“Fuck, I’ll take the shot.”
“Joe, could you fix my friend here a Flaming Apocalypse, please?”
Joe’s eyes widen and he studies Mark for a moment, like a referee eyeing up a boxer during the big match. “Sure he can handle it? Fella, you don’t suffer from a heart condition or anything, do ya?”
Neither you nor Peter have ever seen a Flaming Apocalypse before, and it’s likely that, after seeing Mark’s reaction, you’re never going to try one. He downs it manfully, but you can see the color draining from his cheeks and his eye muscles are starting to twitch.
“Peter? Your call,” he gasps.
“Does a peck on the lips count?” he tries, hopefully.
“No,” insists Jay. “Tongues must lock.”
“Alrighty then, here goes.” And with that he grabs you and delivers a huge, wet kiss. Yes, lots of tongue, that’s for sure. Actually though, this isn’t bad at all. Good technique, not too much saliva. You’re about to pull away but his hands slide around your waist, he presses into you, and you, in an automatic gesture, respond in kind. Finally he pulls back, trying to suppress a huge grin.
“That do?” He nods to Jay.
“Looked convincing enough from here. Mark, whadda you think? Mark?”
Mark has landed face first in a bowl of peanuts, a stream of saliva oozing out the side of his mouth. Now is the moment when you should feel disappointed, not to mention embarrassed that you just made out like a slobbering high-school kid with someone else barely two feet away from him, but instead you find yourself licking your lips appreciatively.… Jay hauls Mark to his feet and starts dragging him to the door.
“I think now’s a good time for us to go,” he says. “Been fun.”
“See ya,” you both chorus.
“So,” Peter is looking at you hopefully, “you want a Flaming Apocalypse, too?”
“Nah, they look horrendous. So I guess I have to make out with someone instead.”
“Hey, Joe,” he calls, “come over here and give the little lady a kiss.”
“You bastard.” You laugh.
“Yeah well, that’s part of Pierre’s charm. You coming?”
The End
You wander out into the street in search of a cab. When, many minutes later, you finally see a cab in need of a fare, you hail it. But just as you’re about to get in, you hear someone screaming, “Taxi, taxi,” and from around the corner this woman appears. She’s running for the cab, but her heel breaks and she falls flat on her face right in front of you. She curls up in a ball and starts crying.
“Miss?” You bend down to help her. “Miss? Are you okay?”
She just keeps crying.
“Come on, miss. Get up. I’ll help you into the cab.”
“But it’s your cab,” she wails.
“Not anymore it isn’t. It’s our cab now.”
Wearily, she gets up and climbs into the backseat.
“Where to?” the driver asks.
“I have nowhere to goooooooo,” she cries out, and her body starts shaking.
You speak to the driver. “Just drive, okay? I’ll figure it out in a minute.”
Long story short: the woman’s just been dumped by her live-in fiancé. She doesn’t want to go home because she doesn’t want to face him. You convince her that if she just left him at the restaurant then she’ll be home before him so she can get some of her things and call a friend so she can spend the night. She agrees to go home and call a friend only if you come along for moral support, so you oblige. Once you get to her place, you call your answering machine in the hopes of getting a message from one of the gang. Sure enough, Mike’s called from Spinners to tell you they’re all leaving there. He leaves the address of the party, so you double-check what you have written down. All correct. The only plus about this jilted jezebel you’ve run into is that she happens to live just a few blocks from the party. When she secures a place to stay for the evening and packs an overnight bag, the two of you part ways. She thanks you for your trouble with a peck on the cheek. You arrive at the party in desperate need of a beer and some fun and see Dave and Lisa, looking ecstatic. You grab a drink and shuffle over.
