Up All Night

I’ve written about Sleeping Beauty before—called so because, after inviting me over to his place at 1 a.m., he fell asleep, and I couldn’t get into his apartment. But I barely talked about what it was actually like to date him.

See, I really liked Sleeping Beauty. I liked that he was an editor, which seemed the perfect boyfriend for a writer. I liked that I had to go on my toes to kiss him, and that when he hugged me with his big arms I felt safe. I even liked watching stupid TV with him, like the “Real Housewives of Who-The-Fuck-Cares.”

Sleeping Beauty was not as big a fan of me. He liked me, sure—liked that I was always available, even though he wasn’t, liked that I would cancel plans just to see him, liked that I was good in bed. (Self proclaimed, anyway…)

But I wanted a relationship with Sleeping Beauty—and he definitely did not want one with me.

I knew how much I liked him from our second date. Before he became Sleeping Beauty, he was just S—and that first night I spent with him, we didn’t do any sleeping. (It’s not as sexy as you’d think.) After dinner, he invited me back to his place.

“I love music,” he told me, taking me into his bedroom.

“Uh, doesn’t everyone?” I said, a little tipsy. “That’s like saying you like oxygen.”

But then he showed me his CD collection: He had sleeves upon sleeves upon sleeves, all filled with CDs. I felt so nostalgic, like I was back in the ‘90s, and I remembered my very first CD: Spice Girls. (Which he had.)

While flipping through his music collection, I came upon a small zip bag full of white powder. “Oh.”

“Shit,” he said, quickly grabbing the bag. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I smiled, shrugging. “I’m not, like, offended or anything.”

He held the bag in his hands. “Did you want to…”

“Whatever you want,” I shrugged again, still smiling.

One small baggy later, I was wired. Suddenly I couldn’t stop talking: I wanted to tell him all about the music I liked, getting my Spice Girls CD on my birthday, how many times I’d listened to it—I didn’t stop to let him add to the conversation. I didn’t even stop to breathe. When I got bored of talking about music, I seamlessly started talking about movies I liked, then books I liked, then my favorite clothing designers…

When the sun rose, I realized we didn’t get any sleep the whole night through—and that I’d been talking, by myself, since we got to his apartment. I knew he liked music—and he knew everything about me. On date two.

Luckily, he still asked me out on date three—but I never did coke during a date again.