Good Vibrations Magazine

Rachel Sarah is a featured writer for our Sex & Parenting section. She is the author of Single Mom Seeking: Play Dates, Blind Dates, and Other Dispatches from the Dating World. Look for more articles by Rachel in upcoming issues of the GV Weekly!

I’m a good mom, but I also have some bad-girl moments.

After months of dating online as a single mom, I take myself offline. I am tired of trying to find a man on the computer. My friend Siobhan is right: I’ve got to smell a man. I just want to have some good sex right now, so I’ve gone back to the old-fashioned way of looking for a real, live man in the flesh.

The fourth floor of the Holiday Inn Pleasant Hill reeks of old cigarette smoke. I’ve emptied my backpack of cracker crumbs and crayons for everything I need tonight: my toothbrush, clean underwear, and condoms. I’ve also brought along some food to accompany the wine that I look forward to sipping. I’m just a few miles from where I grew up in these conventional suburbs.

But at this moment, I’m so far from anything conventional. My bad girl—the part of me that exists despite all the responsibilities, tasks, and pressures of single motherhood—hasn’t emerged in a long time. She’s not exactly bad. She’s this part of me that wants so badly to do things that might be out of character. She makes her most dramatic appearances when I’m feeling out of control with balancing the demands of the rest of my life.

When I lift my hand to knock on the door, the grimy numbers “404″ remind me of something a computer programmer ex-boyfriend once told me. When the Internet was still text-based, an ambitious group of scientists worked day and night to create the World Wide Web in an office in Switzerland. Legend has it that their central database was located in Room 404, so any request for a file from that database was routed to Room 404. If someone requested a file by the wrong name, they’d get the standard message: “Room 404: file not found.” To this day, that message still appears if you make an error on the computer.

This bad girl is not afraid of making errors. She has been around since I was a teenager—but I’ve kept a tight lid on her since becoming a mom.

Not anymore.

The only way to calm myself down during a period of intense restlessness is to seek a man I don’t know very well and live for the moment: This is how I end up in Room 404 of the Holiday Inn with Conner. Room 404. Does this mean I’m making a mistake? When Conner opens the door, all my doubts vanish. He’s wearing a white, flowing cotton shirt with all the top buttons undone and loose-fitting cotton pants. I smile at him and think, You’re my angel.

“Hi,” I whisper. My voice is shy.

When I step into the dark room, I expect him to kiss me or embrace me. But he turns off the TV, sits down on the edge of the bed, and lights a cigarette. We don’t say a word, but I’m smiling. I step over to the coffee table and pull my picnic supplies out of their brown bag, setting them up on the paper plates I’ve also packed.

There are sweet purple grapes, fancy salted crackers, and cheddar cheese. I even brought along a knife and a small, plastic cutting board to chop a green apple into small, perfect slices. My routine comes effortlessly. This is so easy, in fact, that I almost forget I’m making a snack for a sexy, grown man who’s ready to make love to me. Silly me, I’m so used to cutting everything into bite-size pieces for my four-year-old daughter!

“This is weird,” Conner says.

“What is?”

“Everything. You don’t just go to a hotel room with someone you don’t know and have a picnic.”

I hold the knife in midair. You don’t? Why not? Isn’t this every man’s dream, to have an attractive woman he hardly knows spend the night with him at a random hotel?

Maybe this was all a very bad idea. Maybe I should just turn around and go home.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, my friend Siobhan is talking to me. What on earth are you doing, Rachel? What if he’s a serial killer? What if he has a disease? Is it really worth it?

I push those thoughts away and sit on the bed, close to Conner but not touching. I’m not willing to give up the possibility of a wild night this easily. Conner is looking down at my thighs, which peek out of my tight jean skirt. I shaved my legs during a quick shower this afternoon, as my daughter played dolls in her room, and the lotion makes them gleam. I nervously clasp my hands in front of me.

“It’s all going to be okay,” I say to Conner, raising my voice in a sweet inflection. This is exactly what I often say to my kid when she resists doing something, like going to the dentist. Goodness, the transition from mom to bad girl is a little tougher than I thought.

I barely know Conner—we’ve been on only one date. Going back to my place with a new man is not an option. Likewise, going back to his place could be unsafe. Personally, I like to get creative in neutral spots, like a hotel room.