“What the hell happened to you?” Dave says. “I was just telling everybody about our little adventure.” You see that everybody includes Mike and co. and Sadie—right next to you, thank heavens—and a few people you don’t know. Dave speaks: “So like I said, our competition is really, really clever and I’m thinking there’s no way we can compete. For starters, we’ve entered as Dave and Lisa. Not a pun on the Human League in sight. And my supposed best friend in the whole world here”—he raises his beer in your direction—“completely abandoned us.” He puts his arm around Lisa. “So anyway, right before we’re called to go on, Lisa gets this totally amazing idea. We go into the bathroom—thankfully they were those either/or kinds of bathrooms—and we swap clothes, or at least most of them. Then we fill out another entry form and swap them just in time for the emcee to introduce us as the Who’s the Man League. Then Lisa starts singing the male part in this deep voice and I sing the girl part falsetto.” He sings a line to give everybody an idea: “The five years we have had have been such good times. I still love you.”
Everyone laughs, but it’s Sadie’s laugh you hear. It’s like a rainbow’s shooting out of her mouth.
Dave coughs. “God, my throat hurts from doing that. But the crowd absolutely ate it up. I’ve really got to hand it to Lisa”—he looks at her and smiles—“she was really hamming it up. So we won and we had to perform again, but this time the whole place was singing along, with all the guys singing the girl part and vice versa. It was by far the funniest thing that has ever happened in my entire life.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t stay to cheer them on,” Sadie says to you. Then she shakes her head and walks away.
You spend the rest of the night watching Sadie flirt with another guy. You never have any fun.
The End
Sliding back onto the seat you occupied earlier in the evening, you order another drink. As you pick listlessly at the last of the honey-roasted peanuts on the bar, a voice behind you says softly, “Very careless of you, losing your friend like that.”
It’s Bryan, one of the guys you were playing Snowball’s Chance in Hell with earlier. He looks a little drunker now, but then the same could probably be said of you. In any case, it’s a huge relief to see a familiar face. “I’d love to pay for that drink, but you wiped us out earlier,” he adds, hopping up on the stool beside you. “Y’mind if I sit down?”
“Where’s your friend Graham?”
“Over there.” He points. “We tossed a coin to see which one of us would come over first and talk to you.”
“You’re not going to ruin an already shitty night by saying you lost, are you?”
“Hell, no.” He beams. “I would have liked to talk more earlier, but you were busy with your friend. I saw her leave a few minutes ago, by the way; she looked pretty bombed.”
“Par for the course.”
“She knows that bartender is married, doesn’t she?”
You groan. “No. I’m sure she doesn’t.”
“Wow. Yeah, he’s married alright. Graham and I were arguing about it before, so we put a bet on it and asked him.”
“Do you two bet on everything?”
“Certain stuff.” He laughs. “Just a stupid guy thing, you know. Juvenile. But it usually makes the night more interesting.”
You talk for a while longer. Bryan borrows some money from Graham, who’s decided to leave, and buys a couple of drinks. You find yourself forgetting about the plan to return to Sullivan’s. It’s doubtful that Suzy ever turned up anyway—she’s probably too busy unwittingly providing Dan with some extramarital frolics.
Bryan is inching his stool ever closer to yours, and it’s not a huge surprise when he makes a move, taking your hand in his, and finally leaning over to kiss you. You’ve no objections. He’s laid-back and easy to
talk to and, not insignificantly, an incredibly good kisser, even after many drinks. Or maybe the many drinks are helping—at any rate, it takes some willpower to end the kiss, and considerably more effort to remove his hand from your breasts.
“I guess this isn’t really the right place, huh?” he asks. “Will you come home with me?”
If you go with him, read on here.
If you think it would be safer to ask him back to your place instead, read on here.
Or you could just leave and go to your local for one last drink. Read on here.
The emcee announces Dave and Lisa and looks as puzzled as everybody else that their name isn’t at all punny. They get up on stage, looking ridiculously normal when compared to all the other contestants, and the music kicks in, soulless synthesizer sounds filling the speakers.
