Big Night Out

by Tara McCarthy

  “I don’t know. I was kind of thinking I’d had enough of this music. I was thinking of leaving.”

  “Oh.”

  The two of you stand there in silence watching people dance. This is your so-called life. You know you should say something, but what?

  “You want to go somewhere? Someplace quieter and where the drinks aren’t lukewarm?”

  That would have done the job, but Sadie beat you to it.

  “That’d be great.”

  You and Sadie find a cozy spot around the corner and talk until closing time. You offer to walk her home at night’s end, and when she slips her hand in yours, it’s confirmed. You feel like you’ve known this woman forever. And want to be with her forever. You also want to be with her, in the more primal sense, tonight, and you’re thinking it’s on the cards.

  Back at her place, candles on the bedside table lit, all’s going well. She’s everything you imagined she would be in bed; a great mix of vulnerability, aggression, and know-how. Right as you’re about to go for the gold, she whispers your name.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you have a condom?”

  You don’t.

  Sadie sends you out to the twenty-four-hour drug store, only when you try to come back you realize you don’t know her last name, her apartment number, or her phone number. You wait for an hour, but when she doesn’t come looking for you, you have no choice but to go home.

  The End

  Taking this as your cue, you reach over and give him a tentative kiss. Nothing too heavy … if he objects you can pretend it was just a friendly peck. But no, he doesn’t seem to be objecting, not unless shoving his hand up your shirt could be interpreted as rejection.

  He pulls you down onto the bed and starts grappling with buttons and fasteners, as you both giggle and fumble. You’re relieved now that you didn’t get together with Mark. Maybe there is something to be said for starting off as friends first and then getting into a relationship. And let’s face it, you and Peter are definitely really, really good friends.…

  It’s just as well, because when Peter turns to you the next morning and ruefully explains that he feels like he’s just had sex with his sister, only the fact that you and he are really, really good friends stops you from cracking an alarm clock over his head.

  “Wasn’t it weird for you, too?” he asks.

  “I guess so,” you lie.

  “Thank god, I was afraid it was just me.”

  “Actually,” you add cattily, “my little brother might have lasted longer.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that; my concentration got thrown off when you made that noise that sounded like a horse.”

  You both lie there fuming for a couple of minutes. Finally Peter suggests getting breakfast, but with the pounding in your head and the way your stomach is churning, you know you’ll never be able to hold down food. You scramble around, getting dressed, while Peter ignores you. Pulling on your jacket, you give him a peck on the forehead.

  “We’re still friends, aren’t we?”

  “Of course,” he answers, not very convincingly. “I’m going to be pretty busy with the band over the next while, but I’ll call you, okay?”

  What an asshole, you think. “Whatever.” You smile. “See you around, little bro.”

  The End

  When the phone rings, you pick up. You explain the situation to Mike, who’s confused as to a number of the evening’s details—like how the hell you ended up at Lisa’s apartment in the first place. Then again, you’re not too clear on that yourself.

  “Let me talk to him,” Lisa blurts, and you go out of the room to give her some privacy.

  In a few minutes, Lisa calls you from the other room. “He wants to talk to you again,” she says, holding out the phone and looking away.

  “Hey,” you say to Mike.

  “Get your ass down here. Everybody wants to leave for the party any minute now.”

  “Aren’t you coming here?”

  “No fucking way, man. Let her sleep it off. I don’t feel like dealing with her shit tonight.”

  You notice that Lisa’s got her head buried in her pillow, crying.

  “Alright,” you say. “Don’t leave without me.”

  You get out of Lisa’s as quickly as you can and practically run the rest of the way to Spinners because you can’t find a taxi. Mike, Will, Tracy, and some people you’re sure you’ve seen at a happy hour once or twice before are waiting for you. You all walk to the party, a few short blocks away.

