My Minute with Maggie – Kyra Sutton
February 5, 2025
‘4:38 AM’ glows on their phone screen, neon in front of my nose. “We have to go in like an hour and a half. Maybe two hours, max.”
“But that’s so soon.” Panic rises at the thought of ever leaving this place. I look around at the black, cavernous pockets and crevices of the club, strobe lights spinning and reflecting in the dark. Smoke and thump thump thump in my ear, deep in my brain, pulsing out into my forehead. “Maggie, I don’t think I can go.” Maggie sighs, fiddling with their rings, twisting the silver up and around. My head spins; I grab their wrist. “I want to stay here.”
Maggie laughs, but not because it’s funny. “Our bus back to Montreal leaves at 10:00 AM! Listen, I don’t want to leave either, but we can’t just stay in New York.” They shake their head. Above me, the ceiling shimmers, slides open, beckons me towards it. “Darling, we have to go all the way to Queens, get our bags, then to Midtown to the station. And we are tripping.” The p in “tripping” pings around inside my head, echoing out into bubbly shapes. Maggie clutches my arms, their pupils stretching wide. Frantic air emanates from each sparkling breath. “We cannot be late. We can’t risk it.”
“But we have plenty of time!” I smile. The brain-fog clears away for a moment and I’m undoubtedly certain that I’m right about this. Minutes and seconds and infinity before us.
At this, Maggie smiles sincerely, their nerves faltering. “Time, unfortunately, is something you and I are terrible at.” I can’t argue with that and they know it.
“Come on,” they offer me their hand and I take it. Maggie’s skin is translucent and flecked with blueish light. “Let’s go and dance while we still can.” I think of touching their cheek but I don’t.
They lead me back onto the shaking, pumping, swelling dance floor. We snake through the crowd, back to our spot on the left side, at the back, right in front of the speaker. I place my hand on the mesh and feel it pulse through my palm. Up into my temples, a kind of liquid vibrancy, a sound from a different era; snaring and snapping, jazzy drums, and a steady, thumping, electronic bassline.
I look up at Maggie as they start swaying their hips, shoulders swinging, eyes closed. I stomp my feet back and forth, picking up speed. The music rises higher, surging up to the ceiling, rippling over the row of windows. The light breaks and oscillates against the rectangles. Triangles of white shift and swap, fizzling and popping, then merging again. I close my eyes as I move freely, squirming with delight.
“This is the best music I’ve ever heard,” I tell Maggie. “I can’t decide if it’s better with eyes open or closed.”
“Keep them closed,” they tell me. We move closer together as the song reaches its peak, narrowing and cresting at the top, about to spill over. I squeeze my eyes shut even tighter, giddy, shaking, gripping Maggie’s hand.
My head skyrockets as the beat plummets, flooding the room with ecstatic sound. The crowd roars for the DJ as we dance madly around each other. I am soaring, levitating higher, reaching some divine peak of light.
I lean in and say, “I think this is the happiest I’ve ever been.”
***
Maggie and I arrive in New York on January 10th, 2024, at approximately 6 PM. We stumble off the bus at Midtown after a bumpy, winding, eight hour drive. I’m sick with nausea, sitting on the entrance stairs at Penn station, looking up at the massive grey city. Maggie leads me to a bagel cafe to rest. While she digs into a bagel, I close my eyes on the bench and meditate for five minutes. Spontaneous meditation has become something of a habit of ours, when one of us feels overwhelmed. I’m not afraid of how I look to others when I’m next to Maggie.
I retreat deep inside, slowing my heart rate. I exhale all the air from my lungs, the minutes lengthening out into stillness. My discomfort blurs to the background, a vagueness I hardly feel anymore. I think of how I could exist inside this moment for ages.
When the five minutes are up, Maggie’s fingers graze my arm, pulling me softly to the surface. “Better?” she asks. I nod.
