#19 THE RED-HAIRED SEX GOD: HOW WE MET
The tenth person I slept with who I just couldn’t shake, the older former Army sniper
I met the guy who we will call Bramwell at Theo’s pyjama party post-Stella Adler Actor breakup – which was also the night I chose to sleep with Theo. We’d broken up in September so goodness knows why I was grieving in December.
Somehow my ex had come along to Halloween parties, a series of other documented parties, and Thanksgiving so it may have been on/off – but then again HSS and ATC were also at Halloween – awkward. But Stella Adler Academy Actor (Dorian) was meant to take me to my old stepsister’s wedding in mid-December and I remember being disappointed that he let me down so maybe I was just pissed off at that. Did other people keep around all their past “conquests” like some kind of dysfunctional family? I think I was unique (and stupid) in that!
Our first meeting
At Theo’s pyjama party that cold Georgia mid-December, I’d felt about as cute as a meatball wrapped in cotton wool but this charismatic former Army guy, former sniper, was chatting to me on the sofa and practically stuck by my side all night. I’d spent goodness knows how long mostly wallowing in bed and not eating, which was worrying to my roommates as I was normally a ravenous eater. But I’d decided to drag myself to a party.
The thing about Bramwell was he was engaging; his stories were animated and entertaining. He had this way of leaning into you, smiling easily. Besides Coach H from writer’s workshop class in high school, he was the first real Army man I’d encountered and even though I wasn’t sure that was my jam, I humoured him and listened to his tales of deployment and whatever funny stories he was spouting. He was tall (well over six feet tall) with red hair, not traditionally handsome which is what I usually (shallowly?) went for but I saw something in him, in his slightly crooked smile and green eyes.
At the end of the night, he left with a group of people that included his sister, her boyfriend, and later I learned his ex-wife. He asked for my number and he gave me his. I’d typed in one digit off but I didn’t know that at the time. I thought nothing of it. I mostly forgot about him for a while.
The real Bramwell had a name with a Viking edge. When I first met him and he shook my hand I asked if he was giving me a fake douchey kind of name as a joke; he assured me this was not and it was his real name. It’s hard to capture all that happened with him in the on-and-off six months we spent together.
I fell into a deep infatuation and admiration for him. A ridiculously infatuated state. As in I’ve never been so infatuated with someone and it made me feel powerless and out of control and slightly ridiculous.
When he got in touch
The party was on the 12th of December and Bramwell didn’t text again until the 23rd by which point I’d practically forgotten him. Maybe I should have kept it that way…
Thursday, 23 December, 5.22 pm
Bramwell: I feel like a real tool. I asked for your number to hang out then left town before I had the chance. I will be back after xmas. Can I make it up to you then?
6.50 pm
Elaine: I guess I took your number down wrong...I put a 9 at the end. How's your break?
6.57 pm
B: Not bad. Laid back. Was in ATL for feels like forever. Now I am on my way to KY to see my dad. How's your break?
7.06 pm
E: Going back from ATL now. Pretty boring for me. Should be doing thesis work but am not.
7.35 pm
B: You are absolutely not allowed to do any thesis work over break. I promise there will be plenty of time to burn yourself next semester.
I’d like to add that our dry exchange was done via flip phones in 2010 so maybe that’s why there was such restraint between messages as in seven whole minutes, half an hour. I had a red Sony flip phone after the Motorola Razr that my uncle gave me after he upgraded (I think it was cool gold) because I couldn’t afford such an expensive fancy flip phone as the Razr – they seemed oh so cool at the time.
8.57 pm
E: Have to write thesis and plan 102 course before next semester or I'll be in trouble!
8.59 pm
B: Fair enough. What is your thesis going to be?
9.28 pm
E: Answer is too long. Save that lovely topic for meeting.
9.31 pm
B: Will do. Enjoy the holidays. Talk to you when I get back.
9.32 pm
E: :) you too. Happy xmas.
This was before emojis. We had to suffice with colons and brackets!
