I always told myself that I’d never date a vegan. But that was back when I had options.

I’m not against vegans as people. It’s a very ethical approach to life, I suppose. And I’m glad they exist, like I’m glad there are monks or people who are willing to jack off thoroughbreds to get their seed frozen until they can sell it to the owner of the right mare. We need people like that. I just didn’t really want to fuck them.

Or I didn’t when I was in my twenties, back when I had choices. Now I figure whoever takes the time to stop and stare is a catch.

When I was younger, my mother was kind. She told me it was useless to look at the mannequins at the window displays of department stores since the clothes would look better on me. But she hasn’t said anything that nice to me in years. Actually, she doesn’t speak much at all anymore. Her best friend, who is the proud mother of four married daughters, told her excessive talking could lead to a stroke. So, she just nods a lot when we are together. It’s reassuring in person, but when I recollect our visits it feels an awful lot like therapy. I just wonder, Does this person even know me?

But I can face facts; I’m not my ideal self anymore. So now instead of some perfectly formed figure that could sell a thousand women on my curves, I feel more like some hastily arranged window display at a secondhand store. I’m like a recycled mannequin with a dated hairstyle wearing a prom dress, a catcher’s mitt and some great-aunt’s fat, fake pearls riding over the crest of my sternum as a mid 80s edition of the Joy of Cooking rests against the base of my abruptly severed torso. And I’m resting on a poorly repainted plank of wood, surrounded by a smattering of harshly colored Christmas tree bulbs purchased by some well-intentioned stepfather at a Pick n’ Save on Christmas Eve—purchased right as the store closed and the employees just wanted to get home before their turkey TV dinners petrified. Now I’m that poor, discarded mannequin, with my once finely formed features competing with water-stained blemishes on my skin. That’s me with one eye scratched off by a key, as if someone was hoping to win a decent amount of money just below my painted-on pupil. Time has broken me down. I’m a shoddy hint of the person I was just five years ago. And I should be happy with whatever I can push on people. That’s what my mother’s nods tell me. If someone is willing to buy anything, even one ornament, I should say, “Sure. Would you like a bag with that?”

But, he liked me. Really liked me, and it was obvious. Stared me down, salivating like I was an animal-free muffin. And he was a friend of a friend. So, he made awkward, pointless eye contact for two boring birthday dinners before he got my email and asked me out.

That’s how life should work. Right? But it doesn’t so often that I have to remind myself it should when it does. Still, it usually makes me very suspicious when things go ok. When is this all going to go wrong? I continually ask myself, as if guessing correctly will insure against some future pain.

But our first date went well, mostly. He took me out to an organic restaurant that served eggs and chicken and fish and we talked so much that I even forgot he was a vegan, as our mutual friend had warned me four times (like there was some sort of Megan’s Law that compelled her to release such unsavory information). The whole evening kept getting better. He said his diet was a personal thing, nothing he pushed on anyone else. When he was a kid, the only reason he took a part-time job was to buy his own fast food. So he got what people liked about meat. Just a few years ago he decided he couldn’t do it anymore. He had standards. He had a job. He had a car. I liked him more and more until he moved in for a kiss. And then, as our lips met, I noticed that his skin smelled. Really smelled. It hit my glands in this large way that couldn’t be pinpointed to any specific source. I knew it wasn’t sweat. It wasn’t perfume or cologne or whatever a man wears. Maybe it was just the smell of health, and that’s something I’d never come across in a man before.

But then I realized: It must be because he’s a vegan.

The lack of animal meat in his diet had given him a definite tang, which I couldn’t ignore even as our lips entwined. And since neither of us backed away, salvia was soon involved. And his juices were even more pungent.

Even as I felt as if I was being contaminated, something very animalistic inside took over; I was intent on pressing my tongue into his mouth. It was as if I was some carnivorous activist intent on him regaining a taste for flesh. I wanted to get some part of me in his mouth. And he liked it, or I assumed he did, because he pressed into me and made little tiny grunts like a beast, or a wrestling puppy.

