Las Vegas Weekly

June 12, 2008 · 12:08 PM

Talk of sex and candy canes is none-too-sweet

By Jennifer Grafiada

While working out my quads at LVAC, I’m approached by a man who has the intention of hitting on me. He asks me such questions as, “Where are you from?” and “Where do you work?” I answer him in a somewhat thorough manner, and he then proceeds to tell me that I’m self-absorbed. First of all, he approached me, and he asked the questions. I’m inclined to be gregarious and loquacious. Also, I don’t really care about him or his life, but I do know how to reiterate questions to the asker as dictated by proper conversation protocol.

Then, when I inform him that I grew up in the Midwest, he responds, “There are no black people there. Did you have any black friends?” I thought back to my childhood in Oklahoma -- wonderful memories, but not the most immediate. I vaguely remembered sitting in a tree with a friend, a sweet African-American boy, at around 5 years old, and us licking each other’s arms to see if we tasted like vanilla and chocolate. “I think I had a black friend,” I answer him. He gets all huffy, “Hey, you better be careful what you say to us brothers. You think you had a black friend????? You can’t say that.” He was genuinely pissed and offended, and his tone and body language became confrontational. For the rest of the conversation (incredibly overlong, thanks to him) I was afraid of using any words such as “black” and “think” in the same sentence.

As he finds out more about me, he tells me that I have idiosyncrasies coming out of my ears. I get this a lot. But this is coming from a man that has a CD player hanging around his neck like Flavor Flav’s clock. Not to mention what I had yet to find out about him.

Later in the conversation, he asks me my what my measurements are (chest-waist-hips). I say I don’t know. He replies, “I can’t believe that someone as self-absorbed as you doesn’t know their own measurements.” He then, without invitation, tells me his measurements, if you know what I mean. He continues, “I’m abnormal.” I automatically assume he is referring to his size, but he quickly shatters all preconceived notions with “It’s shaped like a candy cane. Like a hook.” He makes a scary-looking hook with his fingers to illustrate. “You can hang clothes on it. Women can hang their thongs on it.” I think he was attempting to pique my sexual interest. Not so much.

As the night wears on, he shifts the subject to the sexual, at which point, I look at my watch and tell him I have to work in the morning and should be getting home. He ignores this statement and then describes to me, in disgusting detail, all the techniques and positions he likes. I swear I was desperately hoping for a polite exit from the situation. I was sitting in my car with the door half-open. He had followed me out into the parking lot. He wouldn’t shut up. I presume he was trying to turn me on, but his talk of shoelaces and being held upside down wasn’t doing it. Maybe at a different time, and with a different person, but with him, hell no. I finally extricate myself from the mire and drive away muttering to myself.

I’m always up for an ego boost and paradigm shift. But I must say, some of the men at the LVAC are disturbing. I’ve been hit on by men in their 50s and 60s, a man with a full-on mustache, a man that offered to be my pimp and another that, immediately after getting my number (oops), sent me the most obscene pictures and text messages that I'm now trying to forget. Of all the offers I get from the opposite sex at that gym, the most appealing has been from a little brawny Eastern European who works as a massage therapist at the Bellagio spa and offered to give me a free full-body massage. Now that’s something I’d go for.

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