A week later, Josh asked if I wanted to hang out, just to watch a movie and pick up some Thai food. I had nothing else to do so I took a bus to get out to his place, something that amazed him, even though it was relatively easy. His astonishment caused me yet again to silently question his intellectual capacities. But I shrugged it off as a non issue at this point. I have plenty of dumb friends.

We ordered some Thai food and then walked around the video store attempting to acclimate our tastes to each other. I teased him about the complete absence of Eric Bana in The Passion of the Christ and he, fairly idiotically, bet me a dinner about it and then became very bashful when we found a copy of the film in the store. He suggested renting it but happily I was no longer on a date with this guy and could thus tell him that I would eat Mel Gibson’s shit before I would watch another of his films. Josh seemed startled, but accepted this.

“You try being thrown over someone’s shoulder, inebriated, after two hours of Penelope Cruz speaking Spanish and engaging in subtly sexy behavior with Scarlett Johansson.”

I’d heard a lot about a newish Woody Allen movie, Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona, most notably that it was wholesomely pornographic and possessed the breasts and body of Penelope Cruz. I picked it up in passing, saying I wished to see it but it was inappropriate for this occasion. Josh pounced upon the thing like it was….I’m trying desperately to come up with a religious joke at this point…but I don’t have one…. the Word? Eric Bana? Anyway, he was suddenly very keen on this film, despite the fact that all I’d said it was that it was a) inappropriate for this occasion and b) distinctly sexual in terms of content. I should have taken this as a hint. I did not. Plus I wanted to see the damn thing. So we got that.

Back at his place, I discovered that John had preemptively purchased a suspicious amount of wine. Obviously, spicy Thai food is lovely with wine….but three bottles? Even for a seasoned budding alcoholic like myself this seemed somehow excessive for two casual friends having a movie slash dinner slash staying in night. I told him we should split a bottle and that would really be all. And for a while that was true. But perhaps for more time it wasn’t. He repeatedly opened bottles of wine, despite my insistence on the opposite course of action. He did though, luckily drink a good deal more than I.

Mid way through the third bottle, John because so helplessly inebriated that he began lengthily pontificating about his ex-girlfriend, the one who’s memory that dreadful movie had drummed up so unwelcomely. He told me I was much more attractive and interesting and intelligent than her but he was just so stuck on her. I nodded and patted him and guzzled wine and was a little annoyed because it seemed like he was apologizing to me for the fact that we weren’t dating and I’d felt that that (the us not dating) had been my idea. Was he taking credit for my idea? That seemed unfair. Also a little insulting….I was pretty sure I’d set the terms of this thing.

He told me he really found me attractive, which seemed a bit irrelevant but was still a compliment and I accordingly made efforts towards blushing winningly. I was too drunk to pull it off but luckily it was completely unnecessarily because I was already red from all the alcohol. At this point, the movie had gotten unbearably sexy. We were sort of smashed up together on the couch. What a stupidly small couch, I recall thinking. Why isn’t one of us on the chair? Should his head be on my breast? Wait a gosh darn second here….the wine, the dinner, the incredibly sexy film….the more I think about it, the more this seems not like the kind of Saturday night activity two people attempting to be platonic acquaintances might engage in….

So obviously the douchebag kissed me. He fell upon me like the Nazis fell on Belgium. I mean that exactly as it sounds because I was fairly amendable to the prospect as it occurred. Penelope Cruz will do that to a person. As will enough wine. I did eventually gather up the mental/moral fiber to proclaim, with all the preplexity of a someone who’s been led into a really very obvious trap, “But I thought we were going to be friends?” He responded to this by picking me up, throwing me over his shoulder and carrying me into his bedroom. Where we had sex. Obviously. You try being thrown over someone’s shoulder, inebriated, after two hours of Penelope Cruz speaking Spanish and engaging in subtly sexy behavior with Scarlett Johansson. It was like having sex all night without getting off.

So two problems. Firstly, I really hadn’t wanted to sleep with Josh, per say. Obviously in the moment, I did. Quite a bit. But in general, that hadn’t been the plan. No. Not at all. Religious guy with ex-girlfriend issues, communication inabilities, just a little bit dumb….No. Not good for sex. More importantly, in the throes of passion (wine…Penelope), there had been a complete lack of safety. The jerk had not put a condom on. In terms of diseases, I wasn’t worried. He’d only ever previously slept with the oft mentioned ex girlfriend and she was also of the church. If anyone was giving anyone diseases, it was me…to him. And I’d been tested after my last sexual partner. Obviously this was still stupid and irresponsible. But I felt fine about that element of how stupid and irresponsible I’d been.

Ah but the pregnancy thing. I’d just gone off the pill. My last long term relationship had ended and I’d figured I’d go without for a while. Without the pill, without the oppressive long term relationships. And yet there I was the next morning, searching for my bra, the words “fuck” reoccurring a lot in my head. The words morning after pill also occurred to me and after getting home I looked into it.

Fifty bucks though. Did you know that? Fifty fucking dollars to ensure there isn’t an off spring. These weren’t waters (be they the red seas of Moses or the broken waters of pregnancy) I was willing to test, so I mosied on down to the pharmacy and bought myself a mini, preemptive abortion. It was…unpleasant. I was an emotional, vomiting mess for a couple of days. During the first couple of days, I made a lot of jokes about it being plausibly easier and perhaps cheaper to just have a goddamn kid. But usually I would burst into tears after making this kind of joke. Or throw up. Terrible. It was basically like a expensive and painful ticket for being an idiot. But I paid it.