When I saw him again
Five days later we randomly ran into each other on Tuesday, 28th of December, which was my amazing friend Ian’s birthday. I was hanging out with Ian at Starbucks and bought him a little Publix cake with sparklers (he’d done some similar amazing thing for my birthday earlier in June) and I got a text from Theo inviting me to CJs to hang out and play pool. Bramwell and his friends were there. After flirting, we went to Charlie O’s for drinks and I spent the night. Charlie O’s was the party bar where after the Halloween house parties we ended up going to to finish off the night.
Zero points to Hufflepuff (I realise that sadly I wouldn't ever have been brave enough to be a Gryffindor) for being a shit friend both to Ian and to Theo. I seriously followed my libido and hedonistic thoughts, often like a goldfish ignoring people close to me, including girlfriends, which continually left me feeling guilty when they called me out on it.
But I didn’t know how to strike a healthy balance. When I liked someone, I was super full-on, which was probably what made them run away in the first place, after the initial dopamine highs had subsided.
I think I then proceeded to stay at his house for at least two or three nights and then found texts where I asked if he wanted to see me again because I couldn’t get enough of him. I told him where I lived and that there was a crashed Camry in the drive – courtesy of my ex. This also happened to be me texting him at 2 am and we saw each other at 3.30 am. A.M. – why? I’d die doing anything past 8 pm now. He went home the next morning.
I texted him at 2.38 pm the next day asking if he wanted to go to lunch and see a late movie. We’d barely had any hours apart. He said he had to change and feed his cats and I said I also needed to get ready. Then, in a comedy moment, we both went to each other’s houses because we crossed wires and then I called him and he had to drive back to his house from my house to meet me.
The next day was New Year’s Eve. I said I had my uncle staying with me as he was mid-divorce and heartbroken and I’d used his house many times to have 5,000 of my friends over at his convenient location to Jax Beach where he lamented my use of every towel he owned, sand everywhere, and my long, dark hair plugging the drain.
New Year’s Eve
On the 31st of December, he texted at 10.47 pm, “How is that dress coming along?” My uncle had said, “Why are you wearing a shirt?” And I told Bramwell, I was ready and heading downtown. So much for New Year’s Eve! It was practically over already.
11.20 pm
Elaine: So, we are at the Bleu Pub. Champagne at midnight. What is your plan?
11.22 pm
Bramwell: Everyone here wants to know what cover is
11.23 pm
E: Cover is 8. Champagne is free. With cover.
11.24 pm
E: And . . . Kiss granted at midnight.
11.26 pm
B: I know what my vote is: pub.
11.30 pm
E: You guys all coming?
11.47 pm
B: Still at my place. We are having a great debate on where to go. I am losing to Bas Bleu.
Bas Bleu was another more swanky cafe-bar in the heart of downtown Valdosta with amazing cocktails but the Bleu Pub had cool vibes and the best sweet potato fries – plus this one hot, cool “older” bartender named Mark.
Bramwell eventually found my friends, uncle, and I there and I kissed him outside at midnight after the countdown where everyone was crowded around a makeshift ball drop – like Times Square but distinctively shitter – but we all loved it anyway.
Somehow I think these texts were out of sequence. I have no idea if I was sober or not but it’s unlikely judging by the images of my red-rimmed eyes later that night.
12.03 am
E: You guys will miss out on midnight if you don't hurry. Plus, I'm devastatingly sober.
12.03 am
B: Have I told you how happy you make me? You make me smile like no one else can.
All lies!
I socialised with lots of people that night and I didn’t realise until later that I met Bramwell’s hot, super tall friend who would later become the hot shot CFO/finance director, we will call him Charles, who was my best date ever. They knew each other from business classes as they were both business majors.
After they came to the Bleu Pub, I took shots with Bramwell and his Army mate, got my midnight kiss, and then went back to Bramwell’s house for a nightcap. We walked to the International Boys’ house as we heard there was an after-party there but it seemed to have dismantled by then. It was around 6 am.
