THIRD DATE FIRST

How Time’s Arrow Becomes Flacid if Reversed

I woke up spooning her, my hand lazily circling her navel, and I did not know who she was. Dark hair, warm, female body, almost entirely naked as tentative explorations confirmed: I thought it wise not to signal right away my new condition, and enjoy this gift of the gods.

I was 18, had spent the night drinking and smoking pot and fallen asleep on a friend’s couch. Whoever this was, seductively conjoined to my youthful slumber, I can honestly say that I would not, in the evening, have shown more discrimination in choosing a bed partner than established factuality thus, in the morning, offered me. Minding that she seemed still asleep, but measuring at what I thought was a fair value her intention of sharing with me, well, at least the pleasure of lying under the same blanket, half-embraced, for these delayed resting hours of the partying bunch, I inhaled, and lightly caressed, and gratefully partook in this pure, detached from the vagaries of knowing each other, coziness of the break of day, of dawn, until she began to stir.

Then I pretended to wake up also, bringing my lazy hand back to myself and turning over on the couch, faking a stretch and a yawn. Having thus reinstituted basic social conventions, we quickly determined that we were Pauline and Antoine, having heard of each other before in the tales of the couch’s owner, and that her night having ended later than mine, she had decided, against the protestations of our common friend who would have willingly offered his bed, with or without him in it, to her, to finally make my acquaintance. Because we both really needed sleep, she thought it fine that our bodies meet, in that manner, a few hours before our minds.

I did not point out that I had gone to sleep wearing my jeans, so “exhausted” was I, and was now waking up in my underwear, indicating further playfulness on her part than her narration admitted. She looked too delightful to nitpick. A brunette with blue eyes, very pale skin, straight short hair and generous curves vaguely concealed by a thin, white nightgown that she, being an organized type of drunk, carried in her purse whenever she went out and might, as it were, spend the tail of her night sleeping on a friend’s couch.

This she explained after I, looking for my pants which I expressly needed to put on before I could release my half of the blanket, found them folded at the foot of the couch and she, noticing my surprise, said that I had seemed uncomfortable sleeping in them and that she had subsequently taken them off for me. I thanked her for her kind concern, we shook hands playfully, and I turned away to get dressed. She took advantage of the moment to grab her own pair of jeans from a nearby chair and slip them on, keeping her nightie on as a sort of shirt or blouse.

I was struggling not to stare at her pointing nipples, thin brown bud tips under a satin haze, and to come up with some kind of suitable conversation, when our mutual friend emerged from his bedroom, fresh, clean and wearing a suit. He smiled maybe a little wider than appropriate while stating that no introductions, it seemed, were needed, and that he, being less of a bum than us two artist types, had to leave immediately for work, both important and remunerated.

I quickly countered that a photography gig that began at noon could hardly be construed as respectable employment, and Pauline added haughtily that indeed he may leave, we would let ourselves out—maybe. Everyone was quite merry as our friend, making me the happiest that he ever did, followed up on his promise and removed himself from our impromptu rom-com scene.

I was hungry. So was she.

She offered to cook pasta. I volunteered to go buy wine.

We seemed to agree on everything.

Optimistically, I bought two bottles. Luckily, her pasta was delicious.

We chatted about painting (her passion), writing (mine), flirted a bit but didn’t kiss, nor make any advances. It didn’t feel like a time to begin anything. We had just come out of bed, after all. We finished the wine, exchanged phone numbers and parted ways, slightly tipsy and titillated, certainly happy to have met each other.

We knew that we had come for each other. It was a party organized by a friend of our common friend, who had let each of us know, knowingly and known to all, about the party and that he had also let the other know. He himself wouldn’t be there. He really was a great friend.

I arrived early and the party was still calm. Pauline was sitting on a couch with another girl. They were looking at a notebook of Pauline’s drawings, as I learned by joining in with a quick, “Hey, what’s that?”

Pauline’s drawings were exquisite, full, dark, technically impressive, thematically exciting. They are difficult to describe from memory, but they represented legions of body parts combined in impossible, yet entirely plausible shapes. Each bestowed with multiple sets of humanoid genitalia, of either gender and intricately intertwined, these creatures seemed at once monstrous and unarguably natural, like mistakes that nature had forgotten to make until Pauline came along. They were drawn in pencil, a full notebook of them, with such texture, grain, shades of dark and darker, such complexity, such obsessive passion… I was thoroughly impressed.

