My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands

MY LITTLE NUGGET

I THINK WE can all agree that sleeping around is a great way to meet people. Furthermore, sleeping around with midgets is a great way to meet midgets.

The great thing about sleeping with a midget is that first you get to have sex with them and then you can use them as a pillow. Those little midgets have it so easy. Sometimes when I see one, I want to chase it. I don't want to scare them, but I want to hold them and cuddle them. Mostly I would like one for the carpool lane.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: If you want something bad enough, you just have to go after it.

This is what I can remember. I showed up at a party in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. I had been living in California for over a year, with Ivory, and I was meeting my sisters for a vacation, but they weren't arriving until the next night. A hotel room all to myself is my idea of a good time.

I went to the pool, where I met a couple who told me they were going to some sort of Cinco de Mayoish party with plenty of margaritas. I thought it sounded like a great idea, and my new friends and I decided to go.

It's always the couples that are the friendliest who have the most problems. It makes sense, if you think about it. They're so miserable with each other, of course they're fascinated by you.

When they weren't asking me questions about my Jewish father and gentile mother, they were busy cursing each other out. These two fought constantly, which I didn't have a problem with. It's so much better than watching a couple who can't get enough of each other and sit around making googly eyes back and forth. I had a roommate who had a boyfriend and all they did was make eyes at each other. He was all emotion all the time, constantly talking about his feelings and his profound love for her. He was minutes away from getting his first period. He wrote her poems too. It's my personal belief that if men are writing poems, they're making up for something else. Like a big hairy back, or one ball. Not that one ball is a bad thing. Especially since I don't know any females who are dying to get their hands on a set of balls. The way I see it, the less balls, the better.

Anyway, this couple wasn't the ogling type. If you put a napkin between these two they'd figure out a way to argue about it. So they bickered all day while I proceeded to get viciously burned in the sun. My mom had just sent me one of those traveling cases, where you put your shampoos and creams into little unmarked containers so you don't have to travel with big bottles that might spill. What I thought was sunblock turned out to be foot cream. I was wondering why the smell was so pungent. My mom spent my entire childhood taking naps while I was stranded at the mall or Hebrew school for hours at a time, and now all of a sudden I'm twenty, and she wants to pack my bags.

This wasn't the first time I'd looked like an asshole. This was however, the first time complete strangers referred to me as "the asshole." I decided white would be a good contrast for my blistering tan at the party that night and a great way to get the attention I deserved.

The party was a blast. It was about a five-minute walk from our hotel at some millionaire's beachfront mansion. Everyone was salsa dancing around his pool as the waves crashed on shore. There were belly dancers on balconies. There were margarita-shaped ice sculptures that were made out of actual margaritas and people were slowly disrobing. Everyone was incredibly friendly, and I had a sneaking suspicion that some sort of Ecstasy was involved but I abstained because these weren't my people and, besides, I make it a personal rule never to experiment with drugs while having such a brutal sunburn. Alcohol, on the other hand, is never off-limits.

Then I saw him. My little midget, wearing a sombrero filled with chips and salsa on his head! It was the most adorable thing I had ever laid eyes on. As if my night could get any better, he was topless but wearing an apron and white pants. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

We hung out all night. I couldn't stop hugging him. He was one of the funniest midgets I'd ever met. Actually, he was the only midget I'd ever met-if you don't count the Internet. He had the cutest little hands and a high-pitched voice. He was shaped like a perfect sphere. He kept telling me one racist joke after another, and I couldn't get enough of him. At one point I had to send him away because I needed to catch my breath. My stomach was aching. He kept slapping my chest when he laughed, leaving what looked like puppy's pawprints all over me. Then he started barking. I love a guy who doesn't take himself too seriously. He was a tricky little oompa loompa too. He kept giving me shot after shot of tequila, and he kept getting taller, and taller, and taller.

His name was Eric and he was from Cleveland. I wanted to call him Nugget but thought I'd wait until after we became better acquainted. He had moved to Mexico to party for a year after he graduated from mortuary school. He figured his future was gonna be pretty grim, so he wanted to get in some hard-core fun first.

