The next morning

Okayokayokayokay . . . DON’T PANIC!

Oh God!

It was on repeat between my ears, over and over in my brain, the only words that would form.

Oh God!

“Kat?” Dan was staring at me, his mouth parted slightly with surprise. His eyebrows were hovering above dark brown eyes, presently wide and confused.

I flinched, but could not move because my entire body was so engrossed with the Oh God chant, I was paralyzed by it.

“Kat,” he tried again. I felt the brush of his fingers on the back of my hand where I touched him. “What are you doing?”

I gasped, yanked my hand back, rolled away, and fell to the floor.

“Ow!”

Oh God.

I heard the sheets rustle and I stiffened, closing my eyes and bracing for . . . whatever came next.

Please. Please let him leave. Pleaseohpleaseohplease.

If he didn’t leave then I would likely have to make eye contact. I wasn’t ready for eye contact with Dan the Security Man. I might never be ready for eye contact with him ever again. I might live my life with the darkest of sunglasses at the ready, prepared to shield my eyes from his for the rest of my life.

Maybe I’ll move to New Mexico and live in the desert.

Wait. Sorry.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let me back up.

Three minutes ago, or thereabouts, I’d been mostly asleep. I say mostly because I was sorta awake, at least I was awake enough to realize I had my hand on a man’s bare stomach and his bare stomach felt nice under my fingers. Really, really nice. Epically nice.

But I was also mostly asleep because I thought I was dreaming.

And since I thought I was dreaming—stay with me here—I lowered my hand into the waistband of the dream-man’s boxers and grabbed his penis.

NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO JUDGE ME!

There isn’t a twenty-three year-old woman alive who wouldn’t have done the same thing within the privacy of her own dreams. Especially when that twenty-three year-old woman was going on month fifty-two of a dry spell.

Fifty-two months. Let that sink in.

I moaned, caressing the dream man, because he felt uh-maze-zing, with emphasis on the zing, and thought, We are so going to have dream sex.

But then he also moaned. That moan penetrated (no pun intended) my subconscious and alerted me to the fact that I wasn’t dreaming. My eyes flew open. I gasped.

I found a very real Dan the Security Man lounging next to me looking at me with confusion.

Oh God chant.

He said my name.

I rolled out of the bed.

And that brings us to now.

“Kat?” His voice was above and behind me.

“Uh, yeah. I’m here,” I responded, like a moron. I turned my face into the carpet and winced. If course he knew I was there. I’d just rolled out of the bed. The bed where I’d given him half of a hand job.

Mortification burned a path from my throat, down my esophagus, to my stomach. I held very still, hoping . . . I don’t even know. Apparently my instinct here was to become one with the carpet.

“What are you doing? Are you okay?”

“Yes. Good. Fine. The carpet is really lovely. Very . . . plush.”

My wince intensified because, really? The carpet is lovely? Plush?

Ah, Kat. You sly vixen. Way to not make things awkward. Maybe next you can do the robot dance while quoting Søren Kierkegaard.

Nothing like a little existential philosophy after a night of drunk sex.

Oh shit. . .

The air left my lungs and my heart seized. Reality slapped me in the face, leaving only the sting of anguish and the burden of remorse.

We’d had sex. I’d slept with Dan. Why else would Dan be sharing a bed with me? And now he was destined to be just another guy I’d screwed while being too intoxicated to remember and crapcrapcrap I never wanted him to be one of those guys.

I liked him. He was, or least he’d appeared to be, honorable.

“Hey. Stop thinking so loud down there. They can hear you in the casino.” His hand brushed the bare skin of my back between my shoulder blades, just above my bra, then slid to my hip.

His touch was familiar and possessive. My stomach plummeted. I shrunk from him. He withdrew his hand.

He was silent. I was silent. The room was silent.

“Kat-”

I cleared my throat, pushing myself away from the carpet to a sitting position. I rested my back against the mattress and pulled my knees to my chest. He was still behind me on the bed. He didn’t try to touch me again.

“Did we use a condom?” I asked.

“Did we . . .?” he echoed, leading me to the conclusion that he didn’t know.

“That’s always the first question I ask,” I blurted by way of explanation. “I never remember. If you don’t remember, we’ll have to do a search for it. It’s usually on the floor or in the sheets.”

Crap, why does this hurt so much? It usually hurts, but not this much.

He was silent. I was silent. The room was silent. But this time silence might as well have been a scream.

