hello stranger

by Molly Higgins

At first, it was an ordinary Friday. It was spring in southern California, a perfect seventy-three degrees; bright tropical flowers imported from islands were in bloom and their pungent fragrance cut through the smells of rotting trash, street hot dogs, and gasoline exhaust that permeated the downtown Los Angeles streets.

I was close to finishing my first year at UCLA, and some Fridays, when I didn’t have class, I would take the day to myself. I rode the bus from Westwood to the nearest metro and ended up downtown on the corner of 7th and Flower. I went to my favorite coffee shop, the one with ten-dollar pastries lining the counter and insanely beautiful baristas who wouldn’t give you the time of day if they weren’t paid to. I got my latte and sat down, re-reading Giovanni’s Room and dreaming of a toxic love affair in Paris while pretending to ignore the man pissing in the alleyway beside me. 

During my beloved day-off routine, I’d often walk down to The Broad, a sexy, new museum right in the center of everything. Its curved white exteriors and asymmetrical frame made it a west coast Guggenheim knockoff. If their line was too long, I’d venture to my old neighborhood, Little Tokyo, and walk around the Arts District, which was packed with contemporary art, like piles of dirt on the floor, and twisted metal trash hanging from rafters. The MOCA and The Geffen were each great places to escape the perfect spring weather in Los Angeles and spend the day inside a white building filled with untouchable pieces worth millions.

I was about halfway done with my latte when I checked The Broad’s website—no tickets were available for the rest of the day. I scrolled through my phone to see who might be nearby and willing to grab another cup of coffee or meet for an early happy hour cocktail. 

The only person I knew close by was a semi-reputable photographer whose downtown loft apartment I went to a few weeks prior for a photoshoot. I had been modeling for the past couple months—I wasn’t signed or paid in much except for free merch and Instagram likes. It was the early beginnings of the “body positive movement,” and having only one hand, while still being blonde, white, and thin, was radical enough for a lot of companies who wanted to dip their toes into inclusivity without doing the real work of dismantling oppressive beauty standards. Of course, I was complicit in this, as well, but it felt good that my differences started to be celebrated rather than being made to be something disgusting that I had to hide away.

I don’t even know why I agreed to go to this photographer’s apartment alone. I knew about the horrible ways men with even the smallest amount of power would twist and hang it over you the first chance they got.

I suppose I went because I thought the photographer was a “nice guy” (or at least presented that way). Eventually, he talked me into posing for some modest, topless shots—assuring me that no one, including himself, would see anything but my bare back. He gave little direction except “curve your back so your ass looks bigger” and told me to pout with my eyes, like he was withholding something from me that I wanted. I felt awkward and stagnant before the camera. My short, shriveled arms didn’t move the way I wanted, and my smile seemed like a grimace.

To be clear, he didn’t assault me. Actually, we had good banter between us. He asked me questions about myself and gave me a private room to change in. Really looking at it, I had been respected more by this male photographer than most of my friends, who were real models, ever had been.

I decided no, I wouldn’t reach out. What did I have in common with this man in his mid-thirties who, like every other male photographer I had encountered up to this point, was probably predatory (or predatory-adjacent) and had subpar artistic abilities? As with most men, I’m sure it would end up as a boring coffee or cocktail hang out, where he would push things as far as he could because he’s a man and could. And I—like most other women—would only take it as far as I had to in order to not get murdered, hoping it would end well enough to become a funny anecdote at brunch with my friends the next day. 

I don’t know why I did these things so often. It’s like I needed my life to be interesting; I wanted to have adventures and stories to tell my friends—proof that my disabled life could still be full of surprise. We aren’t all trapped in a basement, merely looking out at a world we aren’t a part of, after all.

“Hey, how’re you doing this lovely afternoon?” A man standing over me on the cafe’s patio asked, with a slight Russian accent.

I looked up from my coffee, squinting to see who this stranger was and why he was talking to me.

I didn’t recognize him. He was in his late twenties, blonde, and a sort of Burning Man vibe—a gold nose ring and some artistic tribal tattoos scrawled on his arms. 

“Hey, I’m good. What’s up?” I said with the caution women must have when strange men attempt to strike up conversations.

“Can I buy you a coffee? I see you’re almost done with yours.”

He was cute but not my type. Still, I could see the appeal.

“Sure,” I said with a smile. I’m not sure why I did that. I knew that coffee was always more than coffee. 

“Here you go,” the man said when he got back from the barista counter, setting down a steaming cup and pulling up a chair. “I’m Mikhail, by the way.”

He stuck out his hand, and I awkwardly put my small left hand in his right as we shook. 

