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"I'm working on lying less," my date said from across the table.
"You lie often?" I asked him.
"No," he said. "I mean, no more than anyone else does."
"I don't lie," I lied, being sure to make eye contact.
"What I meant was, I am working on being more honest with myself," he said, looking at the menu.
We'd just seen The X-Files: I Want to Believe, which I didn't think was very good. And so in the spirit of honesty, I told him.
"I liked the movie," Glen said. "But I was expecting there to be aliens."
"Exactly! The X-Files is always about aliens!"
It was Friday night and we were on the second half of our third date.
I was nervous because I had decided earlier that I was going to have sex with him.
"I'm having a great time," Glen said, popping an olive into his mouth. "Aren't you?"
"Of course!" I said, but I wasn't really sure. I was too excited to call it a bad time, but it wasn't exactly registering as a good time either. Also, since I'd already decided how the date was going to end, having a bad time was no longer an option. I was determined to have sex with him, and I wasn't about to let his personality or anything else stand in my way.
"It's just Hooksexups," he said, "Because we're still getting to know each other. It will get easier."
"I'm sure that's it," I agreed, not really sure that I did agree. It was more that I wanted to agree.
After dinner, we went back to his place and he tickled me for a while on his couch. I'm not actually ticklish, but it would have been too uncomfortable to just sit still and stare at him straight-faced while he pinched me all over, so I writhed and giggled as if it were a wonderful torture. Seeing what a success the tickling was, he kept at it, surprising me every ten minutes of our kissing with tickle attacks. It was exhausting. I thought about telling him I'd been miraculously cured, so that he might stop, or else confess fully to the lie, but it seemed too hard.
One lie begets another, inevitably. And so, after another minute, when I could stand it no more, I grabbed his crazed hands firmly and looked in his eyes. "Listen, Glen!" I said, and then told him I was frightened because he was clearly more sexually experienced than I was.
He relaxed and asked me how many men I'd been with.
I made my eyes wide. "I can't tell you.
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I thought of the smallest number plausible for a woman my age. "Three," I said, twirling my hair and looking up to see if he was buying it.
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It's too embarrassing." I turned my face away.
"Why?" he asked gently.
"Because it's so few!" I lied.
"That's okay," he said. "I don't want to be with someone who's been around the block. You can tell me."
"How many women have you been with?" I asked.
"You really want to know? It's not a little."
"Of course. You're so charming and handsome. What's it, like fifty?"
"Something like that," he said, apologetically. He lifted my chin and looked into my eyes. "I'm sorry I've been with so many women. But if we're together, I promise I won't be with anyone else." He brushed the hair from my eyes, and for a second I worried he was going to tickle me again, but instead he asked, "So how about you?"
I thought for a moment and began blushing — the result of my planning to outright lie to him. I thought of the smallest number plausible for a woman my age. "Three," I said, twirling my hair and looking up to see if he was buying it.
His eyes flashed with the look of a person who's found money in the pocket of a pair of pants they haven't worn in months. "That's okay," he said, kissing me on the forehead.
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