On Saturday I was hanging out in the center of Antwerp with my mates. This city is my home town in Belgium. Definitely not a place where I do daygame. It was 3 p.m. as I was leaving the city and driving to my parents’ house in the countryside. The weather was unusually warm and sunny for October. As I was driving, I recall the streets being packed.

The urge to do at least a couple of sets overcame me. After all, my last session was more than two weeks ago in Berlin. I U-turned the car and hit the center by myself, carefully ignoring any texts from mates to hit up some bars the afternoon.

Crossing the Groenplaats, I passed a curious girl wearing a ridiculously large white penguin-like mantle. She was carrying a gargantuan bag of Belgian fries with mayonnaise. In short, all the tell tale sings of a curious solo-travelling tourist. Turning around, I saw she had a very good looking Slavic face with full, but natural, lips.

I opened her with a stack about her looking Eastern European, and accusing her of being a hungry little tourist. Turns out she was Russian. She quite enjoyed talking to me and offered me some of her fries. We strolled along the main shopping street for an instant date.

The male-female polarity felt good from the start. Nevertheless, I deliberately looked for occasions to turn the conversation sexual: “Did you know, this chapel building used to be a brothel”. I agreed agreed-and-amplified her accusations that I was hitting on her. As we were walking side-by-side there was no kino.

The Botanical Garden

I got us a coffee and sat us down on a secluded bench in the Botanical Garden. To my dismay, she sat down on the opposite end of the bench, and but her bag between us for good measure. “Am I being tooled by a bored tourist girl?”, I wondered.

“It’s my birthday tomorrow”, she said, “as I’m alone, I’m probably going to celebrate it with some tramps in Brussels under a bridge”. I nodded and pegged her further up towards r on the r/K-spectrum. Because of the distance, I decided to generate some comfort by building rapport. I discovered she’s a hydro technical engineer from Russia working in Vienna. She has a tackle dog whose name I carefully noted for future reference. I mentioned that I had one of these too which instantly brought us closer¹.

Mechelseplein

After the coffee, she was happy to bounce to the Mechelseplein, a nearby square filled with bars serving Belgian² beers on terrace tables in the center. We took turns paying for drinks. This girl loved her alcohol… By the first pint, we were eye-fucking each other. Her icy expression on the bench melted to reveal a cheeky grin. I excuses myself to the toilet, and as I looked back, our eyes locked as she grinned ear-to-year. “Yes, this set is on”, I reassured myself.

As dusk approached, it was starting to get cold. I offered to go inside and we sat on a table. I indicated a bench by the wall, wide enough for two, but she insisted on sitting in front of me³. I tried to hide my disappointment and cheerily sat on the bench while inviting her to take the chair in front of me. After some talking, I asked to see her hand to examine her rings⁴. She kept a straight face, but let me caress her hand, as she slowly whirled her fingers around my palms.

After two beers, I bounced her to yet another square under the pretext of “showing her the royal art museum”. To my surprise, as we got up and strolled over the ancient cobblestones, she wrapped her arm around mine. “I love how green this city is”, she said, stopping to grasp at an overhanging vine. I felt this was my window: I stroke a strand of hair away from her forehead, and went for the kiss. She smiled, but turned her cheek at the last moment. Careful not to show any disappointment, I said: “come on, let’s get to the square before it gets cold”.

On our way there, she rebuffed another kiss attempt. This was not going to be easy after all…

KMSKA

As we crossed the museum square, we took a picture together. She pressed her cheek deep into my as we both drunkenly smiled at the camera. She rebuffed another kiss attempt. “Motherfucker”, I thought… I was starting to lose my cool. “What is this set missing?” I wondered, as I bounced her to a nearby bar⁵.

The time was ripe for the Question Game. The questions took a sexual tone almost immediately and she didn’t hold back:

• “Yeah, I prefer it when men are rough.”
• “My last time was two weeks ago when I persuaded my gay best friend to fuck me.”
• We both shared the belief that “pity is the greatest form of contempt”.

My frustration was starting to get the better of me: “are you attracted to me?” I asked. She said: “yes”. “Then why are you refusing to kiss me?” I said. I can’t remember the details of the conversation, but I was breaking down the 4th wall by explicitly talking about the seduction process. I couldn’t shake the feeling this girl was playing me.

“Look, I’m going to meet my friends later tonight” I said, starting to get colder. “No - no let’s get one more drink”, she insisted, “just one more bar”. We got our coats and went out into the night.

Troonplaats

Walking south towards the Troonplaats we locked our arms again. Perhaps it was the alcohol, but I could feel her leaning her shoulder into me. About 50 meters further, I saw another overhanging vine, similar to the one we saw earlier. “You see that vine?” I said. “When we pass under it, I’m going to kiss you.” She didn’t protest, but cheekily said “ooh, we’re really close now”. And few moments later added “ooh, we’re nearly there…”. As we passed under the vine, I put my hands on her shoulders, turned her to face me and pressed my lips onto hers. She gave me a proper kiss - tongue and all.

Although relieved, my anxiety and suspicion got the better of me. “Did you kiss me out of pity?” I asked her, recalling our discussion in the bar. “Does this feel like pity to you?” she said, drawing her face close, and kissing me for what felt like half a minute. Thoroughly satisfied that the man-woman vibe was explicitly established, I let go off any worries, and spent the rest of the evening in a relaxed bliss.

We soon arrived at Bar d’Henri where we were allocated a discrete table in the back. We sat across each other, but I didn’t pay attention to it. More beers - this girl could drink like a mule. Conversation became more sparse as we were now comfortable with our mutual silence. Instead we were caressing each other’s hands, while making deep eye contact. In my drunken haze, her penetrating eyes cut through the fog, grounding me even as the world swayed. Suddenly she grabbed my collar, and pulled me in across the table, and landed a heavy kiss. My left arm was now caressing one of her larger-than-average tits.

Bounce to her hotel

I felt I could pull the trigger. “You should probably head home for your train tomorrow morning,” I said, “let me walk you to your hotel - I know where it is.” She didn’t protest. After settling the bill, I quickly checked for an Uber: 28 euro. Fuck. I checked the local tram schedule, and found that the next tram would be there in 10 minutes. I grabbed her by the hand, and expertly navigated her to the tramp stop just one kilometer away. Me knowing Antwerp so well allowed me to physically lead her from the very start of our adventure.

We arrived at the hotel with our love bubble intact. She still had to check in. This hotel had an outside self-service desk for late-night check-ins. It involved scanning her passport and typing in personal data - an activity that was harder than it needed to be because of our intoxicated condition. To make matters worse, a group of Danish teenagers arrived with their teacher. Surprisingly, they were all very well-behaved, and stood on the sidewalk patiently waiting until we sorted things out. Me and the girl looked more like passionate teenagers than the did.

The check-in was now complete, but the door didn’t open. At this point I had the stupid idea of just ringing the bell to ask for help. A night guard opened, checked her papers, and let us both in, followed by the train of Danes. “My room is on the second floor,” she said.

Just as I was about to follow her to the escalator, I hear the night guard’s voice behind me “excuse me sir, but this is a one person room. You can’t follow her there”. I knew it was pointless to negotiate. She knew it too. I gave her one last kiss and left to meet my friends, who at that point were wondering what I’ve been up to.

Arriving there, in a drunken mix of excitement and frustration, I spilled all the beans of my daygame adventure, while we played cards. A couple and two mates. I poached two cigarettes from the couple and thus broke a two week non-smoking spree. It may have been the greatest nicotine rush I had that month, feeling it spread to my fingertips, as I said on the balcony taking in the night city skyline.