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Lame lovers

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[ CONTESTANT No. 2 ]

THE BIGGER THE EGO, THE SMALLER THE PECKER
By Laura Marcel
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Let's just say I was going through a particularly bad dry spell that temporarily impaired my judgment. I was living in Washington, D.C., which miraculously has a higher ratio of pretentious asshole males than even New York, when I ran into "Dave" one night at a crowded Capitol Hill party. He wasn't my type -- preppy, boyish-looking -- but it had been so long since I'd had sex, I was starting to forget what my type was. He fetched me drinks and blabbered on about his "very important" job at the State Department, mentioning, modestly, that the person who held his job in the last administration was more than twice his age. I nodded, unimpressed but tipsy, and in a gin-and-tonic haze gave him my number.

He called and we made plans to meet for dinner the following week. I waited for 45 minutes outside of the chi-chi D.C. restaurant that he had insisted we try, until finally, with just a few shards of dignity left, I took the Metro home. He was a no-show. At midnight, the phone woke me. It was Mr. State Department apologizing, saying he had been tied up with Warren Christopher (name dropper!) in an important meeting about Somalia and couldn't get to the phone. Whatever.

Don't ask me how I ended up in his bed a few weeks later, but there I was. As he was clumsily groping me and trying to wiggle his very tiny pecker between my legs, the phone rang. "It might be work ... I have to get it," he said. He picked up the phone and within seconds was purring: "Hi, honey. Are you OK? What's the matter, sweetness ..." before taking the phone into the bathroom and shutting the door.

What's a girl to do? Either stay and writhe with humiliation or get dressed and salvage an iota of self-respect. Problem was, it was the middle of the night and there was no way I'd be able to hail a cab -- I'd have to call one. I stayed put for a few minutes, listening to him saying, "Baby, of course I still love you and miss you," before I pounded on the bathroom door to tell the scumbag that I needed to call a taxi. He opened the door a crack, and with an irritated expression whispered, "Shhhh. I'm on the phone with my girlfriend in New York," to which I said, loud enough so she could hear, "Does she know that you and your pencil dick are screwing women in D.C.?"

SALON | March 31, 1998

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