by Saurabh Tak

"Why would it taste sweet?" Julie had just caught, with her tongue, the watery snot running down her nose. She had trusted me the night before but wouldn't verify my hospitality until she woke up next to me that Friday morning.

On a Thursday evening, while in the middle of an art gallery crawl in Chelsea, I had paused in front of a framed likeness of a scowling Donald Rumsfeld.

"Oh I so hate Bush." The girl standing next to me spoke up.

"But that's not Bush," I pointed out.

"I know I know, but they are all the same."

"Didn't I just see you at a couple of galleries earlier?"

"I am sure you did, with that South American hipster—what a waste." She was furious because fifteen minutes into their courtship the treacherous hipster from Chile had revealed he was married. But she wouldn't despair any longer, for I had already begun to fill the void left in her evening, which, for the most part, consisted of fetching her the complimentary wine every now and then.

On our way to my apartment in the East Village she said to me, "I'd totally do you if I was not having my period." Usually when faced with such crisis, I would consult a mental list of pleasurable alternatives to intercourse. But that night I was surprised by my unprecedented maturity in bringing a girl home for something other than sex. Something like a conversation. But Julie had wanted more. "You know what would be really nice? If you had some cocaine."

The few times I had been presented with such a request before, I had taken turns being apologetic and resolute: "Oh, I am—mm—really sorry—I don't do drugs... But you know what? One of these days, I'll get around to it." This time, though, I was determined to break that pattern. Besides, the part of India I am from, Rajasthan, and the part of America I call home, Virginia, are both distinguished by the hospitality of their people. It breaks my heart every time I have to say no to a guest.

A few years before I met Julie, I had gone down to Columbia, South Carolina to attend my college roommate's wedding. That night, after the wedding, I had ended up in a Sheraton room with a Filipino girl friend of the groom. Before we went to bed, she had taken out her stash of cocaine. So I remembered it was a fine white substance. I won't tell you if I had any of that fine white substance because it might come back to haunt me when I run for governor of the great state of Virginia. But I'll tell you this—the next morning when I woke up, my nose was bleeding.

Since I had been deliberating with a grave expression on my face, I think Julie assumed I had the stuff and so she began to reassure me, "I swear I won't tell anyone, I don't even know your name... Saurabh, I'll even let you snort it off my breast." Now this was a pleasurable alternative to intercourse that I had never thought of before.

A few months before I met Julie, my mother had come to visit me from India, and of all the things she was shocked to find I could live without, sugar was the most glaring. She ran to the nearest dollar store and bought me a five pound pack of Domino sugar. Needless to say, in the last several years I had seen very little of either sugar or cocaine. But when I walked out of my kitchen holding a transparent plastic jar half full of sugar, I expected Julie to say something like, "Oh come on now!" Instead I heard this: "You keep so much in your apartment?"

By that time, I had begun to get really cocky about my self-taught acting skills. "Sshh," I said. "Even walls have ears." I felt the strongest tug of conscience when she handed me the tooter she had made out of her metrocard—if it was such a harmless prank why wouldn't I join in? But isn't she the one who wanted it? Besides, who knows—I might even wean her away from a dangerous substance to a not-so-dangerous one! So I said to her, "Well, if it were any other night it would have been okay, but Hindus are forbidden from consuming cocaine on Thursdays."

She hates Bush. She's a liberal. Liberals are sensitive people. Predictably, she respected my religious feelings, and soon enough the four white lines I had so meticulously drawn disappeared inside her nose. Sporting a beatific smile she kicked back on my red faux suede Ikea recliner. She told me she would hook me up with discounted airfares. She was a flight attendant with Continental who divided her time between Jersey and Florida. I told her I'd take her to the best dosa place in New York—this place on Newark Avenue in Jersey City. But every now and then she'd ask me, "Are you sure this is coke?" And I'd reply, "What else do you think it is—SUGAR?"

So the next morning when she woke me up complaining about the sweetness of her snot, I had to confess to her, and this time I was not sheepish about it. "You see, drugs never appealed to me. Besides, I have enough drama in my life to alter my mind."

"But I have a runny nose," she said.

"Well," I said, "at least you don't have a bloody nose."