Sunday, June 03, 2007

Ashlyn--Couplehood

With all the activity of the blog lately, I’ve felt--I don’t know--boring? There have been new victims of the Inn, we’ve heard from both Drew and Jeff, and Art has been screwed over by the guy living his life and is now living as Nell Lincoln. Me? I’ve been job hunting and spending a lot of time with my boyfriend.

Speaking of Art...

I know he was worried about me being left here “alone” in Boston—but now I’m really worried about him. We’ve talked several times on the phone and he sounds upbeat and positive. Maybe too upbeat and positive. It might be me being overly protective of a friend, but I’m afraid he’s in denial. Sure he and that bastard Jeremy might come to some kind of resolution, and Art can get his life back—but it has got to have crossed his mind that they might not. I’ve been through having your life—for lack of a better term—STOLEN. It’s devastating. I had Art to lean on to get through it. If Jeremy continues to be the Asshole he’s shown himself to be… well I wish I could be there for Art like he was for me.

So back to me and my boring life. ;)

I met Matt back in February. I had just recently decided to push myself into the dating scene and adapt even further into my new life as Ashlyn. I wasn’t interested in anything serious or complicated. Let’s be honest here, at that time I recently had sex with Jean-Michel and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it; I was in the mood to experiment a little. I met Matt and he was good looking and funny and he asked me out at exactly the right time. Fast forward 3 months and I find myself still dating the guy. I’ve moved away from my position of “not interested in anything serious” to “I don’t know where this is going”. I’m both thrilled and terrified at the same time.

It’s amazing to me how easy it has been to slip into the role of someone’s girlfriend. Everything is starting to feel ‘couplish’. Friday night we had gone to a party—A “watch the Redsox/Yankees game on tv” party. I put on a little skirt and a small scoop necked top that really showed of my boobs. It was a hair slutty, but I figured I might give Matt a chance to show off his hot girlfriend to his friends. The people at the party were mostly Matt’s friends, and they are a really tight group. I was a little nervous meeting them at first—some of his friends go back all the way to childhood—but they really made me feel comfortable and not like an outsider.

At some point Matt leaves my side to get us some beers. It wasn’t long until I was cornered by someone curious about me. An attractive redhead woman walked over to me and stuck her hand out for a handshake.

“You must be Matt’s mystery girl.” She says to me. “I’m Rachel.”

“I’m not that mysterious. I’m Ashlyn. “ We warmly shake hands and then I reach over and grab a lock of my hair. “I see we are members of the same club.”

“Yep. I’ve been a redhead all my life. People always ask if I color my hair and I tell them ‘You can buy the color, but you can't buy the attitude’.”

We laugh at that and I instantly take a liking to this woman. “How do you know Matt?” I ask.

She pauses and bites her bottom lip as she thinks about her answer. “I’m Matt’s ex-girlfriend. I thought we should meet since I’m friends with a lot of Matt’s friends.”

“Oh.” I was surprised. I blanked and couldn’t think of anything to say.

“I didn’t come over here to create a scene or anything. Matt and I are still good friends and I’ve got a new guy now. I couldn’t be happier. I just didn’t want us bumping into each other and having this big awkward moment—which I guess I managed to create anyway.”

“No, it’s fine. You just surprised me.” I pause for a moment. “I guess Matt has a thing for Redheads.”

Rachel laughs. “Yeah, he does. Ask him about his high school sweetheart sometime. ‘Missy Dawson’ she was his first redhead, I think he’s been stuck on them ever since.”

I probably should have hated this woman or something. That’s the proper girlfriend response right? But I couldn’t. She was too easy to like.

“Hey, I better get back to my boyfriend, he doesn’t know anyone here and he hates being left alone at parties. I just wanted to meet you.” She shakes my hand again. “It was nice to meet you Ashlyn.”

“Nice to meet you too. Can I ask something personal?”

“Why did we break up?” She asks.

I nodded.

“That’s a long discussion. The short answer? We were getting really serious at some point and we had a discussion on kids. I don’t want kids—he does. My job requires I travel often and I love my job--It’s no way to raise kids. We realized we weren’t on the same page on a lot of things at that point, and we decided to move on.”

Kids! Now there something I hadn’t thought a whole lot about. Do I want kids some day? I pushed the thought aside for later.

At that moment a slightly drunk man walked up and slipped an arm around Rachel. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Your friend Terry has this great wedding disaster story he won’t tell until you come back over.”

Rachel waves at me. “Matt’s a great guy. Let’s get together sometime and do lunch and compare notes—I don’t get to do the girl talk thing nearly often enough.”

“Do you like Starbucks?”

“I love Starbucks. Cut me and I bleed Starbucks.” She jokes.

“Me too. Let’s go sometime.”

“Sounds great.” She waves goodbye and they disappear into the party.

About a minute later Matt returns. “Are you having a good time?” Matt asked as he handed me a Sam Adams.

I give him a big smile, lean in and give him a kiss—then wipe the lipstick off of him. “Your friends are great. I’m having a great time. C’mon—let’s go grab a spot on the couch before they are all taken.”

I ended up basically sitting in his lap. I leaned back into him, sitting on him like a chair. I was a little tricky with the short skirt I was wearing, but we make it work. We get comfortable, ready to watch the game and I whisper “So…tell me about Missy Dawson.”