We talked and danced, and at one point I tried to pick him up, but he was heavy for a little guy. His mom was a midget too, but his dad was human-sized. I guess his dad had a thing for little people, because he had married another midget before his mother. She had cheated on him with someone her own size, so he had gone on his way. I thought his father sounded like a great guy. So open-minded and such a broad thinker, to have fetishes for the little people too.

The sunburn combined with my fourteenth margarita was starting to cloud my head. I settled into a deep fog and didn't return to full 90 percent mental capacity until early the next morning.

The first thing I saw when I awoke were two tiny feet scurrying across the Spanish tile to the bathroom. I was so confused. At first I thought, Oh, great, I had a baby. Then I felt under the covers. My underwear was still on. I knew you could never have a baby with your underwear still on.

Then I heard what sounded like someone jumping off the toilet seat and landing on the floor. "Whew, these tiles are cold," said someone who sounded like he'd just inhaled an entire tank of helium. That squeaky little voice was too much. It all started coming back to me, and it was not good. My head was spinning and I was not in a good mood. I didn't know if things were going to get violent, but I did know one thing: Eric needed to be gone. But first I needed to know if I had slept with a midget, and I needed to know fast.

Then I saw it. His penis was the size of a boa constrictor. I couldn't believe it. My jaw dropped open and I stared for close to a minute in pure, titillating horror.

"Did we have sex?" I asked.

Eric was quick to blurt out, "We can if you want to."

My vagina immediately clammed up. I was scared for me and my little beaver's life. I just hoped we would make it out of this okay.

"You were really drunk last night," he said condescendingly. Wow, I guess nothing gets past this guy.

"Listen, Columbo, did we have sex or not?" I asked.

"Well, that depends on what you mean by sex," he replied. This guy was getting more irritating by the minute. All the cute stuff had worn off with the tequila, and I started to think of him like a pinata. Could I take this guy? Was I strong enough to fight a male midget?

Seeing I was angry, he hurried to answer. "No, I just pleasured you for a little bit, and then you passed out."

Thank God for alcohol. To think I might have actually had that thing inside my little girl scared mommy.

Then I heard my sisters walk in the door.

My sisters are a very interesting duo. One of them is a converted Mormon. The other is sane.

Sloane, the Mormon, and I have had a very tumultuous relationship most of our lives. She seems to think I stole her thunder by being born. She was five years older and had claimed the throne of the youngest child with no thoughts of any competition. Her side of the story is that upon my arrival, she was thrust into a dark emotional corner, unable to express herself or get the attention she had gotten used to. Still reeling from middle-child syndrome, at the age of twenty my sister decided to distinguish herself from the rest of our family by converting to Mormonism. She believed this would be a way to carve out her own identity. Her plan was successful, although now her identity was the lunatic. We were slowly becoming closer in our twenties, but Sloane was very judgmental and something like bedding a midget could be a huge setback. Sidney, the older one, has always been my second mother. During my entire childhood, it was always Sidney who picked me up from Hebrew school when my parents forgot to, and who asked for friends' phone numbers if I was going to stay at their houses overnight. My mom was way too relaxed as a parent. By the age of ten, if I told her I was going backpacking in the Himalayas for the weekend, she would have told me to have a great time and to definitely call her when I returned.

My whole family knows I have a propensity toward hedonism, but I don't think sleeping with a midget falls into that category. Or the category that falls under sharing the experience with anyone else in the world. Not for a while, anyway. I didn't want to see that look of disappointment on my sisters' faces for the next five days. I had to think fast.

I ran out into the living room and explained that I had a naked midget in my room because the hotel misunderstood me when I ordered room service.

They both looked at me with disgust on their faces.

Eric slipped out while my sisters waited in the other room. I, of course, proceeded to ream Sloane for renting a hotel room at a place that would provide that kind of service. "It's sick is what it is," I told her.

The following five days in Cabo did not go by without a jibe every time someone under five feet passed by, which in Mexico is pretty frequent.

" Chelsea," Sloane would say repeatedly as we sat pool-side, "you've really hit an all-time low."

"Literally," Sidney would then chime in. Then the two would erupt into hysterical laughter, which was followed by snorts of disgust. It became clear to me on that trip that midgets are great for parties, but for me that's where it ends.