Putting Out The Marlboro Man

You’re an asshole.

But I should qualify the degree of asshole, as it pertains to me. Let me go back a bit…

Blondie had told me a lot about you before conference and I expected a rather gnarled-looking roughneck- nothing especially special. But there you were and it was like ‘Holy shit- it’s the Marlboro Man!” If a horse had galloped up and you mounted it and rode away, I would not have blinked an eye. Swooned, maybe, but I would not have been a bit surprised. The only things missing were a lasso and cowboy hat.

By the end of the first conference you were larger than life. If I had googled the word ‘Man’, I would have put money that your face would have appeared. I was in awe of you. You had called me ‘Pretty’ every time you saw me, in an offhand manner. “Hey Pretty.” But that’s not what did it. It was something else, but I can’t put my finger on it. I wasn’t crushing on you- that’s not what this was.

That was when you first ascended The Pedestal.

Fast forward to the night you came to the lake. I was so excited to host you for the class you were going to teach, but for no other reason than I would have Marlboro Man all to myself to pick his brain and get to know him better. It was as if I was a little kid and Batman was coming to my birthday party. I had no ulterior motive. You were still just this guy that I wasn’t physically attracted to, but was fascinated with.

That night was one of the best nights I can remember in a long time, really. It was damn near perfect…until it wasn’t. Once we stood on the pier and you wrapped me in that towel, held me tight so I wouldn’t slip back into the water and looked into my eyes, everything changed. I’m not sure why. A perfect storm of alcohol, moonlight, good conversation, music…Who knows? I had told you things I hadn’t told anyone in years, and you looked me in the eyes as if you just got me and something inside me clicked and I thought, “Ok. This is a different guy. This isn’t the Marlboro Man. This isn’t Batman. This is [insert your name here]. And upstairs we went.

Next step, naked. Literally.

I’d now been naked with you literally and figuratively and you leaned into it, both literally and figuratively. And here’s where it gets interesting: I believed that I could trust you emotionally, with my secrets. And I knew instinctively that I could be naked with you and it would be ok. I don’t fuck married men, you won’t be unfaithful. We’d respect boundaries. YOU would respect MY boundaries. I wouldn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to- you weren’t going to make me. And I stood there naked, and you stood there dressed and…nothing happened. You looked at me as though I was the fucking Venus come to life, but you didn’t cave and I didn’t feel threatened. “If he stands there much longer, I’m going to have to…or he’ll get mad”. Nope. Not You. Then I fell asleep with you wrapped around me. And that was…it.

And the next day, and every day since, you were an asshole. You wouldn’t talk to me. You couldn’t look me in the eye. You wouldn’t talk to Keeks, even though you promised to. You ignored him, for fucks sake. If you had just behaved like a fucking adult instead of an ASSHOLE, none of this shit would have happened. You fell off The Pedestal and you fell HARD.

I made an ass of myself trying to put you back up there. It’s not your fault- I tried so many times to put you somewhere you didn’t ask to be, didn’t want to be, and didn’t deserve to be. But man- I fucked up big time. I made a total fool of myself in front of countless people in an effort to fix things. To fix a friendship you didn’t care about, to make YOU feel better, to try and give you some absolution. In the process I could not have made things worse if I tried- it was humiliating. But that’s all on ME.

I am tired of feeling ashamed and angry. I kept trying to put you back on The Pedestal because if you fell off, that meant that I made the mistake of trusting the wrong person AGAIN. My instincts were wrong AGAIN. I let my need for emotional and physical intimacy cloud my judgement AGAIN and I just could not face that reality AGAIN. But here we are.

But now there’s a new reality. One that tells me that we don’t have to be friends just because we have friends in common. That I deserve to be treated better than a second class citizen simply because you feel guilty. I was willing to take the blame and be the ‘seductress who led you astray’, but fuck that. You’re a grown-ass man. My conscience is clear.

And then I find out that you told Blondie that ‘I need to get laid’? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? We agreed to keep everything about that night between us, and then Blondie tells me that you jokingly told her, “We need to get her laid”? She’s my fucking employee. She may be my friend, but you don’t know the depth of our friendship- you don’t know what she does and does not know about my intimate life. You have no idea what I had to do to clean up that mess and explain why YOU know anything about my sex life. She’s my employee and you know that. What the fuck were you thinking?

ASSHOLE.

I’m pretty sure The Bird knows what happened, which means you messed with my reputation on a different ‘professional’ level. I get that she’s one of your closest friends, but this wasn’t just your story to tell.

ASSHOLE.

So I’ve purged, I’m done feeling embarrassed. Done feeling obligated to help you reconcile your guilt. I’m no longer interested in being your friend. I no longer feel the need to have THIS conversation with you.

You said you wonder what your name would sound like from the lips of another woman and I’ll tell you this: When it’s said in my shower at the lake house, it sounds pretty fucking good. If you would have come back a second time, you would have heard it.

And I can tell that you want to know what you’re missing, maybe not from ME specifically, but in general. All men wonder, but only some will wander. I’m not sure which one you’ll be. But I know this…

I know your neck tastes like heaven. And your arms feel like the safest place I can remember being in a long time. And I know that your chest is…well, 😈. I know that if you weren’t a married man, you’d have (how did you put it?) ‘fucked me in to next week’. And I know that it would have been epic.

I also know that there were two people there that night and both were responsible for what happened. But only one decided to behave like an adult afterward and admit that they fucked up.

And the other behaved like an ASSHOLE.