Mustache & Gums, A Love Story

Susan was afraid that she had become one of those pathetic, saggy-boobed, sweat pants-wearing, white bread bologna sandwich in a plastic baggy-munching, bird-watching, tacky, boring women whose asses drooped down off rolly chairs behind cubicles plastered with knick-knacky things, like calendars with pictures of kittens in costumes or mugs that say Merry Christmas. Those women who type ads in Craigslist or Singles.com with one glossy-nailed finger, too old to type without looking and too young to meet men at diners, or the library. Susan, not one for epiphanies or self-realizations, felt all of a sudden uneasy and self-conscious as she sat alone at the corner table inside of an Olive Garden, waiting for her blind date. 

 

Roger, according to his online profile page, was an Aquarian telemarketer who sold “all-natural, all organic” products and his hobbies included long walks, hiking, dancing, and deep thought. Susan was delighted. Though she hated dancing, had never actually hiked, and was often exhausted from long walks, Roger seemed like the type of person that Susan aspired to be, and so she contacted him with a picture of her from five years ago, when probing her scalp for grey hairs for fifteen minutes wasn’t a part of her morning routine. But she still looked the same. Mostly. What Susan liked most about Roger was that he had a thick yet humble mustache that implied fiscal responsibility, the desire to have children, and middle-class values. Their short email correspondence appeared to support these assumptions; he used proper grammar and punctuation, did not use silly modern acronyms, and had a pre-made online signature with his contact information at the bottom. 

 

Roger was five minutes late and Susan was crinkling a piece of her napkin into a ball, wondering if she should leave. Maybe this was a sign. Maybe Roger had changed his mind. She thought about her own online profile page, wondering if he had considered her a catch.

Susan Deschaine, 39 (but actually 45).

An executive assistant who enjoys swimming (she didn’t), nature walks (she hadn’t technically been in the woods in over fifteen years, but she thought if she had the opportunity that she would absolutely enjoy them), and music (mostly talk-radio in the mornings). Looking for a man who wants commitment (no cheating with the slut next-door neighbor after five years), and who is passionate (but not kinky), and loving.

Surely Roger fit the description, and she didn’t peg him for a man who would back out, particularly because she fancied herself slightly more attractive, especially in the picture she gave him, which featured her more slender but still-not-particularly-slender body leaning against the fence outside of her father’s farm with a big-gummed smile under her favorite shade of red lipstick and her brown curls blowing in the wind. Yes. She was more attractive than Roger. 

 

This conclusion was immediately confirmed as she watched Roger walk towards her table. He was wearing a large pair of glasses that had not made an appearance in his photograph and dress pants that were slightly too short for his long legs.

His thick mustache smiled at her and her big gums smiled back.

“Susan?” he said, with a friendly point to her face.

“Yes, Roger?”

“I certainly am!” he exclaimed with a sort of whistle, sitting down across from Susan.

The waiter, who had refilled Susan’s water glass several times out of pity, approached the table upon seeing Roger sit down, and asked them if they’d like any wine. 

 

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” Susan began, trying to blush and seem bashful.

But Susan had indeed done this before. In fact, for the past three years Susan had been perusing dating sites online and had gone on eleven blind dates. 

 

“I haven’t either, but I looked at your picture, and read your profile, and something told me that I could trust you,” Roger said with a hairy smile.

Susan felt confident that Roger approved of her and so they indulged in small-talk. Susan ordered a soup and salad (though she really desired the garlic haddock or the white sauce ziti but could not risk the possibility of bad breath from the fish or gas from the alfredo). Roger ordered chicken parmesan and when their food arrived, Susan wished she had not been so reserved with her ordering, and looked lovingly at his plate. 

 

In between bites and chews and slurps, they talked about their lives. He rode a bike to work, he said, not because he couldn’t afford a car, but rather because he cared deeply for the environment. Susan liked this. She envisioned the future: they would share a two-seated bike, ride along a rocky trail in the mornings after granola and lovemaking in his Lincoln-Log cabin, within the bowels of some far-away dream-forest, where there were no insects and they’d often have picnics under trees with pretty singing birds in them. As Roger talked about the realm of telemarketing, Susan listened only to the sound of his voice, while daydreaming about cuddling on the couch with him and his mustache, watching Lifetime dramas for middle-aged women, and sipping coffees and teas with more sugar than necessary. She imagined him not only tolerating this, but enjoying it as much as she, and when she would wear her baggy, pink-bowed pajamas, he would not find them distasteful but rather he would get entirely turned on by the honesty in them. 

 

So when their dinner was clearly over, the table with empty plates and wine glasses, Susan boldly asked Roger if he would be interested in having coffee and perhaps watching a television show at her apartment. Roger’s mustache smiled wide.

_ _ _ _

Susan had every intention of sleeping with Roger. She hadn’t been with a man in months and had forgotten that she should have shaved her legs and armpits before the date and given herself a thorough washing in the shower. She’d showered the night before and was afraid that he would feel the prickling stubbly hairs on her legs and lose his erection or worse, find her pathetic. She had left Roger on the couch with the coffee and the television program to stand in front of her bathroom mirror, frowning at the thin black hair growing out of a small mole on her face. She plucked it. 

 

She then hurried to prepare for lovemaking, afraid that if she took too long, Roger may suspect that she had reacted poorly to the food at dinner and was embarrassingly confined to the toilet. This idea crippled Susan with fear, and she rushed to lather soap on her legs and run a cheap razor down them, and do the same with her armpits. She splashed water on them and reapplied deodorant. She then took her pants off and frowned. She wondered if Roger would approve of her unruly pubic hair. She did not have time to trim it, so she merely gave herself a sink-washcloth mini-bath and quickly lubricated her skin with a thin layer of lotion she bought at a Bath N’ Body in the mall on a Friday shopping trip with her mother.

Did she smell like a woman? 

 

Susan felt that she had to compensate for her slightly aged and sagging body, so she sprayed a strong perfume on her neck and then that was that. She opened the door slowly and Roger was laughing loudly at a sitcom. She cleared her throat and he turned around. He gave her the up-and-down with his grain-colored eyes and winked.

_ _ _ _

They made love modestly in Susan’s bed. Roger slowly moving up, down, up, down—a type of mechanical movement, without any sort of natural rhythm guided by pleasure. Susan was not bold enough to move with him, though occasionally she did release a small, contrived moan for the bliss she imagined she was supposed to be having during sex. Roger had not been very good at foreplay, so when he was busy kissing her neck, she sneaked a small spit on her fingers and applied an artificial wetness onto herself, hoping that in discovering that Susan was moist for him, Roger would become inspired to make love more passionately.

And though this didn’t happen, Susan felt content nevertheless because after Roger was spent, he did not curl away from her like some of the others had, but rather wrapped his arms around her, held her drooping stomach, and for once, Susan thought that her expectations matched very nicely with Roger’s, and she felt as though this was the man she had been looking for and had now found. He began snoring loudly in her ear, a tiny breeze of parmesan-breath on her cheek. Susan smiled and fell asleep as comfortably as she would if she were alone. 

 

She was happy.