“Ow! Stop! I’m not a submissive!”

“You sure?”

“Yes!”

“Are you a dom?”

“I’m thinking about hitting you right now, but I don’t think it’s sexual.”

<!–more–>“Dammit. We’ve tried everything! Are you sure this isn’t doing anything for you?”

“Ow! I’m telling you I don’t have a fetish! Knock it off!”

“You have to! You don’t like girls, you don’t like guys-

“I like girls! You know I like girls. Is this because I never asked you out?”

“You never date anybody, you just hang around with them. You don’t like guys, you don’t like sheep … You don’t like sheep, do you?”

“No!”

“Then it’s gotta be a fetish.”

“Why is this important to you?”

“It’s fun. Now, we’ve tried leather, Saran Wrap, rubber, chocolate pudding, role-playing, panties, shoes, porn, diapers, and discipline. What’s left? Ooh, water sports!”

“Why couldn’t I just have a low sex drive?”

She crouched over my face to pee on me. “Because it’s not natural,” she said.

The alarm began blaring, on schedule, at 6 friggin’ o’clock in the morning. The fact that I was the one who had set it in the first place still didn’t keep me from snarling and swiping it to the ground with my massive forearm before crawling back into my cave and…

…and sighing and rolling over and waking Kelly up, dammit. “Hey hon, time to get up.”

“Wha? I’m still s’eepin’, go ‘way. I’ma kill yu.” Kelly isn’t a morning person, either.

“We gotta get the Easter baskets out before the kids get up. C’mon, you were the one who didn’t want to stay up last night. Move, it, Easter bunny.”

She sat up groggily and held her head in her hands. “Yeah, yeah. Hippity hoppity.”

I know what you want. You want to date a classy lady, someone with manners and couth, a woman who gets out of the shower to pee. You want someone to be seen with that’ll make the other guys want to lick your arm. You want to date a supermodel.

I can help you. Just follow these simple tips and you’ll have them falling over you, and not just from anorexia.

Don’t tell her she’s pretty. She knows that, idjit. She gets paid for her appearance, and hundreds of people tell her every day how perfect she is. Not only is it unoriginal, it’s also the only thing about herself over which she has no real control – supermodels are very aware that they make a living from being genetic flukes. Compliment her on her attire, her bearing, her jokes, her witty conversation, her amazing capacity for stimulants. Even better, point out her imperfections. She’ll eat it up because she’ll realize that only you can see beyond the beauty to the real her. Make sure you mention every enlarged pore, every pimple, each inappropriate hair, any dangling nasal mucous, the growing bags under her eyes.

“Hey gorgeous, getting a little spread back there?” She’ll swoon.

Be ugly and talented. Seriously. Look at the history: Paulina Porizkova and Ric Ocasek, Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel, Heather Thomas and Tommy Lee, Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, Pamela Anderson and Bret Michaels, Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton, Kate Hudson and the straggly guy from The Black Crowes, Susan Silverman and Jack Black… Hot chicks dig ugly, talented guys, so get cracking and start playing. You might not even have to be really good, I dunno. Has Bret Michaels done anything? I don’t really keep up with these kids. Just tell ‘em you play rhythm guitar, then all you have to be able to do is play a couple chords and consume a city bus full of liquor in a single sitting.

Be rich and ugly. A slight clarification: be rich and sick and ugly. I don’t think I need to go into this one, if you can’t figure it out on your own then you might as well not bother. If you have acres of loose wealth, go hang around Anna Nicole Smith and cough a lot.

Be hung like a bull moose. There’s no other excuse for Tommy Lee.

Be political. Another way in which former president Bill Clinton has led the way for all of us. He’s been linked to former Miss America Elizabeth Ward Gracen, former Miss Arkansas Sally Perdue, former bad singer Gennifer Flowers, and there’s rumors he’s even been intimate with New York Senator Hillary Rodham (unsubstantiated at the time of this article). At least democratic presidents remember how to have sex! Lots of senators, congressmen, consultants, diplomats and appointees have been seen with the glamour world’s best and bright… um, best. Keep in mind that at the grassroots level you’ll have to settle for housewives and the occasional starry-eyed teenage campaign volunteer, but if politics teaches you nothing else it will teach you how to compromise.

