by Belle Brooks
“A long time. I thought we were going to get married. It turns out she’d been screwing my best friend for the past four years we were together. I should have seen it, but I was blind, naïve, and stupid.”
“No, no, I’m sure you weren’t.” I lift my head and reach out my arm until I place my hand against his leg.
“I was, but that’s love. Sometimes, it’s blinding.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Can I ask how long you’ve been apart?”
“Five years.”
I try to do the math to figure out how old Arlie is. I conclude he must be in his late twenties.
“I’m thirty-one, Melinda.” It’s like he reads my mind. “We were high school sweethearts. We started officially dating when we were sixteen but had been friends from the age of twelve.”
Double holy fuck. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I know. Nobody does.” He pauses. “Any more questions?”
I have a million, but I can hear the annoyance and sadness in his tone, so I decide to drop it before I ask too much of him. “No, none. Thank you for sharing with me.”
He nods.
“My turn?”
He nods again.
“Okay, here goes.” I’m nervous to share, but after what Arlie’s admitted, I feel comfortable to offer something of myself that I haven’t told anyone apart from Chris. “I’ve never been engaged or married, but I’ve also never dated. Well, that’s technically a lie. I’ve been on two dates with two different guys, but I never went on to date them afterwards.”
Arlie’s posture completely changes from down in the dumps and slumped at the midsection to curious, intrigued, and seated upright. “Who did you date?”
“Alec. I was sixteen.”
“And?”
“And the blind date from the night I bumped into you at the Chinese shop, but he turned out to be a cat-killing psycho, so—”
“Cat-killing psycho?”
“You don’t even want to know.”
“But I do.”
There are a lot of laughs between the both of us as I explain the ordeal of the evening before I made it to the Chinese restaurant and subsequently ended up eating a meal with the man seated across from me now.
“He was crazy,” Arlie says.
“Told you.”
“And the Alec fellow?”
“Well, that one stung a lot. Alec and his friends humiliated me. He was the popular boy. I wasn’t popular at all, and the date was a prank.”
“That’s sad.”
“Yeah, but the weird part is it wasn’t because of the date, I don’t think, that I never went on to date again in my life. I think it’s because I find myself nervous around men, and my brain-to-mouth functionality falters a lot.”
“You talk to me just fine.”
“I know, which is weird for me, if I'm honest.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
I smile, then nod.
“So, does this mean you’ve never had a boyfriend or a partner?”
“You are correct,” I say, drawing a big invisible tick in the air.
Arlie’s eyes grow wide. His eyebrows lift high on his forehead. “Melinda, are you a virgin?”
I didn’t see the question coming because I hadn’t put all the pieces of what we discussed together. Of course, Arlie would get such an impression. “No, no, no! Nooooo! I’m not a virgin. I’ve been involved like that.”
Arlie's eyebrows dip. His lips narrow. “With?”
And then it dawns on me. Strange men when I’m drunk. I can’t say that out loud. “Pass.”
“Okay, okay. Sorry. Too far.”
I place each hand on the opposing arm, creating a cross of protection across my chest. I’m a floozy. A skanky floozy.
“My turn again,” Arlie says.
“Please.”
Arlie lets out a long sigh. “The worst thing that’s ever happened to me is my mother dying. She was mugged in a train station late at night. It was my fault because I had a project due for school I hadn’t told her about until right before it needed to be handed in. My mother, being the type of person she was, went into town to get supplies so she could make it while I slept. If only I’d done the damn project, she wouldn’t have been killed. Maybe then she’d have been around to stop my sister from getting knocked up so young, and I wouldn’t have gone off the rails and rebelled against everything for the next year of my life.”
My heart hammers in my chest. Arlie has had some horrible things happen to him, yet he seems so reasonable, not whiny and all ‘woe is me’ like I tend to do when things aren’t going right in my life.
“Arlie, I’m so sorry.” I slowly try to stand.
