by Mj Fields
“She’s having fun,” Stephanie laughs. “Dear God let her.”
We stand on the edge of the dance floor watching Mom dance for a good hour. Not only is she dancing, she’s laughing, and she is still drinking.
“When she throws up, you are taking care of her,” I tell Stephanie.
“She wiped your ass, you owe her,” Steph smarts back.
Fifteen minutes later, she is being groped.
“Go time or not, I’m not watching my mom get dry humped on the dance floor at a fucking wine festival.”
I walk away from the girls and push past the people in my way.
“Let’s go MOM,” I over emphasize ‘mom.’
“But Katherine,” she whines.
“But nothing.” I raise an eyebrow at her and look at him. “Hands off player.”
“She’s a grown woman,” Player remarks.
“And you could have come out of her vagina,” I snap.
I grab her hand and start walking away.
“The men seem to like me here.” She grins.
“Well aside from you and Steph no one else is dressed like they’re ready to put out.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she laughs.
“Look around, you stand out like a whore in church. Everyone else is beach bumming it and you’re in a damn date night dress.”
“Shush Katherine,” she slurs.
I wave the girls on and we walk towards the exit.
“Do we have to go home now?” she asks and all the sudden I feel like the adult.
“Why, do we need to call your pimp and check in?” I ask.
She laughs so hard she snorts, which is very un-Carrie like.
Lucky for the Indian cab driver the ride is only twenty minutes otherwise he would have a damn migraine headache like I did from the day. Mom, Steph, and even Macey are laughing at something in the back and I am stuck in front riding shotgun with Aladdin, who clearly doesn’t use deodorant.
As soon as I open the door Mom, falls on her ass. I pull her up. “Come on.”
As we cross the street Mom waves to a group of guys walking down the sidewalk. “Hello neighbors.”
“Do you really want their first impression of you to be this?” I ask and she laughs.
“Well hello there ladies,” the shortest of the five winks.
“Do you live here or are you vacationing?” she asks planting her feet, halting me.
“Vacationing. Party four houses down tonight, you should,” he pauses, “come.”
“Well thank you, what should we bring?” Mom asks.
“Carrie,” I call her because in the cab she vowed to call me Katherine if I didn’t stop calling her Mom when we were out trolling.
She had actually said ’Trolling.’
“We’ve got booze and meat sticks enough for all four of you,” he grins.
“We’ll bring something that goes with meat sticks,” she smiles.
“Oh for fuck’s sake Mom, wake up and smell the penis metaphor,” I say pulling her towards the house.
****
She puked, in the toilet, and is now in the bath. She argued that she wanted to shower, I won. I waited outside the bathroom worried she may fall while getting out.
“How the hell does this happen? When does the child become the parent?” I ask while Macey slides down the wall and sits next to me, my phone in her hand.
“I was seven,” she chuckles.
“Shit, sorry Mace,” I say.
“You didn’t mean anything by it,” Stephanie says sitting on the other side of me.
Macey came from a very broken family, system suckers, she called them. She left as soon as she could, got a job and lived in a shit hole apartment in the Bronx until she made enough to get out of the city and over the bridge.
She shrugs and continues thumbing through what I knew was the Match app. “No big thing. Hey, do you know you can change locations?”
“No. I hardly look at that damn thing unless you’re around forcing it on me.” I roll my eyes.
“Well once we get Carrie squared away,” she pushes herself up, “you have a date.”
“Mace, are you kidding me?” I snap.
“Nope, look around Kat. The floors are done, your mom could be here. There are only two reasons she isn’t. She wants you to find someone to make you happy. She wants to fix whatever is broken between the two of you. Get it done and you can go back to being an unsocial bitch.” She smirks and stands. “I need my wing chick back. Now I’m going to shower upstairs. You better do the same, you have a date in an hour.”
“Give me my damn phone,” I call behind her.
“Not until after we’ve delivered you to your date. His name is Rex and I get to meet this one.”
I look down and groan and Stephanie giggles. “Maybe this will get her interested in dating too Kat.”
“I’m not interested in dating,” I remind her.
“I can’t wait to see you fall in love,” she grins.
“You know what happens at the end of a fall? A splat. I’m not interested. There will be no falling.”
“Mom,” I grumble as she fucks with my hair.
“I just want you to look beautiful, you are beautiful Katherine. You deserve happiness,” she keeps going singing me praises like she did when we were kids.
“I’m really not sure you get it Mom, but I am happy and content being single.” I pull her hands away from my hair.
She flops back in her bed. “Kids complete you. Kids make you strong.”
“Being single also makes you strong.” I lift her legs and swing them on the bed. “Goodnight.”
“I love you Katherine. So, so much.”
“Goodnight Mom,” I say and start to turn away.
“Katherine, do you love me?”
“You’re my mom, why would you ask that?”
“You should say it then.”
“I love you Mom,” I sigh and walk to the door, turn out the lights, and close the door behind me.
When I walk out onto the patio Macey is pacing. “No excuses from you, let’s roll.”
“Where’s Steph?”
“In bed on the phone, swear I think she’s masturbating and I’m not going back in there.” She looks at the phone in her hand, my phone. “Let’s roll.”
