#46 MY DIRTIEST ENCOUNTER WITH THE SOUTH AMERICAN

And no, it’s not what you think!

Mar 24, 2024

Maybe it was summer and many of my friends had moved back home or had exciting travel plans. It must have been a summer that I couldn’t afford to go to England to visit family there and my days consisted of finding things to do with the people in town who remained. On occasion, I’d go tubing or swim in pools with my friends. On this day, though, I decided to go for a bike ride with a casual acquaintance. We’ll call him Mateo.

Mateo was from Colombia or Ecuador or somewhere in South America and had come to Valdosta for his studies. I’d casually flirt with him when I ran into him at parties because he was sweet and handsome. He had a mop of curly hair and green eyes and the biggest smile you’d ever seen. He seemed really lovely and kind. He had a beautiful Hispanic girlfriend but I wasn’t sure if they were on or off. I didn’t bother to ask.

This was before I’d moved to Columbus, Georgia and met Captain Thor, Noah, the Jewish doctor, the Chinese doctor, Captain Cotillion, and others – or the person who’d become my first husband. All stories to come.

Mateo and I went on a bike ride for what seemed like all day, winding through the smooth streets, passing manicured lawns, shrubs, oak trees laden with Spanish moss with a mix of brick houses, wooden houses with big porches, and vinyl-sided houses that characterise the neighbourhoods in Valdosta around campus – and along the Azalea trail that started on campus at our uni and wound around town. I’d never been all that confident on a bike but I had my Schwinn bike that was a pedal cruiser type, no gears. I got it because it looked vaguely 1950s and I liked the “aesthetic” as Gen Z would say today, but it was kinda useless in terms of long bike rides.

Our very short-lived Facebook messages from July 2011 seem to consist of him asking me “When are we going to hang out” and me asking him if he’s going out to the bars. That is the extent of our whole message history. Short messages. Nothing deep. Nothing much.

But I do recall that day of the long, hot bike ride. We may have done other exercise-y things. I did exercise regularly but I wouldn’t be what you call “an outdoorsy person,” especially not in sweltering south Georgia summer weather.

We returned to his house late, after dark, and we ate and drank something in the kitchen, trying to be very quiet because of his housemates and landlord who also lived there.

His room was sort of an extension or addition to the house, almost like a closed-in sunroom that had been turned into a bedroom. Mateo’s house was further down the road from where I lived on Slater Street. It was a white wooden house with a covered carport and side porches. It may have been on the same street from all I remember.

I’m sure we got a bottle of some form of alcohol and got smashed in his room. At which point, we sort of lay in his bed in sheets that may or may not have been washed for years; unshowered, swampy, and gross, we touched each other and made out and then tired we fell asleep. I’m not sure if I was naked or half dressed but at some ungodly hour in the morning his landlord busts into his room, appalled that Mateo had an overnight guest, and sort of tells me to leave.

My crazy, tiny Greek landlady, Ms Georgiou, was invasive (she had a lovely heart really but now I realise all the antics weren’t “normal”) but she never burst into our rooms or let herself into our house.

I was mortified, feeling like a chided, naughty child even though I was twenty-four. I wanted to melt into the floor. I’m sure Mateo did too. Poor Mateo also seemed embarrassed but tired. When the landlord left, I got dressed and walked my bike home, showered, and crawled into my nice bed.

I’ve never had such a “dirty” sexual encounter before or since. I don’t know what we were thinking and oh my goodness, he must have thought my hygiene levels were very disgusting. I’d like to think he usually didn’t have drunken fumbles unshowered either. We didn’t have sex. Just random touching but it’s funny that now my husband rarely allows for “spontaneous” encounters. We must be absolutely freshly showered and washed. And, you know what, I think I prefer it that way.

I have no idea what Mateo is up to now, but I hope he’s happy and well.

Next up, my questionable semi-sexual/non-sexual encounter with the pharmacist.

Don’t forget to check out the other forty-five posts I’ve written, including the one on why I’m writing this newsletter/blog in the first place – and the odd “present day snippet” of what I’m up to lately.

Have you ever had a “dirty” (i.e. unwashed) experience? What was it like?