There was an unknown man grinding on my ass, but he kept sticking money in my shorts, so I didn’t stop him. I was too stoked about Taylor speaking to me that I barely even noticed his dirty hands all over me.
“Tay,” D.C. grabbed my arm and yanked me away from the man.
“Yea?”
“Did you fail to notice that guy or something?”
“Did you fail to notice this?” I held up a fifty dollar bill.
“Damn girl!” she laughed. “Come on, we’re gonna take off to the party house.
“But it’s not over yet,” I motioned to the crowd still in the club.
“Yea, but don’t you wanna go hang out with our friends?”
To her this was just a job. For me, this was a way to pretend life didn’t exist. I turned away from her to a hot Spanish boy and started dancing with him. He was whispering dirty things in my ear, his hot breath on my bare shoulder, reaching for his wallet, when D.C. pulled me away a second time.
“Come on, we’re leaving,” she was holding my arm harder than necessary.
“Hyper much?” Dave laughed as I hung out the passenger side window of the car, belting out the words to some ghetto music. I’d decided that when I was a stripper, there was to be no music but ghetto.
“You’re just jealous because I won’t screw you while you’re driving,” I pulled my head back into the vehicle.
“Who gave you alcohol?” he could tell I wasn’t just in a good mood or something.
“The girl with no shirt on,” I winked at him, taking his cigarette from his hand to puff on it. I turned around in my seat to talk to Ike and Zac.
“Can you please turn around?” Dave grabbed at me with the hand that wasn’t holding the steering wheel.
“Party pooper,” I stuck my tongue out at him, but I obeyed him anyway.
The house was huge, of course. It was a massive white mansion with a winding driveway and a marble foyer. There were all sorts of people all over the place. The lawn was littered in beer cans and crookedly parked cars.
“Where’s Taylor?” Heidi asked me.
“He had to go home,’ I swallowed the lump in my throat. I wanted to add, “and then I stopped over at the bar and… got relaxed with the aid of some alcohol.”
We walked (I stumbled a little bit) into a main room of lots of sweaty, half naked people. Our group got kind of divided. I ended up with Zac and Heidi.
“Look at these people,” Heidi whispered to us. There was a kind of orgy thing going on… well, I guess since there were still clothes involved, it wasn’t an orgy, but it was close enough for us to leave the room. We reconvened on the back porch area where we saw the rest of our crew.
“Dude, welcome to Porno-land,” I laughed, seeing the half-sickened, half-aroused faces on the rest of the guy friends.
“What kind of party is this?” Heidi asked D.C.
“Antonio didn’t mention this kind of thing,” she sighed.
“I told you we should have stayed at the club,” I said, yanking on my little tube top.
“Why, so you could exploit yourself more?”
“Shut up, Dave.”
“Or so you could dance with some more pedophiles?”
“Bite me!”
“Let’s blow this popsicle stand,” Heidi proposed.
“I wanna stay,” I said stubbornly, wrinkling my nose at Dave.
“Fine, stay then,” he got up without saying anything and walked around the side of his house, probably back to his car.
“What a dick,” I muttered under my breath.
“He’s probably right, you know,” D.C. shrugged.
“Go f*ck him then.”
“Bitch,” she muttered, stomping away after him.
“I think they’re just worried about you,” Heidi tried to be helpful.
“Just because I had a drink or two doesn’t mean they need to treat me like I’m ignorant,” my words were slurred.
Zac, who had been looking down at his hands the whole time, spoke up, “Hey, wanna come to our house?”
“Okay,” I shrugged. I hadn’t really wanted to stay, anyway, I was just being difficult.
“So is this what you do now?” Ike asked.
“What?”
He pointed to my nakedness.
“Oh, right… no, this was a one time deal,” I wanted to do it more often though.
We walked quietly up to the house. All the lights were off… except for the one in Tay’s room.
“What if Mom wakes up?” Zac asked.
“I’m naked,” I tugged on Ike’s arm, “and drunk,” I giggled as I stumbled over my own foot.
“Here,” Zac pulled off his sweater. He was wearing a wifebeater underneath.
“Damn, Zac!”
“What?”
“Since when are you sexy?”
“Shh,” he shushed me, but smiled anyway, “Put this on and go downstairs.”
I slipped the sweater over my head, sad that I wasn’t naked anymore. I almost fell over from a dizzy spell, but Ike caught me.
“Go into the basement and don’t make any noise.”
“Fine.”
I did as they said, but I almost fell face first down the stairs. Luckily, Ike went with me and grabbed my arm. I started laughing hysterically, and so he put his hand over my mouth.
“Why can’t I go upstairs?” I asked, talking almost too quietly.
“Well, for one, you’re not wearing clothes. Two, my parents wouldn’t adore the fact that you’re drunk. Third, Trina is upstairs.”
“In Tay’s room?”
“He didn’t know you’d be here.”
“In Tay’s room? I repeated.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she come to the party?”
Zac descended the stairs before Ike could answer. He was holding a bundle of clothes in his arms, as well as a glass of water.
“I’m going to get some food and get changed,” Ike said, making sure I was seated safely on the couch and then leaving me there with Zac.
“I didn’t want you guys to see me like this,” I said, laying down on the couch with my eyes closed, “I wanted you to have fun.”
“We did have fun.”
I wiped a tear away from my eye, “I didn’t want you to ever see me cry.”
“It’s okay,” he rubbed my back.
“I just wanted to forget, Zacky, really. I just wanted to pretend it wasn’t real.”
“What wasn’t real?” he asked, unlacing my tall boots for me. He pulled them off, his fingers sliding slowly across my calf, giving me goosebumps.
“You did that on purpose,” I said, shaking the chills away.
“Did what?” he tried not to smile.
I’d stopped crying. I bent over to unlace the other boot myself. Our faces were inches apart. I could feel his breath on my neck, his other hand sliding down my leg, his hair brushing the inside of my knee as he bent to the floor to move my boots away from the couch. I leaned into him.
“You’re drunk,” he stood up, walking a few feet away where it was safe.
“So?” I opened my knees slightly as I leaned back into the cushions.
“What were you saying before?” he asked, trying to change the subject. He felt safer when I was crying.
“About you being sexy?” I teased, standing up and walking toward him.
“Stop, Robinson, stop. Here,” he handed me the glass of water.