Also, the notebook was of a kind I had never seen, which Pauline said was from Japan. Each page was linked to the next on the opposite side of the previous one, and the spine was unbound, forming something like an expandable paper accordion. I liked the notebook very much as well, I said. I said I wanted to have it. Pauline replied that she could not give it to me, she needed the drawings for her art school project. I said that I understood, but could not help really wanting to own this specific notebook, with these specific drawings in it, very, very much.

I cannot quantify how much drinking went on that night, nor do I feel able to subtly indicate, as the story unfolds, the stage of intoxication that corresponds to each event. You, reader, will have to infer that from the characters’ behavior—or alternatively, start taking quick shots of whisky, now!

Pauline said that she liked that I liked her notebook so much, but she still needed to keep it for school. Seeing that I was disappointed, she said she would make me a deal, though: if I could steal it from her, unnoticed, during the night, then it would be mine. I said OK. We shook on it and moved on.

Since this was a friend of a friend’s party, we did not know many people, so we went to mingle. Pauline was clearly the hottest girl there, which I could tell by the way the other guys looked at her, and were unfriendly toward me. But I soon broke the ice with liquor, a hobby of mine that they all happened to share.

The next thing I remember, Pauline, the girl that she had been speaking with when I arrived, three guys and myself are in the bathroom, putting on some make-up. We are all cross-dressing.

I am happy enough until at some point, the three guys are encouraging Pauline and the girl to kiss, in a way that makes me uncomfortable. It is clear that Pauline and the girl are not unwilling. It is also clear that the three guys really want to watch them kiss. But I am unhappy.

I am unhappy, not because I am jealous of Pauline, but because it seems sleazy to me, in that moment, the four of us dudes watching these two girls kiss, packed together in the bathroom. I don’t feel like we are cool gender-bending young people anymore, like I did a few seconds ago. I feel like three or four horny guys have introduced this whole cross-dressing affair only to partake in some faux-radical lesbo-voyeurism. Maybe that is because none of the guys seem to have any inclination to kiss each other. Maybe that is just how I feel.

Surely that is how I feel, because when Pauline and the girl begin kissing lightly on the lips, I can’t stand it and push their faces apart, in what I intend as a soft gesture of playful protest.

Among a general mix of shock and disappointment, this softness of my gesture is immediately brought into question by the girl, whose name I have entirely forgotten. She might have had, I realize then, a more genuine desire for this kiss than I had understood. At least, she seems to be challenging me, like a man would, for the role of being Pauline’s date, while complaining for what she characterizes as an act of aggression on my part.

Pauline says it was just a game, no need to get angry anyone.

The girl proceeds to punch me in the face.

Waving off the boys’ exhortations not to retaliate, which hadn’t crossed my mind (such a male chauvinist am I), I repeat that, in my opinion, my gesture had been soft and in no way contained the intention to initiate violence. Rather an act of dismissal in a situation that had become distasteful in my view.

A long theoretical and rhetorically complex debate ensues, in which I guess I prevail, since the girl finally accepts my explanation, and subsequently agrees to make up and hug it out.

During this hug, I experience my first black-out of the night.

By which I mean, I fall over mid-hug with the girl in my arms. The audience to our whole affair is still surrounding us and we are quickly caught and helped up, and I regain a sufficient amount of consciousness to stagger away on my own.

The party continues. Apparently, I have not made any new friends.

The next thing I remember, I am drinking alone on the couch, in the living room. Most people are gathered in the kitchen, and by the sound of it, having fun. After a while, Pauline comes out and sits with me.

I feel like we can finally resume where we left off: we are interested in each other, this is alone time again, just her and I, which is after all the reason why we both came to this party where we don’t know anyone. I don’t remember specific discussions, or if I managed to speak at all, only that there is music and an empty room, so at some point, after a minute or an hour, we get up and start dancing.

I am much too drunk to dance. I keep bumping into things, failing to catch Pauline’s hand ever, and stepping almost exclusively on her feet. Pauline suggests that we slow dance instead, regardless of what song is playing, we can be romantic as we please.