And though I was so certain that he liked it and we had some physical chemistry, I didn’t invite him in that night. Perhaps it was my mother’s “Why buy the cow?” indoctrination of my youth working against my hormones. But I doubt it since that has never stopped me before. I really think it was the smell. There was something about that hinted at the spit cut of a dentist’s office or spoiled organic, gluten-free groceries.

So I said goodbye, noticing the outline of his erection trying to fight its way out his pants.

**********************

Most of my friends want to skip the first date thing, I guess they want to skip all the awkwardness of explaining yourself and just cut to the outright courtship phase where people disclose their dirty realities through words and deeds and bookshelves.

I’d like to skip all dating and just move in with a person as soon as I’m sure we can have some relatively decent sex. I’m a cohabitation whore, perhaps. I like falling asleep against someone, waking up in the middle of the night and him still being there. But there was something about his smell that jumbled my whole usual fantasy. So, for a while we just dated.

I think we went out four or five times before either of us touched a bare nipple. And I wasn’t being coy. All I could concentrate on was getting my tongue in his mouth, and him chewing it, perhaps. But I wouldn’t let him in my house. Unconsciously I think I was protecting myself from his scent seeping into my couch and reminding me that I was a filthy meat-and-cheese eater months after he was gone.

But that’s what I like about alcohol. It turns all those inhibitions to where they belong, downed signs on the road to drunkenness.

Alcohol isn’t an animal product, but he didn’t drink. But luckily for him, that didn’t stop me. After four beers, I didn’t invite him into my house. I dragged him in.

And in the morning, when he was gone, when I woke up with his scent on my fingers, and that’s when I began to like it. That’s when the smell started to grow on me or in me, figuratively.

It was six AM, and I called him anyway. “Come back,” I said. “All we did was kiss. I need more.”

“I have to work.” He was right. He had a real job that required punctuality and a tie.

“Tonight,” I said.

He agreed.

“Bring a bag. I have a drawer for you.”

“Thanks,” he said and had to go.

*****************************

I teased myself with his scent all day, constantly grazing my finger under my nose. I hadn’t realized it before, but it was an intoxicant. I was an addict and it was a dangerous situation. I knew there was a fifty/fifty chance he’d never talk to me after I offered him a drawer. That’s just how men are. But he was there at seven with a pillowcase filled with essentials. So punctual it nearly made me gasp.

I dragged him straight to the bed. It was unmade and as I fell back into it, I saw him notice the general mess in my room. But he didn’t stop.

After nearly twenty minutes of forcing my tongue into him, the overwhelming synesthesia of his touch and his scent made me brave. I took his hand, placed it between my legs and said, “Can you eat this?”

He smiled, showing his excessively sharp teeth. “I’m a vegan,” he said. “Not a fruit.”

And he went at it, ravenously. The only meat he allowed himself. He worked so hard that his scent doubled out of his pores multiplying the effects of his tongue. It didn’t take me long before I was good. I was very good.

I took a breath and pushed him on to his back to return the favor. He stiffened immediately and not just in a good way. But one thing about being a woman of a certain age is that you know how to do certain things. And as placed my tongue over my bottom teeth and took him in whole, all the resistance in his body collapsed. Before long, he exploded. He gave me almost too much to take in, but I stored some in my mouth and swallowed twice. It tasted just like he smelled, and for once in my life, I couldn’t get enough.

I looked up at him and smiled, the way I’d want to be smiled at if I were a guy.

His nervousness had turned his eyebrows against each other. “Did you swallow me? I mean, did you swallow all that?”

I nodded.

He pulled his legs to his stomach and rolled away from me, placing his asshole right in front of my face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, trying to not look at his asshole, which looked remarkably tidy for a man of his size.

He wouldn’t answer. I got up and walked over to face him. “I’m not a vegan, you know,” I said.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “And I guess that is a problem.”

Within a few minutes, he’d picked up his pillowcase and left. And we never spoke again.

Over the next few days, I reminded myself that I’d promised myself I would never date a vegan. When our mutual friend called to apologize about him, I said, “It’s scary when you’re right about something even before you know why.”

And she agreed but didn’t know why.

This story was inspired by Jeff Hurlow’s Myspace Portrait Project.

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