rarebit

The interesting thing about Gina is the fact that although I have known her for the majority of my life, there have always consistently been people in her life that I have never met or even heard of. She was one of those people that made friends wherever she went; she was very open, very friendly. She was smart, but more so in the way that one is when they are educated rather than just have learned it socially. Meaning of course, when discussing Moliere or organic chemistry, she would take over a conversation. But when we all would be sitting around a firepit taking pulls off of a bottle of Jim Beam talking about Nirvana or sexual ethics, she would disappear.

There was a fellow, a dark brooding type people called Rabbit, one I had heard of for about six years but never met. I don’t quite know the relationship between the two of them other than the fact that they had met while they enjoyed a brief stint working at a Gelato shop. But he was there, yesterday, in her room, looking at a Victoria’s Secret catalog while she was online deciding between wedding dresses.

I didn’t like him, initially. He was friendly enough but I couldn’t tell if he was for real or not. He had a leather covered flask in his jacket pocket. He had deliberate facial hair. He struck me as a writer or an artist or something, but I soon learned that he didn’t even have a job because he hustled people. He took money from people, playing poker, playing pool, doing anything that needed to get done, and doing it well apparently.

Gina laughed, and threw her hair back, like girls do. “Rabbit, you’re the funniest fucker.” She always stuttered when she swore, like she was afraid of God hearing, finding out. She was Mormon, the only thing I really detested about her. She was an awkward bird, and I didn’t know what to think of this Rabbit fellow or Gina since the new engagement altogether. Parts of me wanted to think that she was having an affair with this guy. It would make me think she was more interesting.

She gave me a list of things to do. It was great; I had this massive responsibility and there it was, in paper, a list of things to do. No nonsense. No questions. Just a list. I asked Rabbit for a swig of what he had. He held it out to me, smiling. It was Cinnamon Schnapps. I wasn’t expecting it. I almost spit it out.

“What the FUCK?!” I shouted, nearly spitting it out. “What the fuck kind of crazy person carries cinnamon schnapps on him?”

He chuckled. “Well, me, I guess. I like it more than gum anyway.”

He had a point. It was a better substitute. I handed it back to him. “Well I have to have something stronger than this to get me through this list.”

Gina turned. “I have a bottle of red in the kitchen. Go get it and help me fucking pick out a dress already.”

“Now that’s more like it.”

We didn’t use glasses, we did it like the old days. I opened it and handled the first task at hand. I helped her pick out a dress, while Rabbit stared at our asses and looked at that goddamned catalog.

A little later, his girlfriend called. She was going to come over and get to helping with the wedding shenanigans too. Evidently she was part of the puzzle, and was going to be in the wedding party. I wondered how she and Gina knew each other but I had other more important things on my mind.

“Tell her to bring wine.”

She came then, with three bottles and she didn’t want any of it so everything was good. She was a skinny blonde girl with an upturned nose, a bright magenta hoodie and light-colored jeans. She had an iced tea with her. I didn’t trust her immediately.

She sat on the other side of the room from Rabbit. They didn’t kiss or embrace or show any kind of emotion. But she talked about their wedding as well, because they had finally set a date for early in the fall. She talked about their dog, the toy variety. The air was heady with female power and expectations. I felt nauseous, but the wine made it better.

Rabbit made a joke about his girlfriend having too skinny of an ass. She didn’t seem terribly affected. I wondered about their sex.  

As the night wore on, and love and marriage were constantly discussed by the women before me, I couldn’t help but think about Drew. And James. And even Vincent. I was horrified at the idea of Vincent marrying Camille, although anything was possible and it wasn’t too farfetched of an idea presently. I was horrified about marriage in general. And here I was, doing my best to get drunk and aid two engaged parties. It was a bad scene.

Rabbit was funny. I was sort of upset that he was so entertaining. And best of all, he didn’t turn into someone else when his woman was around. He maintained his independence. He drank more than she wanted him to. He even went to buy more wine. And cinnamon schnapps, but I turned it down the second time around. He talked shit all night long, told jokes about Hummers and blowjobs. He confessed to watching Project Runway.

And as I discovered many years ago, with men and even Jane, the ones that you don’t like at first generally surprise you.

He was like me.

‘he loves me, he loves me not…’

The room was dark. I could see very little but my breath, small and wispy like fog. Streetlights attempted to shine through dark curtains but only made tiny dents in the fabric, pinpoints of orange light like flames from a candle.

Anticipation started as a tingle from my kneecaps, and ended up shooting up and inbetween my thighs like a million trails of warm ants. I was positioned over his knee, arms outstretched, my fingers barely grazing the floor as his hand slowly (ever so slowly!) pulled up the back of my black pencil skirt, one side at a time, inching.