My poor ex-Army Uncle Steve (who was about fifty at the time) decided to call it a night as we dragged him out until well into the wee hours as the sun was coming up again where he slept (or tried to sleep) in my room with my two cats, Jack and Lily, who kept him up all night and I think he decided to drive home after that.
Bramwell and I went back to his house. Once people left we had an amazing night and had sex for the first time, which was the beginning of an amazing sex life – for the six months on and off it lasted – hence why I called him the Red-Headed Sex God in an entry on my defunct Blogspot about the guy I’ll call Patrick Bateman.
A few days later…
At some point, he’d come with me to take my baby sister roller skating, which she loved to do as she was around seven years old at the time.
Saturday, 2 January, 9.28 pm
Bramwell: Have fun. I am telling sis about you right now.
9.31 pm
Elaine: Aww. What are you saying?
9.33 pm
B: That you are my favourite
9.34 pm
E: Favourite what? Shower sex partner?
9.37 pm
B: While that is very true, it’s not the kind of thing I tell my sister
9.38 pm
E: Haha. Good. I was kidding.
The next day he came over at 2 am. Then, my uncle told me some info where he’d been talking to a woman from Bramwell’s friend group who had said she was his wife…
Monday, 4 January, 12.20 am
Elaine: Oh ok. Then what? Um, side note, so was that your wife on New Year’s?
12.26 am
Bramwell: Not sure might just pass out and try to recuperate from all the hot sex I've been having :) and yes.
12.28 am
E: I totally had no idea. That's a bit awkward. I wish I'd known. I wonder what she thought of me being all over you. I'd've been more reserved if I'd known.
12.36 am
B: She didn't think anything of it so no worries.
12.38 am
E: Alright. No worries...I wonder why she told [Uncle] Steve she was married to someone in the house!
12.46 am
B: What!?!
12.47 am
E: Yeah. I don't want to make something of nothing but Steve asked me about it tonight. And I just don't want to get hurt or caught in drama.
Oh my gosh! So rich coming from me whose life was embroiled in mess, drama, and multiple people at once – although Bramwell got me for at least three months alone.
12.52 am
B: Well I promise to handle the situation and I am not that kind of guy. I don't want to try to settle your fears with words so let my actions put you at ease.
12.54 am
E: Please don't say anything to her. It's ok. All I care about is that you aren't together or don't see each other on the side et cetera.
Don’t see each other on the side as in that’s something that anxious-attachment Elaine would totally do!
1.01 am
B: Hahaha oh absolutely not. That has been dead for a long time. And I will say not a word if that is what you want.
1.03 am
E: Please don't make anything of it. I'm not sure why she said something but she was perfectly amiable to me that night which is why I was surprised. I figured if she was still hung up on you she'd have confronted me.
He came over to mine after this exchange.
Our first “official” date
Later that day on the 4th of January, I’d taken my laptop to Starbucks to work on actual work I needed to get done before the semester started such as my syllabus for the two English 102 classes I was teaching and, as usual for me (then), I’d procrastinated – and some of my Master’s thesis work.
This date coincided with the time I was supposed to pick up my ex, Stella Adler Actor, from the airport in Atlanta (we will call him Dorian), which was close to a four-hour drive because I’d been borrowing his car whilst he was visiting his old people back in New York city after he had totalled mine, so since I couldn’t afford another car I went carless for months. It was his fault so I couldn’t claim on my insurance. All long stories for another day.
I was mourning the loss of the idea of Dorian. He wasn’t that into me. He was obsessed with himself, the gym, his depression, and wine. He didn’t have sex with me much and made me feel repulsive when he had had sex with me. The relationship largely made me feel unhappy even though he wasn’t a bad person.
I was forcing jigsaw pieces together that were from two separate boxes (anxious attachment). But that idea of dating the person who looked the part, who seemed the part from the outside world hit me hard and that was, perhaps, after HSS, the start of chasing people who didn’t fit, who I desperately tried to force to fit, people who were emotionally unavailable and in my neediness to be loved or valued, they ultimately made me feel worse about myself.
