"All women are sluts."

This statement is pronounced slowly with an emphasis on the word 'All'.
"Allllllll women are sluts."

'Sluts' is short, crisp, succinct. A definitive. No other word fits.
"…sluts."

I don't know what to do with this statement so I study my beer and peer into the can to see if there is a swallow left. This statement sits between us and is heavy and the silence grows. I'm not uncomfortable with the silence, but I stand up anyway muttering something about trying to find a cigarette.

I pick my way though the litter of tuxedos and dresses attempting to find my own clothes, hoping I still have one left in a spent pack somewhere, but knowing I don't.

The night is cool, too cool and we are all laughing and shivering and half drunk. It's the kind of drunk that you ease into after you've been at it since the morning. After it hits you too hard too early and you realize that you still have a long way to go. It's a Hemingway drunk.

I'm naked with a damp towel wrapped around my waist. I'm scratching my head and realize that there is no way I'm finding my clothes so I opt for a new beer instead. As I pull a couple cheap cans from the cooler I eye a stray pack and quickly snag two before anyone can spot the theft.

I'm standing feeling my skin shiver, growing tighter and I hand her the other beer. She has her legs crossed and is leaning forward slightly with her elbow resting on her knee. Between two of her fingers a lit cigarette is dangling just a few inches from her lips. She leaves it there, dangling, waiting for those lips to suck a little more life from it. She takes my offering and concentrating a bit too hard she rests the can beside her on the bench and opens it with one hand. She is gorgeous.

"They are all sluts," she says.

I wonder where she got her cigarette in my absence and tuck the extra behind my ear, out of her sight, and I sit next to her. I don't agree but offer some conciliatory, bullshit statement and she knows it's bullshit. You can tell by her eyes. They're big and very, very brown. She keeps them slit most of the time, but she has this habit of shooting them sideways at you when she's calling you out. She knows this. She knows what we're doing here and she'll pull back from the conversation or the laughter or the silence and shoot you a look that wonders if you know she is playing the role. Like we're two actors sitting here, happily reciting our lines and playing our parts and then she calls you on it. They're piercing.

"I mean, all you have to do to get a women in bed is chat her up. It..really..is..not..hard." Again with the definitive. "A little mindless prattle, a little bit of 'whereareyoufrom?' 'doyouhaveanysiblings?' 'whatdoyoudoforaliving?' Straight to bed. It's not even work. It's fucking easy."

She's tall. 5'10''
She has white skin, alabaster, almost translucent, but not pale.
She's from Manhattan.
She has these short locks of very curly hair. Like her hair was a lot longer, but she took a pair of garden shears to it.
She was the first women to strip to her underwear and jump in the pool. She was the second one in.

I didn't notice her at first. I saw her at dinner yesterday, but didn't notice her until we sat at the same table. Someone asked her about this broach she was wearing, if there was a story behind it. I think it was the bride's Aunt. Her response went something like:

'I don't fucking know.'

Not in a mean way, but more surprised. She really didn't know.

'I knew someone was going to ask me about this tonight and I thought about making up a story. But truthfully, I don't fucking know.'

What struck me was not that it was the first thing I'd heard her say in the 20 minutes she was at the table or the shocked look on the Aunt's face, but that she laughed after she said it. Hysterically. No one else was laughing but she hardly noticed.

Later I watched her in the middle of some frantic crowd at the bar. There was a gaggle of people scurrying around her, under her, over her, making frantic conversations about frantic topics. They were loud and there was shouting and cries of surprise and drunkenness. But she just leaned with her back and her two elbows on the bar and was relaxed. Just relaxed. She would engage the gaggle and laugh with the rest, but it was on her own time. She didn't move fast for anyone else. She even spoke on her own time, of her own accord.

"Just chat them up," she says again. "That is all it takes."

I do this.

I ask her about her brother and she talks, happy to be talking but not before I get the eyes. He is older and used to pick on her when she was younger, but she was thankful for it. Now he is extremely protective of her and lives somewhere in Connecticut.

I ask her what she does for a living and she tells me that she is the assistant director of a playhouse in the City. She tells me about the plays they're putting on and her hope that the theatre will take a more creative artistic direction. I nod when I'm supposed to and laugh when it's right and she's happy about this but she knows we're just chatting. We finish the beer and I've smoked the extra cigarette.

The crowd has grown quiet and the chill has chased most everyone from the pool and it's late. It's late where you have to make the decision to try and get some sleep or push though to the dawn. We grow quiet with the rest and I look for another beer but they're all gone.

The bride's sister hands me some keys and tells me that I have to drive the car back to the hotel. I agree and attempt to find the clothes that are mine. When I get back she is wearing her dress again but she's holding her shoes and her underwear in her hand. I can tell that they're still damp from the pool and I suppose she didn't want to damage her dress. She sees me notice this.

"My ride has left me and you've been instructed to take me to my parent's place. I'm staying with them tonight." Her eyes never leave mine as she says this, but she's casual about it.

