Ororo did a quick mental count of the number of shots she’d had from the moment they stepped out of the cab, attempting to calculate if the two or three bites of sourdough bread dragged through the spinach dip, the anatomically incorrect frosted cookie with sprinkles in suggestive places, and the pieces of fruit floating in her jungle juice earlier qualified as enough food to sop up the alcohol she drank.
Not even likely. She eyed her reflection in the cracked vanity mirror of Harry’s Hideaway Bar and Grill, silently grateful that she’d made it this far. Her cheeks were flushed and her skin was dewy from the close quarters of her favorite watering hole, and she was still wound up from the cab ride over. Right about now, Jean was out on the floor, cutting a rug and turning the place out. She belonged out there with her, with her home girls. Not here, wondering who took her head when she wasn’t looking, filled it with steel wool and cotton balls, then tossed it haphazardly back onto her shoulders. She took inventory. Yup. Hair was a tousled mess. Eyeliner was holding up okay. Lipstick was half chewed off, barely a halo of color along the edges of her lips…time for a fresh coat. She uncapped the tube, rolling it up and barely skimming it over her bottom one when she had a random, foolish thought occur to her. She tapped her fingernail against her front teeth.
Couldn’t feel a thing. Yep. Pietro would never let her go out again. She giggled at the thought, then giggled even harder as she caught her expression in the mirror.
That grumpy assed bouncer barely cracked a smile until it had been at her expense. It was just a COOKIE, for crying out loud.
“Hmmph,” she hmmphed to her reflection, smacking her lips apart with a light pop, then running her fingers through her hair to it at least settled into waves that fell mostly in the same direction. It’d have to do. Not that she even had anyone to impress.
She made her way through a maze of people, doing her level best to ignore the brush of bodies against what bits of flesh that remained exposed by her tiny halter top. Several pairs of eyes sought contact with hers; she didn’t offer so much as a nod, hoping it was enough to send the message that she didn’t want to be stopped or waylaid on her path back to the dance floor.
Jean was in rare form. Ororo grinned when she noticed that there were a few letters of the alphabet missing from her necklace already. She vowed to ask Allison if she still thought of Jean as an uptight priss after tonight, enjoying her reactions as Jean mock-demonstrated how to wax the pole. Anna and Lorna were screaming with laughter as Emma and Betsy waved dollar bills at her, begging an encore of the show at the bachelorette. Jean was still decked out in her veil; the prophylactics gleamed as the rainbow slivers of strobe light hit them, lighting her auburn hair on fire. The pink and white layers of tulle made her look like a vamped out Glinda the Good Witch. Ororo snickered at the comparison.
“Come out, come out, wherever you aaarrrree!” she sang gaily, going her level best impersonation. The joke was lost on Anna Marie.
“Where ya been? Didja fall in?” Anna Marie slung her arm sloppily around her shoulders, half in affection, half for support.
“Arms to the side,” Lorna added. Her eyes were gleaming above pinkened cheeks. Yup, she was three sheets to the wind, too.
“And ya called my ass scrawny,” Allison accused.
“What ass?” Ororo mimed a shrug of her shoulders, throwing up her hands as she turned to glance at Allison’s posterior for emphasis, craning her neck around for a better glance.
“Jealous?” Allison’s palms skimmed their way up her thighs, and she undulated her hips to drive the point home. Ororo fell easily into the groove of the music in blatant challenge, after giving Allison’s butt a swift swat. Bodies pressed in around them, crowding onto the dance floor, and each woman took a turn outdoing the other. The alcohol continued to flow as the night wore on. Anna Marie’s “Showgirl” impersonation made Lorna laugh so hard she nearly squirted rum and Coke through her nose. Emma and Betsy, normally reserved, loosened up a bit toward the end of the night; they danced sinuously together by old habit. As usual, it worked. Each of them gradually welcomed new partners, whether separately or the occasional lucky man seeking a dance floor “sandwich.”
Ororo had vowed to be good at the night’s start. Just her and her girls. Harry’s was a meat market, but she wasn’t even window shopping. No, what she craved was the rush of being naughty. Yes, that was it, she craved. Just that thrill of not worrying what tomorrow held. That buzz and the ringing in her ears and the throb of the floor beneath the balls of her feet as she danced the spikes off her shoes. Letting her body’s internal clock tell her how close they were to closing time. She was bathed in sweat and the dying remnants of Pietro’s cologne still barely clung to her skin. She caught her own reflection in the club’s wall-to-wall mirror. She didn’t recognize the woman who stared back at her. She arched her back and swept her fingers through her hair, letting cool air fan across her sweat-drenched nape. Then for a moment, it wasn’t just her and the girls anymore. It was just her.