I faintly recollect a few moments, not many, of holding her in my arms. She is as soft and warm as I remembered, reimagined, dreamed of, and longed to experience again, ever since that morning. This was truly the only thing that I had wanted to do all night, holding her like this, and I like it. Everything is finally as it should be, everything is all right, everything.

During this dance, I experience my second black-out of the night.

By which I mean, I fall over mid-dance with Pauline in my arms. This time, there is no one to catch us. We hold on to each other at first, then realize that we have to let go, unless we want to just fall flat on the hardwood floor. So we each scramble in our own direction, and I knock over a large, wrought iron lamp. This attracts the attention of people from the kitchen, the tenant of the apartment included, the friend of our friend. He is not too happy, but being drunk is cool at that age, so what can he say? I try to help fix the mess, and the party continues! The next thing I remember, Pauline is in the bathroom. Her purse is still on the couch, so I seize my chance and take her notebook out. There is nowhere on my person where I can conceal it for long, so I go and hide it behind the piano. Pauline comes back and it seems that people are leaving. At least we are, Pauline and I. While we say goodbye, I manage to retrieve the notebook and hide it in the back of my pants. I am so happy to have achieved this feat of sneaky thievery that I don’t think about what is going to happen next. I am going home with the notebook. It is with an intense feeling of victory that once outside the building, I bid Pauline a quick farewell, leaving her alone on the sidewalk.

I do not remember anything else from that night.

But in the morning, lying next to me on a friend’s couch, Pauline’s notebook was mine.

A few days later, I received a text from Pauline asking if I had her notebook. I texted back that I had successfully stolen it, so I owned it now, remember our deal? She proceeded to call and explain that she needed it for her schoolwork, seriously, would I please return it. There was no amusement in her voice anymore, so I said fine, I would. Since I lived in a different city at the time, I mailed it back.

A few weeks later, I was coming back to Paris, so I sent Pauline a text. I had just read a novel by Dostoevsky, entitled The Gambler, in which the narrator, a man named Alexis, is in love with a young woman named Pauline, so I made a reference to it in my text, trying to be witty. I believe it went something like:

“I am returning soon from Roulettenberg (the fictional gambling town where the novel happens), dear Pauline, could I be so bold as to humbly request the pleasure of your company?”

Pauline’s answer was: “Who is this?”

After an instant of puzzlement, I understood that she must have erased my number from her phone. That was disappointing. I had still thought of us as potentially interested in each other, despite the notebook kerfuffle. I had even considered being in love with her. So in a jest, I wrote:

“It is Alexis, but of course.”

I assumed that it would end there, but her reply immediately came back: “Which Alexis? Where did we meet?”

I followed up on my Dostoevsky reference: “All of our talks by the fountain, in the park. How could you have forgotten, my Pauline?”

I still didn’t think that this would lead anywhere, at least not outside of fiction. I was merely acting out of disappointment, dejection, and a slightly twisted sense of humor. But Pauline replied again.

“I have not forgotten. When will you be in Paris?”

Only then did I conceive that it could be fun to surprise her. Romantic, even? Maybe this was my chance at a fresh start with her. Forget the notebook, forget the extreme drunkenness, I would jump out of a novel and back into her good graces, we would resume our playful, fantasy-filled flirtation, and hopefully finally kiss…

“I shall arrive on the morrow. My heart flies toward you Pauline.”

“OK, let me know when you want to meet up.”

I reached Paris the next afternoon, and from the train station walked straight to the bar where our common friends used to hang out, just in time for the beginning of social hours. I had barely set down my backpack in a corner when people started pouring in, including the friend on whose couch Pauline and I had first met. She was to come by later, actually, he said with a glimmer in his eye. He asked me if I had made any progress with her. Coyly, I told him that she and I had been texting.

More friends arrived whom I hadn’t seen in a while, so we exchanged news and stories, bought each other rounds, and toasted the many deities that ruled over our privileged universe. The place was getting lively with youthful booze-fueled energy, and while sharing in the joyous mood, I kept my plan to myself, checking the door from time to time, feeling overall rather confident about my little literary stunt. Then Pauline walked in.

Across the crowd, our gazes met. And from her expression at that precise moment, I perceived two things at once—two things that she would confirm with just a few words, upon reaching our table. But these words I didn’t need to hear.

I had read it in her eyes that she had guessed, seeing me sitting there, that it was me who had been texting her as Alexis.

And that she was disappointed.