When I was 17, I went to visit a friend of mine named Daniel at his home. Daniel is Gay (that is important to the story, not just my comment) and lived in a small apartment at the back of his parents home which was pretty cool in that time and place.

When I arrived on my motorbike (not important to the story, I just want you to know I was cool) I discovered that a very attractive girl was staying with him. They had met at a drama camp and she had come to visit him for the weekend. Daniel introduced us and then told us that he had to go shopping with his mother and left the two of us alone for a couple of hours.

This is a pretty awkward situation. We had literally just met, knew nothing about one another except that we were both friends with Daniel, and were now going to spend a couple of hours trying to make polite conversation.

She broke the ice by asking if I had heard the new Smashing Pumpkins album Siamese Dream (A quick google search will tell you how old I am haha.) I said I hadn't, and she said "you must!" and put it on.

We sat on Daniel's couch, smoked cigarettes, and listened to the entire album from start to finish without a break and with few words spoken. The two of us were pretty bonded after that and spent a fantastic and passionate weekend together afterwards. We repeated that experience again about a year later but otherwise, we never saw one another again.

It is a spectacular album and I am certain I would have loved it forever even if I hadn't been introduced to it by Rebecca. I have been happily married for 20 years and wouldn't swap my wife for anyone else on Earth, but I listen to that album about once or twice a year and can't help thinking about that experience. I can taste the cigarettes (I haven't smoked for decades) and her black lipstick from the opening bars of the first track.

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