  Sadie’s arriving with a female friend just as you are. She’s all dolled up, with a short skirt and knee-high boots. If Dave were here, he’d call them fuck-me boots, and you’re suddenly grateful he’s not. Nobody to babysit. You can concentrate on the task at hand. Namely, taming the raging hard-on in your pants.

  If you hang back so that you’re climbing the stairs with Sadie, read on here.

  If you play it cool (act like you don’t see Sadie yet) and keep talking to Mike, read on here.

  You start to back out the door, banging into a lampshade as you go, incoherently mumbling that you should get going now.

  “You’re leaving me in a very compromising position—lonely, clearly aroused, and lying under a comforter that’s covered with pictures of little lambs. My mother bought it, honest. She thought it was cute.”

  “I like it, makes you seem harmless.”

  “Eh, this might sound tasteless, but are you sure you want to go? It’s early, or late, or whatever. Let me at least make you more coffee. Or maybe you’d like to make it and bring me some?” he says brightly.

  “And then you can come back in and pleasure me, okay?” he calls after you as you give an exasperated snort and head for the kitchen.

  What the hell, may as well make some coffee.

  “The sugar’s in the microwave,” Peter shouts.

  Naturally. You potter around looking for clean mugs—no luck—and ponder what to do. You’re a little too groggy to be horny, but on the other hand, Peter’s bed looks damn comfortable and maybe it’s time you just got it over with and threw yourself at him. What’s the worst that can happen?

  Maybe the clean mugs are under the sink. You open the cupboard and see a sheaf of papers. Idly you pick them up and just then Peter rushes in, the comforter wrapped around his waist. “I meant to tell you, don’t look in there.”

  You’re about to say “Why not?” but one look at the top page of the bundle you’re holding makes it abundantly clear. It’s a stack of pictures downloaded from the Internet, and this one, at least, features a middle-aged woman doing something extraordinary with a ferret.

  “Fuck,” is all you can think of saying.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” Peter says as he tries to grab the pile from you, causing some of the pages to spill to the floor.

  “You mean the ferret gave his consent?” you say incredulously. “My god, Peter … your mother…”

  “She doesn’t look anything like my mother!” he shrieks.

  “No, I mean, what would she think!” you say, picking up pages from the floor. “Jesus, is this a canary?”

  “Oh hell … don’t freak out. It’s just a load of harmless pictures. Lots of people enjoy this stuff. No one gets hurt. See, even the canary looks happy.”

  “Peter, I think I’ll take a raincheck on the coffee. I’m gonna go.”

  “This would be the wrong time to hit on you, wouldn’t it?”

  “I’m just worried you’d want me to make koala noises or something.”

  “No, of course not … Maybe a couple of ferret squeaks would have been good though. Hey, seriously, we’re still friends, aren’t we, sweetie? You don’t think I’m a pervert?”

  “Sure, we’re still friends.”

  “Well, okay then, I’ll call you tomorrow,” he says as you slink toward the door. “Hope you had a good night anyway?”

  “‘Good’ might be overstating it.”

  Memorable though. Definitely memorable.
<
br />   The End

  The second you get to Spinners— a huge bar decorated mostly with fluorescent beer signs and a collection of bras donated by drunken female patrons over the years—Mike rushes to your side.

  “I just answered a page from Lisa.” He looks terribly anxious and practically pushes you back toward the door. “She said you must have dialed the wrong number when you tried to page me because five minutes later the cops were at her door saying that that pager belongs to a drug dealer they’ve been tracking. Come on, we’ve got to go straighten things out.”

  Then you hear it—that laugh—and you turn and search the crowd frantically for the source of that audio honey. Sadie’s in the house!

  “Is Sadie here?” you ask, stopping your movement as Mike holds the door open.

  “Lisa’s about to go to jail because of you and you’re still thinking about Sadie?”

  Well, duh. Of course you are.

  Reluctantly, you follow Mike back to Lisa’s. There, a swarm of cops in blue uniforms are posted in the hallway, others standing around Lisa in her living room. She looks absolutely petrified.

  The cops approach you and Mike.

