Dating In The South: SATCC- Tooth Fairy

So sorry I’ve been absent a little while, dears. But I promise y’all, this story from Blair will make it worth it.

 

And now I present, my friend Blair, of Sex and the Classic City- originally posted on The Broad Collective:

 

I’ve always held the belief that if you want to truly know someone, you should observe them with their best friend. Much is revealed about who a person is, who they were, and who they want to be when you meet the people closest to them. Since we’ve got this whole full disclosure thing happening here, Athens, I figured it was only fitting to introduce you to my own better half. Sure, he figures prominently in many of my future stories, but realest of talk–he’s just the coolest person I’ve ever met and I have a hard time shutting up about him. The word obsessed comes to mind. Plus, his dating stories match even mine. Meet my bestie, Sebastian. Bash for short. But don’t call him that. Only I can call him that.

Sebastian is essentially the perfect man. He’s brilliant, cultured, well read, almost unbearably witty, dresses (practically) better than myself, loyal, kind, hysterically funny, genuinely thoughtful, tall, fit, dark haired, sarcastic, endlessly supportive, history obsessed, Starbucks addicted, and extremely babe-like. We’re talking classically handsome. Like a sculpture in Europe or a cast member from Gossip Girl. He’s quick to laugh, quicker to hug, and has hazel-ish brown eyes that sparkle devilishly when he speaks. It’s like he’s letting you into the very core of his most inside of inside jokes and it’s utterly disarming. He also makes one hell of a Christmas cookie. Without hyperbole, he’s one of my very most favorite people I’ve ever met in my entire life, ever.

If you have any imagination whatsoever you also saw this coming–he could not be more gay. He’s married, in fact, to an equally dashing, blue-eyed, naval hottie named Andrew. Thems the breaks. We met about six years ago when, while chatting with a mutual acquaintance of ours at a gathering, he haulted mid-conversation to come over to me and moon over what “regal bone structure” I have. (Straight boys take note. While clearly a gay man’s compliment, WELL FREAKING PLAYED!) Class act that I am, I blushed profusely and then offered him the entire sleeve of thin mint cookies I randomly happened to be holding at the time. He declined, I insisted. Next thing you know I’m shoving several cookies and my freshly manicured fingers directly into his mouth . . . all while he’s trying to tell me about the Anne Boleyn documentary he’d just watched. And that is how a life long friendship was born.

As you might expect from someone who is my other half, prior to getting hitched to a hunky sailor, Sebastian was himself something of a dating disaster. So deep was his romantic hysteria that it sparked the addition of several terms into our group’s lexicon. “Merloaded” being my favorite (probably because I came up with it). Bash once got so wasted on Merlot whilst distraught over a boy, obviously, that he drunkenly feng shui’d the entire contents of the clubhouse at my apartment complex, and then passed out, in naught but his Dolce and Gabbana skivvies, draped over the potted Elephant Ear fern in his newly created “relaxation area.” Ironic, no? And now this psycho is grotesquely happy and married to the lurve of his life. He’s my beacon of hope. It’s encouraging to know that for all the ups and downs, mistakes and false starts, maybe there is hope for me yet.

Now that he’s happily coupled, Bash doesn’t much walk down memory lane anymore. He’s too busy being all blissfully married and stuff, but for the entertainment of those that read this column I begged him to crack open the vault. Stupendous human being that he is, the bestest agreed to allow me to share one of my personal favorite stories of his from back when he was a hopeless singleton just like myself. Ain’t no drama like some gay man drama. You are welcome, Athens.

Before there was Andrew there was Matthew. A handsome real estate broker from a respectable northern family, he and Bash were gorgeous gay bookends. I recall how Sebastian once told me that they were exactly the same size . . . ever-y-where. Not only did his closet essentially double in size during the course of their relationship, he also experienced the closest thing one could get to boinking one’s self, without weird science or incestous overtones coming into play. And oh the sex they had. Think of any nice restaurant or bar downtown, any one at all. Go ahead. I dare you. Now know that they definitely hooked up there . . . more than once. Way more than once. Jerks.

Off the chart sexual chemistry gave way to affection and before long the boys were having grown up sleep-overs that were as much about hanging out, talking, and watching CNN (a.k.a. swooning over Anderson Cooper) as they were about playing naked twister. They were together so often that it just became assumed that Matthew would sleep over. At first he brought an overnight bag, but soon he was gunning for a drawer and a bit of closet space.