The skirt was tight so I had worn a thong to hide my pantyline, but it was in plain view at this point, silky and crimson, facing him. The cold air was the only thing that met my warm flesh for what seemed forever. I braced myself for what seemed years before the moment of impact came. A heavy hand, a brutal slap, but then nothing but the cold air again, soothing the heat that had collected and risen to the surface of my backside.

My breath caught in my throat. Just when I was beginning to breathe normally again, it came, swift and harder than before. Then nothing. With one hand, he softly moved the hair around my left ear to expose it, then leaned down and put his lips to it. “Bad girl…” he whispered, his warm breath lingering, fogging up the crevices within my ear, muting the sound, deafening me. Then the hand again, again, again. It lasted a long time. Each time harder, each time more pronounced, deliberate. The sting which began sharp but short lived became unbearable, and my lips found their way open so I could cry out, a bit of saliva puddling to the brink of my mouth, spilling out onto the floor.

I felt his fingers slide upward, rubbing in the warm droplets that had begun trickling down my thighs. They stroked up and down, getting closer and closer to the heat every second, then moving away, grazing over the back of my knees. Then his hand disappeared completely again. I heard the sound of a drawer open, then a series of awkward clanking. His hands pulled the two of mine behind my back to enclose the wrists with cold metal, tighter than what would prove comfortable.

I felt my nipples growing hard beneath my soft white camisole. I smiled for a moment in the dark then stopped, for fear of him knowing, seeing. He pushed me off of his lap and I fell to the carpet, onto my back. The pressure of my body falling onto my wrists from the height of his knees caused the metal to cut into me, and the pain was exquisite. I felt heat there but I don’t know if it was a mere sting or blood that had made its presence known.

I heard him leave me then, walk away, opening the door, letting sweet light spill in before I was left to my darkness again. I rolled over on my side so my body didn’t continue putting pressure on my wrists. The minutes dragged and I was starting to wonder if he would ever come back. As I began to drift off into sleep, the door opened and he stepped inside. The smell of tequila wafted through the room as the curls of breath branched outward from his lips. He fidgeted with something across the room. Music began then, soft electronica, familiar voices.

White Town. It was a band I had enjoyed in high school, mostly famous for their one hit, “Your Woman.” It was unexpected but not inappropriate. I felt his eyes on me for a moment before he kneeled down to lift my head up, press my lips to cold glass, offering me what I thought was water.

Tequila. I should have known. I tried to pull my lips away but he refused to pull the glass away. His hand held the back of my head sternly to the glass, and when I tried to pull away the tequila spilled down the front of me, to which he responded with more force, the rim of the glass nearly cutting the sides of my mouth. He had said nothing for a very long time but now it was time. “Swallow.”

I drank what felt like half of a bottle of tequila in that glass. In what was less than two minutes. As he pulled it from my face, the empty glass seemed to taunt me before he threw it against the wall, exploding into a million tiny shards. I felt a chill run through my body.

My chest and camisole had gotten wet from the tequila that I had spilled. He smoothed his hand over the area, rubbing it in, wiping it away. His fingers made their way under the fabric, tweaking me, teasing me.

I moaned then, and was rewarded with a slap to my face. My eyes widened, and I turned my head in both fear and desire. The tequila was already affecting me. I felt the burn in my throat then changing to a warm haze that was stretching throughout my entire body, different than it ever had before. Like Tahitian sun growing within me, reaching outwards.

I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t see myself. I could only hear the soft sounds of organs and synthesizers and my heartbeat, amplified by my evolving drunkenness and his desperate caresses.

I knew he would take me, but I didn’t know how long I would be waiting and what more torture I would endure beforehand. I thought of the tiny pieces of glass everywhere, thought of my body being forced onto them like a bed of nails. My mind became blank, like a tablet where all the pages of writing have been ripped off, crumpled and thrown into the trash.

I could never imagine belonging to someone before. But as his hands attached themselves to all the places he desired, as his body treated mine, I felt as if I had become nothing more but an extension of him. And to lose control of myself and my will did not feel like a loss; not in the least, not at all.

I lament, therefore I am

Three days ago, Drew left me a drunken voicemail insinuating that he didn’t want to see me anymore. He was slurring and yelling and saying it was the best thing for both of us. I really don’t know how to handle his intense mood swings, especially when he’s drinking. When we’re together, he drinks socially, becomes inebriated. When we are apart, it is a different story. He’s the kind of guy who would call his mom at midnight to say fuck you for everything. The world owed him, and when he was drunk he would sell out or write off anyone who crept into his mind at the opportune moment. But this was the first time he’d ever really tried to get rid of me.