“I wouldn’t do that, Melinda,” he warns.
I don’t listen. I need to hug him. I need to do something. His mother was murdered in a subway station.
“Melinda,” he says my name louder and with more dominance.
I crouch down due to his tone.
“Camel toe.” A twinge of humour lines his voice, causing me to shoot right back to my feet before turning my eyes down to Miss Priscilla. I don’t have a camel toe. What’s he talking about?
The canoe wobbles. I throw out my arms to regain balance, but before I get a chance to sit back down the canoe rocks and then overturns, throwing both Arlie and me into the cold water below.
“Oh, shit,” I say when my head bobs above the surface.
Arlie’s laughing.
I tread water to stay afloat as I glare in Arlie’s direction. It’s like a thousand knives suddenly stab into my skin from my shoulder to my navel. Somethings biting me. A jellyfish? “Ouch, oh God, ouch. Fuck!” I scream. I can no longer hear the deep chuckles coming from Arlie. All I can listen to is my pulse beating in my head.
His arm curls under my legs, his other arm around my back.
“It stings. It frickin’ stings.” Tears roll down my cheeks as I clench my teeth and hiss out my pain.
“Help! Help!” Arlie yells.
The sound of a boat engine starting brings with it the sensation that my body is being pushed through the water.
“It’s okay. I’ll get us on the boat.”
I don’t feel anything bar the searing heat through my midsection when I find myself lying on the boat with Arlie hunched over the top of me.
“Jellyfish,” he yells. “Take the fucking camera off her now.” Instant anger.
“Get the stingers off. Get them off,” I hiss.
“They are. The tentacles are gone. Lie still.” Arlie’s incredibly calm. His touch is gentle. His presence is helpful.
I close my eyes and groan, one long sound. “My heart hurts. My arm hurts too. My stomach is burning like acid.”
“I’ve got you.” Arlie’s tone is confident.
It feels like forever until I hear the engine beginning to slow. A different warmth, unlike the fires of hell previously spreading across my skin, takes over. I open one eye. “What the fuck? Arlie, no!” I choke out.
“It’ll stop it. I promise.” His pants are no longer around his waist. Part of his penis fills my vision. A forceful stream of pee is flowing from its tip.
Arlie is fucking peeing on me.
“Stop!” I cry. “Stop peeing on me.”
Of course. The old story that peeing on a jellyfish sting will make the pain go away. Arlie doesn’t reply, and he doesn’t stop either.
Oh my God, just let me die.
Chapter Twenty-one
I’m lying on the couch with a towel soaked in vinegar rested across my midsection, and an ice pack pressed to my forehead.
Arlie sits in a chair opposite me, staring at me with a look of worry scrunching up his face.
He should be worried, because the moment I can get up, I’m going to slap him stupid.
First, my dress lifted above my head back on the beach, showing the world my knickers. Then I mistook the host of this stupid show for the
mystery guy I was supposed to be meeting. I attacked a flying dildo. I kicked that same flying dildo. I kissed a man I barely knew in a moment of tears that turned into passion. Now that same man has peed all over me after I sustained a jellyfish sting.
What the hell are my mother, father, and sister going to think when they see this? Hell, what are my work colleagues and my friends at The Quarter going to say?
Chris? I know he’ll find this funny as hell, and he’ll never let me live a minute of it down.
Arrrrgh! What a mess.
How much does it cost to blackmail a director? What figure will it take to prevent this embarrassing footage from making it to the air? If I don’t stop this, I’ll never be able to show my face in public for as long as I live.
Day one: Everything’s gone to shit. Everything that can go wrong is, has, and I believe will continue to do so.
“Are you okay?” Arlie says hesitantly.
“Um … vinegar, bright spark. You use vinegar on a jellyfish sting, not urine.” I flare my nostrils as I contain my anger. “Arlie, you peed on me.”
He chuckles.
“It’s not funny.”
