With five minutes left before my guests were supposed to arrive, the table was set, the hors d’oeuvres were laid out, and the kitchen was quickly becoming a pizza-making inferno. In seconds, my forehead was dotted with sweat beads and my shirt became glued to my back; I felt as though I was having a premature brush with menopause. Desperate for relief, I grabbed a cold bottle of soda I'd set out on the table, twisted the cap and... it exploded.

All over the table, all over the microfiber chairs and - as I rushed the Dr. Pepper volcano to the sink - all over the kitchen floor. Noooooo! I couldn't believe my dumb luck. The book club gals - who are notoriously skillful homemakers, capable of putting on elaborate spreads at a moment's notice - were seconds away from ringing my doorbell. I was already feeling domestically inadequate (you want an elaborate spread at my place and you'd better give me several hours and a personal assistant) without shit exploding.

The situation reached its comical climax when I snatched the mop from the pantry and watched its head fall off in the sink.

I took a deep breath, armed myself with Shout wipes and an armful of paper towels and prayed to any deity within earshot that the night would improve.

And boy, did it. In our book club, while most of us take a good stab at reading the monthly selection, no one makes any attempt to discuss it when we get together. And that's the way we like it. We eat, gossip, make forecasts about Berkley's romantic life, and in last night's case, thumb through sex toy catalogs. Now, I may not know a whole lot about being a graceful hostess, but I do know my way around... personal satisfaction devices. If it's edible, I've probably tasted it. If it's battery operated, I've probably had a sword fight with it in a SoHo boutique. We all have our areas of expertise, and mine is obviously not the kitchen.

And when I say the night got better, I mean it ended with me volunteering to host July's book club/sex toy party, where the monthly reading assignment will be a Harlequin Romance novel. Does it get much better than that?

Personally, I'm really looking forward to the heaving bosoms.

For months he'd been saying it was inevitable. We were going to hook up.

"No way," I'd said. "Our friendship would implode." There were illustrative hand-gestures and sound effects.

"Not necessarily."

"Yes, necessarily."

We'd go round and round and then, finally, he'd concede that I was right. If we hooked up, he couldn't tell me the sordid details of all his other hook-ups. And those were some of our best conversations.

One night, the tequila shots came out, and so did the old hooking-up discussion. He went over the same material as before - how he'd miss being able to tell me all his scandalous stories, how he liked our friendship. Only, this time, he was standing behind me, with his nose mere inches from my hair. If we were going to be just friends, he said, it wasn't fair that I smelled so good. Standard tequila conversation.

"That first kiss would be really awkward, though," he said, almost to himself.

Enough! I thought. And without saying a word, I turned around and kissed him. Just like that.

Huh," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "Wasn't awkward for me."

And by the dazed half-smile on his face, I could tell that awkward wasn't the word he was thinking of either.

Ari: Does the Internet know about your first time? Because I'm realizing I do not.

Heather: Yeah, I think they do.

Ari: No, no. We don't!

Heather: Oh, come on. It's very uninteresting and anticlimactic... but I'll tell the story, just for you.

Ari: Oooh, yay!

As firsts go, I'm not kidding when I say mine was uninteresting and anticlimactic. It was, because I planned it to be that way. The story goes a little something like this:

I'd just gotten out of a several month long, high drama relationship with an older man. He was 11 years my senior and a highly experienced control freak. He didn't want to do the actual deed if I wasn't on birth control. I had grown a little tired of his charmless ultimatums and Guinness fueled temper, so I said no and settled for everything but. By the time I got out of that mess, I'd come to the conclusion (which, I suspect, will be unpopular with this crowd) that I wanted to do it and I wanted to have no lingering emotional attachment to the experience. I'd had emotional and wasn't cut out for it. One night, my roommate and I were at a party. I'd had a few to drink, and from the cab made a drunk dial to a friend. "Hey, I'm drunk. Wanna make out?" I knew what his answer would be, and I knew how the evening would unravel. His reputation as a ladies' man, and the fact that we'd found ourselves tipsy and making out on street corners on several occasions, made it a sure thing.

And that was that.

I walked home the next morning, laughing. It's a memory I hold with absolutely no regret. And regret, I know. I regret the night that J carried me up my front steps, not because I was drunk, but because I was crying too hard to walk. When nine months into us, he said he was so sorry, but he couldn't love me. He couldn't stand the thought of being without me, but he couldn't love me. That, I'd rather not have experienced. Or the time, when after a night of wildish sexcapades, the man I'd been involved with for over a year made fun of something I'd done in bed. In front of his friends. He mocked my voice, my facial expressions, and I stood there betrayed and humiliated. I'd love to make that one go away. It affected me so profoundly - broke my trust mechanism, perhaps beyond complete repair. Every once in a while, I think about retaliating -- exposing him as the Oedipal mess that he is and revealing to the world his confessions about mother-lust. But then I think, that would be mean. And exceptionally satisfying.

At any rate, I understand that there's great value in the sex/love connection. But I also know the value of sex without love. Or hate. Or embarrassment. Or envy. Or guilt. Sex without anything but warm, naked flesh and twisted sheets. I know it's not something to build a lifetime of love on, but for me, it can be a lot more palatable than mornings spent sobbing in the shower over lopsided love affairs and good things gone bad.

Tim once told me I was a "punishing woman." You'll have to take my word for it that, at the time (I believe I had a fistful of his hair), he meant it as a compliment. I don't think he meant it in exactly that way later on, though..