I woke up and considered my options. I could have called him, acting like I knew it was just a drunken rant but if that wasn’t the case, it would prove rather embarrassing. I could have called him in attempts to talk him out of what was obviously a horrible mistake, but that would be pretty pathetic too. I took the easy way out and decided to ignore it and let him contact me. As for my personal problem, well, the only remedy that could even marginally help was getting drunk with Vincent. Forgetting the outside world existed.

I didn’t know if I would be able to get ahold of him, however. He was starting to spend a lot more time with Camille, almost every other day or so, which was unheard of for Vincent. I think he has actually gone a year without spending time with anyone but me. And Camille was sweet and came around sometimes, but as people often do, Vincent wasn’t quite himself when she was present. He swore less, wore more colors. I didn’t resent her for it; she meant well, but the difference between the two of us and the three of us was massive.

I missed his nightly visits, the Styrofoam containers of Thai food he brought over, the brown leather notebook we would take turns writing poetry in, his dirty martinis, that goddamned horrible jacket. I picked up the phone and to my amazement, he was already on the line.

The night was spent sitting on the floor, gorging ourselves with peanut chicken and Tsingtao, talking about what a shit Drew was anyway. How it was best to be rid of the headache, how now I could focus on my writing career or another band. Vincent held my hand, got close to me in a more intimate way than I was used to. It struck a nerve. I burst into tears and Vincent put some Rilo Kiley on for me and we had ourselves a bit of a dance party. Nothing like Jenny Lewis to brighten my day.

In the middle of my tabletop rendition of ‘Under the Blacklight,’ Camille showed up, which was one of the worst things I could imagine. I jumped down and greeted her, accepted a bottle of vintage port and a sunflower she brought for me. It was rather sweet but in all honesty I just wanted her to leave. Instead, she informed me of a son of an excellent customer that she wanted to set me up with. Fucking blind dates, I have sworn against them as long as I can remember. But I was drunk and upset and ready to see anyone but Drew.

“Well. Okay.” Her eyes lit up and she started dialing. I knew then and there that I had made the wrong decision. The song was hazy but playing what seemed over and over and over again. “Are we breakin’ up…is there trouble between you and I…”

Last night Evan picked me up at my bar at eight. I always make a point to never get picked up at my actual residence unless we hit it off. It was fucking cold. I was wearing a brown suede jacket I had been missing wearing this season on account of all the rain. He was wearing a black Banana Republic sweater and dark, faded jeans. He was cute but from his appearance, I couldn’t imagine him wanting to date anyone that even had their nose pierced, let alone a sleeve of tattoos. He was too pretty, too polished. He didn’t even have five o’clock shadow.

We got into his forest green VW Golf and drove to downtown Campbell, the spot for our plan, drinks and dinner. I felt relatively open to meeting someone new, but a spot inside me ached for Drew’s comfortable embrace, the nervous twitch of his wrist to spot the time on his watch, the way he kissed.

Evan popped on the stereo and the Flaming Lips came on. He turned it down a bit so we could converse but we didn’t really say much of any substance.

“So, you make pretty good money over at that bar?” Which I thought was a weird question.

“I do alright. Some days are good, some days are better.” He smiled politely.

“What do you do?”

He worked at Google. He began a long, extensive description of what he did, because he either thought I was a fucking idiot that didn’t understand any concept in the code writing business, or that I was genuinely interested. To tell the truth, I was neither. So my mind wandered. I kept nodding, laughing, pretending what he said was resonating, or making me think about things or becoming interested in him. But I was thinking about waterslides, seared scallops, dumb girls who got the insides of their lips tattooed. Drew’s wings on his ankles. Wishing I could borrow them and escape the confines of this new-car smelling car, this preppy gone indie nerd from hell.

I shifted my legs, beginning to feel a familiar warmth between them. I wondered if the kid could fuck, if he at least had that going for him.

We got to Slice just in time. I felt that I might attack him at any moment. He held the door open for me.

“I need a drink,” I said. He laughed as if I had said something fabricated, a joke that had taken weeks of hard work to materialize. I rolled my eyes as he helped me remove my jacket and we both sat down.

Much to my distress, they only served beer and wine. I ordered a Budweiser. He ordered a root beer. I couldn’t believe what Camille had done to me. She could not have, in good conscience, sent me out with a sober fellow. My eyes widened. “Oh, you don’t drink?” I asked in a conversational tone.