I made sure he saw my arms. Sometimes, it is fun to test people’s reactions. When you’re disabled, you really have a better understanding of human nature. You can immediately tell when someone’s eyes can’t stop flickering back to your arms, or when people avoid looking at them at all. Everyone secretly wonders how and why, but conventions of society prevent them from asking—most of the time. It’s fun to withhold that power. I know you want to know this intimate detail about me, but I won’t let you know. You have the power, staring at me, gawking. Making me feel awkward, wrong. But I won’t tell you. That’s my power. You aren’t entitled to my story. 

Sometimes when strangers ask, I tell them my hand was bit off in a shark attack; it seems more interesting. An accident with a saw or drill—you know me, the carpenter. Once I said it happened in a gruesome car accident in which my mother died, so, yeah, thanks for asking.

Mikhail looked down, cocked his head and gave me a sort of half grin. I knew I had a good feeling about him.

“What’ve you got planned for the day?” Mikhail asked, stirring his drink.

“This, I guess. You?”

“Right now, I’m happy to be sitting across from this beautiful stranger,” Mikhail smiled. “I have to run some errands later in the fashion district. Would you want to come?” 

My ex-boyfriend Chris was the first person I dated after graduating high school and one of the only men who wanted to go on dates with me—real dates. We held hands; I met his parents; and, eventually, we moved into a little studio apartment together in the worst part of the world—right behind the Hollywood Walk of Fame. After a year of living together, I began to realize that he wasn’t what I wanted.

I guess in many ways his slow, quiet, mediocre love taught me that I could deserve more. I had felt deformed and unlovable my whole life, but through our years together I grew up, and I started liking who I was becoming. Eventually, both Chris and the cockroaches in our tiny apartment repulsed me, and I realized I had outgrown both.

A year ago, I was still living in the Hollywood studio with Chris, finishing prerequisites at community college before I hoped to transfer to an actual four-year university. On the first day of class, Tony immediately caught my eye. I began watching the back of his head during lectures and whispering in his ear, asking if I could borrow a pencil. He finally asked for my number after class one day on the pretense of forming a study group.

We hung out in the library, pretending to study, while we played music for each other, swapping headphones and leaning in close, electricity pulsing every time our arms touched. Soon, we didn’t pretend to study at all. We took the Redline east to downtown, buying smoothies, coffee, and (sometimes) slices of pizza from the vendors in Grand Central Market. Tony was stocky, but strong. I liked the way his hands were calloused from working on cars and the way his voice went a little higher when he talked in Spanish with the ladies selling agua fresca. He started pulling me in for passionate kisses on the platform before our trains whooshed us off in opposite directions, and I felt my heart pounding in rhythm with the hum of the tracks.

One day, as we were waiting for our trains home, I invited him to my apartment. Chris worked late and a part of me hoped he would find us together. I knew Tony wouldn’t care about the cockroaches or the pictures of me and my boyfriend in frames around our house. 

I knelt on the carpet my boyfriend never vacuumed, and Tony pulled my hair, putting his hand around my throat. “Do you like it when I do that, little slut?” Tony asked from above and I gagged, nodding that I really did.

Soon after, I broke up with my boyfriend. I was tired of lying to him; I couldn’t live with my own guilt. And I wanted to keep chasing the uncertainty I felt when Tony’s strong hands were around my neck.

I was finally alone, and somehow people now thought I was beautiful. I slept with anyone who wanted to. It was new to me, exciting. I had affairs, felt the rush of secrecy and spontaneity. I knew that men were dangerous, and I wanted them to feel I was finally dangerous, too.

Over a year after the breakup, when I had finally started at UCLA, Tony and I would see each other casually on occasion. Most recently, we met at a dark, Mexican bar I had never been to on the Eastside of LA, which played live music that he whooshed me around to. Tony insisted on driving me home, and I made him promise that he wasn’t too drunk to drive. 

We pulled off on a dark, residential street and fucked in his backseat.

When he came on my stomach, Tony looked down at me and said, “You’re getting kind of chubby.” I haven’t talked to him since.

I agreed to go run errands with Mikhail. Why not? I had nothing else to do. Maybe it would turn out to be fun, or at least an interesting story.

We walked side by side, two strangers who had decided to share their Friday together.

I talked him into going into the Last Bookstore on the way, one of my favorite places in LA. We walked under the arches of books and admired the whale made of lined pages on the high ceilings. We looked through the bins of discounted books, and I bought a yellowed copy of Mary by Nabokov. I had taken a class on Russian literature the previous semester, and this book has been on my reading list since.

We headed towards the fashion district after, our arms brushing against each other as we walked. Mikhail needed to pick up some fabrics for an event he was hosting on Saturday.

Every type of fabric imaginable, from leather to feathers in all colors of the rainbow, lined each side of the small street. I stood on the outside of the tiny warehouse, stroking all of the textures, weaves, and patterns.

