Sex and Guilt in the City

Saturday night/Sunday morning, I went out drinking with an old childhood friend, who I haven’t seen in about a year and a half. Taking our trip down memory lane, we didn’t realize that we had about five pints of beer each and ended up incredibly drunk. From personal experience, taking the train back to LI at 4am tired and far from sober is an awful experience; too many times I’ve woken up in Port Jefferson, disorientated, hungover, and wondering how I got onto the train in the first place. And let me tell you, it is fucking scary waking up in a strange town after a night of drinking.

I insisted she stay over because, in my spoiled mind, a girl should never have to ride the LIRR by herself on that dreaded sunrise train, dodging vomit and fist fights. We decide that I’ll take the couch and she could have my bed. I know, I am such a fucking fabulous hostess. We walk into the apartment, go into the bedroom and change into jammies. I take my blankie with me into the living room, ready to sleep on my shitty Ikea sofa. As I am about to sit on the couch, I see the outline of a person. Startled, I jump and let out a yelp. John walks out of his bedroom to see what’s going on.

“Whaa?” Groggy and tired he says as he leaves his room.

“Uh, why is there a strange man sleeping on our couch?”

“Oh it’s Pedro. Are you ok? Do you need the couch?”

I slur, “No, I have my friend Samantha here but she‘ll sleep in my bed, no worries.”

This is definitely weird. Like me, John understands that the couch is not for our friends. If we bring someone home, it means that we like them enough to share our bed. The only exception to this rule is our acquaintances from LI because they use the couch as a place to sober up for their drive home so they won’t wake us when they leave. Even my platonic guy friends will share my bed because, even if I am not sucking their dick, I am a cuddle whore and make them ‘put-out’ to earn their keep for a night’s slumber.

In the morning, I find out why Pedro slept on the couch instead of in his bed.

“Oh well, I was having sex with Ramon,” John said.

“Wait, didn’t you date Pedro last year? He met you in Greece, right?”

“Yea.”

“So isn’t it weird that he slept on the couch as you fucked another guy in your bedroom?”

Gay men, like all of us, cannot just be friends with an ex. There has to be a good reason why they can hang out without fucking.

“Well,” he began, “Pedro has a lot of issues with being gay. He’s a staunch Catholic and used to make us pray after having sex.”

“Wait, so each time you reamed him, afterwards you prayed the rosary and asked Jesus to forgive you?”

“Kinda.”

It appears that I am not the only one fucked in the head from years of catechism in the Catholic Church. From the Sunday school teacher who told us AIDS was created because (I shit you not) “a man fucked a male monkey in Africa and then was gay here” to my father who impressed upon my sister and I the Pope’s vision of a chaste woman. Threats of burying the man who we fuck outside of marriage included.

However, I have never asked any of the boys who I’ve hooked up with to pray with me after we had sex.—I keep the feelings of guilt and fears of phantom STDs bursting through the condom neuroses to myself.

But my deep seeded guilt is a contradiction to my experiential personality and often leaves me feeling conflicted. I wish I could be completely bisexual so I could take a hiatus from dating NYC men, but I’ve learned that I am forever hetero (ok I’ll make the allowance for a threesome with really hot women) and now understand why my lezzie friends laughed in college when I attempted to ‘come out’ each semester.

As much as I pretend otherwise, I think may be vanilla, hiding behind a party girl exterior and the enormous tatas. Secretly suppressing this newfound gnawing desire to make like my friends and find emotional stability that comes with a relationship. Or maybe I am just tired and PMSy.