“How the hell do you know about Missy Dawson?” He asked surprised.

I give him a peck on the cheek. “We redheads have a club. We share info.”

He lets out a sigh. “Great. You’ve met Rachel.”

“We’re going to Starbucks.”

“I am so fucked.”

I’ve mentioned before in this blog that I’m a basketball fan, not a baseball fan. Kind of like I am learning to adapt to my life as a woman, I’m learning to be a Redsox fan. The total of my knowledge about baseball: I know there are nine innings and 3 strikes and you are out. I ask questions about the game as we watch the game and I come off like a total chick—but I guess that okay. Besides, Matt really seems to enjoy explaining the game to me.

The Redsox lost—5 to 9. No one was that upset. “Hey we’re still ahead of them by something like 13 games.” Matt assures me.

Afterwards I go home with him and stay at his place—we had planned it ahead of time because we had decided to drive out to Providence and see my ‘Rents before they went on their trip to New Zealand. I had packed an overnight bag and everything. When we got to his place it was an insane hour so I stripped and slipped into one his t-shirts and crawled into bed.
It was past 3am and he slides into bed next to me, spooning me. It was nice. I like the feeling of having a warm body next to mine. He slides an arm around me and it feels even better. Of course he couldn’t leave well enough alone. He pushes my hair aside and starts kissing my neck, he was trying a little foreplay.

“What are you doing?” I try to not sound annoyed—I was exhausted.

“What?”

“It’s after 3.”

“So? All I wanted was a kiss.” He says innocently.

I roll over and face him. “Yeah, right.” He’s leaning on one arm now looking down on me. I give him a big smile and grab him by the front of the black t-shirt was wearing, pulling him down to me, kissing him. It was a good ten second kiss. I could feel his body responding. I push him gently away and pat him affectionately on the chest.

“You still just want a kiss?” I give him one of my smirks.

“Well not now—“

“Too bad. It’s after 3.” I attempt to give him a seductive look—I’m still trying to master such things. “Baby, I’m tired. But in the morning, I’m all yours-- it will be worth the wait.”
He gives a frustrated sigh and we return back into the spooning position.

“You have no idea how frustrating it is to be a guy.”

He couldn’t understand why I started laughing so hard.

Not totally unemployed…

I’ve hit a brick wall in the job hunting. No one wants to hire me as a waitress, and I don’t have any work history for anything else. If it wasn’t for the promotional stuff I do, I don’t know how I could survive financially. The promotional stuff is decent money but unfortunately the radio station doesn’t need me that often. I’m not making enough to pay all my bills, but at least the financial hole I am in isn’t getting too much deeper. I do have a dilemma of needing to pay my rent and make another payment to the IRS for back taxes in the next few days. I don’t know what I am going to do. Matt knows I am in a tough spot and has offered to loan me the money, but that just feels wrong to me.

After one of the radio station gigs, me and a bunch of the other girls stepped into a bar for cosmos. We were a hit with the crowd there—all the girls who work these promotion gigs are hot, and we were all wearing short shorts and baby t’s. I mentioned my job woes to the other girls and they were actually very supportive. One girl, Kara, said she had a contact with the promotions people who do local car shows.

“It’s actually easier work than these radio station gigs.” She says to me.

“Oh?” I ask interested. “What would I have to do?”

“Wear a bikini and lean up against the cars. Easy but boring.” She says cheerfully.

I was copying down the contact information when one of the other girls approached me. Her name was Heather. I had worked a handful of the radio jobs with her. She was nice.

“You have waitress experience, right?” She asked.

“Yeah.”

“Where I work they are always looking for pretty girls with waitress skills. I could put in a good word for you and I guarantee you would get the job—plus the tips are always good.”
“Really! That would be amazing! Where do you work?” I asked. I was excited, things were looking up.

“Headlights.”

“Headlights?” I think she saw my enthusiasm wane.

“What’s wrong with Headlights?” She was a little defensive.

I didn’t have a real answer besides that I don’t really see myself as a Headlights girl. The outfit I was wearing at that moment—the short shorts and baby t, were very similar to the outfits the girls at headlights wear--so obviously I didn’t have a problem wearing an outfit like that. Maybe it was because I had visited the Dallas headlights on many occasions and had given the waitresses a good look. I had often thought ‘pretty to look at, but nothing upstairs’. Maybe I was afraid of people thinking the same thing about me.

“I don’t know if my boyfriend would like that…” I lamely threw out as an excuse.

“I bet he loves the idea.” She takes out a piece of paper and writes down some contact info. “Talk to the BF and then give this guy a call.”

I took the info and put it in my purse. Maybe I’m being crazy. A job is a job, right?

--Ashlyn

3 comments:

Scott said...

boring shmoring. I was wondering when we'd hear from you again. I think it would take longer than a year for someone's life to get boring after a trip to the Inn.

Kat said...

Oh my God!

I have to make sure *I* don't have any kids!

I suppose Kat was too good a Catholic girl to take the pill. There is no way I'm not going to though! I'd better call her and find out what she was doing for prevention.

Anonymous said...

Trip/Kat, does that mean you are planning on being sexually active?