I dunno about you folks but I don’t love giving blowjobs. The pushing, the pulling, the choking the gagging … all of that is annoying, but I have a darker reason. This reason is what I have come to call The Blowjob Incident.
One summer day in June 2004 I boarded a Southwest flight from Chicago to Los Angeles. There were very few seats left when I got on. I plopped down next to a guy. He was doing the New York Times crossword puzzle. In pen. He smelled like Old Spice deodorant and wore a checked button down shirt, khaki shorts and flip flops. I am a blabber and so I did what blabbers do. I blabbed. I told him I was afraid to fly and that I had accidentally left my Xanax at home. He suggested that we begin drinking. I thought this was a splendid idea. Four double vodka tonics later I had my head on his shoulder. By the end of the flight I was in love.
“Carrie … I’m totally in love” I was on a payphone talking to my best friend in the baggage terminal at LAX.
“Jen, is that you?”
“Listen Car-Dog, listen to me and listen good. I met the man I am going to marry.”
“Jen, I can’t understand a word you’re saying … are you in trouble?”
“Carrie … if LOVE is trouble then I am in BIG trouble.”
“Jen. It’s 3am here.”
“Oh Care-Dog, wait until YOU find the right one. Time will mean nothing.”
“Right … well until then time means I have to get up at 6am. So call me tomorrow.”
“OK, but really I am in love.”
CLICK.
The next day I got an email from plane man. He wanted to know if I wanted to “hang out” on Friday. Now. Let me just say something. If you are single and a guy wants to “hang out” that is a red flag. A bright red flag. A bright red bloody flag. But at the time I was so thrilled that lalala “hanging out” was just dandy with me.
The big day came. My co-worker did my make-up. I got a Brazilian wax. I had on new clothes. And I waited. And I waited. Plane man was supposed to call me after work at his important job and let me know when he was coming over. No call. I paced and smoked. My boss was out of town and I was staying at his place. It was a stunning house in the Hollywood hills. It was a movie star mansion surrounded by brilliant pink Bougainvillea. It was sure to impress plane man. If he would ever call. And then he did! He did call! Hooray for true love.
When plane man came he looked really hot. He reminded me of JFK. He had that JFK swagger. He had a killer smile. Red flag #2. Killer smile usually equals broken heart. But ladeda whatever. We went out to eat and during dinner I began to drink profusely. I was so nervous. It had been a great while since I had been on a date, which certainly this was, I told myself. And then I began to feel woozy. I had remembered mid-third Jack and Coke that I had taken a Vicodin earlier for a tooth ache. Thus the wooziness. Plane man kept pace with me. I ate only a bit of my food. My skinny co-worker told me that this was essential in convincing a man to think that you are skinny. If he sees you only eat a little he’ll think, “Wow she only picks at her chicken … she’s so hot.” We laughed and drank and talked about our lives. Well maybe he talked about his life. I pretty much lied about mine. I didn’t mean to. It just tumbled out. I wanted so badly for him to like me I started saying all kinds of crazy shit. Like … I was a swimmer in high school. The truth was in high school I wore all black and drank Boone’s Farm with my best friend in her garage.
After we ate … well after he ate … we ended up back at my borrowed fancy house. Even with the booze I was scared shitless.
A tad about my dating history. There is none. I have had flings and weird 3 night stands but dating … as an adult … not so much. This felt like it could be something more. Something real. Plane man seemed like boyfriend material.
There we were framed by the moonlight that was shining into the living room. Floor to ceiling glass windows. The greenery of the hillside. It was so romantic. I didn’t know what else to do so I leaned in and kissed the plane man. He kissed me back. I couldn’t believe it. I was actually making out with a real life man. With a big shot career, a nice car and health insurance. “This is the life” I thought.
We ended up in the bedroom. In my boss’ bed. Creepy I know, but it was LA. Weirder stuff has happened in there.
And then I did what I always did on first dates. I began to give plane man a blowjob. Like I said I don’t much care for blowjobs. But when faced with sexual intimacy I could never think of what to do or say so I gave blowjobs. I gave blowjobs on the first date because I thought it made me seem sexy and wild. And I thought it was a sure bet to get men to fall in love with me.
So there I was bobbing for apples when a strange sensation came over me. No, it wasn’t the thrill of sexual tension. No it wasn’t a savage desire. It was pain. Severe pain. And it was coming from my mouth. I noticed that plane man’s member was hitting something in my mouth. Hard. Whatever it was hitting hurt like hell. “What could it be?” A canker sore? “What’s happening?” I thought, in between bobs. And then there was a giant crescendo of pain and after a particularly hard thrust, on the part of plane man, out came … my back molar. “Could not be …” I thought. “Not my tooth, I’ve never even had a cavity.” But there it was resting on plane man’s six pack abs. My tooth. To be honest it wasn’t the whole tooth. But it was a rather large chunk of it. But there was pain my friends, there was pain. I screamed a muffled scream. Plane man looked down.