Be funny. 91% of the Playboy bunnies who wrote their own data sheets included “sense of humor” in the turn-ons section, as far as I can remember. Girls like to laugh, and they like people who can make them laugh because they can relax around that kind of guy, unless he gets laughs by, say, pulling household objects out of his nose. A guy that can say just the right thing at just the right time is obviously perceptive and sensitive enough to know just how to touch her. Funny men make the best lovers.

Okay, granted, women prefer funny men who are also drop-dead gorgeous. And yeah, it’s really easy for funny guys to fall into the “best friend I can tell anything to but would never dream of having sex with” slot. I hated that slot. I lived in that psychology torture chamber for 6 years. I always had lots of close female friends, the ones that kept telling me “only you really understand me” and then turn around and describe how they blew some guy they just met last night, I just wanted to sneak up behind her with a rope and…

Ha ha! Yes sir, a sense of humor is all you really need. When she’s laughing she’s not affecting a worldly pose, she’s being human, and that’s right where you want to get your basic supermodel. Also, when things start geting really intimate, you can’t go wrong with a good hemorrhoid joke.

Turn her down first. The novelty of it is sure to get her interested. As soon as she’s within earshot, like the other side of the bar or just one balcony up, proclaim loudly that “No, I’m sorry Tyra, it just wouldn’t work out between us. We’re too different, and as exciting as you are I still want to see other people.” See the tricky psychological twist in there? Now she’ll go crazy wondering why she’s not good enough to hold your interest. At least I think she will, haven’t tried this yet. But it feels right. You should probably also drink a lot.

Be gay. Just think of the possibilities! She’ll trust you. She’ll confide in you (see above). She’ll undress in front of you. She’ll invite her friends over to try and convert you. My god, I can’t imagine why no one has thought of this before, it could work!

Okay, she’ll probably just marry you to cover her own homosexuality from the paparazzi, but you’ll still probably get to see her naked, and that’s more than you get now, right?

Well, I’ve done all I can here. Next week we’ll go over your failures, and we’ll discuss how to take the easier step of converting your current old lady into a supermodel. Hey, why buy the milk when you can put a dress on the cow, am I right? Right?

Valentine’s Day! Most romantic of holidays, a day (and night) to celebrate the powerful relationship you’ve forged, with hard work, love and communication, with your significant other(s). Sure, it’s a combination of several pagan holidays and Roman baccanalian celebrations hammered together and relentlessly pushed at you by soulless corporations to sell greeting cards, candy and roses, but is that any reason not to go with it? Love it up!

However, there are those of you who will be alone on this day. You may be single, or widowed, or your lover may be unavoidably occupied very far away. Many of you feel Valentine’s Day to be a mockery of your solitude, an insult added to your injury. I say thee nay! Valentine’s Day is meant to be a celebration of love eternal, no matter what your immediate social situaiton may be. Spend it with the one you truly love! The one who will never leave you, no matter how bad things get. The one you can say anything to, the one you can touch wherever and whenever you want without fear of awkwardness or misunderstanding, the only one in the world that truly understands you and loves you anyway. Your dog.

For those of you who have no pets, spend the day loving yourself. Take a 24 hour period and cherish yourself the way you were meant to be. Learn to love the person who truly owns your heart.

Monday morning, welcome yourself with breakfast in bed. Granted, you won’t have the element of surprise you would ordinarily, but you’ll get to enjoy both the little-sneaky-kid feeling of doing something special AND the wonderful feeling of being pampered. Bring your tray back to bed, cuddle up under the blankets and watch cartoons while you dine.

Be sure to get up early enough to get ready. Remember, you’re going out tonight! Groom yourself thoroughly – brush, shave, pluck, tweeze, shape, wipe, whatever you’d do for your hottest date. When you shower, however, take your time. Soap yourself thoroughly, letting your hands roma over and down your curves, no matter how many curves you have (or don’t have). Close your eyes and relish in your touch – let your slippery hands slide along your throat, brush your nipples, glide down your stomach and slip between your legs. Go ahead, lose yourself in the sensual… well, y’know… sensations. Don’t take yourself too far — you want to heighten the anticipation, not lose it in the shower. Towel yourself withe the biggest, fluffiest towel you own and get ready for work.

