ambergris

So tomorrow I am going to the chemists with my sister to get her the morning-after pill.

I never thought she would need the morning-after pill. I thought she was like me. I assumed that, like me, she would see out her twenties virgo intacta.

I should know better, by now, than to assume anything about anyone.

This happened all the time when I was younger. There goes another one. They'd giggle out their revelations about pain and awkwardness, all of which were oddly unsurprising, all of which failed to produce the shock or curiosity they were seeking, failed in fact to provoke any emotion in me beyond there goes another one.

People always think I am innocent, and people always assume I will be judgmental. But I was never anything like as innocent as I looked -- I read too much, absorbed too much, for that -- and I grew out of judging other people's sexual behaviour about the same time I grew out of judging my own. It was a lot like embracing atheism, actually; once I'd established where I stood, other people's positions made no difference to me anymore. I didn't scorn people's belief in God; I was merely baffled by it. I don't condemn people for having one-night stands; I'm just puzzled that they do.

Oh, I can imagine being a person who believes in God, and I can imagine being a person who has sex with strangers. I'd be a pretty crappy writer if I couldn't. But I can't imagine me as one of them. It's just not how I'm wired.