Lessons from a one night stand

It’d been years since I’d woken up next to a stranger. Next to anyone else besides my ex-husband or the small soft bodies of our daughters, their hot stale breath always finding my face despite my exasperated middle of the night rearrangement.

“You can’t have sex on a first date” he said.

I didn’t want to have sex, I only wanted him to want to. And this wasn’t a date. Although he had bought me several rounds of drinks at varying locations throughout the evening. We moved through the dying nightlife of an Ohioan city, toward an unspoken common goal—my hotel room.