Mélanie Berliet

I was Carl’s underling, but I refused to consider myself a victim. Our audacious, perpetual flirtation was not one-sided. I could have ignored him. I could’ve avoided the girlish smiles and spurned the extra attention. Foreseen that it might not end well.

What I never expected was that one of these guys would become a constant source of entertainment.

I’m neither a scientist nor a moralist, but as soon as I learned about Liquid Trust, I had to know if the stuff worked.

You need another person to make sure you’re breathing and to prevent you from choking on your own vomit.

“He wanted you to cover your body in — what?”

As rallying cries go, “Artista, Erotica, Utopia!” is among the more ludicrous, especially for an underground pop-up strip club, where eager young women perform awkward erotic dance routines for a members-only crowd of well-off young gentlemen.

Who’s to say what I should or should not do about an appendage? Does my boyfriend think he has power of attorney over my body?

As the reality of what I’d gotten myself into set in, I began to have doubts. Maybe my parents were correct and I was, in fact, an absolute loon.

I run through the list of possible alternatives: I can feel your moods? foods? cubes? nudes? glutes? The latter might make sense, but only if we were in the reverse cowgirl position. We aren’t.

“Even if I were a blind guy and put my hands here”—he seizes my sides—“there are little lumps.”

Spontaneity is rare, and impossible to replicate.

At the age of 12, I begged my parents to send me to sleepaway camp. They complied, and I ended up at a place with a Native American-y name about three hours away from our home in Connecticut for a two-week stretch. Aside from being so miserable that I considered alleging sexual abuse by a counselor to convince my parents to collect me, a few things stood out.