Girls, usually those younger than me (so around how old I was when most of the debauchery chronicled in TATMWCMD took place), just love to tell me their whorror stories. I don’t mind it: I branded myself and showed it off to everyone like a new tattoo, and it’s probably best that they do not realize that I now retired, cruising through my uneventful days in idyll as a lonely lush of a spinster. Having too much fun now, they likely won’t understand that I had to change my ways as damage control, like a panicked reset done impetuously under the threat of a complete system meltdown, as a direct result of the wear and tear of being a hoe. Let ‘em enjoy themselves and keep buying my books; being hot is fun, for a while, and I am just happy to see people read (even bad writing, like mine).
With that being said, I am clutching my goddamn imaginary pearls through some of these girls’ misadventures!
I worked with a host who was a senior in high school and it was a Friday night; she asked me what I was getting into after work, a gesture I always found polite and done out of respect and admiration for me because my answer never wavered.
“A bottle of the finest $2.99 Sauvignon Blanc, and then I will probably lurk this boy’s tagged photos on Instagram. What about you?”
“Well, I got invited to an orgy party, but my boyfriend has been really nice to me this week, so I don’t think I’ll go. The last time was fun, though…. Maybe I’ll show up, but I just won’t get too drunk….”
I gawked at her. “Hold up, ma’am….”
“Huh?”
“An ORGY PARTY? Excuse me?”
“Oh, well, yeah, Kendall’s parents are out of town and they have a full bar in their basement, so we all get wasted and fuck each oth—”
I held up my hand. “I know what an orgy is, bitch. I just don’t know if y’all should be engaging in one in HIGH SCHOOL.”
“I mean, I don’t go often, but when I do, they’re fun! Everyone’s safe!”
A server, closer to me in age, meandered up to the host stand to drop off menus. I stopped her.
“Ashley, you’re old. I have a question.”
“Yes, I had cassette tapes. They existed..”
“No. When you were in high school, were people throwing orgy parties?”
“Eh, sometimes. I never went because I thought I had small tits.”
“….But you were invited?”
“Hell yeah. I grew up in Florida, so I was like, a 12 on the rating scale, even with the small tits.”
I was incredulous; I had no clue!
“Why the fuck did I ever get invited to an orgy party? I wouldn’t have gone, but shit…”
Ashley walked away; my host shrugged.
“Is it because I’m ugly?”
“Of course not, Rose! You just fucked that famous guy last week! Well, your kind of ‘famous,’ but that still counts!”
(I was also the first person that same host told when she found out she had herpes. Ignoring what that says about me as I opened my $2.99 bottle of Pinot Grigio that evening, she texted me to thank me, claiming that my consolation was the only thing to get her to stop crying, and that I was right, fuckin’ everybody’s got herpes!
I couldn’t help but smile as I poured my precious ichor into a plastic Minions cup: This is exactly why I wrote that stupid fuckin’ book, right? That’s what I loved to hear!
“Also, Rose, I know that you said my boyfriend was overreacting as a way to cover up that he probably gave it to me after getting it from one of the four girls he slept with while we were on break last week, but I don’t think I’m going to bring that up to him if he ever texts me again… and I really hope he does…”
I gulped the wine down, picked the bottle up to pour another cup full, and chugged from the neck instead.)
Another time, I strolled into work and barely even had the time to put my purse down before hearing one of my coworkers yell, “ROSE! YES! I’VE BEEN WAITING TO SEE YOU! BOY, DO I HAVE A STORY FOR YOU!”
As my own publicist and manager and marketing team, I gasped, exclaiming, “Ooo! Has there been progress with Bacne Boy?”
(Earlier in the week, she disclosed to me the the story of Bacne Boy, her new dream boy: they have a real connection and he is sooo hot, but he only texts her back maybe once a day, is white but doesn’t allow that to stop him from calling his friends his [n-word]s online, and has a rather severe Xanax addiction, so I call him Bacne Boy because she also told me that he has, well, bacne, and I can’t be expected to remember his real name.)
“Girl, YES.”
I did something to make me look excited — maybe rubbed my hands together in anticipation or let out a muffled but still enthusiastic squeal — and gave her my full attention because she bought one of my books, in person, so Amazon did not steal 98% of the $10. It was the least I could do.
As it turns out, Bacne Boy did show up to the party she was telling me about — she was worried because his response to her invite was “keyzzzz gangggggggg” and she didn’t know what that meant and I don’t think I will ever get drunk enough to correctly translate that — but he was two shits to the wind. He walked in, gave everyone a half-assed wave, nodded at her, beerbonged a Mike’s Hard, and immediately retired to one of the bedrooms.
I gasped. “So you ended up meeting a new boy at the party? Maybe a cuter one who knows how to read? I love that! What a progression!”
“Oh, no. See, I was kind of glad he went into one of the bedrooms, you know? It was really loud in there and a bunch of his friends were there so I figured this way, we could get a little peace and quiet, some alone time.”
