Memoirs Aren't Fairytales (3 page)

I waved goodbye to Jefferson, but he was climbing down the steps to the shallow end. His ass was so white it was practically shining.

Eric took me out a back door, and we walked down to the beach, sitting in a spot away from the other guests. I lit the joint and took a drag. When I coughed, I handed it to him.

“Whitey tighties gave me an Adderall,” I said.

Eric exhaled a cloud of smoke and then looked at me. “Damn, lucky you.”

“Sorry I couldn't score you one too. Take some extra hits so you can catch up.”

The fireworks shot into the dark sky and exploded into bursts of color. The noise they let off was so loud I couldn't hear anything else. But there wasn't anything else to hear. Eric was taking pulls off the joint, and my brain was silent. Adderall and weed was a nice mix of calm, and the fireworks were little puffs of beautiful.

After the grand finale, a firework in the shape of the flag, the beach cleared. The band was playing a slow song, and the waves were washing over my feet.

“This is perfect,” I said.

“Shit, I'm glad we escaped Bangor.”

I agreed. And it didn't matter that we were broke and slept on an air mattress with only tuna and noodles in our bellies. I had everything I needed.

CHAPTER TWO

A group of servers from Lucy's, the bar next door, came to Eric's club one night. They told Eric they were out celebrating because they were going abroad for the semester. I was on the bench out front, and Eric called me over. The girls said I should apply for one of their open positions. I did, and the manager, Mark, put me on for six nights a week with Sundays off. Eric had the same schedule. It was perfect.

With my tips and our hourly wages, we could expand into different food groups and go back to buying half ounces of weed, instead of dime bags. We pooled our money and kept it in a pickle jar in the freezer. If there were something we wanted to buy, like a new pair of sneakers or a coffeemaker, we'd check with the other one first.

My co-workers asked all kinds of questions about Eric and me, if we were dating, if we hooked up, and if not, were we related? I didn't know why they cared so much. It was like they had never seen a guy and girl be friends without benefits. I asked them, if Eric were a girl would they think I was a lesbian? That shut them up.

Eric was a good-looking guy. He was tall and meaty with sea-green eyes and a pile of auburn curls. But hooking up with him would be like hooking up with my brother Michael. Eric protected me, even though he couldn't stop me from having nightmares. I was there for him too, in an I'll-take-care-of-you-like-your-mom-did sort of way. And that's just what I did the night we scored some free mushrooms. Eric couldn't stand the taste of shrooms. Neither could I, really, so I broke them up into small pieces and coated them with butter so they'd slide down his throat.

We both had the night off, and we were going to the club to celebrate Craig's, one of the bouncers, birthday. Since shrooms took an hour to kick in, we smoked a bowl and left before we were too distracted with visuals to go anywhere.

At the club, there was a line all the way around the building, but we walked to the front and didn't have to pay the cover. The bash was on the second floor in the VIP lounge, and tons of people had come to party. Besides the bouncers and Casey, a cocktail waitress we'd smoked with before, I didn't know anyone. Casey was also celebrating, and she put Eric and me on her tab. She'd graduated from Northeastern University and just gotten a job at a marketing agency, so this was her last week working at the club.

I sat with Casey on one of the couches, sipped a vodka and Red Bull, and smoked a cigarette. When the cherry at the end of my cig started flickering like a sparkler and the bits of sparkles turned into shapes, I knew the shrooms had set in. Eric was tripping too. He was standing against the wall in the corner of the room, staring at his hands and moving them in circles in the air.

The lights in the ceiling changed to a dark pink. Everything around me went warm like a fire was heating it. The lights above the DJ booth changed to green and yellow, red and blue. The colors danced through the smoke-filled room.

“Come on, girl, let's dance,” Casey said.

She pulled me to my feet and moved me through the crowd.

The warmth of her hand made me want to see her face. “Casey,” I said.

She turned around, standing only inches away. “What's up?”

She was so pretty. Her eyes were giant emeralds, and her skin was creamy and swirled like soft serve on a cone.

“Nothing, I…”

“I need a potty break first, then we're going to dance,” she said.

