It Wasn’t Me

“Whatever you do, don’t look behind me.”

This story is from Kate, a 24-year-old merchandising assistant in NYC, as told to Raz:

Just a warning: This bad date may have been my fault. OK, it was definitely my fault.

You see, when Dalton invited me to a formal party as his date, I was nervous. My general reaction to being nervous? I drink heavily.

Anyway, I got all dressed up, and we went to the party. Glad there was an open bar, I drank until I was having a good time. Then I drank some more. Apparently, he was having a good time too, since he asked me back to his place afterward.

We started making out on his bed, but before we’d gotten very far, he excused himself to go to the bathroom. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so good. I thought I might even throw up. No, I was definitely going to throw up. And I did—right in the middle of his bed.

Drunk and disgusted, I panicked. How could I fix this before he got back? I went with the first plan that came to mind—distract him. I stripped off all my clothes and posed on the bed, blocking the pool of vomit.

When he returned, he was surprised by my sudden nakedness. But it still only took him about three seconds to notice the mess I’d made.

“Did you throw up on my bed?” he asked.

“What? No.” Yup, denial was the best option I could come up with at this point.

“Yes you did. You threw up in my bed.”

“No,” I was not going to back down. “It was you!”

“It’s OK,” he said. “Just get up so I can change the sheets.”

“I swear, it was you,” I said, grudgingly standing up. “You threw up in the bed.”

He threw the sheets in the hamper, changed them to new ones, and I passed out on top of them instantly.

The next morning, I was mortified. And I tried my very hardest to sneak out without him noticing. Still naked, I found my bra and dress on the floor—but couldn’t find my panties. Well, this was a problem. Dalton woke up as I was frantically checking under the bed.

“Hi,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t find my underwear.” We both had the realization at the same time—they were in the vomit sheets. The thought of going through that hamper made me feel sick all over again. But Dalton didn’t seem to fret it and fished my thong out of the pile while I hid my face in his pillow.

I apologized profusely, offering to do his laundry about twelve times as I left. He laughed it off, continuously telling me that it was completely fine. What a guy.

I later learned from our mutual friend that the reason he was so cool about the whole thing was because he had a plastic mattress protector—since he had a tendency to wet the bed.

Is it wrong that I judged him?