After making a few quick phone calls, head out to the car and find the love note you left for yourself. Isn’t that sweet? Secret love notes can be left anywhere you’re likely to find them, whatever your personal circumstances — tucked into your car visor, in your briefcase or lunchbox, tacked to your kitchen bulleting board, stuffed into the top of your garter belt, slipped into a file you know your Chief of Staff will be handing you later. Be creative.

At work, check your messages or voice-mail and smile to yourself as you hear the message you left yourself an hour ago. Gives you a warm feeling, doesn’t it? Your secretary or the guys at the plant may look at you funny, the jealous, small-minded fools, but they’ll really be surprised when the bouquet arrives. Don’t let anybody see the card (although you should chuckle to yourself as you read it, and blush if you can. What a hot little number you are!). Later in the afternoon, sneak off to the bathroom or lock yourself in your office and allow yourself to think about what’s to come. Close your eyes and whisper gently into your ear (fake it, c’mon, work with me here) all about what you want to do with yourself later. Get good and worked up, then go back out amongst your co-workers and try to hide your condition. Isn’t it wicked getting your lover worked up at work?

After work, head straight home. It’s time to start feeling sensual. Lay out your clothes so everything’s ready, then luxuriate in a long, hot bubble bath. You need to unwind and start feeling like a lover. Pour in lots of bubble stuff — bath salts, dishwashing detergent, those little soap ball things that are supposed to dissolve but always leave little deflated skins floating around in there with you — and just experience the moment. Feel the heat of the water on your skin, and the sense of steam rising past your face. Lather yourself completely and, still laying in the hot water of the tub, pour bowls of cool water across yourself. Let your hands roam a bit and see how close you can bring yourself to climax without going over, then jump out of the tub and get ready. Your fanciest outfit, jewelry, scent, the whole shebang. Hurry, you’ve got reservations!

Well, reservation, anyway. When you show up at the restaurant, explain to the maitr蠤e that your partner is an ER nurse on call, but you expect them to show up any minute. This will help keep your server from sniggering at you when they bring your drinks. Make sure that you request a table by a window – they’ll think you’re watching for your lover to show, when you’re really using the reflection to gaze into your eyes. You’ll even get better service, as your server will feel sorry for you the more it seems that you’ve been stranded. With a litle luck you could even get them to come sing to you and bring one of those little cakes. Get up to go to the bathroom, find a server that hasn’t seen you yet, and have a drink sent to your table. If you’re feeling exceptionally daring, head to the bathroom, take off your underwear, stuff it in your pocket, and return to your seat to enjoy the illicit sensations. Enjoy a fine meal, but take it easy on the wine, you don’t want to get out of control.

When you leave (tip well), don’t go straight home. The night is young! Take yourself on a carriage ride, stroll on the beach holding hand, go to a horror movie and hug yourself during the scary parts, play mini-golf and giggle when you catch yourself cheating, pull yourself into a dark alley, slam yourself into the wall and roughly thrust your hand down between your legs for the fast, brutal thrill of it. Share an ice cream cone.

When you do head home, be coy. Smile knowingly when you let yourself in and see the champagne and candles. Oho, what did you have in mind? Stretch out on the couch and spend some time talking to yourself. What are your true feelings? What do you want from a lover? What turns you on? What fantasies do you have that have never been fulfilled? As you get closer, touch yourself lightly on the face and caress your throat. Open the top buttons of your shirt, or slip a few fingers into your neckline. Feel the heat of the room and the richness of the champagne as they both combine to bring fire to your cheeks. Close your eyes and let your hands roam as they will. When you’ve gone as far as you can with clothes on and you’re still thinking reasonably clearly, head to the bedroom.