She danced and moved, pulled into the beat of the club’s house mix, which blurred into reggaeton, then into undiluted techno for the next dozen songs. She closed her eyes for a moment, falling into the blessed delusion that it was Pietro’s chest she felt against her back. She moved in that silent communion, synching her moves with his. That tiny voice of reason muttered to her that she’d had too much to drink. Phantom hands played at her waist, gripping her. She conjured his sweet breath at her throat. If she summoned everything in its place…she could almost feel the nip of his even teeth clamping down on the crest of her ear. She heard him growl something in deep, hungry tones:
“Easy on the sauce, Legs.”
Wait…where the hell did that come from?
Her eyes snapped open as though someone had dashed a glass of ice water in her face.
“Earth t’Ro? Ya still in there, sugah?” Anna waved her hand in front of her face, interrupting her view of her own reflection for a moment. “Thought we lost ya.” She felt herself jostled as Lorna snuck up on her, tucking her chin against her shoulder.
“That good, huh?”
“Good Lord…must’ve been the jungle juice,” Ororo slurred.
“Sure. Tell me another one,” Allison piped up. “Water break!” she bellowed. The girls linked hands and arms and made their way off the floor in a daisy chain, trying not to lose any of their number in the crowd. Jean was urged reluctantly up to the bar and practically stumbled her way up onto a stool.
“I wanna dance some more,” she whined. “It’s my last weekend as a single woman!”
“Ah don’t think that dress kin take much more, shoog,” Anna tsked, tugging her spaghetti strap back into place where it fallen down for about the umpteenth time. Jean was already in her cups, her fair skin rosy. She slumped ungracefully at the bar, her breasts propped up against it as she scraped her hair away from her face, blowing her tulle veil out from her mouth where it was stuck to her lipstick. “Yer lookin’ the worse fer wear.”
“Are you kidding? I feel like Miss Friggin’ America,” she announced loudly, banging her fist down on the bar to drive that point home.
“Shit, here she goes,” Allison warned under breath. Ororo giggled and rolled her eyes. She nudged in closer to Jean and met her reflection in the mirror as she scooped up Jean’s fall of thick hair and twisted it off her neck, fanning cool air against her with a cocktail napkin. Jean gave her a bleary smile and sagged against her with relief.
“I love you, ‘Ro! You’re my sister. You’re a lifelong friend. I always want you in my corner.”
“C’mon, you’re making me blush. Wouldn’t do to make Scott jealous.”
“Eh. He’s always suspected that of you an’ me, anyway!” Jean teased.
“Gads. Great. Now he won’t want me to come over anymore for our Scrabble tournaments.”
“Only if we let him watch.” Ororo snorted back a laugh, then played with the condiment tray of lime and lemon wedges, treating herself to a bit of lemon. She pursed her lips around it and sucked, welcoming the sharp tartness that felt fresh in her mouth.
“Is this the time for sloppy true confessions?” Lorna asked.
“If it is, I’ll just be going home, now,” Emma teased.
“I second that motion.”
“What motion?” Anna quirked.
“This motion,” Allison replied, doing her best popping and locking move with her arms. That just set everyone off. When the guffaws died down to giggles, they all took long pulls from their ice water and continued to fan each other.
“I’m getting too old for this.”
“Don’t say that. I’m older than you,” Ororo snapped, tugging Jean’s hair in umbrage.
“Nothing wrong with cutting loose every now and again.” Betsy toyed with the large, garish red plastic straw in her water glass, using it to chase after the bobbing ice chunks. “When else’ll we get the chance, duckie?”
“Scott and I don’t want kids right away,” Jean huffed, mopping away the film of sweat cooling beneath her eyes with her knuckle. Ororo knew better. Beneath the gleam in her eye the first day that she flashed them all the one and a half carat solitaire, Ororo saw the wheels turning in Jean’s head. The comfortable niche she carved herself at the day spa as the membership director wasn’t enough. She had the BMW. She had the doting fiancée and the posh house on a quiet, tree-lined street. All that was missing was a baby. Maybe two, plus a dog for good measure. The logical side of Ororo’s brain didn’t see why Jean couldn’t have it all.