Mikhail came out from the store with two big reams of fabric under each arm, light gold and lilac. “You okay if we drop this off at my house really quick?”

“Sure, where do you live?” I asked with uncertainty. Another potentially dangerous situation with a man. I couldn’t stop going to their houses or inviting them into mine.

I met Rob online two months prior and invited him to make the three-hour drive to LA the next time he was free. He was part of the community I was forming online for people who also had limb differences. Some had been born like that, like Rob, and some of us had amputations, like me. It felt good to see other people with one hand playing sports and eating brunch and buying wedding dresses. People who I had nothing—yet everything—in common with. The experience of disability is so nuanced, yet it defines so much of our existence.

I wanted to give Rob a chance. I had never dated someone else with a disability before. I was introspective. I was egalitarian.

We met in person on Valentine’s Day, which I initially thought was a coincidence, but it soon became clear in our messages that Rob wanted to celebrate the romantic holiday, specifically with me. He greeted me at the door of the apartment in Westwood that I shared with three other girls; he was in a button-up with a bouquet of grocery store roses and a box of Godiva chocolates in his only hand.

Rob made me a mix of his favorite songs and played it on his car stereo while we drove up the Pacific Coast Highway as the sun set, the windows down and the salty breeze tangling my hair. We sat on the beach, leaning our elbows into the sand as we lay next to each other, staring at the lights of the Ferris wheel reflecting onto the crashing waves. 

“Does having one hand ever make you want to kill yourself?” Rob asked, his face half covered in shadow.

“Of course. Unfortunately, I think most disabled people have felt like that.”

“Have you tried?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Never super seriously though.”

“I have. Damn fan fell off the ceiling though.” Rob stared into the sand as he spoke. “Now, I just can’t let them know they matter to me. I can’t let them know I still care.”

There was something so fragile about Rob. I knew he didn’t have the support or the confidence I had. I wondered how it felt to be a man with a disability. As a woman, I usually waited for the man to pursue me. I could imagine how hard it must’ve been to steel yourself for rejection and ridicule time and time again.

Rob dropped me back off at my apartment with the flowers—now crumpled—and the unopened box of chocolates. He went in for a kiss, but I dodged it, his lips meeting my cheek instead. 

He texted me nearly every day after, asking my opinion of the romantic playlists he sent or telling me about his breakfast or asking me every other hour what I was doing. It was all a little too much for me. Our conversation was stagnant. Rob was bored and lonely, and I didn’t have the time.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but I felt like I had nothing in common with him except that we were disabled. Was that enough? Was I judging him too much? Did I think he wasn’t good enough for me because of his lack of education, seeming lack of self-awareness, or was it my own internalized ableism? If he had two hands, would I feel differently? Was I just projecting my own insecurities onto him? Still, not liking back a man who was obviously interested was a new thing for me, and I felt guilty.

Two weeks later, he made the long trip to Westwood. Rob wanted to go out, eager to see what clubbing in LA was like.

We had In-N-Out burgers and went to a fun, but modest, club in Mid-City. I ordered two shots and two beers for us, and we clinked glasses, Rob cheering, “To the best night of our lives!” I didn’t anticipate it would be, but I tried to match his excitement.

I bought us our third round of drinks before I realized that Rob did not drink as much as me, and things went downhill fast. We cheersed on the dance floor, our shot glasses clinking before his slipped out of his hand and onto the floor with a spray of tequila and glass shards. A few women around us shrieked. Everyone took a step back, leaving Rob standing alone in the middle of the dance floor.

His face was red, and his eyes were barely open. He screamed, “What? It’s no big deal! Let’s keep partying.” 

A bald bouncer in a tight black t-shirt walked over to Rob, talking in low tones, “Alright, guy, let’s move so that we can get this cleaned up. Alright?”

Rob slurred, “You can’t push me, man! I can be here just like everyone else.” He stepped chest to chest with the bouncer even though Rob was only half his size.

“Rob, please,” I whispered to him, embarrassed. Everyone was staring at us. Of course, the two disabled people—who shouldn’t even be here in the first place—are interrupting everyone’s good time.

“It’s okay,” I assured the bouncer, standing near him. “I’ll get him out.”

“He needs to go!” the bouncer loudly insisted as I dragged Rob out from the flashing lights of the club and onto the dark sidewalk.

“Fuck that place. Fuck that guy. Fuck those people!” Rob’s face was screwed up in a way that made me frightened and sad.

“I’ll get us an Uber. Let’s just wait outside,” I said calmly.

I heard a visceral, retching noise and looked up from my phone to see his In-N-Out burger coming back up in watery, partially digested chunks.

