Ladies' Man by Richard Price

was a kid that that was where God was marking a spot for a third hole when lucky for her he was called away on business. I had left my cigarettes in the bar. The cab pulled up in front of the brick building.
    Just be straight, man. Tell her, listen, you know what was really going down this afternoon so disconnect the phone and let's
git
…
it
…
on
! Yes indeedy, I was almost to her door before I wigged. I couldn't say that. It wasn't my style. Go with the order story. Hey! I forgot "the order! What order? Oh Christ, yeah, ha ha, you didn't order anything. Well, since you're here why don't you come in and have a drink? Ring the bell, chooch. Heavy footsteps.
    "Yeah?"
    A middle-aged guy in a T-strap undershirt, dress pants and slippers. His nose came up to my chest but his shoulders were a yard across. John L. Lewis eyebrows, fistfuls of black back hair like bear fur peeking at me over his shoulders. Heavy glasses and Maurice de la Creep face crevices.
    "Help you?" An arm like a crossbeam against the door frame.
    "Yeah, no, is this the Jacuzzi residence?"
    I didn't even have my sample case with me. I heard her talking to someone inside. The , apartment was smoky and smelled like someone was cooking garbage.
    "Jacuzzi, uh-uh."
    "Right, sorry." Down the stairs and out into the night stone sober and into another bar. It was a gay bar. Twenty guys in crew cuts and RAF mustaches turned their heads when I breezed in. I did a quick 180 degrees and headed out the door. And they didn't even know what they just missed. Because not only was it big, it was as thick as a woman's wrist.
     
    I headed for another bar but changed my mind. Enough was enough. I tried walking around a little but it was too cold. I didn't have my gloves or a scarf. I went to a coffeehouse down by NYU that looked like something out of the House of Usher. Ten-watt bulbs, carved-oak tables and chairs, miniature busts of Dante and Beethoven and hanging on the walls large portraits so old and dingy you couldn't even tell if they were men or women. The guys hanging around were dead ringers for William Shakespeare. Two Arabic women in Gucci army fatigues yakking over cannolis. A girl reading a paper in the corner kept glancing up at me without raising her head, giving me the once-over as if she were wearing bifocals.
    I almost sat down at her table but was too beat to get into anything more. I ordered an espresso with lemon peel, no sugar thank you, sat back, closed my eyes and tried to get my bearings. Seeing La Donna in the sack like that scared me.
    That whole vibrator thing was very confusing to me. The more 1 thought about it the more stupid and embarrassed I felt. Big deal she was jerking off. If she was just fingering herself without the help of Con Ed, would I have wigged? Damn, I jerked off more than a monkey. But I wouldn't if she was into… What's the difference. She was alone and trying to get off and I blew in there like some heavy nineteenth-century wop and now she probably would have trouble coming for the next six months. Nice going.
    It was sexist of me. I didn't wanna be sexist I felt much calmer—the only thing I couldn't or didn't want to think about was her
buying
the goddamn thing. Going into a drugstore and asking for it and
paying
for it with
my
money while I was whining and kvetching about having to fuck a milk bottle because my quote unquote girlfriend was having a hard time with sex. .
    But on the other hand, the other hand, the other hand. Sitting in that dinge among the busts and the oak, I was beginning to feel like Hamlet. The fact of the matter was she was probably crying in bed alone uptown. I always promised her I would be there when she needed me, and I wasn't. She was under strain from Fantasia. I was under strain from chasing around some scuz who was into cooking garbage and balling apemen. Sex wasn't everything. We were adults. I'd just get her to wear sweatpants to bed and everything would be cool.
    On the way uptown I bought