After four or five weeks, it was pretty clear that Jack and I were a couple, by any definition. And not just any couple, but a Nauseating New Couple. We had developed a routine. He would come over to my place after work, and I'd kiss him in the doorway. He'd say, "I missed you," then I'd say, "I missed you too," entirely earnest, but kind of wanting to just lie down and die, because — let's face it — these were some pretty deep depths I had sunk to.
    We held hands a lot. I called him "baby" without realizing it. We watched a lot of DVDs together. We finished each other's thoughts, especially the ones about druids. And if I'd been worried about the sex when I heard he'd only been with one other girl — well, suffice it to say those fears were quelled. I was getting it good, and often. And strangely enough, every morning at 5:30. You could set your watch to it.


Thing is, I'm a shitty girlfriend. You could fuck me all day and take me out to dinner, and I'd still flirt with the cute waiter while you were in the bathroom. That's how it goes. If I find someone attractive, I want to mess around with them, simple as that. It's not so much infidelity as it is greed. And pragmatism: if your relationship collapses, why not have a blue-eyed, nineteen-year-old painter as backup?
    Believe me — this is no double standard. I'm not jealous. It's not that I've never felt jealousy and am incapable of doing so. I'd just prefer that my boyfriend go to his high-school reunion and fuck the cheerleader he never got to, than have him thinking about it and forcing me to deal with that shit on a subliminal level. In fact, it's almost a thrill: he fucks the cheerleader, then comes back for more from me. (Unless he doesn't, at which point I enlist my friends to publicly announce that he routinely told me, "Your touch is like the wing of a thousand birds.")

     Not everyone thinks this way, though. Jack, in particular, does not. Jack holds the perfectly reasonable view that, by being with him, I am relinquishing my right to fuck — or for that matter, kiss, grope, or solicit — others. The same, naturally, goes for him. I understood this from the beginning, but it doesn't stop me from trying to find loopholes.
    I am talking to Lili about this exact problem at Lit one night, right before I lose her to that really danceable Kinks song and a dark-haired man in a leather jacket. I get another drink from the bar, and when I turn around, that same guy is standing behind me, muttering. He has some sort of incomprehensibly thick British accent. I ask him to repeat himself.
     "What's with your Lili?" he says.
     "She's Russian," I begin. She offers this as a catch-all explanation for her behavior, so I figure I might as well too. "Why?"
     "Well, I'm there, dancing with her. She's a lovely girl. I kiss her at a certain point. I turn around for a half a second, and she's kissing someone else."
     "And?"
    "Well, that's unpleasant enough. But she says to me that she became confused because we both had leather jackets. Maybe it's time to take that one home."
    "Oh, no, she does that. If you want to make out with her, you could probably confuse her again. Just stand near him." I'm a bit jealous or depressed. Or something. On the dance floor, Lili seems very free and beautiful and silly, dancing, kissing, being confused by jackets, and that all seems awfully inaccessible to me right now.
    "Carrie, right?" the man says. "I'm Will." I shake his hand. We talk for a bit before Lili comes over, wanting to leave. It's 3:45, and I suggest going to an after-hours place. With a glance, I invite Will along. He follows us. As we weave down Avenue B, he and Lili barely speak, and I shuttle between them with empty chatter. At our destination, there's a smarmy-looking blond man collecting money. This is new.
    "Ten each," he says.
    "Oh, no," I explain, patiently, smiling, twirling my hair. "We're with Slow Loris Promotions." This is my made-up promotions company. It serves its purpose well. He hesitates. "Slow Loris?" I sigh, rolling my eyes. "Check your list." He looks at the list for a moment, then looks back up at me, confused. "Slow. Loris. Slow Loris. Maybe it's under Jay's name?" Jay. There's always someone named Jay on a list. The door guy is about to wave us in when Lili offers:
    "What if we give you five for all three of us?"
    I nudge her, but his resolve has returned.
    "Ten a head." I snort self-righteously and walk away. When I get myself into this mode, I'm able to convince myself that I have actually been slighted. Lili and Will follow.
    "That was bullshit," Lili says. "Wanna just go home and finish off the whiskey?" So that's exactly what we do. Lili eventually goes to bed, leaving Will and I alone, watching TV on the couch. I'm not oblivious to the implications of this, but I'm not too worried, either. Then, when I turn to ask him whether he'd rather watch this shitty Japanese cartoon or this other shitty Japanese cartoon, he full-on kisses me. I'm motionless, making the mental kiss-back-or-don't-kiss-back calculation, when he unsnaps my shirt. I lean away and mumble, "Bad idea. Boyfriend."
    He's the next to pass out, and is still there the next day when my friend Drew comes by for brunch. Will leaves the building with us. Once he's disappeared down the street, Drew arches an eyebrow at me and asks, "Aren't you seeing . . . ?"
    "Yeah. Nothing happened with this guy. It's weird, though, having a hot guy in your house, into you, and not being able to do anything about it. Wanting to, sort of, but . . . old slutty habits die hard, huh?"
    Drew's recently made a policy of being faithful to his boyfriend, and I ask him how he manages this. The answer he gives me involves the word "sanctity," and I tune out. At the end he adds, "So you're not into him, just think he's cute?"

