One Night Stand
I could feel her wet breath lingering in my ear, fragrant with malty hops. “I don’t care about the younger girls. I like you.”
I was standing at the bar ordering a Guinness when I saw a woman walk past. She was petite, wearing a white top tucked into her blue jeans, and neat blond hair draped over her shoulders. I guessed she was in her early sixties and from the way she weaved through the crowd she seemed to know everyone.
I still wore the beard of a Hasidic rabbi but had a gray felt cap on instead of a kippah. Beer in hand, I walked to the back where a band was playing folk tunes in this musty Irish pub. Noticing that I was scanning the room for a seat, she signaled me to sit next to her. Flattered and nervous, I sat down.
There were two younger, college-age women sitting with her. Apparently they met at a beer festival earlier that day.
It’s almost a year now that I walk into bars fantasizing that someone, more precisely a woman will take interest in me. I am too insecure to take initiative, worried I’ll be exposed for who I am: a twenty-nine-year-old Hasidic man who has no business engaging with strange women in a bar. “But if she says hi first, I should ignore her? I’ll be kind and charming and maybe, hopefully, it leads to something more.”
I was painfully aware this was not a winning strategy. The more I walked into bars the more I realized no one was going to approach me. And if someone were to start a conversation with me, what would we talk about? Judaism? The meaning of life? I had no language or cultural bridge by which to create a playful or even neutral interaction.
I wanted to take initiative but never did. At the end of every failed outing, I’d console myself, “It’s ok, you went out to think and explore, to gaze upon this new world and see what it’s all about.” There was some truth to that but also I wanted to get laid.
It wasn’t just about fucking. I was curious about sex and sexuality. I was eager to find out what sex was like without the boundaries of marriage or relationships. What was it like for people to explore erotic or romantic connections with no agenda other than the experience itself?
The older woman got up to dance. She looked at me, motioning to join her. Swallowing a wave of insecurities, I stood up and danced with her. She got real close, whispering in my ear, “Those girls like you, talk to them.” I could feel her wet breath lingering in my ear, fragrant with malty hops.
“I don’t care about the younger girls. I like you.”
Pretending she didn’t hear me, she insisted I connect with the younger women.
I was genuinely more interested in her. The younger women were cute but she was interesting and hot. I was drawn to her energy and attracted to how she looked. The fact that she was older turned me on.
This is what my life looks like now. Noticing what I am drawn to and investigating. Many of my crushes in the past were for older women and here was such a woman, in the flesh.
After a couple rounds of beer, she suggested we go someplace more exciting. We walked to a club a block away and ordered cocktails. This time I danced with the two younger women. One of them was from Cuba and we made out. Hands on her hips, we swayed side to side while people, music, and lights swirled around us. The room was small, dark, and crowded. It was easier to lose myself in the rhythm and connect with my dancing partner.
“It's almost midnight, we have to get going.”
Disappointed, I watched as the Cuban girl and her friend left the club. I looked around for the older woman and found her slumped over a drink at the bar. I suggested we get out of there.
We walked outside towards a busy thoroughfare in the center of town.
“I’m staying at a hotel a few blocks away, I’ll be fine.”
“Let me walk you.”
“But I’m as old as your grandma.”
“So? I like you and I think you're pretty.”
When we got to the hotel elevator she insisted I couldn’t possibly have any interest in her. We got to her room and I didn’t know what to do next. It was one thing to charm myself up to a stranger's room but I’d never actually done this before. She went to the bathroom while I waited, sitting on a chair. If she told me to leave when she came out, I would.
The door opened and she stood there naked. A real woman, completely naked. I stared at her small supple breasts, the curve of her side body. She was suddenly more frail than the force of nature from earlier. Without preamble, she walked past me onto the bed. I undressed dumbfounded and thrilled.
We made out for a while, then she turned around, and asked me to fuck her from behind. As I assessed the logistics of the situation she grabbed her hair and flung it across the room. What remained, was stringy short hair matted to her scalp. Her face took on a completely different appearance. Something from scripture about fleeting beauty crossed my mind.
I went down on her and felt the mound of her hair on my face. We finished, laying next to each other and had what resembled a real conversation for the first time. Turns out she’s in town for a conference. We didn’t talk much. I got dressed and left.
I walked out of the hotel and into the breezy summer night. Suddenly I realized we hadn’t exchanged names or phone numbers.
This was my first one-night stand.