“Some of my piss pooled in your belly button, and I had to kind of roll you onto your side so that it would empty.”
I cover my face with my hands and suck back a harsh mouthful of air. His booming laughter follows. “Arlie, it’s not funny. None of this is funny.”
“Oh, but it is.” He continues to laugh.
“I didn’t even have a camel toe. I rocked the damn canoe for no reason at all.”
“I’m sorry. I swear I am.” There’s still humour in his tone.
“So why are you laughing?”
“Because it’s funny.” And there he goes again. Deep laughter fills the room.
I close my eyes and hope when I open them none of this has even occurred. I hope that this has been a horrible nightmare, and when I wake, I’ll be home, curled into a ball on my bed, wearing a fluffy bunny outfit. There’ll be a needy cat tucked under my arse, hogging the bed like he usually does.
One long, steady breath has my limbs relaxing.
I bet we failed the task, and due to this sting, we won’t receive the prize. Another slow inhale sees the last of my pain disappear.
I don’t want the stupid prize anyway. I want to go home.
My eyelids grow heavy, my heart slows, and the need for sleep overcomes me. I attempt to fight it, but I fail.
***
Birds chirping have my eyelids fluttering open. The sunlight is bright, so bright I squeeze my eyes shut before rolling onto my side to escape the glare. A piece of fabric as soft as silk rests against my cheek; my head is supported by what I can only describe as a mink blanket balled underneath it.
Where am I?
I open my eyes as I run my hand in a semi-circle beside me. Sheets—I can feel the thread count of expensive sheets below my fingertips. The last thing I remember is lying on a suede lounge chair with a towel against my belly in a two-piece swimsuit.
The pressure to my neck from the string of my bikini top is absent, which has my hand shifting across my chest. I gasp. I drag my hand farther down over my chest, my stomach, and only stop when I reach my mid-thigh. What’s happening? I’m wearing a long cotton T-shirt.
I launch my body upright. My eyes shoot open. I hold my breath.
What the hell?
I flick the blankets off. I'm wearing a blue T-shirt with nipples erect and bosoms unholstered. Holy shit! I’m completely naked under here. My beaver is roaming free and loose, and that’s not the way this beaver likes to roll. It’s a modest creature who enjoys the security that covering it brings. So, if I'm dressed like this, it can mean only one thing: someone who was not me has changed me.
Arlie?
I leap from the mattress, tucking the material of the T-shirt between my legs. My head pounds like it does after I’ve downed a bottle of scotch.
Where is my underwear? Where’s my bra? Where’s my memory? What the hell happened last night? Can a jellyfish sting give you a hangover? Can it erase memories like dancing the mumbo with a bottle of liquor can? Why don’t I know the answer to these questions? Why is my head not only pounding, but so freaking fuzzy too? Why do I feel like I do after I’ve drunk myself stupid and woken up to the realisation I’ve had sex?
I swallow in a gulp.
Did I have sex?
Chapter Twenty-Two
I hear a doorknob turn. I walk backwards. I wrap my arms around my chest as I hunch my body and flick one leg in front of the other, being mindful to keep the material of the T-shirt tucked across Miss Priscilla.
“You’re awake. How did you sleep?” Arlie stands in front of me, bare-chested, wearing only a pair of green boxer briefs. There’s a silver tray held between his hands, and a cool, calm, and collected look planted to his handsome face.
I take a step back and eye him cautiously.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“I think the better question here is what have you done?”
“Me?” His voice rises. “I brought you breakfast. I figured you’d be starving.”
“And …?” I wait for the ‘and’ … the and that comes with the explanation as to how I’ve found myself dressed as I am. Surely, there are a lot of innocent reasons for my current attire. I passed out after a long day and the jellyfish sting I sustained. I came upstairs and undressed myself in my tired state, somehow finding a T-shirt that doesn’t belong to me, and forgot I did these things. However, my mind is focused on just one terrible thing. Did we perform the horizontal tango and that’s why I feel like I do, as I have on occasions before today?
