Drinks

“Then she stabs his hand with a pen and says ‘Trade you, gun for pen!’” Autumn was explaining her costume. It was leather (well, vinyl) and purple and pink. She’d had Rachel’s help adapting it from a motorcycle jacket, a ski mask, and a one piece swimsuit. She was unhappy that she hadn’t got the boots done in time for Halloween, but was looking forward to finishing them over winter break. Or spring break. In time for Comic Con anyway.

“So she’s like a girl Deadpool?” I searched my thoughts for something that would show that I had read Deadpool and hadn’t just seen the movie. I finally decided on, “Does she fight Wolverine then?”

“What? No. At least not yet.” Autumn took us off the freeway and onto Bellvue, “See she arrived in the Em Cee Yew from our world, where they are all just comic characters. And she quickly figured out that bystanders get killed in the comics but anyone in a costume is pretty much immortal.” She paused to throw her cigarette out the window and light another one, “I mean, Spider-Man has died, like, 90 times.”

“Is she funny?”

“Yeah! But like … like girlie humor, you know?”

I had no idea and said so.

“Like she doesn’t talk like 4chan, she talks like tumblr.”

“Even when I was a guy, I thought that 4chan was a burning mound of pig shit, surrounded by a tire fire, in the deepest pit in hell.”

Hang on.

Shit!

“I’m not saying every guy—” Oh thank god she wasn’t paying any attention. “—I mean I liked the movie and I don’t have a penis. I mean his voice is just a guy’s voice. And hers isn’t.”

We started winding through the back roads along Bellvue where the houses seem less like a place to live and more like a country estate. I spent some time trying to do something about the hose/shorts situation. The garters of the hose went up to just under the hem of the cutoff shorts. But the slightest movement would bring them down lower, and then I would have an inch of bare flesh. The whole point of the hose was to make the shorts safe! I had been … daring with the hem. So daring that sitting down I could feel the bare flesh of my but on the seat. The hose were there to make that okay, so they were just a pair of pants with the illusion of porn star jeans. I hadn’t taken into account that fabric stretches and contorts. One of the most important thing about fabric.

Autumn pulled up to a gate—an actual gate. Not like a gated community, like the house—and only that house—had a gate. She hit a code, the gate creaked open, and we drove the last 200 feet past a manicured lawn and coiffed hedges.

We were unfashionably early, the way you’re supposed to be for a friends party when that friend has invited 100 other people. Autumn parked on the gravel behind several much nicer cars. Sarah waved to us from the garage-to-interior door, then glanced back, and snuck the rest of the way out.

On first glance I thought she was dressed as Morticia Adams. Then I realized that her hair was wrong and she was Elvira Mistress of the Dark. I didn’t actually know what Elvira did, was just aware of her as a phenomena. My immediate guess would be that Sarah also didn’t know who what she did, but wanted a chance to show off a dress that would make her breasts look flattering.

And flatter her breasts it did. Not having a push up bra really hit Sarah boobage hard. But it also flattered them because (as I was beginning to appreciate) not everything a girl could wear worked with big tits. My suspenders for instance were all over the place and in need of constant maintenance.

Sarah was wearing some thigh high kinky boots to go with it, and I was pretty sure it was illegal for someone as young as she was to wear boots that sexy. I had an unbidden fantasy about getting those boots wrapped around my head, and figured I’d express it out loud.

Sarah responded by grabbing my suspenders and pulling me in for a chaste little kiss. “I don’t want to ruin my lipstick. Yet.” Then she snapped the suspenders and oh my god did that hurt.

I shrieked. Autumn punched Sarah in the boob. Everyone made up. We went inside.

I was a bit surprised that Sarah’s family could afford a gate but apparently had to skimp on the interior walls. She gave us a quick tour which involved waving her hand at the kitchen/dining room/living room/rec room/game room/TV room/den/library, and saying, “It’s not much but we try to make it feel like home. Don’t go into a door that’s already been closed and don’t go upstairs.” Then she leaned in close, “When things wind down we’ll go upstairs to wind them up again.”

This is not the right time to get a chubby. Never is the right time. My phantom dick chose to listen to me for the moment. I could feel the weight of it, but it wasn’t being corporeal somehow.

There were other people there, most I didn’t recognize. I had a vague feeling that I’d seen them or at least classmates that looked similar to them, wandering the halls of the school. To be honest it takes a lot to stand out from the crowd as a teenager. I think that’s the reason we’re all so desperate to. None of them were techies and most looked like they were into things I found unbearably boring. The mix was 60/40 men to women. The former looked at me and Autumn like we should be embarrassed to have muddied their gender. The latter looked at us like we should consider ourselves lucky to inhabit whatever deranged fantasy they had. I took stock and decided that I wouldn’t set my cup down, or drink from anyone else’s.

There were a few batmen, a Thor, a very poorly made Kylo Ren, a … man in a tuxedo, a stripper police officer, a stripper soldier, and a very inventive stripper Batman.