I watched my feet as we walked to the bathroom. My shoes moved over the floor and left black footprints whenever I lifted to step. People swished past me, blob-like and wavy, and then Casey opened a door and pulled me inside. The stalls looked like long hallways, and the neon overhead light turned everything green. Even my hands were green. I went to the sink to wash it off.

The soap was purple, and rainbow bubbles floated into my face.

Was my face green too?

I looked up at the mirror. I had green skin with thick red veins popping out of my cheeks and purple lips.

I touched my forehead.

Did I really look like this?

“Nicole, you ready?” Casey asked.

She stood next to me, looking in the same mirror as me. But she didn't look like a monster.

She looped her arm through mine and brought me to the dance floor. Strobe lights flashed, making the room black and then white. The faces around me were skeletons.

The music felt like a massage. The beat went through my body, vibrating all the sensitive parts. I swung my arms over my head and watched the trails of colors that swirled as they moved. I grinded my hips against Casey's. She danced behind me and in front, and I tried to keep her pace.

The eyes and teeth around us sparkled like icicles in the sun.

“I need a drink,” Casey said.

I didn't know how long we'd been dancing. It seemed like only minutes, but I was thirsty too.

Back in the VIP room, Eric was on couch, holding an ice cube and staring at it. I sat next to him, watching his hand fill with dark blue water.

“Did you bring any weed?” I asked. Smoking intensified the high.

“No, you?”

I checked my purse, but found only a few roaches, and we didn't have a bowl to smoke them in.

Casey sat beside me. Her lips went around the straw and glowed like she was sucking on a light bulb.

“Casey,” Eric said. “Do you have any bud?”

“I do, but it's at my apartment,” she said.

We had some at our apartment too, but our place was too far to walk.

“It's last call,” Casey said. “You guys want to leave and go smoke?”

We'd been here for four hours? Time had really slowed down.

“Let's go to our place,” Eric said.

“I'm parked in the lot behind the club,” Casey said.

Eric and I had taken the train. With Casey driving, we could save the six bucks in train fare and buy some munchies. I was really hungry, or maybe I just wanted to chew something.

I got in the passenger seat, and Eric climbed into the back and leaned forward so his head was between my shoulder and Casey's. She stalled twice before we got out of the lot, and the car jerked each time, sending my head into the dash.

“Do you see the spiders?” Eric asked.

The taillights on the car ahead were red daddy longlegs with big black eyes.

“That's too creepy,” I said.

I had a fear of spiders. Snakes also.

“What did you guys take tonight?” Casey asked.

Nothing around me was normal. I couldn't believe it had taken her this long to notice. Maybe she was too drunk.

“Shrooms,” Eric said.

She told us about the last time she'd tripped. She said she'd felt like she'd peed her pants, but every time she checked her panties, they were dry.

My underwear did feel a little wet. I felt the crotch of my jeans and it was dry. They still felt wet. I had to get my mind off my underwear.

When we got back to our apartment, Eric rolled a blunt. Casey flipped on the TV and found a station that was playing music and danced around the room.

When the blunt was down to a roach, Eric said he wanted to take a shower and went into the bathroom. I wanted to take one too. Warm blue water and colorful soapy bubbles sounded fun. I'd have to wait until he got out.

I sat on the floor, and Casey danced around me. She lifted my long hair off my back and held it like horse reins.

“Your hair smells like cookies,” she said.

She dropped my hair, and her fingers went to my scalp, scratching and rubbing the tender spots. My hands were in front of me, writing in the air with my fingers.

“You know, I've always had a thing for you, Nicole.”

I hadn't known her all that long and had only hung out with her a couple times, but she was cool. Pretty girls like Casey weren't usually nice. But she was.

“Are you into all that?”

“Into what?” I asked.

She sat in front of me, and her hands touched my cheeks. Her lips went to mine, and I tasted the blue cocktail she'd been drinking at the club. Her tongue slid in and caressed, twirled and poked mine.

“Girls,” she said after she pulled away.

My underwear was wet again.

I'd never been with a girl. I found them beautiful, but they didn't have that spicy smell and rough edge like guys did, and those were the things that turned me on. But there was something about Casey that felt safe. Safe like when I was around Eric.

She held the bottom of my shirt and stared into my eyes. The emeralds were now sapphires. My shirt came up and over my head. She unhooked my bra, and the straps dropped off my shoulders.