In a stroke of conflict and arse-holery, I decided that my ex was being a jerk during our text exchange and that I’d leave him stranded at the airport. We had been trying to maintain a friendship and in the second or third week of his trip, he’d stopped responding to my texts since clearly he was too busy having fun and I had to keep texting to get his flight information.
Then he calls me and tells me that he had to book a new flight, a later flight. Out of curiosity, I ask, “Why?” In response I get, “It doesn’t matter why. It just is.” So, he expected that I’d just be available to make over an eight-hour round trip at his beck and call. I’d told him the new time was inconvenient as I was busy that day creating my syllabus for the spring classes I was teaching and he said he’d call someone else to pick him up.
I’d never done anything of the sort and I felt super guilty but did it anyway. I definitely can’t say I always acted with goodness and light. I’d asked him to get me a snow globe in New York, which I semi-collected at the time as High School Sweetheart had bought me a lovely one in Chicago and a Christmas-themed one (both of which I still have) and in anger my ex left it at the airport and never did give it to me – serves me right. In the end, one of our mutual friends, Will, who was a fellow grad student in the English department programme ended up picking him up from the airport so they were both probably pissed off at me.
Monday, 4 January, 4.50 pm
Elaine: So, he's going to be stranded. I feel like a mega bitch...
5.32 pm
E: I told him I felt bad but now it was a safety issue. And I said how it had gotten vitriolic and I wouldn't ever be able to say something so terrible to someone I once cared about. He told me that he'd never cared and I was just a way to pass the time.
I’m not sure I really thought that Dorian would harm me, but I equally didn’t want to be trapped into a torturous long drive with him when I figuratively had better things (and people) to do.
5.35 pm
Bramwell: Wow what an ass. You deserve better.
6.26 pm
B: I am making you dinner tonight
I went over to Bramwell’s house where he lived with a bunch of people including his sister, her boyfriend, a former army buddy, and maybe another guy who was never there. His house was also on Slater Street but on the other side of campus as the street was super long so it was a long walk to that end of town as the street was bisected by Drexel Park and the university football stadium. But on this date night, he had the house to himself.
The place was decorated with a bunch of clocks with time zones from around the world, also shot glass, and liquor bottles, like a typical uni house but the house was massive and decently furnished.
He made me something rather on the elaborate side for a bachelor like pork tenderloin, sweet corn, and parmesan-crusted asparagus with cheese and crackers to start and some lovely red wine.
His housemates must have been away since Christmas because we proceeded to spend the next two or three days in bed, which is what earned him the nickname – in my mind – of red-headed sex god (RHSG) but I figure it’s easier just referring to him as Bramwell.
I emailed him not long after our days in his super-king bed, with the light streaming through the window of the master bedroom. And I’d sneak to the bathroom from time to time borrowing his green plaid robe, which looked vaguely Ralph Lauren (or maybe was).
I normally am NEVER this giddy over "some guy," but you have your hooks in me somehow and I can't stop thinking of you.
The next evening I texted to tell him I got off to the thought of him fucking me. He said, “That just got me so hard. I thought you didn't touch yourself” and I replied, “Well, I usually don't but it was either that or call you for a booty call–and I figured you were busy.” He told me, “That is so hot. I will be getting off to the thought of you doing just that tonight ;)”
The next day, he’d come down with some illness and was holed up in bed for a couple of days.
Valentine’s Day
For Valentine’s Day, he took me on a sushi date in the evening and to the shooting range during the day to shoot a .45 calibre gun, teaching me the safety rules of using a gun: “Never point a gun at anything you don’t want to kill.”
I was so jumpy on the gun range as I’d never heard gunshots so up close but it was the most unusual date I’d tried. I got a message from Charles (who I’d also been seeing somehow in there) being jealous of my Valentine’s date with Bramwell, even though Charles had had a girlfriend.