“And … what?”
“And …?” I point at the T-shirt.
“My shirt?”
“So, you admit it?” I stab my pointer finger into the air.
“Admit it? That you’re wearing my surf tee?”
“Yes.” In my need for justice, I forget about protecting my crown jewels and widen my stance.
“You fell asleep on the lounge. I tried to wake you, but you were out like a light, so I thought it best to tuck you into bed.”
“It doesn’t explain why I’m …” I pause and adopt a low, whispered tone, “It doesn’t explain why I’m naked under here.”
“You fell asleep in wet bathers, and I didn’t want you to get sick. I was already freaking out over the jellyfish sting and the fact you were so out of it. I had to call the emergency number in the binder to let the show know we needed a doctor to come out to check on you.”
“What?” My eyes grow large. My blood pressure soars. “You invited a strange person to come check on me while panty-less and asleep?”
“What was I supposed to do?” Arlie steps to his right and places the tray on the cabinet under the television.
“Leave me in my wet bathers to sleep it off.”
“No! What if you got sick or something? It would’ve been my fault.” He places his hands on his hips. “After all, it was my camel toe joke that caused you to plummet into the sea and got you stung in the first place.”
“I was fine. I’m a doctor. I knew I was fine.”
“About that …”
“What?”
“Being a doctor. You said you were a receptionist. Your submission form doesn’t reflect what you told me at the restaurant that night.”
I drop my shoulders. I stare into his sexy-as-fuck eyes, and I realise this horn dog is changing the subject and turning this all back on me. “Hold up there, buddy, that’s not up for discussion right now. How I’m currently practically naked is.”
Arlie places his hand to his forehead before dropping his head. “Look, the doctor checked the sting and your vitals, then said you were fine, and to let you sleep.”
“Dude, you …” I huff. “You let them check my stomach while I had no knickers on, and you did this full knowing it could be filmed.”
Arlie lengthens his neck. His eyes find mine. There’s a slight
grin tugging his lips upwards. “Actually, I forgot about the cameras, but you still needed to be checked.”
“Oh my God, you’re killing me. Haven’t I already had enough embarrassment?”
“It was a doctor. I’m sure he’s seen enough vaginas in his day. I bet you’ve seen your fair share of vaginas, right? Being a doctor and all.” He bobs his head.
I gasp. “The number of vaginas I’ve seen has nothing to do with the fact you should have just left me sleep … left me be.”
“Melinda, I was worried about you. I was so worried that even after the doctor said you were okay, I still sat beside you the entire night making sure you kept breathing.”
Warmth floods me. He … he did that?
“You did?” I mumble, all dreamy.
“I did.”
That’s so lovely of him. So kind. So sweet. So—
He still saw you naked.
He let the world see you naked.
“Did you look?” I completely disregard the kindness he’s expressed and decide to ramp my mood back to its previous pissed off status. I’m going for his perfectly formed manly jugular this time. His sweet nothings are not going to derail my upset. No, siree Bob.
“I’m the one who changed you, so kind of.”
“Kind of?” What the hell, man?
“Well, it’s not like I laid you out stark naked, spread your legs, then grabbed a torch and a microscope so I could inspect your bits. I did glance. I’m a man—it’s hard not to when the chick looks as hot as you.”
“I can’t believe you did …” I stop mid-sentence. I replay what he said over in my mind. Did I hear him correctly? “You think I’m hot?”
He turns his eyes to his feet. “Yes,” he says, barely audible.
My entire demeanour changes. I’ve never been called hot before, not by anyone. Not even by Chris. That’s so sweet. “It was kind of you to care so much,” I say sweetly.
“I was doing what anyone would do, Melinda.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s okay. I’m sorry if carrying you upstairs, putting you in your bed, and getting you changed has upset you.”
“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have bit your head off …”