    "Pretty much." Drew shrugs. Wait . . . if I don't like him, does it even count?
    The next time I'm with Jack, I ask, "What if I fuck people I don't like?"
    "What?" he asks, distracted. He's used to my hypothetical questions at this point. He thumbs through the New Yorker to some article about SUVs that he was telling me about earlier. He is the youngest person ever to have a subscription to the New Yorker. It's not normal.
     "If I have no interest in seeing someone ever again. If I just think they're hot. Would it be a problem if I slept with them?"
    "What? Yes, absolutely." He's a bit more attentive and agitated now, looking up at me and away from his magazine, eyebrows furrowed.
    "But why?"
    "Are you serious?" He pauses for a second, and I guess he realizes that I am. "I'm ill thinking about it," he says with surprising emphasis, shaking his head.
    "But why?" I ask. I'm actually quite frustrated. I need him to agree with me, so I don't have to expend time and effort learning how not to make out with everyone.
    "I don't know, exactly. Why is it something you need to do?"
    I don't have a good answer. "There are just things about the ways I could act before I had a boyfriend that ... not that I miss exactly . . . but that haven't entirely worn out their appeal. And you, um, should realize that."
    "Are you trying to say you're concerned you'll cheat on me?"
    "I guess so. Would you break up with me?"
    "Probably. I don't want to share you."
    This is startling. I thought limited cheating was sort of expected, not something you make a big deal about. And although I'm flattered by Jack's unwillingness to "share me," isn't the whole idea of being "shared" kind of male? But his hand, which before was resting calmly on my thigh, is distractedly kneading it, and I think he's upset. Having done that makes me sick, so I say, "Don't worry, baby. You're right. It's not something I need."
    Which it isn't. There are probably people who are incapable of monogamy, just as there are people incapable of understanding the desire to fuck around. I'm not one of those. I was with one guy — fairly effectively — through much of college. I have been A Girlfriend. At eighteen, that took a bit of getting used to, but not as much as being single did two years later. It's been twenty months since then, and I've spent about half that time learning and re-learning singleness. And getting good at it. Really good. I know most of my limits, knew which of those limits I want to push, know whom I want to kiss, whom I want to sleep with, how to be a good wingman, how to cut your losses and cab it home. I am fucking SHAOLIN. Balance. Poise. Eye of the dragon. That I am willing to upset this balance for Jack surprises me. It is an indication of how much I care about him, but it also seems like a pain in the ass. And what if we break up and I have to figure out singleness again? Double pain in the ass.
    Pain in the ass or not, though, I agree to No Random Boys. I am fooling myself if I think I'll leave it at that, though. It's not for nothing that my father fondly (or maybe not-so-fondly) calls me "a pit bull on the pant leg of opportunity." I continue to watch for ways to make the situation swing my way. I assume that when I run into Nina at a party, I have one.
    Nina is a friend of a friend, someone I don't know well but am aesthetically attracted to. With her dark pixie cut and tight red sweater, she looks particularly adorable tonight. We've kissed once before, and I always figured we'd kiss again. Jack is off somewhere when we step outside for a cigarette. I can feel the heat radiating from her. Our knees touch, then the tips of our fingers. She kisses me or I kiss her, then I start laughing. "I have a total mini-crush on you," I say.
     "Oh yeah?" She raises her eyebrows. She's fresh like that, sarcastic and disinclined to bullshit, but she seems like she's at least a little interested.
     "Uh-huh..." I've gone weak-kneed and stupid.
    "So that's your boyfriend?" She's still looking at me with one eyebrow raised, taking a drag off her cigarette.
     "Yeah." I kick at the film of ice over a puddle.
     "We should go back in, huh?" It's a little flirtatious, the way she says it, like she's daring me not to.
     "Yeeeeeaah, guess." We kiss again. It's nice. Someone hits their head on the door frame. And we go back in, the backs of our hands touching for a second, then falling away.