Dave’s face goes beet red right before he starts to sing. And while he starts with a confident, “You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, when I met you…,” he mumbles stuff after that, seemingly having forgotten to look at the monitors that supply him with the lyrics. Once he remembers that the monitors are there—that he’s not actually expected to know all the words—he tries to catch up but loses his place. Thankfully, Lisa makes her entrance anyway, but in her attempt to sing louder in order to drown Dave out, she’s entirely off-key. You can barely resist covering your ears as the two of them struggle through the second verse, Lisa making awkward attempts to turn their performance into some kind of skit by pointing at Dave occasionally. People actually start booing.
Lisa runs off the stage crying before the song is even done, and Dave tells the audience to go fuck themselves.
The three of you are out on the street seconds later. Lisa’s crying so hard she’s having a hard time breathing, and Dave, who you think might be on the brink of tears himself, pulls her into a hug. “Hey,” he says, “come on. It wasn’t that bad. You were great. I was the one who fucked up.” He looks at you pointedly.
“Dave’s right, Lisa. It’s really nothing to be upset about. You were fine, really.”
Lisa’s sniffling and wiping tears from her eyes, now bloodshot. “Really?” God, the woman could break your heart.
“Really,” you say. And you make a mental note to remember this moment the next time you get into an argument with a woman about whether or not honesty is always the best policy. “Now, come on. We’ve got a party to go to.”
“I don’t know if we feel like it anymore,” Dave says. And warning bells go off in your head. They’re already a “we.”
“What do you say, hon?” Dave asks Lisa, lifting her chin with his index finger.
Yup, your drinking-and-cruising buddy’s as good as dead.
Lisa says she wants to go home. Rather, she says to Dave, “I want you to take me home,” and writes down the address of the party for you, figuring the rest of the gang has probably left Spinners by now.
They’re kind enough to let you take the first taxi that comes along.…
Read on here.
“Okay, I’ll take one.”
“Atta girl!”
Hayley says. You swallow it … not easy given the size.
“What if they’re for some old guy’s arthritis or something?” you suggest as you resume walking.
“Lance is not an old guy’s name.”
“I suppose that makes some sort of twisted sense. Hey, this must be Lindy’s place.”
The music is blaring, and you can hear raucous laughter even as you cross the street toward the house. There’s about half a dozen people walking up the driveway in front of you, and Lindy—at least, you assume the tall, blond woman who answers the door is Lindy—says hi to two of them. You hear one of the guys say something about having “brought along some friends,” so you grab Hayley and tag onto the end of the group, trying to look inconspicuous. Lindy nods politely at you as you walk in and shake her hand, announcing your names.
“Very slick,” says Hayley admiringly, once you’re far enough away from Lindy. “Hey, this is some place. Where’s the booze? We need to find the kitchen.”
You scope out the rooms. Eureka: an impressive array of spirits is lined up in the kitchen, and a quick glance inside the refrigerator reveals it to be overflowing with beer.
“Ooh, my favorite!” says Hayley as she pulls out a bottle of cider.
“You sure you should take that?” you ask.
“That’s okay, take one; I think I brought too much anyway,” says the guy who just came into the kitchen.
“He brings too much deliberately, hoping that someone’s going to ask him if they can trade sexual favors for cider,” comes another voice close behind him. It’s Mark! He spots you and gives a little wave. “Oh hey! Nice to see you.”
“Hi there. The cider-stealing woman is my friend Hayley,” you explain, wishing you’d had the foresight to check yourself in the mirror before you came in here. “The sexual favors might be negotiable.”
“And this is my friend Gerard. Haven’t seen you in a while. You coming back into the living room?”
Of course you are. You grab a beer, grin at Hayley, who’s thoughtfully distracting Gerard, and follow Mark.
There follows a long, fascinating conversation—fascinating from your side at any rate, and at least he’s not yawning—in which you and Mark talk about everything from movies to favorite flavor of hummus. He prefers roasted garlic to mild curry flavor, too! What are the odds? Could things be more perfect? Now that the party’s getting crowded, the two of you are forced to sit closer together on the couch to make room for other guests. All of a sudden he puts his hand on your thigh and whispers, “Do you want to find somewhere more private upstairs?”
