"Mikey? Really?! OH MY GAWD!!!"
was what I heard when I walked into a bar in Portsmouth late last week to try to cure a case of New England winter cabin fever. My ex-girlfriend, the girl with whom I had the longest relationship of my life thus far, materialized with those five obnoxious words after not registering on my radar for six years. She sported heavily conditioned, highlighted curls, a tight, pilly sweater and thrifty Marshall's denim that would have fit an eight year old Asian boy. Her thong flailed up from her ass crack like Moby Dick's tail after being harpooned. I looked at her with surprised eyes. Where the fuck did you come from?
I dated Katie for a year and a half, mostly because I was 22 and she was a smoking hot brunette who could not stop fucking me. Like most other 22 year old guys, I couldn't differentiate between love and sex and, accordingly, could not see that she was an awful girlfriend. Katie regularly blew me off at the last minute to get stoned with her loser friends. She was a waitress at a slow seafood restaurant, which meant that I was perpetually supporting her. To show her appreciation for my financial backing, Katie would do romantic things like be extremely rude to my mother and clog my toilet with her tampons. I even stuck around after she cheated on me with some anonymous wigger at a house party. Dating Katie was like dating a contestant from Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School.
I suffered through the lunacy of her white trash family. Her biological father was a legitimate fugitive, running from incarceration all over New England for a medley of crimes. Her mother, who remarried after the father of her children disappeared, was no treat herself. She was in court a lot for stealing purses from mini vans parked in front of a local middle school, falsifying pain killer prescriptions and identity theft. Nothing says "potential parent-in-law" like your girlfriend's mother circling the block you live on in a stolen car all hepped up on pharmies, leaving you voicemail after voicemail to the effect of "I know where you are and I will kill you." She was cheating on her husband frequently with a few of her pill popping next door neighbors, and she forgot to pick up Katie's brothers from school every other day. I blocked out all of those things in the name of regular sex and false security, but there was one terrible facet of Katie I couldn't ignore; something so foul that it forced me into self loathing and depression.
The worst part about my relationship with Katie, much worse than the cheating and the death threats was her post-Katrina New Orleans stinking slop box of a vagina. I'm not sure how anyone can go through life without knowing they smell bad, especially when the smell is so pronounced. Even homeless people straggle into public bathrooms to scrub down. How terrible were her trustafarian friends if she could go months without one of them saying "Hey Katie, where you pee smells like a fresh autopsy" or "Hey Katie, I can smell you through your jeans"? I know that probably sounds like hyperbole, but you could literally smell her pussy though her jeans. How the fuck do you not know you smell? She didn't have a deviated septum and she didn't smoke cigarettes; her sense of smell was fine. Conversely, I had both a deviated septum and a smoking habit and I could still smell her. I could never figure it out and I sure as Hell couldn't ask her about it. As a young guy I was too unsure of myself and unwilling to hurt Katie's feelings, even though she was so adept at hurting mine. I didn't want her to take it the wrong way and risk losing her. So, I just sat there and took it, hoping she might learn about the magic of douche through osmosis. Or maybe an OB/GYN. Or possibly Mark Wheelis, lecturer at UC Davis and an expert on the history of biological warfare.
As I caught up with Katie at the bar, I couldn't help but remember the time my best friend Timmy gave her a tattoo on her hip at his apartment. The placement of this particular tattoo demanded she unbutton her pants and slide them below panty level. The whole process didn't take too long and once Timmy finished, Katie disappeared into the bathroom to reapply A+D ointment to the tattooed area. Somehow, Timmy and I ended up in a conversation about how much we both loved eating pussy. I could tell Timmy anything. That's when I broke down and told him that I hadn't gone down on Katie recently because of the smell. He paused for a moment and then broke down into laughter. "Dude, I was gonna say something but I was afraid you would kill me with a piece of loose asphalt. Yeah, I gagged while I was inking her. My fucking eyes were watering. I'm sorry, man." Nothing about Timmy's admission comforted me. I was mortified. I started mentally sketching out a paranoid laundry list of other people who might have known about my girlfriend's cooch issues, which were beginning to consume me.
On the ride home, in the nicest way possible, I finally confessed my disgust for her janky, bacteria addled dragon's cavern. "Hun, um...it's, you know...it's not THAT noticeable. I just thought that, well...you would want to know, babe." She started bawling immediately and it came as quite a shock. Katie was calloused to hurtful truths most of the time. One time she told me, with the ease of an IHOP waitress listing off the daily specials, about her scary molester uncle being released from jail. Apparently conversation about blood related sexual predators was acceptable, but the far less serious talk of her unpalatable nether regions was too much to take. I drove her car down Route 101 from Manchester that night, wondering if we would even be a couple by the time we hit the Portsmouth traffic circle. We'd been together for a substantial amount of time, but I wasn't sure it was enough time for that kind of candid discussion. We hugged and kissed when she dropped me off, and she drove away.
