Under the yellow lights of 40th my mind pondered the big question in life: to go or not to go to Smoke's? Now that I'm not a freshman girl on the prowl for a senior boy, I usually find it too difficult to step into the chill of Penn's most popular meat locker. (I try to buy my steaks elsewhere.) But that night all my friends were inside and I could hear Nelly pleading me to shake my tail feather. I never could resist being seduced so off I went into the night.
I ordered a martini from the bar - shaken, not stirred - and began to sip as I scanned the scene. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Mr. Mayflower playing video golf with his buddies. I was shaken and stirred. My lower half, that is. Mr. Mayflower and I had never hooked up but we always flirted and I found him attractive in that preppy way -- you know, polo hat, button-down shirt and a lineage that had kept my family from joining golf clubs for decades. I started chatting with him and it felt good to be shaking again. But by midnight the six martinis had taken their toll, and feeling stirred, I took my exit.
Back home - alone - I got to thinking: should I have hooked up with Mr. Mayflower? How was I supposed to know? In matters of the heart, it seems like the mind always takes control. If the mind calls the shots and the heart stays idle on the clutch, then when can you punch the gun through the green light?
In life, there are always rules and regulations and if you don't follow the rules, you're bound to get burned -- be it by a cop or by a guy. When I was fifteen and was learning to drive, I was taught that green means go, yellow means proceed with caution and red means stop. So if it's so clear-cut on the road of life, why isn't it so clear cut on the road of relationships? I had to ask myself: where are the traffic signals directing us with men?
Meanwhile, across campus, Tamantha was going through mourning from her last relationship. After a fourth break-up, the red lights had finally burned hard into her retina. Tamantha knew this relationship was retarded. So she checked herself into the intensive care unit -- a stack of chick flicks, a six pack of beers and bags of animal crackers -- to take her mind off of her past danger zone. Just as she was settling into her hibernation cave, the doorbell rang. It was the UPS guy with a bouquet of red roses, enclosed with a note begging her back. Tamantha was forced to beg the question: should she put a stop to this and throw the letter in the trash, or should she throw on her sexiest lingerie and hop in a cab to her ex's place? The package was surely a sign, but did it read "Do not Disturb" or "Come in and enjoy hot make-up sex"? She sure as fuck didn't know. Her mind said stop but her clit said go, and thirty minutes later she was doing it like sex was going out of style. She hadn't figured out the sign, but the sign felt good and deep and hard.
Ten blocks uptown, Luis, the hot exchange student from Argentina, was making Carlotta feel good as well. Carlotta had met Luis in her Accounting 101 class. This guy had fulfilled all her prerequisites: he brought her roses to the door, opened doors for her and he sold good drugs. All signs pointed go. She wasn't sure where the road was going, but she was sure as hell in for the ride. They had a great dinner and he even had picked out a good bottle of wine and left a good tip for the waiter. This guy was a keeper. Luis walked her home and pushed her up against the brick wall for a passionate goodnight kiss. Then he pushed an eighth of weed into her clammy palm and told her he'd call the next day. Carlotta knew a green light when she saw one -- and this green light would take her right into a second date, for sure.
Later that night, tired of my indecisiveness, I put on my halter top --the one that highlights my headlights -- and drove my ass back to Smoke's to talk to Mr. Mayflower. I needed to take license like my friends. I was bound to drive through the green light and straight into his drunken arms. I didn't care if I couldn't read the signs, it was time for me to learn to be an aggressive driver in the seat of love.
The next thing I knew I found myself under red satin sheets at his frat house and truth be told, things were faring better than they did for the colonists at Jamestown. We started to kiss but then I felt the weight of his meaty hands bearing down on my shoulders, pushing me down to the plantation. I felt more used than the Indians at Thanksgiving and I was out of there quicker than you could say "white flight". I thought to myself: I can finally decipher the signs, and this sign was commanding me to stop. I called the Mission Control in my head and paged a message: Houston, we have a really big problem and Roger, this guy's ready for take-off, but it's never gonna happen on my launchpad....