Not exactly the kind of line that fuels romantic fantasies. Maybe you should suggest waiting a while longer? On the other hand, isn’t this what you hoped would happen?
If you go upstairs with him now, read on here.
If you want to wait, read on here.
“Mike,” Lisa calls, “you can come back in.” When you do, you see that she’s curled up facing the wall. She can’t see you, and she’s drunk enough that you probably sound like Mike. Should you have some fun with this and play along as if you really are?
If you say to Lisa, “I’m not Mike,” until she understands that, well, you’re not Mike, read on here.
If you decide to see how long you can pass for Mike as some twisted kind of revenge, read on here.
“I’ll pass,” you say.
“Okay, little chicken-licken. All the more for Hayley.”
She swallows them both, with some difficulty, and you resume walking toward the party.
Lindy’s house is large and elegant, and through the open windows you can hear the strains of Dionne Warwick singing “Walk On By.”
“Ooh,” squeals Hayley. “Lindy has taste—I’m glad we’re crashing this gig now. So when she opens the door, just play it very mellow, okay?”
You knock, and the door is answered not by Lindy but by a middle-aged gnomish man who smiles blearily and stands back to let you in. “Lindy’s in the kitchen,” he says, slurring a little. “Didn’t know she had so many pretty young friends—you are friends of hers, aren’t you?”
“We’re pretty young friends of friends,” you respond, shuffling past him and into the living room, feeling relief wash over you. Not so difficult after all.
Now this is a scene. Lava lamps, beanbags, lurid psychedelic throws covering every modern piece of furniture, girls in miniskirts who seem to have applied their mascara with a trowel, even some guy with a velvet pantsuit.
“Shit, I didn’t realize it was a costume party,” says Hayley.
“Strictly speaking, it’s not,” comes a voice nearby, “but some of Lindy’s friends decided to go for a Swinging London theme.”
You both turn to face the owner of the voice. It belongs to a tall, dark guy in black jeans and a leather jacket. Not strictly gorgeous by classical standards, but his grin is disarmingly friendly.
He introduces himself as Tom, and he and Hayley exchange a look that lasts significantly longer than politeness would decree. Then he offers to get you both drinks and disappears into the kitchen in search of punch.
“Madam has seen something she likes?” you whisper.
“Have him washed and brought to my tent. There’s something about him, isn’t there? Makes me moist.”
Then you spot him. Mark. He enters the room and you could swear you hear angels singing. Look at that face. Those eyes. Two of them. And that nose. Right there, in the middle of his face. Those soft lips; again two, the requisite number. Perfect. Lips that are right now taking a drag of a cigarette as he gazes around. What brand is he smoking? Ah, they’re roll-ups. Roll-ups that he rolled with his own hands.… You become dimly aware that Hayley is pinching your arm in an effort to attract your attention. “Do I even have to ask if that’s Mark? Your eyes have glazed over. Look away before you start to drool, girl. Or go over there. Now, before some miniskirted vamp gets her claws into him.”
If you choose to approach him right now, read on here.
If you want to wait, read on here.
“Go up and say something to him,” you urge. “You know you have to.”
“You think it’s a good idea?”
“No, actually I think it’s a stupid idea, and it’ll probably end in tears, but the alternative—leaving here knowing that he’s with her—is going to make you feel worse. So go, make an idiot of yourself if it helps any.”
“Thanks. Hey, can you believe it’s our two-year anniversary tomorrow?” she adds as she puts her drink down and walks toward Cole and his new woman.
To avoid seeming nosy, you study the bottom of your glass thoughtfully and deliberately try not to hear the conversation around you. But there’s no missing Hayley’s voice yelling, “You expect me to believe that?” Then there’s some earnest discussion and Hayley’s voice, more subdued this time, saying, “This is incredible. My god … and I never had the slightest idea!”
Big Night Out Page 20