Later, as we board the dizzying subway car, the nausea returns. Clutching onto the pole, I know I can no longer fight the urge. “Do you want to get off?” Maggies asks, as the colour drains from my face. But I know I won’t make it. I lean forward and lift the lid from my coffee cup, retching softly into the brown liquid. It is mostly spit.
Maggie rushes me off the train towards a bench. She dabs my face with napkins and finds somewhere to toss my cup. Afterwards, I’m relieved. “You did great,” she rubs my back. “I’ve never seen someone vomit so elegantly.”
We complete our journey to Forest Hills, making it to the apartment of Carson and their partner Ezra, Maggie’s friends who invited us to stay with them. Carson serves us chickpea and carrot couscous. We watch the two of them seated together, Ezra sweetly kissing Carson on the shoulder. Afterwards, Maggie and I fall asleep on the bed we will share for three nights, facing each other, our nails tracing shapes along the other’s arm. Breath fanning into our necks, thumbs twitching. Collarbones sparkling with warmth. Touching but not.
***
I met Maggie for the first time in March of 2023, after we matched on Hinge. They were on exchange in Montreal, hailing from Australia, and looking to meet new people. We messaged back and forth a few times about being writers, about non-monogamy, and cute places to grab drinks. Later that week, Maggie arrives ten minutes late to meet me at Else’s on Roy street, the bar that looks like it should be a cafe. Decorated with vintage frames and pothos vines, it’s the spot where most of my lesbian dates have occurred.
For three hours straight, we talk without stopping, sipping herbal tea, blushing and smiling into our mugs. We discuss the projects we’re working on, Sex and the City, gender binaries. Our best friends, our classes, our favourite books. We cram everything possible into the seconds lapsing between us, our conversation leading us down paths that we can’t trace back.
They tell me how they misplace time like it’s their keys. I tell them how it slips between my fingers like sand, sliding under couch cushions, not be found again for several months. “ADHD core,” they say. This entity that exists all around us but somehow evades us.
In many ways, I observe how we’re the same. “But you’re more external,” I say, gesturing with my chest. “Seeking things outside yourself. Active.” They nod. “Whereas I’m more internal with anxiety.” I crouch forward. “I retract, I’m paralysed.”
When we look up, it’s midnight and the bar is clearing out. I wonder if we’ll kiss that night, the thought hanging above our steaming mugs, fluttering between the slim gap of our knees. But as we slink out of the bar, nervous and dead sober, I know that I won’t have the nerve. We part with a hug that lingers. Maggie pecks me on the cheek, asking to see me again.
But I don’t see Maggie for several months after that. Deadlines, exams, breakups and travel get in the way. I spend the last months of spring staring out of my window, waiting for it to change.
When we set our second date, it’s mid-June, and the sky is purple and thick and heavy with dew. We picnic for hours at Jeanne Mance park, sharing homemade cocktails and smoked peanuts. Later, we stumble to the beautiful home that Maggie is house-sitting. Crouched in the windowsill of their bedroom, our heads are bowed together over one of their favourite books. The breeze from the open window is cool along my arms. 4 AM is approaching but we have no idea. Time is only real when you look at it. Finally, they ask if they can kiss me. They are careful, gentle; I laugh each time they pull away. They are so soft that the hair rises on my neck. Their breath warm against my ear.
***
On our second day in New York, Maggie and I sleep in much too late. We dress quickly and shower, scrambling a few eggs and chugging iced coffees. It’s 2 PM by the time we leave the apartment.
We agree to do far more activities than can realistically fit into one afternoon. And so, we end up wandering around Manhattan until it’s dark out, through Tribeca up to Greenwich Village, smoking cigarettes, sharing one set of AirPods between the two of us. Maggie selects Miley Cyrus’ 2008 “Wake Up America,” as the anthem of our trip. “Everything you do, matters,” she tells me, singing along, as we skip past the dumpsters towards Perry street.