Light just enough candles to see and drop onto the bed, ready. Strip your clothes off like an animal, flinging them away without ever taking your eyes off yourself. Grab yourself savagely, uncontrollably, undeniably. Ravish yourself quickly and violently the first time, to satisfy the hungry cravings that you’ve ben cultivating all day. Grab your hair and pull your head down, if you’re flexible enough. You can sit on your hand for five minutes to deaden it if you want to feel like someone else is touching you. Once you reach the ragged edge of orgasm, hold yourself there for several long, agonizing minutes, and then rake your fingernails across your nipples as you bring yourself to a screaming finish. After your breathing becomes regular again, you can continue to caress yourself the rest of the night.

Next morning, be sure to call yourself. It’s the least you can do.

Having sex in a motel room is not precisely a new idea, I’m given to understand, but one can always learn a few new tricks. Sure, you could do it the way your parents did – checking in with that vaguely guilty look (even if they were married at the time), washing up separately, laying a towel down to keep the sheets clean and avoid embarrassing the maid, having furtive and quiet sex so the equally-shameful people next door wouldn’t hear, washing up separately again, and then either watching a movie so it wouldn’t be so obvious they were there just to have sex, or going to sleep so they could wake up 300 times in the middle of the night before finally getting up at 6:30 in the a.m., sore and miserable. Good times.

But why limit yourself to that, fun though it may be? You’ve just paid someone a wad of cash to borrow their room for a while. Enjoy it! Here’s some tips:

•  Arrive separately, even if you have to drop your lover off and circle the block a few times.
•  Look around furtively a lot. Stay at different ends of the front desk and don’t make eye contact with each other. One of you will need to actually sign in of course, but the other can pretend they were only here for the coupon books for the local attractions (“PlegmWorld! $2 off the plume ride every other Thursday!”).
•  Trenchcoats can help here, especially if there are no visible pants legs underneath. Flagrant high heeled pumps make a nice statement, but only if you’re male. It also helps if you both look really nervous and one of you has a suspicious bulge in your shirt that awkwardly-crossed arms just won’t hide.
•  In a frantic-sounding voice, ask the desk clerk several times if the room has a working toilet. After he/she reassures you enough times, ask what its capacity is, and if you’re allowed to change rooms if it breaks.
•  Pay in crumpled, greasy singles, or a single hundred dollar bill half-covered with blue ink.
•  If the motel uses those little electronic card keys, take it, stare straight ahead while you run your finger across the magnetic tape like braille, then nod to yourself and put it in your pocket.
•  Ask for a room that faces Sirius and mock him if he doesn’t understand what you mean.
•  Walk into the lobby while embracing and kissing each other passionately and ask the clerk (through grasping, hungry lips) for the nearest goddamn room.
•  Bring along about 14 friends and ask for a single. Tell the clerk that they won’t all be staying.
•  Or just walk in normally, ask for a room and go through the process friendly and calm, and then, just as you leave, slip him $5 and, tapping the side of your nose, tell him “We were never here, eh my lad?”
Use everything the room has to offer. You paid for it, use it!
•  The soap is hardly capable of cleaning anything, but it’s handy for writing obscene sonnets across the bathroom mirror.
•  Get the Gideon Bible and read each other the dirty parts.
•  Ever fold gum wrappers so that they chain together? Ever wonder how long a chain you could make if you used an entire phone book?
•  Send crank letters to the President on motel stationary.
•  Turn on the tv, turn off the sound, and add your own filthy dialogue to the sit-coms, the soaps (not that they need it), the music videos, even the news. You always knew Gilligan was boned silly over Mary Anne, now’s your chance to hear it happen!
•  Tie all the towels, sheets, blankets, and washcloths together in a long rope and leave it tied to the bedpost closest to the window when you leave.
•  See how many pillows you can fit into the room safe.
A boring motel room is no excuse for boring sex.
•  Pile up all the blankets, sheets and towels into a huge nest to fuck in.
•  The bed is usually just the wrong height for one of you to stand or kneel during sex, but you can crank up the a/c, pull the mattress half-off so that it’s leaning on the bed, lay on it and pretend you’re stranded on the side of an Alp and you need friction to stay warm.
•  The little tables are usually pretty sturdy.
•  If you have a double room, each of you can get on a separate bed and see how worked up you can get each other. You can look, you can listen, you can stretch and touch each other, but both of you have to be somehow touching your home base at all times.
•  Or you can use the little bucket and the ice machine down the hall to turn one bed into an ice floe and pretend you’re penguins. Dump the bedspread into the tub afterwards to melt.
•  Come to think of it, the extra bedspread makes the tub much more comfy. Use it to make a cushioned hidey-hole, or fill the tub anyway and play Swamp Thing.
•  If the shower rod looks up to it, doing chin-ups while coupled is both healthy and an incredible sexual rush.
•  The ice machine is your friend. Nothing like a bucket of ice in one hand and a coffee pot full of hot water in the other to help you provide just about any sensation necessary.
•  Be imaginative when you cry out. “Oh God!” is trite and dull, and unfair to your potential next-door audience. Try exclamations such as “Great Krypton!”, “Oh, mommy, yes! Yes!”, “Now, give me one more foot of it!”, and “Fuck me ragged, Your Emminence!”
•  It is usually possible to have neighbors on up to four sides of you, especially during a busy season. See how many of them you can get to pound on your walls, ceiling and floor because of your shrieked cries of love.
•  One of you lies spread-eagled on the bed. The other stands perched on top of the television. Can you get hooked up in a single leap? Lube is essential here. If you master that, have your lover lie spread-eagled on one bed while you run and spring off the other one to get more altitude.
•  Motels are an ideal place to play spy. You may want to avoid using live ammunition, though.
•  Isn’t the pool just begging for a 3 a.m. skinnydip? Chevy Chase did it, and he got to see Christie Brinkley naked.
•  Don’t waste the money on the vibrating bed. Head to the laundry room and sit her on the corner of the washer. Cheaper, lasts a lot longer, and it’s way more powerful. Plus you can do a load of laundry at the same time. Can the vibrating bed do that? I think not.
•  Go fuck in your car anyway. That’ll show ‘em!
•  Balance the complimentary chocolate directly over her clitoris. Let it melt. Only lick the drippings off, leave the main candy alone. See how long she can take the gentle teasing.
•  On one memorable stay years ago, we picked up a two-quart jug of baby oil and ended up using the entire thing. We could barely stay connected, it was a giggly, exhausting struggle just to have sex at all.
•  Call other rooms at random and see if you can exchange spouses.
•  While you’re having sex,  play a wildlife tape of monkeys fighting, just to see if anyone dares investigate.
Amuse the help.
•  If room service is available, you owe it to the poor bored people downstairs to order something they can talk about for weeks after you leave. I recommend asking for a bunch of those little canoe-looking cakes you use for strawberry shortcake, a hacksaw, a single stalk of celery, a small pool pump, a copy of “Hiney Heros” magazine (last month’s issue), and 50′ of garden hose. Ask them to please hurry and to just leave it outside the door.
•  Explain that you’re technically not peeing in the pool, you’re peeing off your balcony and it’s hardly your fault which way the wind was blowing.
•  Bring along your own maid’s outfit and wander into other rooms.
•  Be sure to make faces at the mirror, just in case.
•  Get up early in the morning and replace all the complimentary newspapers with copies of Barely Legal.
•  Maids have a pretty boring job, so it’s a nice gesture to liven up their mornings by presenting them with something a little different in the realm of wet spots. Move around a lot, make some art. You’ve got a queen-sized canvas there, use it! Squirt food coloring into some body lotion and coat yourselves with it before you start. A masterpiece!
•  Call down to the front desk and ask for a teeny, tiny little favor. Tell them you can’t explain why, but you’d really, really appreciate it if they could send someone around to your room in exactly 17 minutes to bang on the door and yell “Honey, the chicken is done!” If someone actually does it, moan loudly.
•  Don’t use the Do Not Disturb sign. Instead, throw back the coverlet, sit up, hold a bottle of champagne ready, and when the maid enters the room, look up and say “Darling, I’ve been waiting.” Alternately, the same scenario, but wearing a leather harness.
•  Sit in the motel bar getting good and plastered before taking her hand and saying loudly “C’mon honey, we don’t have much time before my visitation time is over.”
•  If the manager comes to complain, refuse to come out until John Walsh shows up.
•  Tip very, very well.