One Night Stand.

I had this skirt. It was a little pouffy and a little shiny and totally not my style. My style is more akin to wearing the same tank top everyday just in a different colour and honestly the list of colours isn't exceptionally vast either. But back then I had this suitcase full of slutty clothes that I later used as escort clothes because apparently shorts and tank tops just don't cut it, and this skirt was one of those. I didn't like those clothes but I wore them for social reasons, because you have to be well dressed, for some reason. I bought that skirt at a very shiny store that my 16-year old sister swears by and because I can never buy one of anything, I bought two of same skirt. I must have been having an insane day because I also bought I pair of very high heels. They were pink and not even that loud hot pink which is workable on a good day, they were powdery pink and had bows on them. They were also, of course, absolutely impossible to walk in. Honestly I have nothing against heels, I even think they are sexy, but I can only wear them if I'm going to be spending the evening on my back (or, to be more realistic, on my knees), not my feet.

Still I was wearing my ridiculous skirt, my even more ridiculous heels and a tank top (because come on, I can't wear **all** uncomfortable things that aren't even my style) and standing on the curb in front of my flat waiting for my friend who told me she was getting there in five minutes about two hours ago. It's okay though, I didn't wait for two hours, that's just how she is. Two minutes means an hour. Five is two. Ten is a half a day. If she ever says I'll see you in an hour, you'll see her in a week. Did I mention her place was half a kilometer from mine?

It was ten at night and while these days you'll always find me in the exact same place at 10 PM (don't hold your breath, the answer is, in bed), back then 10 was my hour of choice. Not 10 exactly, but it started at 10 and lasted till about 4. Ten was the time to start living and to do something stupid that seemed so awesome and significant. It's amazing, you know, we had the emotional and physical energy to dispense it on the stupidest of things just to see what would happen. Now it sounds horrific that I would want to stay up all night to do something other than have sex that was **guaranteed** to be amazing. Sometimes I wonder which one of us has the right idea. Probably neither.

I waited on the curb for ten minutes and then I heard my friend's car one street over because indeed, we were those people. Loud music bothers me now unless I'm working out or driving, but back then everything around me was constantly loud. I lived in a house with people I couldn't even keep track of. In that one house, I lived with at least fifteen different people in the course of eight months. I don't know how anything happened. I don't know how we ever got any sleep. I finally understand why I spent so much time on the roof. I still don't know who that lady was who showed up once every couple of months, cooked all day, spoke only a language that most of us didn't know and never ever smiled. I asked my one permanent roommate about her once, she told me she's someone's mom. I asked another fairly permanent roommate about her once, she said she's the cook. What cook? I never paid a cook. For that matter I'm not sure who I paid rent to exactly. The point is, we lived very loud lives. Someone was always screaming. Two laptops were always making sounds. Someone was always playing the guitar. Someone was always fighting with  a a boyfriend. Henna's car always blaring, she was always screaming. It was just, so loud.

When Henna stopped her car in front of me there was someone else in it. As a rule we never took men to clubs with us because in her words, "*you meet them there and then if you're still interested tomorrow you can take him to a coffee shop*". Not a ridiculous principle, really. The person in the car was not a man. She was a woman. I knew her. She lived next door to us in her own extremely loud situation and I saw her around our house sometimes but we had never really spoken. Now I've forgotten her name so I'm going to call her Jasmine because she always smelled really nice like jasmine. Henna introduced us and we did the whole "*oh but we kinda know each other*" routine. They had gone shopping together and Henna invited her to come partying with us. She seemed nice and fun and honestly, we didn't care so much back then. Anyone who wanted to come could come wherever.

We went to the club we always went to on weekends. Henna liked new places and I like regularity in that type of thing, so we had a compromise where we'd go to a different place on Fridays and Saturdays and the same place every night on week nights. It was Thursday that day, which meant free booze for women, which is one of the greatest benefits of being a woman ever. It's like society is saying, "Sorry darling, can't take your career too seriously and will probably try to control your body and life choices and could possibly rape you too **but** free drinks every Thursday, isn't that awesome?"
It actually is awesome. And back then, I had just turned nineteen, I was pursuing drinking like I wanted to make a career in it. It would have been a lousy career given that I have two drinks on an annual basis now and still can't quite drink Sprite without tasting vodka in it and wanting to puke.

So we went to my favorite place which was undoubtedly the cheapest, most shady club in the whole city. It's basically always three minutes away from being shut down permanently because 535 laws were being broken inside it simultaneously. It was awesome, and so dirty. It permanently reeked of pot and tequila puke.
So we went inside and Henna started being a diva because that really is her style. I don't care for it but she's really good at it. I respect it. Jasmine went straight to the bar and drank many shots of tequila. I went with her because I am sure she needed my help to finish all those free drinks. Eventually, of course, Henna started to dance. She likes to dance. I probably should have mentioned she was an actress and she really took that seriously. It permeated into every aspect of her life, every second of the day. Point is, she lived very theatrically. It was quite entertaining.