  If you took a joint from Lisa’s place earlier, read on here.

  If you didn’t, read on here.

  Bryan has a great apartment. A great apartment. Everything’s color-coordinated and impeccably tasteful. When you see his collection of CDs and vinyl you gasp audibly.

  “Big, isn’t it?” he grins.

  “Enormous. I’ve never seen one so huge. Can I … can I touch it?”

  “Sure. Be gentle though.”

  You run your fingers over the shelves full of CDs. “What is it you do, exactly?”

  “I’m a music journalist, freelance mostly; I do a lot of writing for magazines overseas. Also I’m writing a book about the development of singer-songwriters over the last thirty years … from Tim Buckley and Nick Drake to Mark Eitzel and Elliott Smith, y’know?”

  “Sounds upbeat.”

  “Yeah, not exactly a festival of laughs, but interesting. Anyway, want to see the rest of the place?”

  The tour starts in the kitchen and ends, inevitably, in the bedroom, which is where Bryan stops pretending to care what you think about his taste in furnishings and suggests you take off your jacket. Maybe the boots, too. And your shirt, while you’re at it. Though he is, as you’ve discovered, an excellent kisser, he obviously hasn’t put as much thought into the rest of his technique as he has into, say, choosing the right color cushions for the couch.

  “Ouch.”

  “Sorry, am I hurting you?” he asks.

  “Yes, that’s what the ‘ouch’ meant. Your hip bone is boring a hole in my leg.”

  “You should have said.”

  “I just did.” You smile sweetly. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom; back in a second.” In the bathroom you lean your head against the cool mirror. Is this really what you want to be doing? He seems nice, and you wouldn’t mind borrowing some of those CDs sometime, but something’s not right. Then you hear Bryan’s voice, barely audible, probably from the living room; he must be talking on the phone.

  Instinctively you put your ear to the door and listen. Is he talking to a girlfriend? No, doesn’t sound like it, too jovial and too much swearing. You open the door slightly and hear something that sounds like “… no, not yet, but any minute now. Yeah well, I told you I would, man, and she’s kind of fun anyway, so it’s not a bad way to earn fifty bucks. Might see her again. Can you drop the money off tomorrow? I’m strapped till that check clears.”

  It’s as if somebody turned a lightbulb on over your head. Sleeping with you must be part of a bet. That has to be Graham on the phone. You flush the toilet for effect to give him time to hang up. Bryan is still in the other room, ostensibly putting on music.

  “Everything okay?” he calls.

  “Great.” You pull your clothes back on.

  “You want something to drink? Wine, maybe?”

  “Wine would be great, thanks,” you shout.

  You hear him padding into the kitchen, so you slink into the living room and grab your bag and jacket. In the living room you stop by the CD racks, pulling out certain ones that caught your eye and shoving them quickly into your bag, then closing the apartment door quietly behind you.

  Just as you’re reaching the bottom of the stairs, you hear Bryan’s voice above you. He’s leaning over the stair rail, naked, holding two glasses of wine. “What’s going on?” he wails.

  “Tell Graham I said hi,” you call back.

  The End

  As the cops approach, you take your hands out of your pockets, so as not to appear as if you’re taking this situation lightly. But when you pull your hands out, the joint you rolled earlier in the evening falls onto the floor. One of the cops immediately bends down to pick it up and slide it into a plastic bag marked Evidence. Mike looks at you like you’ve got to be the dumbest person in the entire world, and Lisa starts bawling.

  “You have the right to remain silent.” The cop turns you around and cuffs you. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”

  You spend the night in jail with Lisa because neither one of you wants to call your parents (not that they could even do anything at this hour) and all your lawyer friends—hell, all your friends period—are out getting drunk. You pass the hours tracking the progress of a lazy cockroach across the floor.

  The End

  “I’d prefer to go back to my place.”

  “Sure, whatever you like. I’m hardly going to argue, am I?” He grins.

