In college, I was madly in love with a guy named Elijah who looked like Denzel Washington. We were both undergraduate acting majors, and I spent the whole of freshman year ogling his perfect face, and perfect bottom. All I wanted out of life was the chance to have a romantic make out session with him, and seeing as how Elijah actually asking me out on a date was as likely as the Second Coming of Christ, I knew I’d have to be the one to make a move.

Dreams do come true, you see. It’s just, they tend to take an awful lot of work.

A holiday soiree was coming up at my acting school and I thought it the perfect opportunity for a casual but flirtatious conversation between and Elijah and me. There’d be free drinks and dancing and I planned to wear this slinky, red acrylic number. I also planned for Elijah to be drunk enough to think Sara Barron sure looks good in that slinky, red acrylic number. I bought my college friend, Melanie, along with me so she could act as personal cheerleader. “Go! Go! Go!” she’d shout whenever she saw Elijah disengaged from other conversations. I procrastinated for hours, however, until her enthusiasm waned.

“You promised yourself you would,” she reminded me. “I didn’t come here to watch you dance alone to Matchbox 20 songs.”

She had a point. So I summoned what speck of bravery I had within, and inched my way toward him.

Elijah stumbled drunkenly toward the door.

“ELIJAH!” I screamed.

I’m unable to be cool under pressure. I tend to opt instead for screaming while sweating.

“WAIT UP!” I screamed. “HOLD ON! DON’T GO!”

My tall drink of water turned to see what all the fuss was about.

“Oh, hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

“WHY ARE YOU LEAVING SO SOON?!” I screamed, sweating profusely at this point.

“Because I’m drunk,” he answered.

Over the course of my college career, I’d heard this rumor that drunk people were often willing to have sex more readily than sober people, and so I asked Elijah if he wouldn’t like my company en route to his dorm.

“I could walk you back,” I offered. “If, you know, you’d like the company.”

“Okay,” he said. “I guess.”

My favorite sex scene in American cinema occurs between Julia Roberts and Richard Gere in “Pretty Woman.” Two-thirds of the way through the film, there’s this scene wherein Julia realizes she’s developed feelings for her Dapper Dan, and then the two start humping feverishly atop high-thread-count sheets at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. This is pretty much what I imagined for Elijah and myself. We’d share a desirous kiss outside his dorm, then make a dash inside for a lengthy bout of lovemaking over the course of which I’d be told repeatedly how both attractive and agile I was. I envisioned a lot of tender face-holding.

Instead, Elijah only asked if I would pee on him.

It happened rather quickly. We got to his dorm, he thrust me toward the bathroom, laid his gorgeous frame across the bathtub floor, and shouted, “PEE ON ME!”

I took a pause. I mean, I knew I could pee – I’d downed a jug of lobster bisque for dinner – but  should I pee? Was this a thing that people did? If so, what happens once you’re done? Do you wipe? Who cleans up? There were these questions and myriad others. Namely, when asked to pee on a person, shouldn’t you make absolutely sure you’ve heard correctly? Shouldn’t you respond by asking, “You’d like for me to pee on you? Is that correct?” Perhaps this is a fussy way to go about it, but I think the interruption to the mood is worth it lest you let loose in a manner unsolicited.

Elijah lay prostrate in his tub and shouted again, “PEE ON ME!”

So I repeated, “Pee on you? You’d like for me to pee on you, is that correct?”

“You go, girl!” he shouted back. I thought this phrase had been reserved for tired sitcom scripts, but apparently no. It had not.

“Do your thing!” he squealed. “Pee on me!”

To be clear: This wasn’t my thing. It was his. But I was 19, spineless, and adoring, so in the end I followed through. I crouched awkwardly atop this strange and swarthy demigod and, presented with the option or To Pee or Not to Pee, decided: Pee. I let my crushing need to please kick in before my dignity. Though in the moment it happened, it felt less like some dramatic abandonment of self than perhaps I thought. It felt sort of, I don’t know, blah I guess. I peed on him, we toweled off, and then we went to bed.

As far as I’m concerned, once you pee on a person, you two are boyfriend/girlfriend. You’ve made A Connection. You’ve shared Something Special. Hence my shock at Elijah’s elusive attitude the following morning. I’d planned a packed itinerary of intercourse, then spooning, then a romantic pancake breakfast, but Elijah had other plans: First, to vomit the alcohol of out of his system, then to excuse himself to a dormitory breakfast of his own. Whether or not he had pancakes I don’t know, as I wasn’t asked to join him. He’d said, “Um. Okay. Well. Bye,” then opened his front door to let me know it was time for me to leave. I caught a faint hint of vomit on his breath, intermingled with a fainter hint of Listerine.

I hesitated. “Huh?” I was confused and unprepared to go. I couldn’t believe two people could share something as intimate as peeing and then not spoon. I couldn’t believe I’d made it to the Promised Land of Elijah’s dorm room and now would leave with nothing to show for it save an empty bladder.

Sara Barron is the author of People Are Unappealing and the forthcoming book Eating While Peeing (And Other Adventures) For more info, visit her website.

Original by Sara Barron