The night before he flew from Dallas to New York to stay with me, my phone lit up with a flurry of text messages, most of which bordered on scandalous. There was even the suggestion (his, incidentally) that we do it right there in the baggage claim. You know, raise a few eyebrows. Possibly get arrested.

But as exciting as all that sounded, it was not to be.

He arrived drunk. And not just airplane liquor tipsy. Drunk. Unshowered and reeking of the previous night's adventures in booze and cigarettes, he stood at the baggage carousel, looking miserable. I wasn't feeling much better. It was an auspicious beginning to a weekend I'd anticipated spending scantily (if at all) clad... and not smelling like a hobo. Determined to salvage things, I sent him straight to the shower the minute we got home. We were having dinner at Grimaldi's later, and I wasn't taking him anywhere like that.

He emerged from the bathroom a half hour later wearing make up.

"I found your eyeliner."

"I can see that."

I was tempted to tell him that Jared Leto hadn't been hot since the Jordan Catalano days, and that mimicking him now was just bad form, but before I could say a word, he disappeared back into the bathroom... to straighten his hair. Such fanciness, I thought, for walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. Still, I held onto a bit of hope that things would improve.

They didn't. He spent the entire four-day weekend falling-down drunk, and I spent it feeling like Peg Bundy. For a fuckation, there sure wasn't much sex going on. And what there was of that, was hardly recognizable. I mean, I've heard of a quickie, but the speed at which he pawed (and I do mean pawing. They're attached, son. Might wanna be careful with those.) his way through it was ridiculous. And after we were done? Back to the booze.

I'd gone to a lot of trouble to make plans, take him to music venues that he'd like. I even wasted my Natural History Museum make-out on him.

"She's mad at me," he told his friends when we met them for brunch the morning he left.

"I'm glad you picked up on that," I said, wishing the waiter would bring the damn coffee. I hate to be a pouter, but seriously, no one puts baby in a corner and no one makes me feel like Peg Bundy. I wasn't pouting. I was pissed.

"Why? I came to see you."

"No," I said finally. "You came to see the bottom of a pint glass. And I hear they have those back home."

His friends laughed and teased him about not earning his keep, but I'm not sure he heard them through his hangover.

I know I should try to have some compassion - he obviously has a serious drinking problem - but when he left, that drunk bastard packed my favorite black cashmere sweater. And after everything else? Well, I was plum out of good feelings. One day, when finally he gets to that all-important step of his 12 step program, I better get an apology and a damn gift card. I don't care what your excuse. You don't fuck with a girl's best sweater.

Alternatively titled: If you are my mother, you might want to stop reading now

"Blowjobs are for boyfriends."

"You mean you don't..." Ari made a crude but familiar gesture.

"Nope."

Ari sat in silence for a minute. Presumably in awe. Clearly, she'd never considered it as an opt-out.

We all have our lines in the sand, and that is one of mine. Blowjobs are for boyfriends. If I remembered how to cross-stitch, I'd hang that, gilt framed, over my bed. Surely I'm not the only woman who thinks that oral sex is more intimate and more... involved than a good, old-fashioned shag. Nor can I be the only woman to say that a blowjob can be a lot of effort (um, they call it a 'job' for a reason). And who, I ask, wants to go to all that effort when you're not sure he's going to stick around to reciprocate? And by reciprocate, naturally, I mean taking out the trash and killing spiders; for the most part, his... err, efforts down there don't do much for me.

Now I know there are plenty of people who will tell me that if I'm not sure of a man's character or staying potential, I shouldn't be sleeping with him in the first place. On that, we're just gonna have to agree to disagree. I like sex. So there.

Besides, even if you don't get all benevolent in the bedroom, sex is just plain risky. Blowjob or no, you still have a good chance of brushing up against the ever unpleasant Penis is Magic Syndrome, so why compound the issue?

What? Never heard of it? I'll enlighten.

Penis is Magic Syndrome
If you sleep with a guy, no matter what your level of relationship interest, he will automatically assume you mean to spend the REST of your LIFE with him, have his babies and drain the virility out of him. Why? Because his penis is magic, obviously. So magic, it will make you take leave of all your senses. Just watch how squirrely he gets about communication after you've done the deed. Proof positive.

Most of the conversations Ari and I have on the subject of men and sex are not fit for public consumption. Which is not to say that the ladies at the nail salon don't get a good deal of enjoyment out of them (we see you snicker behind your old copies of US Weekly, oh yes, we do). But those ladies are hardly what I consider public. Everyone knows that a nail salons are as soundproof as a confessional box; none of those ladies are running off to tell my mother what I just said about penises. I hope.

Which reminds me: I recognize that things have gotten a little... safe around here. You can't blame a girl for trying to keep her mother from a heart attack. But now that mom's been forewarned, and on new blood pressure meds, I'm instituting Tawdry Thursdays (I know, Tawdry Tuesdays sounds so much better, but what can you do? Come up with a better name and I'll buy you a beer). Anyway, Thursdays are now dedicated exclusively to tales of dating, mating and that guy who was not only really bad in bed, but stole my favorite sweater.

So. Got requests? Want me to make good on stories I promised and never delivered? Remind me in the comments box.

"He asked me if I needed a straight man to take out my boxes."

"I hope you said no, but that you do need a man to put something in your box."

"..."

"Sorry."

"Dirty, but so true."