Once a week, Daily Intel takes a peek behind doors left slightly ajar. This week, the Unemployed Tour Manager: 32, male, Fort Greene, straight, in a relationship.
DAY ONE
7:30 a.m.: Wake up as my girlfriend readies for work. Turned on by her in just a towel, but the lure of sleep is just too powerful.
9:33 a.m.: I get out of bed. I’m naked as I walk past my giant living-room mirror. I pause to flex and admire myself. My dog is forced to endure this sight.
11:45 a.m.: Sitting at my computer. This is usually the time of day when I begin to consider masturbating, though I try to use masturbation as a reward. So far I’ve only worked enough to justify fondling my penis.
2:30 p.m.: My girlfriend’s been sending me kinky texts all day. Now she “sexts” me. My hand drifts into my pants again.
6:30 p.m.: My girlfriend arrives home. We hug and fall to the bed. We kiss and writhe around but don’t have sex. We’ve been dating for a year and our sex life has grown somewhat standardized: Sex before bed and upon waking but rarely during the day.
11 p.m.: We finish watching a documentary on John Wayne Gacy. A John Wayne Gacy documentary is the antithesis of porn. I couldn’t get an erection if I swallowed a bottle of Levitra and was air-dropped into the middle of the Playboy Mansion. We go to sleep.
DAY TWO
8:19 a.m.: Menaced by visions of nightmarish clowns and rotting corpses, I slept maybe a total of three hours. My girlfriend leaves without saying good-bye. Is she mad because we didn’t have sex, or because I wanted to watch the Gacy documentary while she lobbied for The Notebook?
11:15 a.m.: My girlfriend texts me and apologizes for not saying good-bye. She was running late. I’m relieved by this call and feel a genuine sense of love toward her.
2:30 p.m.: The impulse to masturbate arrives late today. Now I’m stuck in that horrible masturbation purgatory; too horny to dismiss the urge but also wary that my girlfriend will arrive home in four hours, and I’d like to be able to perform. I go for a three-mile run.
7:15 p.m.: My girlfriend arrives home. We have a fantastic round of sex and successfully put the Gacy incident behind us.
DAY THREE
10:12 a.m.: I have an interview today in midtown for a staff position. I don’t really want the job, but I take the interview anyway in an effort to escape my apartment.
11 a.m.: Midtown is a flurry of activity. Women are everywhere! Men too, of course, but I successfully manage to block them out. I have imaginary sex with four women.
12:30 p.m.: The woman interviewing me is gorgeous. So gorgeous, in fact, I began to think I was being filmed for some warped new reality show that lures people out of their apartments and into uncomfortable situations. I go home and immediately e-mail my friends and ask them if they’ve fallen into similar traps.
6 p.m.: My girlfriend leaves work early and we meet for dinner in the neighborhood. She looks great. We kiss, hold hands, and I’m getting horny; that is, until she tells me about her experience at the gynecologist this afternoon.
9 p.m.: We meet some friends for drinks. I stopped drinking nine months ago. I chew on straws and drink unhealthy amounts of Coke while my girlfriend downs legendary amounts of tequila.
11:10 p.m.: We’re walking home to my apartment and my girlfriend is trying to unbutton my pants. Passersby find this amusing. I find it merely an impediment to walking.
11:31 p.m.: We’re kissing heavily and I’m enjoying the tequila exhaust. We have great sex — too good, maybe. My girlfriend’s throwing up in the bathroom.
DAY FOUR
12:05 p.m.: I take a break and hop on Facebook. An ex-girlfriend has finally accepted my long-pending friend request. Her pictures are racy and they get me excited. I break my midday-masturbation-as-reward rule and now plainly see why she dumped me: Technology encourages such depravity.
3:27 p.m.: My friend calls from work. He complains about his wife. This is exactly one half hour after my father called to complain about my mother. People, surprisingly, wonder why I’m still not married.
6:30 p.m.: I meet my girlfriend at the gym. We hop on the two remaining treadmills. I try desperately not to stare at the two teenage girls in front of us. Five minutes into my run, my girlfriend slaps me across the arm. At the gym, women should be forced to wear baggy sweatpants.
10:20 p.m.: We attempt to have sex but I can’t get an erection. I blame it on the economy.
DAY FIVE
3 a.m.: I awaken and walk to the bathroom. I have a fairly sizable erection. My penis thinks this is funny. I crawl back into bed. My girlfriend is half awake, so I show her my erection. She gives me a look that could kill a puppy.
12:15 p.m.: I meet a few friends for lunch. I don’t mention my inability to obtain an erection the previous night, but do mention the midday masturbation to ex-girlfriend’s Facebook photos. I detect a sense of sorrow in my friend’s faces. They ask for the check.
1:03 p.m.: I decide to drop by my girlfriend’s office. I hand her a bouquet, kiss her on the cheek, and apologize for my double fault … I leave hoping her co-workers don’t ask her why I brought her flowers.
7:30 p.m.: My girlfriend calls. She’s at happy hour with her friends. She’ll be home late. I decide to alphabetize my record collection by artists’ first names rather than last. I stare longingly at one of my Olivia Newton-John records.
11:15 p.m.: My girlfriend comes stumbling in as I’m watching Jon Stewart verbally pummel Jim Kramer. She’s incredibly drunk — whistling in my face, jabbing me in the stomach and dancing around the apartment. Though severely annoyed, I still make advances. Minutes later, she passes out.
DAY SIX
10:30 a.m.: I take my dog for a walk to the park. One of my very young, very cute, and very single neighbors is also walking her dog. We sit on a bench and talk. All the while I’m struggling to remind myself of the inherent wisdom of monogamy.
3:10 p.m.: My girlfriend’s out with her mother and sister. I hatch a plan to hide naked behind the door and jump on her as she walks in. I do this stuff sometimes.
4:25 p.m.: My girlfriend opens the door. I tackle her onto the couch. The dog’s barking and as I roll over, I see my girlfriend’s sister standing in the doorway. Her sister is staring at us with a look of the horrors of 9/11.
4:28 p.m.: Yes, this really happened, and it was as bad as it sounds.
8 p.m.: Not a word has been spoken to me in the last three and a half hours. My fear isn’t that we won’t have sex again; it’s that my girlfriend will never speak again.
12:35 a.m.: We both lie in bed reading. I put my book aside and try to snuggle with her. I am rebuffed. We haven’t had sex in a really long time.
DAY SEVEN
10:15 a.m.: I serve my girlfriend breakfast in bed. This goes over well. We talk awhile and she forgives me, and we both agree this will be a story that will grow funnier over time. A long time.
10:20 a.m.: Forgiveness is quickly followed by sex. Best sex all week.
5:40 p.m.: We’re lying on the couch watching This Week With George Stephanopoulos. My girlfriend leans over and begins to pleasure me. George Wills’s commentary on Chinese fear over the U.S. market becomes less interesting.
11:08 p.m.: While searching for a pair of shoes in my closet, my girlfriend unintentionally stumbles upon a stray Girls Gone Wild video. I prepare my defense. Instead, she wants to watch it. Rather than making us horny, it makes us laugh — uncontrollably. We can’t stop.
TOTALS: One act of fellatio; two acts of intercourse; two acts of masturbation; three aborted attempts at girlfriend intercourse due to, respectively, a William Gacy documentary, inability to produce an erection, and Girls Gone Wild.
