“Enough of this,” Kurt says. “Dazed and Confused is on pay-per-view.” He fumbles with the remote and goes to the schedule for pay-per-view stations. Dazed and Confused is in fact on—on channel fifty-nine—with an adult film called Backdoor Fantasy, you happen to notice, starting on channel sixty-one. Kurt changes stations numerous times before hitting the AUTH button. Suddenly, the screen is filled with images of a man and a woman having sex doggie-style, another couple up to their own antics in the distance.
“Whoa, dude,” Kurt says. “I hit the button on the wrong fucking channel. Jenna, pass me the cordless. I’ll call up and change—”
“No, leave it.” Jenna sits down next to Kurt and puts her hand down the front of his sweats.
You’re afraid to look at Sadie. Afraid of what she thinks of you and your friends. You’re also reluctant to turn your attention from the TV, however, because you’re totally engrossed by Backdoor Fantasy.
Still, this is Sadie. You have to check whether she’s uncomfortable. She has to be uncomfortable.
Finally, you get up the courage to turn to her. And when you do, she looks at you pointedly, grabs you by the head, and starts to kiss you. Then she straddles you on the couch and starts to unbutton her blouse as she looks over her shoulder to see the TV. You can see her chest rising and falling, her breathing deepening and quickening as her shirt slips off her shoulders to reveal a sheer black bra. Beside you, Kurt and Jenna are touching themselves, and each other, and—hang on a minute here!—Sadie.
What follows is a blur of limbs and orifices, moans and groans, that seems to last for an eternity. Then the next thing you know, you wake up on the couch with Sadie in your arms. Under the blanket you can tell you’re naked—both of you—and your mind rushes to re-create last night’s activities. But with being high, and Backdoor Fantasy and three other people involved, you’re not even really sure what actually happened.
Sadie suddenly stirs.
“Morning, sunshine,” you say, because it can’t have been bad if you ended up in each other’s arms on the couch at night’s end.
“Oh my god,” she says, moving away from you. She lifts her head and looks around the room, then buries it in the pillow. “Find my clothes.”
You’re no more excited at facing the naked walk across the room than Sadie is, but she keeps her face hidden in the pillow as you get up. You pick up your shorts and slip them on, then gather Sadie’s things.
“Do you mind?” she says, when you give her her clothes but don’t look away. So you turn.
“Are you okay?” you ask.
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” We all know what that means.
By the time you turn again, Sadie is on her way to the door fully dressed.
“Sadie, wait,” you cry out. “What’s wrong? Where are you going?”
She turns abruptly at the door. “I’m only going to say this once.” She’s talking through clenched teeth, and you think she might cry. “I never ever—ever—want to see you again. And if I do see you, I don’t want to talk to you or have anything at all to do with you.” She slams the door behind her, leaving you standing there in Kurt’s apartment—a long way from home—feeling heartbroken, confused, and, well, really really sore. What exactly did you do last night?
The End
Amanda pages Sadie and waits for a page in return. Apparently there are code words for the response, too. So when Amanda’s beeper starts vibrating and gyrating all over the kitchen table, you’re as curious as she is.
“Shit,” she says.
“What?”
“It says Drano.”
“What does Drano mean?”
“She’s got her period. You know, Drano, clogged…”
“Okay, okay, I get it.” Women can be a little too graphic sometimes.
“Sorry.”
“But hey…” You take a minute to double-check what you know about menstruation, then decide you can proceed. “You two live together, right, and you’re twins. Shouldn’t you have yours, too?”
Amanda gets up and looks at the calendar on the front of the refrigerator. “Oh, god, no.”
“What?”
“I’m late.” She starts pacing. “I’m never late.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“No, me and John, when we first got back together. We didn’t use…” She trails off. “Oh, my god. What am I going to do? We’ve only been together again a few weeks and this’ll, god, this’ll freak him out.”
“I should go,” you say. “You probably want to be alone, or call somebody.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Amanda answers, so you head for the door. Preoccupied, she doesn’t offer the address of the party, and you can hardly ask her for it! Not that it even matters. You’re not going to get lucky with Sadie tonight, her having her period and all. Not that that’s the point, you dog. In fact, a part of you is even relieved. Pregnancy stories always freak you out. You end up going home for lack of anything else to do.
The End
“You men are all the same.”
You always prickle at statements like that, and this is no exception. “And just what in the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re all talk.” She writes something on a pad of paper on the table, then rips it off and hands it to you. “Here, that’s where my sister is.”
“But—”
“Oh, just go on and get out of here and try whatever little seduction routine you think you’ve perfected over the years on Sadie. That’ll work.”
“Wait,” you say. “Maybe I want to reconsider…”
“Get out of here.” Amanda’s already pushing you toward the door and opening it. “I wouldn’t even want you now.” She closes the door in your face.
