I didn't have time to find a proper Halloween costume, so I improvised. With a white t-shirt, a low-cut black minidress with long sleeves and a hemline that shot skyward when I bent, a white headband, a black scarf that covered my hair, perilously high heels, and a necklace borrowed from a roommate with the Christ in agony, I made a passable mockery of a nun. My boyfriend, lover, dom, who was completing a residency in internal medicine at the time, dressed in a hospital gown as a patient.
We partied at a night club in the city. I danced with him but not to the exclusion of many others. The men touched me on the floor, their hands fondling my chest, brushing along my legs, grabbing my ass, reaching underneath the skirt. I allowed the tongues of strangers to slash between my lips.
Though our relationship had always been open, the boyfriend was noticeably jealous. His eyes showed a steely glint, his face a frown. Despite having given up the habit a month after we started dating, he told me that he needed a smoke, which he materialized from a pocket, and took me up a flight of stairs, through a maze of corridors, and onto a balcony. He inhaled deep drags out of the joint while I sipped from my bottle of beer. We made small talk in the brisk autumn air.
