Happens, Happens Not by Ann Sable
Image by Mart Production for Pexels
“You can't say that you're into MILFs if you're in your thirties. That's just liking women your age,” says Dilyara. We're shivering outside the club; she's smoking, and I'm watching my trembling fingers. If I squint, my glittery nail polish turns to frost.
“Maybe...” It's tough to compose a sentence as all words are jumbled in my mind, but I try again and push the thought through my lips. “Maybe as you grow, the MILF grows with you as well.”
“You mean...” Dilyara starts to speak but then gets distracted. “Look, Sabine is here.”
I turn quickly: Sabine is floating towards the entrance, and I devour her short, sparkly dress, her high ponytail and the glow of her skin. My hand raises up to wave, which she doesn't notice.
“What the hell are you doing? Is that a Nazigrüß? Get your hand down,” hisses Dilyara.
I drop my hand quickly. There is no embarrassment— that was swallowed by the acid— but I know that future me, anxiously retracing the events of this night, will be horrified.
“What were we talking about?” Dilyara asks. She still has the cigarette in her mouth, but it's not lit anymore. I am too aware of my teeth. Do I have too many? My tongue touches each of them, one by one.
“Let's go inside,” I say.
The sound of the club deafens me as I rapidly become less of myself. Dilyara gets us water. Her face is flushed. I don't remember who we came with, but a familiar figure is lying on the sofa in the corner of the room, and someone's head is moving around it.
I search for Sabine. She is somewhere, swallowed by a swamp of bodies. I want to see her face and trace the contours of her figure.
“Have you seen Mario?” screams Dilyara in my ear, pointing to the corner. The familiar figure receives the name ‘Mario’. He barely moves. The body on top of him is definitely female. Are they kissing? Or is there something else that happens there, concealed from my view, some hasty movement, some body contact?
(I once promised Mario that we would go to a gay bar together. We had been smoking in his room, both on top of the covers of his king-sized bed. He had talked about things that had never happened to him: the kisses that had never been exchanged, the opportunities he had never taken. I joined in, moved by his earnest expression, inexplicably drawn to his long tangled hair and tall figure. I said, “I'll go with you. We'll go to the gay bar together,” and touched his shoulder. I longed for him to go, to lock eyes with some man, to share the desire with someone.)
“Let's dance,” mouths Dilyara. I follow her, and we move under the searching light. It is too bright and too hot, and it feels as if every centimetre of my skin is being X-rayed.
Are there lesbians in gay bars? Are they more frequent visitors than straight women? Is there somewhere an actual, gigantic lesbian bar, flooded with women, having sex?
The DJ keeps making a disturbing, scratching sound between tracks. I hate it. It feels as if my heart beats faster every time I hear it. If it continues this way, my heart will destroy my ribcage and get out. I imagine it trembling on the dirty floor like a fish that escaped from an aquarium.
Sabine appears out of nowhere and inserts herself between the wall and us.
“Dilyara,” she says. “Anita,” she adds. Her dress absorbs disco light, and her smile is wide. One of her teeth is a bit crooked, I always loved that about her.
(I had been drunk the first time we met. She said she loved my outfit and later held my hair while I puked. The next embarrassing morning, recounting everything I said wrong, I shivered with desire and shame, thinking about her.)
“How are you?” Sabine screams in my direction and touches my arm.
“Wanna go for a cigarette?” I ask, even though neither of us smokes.
“Sure.” She nods. I did not expect that. Mario has separated himself from his partner and slowly moves in our direction. He has a weird smirk plastered on his face. Or maybe he always smiled this way and I just never noticed how weird it was; how his mouth corners seem to do completely different things as if he is having a stroke rather than smiling.
“Are you having a stroke?” I ask him. He nods and closes his eyes, moving smoothly with the music. His body immediately takes all remaining space.
“Shall we go outside?” Sabine looks at me expectedly. I nod, then follow. We are going together through the room full of sweat and movement. Lighting keeps changing, so Sabine keeps disappearing and coming back into my vision.
(I have dreamt of meeting Sabine at a common friend’s party and having a conversation about my thesis. At the end of the evening, we would go outside and she would say she was cold and I would give her my jacket, which would suit her perfectly. We would start making out on the platform, waiting for the metro train. I would leave a lipstick stain on her skin.)
We are passing some vaguely familiar people: they smile in recognition, and we return the smiles. One of them once left his AirPods at my place and terrorised me with messages about their whereabouts. Or was it his twin brother?
Sabine gets her leather jacket: it fits with her dress, and I am trying to word the compliment, something about the textures going together in an intricate way, which makes the outfit obviously thought through.
(I have dreamt of Sabine joining us for a trip to the lake. She would take off her clothing in her confident way, showing off her body. The sunscreen would have to be involved somehow: would she ask me to rub it onto her shoulders? It would be so sunny, so bright, and she would be so beautiful, pale and slim.)
Outside remains freezing and unwelcoming. I shiver and grind my teeth. People are blocking most of the pathway, smoking and drinking. Everyone speaks in hushed tones and the security guy keeps loudly reminding everyone about the neighbours.
“I do not have cigarettes on me”, says Sabine. I helplessly pat my dress. Neither do I.
“Oh.” I say, to not be silent.
She laughs: the vibration of the sound comes from within her chest. She looks around and asks someone for a cigarette and a lighter. Her German is melodic and energetic.
“We will have one for two, is that okay?” She giggles. I nod solemnly. The cigarette is in between her lips.
I want to ask: “How's your mom?” but then remember that I do not know anything about her mom. I suppose she has one; I did go through her Facebook page, but it has not been updated in years. In one picture she is with a woman who looks sort of similar to her: something about the way their eyes are squinting when they smile; but it could very well just be another older relative.