“Oh, no, I do. I just don’t drink much beer or wine.”

I nodded, thinking. This wasn’t as bad as I thought, but in the back of my mind, I hoped he wasn’t a girl drink drunk, someone that just ‘didn’t like the taste.’ I stopped to think again. Did it really matter how the guy drank?

The root beer was IBC, and came in a glass bottle much like a regular beer would. He passed on the glass and took a swig from the bottle.

Yes it did.

Dinner couldn’t come fast enough. I had ordered a basil pesto something or other, and he decided on a combination pizza that I could try if I wanted. It was pretty heavy on the sauce, to the point of having to take to a fork and knife. For just a pizza, it was pretty damn good. I looked up from my plate and noticed a giant glob of sauce right on the side of his face.

I didn’t know what to say. I looked around, lifted my napkin to motion wiping his face. He wiped his face (with his hand!) and got some of it off, but mostly spread it around. I covered my mouth, trying not to laugh. “Uh, Evan, you still have…”

He laughed. “Guess I like my pizza a little too much huh?”

I felt my face grow warm with embarrassment. He finally got the sauce off and by then, I was laughing with him. I finished my beer, got the waiter’s attention.

“Another, please.”

On a trip to the restroom, he bumped into a woman he knew. Apparently, she was on a date as well. The trio made their way to our table. A pair of tits with red hair and a baby blue cardigan shook my hand with her fingers, told me her name was Shawna. She was a typical female, very territorial, very self-consumed. I got the ‘ex’ vibe pretty adamantly, as she was touching him a lot and speaking very deliberately. Her date on the other hand, was muted in a black hooded sweatshirt and jeans. He seemed cold and was looking down a lot. As he looked up at me to meet me (his name was James), I noticed shiny green eyes and a silver ball under his lip. I smiled, probably the most genuine smile I had offered all night and received one that I considered equally valuable. Evan practically disappeared, all wrapped up in her conversational skills, no doubt. But it was okay. James and I had taken to making faces at each other, making fun of each other’s dates.

Soon enough, the moment had passed and it was back to cold Italian food and warm beer. But there was something stirring inside me. Something I hadn’t felt since that night back at the bar when I noticed the houndstooth sneakers.

Eventually I made my way to the bathroom, and was pleasantly surprised to find James coming out at the same time. We made eye contact and said nothing. But as I passed him, his hand met mine with a rough scrap of brown paper towel. It was a ten digit phone number scribbled with a blue pen. I nodded, feeling the warmth in my cheeks before I entered the bathroom.

I was ready to leave but we hadn’t had drinks yet and apparently Evan was more interested than I thought. As for my opinion on Evan, the drinks part of the evening served better. Khartoum was pretty busy but not too slammed to get a table. We sat on oversized chairs and drank long islands. I don’t know if he just needed a drink or two to loosen up or had needed Shawna’s reassurance or something, because he started being more fun. He even pulled up the sleeves on his sweater. He was flirting! He had touched me three times; once on the knee, once on the shoulder, and once on the ass but that was an accident, causing him to stammer and sweat, profusely apologizing. He was attractive and smart, if not somewhat of a goober, and I was having a good time but I couldn’t imagine the two of us as anything more than possible, occasional friends. And to be honest, I couldn’t stop thinking about the ten numbers that had made their way to the bottom of my purse.

We drove back to the bar, this time the Postal Service serving as our soundtrack. He gave me a nice safe hug and his phone number before driving away. My phone buzzed as we were saying goodbye and my heart leapt inside, wondering. Could Drew have finally sobered up or come to his senses? Maybe he didn’t even remember leaving that message.

It took forever for Evan to leave. When he did, I looked down, read the text. “Having fun?” – V. It was Camille’s cell phone. I smacked my forehead, giggling at all the collected stupidity the evening and its intentions contained.

I went inside and sat down on a familiar stool. My other favorite bartender was working. He had covered my shift so I could go on the date. “How’d it go?”

“Well, I’ve had quite a few drinks and I need one more, so you figure it out.”

He grinned at me, slid the bottle of Jim Beam down the bar. “When are you just gonna marry me already?”

“I’m not that drunk,” I said, pouring myself a shot. I took it down, let it rejuvenate me.

“Hey, have you seen um, Drew around here?”

“Oh yeah. He just left.”

I nodded, pensive. My mind began switching from blank to cluttered. Did he come in because he saw my car in the parking lot? Did he stay because I wasn’t there? I looked down at my phone. No missed calls, no text messages. I poured myself another drink. Opened the brown paper again, said the numbers in my mind. “Drag.”