Bramwell bought me a rose plant (a rose that died like our fling – as I was bad at keeping anything other than peace lilies alive – I did not inherit my Grammy’s green fingers/green thumb) and a giant ladybug stuffed toy (he said it was like the “alot monster” as I’d shared Hyperbole and a Half comics with him – I think Brittany introduced me to her comic and I read absolutely every blog post Allie Brosh ever wrote and her books) and I got him a cheese plate, which ended up being quite expensive.
One night, my housemates were there attending a dinner party that I invited Bramwell and his Army buddy roommate too. There were nights out, dinner parties, hookups, ups and downs in our half a year (or slightly less).
I didn’t see him exclusively and I’m sure he didn’t see me exclusively but I was obsessed with him in a way I’d never been obsessed with anyone. I’d borrow his Army t-shirt and one of his sweaters (jumper), both of which I did give back! I never kept people’s stuff as trophies because I was so attached to my own stuff that I’d have hated if anyone did that to me.
We’d sleep together from time to time and I’d be blissfully happy, flooded with dopamine, and a glow from my latest orgasm, and then he’d disappear. Eventually, I heard rumour down the grapevine that he thought I was “awesome in bed but crazy and won't leave him alone.”
I was reading one of his nonfiction essays once and found out that he and his wife had miscarried. I wonder if that strain split them or if it was general Army wife life that I wouldn’t learn about until later. Deployment had maybe destroyed their bond and they’d split up but she was still in his life, still over often at his house, and I’m sure it was painful for her to see me flit in and out of his life. From HSS, I know that they probably had a solid bond even if they’d both wanted to move on.
But Bramwell didn’t want an official girlfriend and he didn’t want to move on. After HSS and Dorian (Stella Adler Actor), I wouldn't have a Facebook official boyfriend again until my first husband – I dated Captain Thor for a year but he wouldn’t be FB official either for his own reasons. I simply had a series of casual (totally non-emotionally grazing) flings with the occasional heart-wrenching one.
On some drunken nights, Bramwell would hold me tearfully and say how he’d done bad things in his service, killed many people (as a sniper), and he didn't deserve happiness. But in many ways, he kept his distance because he wanted to be free and unencumbered, as I had been post-HSS relationship, which can never compare to marriage.
His hot and cold drove me crazy. I just wanted regular amazing sex. I wasn’t sure if I wanted a relationship. I didn’t know how to be all casual or all in a relationship or find the middle ground.
He went to China for the summer and saw some girl on his trip but he also told me a very hilarious and disgusting story of trying to steady himself over a toilet (practically a hole in the ground) in China where he’d put his hand against the door of the cubicle to steady himself only to discover the back of the door had been smeared in shit, so now he had a hand and part of his forehead covered excrement and still had to navigate relieving himself.
There was something about him I found addictive (besides the sex). In moments, I liked his kindness, his laughter, his stories, the way he made me feel. Just like my old blog title, “nothing about attraction makes sense,” it really doesn’t! We can’t determine all of the myriad of little factors that make some people addictive and magnetic and others not.
I mean maybe this desire for push-and-pull and hot-and-cold said something deep in my psyche about how my primary caregivers didn’t meet my needs but I thought that wasn’t the case. So, I’m not sure how I formed my opinions about relationships and why of the couple of dozen people I’ve slept with, only a handful stick out.
I always loved relationship beginnings because life had taught me thus far that was the only good bit. Those initial days, weeks, months of kindness and infatuation, of people bending over backwards for me before the inevitable decline.
Next up, the rest of the story with Red-Haired Sex God Bramwell – that time I considered our final and most poignant goodbye – and also when I finally understood how “some bitches be crazy.” I became “some bitches.”
Don’t forget to check out the other eighteen posts I’ve written, including the one on why I’m writing this newsletter in the first place.
Have you ever felt super infatuated with anyone you’ve dated – so infatuated that you felt crazy?