We walked to Mikhail’s beautiful penthouse that looked like ones I had only seen in magazines. He had marble countertops and fur rugs. A huge glass window replaced the wall that looked out onto the busy, downtown street below. He slid open the glass, revealing an expansive roof topped with a huge, white, four-poster cabana bed. A hot tub sat on the roof’s edge, strings of twinkling lights around the perimeter.

“Holy shit. This is beautiful!” I looked back at Mikhail, who wore a satisfied smile on his face.

“Set down your bags. I’ll give you a tour.” I set my small backpack and used copy of Mary down on the white marble.

Mikhail placed his hand on the small of my back and led me, tingling where his fingers rested on my skin.

He unlocked a heavy oak door off the side of the living room to reveal a spacious, black-walled room, where a giant, red X-structure with handcuffs at each point stood as the space’s centerpiece. A small, curved leather couch sat invitingly nearby. Handcuffs, feather dusters, whips, and paddles were proudly displayed on a backlit wall.

“Are you scared?” Mikhail asked playfully.

I shook my head no, reminding myself that this was all for the plot. My small, disabled life would be interesting. I’d have stories to write about later. 

“I host S&M and sex parties in this apartment. Big community for it here in LA.”

“I bet.” I said, hoping I looked natural and cool, nonchalant, like someone who was more than at-home in a sex dungeon.

“Have you experimented with anything like that?”

I thought back to last summer, when I prayed that maybe I was bi or pan or hopefully gay. I made out with a beautiful woman in a club in downtown San Francisco, our nose rings got caught on each other's, and we cried laughing trying to disentangle. She had a shaggy haircut, a husky voice, and was way out of my league. She invited me back to her tiny apartment, and I pretended my heart wasn’t racing out of my chest on the walk there. 

I tried to emulate what I liked about her, but after a prolonged attempt I could tell I was failing. I looked up at her from between her thighs and asked what I could do differently. She said, “It’s okay. We’re drunk. Let’s just go to bed.” I had never been more embarrassed. 

Men were easy to control and predict. I knew what they liked and when they’d leave. I loved women but had a hard time picturing fucking them and apparently an even harder time successfully doing it.

“Not really,” I finally responded.

“Me and my girlfriend are poly. She’s in Mexico right now. I’ll invite you to one of our parties sometime—you can meet her. If you’re interested.”

“Sure, that’d be fun.” I didn’t actually know if it would be, but I’ll try anything once.

“Want to get in the hot tub? I have some champagne. Sun will be setting soon.” Mikhail looked toward the giant window wall.

“Sure. I don’t have a swimsuit or anything though.”

“You don’t need one,” he smiled. “Here, let me get you a robe. You can change in my room. Come outside when you’re ready.”

I undressed and took a deep breath. I didn’t have to do this. I didn’t owe this man anything. I could leave whenever I wanted. But another part of me wanted to stay. To see what would happen. What do people who live in penthouses and have sex parties do exactly? I was curious.

I inhaled deeply and walked outside wearing the soft, white robe that he laid out for me on the giant, silk bedspread. Mikhail was already in the tub with two chilled glasses, the opened bottle resting on the roof’s edge. He looked up at me and smiled. “Hello stranger.”

I looked back at him and held his eye contact as my robe dropped onto the concrete. I watched him watching me, knowing he was curious, surprised. I was standing on a roof in downtown Los Angeles completely naked with a stranger. Letting him, and anyone else, look at my beautiful, alien body. Someone could’ve, and probably did, see me. Maybe they liked what they saw. Maybe they were confused.

Maybe it’s some sort of fucked-up redemption from my childhood, feeling like an unlovable, deformed creature. Maybe it wasn’t healthy. Maybe I was misplacing my need for attention. Maybe I needed therapy. But this was fun. Liberating.

Mikhail cupped my small hand in his as I stepped into the hot water.

I stayed over that night. He fucked me against the glass wall, where we knew the whole city could watch us. I wondered what they saw, what they thought.

In the morning, I hugged him goodbye and we both said, “See you around,” knowing we probably wouldn’t. Looking back, I shudder at all that could’ve happened to me. Alone with Mikhail, a white man I didn’t know a single thing about, in his insanely nice apartment. The chances that I could have gotten murdered were definitely high. I had seen American Psycho and listened to all of the murder podcasts. But at the time, I brushed all of that aside—it was a weird circumstance, potential fun that would make a great story.

It wasn’t until I was nearly home that I realized I had left my book at his house. I never saw him again, but every time I read Nabokov I think of Mikhail and what it felt like to be young and indestructible.

Photo of Molly Higgins.

BIO: Molly Higgins is a disabled essayist based in Brooklyn, NY. She is currently a writer at WIRED magazine and former associate editor at Kansas City magazine. She has published nonfiction essays "Mother's Daughter" in the Write Launch and "Born for This" the Iowa Review. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Missouri—Kansas City and a bachelor’s degree in English from UCLA.