We finally reach the iconic, brownstone steps of Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment, gazing up as though Carrie herself could emerge any second. I snap a few frames on my film camera, posing Maggie against the railing, lighting a cigarette, urging her to sneak under the “No Trespassing” sign. Eventually, we are shooed away by the home’s current owner, a grumpy older man who advises us to quit smoking.
Later, we take the subway into Bushwick, which would become my favourite part of the city. I stare at the murals as we meander down every street, careful not to miss one. We film cinematic videos of each other crossing the street, lighting a joint. When we grow hungry, we stop at “Taqueria Miranda”, a food truck where a man named Juan serves us two of the most epic vegetarian quesadillas we’ve ever seen. He loads them up with mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese and hot sauce, spilling out of the aluminum. We sit on a grimy bench nearby while we eat.
“This is my favourite way to travel,” Maggie says.
“I thought we were doing it wrong,” I laugh.
***
In the months after our second date, Maggie and I begin hanging out pretty regularly. Some days, we workshop each other’s writing at Santropol Cafe, sitting a platonic distance apart. Other nights, we roam through downtown, completely stoned and hopelessly lost, searching for an open bar. By November, I’m seeing Maggie a few times a week. To write, have coffee, make dinner. Watch a movie. Wander through the snow. Stay up until much too late talking about our friends, our dreams, our childhood trauma.
During these months, my friends often ask me if Maggie and I are romantic or platonic. My answer changes by the week, by the day. Maggie and I kissed today, I tell them one night, after four weeks of reporting that we were not kissing. They roll their eyes. Where can this go, anyways? they ask. Maggie leaves in less than two months. I tell them I don’t know, but I’m okay with not knowing. Behind my back, they discuss the ways in which I am not okay. Some of them wonder if Maggie is no good for me. That perhaps she is too chaotic and unpredictable. That polyamorous people can’t be trusted. That Maggie can’t give me what I need. “But what is it that I need?” I respond. No one could ever answer that, though.
One day, Maggie tells me that she’s not sure how she feels about her most recent hookup, that maybe it’s not worth investing energy in someone new right now. That really, she only wants to spend time with me.
We discuss our similar experiences with queer dating. How with women, both of us are terrible at making the first move. By now, we’re familiar with speaking in code, spinning dizzily around the centre. We talk of bodies, kink, chemistry. Sex with others, sex with ourselves, but never sex with each other.
I tell Maggie that I’m too overwhelmed to date right now. That I barely have time to install my new curtains, let alone reply to texts from a cute girl I met at the bar. “What curtains?” she asks.
I show Maggie the long term ‘to-do list’ on my phone, around fifty or so tasks that I never make progress on. I explain that number one on my list is to put up the vintage, golden yellow, genuine velvet curtains, inherited from my grandmother, that have been hanging in my closet for the past two years. For whatever reason, I’ve never been able to install them. Acquiring the right tools, ordering the pieces, asking for help. Simple tasks that seem impossibly difficult to me.
Maggie knows what I mean. She often does.
“Should I be medicated?” I ask.
Maggie smiles. “Before I leave Montreal, that’s something we must do. I promise you, we will install your grandmother’s curtains.”
***
We sit on the bed, both of us on the brink of panic. It’s 11 PM. We got lost on the way back from the Guggeinheim, then ran far too late making dinner for Carson and Ezra, waiting for the potatoes to cook through. I haven’t packed my suitcase yet. Maggie still has to shower. We still have to trek to the middle of Queens to pick up our drugs. Then make it to the club in Bushwick with enough time to have fun. Our bus for Montreal departs in eleven hours.
Maggie is frantic, pacing the room, throwing around various tops. I reach for their hand from the bed. “Shall we meditate for five minutes?” I suggest.
When we come out the other side, everything feels lighter. Less serious. No matter what happens, we are certain this will be a night to remember.
Less than an hour later, we are ordering the Uber to the dealer’s house. We are nervous; neither of us have ever picked up our own drugs. The driver drops us off in a quiet, residential area, deep in Queens. “Happy travels,” the dealer smiles, after we make the exchange.
