One Night

A long relationship wraps around you. You know how someone moves, what makes them come, where everything goes. There’s this ease to it because you actually know them—their body, what works, what doesn’t. Over years the sex gets better because there’s no mystery left, just trust and the ability to completely lose yourself. It’s warm. It’s deep.

But there’s always this pull toward something different. Want to find someone beautiful and strange and just fuck them for one night without thinking about anything else. Don’t care who they are or what happens after. Just the body, the wanting, the pure physical thing. Someone new. Filthy and urgent and no history. Wake up and they’re gone and so are you and that’s the whole point.

I used to think women didn’t feel that. Figured they’d wake up feeling ashamed or guilty, wondering what it meant, whether they were sluts or broken or failing some invisible test. But I’m wrong about that. Or maybe I was always wrong. Girls want the same thing—go out and hunt and find what they need for the night and it doesn’t matter to them what anyone thinks. Why should it?

There’s this Australian thing with the shag bands that makes sense to me. Colored wristbands that signal what you’re after that night, so there’s no confusion or awkward conversations. You see what someone needs and if you need the same thing, it’s straightforward. Just: this is what I want tonight.