Post-coital trauma, I wound up working on a farm in Maine where I learned invaluable skills, like how to herd goats and shovel copious amounts of crap. As if the winter there wasn’t harsh enough, there were no well-hung stable boys to be found for miles. Being in such dire straits, I wound up hooking up with a co-worker who never would have gotten close enough to breathe on me had I not been in the sort of hormonal state that borders on severe psychosis. Our dysfunctional union truly would have warranted an intervention of some sort, but alas I was just not that lucky. After our bizarre fling ended he, like a true gentleman, told most of our co-workers that I was a total nymphomaniac who couldn’t get enough of his buff bod. Little did he know that as a child I used to also hump my over-sized Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal and that the sex with plush old Winnie was definitely preferable.

Just when I thought the verbal bashing had finally quieted, a new douchebag came around by the name of Gregory. A hard-bodied but seriously inflamed ginger, Gregory was extremely intolerant of two things: 1) U.V. Rays 2) Women who were rumored to be sluts but had no desire to sleep with him. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Gregory and I had met once before in another life when I was likely burned at the stake by him and other assholes. After only the second time of hanging out with him in a group setting, he told me that he had heard I was a witch who made potions and cast spells. He also told me he could tell that I was a sexual person simply from the way I sat.

Considering our karmic connection, a rivalry between Gregory and I was inevitable. He would make it a point to tell my female friends that he hated me because he thought I was a whore. In turn, I would make it a point to jokingly kiss those same friends in front of him just to screw with his head. One evening in particular, our disdain for one another amplified when I happened to meet a gorgeous Australian man named Ryan. As hot Aussie guy and I sat by the bonfire getting to know one another, Greg must have sensed that I was really enjoying myself. He came right up to me and my companion and blurted out, “Really Natasha, him? The Australian guy? ” He then proceeded to perform a ritual baptism (frat-boy style) by intentionally pouring beer on my bare legs. If he was trying to make me look bad in front of Ryan, he was really going about it the wrong way. Honestly, I can think of nothing more appealing to a guy than a woman with beer-flavored skin. So I really should have thanked Gregory for helping support my cause. Strange, for a man who hates whores, he sure knew how to pimp one out.

As for me and Ryan, we ditched Gregory and went for a romantic walk. When we reached our destination, he happened to notice that my leg was slightly scratched and bleeding. He immediately whipped out his first aid kit and bandaged my joke of a wound. I’d known the man for only a few hours and already he had fulfilled part one of my doctor/patient fantasy. I couldn’t wait to see what he’d do if I ever got a fever. He then informed me that he’d be leaving in two days for another country. In my commitment-phobic mind, I actually thought I had hit the jackpot. What better way to kick off my weekend than with a hot foreign guy who would vanish before I ever had time to develop real feelings? Naturally, the emergence of intimacy had to come along and fuck everything up. His trip was delayed on account of an injured foot which meant our one night stand turned into a succession of steamy sleepovers. And I, being romantically malnourished for eons, was just lapping up all his charming sex-god ways. By the time our whirlwind romance was coming to a close, I had not only accomplished my fitness goal of sexing him on top of my yoga ball, I also accidentally sort of fell in love with the scruffy vagabond. And like a good little coward, I dropped him off at the train station, wished him good luck on his travels, and kept the contents of my heart hush hush.

The reality of being Left Alone to contend with angry roosters and one mean red-head, while Ryan was off on some wild adventure, touring different pussies of the southern hemisphere, didn’t exactly do wonders for my mental health. As if playing the Free Willy theme song on repeat until salt water literally poured out of my eyeballs wasn’t pathetic enough, my libido totally went into a coma. I had no desire to be with anyone new, and the fact that Ryan was rumored to return to the states for the summer didn’t exactly propel me into forward motion.

After months of celibacy, Ryan landed in America just in time to give me the swift kick in the ass I needed to get me back in the game. When I traveled to the summer camp he was working at to visit him and a friend, I nearly vomited all over myself the second I saw him. And he, in his aloofness, made it pretty clear that I was just one of many bitches he banged throughout his travels. To make matters worse, my “friend” Jennifer who was supposed to be acting as buffer must have thought I said fluffer because she was heavily flirting with Ryan. So here I was in my own personal hell, sitting beside a lake a few feet away from the two lovebirds, when Ryan sneaks up behind me, clearly only meaning to grab my attention. Instead, I clumsily slipped on a wet rock and fell right into the lake. Slightly embarrassed, I crawled out of the lake looking like some watered-down version of myself and noticed that chunks of clear gelatinous goo were oozing down my leg. Remarkably, when I reached up into my denim shorts there was tons more of it to be found. I tried to wrap my brain around the load of nasty that was nestling around my crotch area. At first I thought maybe I had accidentally collected some fish or frog eggs during my little swim. The more I reached up my short leg, the more chunks were to be found. As Jennifer and Ryan stared at the spectacle I was making of myself, I pulled the last handful of the “aquatic eggs” out of my shorts, only this pile was topped with my used menstrual pad.

As if being betrayed by my sanitary napkin didn’t make me feel like complete crap, Ryan commented that my arch-nemesis Gregory was actually a “pretty cool guy.” Clearly, Ryan had joined the ranks of witch hunters and this little water test was a clever throwback to the days of tossing women into the water to determine if they were devil worshippers. But, really, who needs drowning when sheer humiliation has the potential to be just as fatal? Needless to say, Ryan and I never reignited our romance. He went his way, and I went to Las Vegas, where the heartbroken go to have their wounds licked by complete strangers.