She slowly inhales, then coughs, her palm covering her mouth for a second.
“How’s work?” I try to start a conversation.
“Still unemployed,” she responds cheerfully. “I am thinking about moving to Berlin.” Everyone always thinks about that.
“It’s so difficult to find a place there,” I say.
“I was so happy to see you today.” She touches my shoulder. “You look so good!”
“It’s from the new Liu Jo collection,” I say. I had to cut down on coffee, alcohol and paying for public transportation to afford it.
She beams at me.
“People just look so great,” Sabine continues. “So beautiful, don’t you think? I think everyone is beautiful, each in their own unique way. You just have to find the correct key, the right angle to look…”
I want to make a joke, there is something about a blindfold, something obvious, but humour dissipates and the sentence refuses to form; all the blocks are there but I lack the power to stack them together.
“I am pan, you know. Do you know this about me? I think I am capable of loving everyone,” she keeps talking. The cigarette is in her fingers and she passes it to me. She is so breathtakingly beautiful.
(I have dreamt of: staying at Sabine’s commune, taking a shower there. Standing underneath the hot water, when she enters the bathroom. She goes to the sink, washes her hands, looks in the mirror, and our eyes lock. The water keeps falling: cold in the sink, hot on top of my body. We watch each other in the same mirror: she is dressed, and I am naked, though the steam conceals me. She turns around and now faces me…)
“What about you?” she asks, her voice trembles and pace quickens.
“I am bisexual,” I say. My past consists exclusively of men but I get goosebumps every time a lingerie ad pops up on YouTube.
“Can I kiss you?” Sabine looks at me.
That should not happen. I feel my throat getting tense, my heart is speeding up. She looks at me with bright eyes. Her features are softened by the outside darkness. If I would have a moment to collect my thoughts, to paint a fantasy worthy of this moment…
I nod hastily and move my head, so she can just peck me on the cheek.
“Thank you,” I say. “Shall we go inside? It’s cold.”
(I have dreamt of dating Sabine. Going to cafes, thrift stores, bookshops, and flea markets until we are tired of consuming. We would be having neverending walks; I would hold her hand. She would come to eat lunch with me in the office. We would make Christmas postcards together: both in the obligatory silly sweaters, ironic, very ironic postcards. I would meet her mother. We would get a dog from the shelter).
I am joining Dilyara and Mario again. I feel shame and annoyance. My shoulders are stiff: the tension has crawled its way through me. It rose up and overwhelmed my whole being.
“How was it?” asks Dilyara. I shrug. We move with the music and I shut my eyes close. Sabine does not join us.
The metro trains are going every ten minutes when we reach the station.
“I have a lecture in four hours,” says Dilyara, and squints, looking into the selfie camera, trying to remove some of the makeup with the tips of her fingers. In the morning light, her face looks too sharp. Her mascara is smeared and the foundation is patchy. “So what were you and Sabine talking about?”
“Just some small talk,” I lie.
“Cool, man,” she curves her lips. “Ask her out already, I am pretty sure she is at least bi-curious.”
“I will,” I lie again, watching my reflection on the vending machine. I look thinner lately; could it be that people lose weight from acid?
The train arrives, and we seat ourselves silently. A woman in a suit sits across from us, scrolling something on her smartphone. I forgot it’s Friday.
What is wrong with me? I ask myself, watching my glittery nails. The cloudiness is wearing off, and my memories, while still stained, have a sober quality. I think of Sabine, reaching for me, her lips touching my cheek.
Why didn’t I kiss her, properly? Why didn’t I passionately force her against the wall, my tongue touching her teeth and her mouth? Why didn’t we go to the bathroom together, lock the cabin, why didn’t I get down on my knees in front of her, pull her dress to the side and…?
“How do you think lesbian sex between preying mantises looks like?” Dilyara breaks the silence.
“Why would I care?” I look at her.
“Well, do you think it is sort of a competition, who will eat the other’s head first?”
I roll my eyes and ignore Dilyara until Münchner Freiheit, where we exchange goodbyes.
What happened? I ask myself this, as I am getting up the stairs, yet again met by the cold morning air. Why didn’t I kiss Sabine, why didn’t I allow her to kiss me? Was that just because I was less of myself this night and the moment was wrong?
The moment was never wrong before with men; I have never cared much about the surroundings or the state of mind, easily kissing whoever.
I hastily cross the road, past the dry cleaners, where they once burnt a hole in my kimono, past the too-expensive Vietnamese eatery I can not afford, past the student bar I have never entered.
Could it be that years of forbidden longing crippled me? That instead of being a bisexual, I became some sort of voyeuristic being, interested only in ogling and objectifying women, but never to actually fuck them? Could it be that I am something else now, that the parts of me which were supposed to initiate sex with women have atrophied?
I am nervously looking for the keys, tapping my clutch. The wallet and the lipstick now smell like smoke: is it from Dilyara or from Sabine?
(I have dreamt of bringing Sabine to this building, to show her my well-decorated immaculate room. She would sit down on my bed and stare at me. I would make her coffee, and sit next to her. She would turn her head in my direction, just a little bit… But, of course, we wouldn’t kiss.)
I enter my room, hastily undress, and fold my clothes before putting them in the basket. The smell of smoke lingers in the air.
I won’t talk to Sabine again.
I brush my hair, watching my pale face in the mirror. My eyes are glassy and the whites are bloodshot.
I probably never really liked her anyway, that is what I decide between removing my make up and brushing my teeth. It was all an illusion, a wishful thinking, a weird desire to be different than others, I am straight, I have no romantic interests in women, my only source of suffering are visas and too vivid of imagination.
I dream. Sabine and I are eating breakfast together. She smiles and I butter the toast. Everything is good.