****
“Please tell me this is not where we’re going?” I asked as we walked down the block.
“Small world.”
Mace is wearing a red tank dress and blinged out sandals. Her lips are the same shade of red, her eye makeup is perfect and black of course, she has a small purse draped across her body and my phone in her hand.
Me, I’m wearing a plain white tee, jean cut offs, and black flip-flops.
“Who are you texting?” I ask.
“I’m not, Kat is texting Rex,” she smirks.
“Oh my gawd, you’re enjoying this,” I gasp.
“I’m enjoying being you,” she shrugs.
“You like him,” I laugh. “Let me see.”
Rex is his screen name, and he is good looking. Clearly Macey has a type and it’s not exactly what I would have imagined.
Rex has the same preppy boy hair cut that Alvin did, he is wearing plain clothes and there isn’t one drop of ink on his skin. He’s tall and lean, and has blue eyes.
“Do you know me at all?” I ask her half joking.
“Of course I do.” She tries to snatch my phone.
I pull it back and she groans, “Bitch.”
I scroll through the messages reading them. “You fucking kidding me?”
Macey has set up drink and dinner dates for an entire week, some nights have two men, two!
“You made a deal with your mother,” Macey smirks.
“I did, but it doesn’t mean a damn date every night,” I gasp. “I have a life you know.”
“Yes, and you see nothing is scheduled for Monday, you can have that day to be unsocial.”
“Well thank you asshole.”
I elbow her. “I’ll do this, but only for a week.”
“Better find someone then.” She elbows me back.
“I think it’s you who needs a man, I myself prefer sex without strings. I like my space.”
“You might like someone in your space.”
“I don’t even like them in my bed,” I laugh.
We follow the path lit by lanterns towards the music and noise.
“Message him and tell him you’re here,” Macey says as we walk up to the gate.
“He knows what I look like,” I roll my eyes.
As soon as we walk in Macey spots him. He’s six foot, and just as handsome as his picture. “Wave,” she says.
“Fuck that, he can come to me,” I say and look around for a bar, a keg, something. I spot the keg. “There.”
“Grab me one too?”
I follow the direction of her eyes trained on the group of men. “Yeah sure, whatever.”
As I am pumping the keg I feel a hand on my shoulder. It’s gentle and I am already disappointed.
I’m also in need. The period is gone, I can’t find my peen collection so this better be happening tonight.
I turn around and he’s in the shadows.
“Hey,” he says and thank fuck his voice isn’t helium-like.
“Hey,” I say and take a drink.
“So?”
“So?”
He chuckles and I like the sound of his laugh.
He says nothing else.
It’s awkward, and awkward doesn’t get you laid.
Fuck it, I think.
“Look, I hate these things, these parties. You stand talking to someone thinking, ‘he’s cool, he seems to admire the artwork’,” I point to my ink, “but then the conversation stalls, it sucks.” I take a deep breath. “So I think we should fuck. Let’s just fast forward through all the pleasantries and all that bullshit, I mean you don’t look like you’d be very good at conversation and I don’t want to sit here and watch you blunder through it so I say we just leave here, go to your room and fuck.”
His jaw drops, I think it does anyway, it’s still too dark. Either way the expression is priceless.
“Is this a trick?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No, but the offer is gone in 3, 2,-”
“I’m in.”
“Lead the way.”
Fifteen awkward minutes of bumping and grinding trying to find a release and I don’t. When it finally ends, I’m heading down the stairs as fast as my fucking flip-flops can take me.
I walk outside hoping to hell he is still lying there wondering what the hell just happened.
I walk out the french doors and spot Macey talking to…holy shit.
“Kat,” she waves me over.
Fuck.
“Hey Macey, I’m feeling like shit. I’m gonna head home.”
“This is Rex,” she says widening her eyes and looking at me like I’m being rude, which is fucked up because she is normally worse than I am.
“Sorry Rex, I am not feeling well.” I grab her hand and drag her behind me. When she pulls back rather forcefully, I stop.
“We really need to go before, not Rex, comes down looking for me.”
“You didn’t,” she gasps.
“Oh I did, and you fucking blow as a wingman,” I scold her. “We need to go, now.”
She looks back in the direction of where we had just left. Then turns back to me, “Go.”
Lying in bed I can’t help but laugh. I have been drunk for a full twenty-four hours. This binge was brought on because I found out my father apparently had a drinking problem.
Nonsensical.
I refuse to overthink it though.
‘My name's not Rex,’ the dude I was riding had said as he gripped my hips and blew it way too fucking soon.
I laugh out loud and cover my mouth.
I grab my phone and scroll through the messages. Tuesday through Saturday I am going on dates with Ken dolls.
Macey, Macey, Macey. She has a definite type and it is nothing like the guys she hooks up with. It’s also clearly not my type.
I don’t want Prince Charming, I don’t want the submissive type. I don’t want the type like Mr. Tuesday, who apparently ‘sees me’ and would like to show me how a ‘lady should be treated.’