Dejected, fuming mad, and unbelievably horny all at once, you crumple the piece of paper up in your hand once you’re out on the street and hurl it at the sidewalk; the gesture is an unsatisfactory outlet for your emotions. You go to the store on the corner and buy a pack of cigarettes and wander the streets aimlessly, chain-smoking. You smoke yourself sick, then go home.
No matter what you do, no matter where you go—and whether or not the opportunity for twins arises again—you will regret this night for the rest of your life.
The End
“Say anything about you?” Amanda puts a mug on the table in front of you and pours it full of coffee. “To hear her talk, you two are practically married. Milk and sugar’s right there.”
You dump two spoonfuls of sugar into your coffee and regard Amanda suspiciously. “Really?”
“My god, yeah.” Amanda gets up. “Follow me.”
She walks down a long narrow hall and opens up a door. You follow her into a dark room. “I hope you’re prepared for this,” she says, then she switches on a light.
You’re standing right in front of what amounts to a shrine to you, covering about half of the largest wall in what must be Sadie’s bedroom. You look at Amanda, and you’re clearly horrified.
“I know.” She nods her head solemnly. “I’ve never been sure what to do about it. Maybe there’s something you can do to put an end to it.”
You step up to examine the wall more closely and find everything from joke E-mails you’ve sent out to people who then forwarded them to Sadie, to pictures of you from your high-school yearbook. You didn’t even know Sadie then. There’s a ticket stub from Starship Troopers, which you saw with a huge group of people including Sadie, and a lock of hair that’s frighteningly like yours in color and texture. There’s a bottle of your cologne, a small jar that looks like it’s holding fingernail clippings, and—if you’re not mistaken—a pair of your underwear. How on earth!
“You didn’t know…” Amanda speaks softly as she steps up beside you.
“I had no idea.” You don’t know whether you feel like crying or running for your life. You’re thoroughly creeped out. “What do I do?”
“I don’t know. But you can’t let her find out I showed you. She’ll kil
l me.”
“You don’t really mean—”
“No, I don’t think so. But I’m worried about her…”
You just stare at the shrine, your mouth agape.
“I didn’t mean to freak you out.” Amanda switches off the light. “Come on. You should get out of here.” On the way to the front door she picks up her wallet and takes out her card and hands it to you. “Call me at work and we can maybe think of what to do, okay?”
You find your way home and make sure all doors lock behind you. You don’t turn on any lights in your apartment, and you look out all of your windows—standing several steps back, of course—before fumbling to undress in the dark and falling into bed, wide-eyed. Hours later, you fall into a troubled sleep and have a dream that you’re a Latino pop singer.
The End
You tap in buze, then close your eyes and offer up a silent prayer. But the omnipotent being is not on your side right now—a message flashes about third consecutive incorrect password, and Suzy’s card is swallowed by the ATM. Damn. Before reconciling yourself to going home, you check Suzy’s wallet one more time to see if there’s anything else of use in there.
And there, stuck between her driver’s license and seldom-used library card, is five bucks. Not enough to get you a taxi anywhere, but enough, you reason, for one last drink in your local bar, the Pub, a short walk away.
Read on here.
“Alright,” you begin, shooting a challenging look at Sadie’s companion. “This happened to a friend of mine’s cousin. She was on vacation in some resort in the Caribbean with a friend and they were out drinking in one of the hotel bars one night, but her friend got tired and decided to go up and go to bed. But since she’d met a few people, this girl felt like staying awhile longer and having another drink. So her friend goes up to go to bed, and she follows maybe two hours later. She doesn’t want to wake up her friend, so she just feels her way around in the dark, slips off her shoes and shorts, and falls into bed. She’s had a few so she falls asleep really quickly and sleeps pretty heavily. So in the morning she wakes up, and she looks over at her friend’s bed and there’s blood everywhere and her friend is obviously dead—stabbed like a hundred times. And written in blood on the wall of the room, it says, ‘Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn the lights on.’”
“Woah,” Sadie’s friend says. “That is pretty cool. I’ll give you that much.”
“I think it’s just awful,” Sadie says. “I can’t believe you go around telling such a horrible story. I’m going to have nightmares tonight, thanks to you.”
Sadie storms off in a huff and you never talk to her again.
The End
“Okay,” you begin, shooting a challenging look at Sadie’s companion. “This happened to my cousin’s friend. She was driving cross-country, on her way out to grad school—alone—and she’s on this deserted highway at night.”
“I don’t like it already,” Sadie says. “I don’t want to hear it. I’ll see you later.”
You watch, stunned, as she walks off and joins another group.
“Well, are you going to tell the story or not?”
“No offense, but I don’t really see the point now.”
“Trying to woo Sadie, are we?”
“Kind of.” Are you that easily read?
“Well then you should do your research, man. Sadie’s sister’s car once broke down on a highway and she was basically kidnapped and brutalized for days. Besides, she’s got the hots for Leo over there. They’ve already been out a few times.”