“Want some wine?” Conner says, offering me his glass.

That’s when I notice the bottle of white wine on the bedside table, already opened. I take a very long swig, emptying the glass. My hunger for him and the bad girl in me both come out in full force.

~~~

A few Sundays ago, Conner and I met while I was shopping for a bed frame, and my sister was hanging out with Mae. Yes, how fitting to meet him there, given my frame of mind. Mae and I had been sleeping together on a mattress and box spring since she was born. At first, it was a practical convenience to share a bed. But now that I’m dating, it is time for her to move to her own bed. I scored a half-price deal on the floor model of a castle bed for her, complete with two towers and real turrets. This was a dream-come-true for both of us. She could sleep like a princess, and I would get a full night’s rest.

Still, there’s something humbling about sleeping on a mattress on the floor while your daughter sleeps in a princess bed. So, the afternoon I went out alone to buy myself a real bed frame felt like a big deal. At thirty-two, I thought it was time.

I first saw Conner behind the counter, with his back to me. He was at least six feet tall, and his head was shaved. I have this thing for men who are bald. When I saw him—his smooth head beautifully shaped—I wanted to reach out and wrap my hands around it. He turned around, and I saw that he had big, deep brown eyes and one of those open faces you just wanted to tell your life story to.

“Hi. Can I help you?” His voice was deep and smooth.

“I’m just fine, thanks!” I said a bit too enthusiastically. But I was not just fine. I was red. I have this tendency to blush madly when I’m embarrassed or, as the case may be, terrifically attracted to someone.

I pretended to read the price tags: $115, $225, $400. My mind was a blank. What size mattress did I have again?

“Let me know if you need my help . . .”

There he was, right behind me. All the bed frames around me blurred together. What was I here for again? A mattress? Or a man?

I turned another corner, sure that our eyes would lock again, but he was gone. Was he back at the front counter? No. Maybe he darted into the kids’ department? I turned yet another corner, and there he was, laid out in a big bed with his hands behind his neck.

He sat up and offered me his hand. “Hi.”

I gripped his fingers and let him pull me right onto that bed.

That’s when I noticed his tag: “Manager.” Certainly, this was a man in charge.

“Do you always sleep on the job like this?” I asked.

“Whenever I get the chance.”

I laughed. We lay there staring at each other. Finally, he said, “You came on the right day. It’s our biggest sale of the year, and I’m going to give you a deal.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I like you.”

He sat up and told me that I could take this very bed home for just $299, with a matching bedside table thrown in free. I ran my hand over the all-silver frame; this was my favorite metal. The headboard had long, wavy curves with three teardrops in the middle. I loved its strength and sensuality. The fact that Mr. Hot sat in this very bed also made the deal quite appealing.

~~~

A week after meeting Conner at the bed store, we went on a date to an outdoor bar in downtown Berkeley.

“I have to be straight with you,” he told me, explaining that he and his girlfriend of three years had just broken up, and he was moving out. He was on the rebound. Major red flag. I closed my eyes for a moment, knowing this would never go anywhere.

At the end of the date, he walked me to my car and wrapped his arms around me. I closed my eyes, blocking out the bright yellow streetlight. The Bay Area fog wrapped around the city, but I hardly felt it. This is when I proposed that we meet next Saturday at a hotel, and he readily agreed. Looking back, I don’t know what I was thinking. That night, he made reservations and emailed that he’d be waiting for me at six.

I called my friend Arden to tell her my plans, and sent an email with all the stats: hotel address and phone number. I added, “Don’t worry, I got condoms, too.”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell Siobhan. Surely, she’d reprimand me. Surely then, I would chicken out. I decide to tell her post-coitus.

~~~

His cell phone is ringing on the table. He reaches out to answer it. “I can’t talk right now, baby,” he says. “No, everything’s fine, I’m just finishing some business here. I’ll call you back soon.”

I have no doubt that he’s talking to his “ex-” girlfriend. When I sit up, I want to go home.

The mother in me is back. Making a snack feels so ordinary. I slice cheese on the tiny hotel table. I try to hold on to that feeling of both of us so connected: his fingers pressing the small of my back, mine wrapped around his smooth head.

On my way home, desperation washes over me, and when I climb the stairs, there’s my new silver bed frame with its matching table.