We Are Men of Action

Story Sent in by Emmy:

Sal was a smooth talker who I met online. He was full of flattery that seemed sincere at the time, and it was never laid on too thickly. He was in construction and seemed to do well enough for himself. When he asked me out to dinner, I accepted his invite.

At dinner, he again poured it on, in retrospect, a bit thick: "I can't get over how beautiful you are."

"Thanks, Sal. You look good tonight, too."

"I mean it! You're a stunner. A knockout!"

"Thanks."

"I'd stop screwing the three other women I'm screwing right now to screw you for one night!"

"Thanks, Sal–what?"

He wiped his mouth with his napkin and licked his lips. "I mean it. I'm ready. Are you?"

"I–no. No, I'm not, Sal."

"What's wrong with some post-date screwing?"

I smiled. "We haven't even had dessert yet. Or, you know, gotten to know each other that well, kissed, or done any of the other, you know, lead-up stuff."

He slumped down in his chair like he had just been handed a terminal diagnosis. He asked, "Are you serious? You're so lame."

I blinked. "So we're just going kamikaze on the date, then?"

He blew some air out of his mouth. Deflated, indeed.

He wrote me an email that night, although I didn't have the pleasure of reading it until the next day. It was long, but the best bits I've included here:

"If you think I was joking about my sexual activities with 3 other women then you guessed wrong. Not only are there 3 of them but 2 of them actually know each other in person and have no idea that I'm sleeping with the other. How is that for amazing? They are all beautiful beauties but I was honest when I said I would give all 3 of them up for you. If only you could understand what it took for me to say that and of how honest I am truly."

He went on a while longer, then, around the closing, he wrote, "As a vote of final hope and confidence I will give you the names of the women so that you can maybe look them up and see who I would give up for you. Their names are Cathy Hurley, Lauren Mattei, and Carol Ingram."

Sure as anything, I looked them up. What can I say? Curiosity is an untamed beast. Facebook delivered three local matches, and they were, yes indeed, pretty good looking. I forwarded them each a copy of Sal's message. If I were one of them, I'd sure want to know the information Sal had told me.

Almost a full day passed without hearing anything from the women or Sal, and that was sort of what I had hoped. All was well that hopefully ended well.

Or not. Sal soon rang my phone off the hook but left no messages. An email arrived from him. It wasn't nearly as long as the last one, but also different in more notable ways:

"You bitch. I knew you were a viper and I was right. Yeah you know those three women accounts you sent my message too thinking that you were so smart and were going to ruin my life? Well guess what? Not one of them was real. I made them to test you and your honesty. Guess we now know who the real viper is here. You are the selfish cruel and vindictive. Do us all a favor and rot."

I replied, "You'd give up screwing three imaginary women for one night with a real one? I'm flattered."

No response.