She danced, so did Jasmine. Me, I dance sometimes but it's very rare. Well, not that rare. It's as rare as me being wasted, and also directly related to it. I dance in the shower and around the house and at dance classes but in clubs I just look bored and flirt with people. That's my version of going out dancing. Eventually I saw this guy in a black shirt and he had long hair and strong shoulders and I felt attracted. That's another thing, I didn't take attraction so seriously back then. A strong jaw was enough for me to want to sleep with someone. The less information the better, really. The more you find out about a person the less you want to sleep with them, except for some people and then you fall in love with them which is awesome but sounded exhausting back then given that I already had someone to love on a daily basis. I liked casual sex and little communication, it was fun and hot and exciting and you got to be an entirely sexual creature. When you go up to someone and lead with sex, they are not going to spend the next few hours talking to you about your job and your future. I like that space where all I am is sex. And it was even easier with that guy because he only spoke a little English and a lot of Arabic. Henna spoke Arabic so really she introduced us but he already knew I was going home with him. I lead with sex when I'm looking for sex. And no matter what language barrier you may face, everyone somehow understands when you're asking for sex.

Henna obviously would come with us because that was another principle. If I liked a guy she came along and picked one from his friends for herself or she waited for me to finish fucking so we could drive back together. I did the same for her. It was a safety thing. He invited a bunch of his friends home as well and we asked Jasmine if she wanted to come. She came. Obviously when we got there the guy, whose name I forget but let's call him That Persian Hunk (TPH) and I went to his bedroom while the rest of them sat drinking in the living room. Before I left I saw Henna cosying up to this guy named Saad. His name, of course, I remember.

Two hours later when I came out of the bedroom, Jasmine was snoozing on the couch, and some guys were sitting at the dining table and Henna and Saad were presumably those squeaky moany sounds I could hear. TPH and I went to the balcony and had a smoke, while Jasmine slept. An hour later Henna emerged from the bedroom and declared to me that she was in love. This is no big deal. Henna said that every single time she hooked up with someone. That was sometimes up to four men a week. Her love also lasted about as long as it takes to go down a flight of stairs because by the time we woke Jasmine up and got into the car, she was over it. She was already thinking about the heartbreak she would experience after 13 minutes of love. I mentioned she's a bit dramatic, yes?

Jasmine was very quiet on the way home and I presumed it was because she was somewhere between drunk and hungover. She went straight to home to bed when we got back. Henna and I had a joint and talked about TPH and his beautiful penis. Really, it was beautiful. And yummy. We laughed a little. Ate some cereal. At dawn she left and I showered so I could go straight to class as soon as I woke up.

The next day Henna came over in the evening and asked if we could please go to a new club, and I agreed. She wondered if we should ask Jasmine again and I said we should because she was fun and also, why not? We literally invited everyone we saw during the course of the day. We went to Jasmine's place and asked if she wanted to come. She said no. Immediately. We asked why. She said nothing. We asked again.

"You guys are sluts," she said finally, "You're not nice girls. You should change this behavior."

We turned around and walked the one step back to our place. Henna seemed unfazed, like she expected it, but I was, troubled. See I had just become an adult and I had somehow been harbouring the belief that at adulthood people stopped judging and controlling you. You can just be whatever you like. Henna had had some time to learn that reality was a far cry from what I believed. I couldn't understand why she wouldn't want to hang out with us because of what we did with our vaginas. It made no sense. We are all grown ups!

In a couple of hours, I had accepted a different reality. One where the social repression doesn't just stop because you can vote. It just keeps going. And growing. Until you start to do the things that are right and expected of you. Things that are decent and comfortable for everyone. Things that finally make you fit into the ideal of a nice girl, which someone has a lot to do with my legs and how often I spread them and for whom.

So that night I put on boxers and Crocs and eyeliner and went back to the club with my slutty friend who had no shame. We met men and we went home with a couple of them. We had loud shameless sex just like every night. Because that one night stand from the previous night, it changed everything by changing nothing. Jasmine telling us we should change, made me see things I hadn't seen before. I realized I shouldn't at all have to pretend to be something I'm not given that people were always going to have ridiculous ideas of nice girl that I would never be able to live up to. So I stopped pretending I liked pouffy skirts and put on shorts. I figured Jasmine was right, I should change. I should stop letting ideas of how I should appear impact anything at all. So I wore the confortable Crocs and put a bottle of vodka in my water resistant camping backpack.

And then I went out to a club and had casual sex.

Because that's me too.

And a single one night stand witnessed by intolerance can't really change all that. The world does not change overnight, and neither did mine, but it budged an inch.

An inch closer to living honestly.

.....