Problem was, life wasn’t logical by any stretch. Ororo knew she was supposed to want those things. She’d learned long ago, through painful repetition, not to want what she didn’t have, let alone what it took too people to achieve.
This is not my beautiful house, this is NOT my beautiful wife… Words to a song she’d nearly forgot drove her back into the moody lull she’d fought to escape using a succession of tequila shooters. Don’t get moody, Munroe. She drank her water fast enough to give herself wicked brain freeze, seized by burning thirst. The music thudded through her body, dimming down to a dull roar.
On their way back down the stairs, Jean stumbled and tripped, nearly falling off of her Lucite-heeled mules. Anna and Ororo caught her by the arms before she could tumble, but her thudding footsteps drew the attention of the ID checker and a passing busboy, juggling a double handful of empty beer pitchers.
“I’d say you’ve been here long enough, Princess. You ladies have had your fun.” The ID checker was burly and huge, easily dwarfing Ororo at six and a half feet and built like a Mack truck. His forearms were thickly muscled and covered in a fine down of dark blond hair. A plastic nametag with a blue stamped label introduced him as Vic.
It wasn’t a long acquaintance.
“We were just…”
“Na, ya weren’t. Out!”
“Wait…”
“Uh-uh. Catch a cab, dry out, take a walk if ya have to. But don’t take up space and my time, tryin’ ta convince me that yer not wasted.” His slate gray eyes swept over Jean, taking in her outfit and lean curved outlined in the white satin slip dress, topped with her wild mane of hair and crumpled, floating veil. Ororo caught the quirk of his lips as he eyed the miniature penises and pink condom packets. He fought valiantly to keep a straight face, succeeding only when Anna tried again to argue.
“We just wanna head out to the patio, buddy. Ain’t like we wanna tear up the place.”
“She can barely walk. Hell, none of you can! Goodnight, ladies.” He gave a little bye-bye wave that looked ridiculous executed by his large, ham-like hands and pushed himself forward, invading their space. Ororo cut her eyes at him. He cocked his head as if to ask “What’re YOU gonna do about it?”
And so they were off.
“And, by the way, Princess? Congrats on your nuptials!”
“Fuck you very much,” Allison shot back, handily flipping the bird in their wake as Betsy hailed them a cab.
“This is SO illegal,” Lorna grumbled. She sat alarmingly close to the driver up front, squished between his tobacco-scented bulk and Allison. Jean, on the other hand, laid on her side across her friends’ laps, with her head nestled on Ororo’s. Ororo fiddled with the tulle of her veil, tsking at the condoms that were working their way loose.
“Scott’s gonna kill me if any of those are missing,” she murmured hoarsely.
“All except these two!” Emma crowed, snatching off the ones closest to her, earning her the sleepy, green-eyed ire of the bride.
“You’re such a brat.” Ororo rolled her eyes for what felt like the umpteenth time that night. They pulled into the lot at Denny’s, and the mood grew somber as soon as they dragged their way into the lobby.
The vinyl seats in their booth felt cool at their backs as they slid inside. Anna and Lorna played with the sugar packets. Emma idly spun the dessert and appetizer menu carousel as they ordered a round of ice waters and bottomless coffee.
“So, Jeannie…ya plan on havin’ a money dance?” Anna began, drawing their conversation immediately back to Jean’s favorite topic.
“I don’t know. They’re just so…tacky. My mom made me the cutest little card box shaped like a chapel.”
“You could do red envelopes. That’s what Yuriko did when she tied the knot.”
“That was traditional for her. Matched her dress.” Betsy’s face was dreamy. “All that red silk. It was beautiful.”
“Yours will be, too,” Emma assured her. “Just go with the card box.”
“Money dances are fun.” Allison stirred her coffee slowly. “Helps. At least the reception’ll be paid for.”
“It already is. Scott’s dad works for NASA.” She picked at her fingernails. “His stepmom and I get along okay.”
“What was her name again?”
“Hephzibah.”
“Weird.”
“She’s Slavic, I think. Her hair reminds me of yours, Ororo.”
“Ah still think a money dance couldn’t hurt.”
“Hey, I’m fine with pinning more dollars on you, Jean, but promise me, no Macarena!”
