YOUR BOYFRIEND WAS raised by sexy wolves. The sexy wolves live out on the edge of town, in beautiful open-plan lofts with real wood flooring and big floor-to-ceiling windows. The sexy wolves are super sexy, and they teach your boyfriend to be super sexy too. The sexy wolves go to the gym at least twice a day. The sexy wolves make chicken in big batches and portion it out for the week, six ounces at a time, and pair it with some vegetables. The sexy wolves do yoga class, Pilates class, water aerobics class, fencing class, tennis class, ballet class, CrossFit. The sexy wolves wear tank tops, crop tops, short-shorts, cute hats, colorful high-tops, tiny underwear that doesn’t cover much. The sexy wolves get their bodies waxed, expensive haircuts, buy only the best moisturizers and hair products. The sexy wolves respect the whole package; they are educated, hard-working, talented. The sexy wolves have interesting and diverse hobbies that they pursue, are passionate about one or more charities, are well-versed in the arts. The sexy wolves know that kindness is sexy, confidence is sexy, intelligence is sexy, geekiness is sexy. They have big books where all the rules and laws related to being sexy are laid out.
You meet your boyfriend at a charity marathon. I like to combine my love of physical fitness with my love of charity, he says.
You are struck by how sexy your boyfriend is, just in the way he stands, the way he laughs, the way his eyes crinkle at the corners. He licks his bottom lip in a way that is conscious in that it seems so unconscious. Everything about him seems low-effort but very careful and intentional and expensive, like he just happened to wake up that morning wearing the best workout clothes, with the line of his jockstrap rising just slightly above his running shorts, his fitted shirt not quite covering a strip of exposed flesh.
After the race you ask for your boyfriend’s phone number and he takes your phone from you and types it in himself, puts his name in with a little heart emoji and a little wink emoji. When he puts the phone back in your hand, his fingertips gently brush your wrist and somehow you swear you can smell him there for the rest of the day. You bring your wrist up to your nose almost inadvertently as you go about your business, at the grocery store, the laundromat, the taqueria where you meet your friends for margaritas. Your friends caution you about the sexy wolves who live out on the edge of town, but when you press them for details the discomfort is somehow impossible for them to articulate. They’re just . . . too sexy, one of your friends says, twirling the stem of his margarita glass, which is shaped like a cactus, between three of his fingers.
Before bed, you text your boyfriend: I’m glad I met you.
He texts you a response: I’m glad I met you too ;)
You go on dates with your boyfriend and you’re constantly on alert, should he be too sexy like your friend said. It’s true your boyfriend is a lot of different kinds of sexy. Sometimes he’s movie sexy, like when he winks at you and says, you haven’t seen anything yet, tiger. Other times he’s a wholesome kind of sexy, in pastel-colored button-down shirts and aviators, and he looks like he could meet your mom on Easter. Sometimes he’s jock sexy, in shirts with cut-off sleeves and workout shorts. Sometimes he’s chill sexy, he is most often chill sexy, he is so incredibly chill, smokes cigars with the boys, drinks whiskey straight, laughs at dirty jokes and talks about sports he enjoys. But despite all that, he’s never too sexy. You feel like he’s exactly the right amount of sexy for you.
You aren’t sexy at all, or you don’t think you are. You’ve always been a little buttoned-up, straight-laced. Every Sunday you clean your apartment, top to bottom, and during the week you get the same sandwich from the same deli every day and when you watch TV, it’s usually to watch a show that you already know you like. You are fit but doughy, not athletic-looking in the least. You like boring music, the kind they play on the radio all the time, and you went to a regular college and got middle-of-the-road grades and when you graduated, you got the regular kind of job that everyone has. When your boyfriend says, that’s so interesting! about your job, you assume he is being insincere but it is very sexy that he seems so interested in what you do.
When you plan dates, your boyfriend always asks you what you want to do, and you always shrug and say, I don’t know, anything really, what do you want to do?
Your boyfriend always has something he wants to do. He takes you with him to laser tag, black light bowling, mini golf, indoor rock climbing, underwear parties, underground raves, whiskey tastings, baseball games, operas. He gets you to try ecstasy and you participate in an orgy that you barely remember. You go scuba diving. He has connections at the zoo, and together you get a behind-the-scenes tour where you get to throw raw steaks to the lions, who regard you with an imperial indifference you feel down to your bones. He takes you with him to the bar where you watch reality shows with a big crowd and you have to take a drink every time someone on the TV says I’m not here to make friends. You get drunk, your boyfriend gets drunk, everyone is drunk.
While you are spending a lot of time with your boyfriend, you haven’t met any of the sexy wolves. When you drive out to the edge of town, you see them, from a distance, dancing shirtless in the street, licking melted ice cream off each other’s hands in the heat, but by the time you get close enough to see in greater detail, they’re all gone, there’s only your boyfriend, waiting for you on the sidewalk in a tight black t-shirt and jeans that are torn so that you can see part of his ass. When you ask him about his family, he just shrugs you off. I’ve never met my real family, he says, but the sexy wolves raised me. As you drive away, you can hear their sultry howling in the distance.
Is it very hard, being so sexy all the time? you ask your boyfriend.
It is, your boyfriend says, super hard.