We wander the deserted streets of the neighbourhood, looking for a safe place to split the tab. We pass a low-security apartment complex, and sneak inside to sit on the entrance steps, beneath the light. My hands shake as I fold the tab pack and forth, bending it against my nail, Maggie urging me to be careful of the oils on my finger. We pass it between us, each asking the other to do it. Finally, I exhale and rip the tab in two. It splits perfectly down the middle.
The tab dissolves in our mouths as we journey the short distance to the club, arriving just before 2 AM. The club is unsuspecting, tucked between blocks of brick walls. We would’ve missed it if it wasn’t for the music.
Inside, the Nonstop 24 hour party is just revving up. In the anteroom, the bouncers all wear keffiyehs. We are told that we are entering a queer space, that no discrimination of any kind will be tolerated. That no pictures are allowed. No lurking, staring or touching people without asking. Or you will be asked to leave.
The main area is lit by deep red and purple hues. By the bar, there’s an earplug dispenser and an open water tap. We move towards the entrance of the dance floor, blocked off by a kind of archway. Above, a sign reads: “Please minimize conversations on the dance floor. This is a space for people who want to dance.”
Tentatively, we step inside the dance floor, settling into a cozy nook by the back, where there’s enough space for us to move freely. We join hands, falling into the pull of the sound. I look around at the people moving to the music. Everyone is here to dance.
I look to Maggie as the bass swells. Their face is lit up, glimmering with dimension. We are safe here, I think.
Maggie smiles, nodding in response.
***
Maggie gazes up at the vast, melting wall of blue paint. Like they’re entering a portal to a another world, inching closer. In my camera lens, I focus them in the frame. They angle their head up to the left, following the green and golden brush strokes fanning out from the centre. I zoom in on the soft curls on their neck, on their two perfect red braids, the strands brushing against the fuzz of their scarf. They look so small, full of wonder and delight. They turn around to look at me. “I think this is my favourite piece.”
I pose them in front of every painting at the Guggenheim. Curating a scene. Maggie leaning by the railing, Maggie pondering a set of marbled masks, Maggie’s head tilting sideways at the cloth canvas. Maggie pretending not to know I’m there. We share the set of AirPods again, listening to a playlist of Mazzy Star, Fiona Apple and Soko, roaming the museum in near silence.
Outside, Maggie helps me light a cigarette. “I love New York.”
“I wish we could stay longer,” they smile, taking the cigarette. “I can’t believe this is our last day already.”
“What time is it?” I ask.
They open their phone. “6 PM.”
“Oh, we should get going if we want to make dinner for Carson and Ezra before we go out.”
“Yeah,” they nod, blowing out smoke. “We have time.”
But we don’t. We don’t know it yet but we are already running late.
***
The oven-light glows yellow. It’s 2:15 AM. We sit at the dining table, passing the joint back and forth. It is late December and the snow has begun to settle.
We have discussed eight possible activities for this evening: writing, drawing, smoking a joint, making hot chocolate, meditating, watching Bottoms. Creating a pilot episode for a sitcom called “Girls in the City” about our life in Montreal. So far, we have only accomplished the joint.
Our conversations have split off into at least twenty different threads. Snapping and circling around. We decide that this evening would inevitably wind up as a bottle episode in our sitcom, in which the two stoned, neurodivergent main characters hangout and fail to actually accomplish any plans. We return briefly to the hot chocolate, but it’s only a subplot— it will be another hour before we’re actually drinking it.
“I just have to confirm the dates with Carson,” Maggie says, pulling open her laptop. She has just invited me to go to New York with her for a few days.
We spend the next hour lounging in Maggie’s room, trying to download Bottoms online. I look over at her, laying back on the bed, lighting the joint between her hands, lips pursed. The flame fizzles, then ignites, then dies out again.
“I can’t believe you’re really leaving,” I tell her, unable to hold myself back.