“Are you KIDDING! I LOVE the Macarena!”
“Mah all time favorite’s still the money dance!”
“Conga line!”
“Bunny hop!”
“The ELECTRIC SLIDE!” And it all deteriorated steadily from there. There was a brief hush once they tucked into their Grand Slams and skillet scrambles. The chatter swung toward the honeymoon.
“I’ve always wanted to go to the Vineyard,” Allison sighed.
“Vastly overraed. Skip the local beach, Jean, and just go to Edgartown, then straight on to Nantucket.” Emma pronounced, waving a forkful of fried potato at her assembled friends. Lorna looked amused at her voice of authority, shooting her a “la dee dah” expression as she turned away. Ororo did a spit-take with her coffee.
“What?” Emma implored, clueless.
“Nothing.”
“Whaaaaattt?” she whined.
“Nothing, nothing. Yum yum, eat ‘em up, here comes the choo-choo,” Allison encouraged by way of distraction. All of them exploded into giggles.
“I’ve always wanted to tour Italy if I got married and went on my holiday,” Betsy sighed.
“You’d be better off doin’ that yerself, before ya tie the knot, honey pie. Mah half-brother, Kurt an’ his l’il wife, Kymri, always planned a long honeymoon for when they could afford it. They’ve been married goin’ on eight years, and d’ya think that vacation t’Mallorca ever materialized? ‘Course not. On their last anniversary, they just took the kids to the Cape ta build sand castles and see a real lighthouse.”
“Big whoop,” Lorna agreed, brandishing her fork in disgust. “Might as well have had the anniversary at the city dump. Just as many seagulls. Damn birds are as big as turkeys.”
“No shit,” Allison agreed. “Better yet, too MUCH shit. That’s all those scavengers do. Screech, peck, and dive-bomb you with poop.”
“Eeeww.” Jean wrinkled her nose.
“S’true,” Emma offered. “My older brother worked as a lifeguard once. One of those nast buggers hopped up, dug into his duffle with his beak and stole his sandwich!”
“Not only am I gonna beat ya up, I’m gonna steal yer lunch!” Anna growled, urging more testosterone into her voice and mimicking the quintessential tough guy from the old-time Charles Atlas ads.
“Man. Bird sounds like my last boyfriend,” Ali quipped. Her expression was sour.
“Cain wasn’t that bad,” Jean hedged, lying through her teeth. Ali’s answering look was stony with disbelief. “Okay. Never mind. Shutting up now…”
“His ‘I’m your number one fan,’ overly possessive crap got old. Then it’s the possessive ones who cheat. The chick I found him with was built like a brick house. Found out that she answers to ‘Skeeter.’”
“Eek,” Ororo cringed. “Sounds like something you’d name your hunting hound.”
“He should’ve called her ‘Skeezer.’ Shoulda heard the mouth on her, God!’ Allison snorted. Ororo and Jean shared a silent look. Allison’s potty mouth was legendary. “I bitched her out and kicked them both out of my house, and she stood here in the street, all this and that-“ and Ororo smirked at her least favorite ‘buzz phrase’ “ “about what a bitch I was, my bleach job, scrawny ass, sloppy cunt “ LIKE SHE’D KNOW!! Hello? You name it, my neighbors all heard it.” Eyebrows shot up around the table.
“Ooooh. The ‘C’ word.” Lorna winced in sympathy.
“Ain’t cool t’be talkin’ smack about another woman’s winkie,” Anna pouted. “The nerve of her.”
“Ouch.” Ororo dug into her wedge of chocolate cream pie, defiantly eating dessert for breakfast. The cream melted decadently on her tongue.
“I’m never gonna get married,” Allison declared. “Carly Simon said it best. I haven’t got time for the pain… Her throaty alto rose loudly enough to draw curious looks from other patrons lolling over their coffee.
“Haven’t got forevah, either, sugah,” Anna pointed out.
They left a generous tip and called another cab using Ali’s mobile razor phone, stumbling blearily into its confines. This one’s aroma was cleverly masked (not really) with a pine scented tree dangling from the rearview mirror. They ambled up the front lawn to Jean and Scott’s house and groaned in unison at the spilled food and smell of warm, sticky liquor and fruit.
“Hope ya called Merry Maids,” Anna suggested.
