#49 THAT TIME I HAD A ONE NIGHT STAND WITH SOMEONE I PICKED UP AT TARGET
The lost summer where I didn’t know where my life was going and I tried to find something at the end of an aisle
Before I moved to Columbus with Brittany, I ended up being in our Slater Street house when practically everyone I knew had moved out. I still had this one roommate, Taylor, who I’d known – she dated another friend of mine for a while but then they broke it off and she moved to Colorado. A different roommate had moved in and she was really sweet but we didn’t click all that well. I think I was off and not my usual, bubbly self so she probably thought I was mad (and rude). I remember an awkward incident where some of my dishes had ended up in her room and I asked where my salad bowl was. I should’ve just been chill but I had her find the bowl (or glass or whatever it was) in her room whilst I waited at the door (like a total nutso person) and obviously that’s not a great way to make friends (poor girl – so sorry if you remember that very brief crazy housemate you had!). Thankfully, she has probably long forgotten we were friends. She had been uber-Christian and knew a mutual friend I knew from high school who was universally loved so we had a very tenuous thread. She seems to be happily married now with one or two children. I really have no idea what she thought of me but I was in a lost, searching place that summer, an existential crisis, without even knowing it.
This was after the whole JP (the pharmacist) weirdness encounter and, like him, how he admitted to me he just wanted human contact, maybe I was feeling that way too. Maybe not that I could have articulated it at the time.
I’ll tell this story through the eyes of my 24-year-old self because I guess the experience left enough of an impression that I sent myself not ONE email but TWO emails about the encounter. But I guess because one of the emails was also about Bramwell (or the red-haired sex god as I’d nicknamed him), who was my unfortunate long-time obsession.
TL;DR: I flirted with the guy at Target who sold me a beach chair, gave him my number, we went to dinner, I ended up hooking up with him once and that was that. Despite my entire Substack’s premise, I usually only slept with people I knew or who were friends of friends and didn’t have random hookups (at least not until I moved to Columbus and I had another one – singular). Oh and he was the second person I’d had sex with that day. SMH! I also had never done that before (before or since). Also, trigger warning: don’t proceed further if you’re squeamish because this post has NSFW details about the encounter.
6 July 2011
I wrote this first email to myself before the encounter.
I picked Jack up from the vet today. Poor thing. He wasn't happy at all. He wouldn't let the vet put the flea treatment on him and I had to receive him from the kennel. I wasn't too happy with the kennel facilities. The metal boxes looked cold and uncomfortable. When I'd settled Jack at home, put on some laundry, I texted Chester to meet me for lunch at Tropical Smoothie.
Jack was my grad school cat who now lives very happily with Brittany. I have no idea why he was in the kennel.
I called [RHSG] on my way home from lunch with Chester. I have dinner arranged with [Mr Target]. I'm going to finish cleaning up the house (as best I can). I think, though, there'll be more to do when I get back. I can't possibly do all the laundry today. Anyway, I called [RHSG] on the way home and to my surprise he picked up. I asked him if he wanted to come over before I left and he said that he was busy and that he'd be free tomorrow. I said I wouldn't be available tomorrow, so he said he could probably swing by.
How pathetic that I was obsessed with a man who I wasn’t sure would always answer my call…
I told him I was on my way home and that I'd see him soon. I ran into my house and pushed the storage boxes under my bed, moved Brittany's desk into my room and tidied up a bit. He called me as I was about to get ready for him to come over – maybe put a corset on or something – but he said he was already there. I went to the door. He came in and kissed me passionately, started taking my clothes off and I started to remove his.
The rest of this encounter is documented in this post (also very NSFW), which includes a discussion of how we had sex in practically every room of my grad school house.
I feel silly-ly happy right now, but I do have to give him up. Sadness.
Now I need to finish tidying up before dinner with [Mr Target] and then off to Jax Beach to see [Uncle] Steve. I can't wait. I'm looking forward to it. Oh, and [Dr Luke] texted me and said now that Independence Day is over "Viva Las Vegas" and I said we'd plan next week. I told him to come and visit me tomorrow at Jax and he said he was looking for an excuse to go anyway. So it should all be fun.
We never did get to Vegas. I was too broke even if Dr Luke wasn’t.
Again, I always had so much anxiety about cleaning my room, doing laundry, and packing for trips to Jacksonville Beach to hang out with my uncle – or my mother when she’d lived there.
7 July 2011
The next day…
So, I'm officially a whore now. I had my first entirely random hookup today. The sex was really good, but I'm very sore as random hookup had a big cock, which was probably why I let him be a random hookup in the first place. Case in point, I am a whore. But I don't feel bad about it.
Excuse my past self-slut-shaming. I’d never refer to my past dealings as “whoreish” but I guess it was twelve years ago.
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