I look at her and a beat, a long beat passes before I agree.

We walk down from the pool to the driveway and everyone is ahead of us climbing into their cars and pulling off to the hotel. They've found their second wind, or maybe just raided the rest of the liquor from the wedding. There is much yelling and cheers of festivity as they leave.

I'm unlocking the door to the car and the best man yells my name. He runs up out of the dark with a bruise on his face and tells me that he has also has lost his ride and needs a lift to the hotel. She is in the car and I'm wondering why I didn't leave just a minute earlier. I tell him that I'm going to run her home and then be back and he agrees.

I get in and start the car and back out of the driveway. She doesn't ask about the conversation and I don't offer. I roll down the window as the car drifts through the wide streets of the city. It is a nice neighbourhood and we don't talk as we watch the silent mansions pass by. She just points when the time comes, guiding me through the turns in silence, hardly moving as her bare shoulders are curled in the leather seat, her eyes peering out her window.

She finally points into a driveway and I pull up and turn off the engine.

"This is where my parents live. This is where I grew up."

We sit in the car for a while and I stare at the dark windows wondering which one was hers. I can hear her breathing above the silence but she doesn't say anything and I wonder if this really is her house. She opens her door and I open mine and I follow her up the driveway and I notice the moon has just started to rise.

She walks around to the side of the house and stands in front of a pair of French doors leading to her basement. I stand there as she reaches on the top of the doorframe and searches for the key. I wonder if I grabbed another cigarette from the pool, and when I fish in my pockets I'm happy to find someone's pack in my coat, or maybe it's mine. I think better of lighting the cigarette and I let the pack fall back into my pocket.

"Would you like to come inside for a drink?"

Casual, almost bored. This is how I ask people what they had for lunch, or what the weather's going to be like tomorrow. It's what I ask people when I know they want to talk, but I don't want to listen.

The first thing that occurs to me is that I don't want another drink. I'm holding the keys in my hand and I stare at the ground and I think of the best man waiting for me at the house. I think of the rest of the crowd back at the hotel with the rest of the booze. I think of the laughter and the stories and the cries that my friends are having just now. Friends I haven't seen in years. Friends whom I love. I notice that her toenails are painted black and wonder why I hadn't noticed that before.

Holding her shoes and damp underwear in her left hand, she reaches toward me with her right and with her finger she touches my hand tracing a line from my wrist to the key ring wrapped around my finger.

"I'm not asking you in for a drink."

I don't remember when we started. I don't remember when I shed my clothes or when she shed hers or if we helped each other. I don't remember the color of her dress. I don't remember if we were quiet. I don't remember if it was on the couch or the floor or a chair.

I remember she made us fresh squeezed Greyhounds.
I remember the room smelled like lilacs.
I remember her earrings.
I remember the scar she had on her knee.

She's on top of me and she has my shoulders pinned beneath her forearms. She's breathing deeply and she's not smiling. She keeps her eyes closed and licks her lips every few minutes. She's sweating. She's sweating badly and I can taste it when a drop falls on my mouth. It's very salty and tastes a little of chlorine.

Her hair is in her face and I reach up and hold it behind her head so I can see her. She opens her eyes at me and they're determined. They're not clouded with lust or desire, but they're tight. They look right into mine and we stay like that, breathing on each other, not moving until I reach my other hand to the small of her back and push her deeper onto me. She sucks in air and I roll over on top of her and we move together with our eyes locked. I pull on her shoulders and I move my mouth from her throat to her chest to her stomach to her waste. My hands are behind her as I do this and they're wet with sweat now.

She grabs my hips and pulls them toward her as her breath quickens. I can feel myself tighten and she starts to grab in air in large gasps. The sweat is mine now as I watch a drop fall from my nose to her chest. She moves her hand from my hips to my ribs and digs her nails into my back and I watch as she takes a bite of her bottom lip.

And as I feel myself tighten even more and as we move together even faster and as she pulls breath even quicker, she moves the other hand from my hip and wedges it suddenly between our bodies, like a car jack. She forces any movement to come to an immediate halt, stopping me not completely out of her but just on the edge.

"no. waitwaitwaitwaitwait…wait…wait. wait."

I don't look at her, but have my eyes closed trying to hold off, but knowing it won't be long. I'm breathing from my stomach, trying to loosen but not wanting to.

I open my eyes and see she's there too. She is starting to shudder a bit. I can feel it in her back, in her legs that are all intertwined with mine, I can see it in her eyes. We're both there, we're counting seconds, we're feeling our hearts slam in our chests, we're taut and stretched and tense with it.

"Tell me my name."

She breathes this at me, heavy, quick, all at once, like a confession, and the words fill the space between us. Her eyes are all new, wanting, uneasy, anxious. Her tongue touches her lower lip, but it's serious, nervous.

I watch her eyes and I take my hand and I move her arm from the space between us and I lean near to her and I move inside of her and I watch as she turns her head slightly, moving her ear closer to my lips, her jaw tightening along the way.

"Sarah."