“I am tomorrow.” She turned up her foot in horror as it tracked through something that made her shoe peel away from the floor with a nasty sounding rip. “Eeeeccchhh.” The girls took up various spots on the furniture wherever they managed to find uncluttered space and turned on the TV. Ororo pillaged the leftover spinach dip and bread in an attempt to sober up enough to go home.
“Stay,” Jean implored. “We’ll have a slumber party.”
“I didn’t pack for it,” she complained. “Sorry, baby. I’m headed out. Gotta go home to my man.”
“Wait, wait, don’t go yet, we need another picture!” Anna stopped her on her way out the door and fanned everyone together. She dug out her camera phone and nudged everyone into a tight ball on the couch. Bloodshot eyes and sleepy smiles beamed back at her as she clicked the photo, nearly blinding everyone with the flash. Then Emma took one with her in it.
“Drive safe!” Jean carped, waving after her as she trekked back to her little car.
“Lock up after me!” Ororo nagged back. She drove past the house with the cat stuff on the porch and tsked at it again. Everything was so suburban here. She got back on the freeway and took her time counting exits, changing the CD to some old Sade.
Is it a crime?
Is it a crime?
That I
Still want you.
And I want you to want me too.
Street lamps cast a bluish glow over her dashboard. She felt the shadows warp and float over her skin, now that her buzz was gone. She felt oversensitized and her nerves were raw. The remembered need and connection she’d felt in the shower earlier that night tugged at her. She missed ‘Tro.
This relationship was as stagnant as a gallon of milk someone left out on the counter all day, but she needed him. She loved him. You didn’t just throw away a good thing. You just moved a few things around on the top shelf of the fridge, put the milk back and hoped that you got to it soon enough, before the damage was done. Waste not, want not.
She can’t give you more than that.
Surely you want it back.
She did her level best to muffle her steps across the hardwood floor, kicking off her heels onto the doormat and locking up. No biggie. She was home. He was home. She was an adult.
She shed her clothes beside the hamper when she reached their room. Pietro had let his fall wherever he dropped them, and she tripped over his shoes. He was already snoring softly as she neared the bed. Moonlight shone in through the curtains, bathing his profile in silver and making his hair gleam. He stretched, then flung his arm over his head, Endymion personified, forever beautiful and fresh. His body was sculpted and nearly hairless. His skin felt cool where it slipped free from the covers as Ororo slid into bed beside him. Just as she settled in, his arms and lips sought her, and she thrilled to his warm embrace, hauled against his chest.
“Missed you,” he mumbled. He shucked off her boy-cut briefs and the tee shirt she’d covered herself in and let him warm her up again. The rhythm left from the music coursed through her again, and she bucked and writhed beneath him, trying harder with every touch to crawl inside him somehow. Dig deeper. Cling to him.
“Pietro.” His name was a benediction. “Need you,” she husked.
“You stayed out too damned long, made me wait,” he grumbled back. She fought for his affection, any clue of his desire for her. He slaked his thirst with a rough invasion of her body. The bedsprings creaked, and Ororo gasped beneath him, crying out above the slam of the headboard into the wall. She gripped him, holding onto any purchase she found on his sweat-slicked body as they made love. Her nipples tingled, and the rush of heat spread down her chest, her belly. She felt a drawing tightness inside that drove away all semblance of reason as she clenched reflexively around him.
“So…hot…damn it, ‘Roro, not supposed to…” he cried out a torrent of strained, garbled curses as he came, his body jerking as tight as a bowstring. His fingers dug into her thighs right before he collapsed, sated. Bliss was etched across his face. He smiled down at her in the dark, then kissed her forehead like she was a child of four.
“G’night.” He rolled over and stole the covers, folding his pillow in half and wedging it under his neck. No questions, no accusations. No pretending to frisk her for phone numbers or sniff for foreign cologne or…other substances.
Ororo lay awake in the dark, feeling strangely empty.
Elsewhere:
Logan woke with a layer of fuzz on his tongue that he could scrape with a knife. He surveyed his surroundings. On the couch. Test signal on the screen, leading into an infomercial. No scattered clothes on the floor that didn’t look like they were his.
Thank God.
He hauled himself back to his room, content with the night’s take. The bars of different songs from the bachelorette party droned in his ears as he turned in. The one image that he guarded carefully, even doggedly, was the look of raw embarrassment on that one pretty broad’s face when she gnoshed on that damned cookie. That image followed him into sleep.
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