The girls all seemed to be wearing … I turned to the other girls, “Did every girl here decide to go as a skank?”

Sarah coughed into her drink, Autumn gave me a raised brow, “Did you wear those shorts because Misty wears them, or because you wanted to look hot?”

I … well … it’s not … “That’s different.” I managed to land it.

Her eyebrow only crept up further, “How so?”

“It just is.”

“Sure. You dressed up in a costume and didn’t give any thought to how hot you would look.”

I didn’t know how to back down. Ashley wouldn’t have backed down because Ashley was a guy. He wasn’t a strong guy but he understood the rules of being a guy. What would I do now?

I settled for booping her nose. “Boop.” Then, “What do I drink if I want to get drunk?”

Sarah led us over to the kitchen, the counter’s of which overflowed with very large bottles. “There’s going to be a custom run when Kyle shows up, the kegs are out back, and we’re the only house party in the school with a fully stocked wine cellar. Do you want me to mix you a basic bitch cocktail?”

“What’s that?”

“That’s a cosmopolitan. Only instead of citrus vodka you use vodka, and instead of cointreau you use more vodka.”

A tall senior-ish girl laid her hand on Sarah’s wrists, “Please Sarah. This is a gin household.” She turned up her nose and sniffed in disdain.

Sarah looked her in the eye, grabbed the handle of vodka and took a swig. The girl laughed, took the handle from her and guzzled. “Gwen, this is my friend Aisling. Aisling this is my big sister Griselda.”

Gwen picked up a red cup off of a stack, and offered one to me. When I reached for it she pulled back, “Five dollars a cup.” Then she looked at Sarah, “Or will she be paying you back.” She made it quite clear that she knew exactly what she meant.

I was gratified to see Sarah blush. Gwen laughed and handed me the cup, “On your tab then.” I picked up a sharpie from a pile and put my name on it. Then Gwen leaned in close, “Sarah and Autumn know who not to talk to here. There’s a bunch of guys I didn’t invite who will show up anyway. I can’t tell any of them to leave, because if they get upset we can’t exactly call the cops.”

“Like who?”

“A couple of third year seniors, at least one graduate with a suspended license and a sealed record. Anyone goes creeping on you, come find me.”

Sarah took my cup while I parsed that and handed it back to me full of red. “Tell me how you like that.”

I took a sip and said, “hmmm.” That’s not what my brain said. My brain said, WHAT YOU HAVE JUST PUT INSIDE YOU IS POISON! DON’T PUT POISON INSIDE OF YOU. Shut up brain, they don’t call it intoxicated because the x is cool.

“I’d call that a ‘no’.” Sarah took the cup from me, “Lets see what you do like.”

Here’s a summation:

Rum and coke: bad

Vodka and soda: bad

Gin and anything with gin in it: hate hate hate hate bad.

Beer: could be better

Red wine: tastes like church

“You wanna try a white?” We were in the wine cellar where Sarah’s parents had spent a small fortune insure that if the end of the world came they wouldn’t be thirsty. Big Davey and Bree had come in during gin and beer respectively. Big Davey was drinking beer. Bree had brought her own bottle of Jack Daniels and did not need a mixer.

Continue list:

White wine: acceptable

Sarah grabbed a few bottles (who would notice them missing?) and we went back upstairs where things were starting to get moving.

It is at this time that I learned a very disappointing fact that I would not unlearn until I went to an actual orgy for the first time. There’s not a lot to do at house parties other than get drunk.

There was music. People were laughing and playing games. But the games were games that got you drunker faster, and the laughter was at people being too drunk to play the games.

There was beer pong. I watched that long enough to watch the ping pong ball roll in the dirt get washed off in a bowl of disgusting water, and sail straight into a cup; then decided to never play that ever.

One group was playing drinking card games in the den. The crux of the game seemed to be that each card caused you to drink. You know, like you could all alone. But in different ways I guess?

Regular Dave and Wee David had shown up and Rachel was still missing in action when someone found the DVD collection and put on the Halloween classic Mission Impossible II. Before the clock hit six second in someone had found a drinking game online. There was one bullet point: Drink every time Tom Cruise runs from—or climbs on—something.

I sat next to Sarah on the couch, and the guy who put in the DVD crunched in between us and put his hand on my leg.

I froze, and shied away.

Autumn crunched between the guy and me.

The guy put his hand on her knee.

Autumn pulled a knife on him, “Listen I’m just drunk enough to want to cut you, but not so drunk I’ll miss something vital.”

The guy sat on the floor in front of the couch and looked hurt. I didn’t feel sorry.

After the intro where Tom Cruise is the worst rock climber and should be dead a dozen times over, someone pointed out that the problem we were having was that we only drank once and then there was another 10 minutes of climbing or running. We were supposed to drink constantly as he ran from—or climbed on—everything. The rules thus modified we all set out to get very very drunk.