Oooookkkkaayyy.

Here’s something you need to understand about Bash–just because he is a gay man does not mean he’s not still a MAN. As such, he’s a little weird about “stuff” and a lot weird about having his personal space infringed upon. It was like pulling teeth just to get him to finally conceed that, yes, I do in fact need to keep a velvet sleep mask, peppermint tea bags, mini bottle of my signature perfume, makeup removing wipes, this month’s Vogue, scented lotion, bobby pins, a nail file and an emergency tube of mascara in his nightstand at all times. And let’s be real–I’m the love of his life.

So when, little by little, Matthew began to stake his claim, Sebastian was, say, less than amused.  We discussed the crisis over a cheese plate and warm cookies at Speakeasy late one afternoon and I suggested that, perhaps, possibly, just mayyyybe Matthew was stuffing extra tee shirts, Calvin Klein briefs, and pore refining masks where they weren’t welcomed in an attempt to feel like what they had was real and that he had a genuine place in Sebastian’s life because his stuff did. They had been boning exclusively for almost 4 months at that point. Which any gay guy will be quick to tell you is equal to about 3 -5 years of straight coupledom. If he couldn’t give the poor kid a drawer, and didn’t want things to end, I suggested it wouldn’t kill him to at least spend the night over at Matthew’s place once in a while. While partial to the superior thread count at his own apartment, Bash agreed that I was a relationship genius and resolved to start crashing over at the boy’s place some of the time.

For two whole months I patted myself on the back for being the biggest romance expert the world had ever known. My best friend was happy. His relationship was flourishing. My stuff had not been evicted from Bash’s nightstand to make room for his boyfriend’s things. Life was good. And then I got the call.

“BLAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!” Sebastian was hysterical. It was also 7 o’clock in the morning on a Saturday so I was a little hysterical myself. “This is YOUR fault! YOU told me to sleep over here.”

Oh gods, now you have my attention. What the hell did I do this time?

Bash insisted I meet him IMMEDIATELY at our favorite “secret” coffeeshop on the townie side of town. Thirty minutes later I was sipping Mexican hot chocolate I’d spiked with Khalua (don’t judge – I could already sense I’d need some liquid assistance to deal with whatever it was he was about to tell me) and 45 minutes later Sebastian arrived wearing oversized sunglasses, a huge scarf and looking around suspiciously like he’d been tailed there by the paparazzi. Dramatic. After ordering his standard Americano, he sidled up to me and and began whispering the MOST UNBELIEVABLE thing in my ear. If you are eating or drinking while reading this I advise you stop now. Bash gave me no such warning and I damn near choked to death on my cocoa.

That morning he’d woken up, taken a luxurious stretch, and rolled over to give Matthew a kiss, only to be met by a sweet, sleepy . . . GUMMY smile! Bash reeled back, certain he was having a horrible, horrible nightmare. Matthew was a handsome prince, so who was this bridge troll who’d snuck in in the middle of the night and taken his place in bed?!?! It was at that moment he glanced over to find Matthew’s perfect, blindingly white smile sitting on the bedside table. GULP. The awful truth sank in, chilling him to the core. The man in bed next to him HAD NO TEETH!! NONE. NO FUCKING TEETH!  He’d been dating a person for six whole months and done all sorts of deliciously depraved things with him and he’d had no idea whatsoever that the entire time he was but a blob of Polygrip away from disaster.

I’m not sure that there is an ideal way to find out that your significant other is significantly shy a few chompers, but surely this was not the way to go. I delicately asked Sebastian what he’d said to poor, humiliated, Matthew. He admitted that he’d slowwllyyy crept out of bed and into the bathroom where he silently screamed and danced around like he’d just seen a huge spider for about five solid minutes before sneaking outside to call me and chain smoke cigarettes while driving home.

“You just left him sleeping?!”

“What was I supposed to do, Blair? Put money under his pillow? It’s the tooth fairy, not the TOOTHLESS fairy.”

My best friend, ladies and gentlemen.

 

 

Everyone knows someone, who knows someone, who knows who I might be. I’m smart. I’m funny. I’m reasonably attractive. I’m willing to spend more on shoes than, say, the gross national product of Uruguay.  And yet, I am deeply, deeply, single. Read my other posts on The Broad Collective.

These posts are graciously syndicated from The Broad Collective, please consider donating to their fundraiser for their new makers space in Athens, Georgia.