     Back at my house, Jack and I are talking in the dark and I tipsily mention that Nina and I had kissed. It doesn't occur to me that he might be anything less than thrilled. Who doesn't like girls making out, right? It's like ice cream. He is silent.
     "Hey, you there?" I ask.
     "Could you not do that?" He's annoyed.
     What? "But why not? It's a girl."
     "That really doesn't matter to me. Could you not?"
     "But . . . girls are different. They're littler."
     "So?"
    So. I've never even been that attracted to girls. I max out at about fifteen percent gay. But all of a sudden, the right to hook up with them is something to fight for, a way to declare that I am not going to dive unquestioningly into unquestioning monogamy. Am I really supposed not to kiss Nina if I want to, or not respond when the cute bartender hits on me, simply because they're a couple of weeks, or months, too late?
    "Why are you threatened?" I ask Jack. "It's different from what I have with you entirely."
    He doesn't answer right away, and when he does, his answer doesn't make much sense. His voice is strained, sad and a little angry. So I concede. "Okay. Fine. No girls either."
    No girls. Okay, no girls. "I think he reacted well," Lili tells me the next morning. It's a freezing Saturday, and we're hung over and holed up in our dark living room, watching the History Channel. We have no heat or water and are covered in blankets and Purell. "He thinks girls hooking up is authentic, not just some porntastic shit. Which speaks well of him."
    "But I like being porntastic sometimes," I argue. "Why does he have to take it so seriously?"
    "You're not inspiring a lot of sympathy here."
    "Maybe not. But I'm not being unreasonable, either. Just because he's everyone else's perfect boyfriend doesn't mean he's mine.
    Maybe I don't want a boyfriend. Maybe I don't ever want a boyfriend. Maybe I'm not that kind of person." So there.
    "Sure. So are you going uptown tonight or is he sleeping here?"
    I lift an empty Coke can to my lips and pretend to drink, avoiding the question. Lili snorts.
    That night, I bring a twenty bag up to Jack's place, figuring that smoking with him and his roommate is something to do, considering I'm not going out. I am also, somewhat consciously, trying to stake some ground for myself. I get high — deal with it. I'll stop kissing girls, but getting high is non-negotiable. As if he cares, as if he never smokes. He doesn't mind anything I do or want to do except screw around. I am pretty gone by the time we go to bed, and I assume he is too, but my mission is still clear.
     "So... no girls, right?" I ask tentatively.
    "What? Jesus Christ. Again?" He's not sad or angry, just stoned and tired and disinclined to go over a conversation we've had already.
     "Not at ALL? What if she was with us? Would that be okay?"
     "No," he says patiently.
     "Well, what if it were another guy?"
     "How would that possibly be any better?"
    Fuck. I kind of actually care about this one, if only because I haven't gotten around to it and it seems like I should. Yeah. A profound sense of obligation, definitely the driving factor.
     "Not even Johnny Depp?" It's been established that we both approve of Johnny Depp because we think he might be sort of schizo.
     "No." He's kind of smiling at this point, amused by the ridiculous scenarios his unwillingness to compromise has driven me to.
     "No celebrity exemption for Johnny Depp? Are you fucking joking?" I'm not. That's for sure.
     "Celebrity exemption?"
     "Yeah. We both get to pick one celebrity we're allowed to sleep with if we ever get the chance." Doesn't everyone do this? I feel like in every other relationship I've had, celebrity exemptions have been established within the first week.
     "When are you going to have the chance to sleep with Johnny Depp?"
     "That's not the point."
    "So what is?"
     Argh. "The point is... well, the point is that if Johnny Depp ever... Whatever. The point is fuck you."
     "I see."
     "You get to pick one too, though."
     "Eh, I don't want one."
     "Oh, come on. Humor me."
     "Nope."
     "Penelope Cruz?"
     "Nah."

    "Well, you do whatever. I am not flexible on this. I call celebrity exemption for Johnny Depp." He shrugs. "And Adrien Brody." He shrugs again. "You know, he went to my high school. It could happen."
     "Sure thing." He's laughing out loud at this point.
     "And, fine, if you're not taking her, I call Penelope Cruz, too." Shrug. "And Canadians."
     "What?"
     "Canada's famous."
     "Yeah. That one, not so much."
    "But I'm going to be in Montreal on New Year's."
     "How does that help your argument?"
     "Am I really not supposed to kiss anyone on New Year's? Is that even legal?"
     "It is in Canada."
    I sigh and turn my back to him. A half-assed agreement to celebrity exemptions isn't much ground gained. But then again, say I'd hooked up with that guy Will, before I'd met Jack. I would have had fun, would have possibly gotten a good story out of it. But a couple of days later, it would make no difference. Cosmically, it doesn't matter whether I hooked up with him or didn't. So why am I so possessive of the right to? I speak in the direction of the wall, which I sleep next to, otherwise I get pushed out of the bed. Sweet Jesus, I have a side of the bed. "Okay. Know what? I'll stop this. I won't kiss anyone else. I won't ask you about it anymore. I'll be nice."
    "You have been nice," he says.
    "No, I really haven't, actually. But I will. I just want you to know that this isn't nothing for me. Listen, maybe for you, being together means you're automatically not interested in anything else. I'm not like that. It's something I have to actively decide. And pay attention to. Now, I'm deciding it and paying attention to it. And that's not nothing."
    Which it's not. And though I'm still tangibly happy, and though just about everyone is convinced that Jack's the best thing to happen to me in a long time, and I don't disagree, I'm terrified of being compromised or complacent. I think I'm okay with the way things are, because Who I Fuck isn't me, never has been, and it's honestly a bit of a relief not to be on all the time. Still, I'm keeping an eye on myself. I've asked my friends to as well, and if I ever start leaving parties early, just put me out of my misery.