You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik [16]
I could have stayed in there the rest of the night listening to the music through the walls but Ariel was impatient. When I came out she was putting on eyeliner. She said it was our one chance, how maybe we’d never see him out at a bar like this again. Maybe we should take him home together, she said laughing and looking at me in the mirror, raising her eyebrows. I shook my head but she kept talking about it. I’d go down on you for him, she said and started to laugh.
Ariel loved to talk but I think then she was serious. I’m sure she would have. For him. For the performance. Who could resist the two of us? she asked. She was dancing in front of the mirror looking at herself. I wanted to slap her. Well if you’re not interested, she said, I’ll do it myself.
He’s a fucking teacher, I said.
Exactly, Marie. Exactly.
When we came out of the bathroom it seemed even more crowded. We could barely move. Somehow Ariel got us more drinks and we drank them fast. God I was drunk. I let myself get bounced around hoping the crowd would take me away from her. And it did and then I saw him and not really knowing why I sort of floated over to him. Then there we were the two of us like that. At first I don’t think he had any idea who I was. He smiled at me. The first thing I thought was, he seems happy, like he’s having a good time. And that was nice. Most people at those places never seem like they’re having a good time. We danced close right away. There wasn’t much choice. He looked right at me. He made me nervous but he wasn’t creepy. I don’t remember what we talked about. I tried to be witty. Anyway, it was loud and hard to hear and mostly we just danced close and I felt protected by the crowd and sort of crushed in there with him as if we were under a blanket together or something.
I kept thinking about how he was looking at me. I mean he was this man, you know? It was surprising. It shouldn’t have been, and looking back it’s obviously not surprising at all. But at the time I was amazed. God, the way he was looking at me. He looked only at me and I just couldn’t get over it, that he saw me that way. It was jarring and I suddenly felt as if I’d been thrown into this new world, and it was scary and exciting and strange and most of all it was shocking, just completely shocking, that this man, this adult person, was looking at me in that way. I don’t know why I allowed it to be him, after all those nights out with Ariel.
Again, there’s nothing surprising about it now. Of course. But then, then I was just blown away and I felt like in those few minutes, everything, everything had shifted. And at some point we started to touch and I felt him get hard against me. I was terrified. I was excited but I was terrified. I mean terrified to the point that I thought I might throw up. I turned around because I didn’t want him to see me get sick if I was going to get sick. And I felt him there behind me and he was so hard and there was this moment when I really felt like I was going to run, you know those few seconds when you’re not sure if you’re going to be sick, and I just kept dancing and pushing back against him waiting for my body to figure out what the hell it was going to do and I waited, stuck there, so afraid. I was cold and my palms were sweating. I looked up and saw Ariel sort of smiling at me, but not really. She raised her eyebrows like she was encouraging me but I could tell she was angry and then she disappeared behind someone and I felt better all of a sudden and I knew that I wasn’t going to throw up. I was warm again and I closed my eyes and just fell into him.
He was nervous, I could tell, and said he had to leave. But he gave me his number and he knew I’d call him. He must have. And I did.
* * *
I got out of there and I found him waiting for me on the hood of a car smoking a cigarette. He looked so calm, so sure of himself sitting on that fucking car.
We ended up on some steps in the dark.