“What happened, what’s wrong?” He asked. “Are you OK?” He hadn’t seen the tooth. Hooray.
“Uhh” I said. “Yea … it’s just … No, I’m fine …”
I wasn’t fine. The pain was so intense I thought I might pass out. I was wincing and squinting. I wondered how I could nonchalantly pluck the tooth off of plane man’s belly. And just then plane man made a discovery.
“What is that?”
He said looking at the tooth. He immediately became flaccid. Which was good because more bobbing and thrusting would most definitely resulted in blood loss for him. The part of the tooth left in my gum was a jagged wreck. I freed my mouth of his member.
“Nothing, it’s nothing.” I said
“Wait … dude … Is that your tooth?”
And then it hit me. I was drunk. In my boss’ bed. With a total stranger. And his penis had just caused me to lose a molar. It was one of those moments when you realize what’s really going on in your life. Who you really are.
And I was a toothless ho.
The mood was definitely killed.
“Are you OK? Are you hurt?” He said as he put back on his boxers.
“I am totally fine” I lied as my face began to swell. “Totally fine.”
“Dude” he said. “I think you need to go to a dentist. That was a pretty big chunk.”
I felt the tears beginning to well up in my eyes. Oh no. “Please don’t cry please” I told myself. There’s nothing worse than a toothless hoe except a crying toothless hoe.
“I should get you an icepack or something.”
“I’ll be fine” I said looking away so plane man wouldn’t see the tears starting to run down my face.
I had done it again. I had ruined my chance at love. I wanted to tell plane man that I didn’t even like giving blowjobs. That I was never on the swim team and that I loved to eat. I wanted to tell him that he didn’t know the real me. That the real me wanted to take things slow. Wanted to live in the present moment. Wanted to get to know him. And most of all wanted him to get to know me. But it was too late. Once the blowjobs start you can’t really just go back to the “getting to know you” stage. Once the blowjobs start you have made a statement and that statement is … “I give blowjobs on the first date and therefore I am not girlfriend material”
I could feel my mascara beginning to run.
“Listen” plane man said. “It’s no big deal.”
“Right … I know” I said.
“It could happen to anyone.”
“No” I thought. It couldn’t … it could only happen to me.
“Right … Right” I said, wiping away my tears.
“Maybe I should go” plane man said. “We can totally hang out another time.”
“Sure, sure” I said.
Plane man put his clothes back on and I let him out.
“I’ll call you.” He said.
“OK” I said, half smiling. I could only smile a half smile because my face was so swollen that one side couldn’t move anymore.
I couldn’t watch as he pulled out of the driveway. It was too cliché. I began to sob. Why couldn’t I be normal like everyone else? Why couldn’t I date? What was wrong with me? Just then the phone rang. I thought it might be plane man. I answered without looking at the caller ID.
“Hello?”
“Jen, it’s Carrie.”
I immediately began to cry when I heard my friend’s voice.
“So is he still there? How did it go?”
“Oh Carrie it didn’t go so well.”
“Jen I can’t understand what you’re saying.”
The swelling created a mumble.
“It was a total disaster, I did the blowjob thing again and my tooth fell out.”
“WHAT!?” Carrie yelled. “Say it again I can’t really understand you. Did you say your tooth fell out?”
“Yes. It did right in the middle of the blowjob! What’s wrong with me Care-Dog?”
“Oh Jen, I’m so sorry, that blows … no pun intended.”
We both broke out in hysterical laughter.
“Carrie, will I ever find true love?”
“Yes Jen, but stay off Southwest flights for a while, will ya?”
“Ha … yeah I will.”
“Jen … there’s nothing really wrong with you. The only thing wrong with you is that you think something is wrong with you.”
It was a profound moment. And even through the pain I knew she was right. If I didn’t think I was less than I wouldn’t be giving blowjobs to men I met on planes, would I? Would I? I think not.
“I think you have a point. I gotta go get an ice pack. This pain is getting to be too much.”
“OK … call me tomorrow.”
“I will. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
CLICK.
As I sat with my swollen face cradled in an ice pack the sun was starting to come up.
It would probably be a rough day. But maybe not. Maybe I wouldn’t give any blowjobs today. And a day without a blowjob is a good day.
I kinda wish I could tell you that I never saw the plane man again. That he faded into nothing, becoming no one to me. But shockingly, after a fair amount of stalking on my part we saw each other again. And not be all smarmy, but to be all smarmy … I ended up losing a much bigger part of me to the plan man than just my tooth. He took my heart. I guess I shouldn’t say “took” I threw it at him willingly. And it hurt much more than losing the tooth.
Jen’s solo show, “Why Not Me…Love, Cancer and Jack White” recently made its East Coast debut at The 2013 New York International Fringe Festival and garnered stellar reviews from Time Out New York and Curtain Up, among others. The show opened in Chicago in 2012 and is set to tour this great country of ours in 2014. Bosworth is a mainstay on Chicago’s thriving live lit scene and can be seen performing all over town. She lives in Evanston, Illinois with her husband, who is a skateboarding lawyer.