9.24.2008

The dreaded dragon

A friend of mine was out the other day on an obligatory, “I live in California so when you visit I have to be your faux tour guide.” (if you’re from the mid-west you’ll understand). After dinner at a local restaurant the waitress continued to flirt, coaxing him into dessert and at least ten more minutes in her presence. Everyone thought she was good-looking and seemed to have a pretty fun and easy-going personality. By the urging of his out-of-town guest he initiated with this woman. He wrote his number on a napkin (pretty weak he admits) hoping the pathetic attempt to win her over might somehow dissuade any dates, but this dragon already had its claws in him.

The girl called him the very next day, witty in her response that she was "just calling the long list of numbers she got from the night before." Impressed, they planned a time to go out and grab some tea. They had pretty good conversation and ended up back at his place to hang out for a bit longer. Brief conversation and a little music the night was going pretty swell for both parties.

When sleep began to take over and his eyelids got heavy, he took a quick trip to restroom. When he came back he found the girl in his bedroom, unpacking several small items into his room.

Dragon: "So, where do I sleep, the right or the left?"
Chapman: "um…the right or the left, at your house?"

She proceeded to remove a night bag and a large book.

Dragon: "This is what we can read to each other at nights"
Chapman: "Um, no, cause you AREN'T staying here."

Chapman then excuses himself to go check something for his roommate, currently traveling for work. When he returns to the bedroom he finds that his current guest has taken off her shirt, bra and MOST of her rings and laid herself out across his bed. Why not all jewelry you might ask? Well to his both shock and intrigue a glimmer of light caught his eye, but when he looked for the source of the reflection, all he found were two pierced nipples with remarkably polished rings through each. To continue to unravel the mystery that can sometimes lie beneath the surface of clothes, she had a crazy-ass tattoo of a dragon beginning from the inner thigh of her left leg (that's the tail) up across her back around her neck to finish with it, the dragon, eating her right breast.

Taken-aback the current presentation of art across his bed he immediately found a blanket and covered her naked body and called a cab… okay, maybe that was my advice to him—Chapman proceeded to as he puts it, “Appreciate the art that someone had worked a lifetime on.” and made-out with his new found friend for several hours. [I guess…boys will be boys?]

After convincing her she still was not spending the night and neither was her book, she packed up her things and he drove her home… but somehow the book was missed and did end up spending the night.

Two more dates followed, each with similar results yet each with increasingly crazier conversations about her past lives (yes, lives) of being a warrior that enjoyed killing for conquest and the possibility of maybe having been a dragon [yeah, we didn't get it either]. Chapman decided things just weren’t working out. But, deciding he must do the decent thing he arranges to meet up with her one more time to let her know that he doesn't think it will work out between the two of them.

He made the mistake of agreeing to meet at a bar unfamiliar to him. He enters the bar to find it weighted with a ratio of two girls to around fifty BIG BIKER dudes. Immediately out of place in his work attire everyone turns recognizing the new comer, and to his surprise, why he was there. Dragon proceeds to introduce him to ALL her friends, not one under two hundred pounds, each with tattoos that put her mild full back/leg/breast tattoo to shame.

He then takes her to a quiet section of the bar to rip that band-aid off quick and painless. When he removed the BOOK from his back pocket Dragon saw what was coming and took a preemptive strike. With four shots of tequila already in the tank, she let out these dreaded words, “Was I not everything to you? And now you hurt me like this!”

Every head in the bar turned in unison, even the bartender tried to urge my friend, with his eyes, to run. But unafraid or just plain stupid, Chapman tried with a few words to bring reason back into the chaos that was ready to explode. She listened for approximately forty seconds until an earthquake detectable only to those with several ounces of alcohol pumping through their veins could feel. She suddenly fell flat on her face. The bar started to tremble with the weight of fifty men standing and bar stools sliding across the floor.

With hands up to show he had no part in her dance with gravity, my friend quickly realized this looked even worse and grabbed the immobilized women, propping her up against the dart board. Shutting his eyes and bracing for the impact of a pool stick, fist, or bottle, he waited. Slowly opening his eyes, he turned to see that the bar seemed more impressed that she had knocked herself out two seconds beforehand and was now conscious and screaming at Chapman again.

Chapman took the opportunity to physically run as fast as his leather sole shoes could carry him, out the door, across the street and down several blocks… even though his car was only a block from the bar.

Catching his breath, retrieving his car and making it home, without his dignity, he went to sleep.

The next morning he wakes to 10 text messages calling him every name in every book [remember: only three dates, no “I love you’s” exchanged, and certainly no sex or even third-base… he wants this said so you really understand his story]

He goes to work without response. By lunch, another dozen text messages have come in, asking for forgiveness, explaining that she doesn’t even remember the night, let alone what she may have said.

He remains unresponsive. That night he wakes to a text message every thirty minutes, each progressively more insane, “You were wrong about me, DEAD wrong.”

Realizing for the first time that his house and room were known to her, for the first time since a full-blown stalker in 10th grade did he fear for his life.

The proceeding NINE days he received a total of 144 text messages until finally either her phone broke or she found a new home for her book…

Needless to say, this incident showed my friend two things; 1 – never break-up with someone in an unfamiliar location! 2 – If your out-of-town guests ever urge you into asking someone out, DON’T, they will board a plane and fly far, far away and you will be stuck reading 144 text messages fearing for your life.

8 comments:

Dodi said...

holy crap that was an awesome story!

Ipp said...

That seems too good to be true. Does anyone own the rights to this story? I'd like to buy the option.

And do you have the phone number to the dragon?

1L said...

wow. so i've gotta ask: what sort of book was it? a novel? self-help? something else altogether?

Griselda Johnson said...

why did he bring this stranger into his home again?

Anonymous said...

dude, seriously, the dragon around her body and eating her breast should have screamed to him: Get. Out. Now.

Admiring the, uh, "artwork," possibly made his brain stop working properly.

Geez, you share such great stories here! Not so much Sex in the City, as it is Dating in L.A. Hmmm, an HBO series perhaps?

Olivia Hein said...

this is hilariously scary! what a freak! i do think it's sorta funny that he chose to make out with her that first night, despite everything.

i am also curious about what book it was. kama sutra, perhaps?

Anonymous said...

This is the craziest freekin story I have read in a long time! I was wondering about the book too. Although she was noticeably off-kilter from the moment she started moving in, I think I would have probably felt compelled to appreciate the artwork as well.

Michelle said...

I'm sorry for your friend, but I also tend to think that anyone who ignores the gigantic "this is what we can read to each other at nights" red flag deserves what they get.