He broke it, his voice sounding funny, faraway. “What’s the second question?”

“Uh, let’s see . . .” I studied my hands, they were shaking. I balled them into fists and tried to think about when I could schedule a new manicure before Janie and Quinn’s wedding. “Either I ask where I can find a decent cup of coffee on my way out, or I ask about transportation, like—what’s the closest bus or el stop.”

“So you can leave.” It was a question phrased as a statement. It didn’t require a response, so I gave none.

I heard him shift on the bed and clear his throat before he asked, “You do this often?”

“Often enough.” I shrugged, the numbness not quite taking hold like I would’ve preferred. But his questions helped. They made me feel cheap and trashy.

“You have a lot of boyfriends?” His voice lowered with this question, as though he were trying to keep it even.

“No,” I shook my head unnecessarily, smiling because the situation was morbidly ironic. “I have no boyfriends.”

I’d hoped Dan would be my first boyfriend. Ever since we’d met in the hallway outside of Sandra’s apartment all those months ago, I’d been thinking about him. I’d tried to push him from my mind—believe me, I’d tried—but nothing worked. I blamed his lips and crooked smile.

During knit nights, during the rare instances when he’d be guarding Janie, our eyes would meet across one of my friends’ apartments, hold, and I’d lose my breath. Then I’d go home feeling hot and flustered, scattered. Also, I’d been fantasizing about this man. This funny, sweet, gorgeous man.

I’d never fantasized about anyone.

And now . . .

Now would’ve been a perfect time to quote Søren Kierkegaard.

“Just guys you—you sleep with and don’t remember sleeping with?” Astonishingly, he didn’t sound judgmental. He sounded . . .

Wounded? Hurt maybe?

Deciding it was best to ignore the instinct to decode his tone, I admitted, “I’ve never been one for monogamy.”

I didn’t add, Because—years ago, when I was engaging in this behavior—I didn’t think I was worthy of monogamy. No good could come of confessing that truth or offering that as an explanation. He didn’t want to hear about my demons, and I didn’t want to talk about them.

And it didn’t matter, because I’d just engaged in the same behavior last night. It hadn’t been years, it had been twelve hours.

Nothing had changed. Despite all my good intentions and hard work, I hadn’t changed.

I swallowed against the acute aching of my heart and sighed, turning my head and lowering my cheek so it rested on my knees. I pushed all chaotic thoughts from my mind, staring without seeing, present yet absent. No good could come of being present.

I am one with the lovely, plush carpet.

It would be over soon. He would leave. I would take a shower, hunt down that condom, and then grab a huge breakfast. Food was my friend. It never required prophylaxis. Well, not unless a person is allergic to dairy. But I’m not allergic to dairy, and cheese loves me a lot.

Cheese and I were in a relationship.

The sound of Dan’s zipper tugged me out of my thoughts, effecting me like nails on a chalkboard. I shivered and closed my eyes just as he came into my peripheral vision. I listened to him walk around the room, presumably getting dressed, and hugged my knees tighter.

Think of cheese, I told myself.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t. Instead I thought of tears, buckets of them, mostly because I was doing everything possible to keep from crying. Despite my desire for numbness, blistering heat ballooned in my chest, making it difficult to breathe. I concentrated on breathing.

The air shifted. I thought maybe he’d left. I opened my eyes. I was wrong. He hadn’t left. Instead Dan stood directly in front of me, tucking a t-shirt into combat fatigues.

“You don’t have to look for a condom,” he said flatly, his eyes scanning the room as though checking to see if he’d left anything behind. I took the moment to study him and the great distance between us. He was so far away now.

I had to clear my throat of emotion before asking, “Oh. Did you find it?”

He shook his head, his brown eyes lifting to mine and bringing with them the powerful force of indifference.

“No. We didn’t have sex. I was sober. You were not. I held your hair while you puked. Then you fell asleep. That’s all that happened.”

I gaped at him, dumbstruck. He didn’t wait for me to respond. Smoothly removing his cool gaze from mine, Dan turned and left, closing the door with a subdued click, though it rang like a gunshot between my ears.

I stared at the door for a long time after he left, just stared at it. I didn’t know how long I stared, maybe minutes, maybe an hour.

When I was finally capable of thought, wouldn’t you know it, that sassy and irrepressible Søren Kierkegaard’s words were the first in my mind, The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.

And then I cried.