it makes my last post seem a little less crazy. . . a little

I had turned my back to the boys, and beer was running down my chin. Two-thirds of the way in, I gasped for air before beginning again.

College was worth it like never before, and those sorority dues were paying off.

Ted had assured me I didn’t have to do this if I thought it would end badly, but it was going great, and I could hear them getting excited.

Ted’s friend I’d only just met declared, “If she’s pulls this off, you’ve got to marry her.”

And Ted’s brother claimed, “That is my future sister-in-law.”

I turned around as triumphantly as is possible when you are wiping beer from your face with the back of your hand, and raised the empty pitcher.

Those boys were easily impressed. There was only a glass and a half of beer in that pitcher, maximum. And once you say you can do something, you kind of have to do it.

“That’s my girlfriend,” Ted put his arm around my waist. No one ever said he fell in love with me ’cause I’m so classy.

Later I was standing on the sidewalk waiting for people who were still inside, a course your night tends to take when you’ve been drinking beer out of pitchers.

I don’t know how Ted’s brother’s thought began, but it ended, “. . . when you get married. Or maybe I’ll be in the wedding. . . ,” with a characteristic raised palm and shifted chin that means question mark.

“Of course you’ll be in the wedding,” Ted told him.

I told Ted I only want three bridesmaids, and he said he could probably narrow his people down to three.

“Oh, and my brother,” I added.
“But will he go on your side or my side?”
“My side.”

And then Ted told his brother’s friend he could be an usher.

~beatrix

relapse

Julianna’s fine with Simon crashing our Thursday night dinner plans, but when I text to tell her, she replies, “I guess we can’t talk about him now.”

Jules has known Simon a long time-- since this whole mess began really. Since the night junior year of college when Simon came to visit me and was my date to a sorority party. The night me and Julianna drank five kinds of champagne before we went out. And Julianna pointed out that Simon was hot, causing me to notice it for the first time. We both decided we’d hook up with our dates if we had a chance, and the dates in question heard the whole conversation through a bathroom door. The night that, after the party, I decided it was a good idea to walk to the next location and that I didn’t have to wear my shoes because my room mate wasn’t wearing hers. (Bad bad idea if you don’t want to be scrubbing New Orleans street gunk off your feet for the next three days.) It was the only time I’ve ever blacked out, and I (reportedly) did a ballet demonstration, had a drink taken away from me, and briefly spoke only French. At some point in a third location, Simon and I started kissing, and I only took momentary breaks from it to see if my cheese fries were ready yet. And the making out was a good idea, because then I didn’t have to worry about the awkward question of where Simon would sleep that night.

Julianna and Simon have lots to talk about-- work, life, and whether it’s ok to get engaged in a restaurant or not. And his crashing dinner is fine because Jules likes Simon. And also because Simon pays.



There’s nowhere to sleep in my apartment except my bed. Being in bed with Simon without touching is strange and sad.

We talk until he falls asleep. His snoring is notably less cute when there is no cuddling.

He only sleeps a few minutes, and when he wakes up, it‘s easy to tell. I look at him. He puts his hand on my back. Fuck.*

I don’t know what to do. He rubs my back slowly, softly. He puts his hand under my shirt.

Fuck. I don’t know what to do.

I reach over and put my hand on his side. I think he pulls me to him, but maybe I do the pulling.

This feels better, even with the nervousness.

I don’t know what to do. Our faces are touching, my eyelashes move against his cheek. I think I feel him moving like he wants to kiss me.

But it’s hard to tell who’s in control here. Kind of like a Ouija board. I don’t want to make anything happen.

But things happen. Maybe not as many things as usual, but things.

I wonder what he thought I meant when we had that talk. Why can’t everything just be Google so I’d have a transcript of the phone conversation? I should have done it over gchat so I could read it over and over and memorize it and analyze what he might have understood.

He gets up early to catch a flight.

“I’ll call you some day when I’m passing back through.”
“Some day?”

Sunday. I misunderstood. He really said Sunday.

(And then I noticed I’d put my underpants back on wrong-side-out.)


~beatrix



*As I am a lady, I do not talk like this. But it is what I was thinking. (And, yes, ladies do eat cheese fries and get blackout drunk and put their underpants on wrong-side-out, but we do not say the f-word, even if we think it.)