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Maybe that would have sounded like a threat to some people, but to me, sex had become a game. Danger did not seem real, or at least it seemed like something I could control. I was captivated by the unexpected. With each encounter, I felt prouder, like I was embedding myself into all of the dark corners of New York City just to prove that they didn't scare me and that I belonged.
At one point, I went to see a therapist as part of a debriefing for a crisis hotline I worked on. I saw her eyes widen when I told her about some of my adventures.
"Is that it?" she said when I finished.
"Yeah," I said. "But I'm really just here for the debriefing. I'm fine," I said defiantly. I was fine — not only that, I was thriving. I was on track to graduate magna cum laude. I had good friends. I was a crisis counselor, for god's sake.
The therapist didn't seem convinced. "Okay, there are no experiences you didn't mention, like an abortion you feel bad about?"
There really wasn't, and I resented her implication that there had to be something to blame for my flirtations with disaster. Besides, everyone I knew was doing the same thing. My friends and I thought anyone who wasn't doing that was creating artificial boundaries, choosing not to act when there was a whole world of adventure just waiting.
At the height of a drug flirtation near the end of my senior year, I placed an ad on Craigslist looking for coke in exchange for company. The man who answered it ushered me into his West Village loft. After I snorted some lines and went down on him, my bra askew and my jeans unzipped, he pulled me up.
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Finally, I had done what no guy been able to: I had seriously freaked myself out.
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"You have to go," he said. "I have another girl coming over."
He escorted me to the door. High and disoriented, I had a panic attack outside a bar on Lafayette Street. I collapsed on the sidewalk, heaving, as the bouncer gave me water and contemplated calling an ambulance. I pulled myself up and grabbed a cab, getting out to vomit a block away from my apartment. As I slowly turned the corner, I felt shaky and out of control. Finally, I had done what no guy been able to: I had seriously freaked myself out.
These days, I go out in groups, buy a round of gin-and-tonics when it's my turn, split a cab home, occasionally go on dates with friends of friends. But whenever I see a drunk girl dancing by herself at a bar near closing time, I never wonder how she could be so foolish. When I hear about a girl who disappeared late one night, I don't see her as an angel destroyed by the city. I think: she knew she was in danger. That was the point. n°
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
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Anna Davies graduated from Barnard College in 2005, where she won the Peter S. Prescott Prize for prose fiction, worked as a personal assistant to four different authors, and completed nine internships. She currently lives in the East Village, where she's working on her novel. |
© 2006 Anna Davies & hooksexup.com
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