliche, "Nice guys finish last." Everybody thinks it's so fucking cute to say that. It's not cute. Nice guys are driven within an inch of homicidal rage whenever they hear it, because too much of the time it's too fucking true. Nice guys might take an early lead, but their niceness always trips them up before the finish. I hate being a nice guy. Maybe that's why I put up with Dick for so long.

What's all this about nice guys? Girls have Nice Guy Radar. And they avoid us like the plague -- except when the Jerk they're dating acts like a jerk and they're looking for a shoulder to cry on. There's no worse torture than a girl sitting on your couch until two in the morning, looking all wrecked and vulnerable and beautiful, crying about how all men are jerks, asking you what she should do, maybe even saying to your face that she wished she could find a great guy like you, but not saying what she really means -- "like you, but a gorgeous jerk." And the jerk within you tells you that now's your chance, you're never going to get this close again, all you have to do is say the right thing and you could score yourself a great little rebound relationship, and who knows after that. But you know you don't have the confidence or the skill to pull it off, and you tell yourself you're too nice a guy to do that anyway. And you wonder what kind of hurtful creature is this that's torturing you so, and why can't she just open her eyes and see that the thing she says she needs, the thing you know she needs, is right here waiting for her?

But I'm not bitter.

Anyway, it's not until I'm an asshole to Rebecca and she comes right back for more that I figure it out. I dunno, maybe I didn't actually figure it out then, but sometime between then and now I figured it out. It's fucking depressing, but I've accepted it. Not that I can stand to use the knowledge, but...

Oh, sorry. Yeah.
I figured out that jerks aren't nice because they don't have to be. Nice is a sign of weakness. Girls aren't attracted to weakness, unless maybe it's one they think they can fix.

Okay, that's is a really mean and hurtful thing to write, and I don't really believe it -- I couldn't be a nice guy if I did -- but dammit if for too many cases it doesn't line up. Hey, if you came here looking for relationship advice or even a point-of-view that's not depressingly misogynistic, somebody gave you bad directions. If you knew where my story ended up you'd know better than to listen to a single thing I have to say about women. Because every time I think I have these delightfully maddeningly beautifully superior creatures figured out, my life takes a left hook to the chin.

So as I was there on the phone, the second time she'd called me that day, I thought back over my behavior since I'd met Rebecca. I'd been playing the Jerk role well right from the beginning, even before it was intentional. Why that was enough to overcome my Averageness I didn't learn until later, but at that moment I realized that I'd being doing exactly the wrong thing by being an asshole.

Something I didn't realize was that it was too late to turn her off by being nice. Softening now was exactly the wrong thing to do. It was exactly what she was looking for -- the guy who's a jerk, but he's nice to her. That obviously made her special.

Just shoot me.
No, I'm kidding. I'm okay now.
Oh, yeah, what happened...

"Are you there?"
"Yeah."
"So are you gonna answer my question?"
"What's the question again?"
"What's wrong with me?"
"How do you mean?"
"You never look at me."
"I respect you."
"No, that's not it. You're shy."
Generally, maybe. But that's not the story here.
"Are you afraid of me?"
"Of course not. But you should be afraid of me." You have to understand, my blood was boiling at this point. And as much as I loved, er, liked the sound of her voice, I knew I had to get rid of her fast.
"Should I?"
"Yeah." I briefly considered putting her on hold so I could call and see if Wendy was at her desk -- I didn't want to have to go all the way over there if she was out, especially since I'd probably be too fired-up by the time I got there to escape Accounts Receivable without Dick choosing another victim.
"Well, I'm not."
"Not what?"
"Afraid of you." There was a turn in her voice. It was more than flirtatious. It was seductive.
"I gotta go."

I never made it to Wendy's cubicle. Ratna from shipping caught me in the hall. I'd never noticed how hot Ratna was before.

I didn't go home that night -- I begged a couch-crash off Byron, even though we didn't know each other that well. Fortunately, I had a free polo shirt from a training session I went to last year still in my desk drawer, and my Dockers aired out well enough overnight that I could wear them another day.

I expected her to call me first thing in the morning. I guess because that's what I would have done. When she didn't, I gradually lost myself in work. It's not hard to do when your boss keeps "fixing" stuff for you.

"Network." My phone greeting tended to get rather abbreviated by the end of the day.
"Hey, I missed you last night. What happened?"
"Went out with friends. Don't drink and drive."
"Uh-huh." She knew I was lying. "You were avoiding me." She sounded amused.
I didn't have to answer.

But Dick was already alert. If she flirted with me again, there was no telling what Dick would do. I think he was getting tired of office poontang, and I wasn't in the mood for a road trip.

So I figured I'd make small talk.

"Hey, what's with the necklace?"
She was always wearing the same necklace. Choker, actually, with a pink crystal dangling from it. It always drew my eye, mostly because I couldn't look anywhere else for fear of getting Dick riled up.
"What do you mean?"
"You're always wearing it. It looks old. Is it a family heirloom?"
"Naw. Some guy gave it to me to get into my pants." Said as if it worked. "I've worn it ever since."
"Oh." So she has a boyfriend? Long distance relationship?
"It was a one night stand," she explained, even though she shouldn't have had to. "The guy was a lousy lay, too. But the necklace brought me good luck. Changed my life. Sometimes even the most vile creatures can help you find something wonderful."