sex and the city

Over the holiday weekend, I spent a few days in San Francisco with 3 women who knew me back in the braces-and-glasses days. One was my first friend after transferring to a new school in the 6th grade, another was my tennis partner in high school, and another whose friendship I initially purchased with forged off-campus passes. These women were not the classmates who I shared friendly chit-chat with everyday in honor classes. They were the "bad" girls, or, as I thought and still think of them, the fun ones.

We saw shadows of fireworks through dense fog. We talked about sex. We shopped at fancy shops and ate a lot of seafood. We contemplated massages and watched movies. We reminisced and made fun of each other. We went dancing. We talked and talked and talked about sex. Frank, hilarious, disturbing and insightful conversations about sex that I once believed only took place between fictional characters on cable television shows. (I stand corrected.)

Yet at the end of our time together, I remember little of the city or of the sex talk. What I do recall -- with great ease and affection -- are the unabashed transparency and the freedom to hold and speak different opinions, rooted in the unspoken belief that friends are the ones we come home to, the ones who see and know us without our makeup. Now, as before, they rescue me from the tedium of polite society.