She nudged me with her elbow in that way that people do to signify camaraderie, a bond over both having terrible taste in something. I gave her the eyebrows, y’know, the ooo, yes, I getchu, girl! eyebrows, but I didn’t really: had that been me at the party with a boy I liked, I probably would have immediately beerbonged a 14% ABV stout and walked home in disappointment, crying the whole time, and continuing to sob until my tears were flooding my phone screen as I tried to order $40 of McDonald’s delivery, failed, ate cold garbanzo beans out of the can, and went to bed.
“So I went in there and I tried to talk to him but he was totally mumbling and making no sense, so I laid down with him and we started making out, and anyway, we fucked! Sort of! He has a huge dick! It went soft, though, and then he passed out.”
I blinked. “Was he…. Conscious? Like, a little aware of what was going on?”
“I mean, he was pretty fucked up!”
“…Were his eyes open?”
“Uh…. Not really?”
“Ah…. Ok… Well, I have to go…. Pee…” I said, backing away slowly before breaking off into a sprint.
It’s always heartbreaking to read an Instagram DM that is longer than TATMWCMD itself from a “fan” (saying that word feels like I am lying to my mother about eating her chocolate bar, shamefully insisting that the chocolate residue smothering my face is actually human shit) asking me for advice about a man they’ve been in an off and off entanglement for a year. They come to me because they think I am an expert on this — credentials that I sadly cannot deny possessing — but my erudition on the matter has blessed me with a clear view of how these situations always end, for it never varies: They actually don’t end unless you make them end, and they will never get any better, and your only option is to accept that.
They provide a backstory that is by no means brief, and it’s sorrow upon blatantly ignored red flags upon misery upon delusions upon oh nos…. upon denial upon the cruelty of bastards upon deceit, and I am stuck in “Roseisawriter is typing….” limbo because I don’t know what to say, and I would simply love to just not respond, but I can’t: They read an entire book of my problems, didn’t they?
Lying and telling them he totally loves her and obviously just pretends like he doesn’t because he probably has tendency to only appear emotionally unavailable, perhaps as a result of his mother’s best friend sexually assaulting him when he was a child that you mentioned in sentence #16 of paragraph #9, and even though he spent the last three nights at his wife’s house and only texted her back after 1am each night, they’re absolutely not fucking, he sincerely just needed a place to stay and didn’t want to burden her, he seems like such a timid sweetie, could work because it is common knowledge that liars love dressing up their bullshit with countless intricate and unnecessary details to make it seem more believable and thus, it looks like I really took the time to pen her a lengthy, detailed, and thoughtful response, but I can’t fuckin’ do that!
Do as I say, not as I do: I will not encourage the prolongation of another woman’s suffering, but I will listen to it, and what does a listener do to prove that they are actually, y’know, listening?
They ask questions!
“So…. He was with you on Friday night, right? And y’all fucked?”
“Yes! It was sooooo nice! It was everything I had hoped for and I just wish it could be like that all the time.”
“….And then he’s been at his wife’s house ever since?”
“Yeah, and he’s not happy about it. She’s such a total bitch to him all the time.”
“Is he between houses right now? Does he have nowhere else to go? Ain’t he 33 years old? Damn.”
“No, that’s where he lives.”
“….With his wife?”
“He’s working on moving out. He just needs to save up for a few months.”
“….And you’re sure his wife knows that? She’s in on the plan?”
“No, see, that’s the problem! She’s in total denial! She’s always posting pictures of them together on Facebook talking about how in love they are!”
Yes, that’s the problem indeed….
“Hmm…. Well, that’s a shitty situation, my dude.”
“Hold on. I’ll send you screencaps of her posts.”
This is when I would normally say something like, “Ok! Go ahead! I’m about to [clock into work, take a nap, scrub my shower grout with a single toothbrush bristle, dedicate my existence to becoming a master of fencing, etc.], so if I don’t reply until later, that’s why!” and then never reply at all because I can’t help this girl: She is in hopelessly infatuated with a married, lying sack of shit because he is probably the only man she knows who can actually eat pussy well because he’s married and a cheater, so he’s had lots of practice, and no one will be able to convince her otherwise until he irreparably shatters her spirit, but though I formed this as a hypothetical scenario — an example — it is based off a real story about a real exchange I had, and this girl was quick. She had those screencaps ready to stare at until she ruined her own day whenever she wished; I was barely able to type “Ok!” before they flooded in.
I only had to see one before I…. saw.
“Are you aware that this man and his wife both have Nazi tattoos? Multiple, in fact?”
I cringed after hitting send because this is delicate territory: I liked to think that someone who has been a very kind supporter of me wouldn’t also be a fascist, but they are everywhere, and I am a white woman. I was really banking on her simply not realizing that she had been fucking a white supremacist as he cheats on his white supremacist wife.
“What the fuck? Really?”
I sent her reference pictures. “Really, girl. They’re everywhere.”
….And that is how my retired-whore ass, my shitty book about whorror stories that wasn’t written very well, and my high position at the Counsel of Whores that was presented to me out of pity like a Purple Heart saved the day, FOR ONCE, because she sent me another message a week later thanking me for pointing that out because it became clear to her what kind of guy he is, everything terrible he had done washed over her like a broken damn, and she was embarrassed to have wasted so much of her time on such a piece of shit: a nazi, no less.
ROSE DAMIAN 