He only really spoke while we were having sex, which I love. He had new material all the time—a nice respite from my last relationship with a man who would use one phrase over and over during sex. “What you’re doing feels so good.” No shit, Sherlock. Obviously it feels good. I’m the one with your erection in my mouth. I appreciate a little more originality under the sheets, and my Englishman had it. It was the kind of sex that you almost don’t have to participate in, the kind of sex that just happens to you.
This continued for a week straight. I would get back to Kevin and Brian’s house for dinner after whatever Olympic event I went to that day, and then I would very seductively sneak out of the house after everyone went to bed. Why a thirty-seven-year-old adult was sneaking out of a house filled with people who weren’t even related to her made no sense at all.
I went to London for what was supposed to be three days, but turned into eight. I spent most of the Olympics watching tennis, and when Serena Williams won the gold medal, I decided that my time there was over and that I would leave the next day. Sidenote: I believe Serena Williams is a man.
I went over to my London lover’s house for the last night, and at six the next morning, I told him I would be going back to Los Angeles later. “It was a pleasure making your acquaintance,” I said, as I got my things together. Later, as I was walking out, I asked, “By the way, what is your name?”
“Benjamin.”
“I’m Chelsea. I left my number in your bathroom if you ever come to Los Angeles.” And then I walked out the door and seductively sauntered up the street to Kevin and Brian’s. My whole body was tingling and I felt like a sexual dynamo. Kevin was in the kitchen when I came in the front door.
“Morning, Chels!” he said, handing me a cup of coffee. “For the record, you don’t have to sneak in and out of our house to go have sex with people. You’re an adult.”
“That’s good to know for my next visit,” I replied. I collected my things and ran to the car that took me to Heathrow, where I got my ass on a plane and reminisced about my most recent affair the entire eleven hours back. Going to London on the spur of moment to see the Olympics had turned out to be a jackpot.
I knew nothing about Benjamin or what he did for a living or who he was, and I didn’t want to. It was too sexy of an affair to ruin by talking, and I had a smile on my face the entire plane ride home. I felt like I had just walked out of a James Bond movie. I sat on the plane like Diane Lane sat on that train in Unfaithful and was basically trying to calm my vagina down the entire flight.
Benjamin and I texted a few times after my trip, but our communication fizzled out after a week or two. Four months later my phone rang, and it was him asking me if he could take me skiing for the weekend.
This was mostly surprising, because Benjamin was half black.
“You ski?” I asked him. “Since when?”
“Since I was a little kid, you racist,” he said in his cute British accent.
“If I was racist, I’d be whispering, no?”
“Would you be inclined to come on a ski holiday for the weekend with me or are you trying to say no?”
“Are you any good?” I asked him flirtatiously.
“I’m pretty good,” he told me. “Are you any good?”
“Well, I tore my ACL last year in Switzerland, so I would say yes, I’m pretty good.”
“That explains why one of your legs wasn’t as flexible as the other when I saw you last.”
I was sitting at my desk in my office and nearly fell out of my chair. “That’s a pretty sexy thing to say to me in the middle of the day. I don’t know if you know this but I have a very serious job.”
“It’s not the middle of the day here,” he replied. “My apologies.”
“I suppose I could go skiing with you.”
“Great. A mate of mine has a place in Yellowstone Club in Montana.”
“What state is that in?” I asked him.
“Montana.”
“Isn’t Yellowstone in Wyoming?”
“Yellowstone National Park is, but this is a private ski club in Montana.”
“Ahh… yes. I know the place.”
“It doesn’t sound like you do.”
“Are your friends going to be there, and are they annoying?” I asked him.
“Are you?” he asked me back.
“Am I going to be there?”
“No, I’m asking you if you are annoying,” he said.
“Yes,” I told him. “I’ll be there.”
“Brilliant. I’d like to take you skiing.”
“Perfect,” I said, fondly recalling Ted Turner’s autobiography profiling Montana, bison, and womanizing. “I’ll join you.” I like when a man gives me a run for my money and talks to me like I’m a prostitute.
We had picked up right where we left off in London.
I got a text from Benjamin telling me that he would be meeting me at the Burbank airport, where he had chartered a plane for the flight to Montana. This was a surprise, but I was obviously not turned off by the notion. The two of us on a plane alone together meant there would be plane penetration. I hadn’t had plane sex in a while, and this was the kind of guy you wanted to do that with. In the one week I had slept with him, he had thrown me and my body all over the place. I love that kind of shit.
His behavior during takeoff was another matter. I have some sympathy for women who are scared to fly—I do not have any for men.
When a black man gets scared and there are no police around, you know things are going south. I do not have the capacity to deal with a man who is scared—of anything. When Benjamin prayed out loud before takeoff with his eyes shut, I thought he was joking. He scolded me for making a joke about something that could potentially kill us—meaning the flight. Had I known this was the reason we were flying privately, I would have chartered my own fucking plane and met him wherever the hell we were going.
“Dying on a plane would be a great way to go,” I told him. “Don’t you think?”
“That’s a very macabre thing to say.”
“I’m serious. It would be instant and we probably wouldn’t suffer very long, if at all.”
“Stop it. God forbid any such thing should happen.”
“How is it possible that you are scared of planes? Do you not fly very often?”
“Yes, I do. I get scared every time.”
“Oh… my god.”
I took my seat belt off and went over and sat on him. I was trying to be funny and make light of what I considered to be a silly situation, but you would have thought I murdered a baby. “Are you a little scaredy cat? A little kitty cat that’s scared like a little baby boy?” I said, tickling him. I was hysterically laughing, which always makes me laugh even harder, but he was not laughing at all—which made me laugh harder, until he yelled at me to get back in my seat and buckle up. I actually thought he might hit me.
“So, I guess we won’t be having sex on the plane?” I asked him, after I wiped the tears from my cheeks. He didn’t think that was funny either.
How was he going to be able to ski if he was scared to fly? I wondered. Talk about a buzzkill—and I hadn’t even had a drink yet.
“If you’re so scared to fly, why don’t you take a Xanax or something? I have a Vicodin. Do you want one?”
“I don’t take recreational pills.”
“Well, I’m going to take one then.” I opened my purse, grabbed a Vicodin, split it in half, and popped both halves into my mouth.
“What is the point of that?” he asked.
“Because if you break it in half, it hits you faster.”
“What is the point of taking a Vicodin?”
“Because I have to watch you fly.” We hadn’t known each other long enough to have a fight, and the first one was over me buckling my seat belt and a Vicodin.