Looking for lust in all the wrong places

My friend and I were both in romantic ruts. We decided we needed a successful night on the town, ideally with a wild, lusty story we could laugh about the next day. We put on shiny skirts, fishnets, tall boots and even mascara. This should sound pathetically familiar to many of you.

At the time we were Davis residents and not too familiar with Sacramento nightlife. But we had heard of Faces on K and 20th streets.

My friend brought this Italian foreign-exchange student—tall and tan with long, flowing blond hair and a thick accent. He was the kind of guy who could meet someone and immediately say, “Your legs look so smooth that I simply must grope them,” and not get slapped. Anyway, they had been hooking up. He brought another woman that he had been sleeping with. And the four of us downed espressos at 10 p.m. and journeyed across the Causeway.

We quickly felt our inhibitions loosen after a few whiskey sours at The Mercantile Saloon on 20th and L streets. Across the way, Faces’ dance floors were already packed. The pool was, as always, a comical sight. The beats begged us to move for hours, so we did. My friend, the Italian and his friend traded grinding positions, and I pretended I didn’t know them.

The club cleared out just before 2 a.m. But the neon lights were still going strong, and I could no longer ignore the Italian pressing my friend and his friend together to kiss at last. Somehow it worked.

It wasn’t until we drunkenly stumbled into an all-night diner that we silently acknowledged the bizarre, unfortunate dynamic we had gotten ourselves into. No one had sex that night.

How did we fail? We had the go-getter mindset. We were scantily clad. We had liquid courage.

I like to think any sin can be manufactured on demand. Otherwise, what’s the point of ever shaving and wearing black lace?

Recently, I took to Facebook and my most reliably adventuresome friends to curate a how-to-lust guide.

Unfortunately, I only got these suggestions: “Ingredients: 3 parts rum and coke. 2 parts shots. 2 parts uber credit. 1 part bar tab like it’s payday. 1 part partner with low self esteem”; “1 low class alley. 1 top shelf can of spray paint with included paper bag”; and “Find a place serving seared foie.”

I think lust best happens with complete strangers for unexplainable, unreasonable reasons and in bizarre, uncomfortable locations, like a children’s playground, public restroom or castle rooftop. Not that I know anything about any of that.

Perhaps lust needs to be spontaneous.

Or maybe we just failed that night because we were straight kids at a gay club.

Maybe. Ω