She looks up at me, surprised. I shifted the energy— now it’s too late to reverse it. I glance down at Maggie’s duvet. It suddenly feels like time is in the room with us, its crushing pressure, its threat of running out.
“I know,” she sighs. “It’s weird,” she finally manages to light the joint, blowing out a gust of smoke. “All of my relationships here have this… time limit. But I don’t think it changes anything for me… you know?” she looks at me.
“Yeah,” I nod. “I don’t think it changes anything for me either.”
“Like, this is where I’m at right now,” she says, meeting my eyes. “This is what matters.”
She passes me the joint and I inhale. “My friends think I’m being crazy, though.”
“They don’t want you to be hurt,” Maggie shrugs. “But…”
“Yeah. That’s for me to decide.”
She nods. “So trust your gut. What is it telling you?”
“To keep following you.”
She smiles. “Where do you think it leads?”
“Somewhere fun,” I say. “I know you will teach me something.”
***
Our hands are joined together as we step back and forth in sync with the pounding bass. Our foreheads touch. Something pulses between us, some solemn, heavy thing.
“Maggie,” I say. They nod, pulling me into a hug. We stay like this for many minutes, breathing. I realize that I’m crying.
When I move away slightly, they touch my face. And then we are kissing. It isn’t quite so soft. There’s an urgency to it. A kind of finality about it.
“I’m going to miss you so much,” I say in their ear.
They shake their head. “Me more. You have no idea.”
The moment flows through us. Gradually, we are rising again, drifting back into the pace of the dance floor. Our hands still joined, but our bodies edging farther apart.
But then, their grip on my hand tightens. They’re looking down at their phone and back up at me. 6:56 AM.
“We have to go now,” they say. “It’s time.”
My stomach drops. I am terrified to leave and they know.
“It’ll be okay.” Maggie leads me out of the crowd as a terrible sadness settles into me. I say goodbye to the dance floor. I don’t know how we can possibly rejoin the outside world now.
But we do. We float into the streets like ghosts, boarding the subway car, hysterical at the way our heads look— bubble-like and fluorescent. People around us sip coffee, on the way to work, a reality that is alien to us. The sun has risen by the time we make it to Midtown. The day is crisp, sharply drawn, pale white. We have enough time to smoke two cigarettes in front of the bus, listening to some band that sounds like The Strokes. I snap the remaining shots on my roll of film. On the bus, we speed past skyscrapers, laughing at how oddly angular and self-serious they seem.
***
Two weeks after we return to Montreal, Maggie and I finally sleep together. It is her final night before flying back to Australia. Procrastinated until the last possible second. We are frantic and afraid. We undress in the dark, quietly, hurriedly. She has a plane to catch in 11 hours and has barely packed a thing. We nestle together against my sheets, warm, breathing heavy. She kisses my nose while I scratch the soft skin of her thighs until morning. Wondering why we hadn’t been doing this all along.
In the days after she leaves, I roam the city, lost. I sit in my room and listen to the playlists she made me. I make to-do lists and check one thing off as three new things are added. I get the film developed and stare at the photos. I touch the smooth velvet of my curtains, hanging in my closet. We never did get around to it.
One night, stoned, I order the drapery hooks and rings online. It takes me three whole minutes. When they arrive the very next day, I think the delivery man is mocking me. That the universe is making some cosmic joke.
It is early afternoon on a Sunday, nearly spring, breezy enough outside for lighter jackets, when I finally install my grandmother’s curtains. I strip my old curtains and for one hour, my windows remain totally naked, wide open, light pouring out. I sit on the ground and diligently puncture each pin into the thick fabric. Afterwards, I admire the way the sunlight is filtered through the amber velvet, golden and vibrant, glinting off the pothos; my room more alive with colour than I’ve ever seen it. I sit there for a long time, watching the light change. I send a picture to the only person who would care.
It’s almost 4 AM in Australia but Maggie responds instantly.