Josh was surprisingly apologetic about all of this. He made vocal motions towards paying for the mini abortion or at least splitting it but I declined. I figured he owed me dinner because of all the vomiting and more specifically because of Mel Gibson’s casting decisions. But I wasn’t going to take his money. That felt uncomfortable.

I also still felt we should probably move more towards the platonic direction, what with the fact that I was fairly sure I didn’t like him. The sex had been good though. Surprisingly so. He wasn’t hung all that well. But he possessed a sort of strange repressed religious boy thing; he was rough with me in a way I liked, something desperate, something that showed me how much he wanted what he was getting. When he clutched at me, it was as though we both knew he wasn’t allowed to, giving it some sort of safe level of kink that I found very, very appealing. But obviously, the guy was dumb and had horrible taste. Good sex doesn’t make up for everything.

Another week or so later was my housemate Darlene’s birthday. When your housemate turns twenty five and everyone in your home is twenty five (or twenty four…or twenty three…), you go out drinking. At least one drink must be had and often, this entails another two, three or four. Such was the case. We managed to get to the Anchor Room, which is a nice enough place though I’ve never in life had such a difficult time getting a bartender to notice me. People keep telling me that he’s gay, which is slightly ego comforting but my god. I’m also in a profession that relies on tips and I cannot imagine why a bartender might shun me like that, regardless of sexual orientation. So I was there, at the Anchor Room, being brutally, pointedly ignored by a bartender when I get a text from Josh. I’m drunk, he’s drunk and he’s somewhere in the nearby and hopes to see me. It does sound nice. Why? Why am I like this? Why can I not find my ego gratified by something a little less superficial than bartenders that pay attention to me and stupid, but tall, dark and handsome religious boys with troublesome ex girlfriends who clearly want to sleep with me? I blame the media.

In any case, I smiled when I got the text message. I might have even bounced slightly on the balls of my feet and felt a bit sexy. I am a bit sexy. Sometimes. And he was coming to meet me! Such confirmation! It was almost enough to distract me from the fact that I didn’t want him there all that much. Again, good in bed, not good at the talking. And my housemates are all here. My incredibly judgmental, relatively intelligent and well spoke housemates. This was going to be bad. But he’s already on his way. Thinking quickly, I beelined away from the bartender who was still ignoring me and towards the housemates. “Okay look,” I inform them, “That John guy is going to come here to meet me and I want all of you on your best behavior.”

“Which one is the John guy?” Alice wondered messily and, I must say, just a tad insultingly.

“She means the religious guy with the hard on for Eric Bana,” Will helped out, but this isn’t all that helpful, considering that I’m trying to initiate rather than obliterate tact, in terms of introducing them to this guy.

“Wait, now you’re dating that idiot who knocked you up?” Darlene asks loudly, informing everybody in the bar.

“We’re not dating. We’re just….hanging out. And he didn’t knock me up!” I point out, furious.

“Yeah but only because you took that abortion pill,” Will counter points out.

“Shut the fuck up,” I suggest.

“Maybe you should use a condom this time?” Alice wonders again.

“Yeah no foolin,’” Darlene adds, wittily. “That was a lot of vomiting you did after the last time you guys,’hung out.’”

Resisting the impulse to just murder everyone, I arranged to meet Josh outside the bar. He was wasted to the point where I recall being surprised he could see, let alone recognize me, walk or talk. I bodily, and candidly escorted him back to my apartment, thankfully separately from my housemates. He spent the night and we managed to not have sex, though we did round a couple of bases. He admitted that he’s masturbated to the thought of me, which I found firstly odd and then ultimately complimentary, in sort of a sweet over honest way.

We woke up. He went to move his car, happily (maybe not happily exactly but humorously considering the financial and emotional cost of the morning after pill) incurring a rather exuberant ticket. He called me to tell me this. I laughed, but only to myself and pondered the predicament I seem to have entangled myself in. This thing with the dumb religious guy definitely did not seem to be getting more platonic. I attempted to discuss a solution with my housemates but they all said things that sounded unsurprisingly similar to I told you so. I pondered things further and avoid John’s calls and texts. Sometimes the clearest message is a lack of message.

But this oddly sort of works itself out. Sort of. I get a text message one evening (I’m in another bar, speaking to another guy actually, but we’ll get to that…) “You know how I’ve been on and off with my girlfriend?”

Wait a minute. No…I definitively did not know that….. Girlfriend? He said ex-girlfriend. Repeatedly! I was fairly damn certain of that much.

“Well it’s back on. So I can’t buy you that dinner. In fact, I don’t think we should be alone together, because I’m so attracted to you.”

Now I’m a very broke young woman and it seemed to me for a moment entirely plausible that he is just feeding me bullshit to get out of paying for the dinner he so rightfully owes me. Not even in terms of dating or, good manners or chivalry or whatever but because he was so damn wrong about Eric Bana!

Alright though. The upside is that I don’t need to speak to this idiot again.

But two days later, I get another text. This one suggests we might keep sleeping together, because he really enjoyed that. His super religious girlfriend isn’t that into sex, apparently.

I text him back almost without thinking, “We can keep sleeping together, but you can’t buy me the dinner you owe me?”

After a minute or two of contemplating words like dignity and self respect, I text him again. “Let’s just pretend that I just responded ‘No’, okay?”

I have yet to hear back from Josh.