Mira, a young woman, gets caught up in her own sexual awakening which is dark and fast and demeaning. She meets an obsessive older guy named John who takes advantage of her willingness and steers her into amateur porn. When Mira meets Adi, a stripper who is older and wilder than her, Mira walks willingly into a harsh world of sex work where the girls don't like her and the men are rough. It is on Adi's turf that Mira enters into a strange relationship with Gio, a religious john who tests her at every step. Conflicted, Mira becomes a participant in her own degradation. As Mira's cousin, Ezrah, tries to rescue her from "sin," Mira goes deeper and deeper into "whoredom,� a state that she feels very connected to while growing conscious of its real and surreal danger.

Loosely based on the story of St. Mary of Egypt, a prostitute who revelled in her sexuality before repenting, Berger plunges us deep into the female sexual psyche. A Woman Alone at Night is a novel so sexually intense, so morally singular, so intimately overwhelming in its determination to smash the image of the nice girl forever, so explicit, sexy, shocking, and insightful, it will ensure you never look at female sexuality the same way again.

Tamara Faith Berger, former sex columnist for Vice Magazine, is known for her challenging writing work focusing on female sexuality, balancing on the thin line between erotica and porn. She is the author of Lie With Me (Gutter Press 2001) which was made into a film in 2005 and has been shown at festivals all over the world. Tamara has been published in various magazines and periodicals including Elle Canada, Fireweed, Taddle Creek, Kiss Machine and This Magazine.

See events page for details.

From Chapter Three:

"You like it there, don't you" Ezrah called me once ranting in the middle of the night. "You want to stay in that fuckhouse. I bet all the guys who come to you love how you do it. They'd never get a girl like you anywhere else. Fuck, Mira, I bet they love how much you want to do it with them. Are you like some kind of dirty little girl when you fuck? When did you know that guys liked how you looked? When they looked at your tits? When they stared at your ass? When all my friends looked, you liked it. I knew you did. God, it's disturbing. I bet you love it when a guy says he wants your ass, you want to hear things like that, don't you? God it's so disturbing. You think after they leave it'll all disappear? That you'll be normal again? That you're the same old Mira? Fuck, I can't believe it! You dance for every dumb bastard who comes to you, don't you? You don't know the difference between us, do you? What's wrong with you that you don't know who's who"

Ezrah knew I was scared of being alone.

In the summers when we were kids we used to walk in the ravine near my house, where the darkness of trees made the sun disappear. I'd pick flowers on those paths while Ezrah screamed up at the branches to freak out the birds.

He never wanted to hold my hand. Whenever we held hands it was because I made him pretend. I used to think I would be Ezrah's wife.

One day we walked further than we'd ever been before. I kept saying that we should turn around, that we were going to get lost, that we should turn around now, when suddenly Ezrah bolted away from me, laughing: "I'm leaving this place! See you Mir! I'm leaving!"

I was glued to that spot full of mushrooms and leaves. I was scared for him lost, scared for me lost, both of us lost in the forest forever. What were my mom and his mom going to do? Flies landed on my shoulders and I swatted them off hysterically. I couldn't make any noise.

I looked down at my feet and started shuffling backwards. I went so slow because I was hoping that Ezrah would come running back towards me. I kept turning my head in case he jumped out behind me. Black rubber branches touched the sides of my face. I realized that my whole body was moving in slow motion because I was waiting for something around me to change.

When I finally made it back to my house, our mothers were stretched out in the sun and Ezrah was there. I couldn't believe it. His arms were draped around his mother's bare shoulders. He was smiling at me with his top row of teeth. I thought he was saying: "See, Mir? You see? I know how to get home without you."

My mother gave me a hug and said, "Beautiful flowers." But the stems of the buttercups were squashed in my grip, their tiny heads all looking down limp.

Ezrah stayed over at our house that night. We slept together on the bed in the den. My stomach hurt. I was still so mad about how he took off on me. I was pretending to sleep when Ezrah snuck out of our bed. He came back a few seconds later with the flashlight from the kitchen. Then he pulled the covers over our heads and shone the light upwards.

"This is our new house," he said, matter-of-factly. "We'll stay up all night like this."

Ezrah had grabbed my comic book from the floor and was shoving it in my face. I shrugged and sat up with him. After a few stories, though, I started complaining like I always did that two girls would never fight so hard over the same guy. Two girls hardly ever want to kiss the same guy.

"Two guys want to kiss one girl," Ezrah said. "So what does it matter if two girls want to kiss the same guy?"

"It's not the same thing," I told him. "These girls are supposed to be in grade nine but look at their tits! No girl in grade nine would have tits like this!"

Suddenly, Ezrah snatched my comic book and wrecked our tent. He got on top of me and wrestled my arms over my head.

"What do you know about grade nine tits?"

"Stop it! Get off me!" I yelled, laughing.

Ezrah put his hand over my mouth. "They'll hear us! Shut up!"

His hand smelled salty and I stopped squirming.

"Tell me you're sorry," he said.

"Fine," I said through his hand.

"Tell me. Then I'll get off you."

"I said I was sorry!"

Ezrah eased up off my gut. His pajama pants looked weird, like a button was coming off. He lay down beside me and kept crossing and uncrossing his legs. He pulled the covers up over our heads again and stood the flashlight between our faces.

"Let's stay up all night tonight," he said.

All I felt like doing was looking at his face. The haze in the blanket made his eyes huge and grey. Ezrah was catching his breath, letting me stare. Righht bettttttween his eyebrows, his face started changing. First his eyes got bigger, then his eyebrows pointed up. Ezrah looked like a fox. Then he turned into a cloown with black lines on his skin.

Ezrah complained that I'd never stay up all night with him.

"No, I'm awake," I told him. My eyes were half-open.

It bothered me that I could never remember the second I fell asleep. I wanted to memorize that exact click. I knew most people died in their sleep and that meant going to sleep without ever waking up. I thought that if I remembered the exact second before falling, I would know for sure I wasn't going to die.

I kept hearing that song some kids sang at school: "If I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take, if I should wake before I break." I couldn't remember the right words . . .

"Mira, you're falling asleep."

Ezrah set the flashlight at the top of our heads. A soft yellow circle touched the ceiling through the blanket. I asked Ezrah to tell me what was happening on my face.

Ezrah reached out and touched the spot above my eye. "It's okay to go to sleep," he said. He stroked my eyelid down.

My face felt so hot. I reached out my finger to do the same thing to him: a little, light stroke in the space above his eye. We each had one eye open, one eye shut. He kept touching my eyelid and I kept touching his. Our thin purple skins there rippled together.

Right before I awoke, I felt Ezrah's breathing, humid on my lips. I rolled on my back and took the blanket off my head. From the blueness in the room, I knew it was near morning.

I think I can remember every moment when I touched him or he touched me, because something always happened afterwards. It was as if I could feel more things under my skin, as if there was a night light searching my whole stomach. See, I liked it when Ezrah touched me, but I just didn't always want it to get started. I think maybe the difference between all those times is lost in a pile in my head. Or my thoughts are too lazy to keep my brain clean.

Still, I know the best times happened when night-time pressed us together, sweating.