You spend the rest of the night composing an apology to Sadie in your head, but you never get to deliver it. She’s engulfed in conversation with this Leo person, and they leave together before long.
You find the rest of your group and somehow—you’re sketchy on the details because you started pounding beers after your Sadie fuck-up—you end up escorting a puking girl home. By the time you get to your own place, you’re stone-cold sober and reek of beer, cigarettes, and puke. You decide to take a shower and find out you’ve got no hot water. Then again, that cold water could come in handy.
The End
“Alright,” you begin, shooting a challenging look at Sadie’s companion. “This happened to a friend of mine’s cousin. He was on vacation and spent a long day on the beach. So when he gets back to his hotel room, everything’s been thrown all over the place and he figures he’s been robbed. But as he goes through everything, he realizes nothing’s missing. Strangely, however, he notices that the roll of film in his camera has been used up. He rewinds it, throws it in with other used-up rolls of film, and reloads the camera. So he finishes his vacation without incident and goes home and gets the film developed. He’s obviously a little curious to see what’s on the mystery roll of film. So he gets all his pictures back and he’s flipping through them and sure enough, he gets to the mystery pictures, all of which contain a naked man, in various positions, with this guy’s toothbrush up his ass.”
“Oh, my god,” Sadie shrieks. “That is disgusting. Will you tell it again? There’s someone I want to gross out.”
“Sure, I guess.” This worked better than you expected.
“Come with me.”
Sadie says good-bye to her male companion, then pulls you across the room. She introduces you to her friend Alyssa. “He just told me a story I want you to hear.” Sadie urges you along with her eyes, and you launch into the toothbrush tale again. Only this time you decide to spruce it up a little. You say it happened to your brother. And end with the fact that he ended up getting hepatitis, but only hepatitis A, so it wasn’t fatal.
“That’s it,” Alyssa says. “I’ve had it with so-called civilization. I’m going to find some remote house in the woods where I grow my own food and everything. Either that or I’m going to start wearing a gas mask and rubber gloves and carrying my own utensils and toilet paper and everything everywhere.”
“See, I knew I’d get a rise out of her,” Sadie says good-naturedly, turning to you.
“Glad to be able to entertain you,” Alyssa says. “Just don’t come crying to me in my cabin in the woods when some psycho gets a hold of your toothbrush.”
“Oh, it’s not even a true story.” Sadie shoves her friend with her hip in an unbelievably endearing girlish gesture. God, she’s gorgeous. And the way those hips can move!
“Tell her,” she says, nudging you. “It’s just a stupid urban legend.”
“Yup,” you say. “It is.”
“You two are quite a pair,” Alyssa says, and you and Sadie look at each other.
You say, “We are, aren’t we?” and smile.
“You think?” She laughs that laugh that makes you want to curl up to her like she’s a hot-water bottle.
“I think.” You step toward her and place a gentle kiss on her forehead. She looks up at you and says, “We’re going to get married, you know. I’ve just had that feeling everyone always talks about. The knowing.”
“Good,” you say, because you feel it, too. “Because I feel it, too. You want another beer?”
“Sure.”
The End
“Wow, that was a great escape,” Sadie says. “But I don’t want to wait to smoke this back at the party. Where can we go?”
“Follow me,” you say, remembering the roof on Josh’s building. A few floors up, you prop the roof door open so you don’t get stuck up there. You sit down on a low ledge.
“Shit,” Sadie says, searching through her bag as you roll a joint. “I thought I had matches.”
“That’s okay,” you say. “I’ve got a lighter.”
She smiles, then cuddles up next to you. It’s starting to get chilly out. Huddled together, you smoke a joint, and Sadie’s body seems to mold into yours. After a while—when an amazing sense of peace has overtaken you—she says, “Let’s go.”
“I’m feeling pretty mellow now. You think the party’s still going strong?” you ask.
“I was thinking of just going back to my
place.”
“Oh,” you say, and you apparently sound dejected. Have you come all this way for nothing?
“Hey,” she says, lifting your chin and stepping up to you. “I thought maybe you’d come with me.”
“I’d like that,” you say, and the two of you head back downstairs.
“Let’s just walk,” Sadie says. “It’s only five blocks.”
“Here,” you say. “Take my shirt.” You strip off your long-sleeved shirt, braving the crisp air with just a T-shirt.
“You think of everything,” she says.
“I try,” you say.
“No, it was kind of a question,” she says, nodding in the direction of a twenty-four-hour drugstore. “Did you think of everything?”
The two of you duck in to buy condoms arm in arm.
The End
About the Authors
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Acknowledgments
Warning!!!
Prologue
Begin Reading
About the Authors
Copyright
BIG NIGHT OUT. Copyright © 1999 by Lorraine Freeney & Tara McCarthy. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Big Night Out Page 28