Fuck him, I laugh to myself. Seriously, I am not that bitch. I will ride plastic all day long before I have some overzealous dumb ass who wants to please me blow his load before I even start to heat up, like Not-Rex.
A message pops up.
@rider1: What’s up Kat?
Kat: Not me in a couple minutes.
@rider1: Sleep well
Kat: No other way to sleep
@rider1: There are plenty other ways to sleep
Kat: Oh please don’t start the bullshit with me
@rider1: Care to fill me in?
Kat: Ask me 4 my number. Send a pic of your tiny package. I won’t fall for it.
@rider1: U must be mistaking me 4 a desperate man. Heads up. I’m not.
Kat: Then why are you on here? Did you use up all the hometown hoes.
@rider1: That’s an insult to u as well Kat.
Kat: I never said I wasn’t a ho.
@rider1: Interesting.
His reply is brief and honestly I am curious about him. I press the profile button and his pictures pop up. His head is shaved, he has on shades, he’s shirtless and has some ink. The pictures are too dark and blurry to really see him, but what I do see I kind of like.
@rider1: you like what you see?
Kat: Excuse?
@rider1: U do know when U look at a profile they see that shit right?
Kat: So. BTW you’re missing a fish.
@rider1: BTW, fish is not a dish.
Kat: Pig
@rider1: No babe I’m not.
Kat: Babe is a pig, and I am not one either.
@rider1: That’s too bad.
Kat: U like hos?
@rider1: I like you.
Kat: You don’t even know me.
@rider1: I know you take no shit. U aren’t afraid to step outside the box.
Kat: Is that so?
@rider1: Tell me it’s not.
Kat: Your pictures suck. What are they, twenty years old?
@rider1: I have some on my computer, just can’t get them up.
Kat: There’s a pill for that
@rider1: Technologically challenged babe. No problems in that area.
Kat: It’s your story. Figure out how to put up more pics. Google it.
@rider1: Give me ur email address, I’ll send them.
Kat: [email protected]
@rider1: Babe, ur worried about dick pics, don’t give out ur email address.
Kat: Don’t tell me what to do.
@rider1: U know what they can find out w/ ur e-mail address?
Kat: No. Don’t care.
@rider1: IP address. Home address. Hell they can get it all. U feel safe?
The thought of that does freak me out a little, but I won’t admit it.
@rider1: Same thing with ur phone number Kat. Be safe babe.
Kat: You gonna offer me candy now? Lure me in with the big daddy vibe?
@rider1: I don’t need candy Kat and I’m not ur daddy.
Kat: Arrogance isn’t a turn on.
@rider1: No problems in that area either.
Kat: I need to sleep.
@rider1: Yet here you r.
Kat: You started this conversation.
@rider1: sure did.
Kat: Then shouldn’t you ask me out?
Fuck I hadn’t meant to send that!
@rider1: No.
Kat: Then what the hell are you messaging me for.
@rider1: Liked your profile
Kat: I don’t need a pen pal.
@rider1: I know exactly what you need.
Kat: is that so?
@rider1: You need to get fucked.
Kat: Nope, all set.
@ride
r1: meaning?
Kat: I had an actual date tonight.
@rider1: And let me guess, you fucked him?
Kat: I don’t have to answer that.
@rider1: Obviously not good enough if you’re trolling already.
Kat: Again, you messaged me.
@rider1: Still obvious that you didn’t get what you were after.
Kat: What was I after?
@rider1: You wanted a man, not a boy.
I start to reply and another message pops up.
@rider1: U don’t want it sweet you want it hard
@rider1: U want a man who can bend U over and fill U up.
@rider1: U want your ass bruised with fingerprints
@rider1: left because the man inside u was just as fucking lost
@rider1: in it as you were
@rider1: U want a man who makes damn sure u come on his
Oh fuck me, why stop there?
@rider1: fingers, his tongue, then his cock.
@rider1: u need a man to fill that cunt so full it’s still
@rider1: dripping out of you in the morning
@rider1: you want your hot wet pussy so sore you can’t move
@rider 1: without feeling like he’s still inside u 4 days.
Son of a bitch, this is so….Hot, I mean wrong. It’s so wrong.
@rider1: u need a man, not some punk ass bitch
Kat: No. I need me.
@rider1: Goodnight Kat.
I don’t reply. I couldn’t.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Monday Mad-on
The drive home is torture. Pure torture. Macey drives because apparently she is immune to hangovers. My mother is in front with her holding a bag in case she vomits. Steph’s man drove two hours to get her because apparently we are bad influences.
I’m not sure I like him anymore.
Apparently her loose lips sank my ship. Unbeknownst to her drunken ass, she sank hers too. I’m not sure I like her anymore either. I’m not sure I like anyone anymore.
My phone vibrates and it’s message notifications. I scroll through the fucking preppy Kens and vow to make a plan to get Macey back when I come to @rider1
I read through last night’s messages, and can’t help but smile when I see one from an hour ago.
@rider1: Good morning Kat. I’m sorry
I message back immediately.
Kat: Sorry for?
@rider1: The void between what I assume are the sexiest legs on the shore
Kat: The void?
@rider1: I know you don’t still feel him.
