Love 'em and leave 'em

Venus readers dish on their one-night stands

By Jen Hazen
Published: May 28th, 2004 | 2:50pm

And a one, and a two, and a three …
by Erika Mikkalo

I established the pattern of one-shots by age 17, but the truth is that there are few off the roster that I’d care to revisit. For the most part, these were squalid experiences motivated by sadness, loneliness, and false bravado. I have had sex (I think?) in full blackout, been struck, and had various rude and insulting things said to me. Nothing to be ashamed of, but nothing to be glamorized, either.

Some kid from Minnesota was recently immortalized in verse – apparently the editor of a downstate journal does not share my opinion that the phrase “cock like an infant’s arm” holds unique literary merit. The kid was the third in my initial tendencies to play “touch the pretty”, as well as the most kind and intuitively talented.

A wandering minstrel from Berkeley who wouldn’t fuck (and from what nature gave him, I wouldn’t necessarily have noticed if he’d tried) but was generous enough to go down on me all night. He also got annoyingly spiritual: “How did you find me?”

A specimen who was actually a three-night stand, a six-foot three in sock feet on the floor mac daddy lady’s man with a rattlesnake engraved around his right arm and a more substantial serpent in his pants. I had been concerned that the gun and the motorcycle were attempts at Freudian compensation, but discovered that my fears were for naught.

A guy can be over endowed, but this one was conscientious enough about the warm-up that such potential discomfort was avoided. He bragged that he hadn’t read a book in 11 years. I got him to read a book. There’s one male on the face of the planet who could pull off calling me “super-smart kitten.” – So, thanks, stranger(s).

—

French Kicks
by J. St. Peters

I was only going to be in Montpellier once. I met him at his house. He was throwing a major party before he moved out. Ben was an art student with long dreadlocks and a handsome, rugged face. We talked about queer theory, feminism, and our similar music tastes.

After a morning spent watching the sunrise, he drove me around the beautiful French city on his motorbike, turning around at every red light to kiss me. It is one of the only times in my life that I felt as though I was in a movie of my life, a hyper-realized fantasy collected in the minutes I saw the ancient walls flash by me.

It wasn’t the best sex I had ever had, but it was the most needed. After a series of unhealthy sexual experiences I hadn’t had sex in over a year. As I got massaged, tongued, and thoroughly fucked by the French boy I knew I would never see again, some rift inside me healed. He asked me what I wanted and did what I told him to do. During the short time we were together I experienced more physical respect and tenderness from him than I had in a very long time.

The best ending came in the form of a letter I received a month after I got back from Europe. Ben wrote that he would always remember my smile, and instructed me to enjoy life to the fullest. The moments we shared renewed my faith in one-night stands.