Dating : Would you ever be someone’s mistress?

It was a hot, hot, hot poor summer. I had recently shaved my head into a mohawk and in cut offs, wore a cut off shirt I made myself, hot pink bra and karate shoes and then I was off with my friends. Stoned out of our minds, we biked up and down the shore of the beach for miles, faster and faster until it was too much. We stripped to our underwear and got in the water.

After we put our clothes back on, we got the notion it was time for happy hour at our favorite German bar, big liter of Franciskaner and free popcorn.

So to recap: Stoned, sweaty, lake water, sand covered girl with a mohawk in home made cut offs goes to a nice German bar to get free food. Wasn’t exactly looking sexy, or even smelling nice.

We sit down and make banter with the bartender, an old friend of mine. He has about the best stasche I’ve ever seen, I always joke he can get people pregnant just by looking at them with it on.

We cheers our big frothy mugs, and start chatting with the couple next to us. They are in from out of town, Colorado, business normies, whatevers. Exchange of pleasantries, what do you do, oh you’re artists wow. The wife is funny. I don’t think much of it, and get back to talking to my friend. It took maybe 2 minutes.

The couple meets a 3rd friend, and then the two women go outside.

Suddenly, someone’s hand is on my wrist.

I really do not like when people grab me, so I pull my hand back hard.

It’s the guy from Colorado.

He leans in. He’s like twice my age, with a gut and an 80’s haircut. He looked rich in a smooth polo shirt. Someone who is used to having power over other people.

He grabs my hand and pulls me in.

“You are my dream girl,” he says in my ear.

“uh, wut.” I say. My mind is filled with beach rocks.

“I think I’m in love with you. Here’s my card. Come visit me, I will pay anything do anything in the world to have you be with me. I will fly you anywhere, get you a house in Denver. I don’t care. Come be with me.”

It’s still not registering. My eyes scan the room. I feel like everyone can hear him and simultaneously is judging us. They aren’t, I’m just uber paranoid and high.

“…but? your wife?” I gesture helplessly. As if thinking about his wife RIGHT NOW is going to make him go away.

“We have an arrangement,” he said. Name your price. I want to be your daddy.” He’s not playing around. His eyes are huge, and something shifts from powerful to pleading, and if I was much older, and a lot less of a punk lil bitch I might have found it endearing or take pity.

But I’m not.

I also think cheating is bullshit, bad karma.

I shake my huge shaggy blonde head, and run my hands through it again because I’m nervous. The room feels like it’s filled with low vibes all the sudden, and I can feel the bartender observing us quizzically. I’m usually laughing, and now I’m not.

All I want is to go back to 5 minutes ago.

Then his wife comes back in with her friend. I settle back into my chair, shake my wrist to get the encounter off and tell my friend what happened.

Then the couple settles in with their friend, and now his chair is pushed closer to me.

Ugh.

I take a big swig of beer, then another and another and order another liter. Fuck this, I thought. His wife is so cool, and he probably has done this before.

He kept nervously looking at me, and it was obvious he really didn’t want me to say anything, and the ‘arrangement’ was a lie.

I leaned in, now the power was in my hands. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to say anything and wreck their night.” He nodded. Safe.

That wasn’t enough for me though. It’s fuzzy now, but I fully engaged in mean girl mode and straight up making fun of him to his wife and her friend until he left. Nothing was off the table, roasted that haircut, his stumpy fucking hands, his jokes, and generally made him look like a clown. I distinctly remember calling him grandpa at one point and asking him how much he would pay me not to say anything.

Why the fuck would you introduce me to your cool ass wife and then ask me to be your sugar baby? Why would some random girl take that? Why would propositioning me for sex make me want to be nice to you when I’m clearly not there for that or comfortable with it? Because you have money but no class? Take note my dudes, if you honestly feel love at first sight do not tell the object of your affection you will pay her for sex and comfort with generic compliments.

My little early 20’s self had no sympathy to the sugar daddy pleas. Older me does, maybe I could have told him differently how awful of an encounter that was, or used some of the new #metoo language I know now. I regret being mean. At that time I had been fed up with men treating me like property and universally had the same reaction for this kind of behavior: open Disdain, the only way I felt like I could retain some power or dignity.

–

Cheating is shitty. Being a mistress is shitty. When you cheat you steal from someone, their sense of truth their reality, the honesty that they have with their partner.

You can read through hundreds of dating stories about people who were cheating, were the mistress, the cheater, the spouse. It never goes well for at least one person in that trio, someone always gets burned.

Consensual is different; but a mistress, a lie about fidelity, is holding someone back and one day it has to be paid for.