And then her lips were on my nipples, tugging them with her teeth and flicking them with her tongue. It was incredible. I didn't know if I'd feel the same way sober, looking down at a head of long, blond hair and painted fingernails, and be turned on like I was. Still, it felt incredible.

My nipples became sore, and I gently pushed her away. She smiled, her teeth star-like, and arched her back. Her shirt was silk and melted into my fingers. I lifted it off and flung it onto the air mattress.

At the club, her skin had swirled like soft serve, but now it flickered like fire. Red and orange flames shot from her stomach to her chest. My cold tongue started at the base of the fire, tasting her sweetness, and it warmed as I got closer to the tips of the flames.

She moaned.

Her nipples were smoldering rocks.

Although I'd never been here before, I knew what I liked. I wanted to give her the same safeness she made me feel.

I tickled and teased her boobs with my fingers. My mouth moved away from hers and landed on her neck, the spot where it dipped to her shoulder. Using a small chunk of my hair, I traced the circle around her nipple.

She got on her knees and pushed my back to the floor, taking off my jeans and underwear.

Her fire had spread into me.

She knew where to touch me. The spot at the very top that wanted to be rubbed with just the pad of her finger. She didn't push too hard or soft, and she didn't tug or tap. She circled, and the faster her finger moved, the louder I got.

Her mouth focused on my nipples. But she was softer than before, sucking just enough to give my body everything it needed to build.

I gripped her hair and pulled. My moaning turned into a scream. And then my body rippled like an avalanche. I exhaled as the calm swept over me.

“That was…”

She kissed me. “Amazing,” she said.

I was able to let go and have an amazing orgasm, like when I used my own fingers, but a girl getting me off was so weird.

The water from the shower turned off, and the curtain screeched when Eric slid it open.

“We should probably get dressed before he comes out,” she said.

She helped me put on my bra, and I helped with hers, and she told me she had to go. We hugged and kissed at the door, and when she walked down the hall, she left a trail of rainbows behind her.

Eric came out of the bathroom and asked where Casey was. I told him she had to go.

“Damn,” he said. “I like having her around, I wish she wasn't leaving the club.”

I liked having her around too. Actually, I wanted to hang out with her more. But only for the same reason I liked hanging out with Eric. I didn't need friends to get me off. My fingers were just fine.

The girls I worked with weren't fun and adventurous like Casey. They were catty and made fun of overweight customers, and when they didn't get a good tip they'd re-run the credit card and tack on an extra percent or two. And then I met Renee. She looked like a rock ‘n’ roll groupie. Her voice was raspy, her hair was dreaded in sections, and she had piercings in her nose, lip, and tongue. With her smudged makeup, unmatched clothes and short attention span, she seemed constantly hungover even though she said she rarely drank. She was the bartender, and during our breaks we'd go out back and smoke together. She had the dankest weed and didn't mind smoking me up as long as I didn't tell the other servers I was high or who I got the pot from.

She was a no-frills, no-bullshit stoner, and quickly we became pals. Her apartment had a real bed, a couch, and dishes in the cabinets. Her most prized possession was a two-foot glass bong named Baby, and many nights after work Baby got us so fucked up Eric and I had to crash there.

Renee became our go-to for weed. We'd been buying it from Eric's co-worker, but he was unreliable and expensive, and the herb tasted like dirt. Every payday, we gave Renee sixty bucks. She'd go to her dealer's house and come back with a half-ounce of the whitest, stickiest bud we'd ever seen. We used to get some sick shit in Bangor because lots of people grew it. This weed was different, hydro grown, and after a bowl you could barely remember your name. She referred to her dealer as Jesus. I was pretty sure she wasn't religious, but weed, she said, was her bread and wine, and Jesus was her savior.

Her secret lasted until the end of winter. Renee went back home to New Jersey for two weeks to visit her parents, and when she returned we noticed a change in her. At first the change was slight. She had loads of energy and never stopped talking. Then she started to lose weight. She was never fat to begin with, but the thickness on her arms, thighs, and stomach were disappearing. I watched her eat dinner at the bar and munch on snacks after we smoked. I also noticed her frequent trips to the bathroom. That meant one thing, she had to be bulimic.