Reflections On Anxiously Casual Sex
I’ve never been good at one-night stands. This could be because I’ve only had two. The second one isn’t anything to write home about, so I won’t.
The first time started at a bar. This is back when I believed there was no such thing as a ‘bad’ consensual sexual experience. I’d recently made a friend, and we were drinking through the end of my working week.
Your body changes when you start full- time work. My relationship with alcohol did too. I’d found that I wasn’t drinking to get drunk, but to dull the brimming hatred that boiled within me after a thankless week in retail. This is a very slippery slope.
My new friend and I were enjoying ourselves. Like war or another shared cultural trauma, nothing brings people together like swapping stories of the service industry. He found his friend and went off to talk to her while I shared the bartop with my whiskey.
There was a girl standing next to me. She was shorter, with striking black frames and a red dress. Cheeky smile, big piercing eyes. I had a camera with me for reasons still unknown. Maybe I wanted be The Next Big Thing in atrocious party photography, or maybe I was too lazy to walk home to drop it off.
She asked about it, and I gave some milquetoast answer about urban geography or some other bullshit I’d sponged from my flatmates’ readings. Around then, I had a moment of self-reflection and started being charming. That’s that thing that happens when you hold a drink and a girl laughs at you.
We had some more drinks, some of which she bought for me. That set a psychic red flag off somewhere inside, and I suggested it might be a good idea for us to leave (together). Going well.
We were gone. Outside on the street, she ordered me to take photos of her pole-dancing— really quite well—around a stop sign. I did, and they turned out so badly I deleted them in the morning out of embarrassment
By now she was calling me a ‘homo’, which was fair, considering she’d dropped literally every cue you could imagine someone could—and I hadn’t even touched her. Determined to prove her wrong, I leaned against her and the wall and awkwardly made out.
We got back to hers. The walk had taken it out of us both, and the booze was throwing my head around the walls. She was cute. And really into me. Her flatmate was gone, and she had the house to herself. I pushed her up against the door of her bedroom and she arched her neck against my lips.
Two years later, I’d smell the same perfume she was wearing that night. It was trapped in the nylon weave of the passenger-side seatbelt of my dad’s car where his wife usually sits. Sweet and with a strong alcohol base.
Kissing her neck, the fumes finally tipped me over the edge, and I threw up gently over the woman’s now bare left shoulder.
We got back to hers. The walk had taken it out of us both, and the booze was throwing my head around the walls. She was cute. And really into me. Her flatmate was gone, and she had the house to herself. I pushed her up against the door of her bedroom and she arched her neck against my lips.
Two years later, I’d smell the same perfume she was wearing that night. It was trapped in the nylon weave of the passenger-side seatbelt of my dad’s car where his wife usually sits. Sweet and with a strong alcohol base.
Kissing her neck, the fumes finally tipped me over the edge, and I threw up gently over the woman’s now bare left shoulder.
This was the perfect time to get rid of my shirt as I wiped the sick off without her noticing.
Excusing myself to the bathroom, I left the shirt in the corner and went into her room next door. She told me again that she loved The Smiths, and I couldn’t remember any of their songs.
We took all the proper precautions and got to it. Reading Wikipedia on the walk home I learnt that catastrophic erectile dysfunction is nothing to be ashamed of after drinking.
In the morning we talked about her kids. Two weeks later I learnt that my favourite Smiths song is “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before”, but I still hated Morrissey and his haircut.