  You take a taxi back to your place and after the standard guy foreplay of admiring your apartment and complimenting your CD collection, Bryan leads you to the couch and you pick up from the Berlin. He may not be Mark, true, but at this stage of the evening you’re willing to make do with what’s available, and, to be honest, Bryan is damn good fun. You’ve finally moved the action to the bedroom and are deeply engrossed in what Bryan’s doing with his right hand when there’s a noise in the front room and he sits up suddenly.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Just my roommate,” you whisper. “It’s cool, don’t worry.”

  “I didn’t know you had a roommate.”

  “Well, now you know. Will you get back here now?”

  “Hey.” He nuzzles your neck for a second and murmurs, “Do you think your roommate would come in here and join us?”

  “You want my roommate to get in bed with us?” You’re trying so hard not to laugh that you might choke at any moment.

  “Sure … it’s a standard guy fantasy. Every woman knows that. Come on, babe, it’d be fun. Have you guys ever fooled around before?”

  “No, we haven’t, though I suppose I’ve always found my roommate quite attractive. I mean, I have considered the fact that something might happen between us one day.”

  “Really?” If Bryan gets any more excited he’s liable to erupt before you’ve got any use out of him. “Wow, that’s really hot. Go on, ask. Please.” Sad to see a grown man beg.

  “Okay. Be right back.”

  Pulling on a robe, you slip out of the room and close the door behind you. Your roommate is in the bathroom brushing his teeth. “What the fugh?” he asks, his mouth full of toothpaste.

  “Ssssh! Listen, I’ve got a guy in my room and he thinks my roommate’s a girl and he’s been begging me to bring you in so you can, y’know, join us.”

  He creases up with laughter and you shove your hand over his tooth-pasty mouth in an effort to keep him quiet. “You’re kidding, right? Wow, that’s funny,” he gasps. “Well, I guess I have to do it, don’t I? Just give me a second and I’ll be right with you.”

  You go back to your room, where Bryan is sprawled across the bed, trying to look debonair and sexy. “Well?”

  “The answer’s yes.” You climb back into bed, and a few seconds later your roommate opens the door. Standing in the door frame, wearing only his shorts and
backlit by the living-room light, he flexes his arms, pouts, and rasps, “Well, are we ready?”

  Unable to control yourself any longer, you screech with laughter as Bryan turns bright red and shouts, “Oh haha, very adult of you.” He leaps out of bed and starts pulling his clothes back on.

  “I’m sorry!” you gasp as he bolts out the door. “It was just too funny!”

  Your roommate flops down on the bed, giggling hysterically. “Oh, baby, that was the best. It even makes up for not getting together with Sadie tonight. And I assume that loser wasn’t Mark?”

  “No … things didn’t quite work out there either.” You reach over to ruffle his hair and he grabs your hand. He’s still smiling, but clearly an idea has struck him. One that has, coincidentally, just occurred to you.

  “The night doesn’t have to be over yet though, does it?” he says, edging closer. “I mean, now that we are, technically, in bed together, for the first time in roommate history, it seems a shame to, y’know…”

  “Will you shut up and turn off the light?”

  “Sorry. I was just … well, I guess you know what I was…”

  “Get over here!”

  The End

  As the cops approach, Mike produces his beeper as evidence that this was all a mix-up. You explain you must have misdialed the pager number when you were at Lisa’s apartment earlier. Still, the cops aren’t thrilled they’ve come all the way here for nothing. They take the three of you down to the station, question you all separately, and give each of you a drug test. Since the alcohol level in your blood is so high, they insist on escorting you all home separately.

  At home, you find that your roommate and her friend Suzy have brought home two guys. Suzy and hers are having sex in your bed, and you freak out on them. They scuttle away, muttering apologies, and you fall into bed, wishing you’d done laundry so you had clean sheets to put on. Exhausted, you fall asleep anyway, only to wake up a few hours later in extreme discomfort. What’s that awful itch? And why won’t it go away?