Katie's best friend Jane called me the next day. She told me about the cell phone sob fest she had to sit through immediately after Katie got home from dropping me off. She recommended to Katie that she try douching. Even better, Katie said she would give it a shot. I couldn't believe my ears. Was I finally going to have a girlfriend whose pussy didn't smell like a broken kim chi refrigerator? Could I once again worship at the altar of Spread Eagle? After thanking Jane profusely and hanging up, I immediately scrolled to Katie's name in my phone book and called her to make plans.
Two days later, Katie came over for an overnight visit so I could make us dinner and hopefully smooth things over with her. I wasn't entirely sure whether she really was going to stay the night or just grab all the crap she had at my place and leave. Like a hot chick version of the Central Park Jogger, she opened the door without knocking, dragged me to my bedroom with pots still simmering on the stove and fucked my brains out. Afterwards, she stuck my fingers inside her and brought them to my nose. Is this some kind of black magic courtesy of an FDS voodoo priestess? It was glorious; the bouquet was masterfully crafted and up to the standards of a true connoisseur d'vulve. Everything was normal again.
Before I knew it, I was back to using sex as an excuse for not having the balls to break up with my shameful excuse for a partner; my gorgeous, terrible girlfriend had finally reclaimed that new car smell. I was starting to piece together the key to our symbiotic relationship; I fucked her physically and she fucked me emotionally. The more I thought about it, the more it became clear that Katie didn't escape unscathed from her crazy family at all. She was just as broken as the rest of them. She used me as a pillar of stability and prevented me from freaking out at her bullshit by keeping me sexually interested in her. I don't know who was worse: her for using me, or me for being OK with it. I never asked Katie what she used to maintain the hygienic masterpiece between her legs and, by the time two weeks had passed, I had all but forgotten about the months I needed a clothespin on my nose in order to stuff my cock into her.
Three weeks later - An unwelcome, lingering smell made a cameo appearance while Katie's knees were slung over my shoulders. I paid no attention to it.
Four weeks later - I stopped going down on Katie altogether, attributing the condition to something lady parts related. Even I knew the cleanest girls could get that "not so fresh feeling" some days. Being raised in a house full of women etched all sorts of awful knowledge into my little boy brain. To keep from crying, I made myself swear that it was just temporary.
Five weeks later - That was it. I couldn't take it anymore. Her vagina smelled even worse than before she started douching. There could only be two reasons: either she stopped cleaning below her naval, or bacterial vaginosis developed an immunity to vinegar and water. One scenario or the other had to be true, and both of them were far too strong for the ignorant puppy love I had for Katie to endure. I started to correlate the quality of her vaginal hygiene to the quality of her soul. Snapshots of all of the terrible things Katie put me through during our eighteen months roller coaster ride began orbiting my head. She's constantly flaking out on me. Her friends hate me. I buy her everything. Her family wants me dead. She's high 18 hours a day. She's rude to my mom. I can't talk to her about anything of significance. She's cheated on me, and she could still very well be cheating on me. If sex is the only thing I enjoy about Katie and I can't even enjoy that anymore, why am I with her? I looked at myself in the mirror and made the toughest choice of my young life. She came over the next night after work and I broke up with her. I couldn't admit to Katie that the chain of thought that lead to our break-up started at her disgusting genitals. I didn't have the heart. Instead, I spared her sensibilities and linked the split to "drifting apart".
As she packed up all of her shit and walked out, I promised myself that I would stay single until I learned to be more discerning about the women I allowed to get close to me. That was six years ago, and my love life has been nothing but a string of one night stands and extended flings because I'm perpetually anxious about my ability to do just that.
Katie and I chatted for a bit at the bar. Her shameless flirtations led me to believe she was single. Her body still looked amazing and I could not stop staring at her ass. I wanted to fuck her. I mulled over how much fun it would be to fuck an ex-girlfriend after 6 years apart. I debated whether the sex would be exactly the same or completely different. We already knew we were physically compatible, so I couldn't be awkward or even remotely bad. What if we became fuck buddies? Maybe she grew out of her old habits and we would hit it off again. Maybe we would even get back together. The thought of having a familiar, warm body to curl up with during another brutally depressing New Hampshire winter started to sound amazing. Those old, confused feelings I used to have for Katie welled up all over again. Did fate arrange for us to meet again as adults to rekindle our relationship in a better, healthier way? I wanted to blame it on the Newcastle.
We exchanged numbers and made buzzed up, half-hearted plans to hang out during the coming week. I went to hug her goodbye, and that's when it hit my olfactory senses like a pillowcase full of nickels.
Oh. My. God. It's been six years. There's no way she hasn't taken care of tha -- she hasn't. Oh my God, I'm in a bar filled with people and the only thing I can smell is Katie's vagina.
I walked out of the door, deleted her number from my phone and walked home by myself through the crisp winter air, laughing the entire way.
Posted by KungFu Mike at 9:11 AM