The first time it happened, I was 17. It was 1992; the summer before my senior year of high school. I was in Seattle on a date with a 19-year-old named Janusz, who I had met via a BBS. We met at the Rosebud Cafe on Capitol Hill (which was not the bar that it is now—it was just a coffee shop), and got along smashingly. He was an Evergreen College drop-out, and I was a wide-eyed ingenue. We both had our share of idealism and he had long strawberry blond hair and seemed cute at the time. Not at all vomit-inducing.

After mulling over coffee and walking around for several hours, we decided we were hungry, and caught a bus up the Stella’s, in the Udistrict. This was part of a carefully planned “accident” of mine. The last ferry back to Bainbridge Island leaves downtown Seattle at 2:10 a.m. We arrived at Stella’s after 1 a.m., and there was no way, after eating, that I would make it back in time to catch the ferry. This meant that, Oops!, I would have to stay in Seattle overnight. Many Island teens have made this “mistake,” although few have had the same outcome.

I called my parents from Stella’s and informed them that I mis-planned my evening, and wouldn’t be able to make it back on the last ferry. They were concerned, but not angry. I reassured them that I’d catch the 5:25 a.m. boat home. I hung up the phone thinking, “This is the night Ariel finally has some fun.” (Did I mention I was an ingenue? And did I mention that I’m using “ingenue” as a euphemism for “total virgin”?)

Returning to the table where Janusz waited for me, I announced that I would be staying the night in Seattle. He smiled, I smiled, and we got back to talking. It was clear where the evening was headed.

Then, I started to feel a little sick. My stomach knotted and I felt the blood drain from my face. Ever the socialite, I ignored the feelings, and kept chatting. Oh, so you read Nietzsche last year! Interesting. The feeling got worse. The waitress came to take our order.

“Um, just some tea and salad for me, please,” I demurred, when only 20 minutes prior I’d been ranting about how hungry I was. When Janusz enquired, my veneer finally cracked. “I’m feeling a little nauseous,” I admitted. He was concerned. Then I bolted for the bathroom.

I vomited a couple times before returning to the table as my tea arrived. “No, no, I’m fine!” I tried to chirp, the inevitable crusts of puke in the corners of my mouth exposing my lie. “You don’t look ok,” he commented.

I smiled and gurgled, “Will you excuse me again?” and ran back to the bathroom, kneeling on the green checked floor boasted by Italian restaurants everywhere and dry heaving. It’s important to note that I did not drink alcohol at all during this time of my life. Nor had I eaten anything strange.

Returning a third time to the table, I couldn’t pretend anymore. “I feel awful,” I said, adding as I checked my “Queen of the World” watch, “And I just missed that ferry.” Janusz was suitably concerned. We paid our bill and left the restaurant.

“Can we go to your house?” I asked. “I just need to lay down.” Sadly, the line that would garner me action in later years was ineffective this time. To this day, I’m not sure whether the busses really weren’t running to Janusz’s house anymore (as he claimed), whether he was ashamed of his home (Rented room with black light-sensitive role playing game posters? Rotting basement apartment with cat piss on the mattress? Hallway of an old friend’s, with a yellowed sheet as a door? …the mind boggles at the range of foul living situations 19-year-old boys have at their disposal), or whether there was something else at play, but going to Janusz’s house was not the option I’d lasciviously thought it was.

I almost vomited on the sidewalk.

“I know a place we can go,” Janusz said, turning me toward the University of Washington campus, and holding my arm as I wobbled down the street. We ended up at the Student Computing Center. A fitting place for two young geeks who’d met through a BBS…and conveniently open all night. There was a round padded bench that wrapped around a column in the foyer, and this was where we spent the night. I think I vomited one more time in the ladies’ room, and then I passed out with my head on Janusz’s coat, with him sitting beside me, quite chivalrously keeping guard through the night. I think he petted my hair a few times, but mostly I just slept off my nausea until 4:45 a.m., when it was time to head back to the ferry terminal.

What is this Regurgatory Erotic Response? Starting with that night in 1992, and continuing to this day, when it looks like I’m going to get a little nookie from some fresh meat, I vomit. It’s a frustrating and disgusting stomach mutiny, as vomiting is not typically sexy. But it has had outcomes better than the night with Janusz.

[Tomorrow: Part II - Bauhaus, 1995]