We gave them a head start and then trekked to the bar. It was on Eighth Avenue near Sixteenth, and it was sporty and generic. The afro guy was wearing a reggae T-shirt and sitting next to a beaky, unpleasant-seeming girl. The honkies were sitting near the door, by the crew, who weren't shooting but were listening to earpieces.  Jen and I sat a few seats down from the boys and ordered Jameson's. I realized I was a little too buzzed for my own good.
I went over to the black guy and asked his name.
"Malik," he said.
"Malik means king," I replied.
"How'd you know?"
"My boyfriend in college was named Malik," I said. "That was Malcolm X's Muslim name."
"That's who I'm named after," he said, impressed. I smiled pretty and waited for more interaction, but he turned back to Frown Girl and kept chatting.
Jen was down the bar talking to the white guys. I ran over before she could cockblock.
"This is Mike," she said, pointing to the jocky guy. "He's from Ohio." He had a broad forehead, kind of angry, and mean, slitty eyes.
"Where in Ohio?" I asked.
"Parma. Outside of Cleveland." I looked down at his football jersey. It said "Parma" in white, scripty letters.
"Are you a hick?" I asked.
"What?" I was supposed to seduce, not destroy, but somehow the nastiness had slipped out. I didn't know how to fake-flirt.
"Um," I stammered, "I just mean, I've never heard of Parma, so I thought it might be a small town. What's your name?" I said to the other guy.
"Kevin."
"Where you from?"
"Texas."
"'That's right, you're not from Texas, but Texas wants you anyway.'" He didn't say anything. "That's a Lyle Lovett song," I said quickly.
"I hate Lyle Lovett."
Zero for two. I didn't get where we'd gone wrong. I'm no skinny Minnie, but I have biceps; I play squash. And Jen is easy on the eyes.  These guys were acting like jerks. They had the sexual egos of celebrities — cautious and snotty — even though they'd never been on TV and no one knew who they were. It was such a downer.
"So what do you think of New Yorkers?" said Jen. The camera crew came over and started shooting, right in our faces. They could smell confrontation.
"Judgmental and kind of obnoxious," said Kevin. "The kind of people who would call someone they don't know a hick."
"Hey!" I railed. "I'm not judgmental." The camera swung wildly toward me.
"That's completely unfair! I'm all love! All love! You guys are obnoxious!"
"Look, you followed us here," said Mike.
"No we didn't!" shouted Jen. "He invited us!"
"We're two beautiful women and you're blowing us off," I said incredulously.
"It doesn't make any sense. Are you gay? You must be gay."
The camera panned over as the hick's jaw dropped. I shut my own mouth and Jen and I slinked slowly down the bar. When I turned around again they'd disappeared. I was supposed to get them in bed, and my resentment of their fake fame had driven them away.
I looked over at Malik. It didn't seem like he'd heard much of the first convo, so I figured I might have a chance. He was talking to the bartender and the girl. I sauntered over and waited for an entry, but they ignored me.
I reached for his hand and stroked it awhile. I've tried that number before and it usually works — guys are so relieved not to have to make the first move that when you just give them skin, even hand skin, they turn into jelly.
But Malik turned into dead fish. He didn't move his hand away, but he didn't squeeze, either. I removed mine and scribbled a note with my name, number and,
"I'll show you hot spots."
"Thanks," he said. I grabbed Jen and we ran out.
When I got home I couldn't sleep. The guys had been cruel and not bright, but in that sense they fit my pattern. I kept writhing around, aroused yet pissed off, imagining how the night could have ended . . . 
The phone would ring and I'd leap out of bed. "It's Malik," he'd coo. "Come show me your hot spots."
I'd slip into a teddy with two dangling blue balls at the bosom and dart into a waiting cab. When I got to the place I'd press "B. Gimbel," and a mystery someone would buzz me in. When the elevator door opened, I'd be face to face with Malik, lying naked in a beanbag chair from Urban Outfitters, stroking his ego.
"Hello, Mrs. Robinson," he'd drawl. I'd dash to the chair and flip up my teddy,
but he'd hold up a finger and say, "Wait a second. I want to be safe." Then he'd reach behind the chair and pull out an ultra-sensitive rubber, with "The Real World™ stamped on the shaft.
Once he slipped it on, I'd pounce eagerly, and as I neared my redemption song, Mike, Kevin and David al Maroosh from the deli would file in — Kevin clothed only in yellow roses, Mike in a jock strap, David in a colorful Yemenite marriage gown. "Party of Five!" I'd coo lustfully, as the camera crew followed them in.
They'd lay like logs in a row, in order of west to east: Texas, Ohio, Yemen. I'd tackle them one by one, riding, erupting and then rolling onto the next. At first the cameras would be distracting, but I'd soon grow to enjoy the hot
light on my coochie, like a gyno's during a pelvic.
As David and I came in tandem, a P.A. would thrust a release form at me. In the midst of my Hancock, the girls would emerge from the elevator — Rachel, Lori and Nicole, looking hotter in life than on the surveillance and shamelessly ogling my rack.
"Is it possible?" I'd cry joyously. "Are those dark days of Real World tokenism over? Can there be not one, but a troika of lovely lesbians in this cast?"
Nodding eagerly, they'd race over and throw me down in a massive multiracial pile-on, the cameras panning from puss to puss. Then the fourth mystery girl would enter, masked and bound, led by Carson Daly . . .
When I woke up the next morning I checked my bod for hickeys — but my skin was intact, my labia sadly serene.
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