Also, I own nothing but the story itself.  No lawsuits, please!

THURSDAY NIGHT   by Jayne Leitch
   C. 2001

A Bayonet's contrition
Is nothing to the Dead.
          --Emily Dickinson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     There's a lot of stuff I haven't told Emily.  About me, about my past, about who I really am and where I come from.  I probably should, but every time I think about opening my mouth and *saying* something, I think that what I say will make her leave...and I can't do anything to make her leave me.  I *need* her.

     There's so much I haven't told her.  And tonight, lying here in Elizabeth Webber's studio with Em in my arms and the candles still burning...there's so much I *should* tell her--but I hope I never will.

     We almost made love tonight.  Almost did, almost...almost did.  I stopped it, even though I wanted her so much I could taste it; I stopped us both, but now that she's finally accepted that I don't want to hurt her like that, now that she's let herself drift off, all I want to do is wake her up and tell her I've changed my mind.  I want her to take me right
now, right here, over and over again until we're too exhausted to be awake anymore.

     I don't want to be lying here, awake in the glow of the candles and the weight of the silence.  I don't want to *think*, because all I can think about is the first time I *didn't* stop.

     It's one of those things I haven't told Emily, and hope to God I never will.

     It's the story of what can happen on a Thursday night.

* * * * *

     I was in college for six months before I dropped out--which is another story, albeit one Emily *has* heard, if not in all the gory detail.  U of Florida; I was enrolled in the Arts programme, taking a lot of--don't laugh--Humanities courses.  I don't know why; my SATs had shown that my aptitude was in the maths, with maybe some skills in English
that I probably could've followed through on with at least some enthusiasm.  As it was, Mom saw a brilliant future for me in some kind of high-paying job I could only get through the Humanities, and by that time it was easier not to argue, so that's what I studied.

     Of course, "studied" is maybe too strong a word.  I think there's a textbook or two of mine somewhere that still haven't had their spines cracked.

     It was the good old F.U., okay?  *Nobody* comes to Florida for the schools.

     I'd been desperate to get out of the house after senior year of high school, so I was living in a dorm with a lot of other people who weren't necessarily there to get a degree.  It wasn't hard to get together a group to go pubbing with almost every night; all you had to do was wander up and down the halls knocking on doors.  If they didn't answer, they'd been out already and were passed out.  If they did--you had yourself a drinking buddy.  (No one ever checked ID's.  I think I was carded once in all the time I was there; either the staff at the campus bars were the simplest minds outside of the short bus, or they just didn't care.  After years of dealing with the kind of crap the guys I hung with gave them, I think maybe they just wanted us to get so trashed we'd turn ourselves into vegetables so they wouldn't have to deal with us anymore.)

     I used to wonder--you know, in the kind of slow, hazy way you start to wonder things at midnight after a couple solid hours of drinking--if the entire school was full of the kind of people in my residence.  After all, there were classes every day; theoretically, people had to *go* to those classes, otherwise they wouldn't still be taught, right?  Ergo, not
everyone at old F.U. would necessarily be out every night; someone somewhere had to be curled up in their dorm room doing *work*.  (And yes, we all did call it the old F-U.  College students aren't supposed to be known for their highly-developed sense of humour.)

     I lived on a co-ed floor of the oldest residence building on campus.  Through some weird stroke of luck I was one of very few frosh who didn't get stuck with a roommate; granted, that meant the room I lived in was about the size of a mid-size Honda, but it also meant *privacy*.

     Privacy, of course, meaning time spent by myself, lying on the dirty mattress, staring at the mouldy ceiling.  I was already messed up enough from what happened in high school that I could've spent all of my evenings like that--of course, two days into Frosh Week blew that plan all to hell.

     The campus was *insane* during Frosh Week.  Upperclassmen were inflicting initiations on unwary first years, every residence was holding a "Get to Know the People You'll Be Showering With!" party, and all the bars--*all* of them--were packed to the gills every night with some promotion designed to hook the new kids as early as possible.  I was fully intending to miss out on it all--but then I fell victim to the knocking-on-doors recruitment campaign for daily drinking activities.

     I'd been trying to muster enough energy to unpack another box of crap I'd lugged from home one night when there came an arrhythmic pattering on my door, accompanied by the sound of someone adding his own bass track with woefully inadequate vocal chords.  I was already bored out of my skull, so instead of ignoring the noise and letting whoever it was go away...I opened the door.

     And met Anton.  "Hey.  I'm Anton.  Room 314.  Wanna come out for some beer?"

     It was that or more intense study of the ceiling, so I went.

     Along the way we picked up Rob, a second year kinesiology major with muscles the size of slo-pitch balls and a tendency to think people in bars kept looking at him "funny"; Mark, in first year English, who ended up writing the weekly "Angry Drunkard" editorial for the school paper; Jeanine, a first year theatre student who once got on a table and did
a strip tease for us while reciting Lucky's monologue from 'Waiting for Godot'; and Dave, who was supposed to be in law but decided to audit Jeanine's drama courses after her version of Lucky "awoke his deeply repressed dramatic tendencies", as he put it.

     Anton was a music major, a very talented natural tenor who ended up dropping out a year after I did.  The last I heard, he was working some food service industry job so he could pay the bills while focussing on local theatre.

     I was the designated serial killer.  You know, the angry, silent guy who everybody suspects is going to kill a lot of people in their beds before going down himself in a blaze of police bullets and infamy; it was the kind of joke Mark got to be known for.  It wasn't that I never said anything, or seemed particularly creepy--I don't think it was, at any
rate--but one night in October we were lying out on the common, staring up at the sky after the latest bar had thrown us out and closed its doors...I was dead sober because the 8:30 class looming a few hours ahead of me was having a test, and I figured I should put in some kind of effort to *be* there.  Everyone else had what sounded like a fantastic buzz on, and as usual in that situation, nobody was making a lot of sense.

     Anton was lying flat on his back, humming what he said was part of Holsts' 'The Planets' while he pointed at the stars we couldn't see because of the haze from the city lights.  Rob was doing sit-ups, except that he always met his knees off-centre and kept banging his chin and swearing.  Jeanine was slumped against my left shoulder, and would
occasionally breathe a long sigh of marinated air into my ear; Dave sat behind her and played with her hair.  Mark, of all of them, was the most alert; he was lying with his head on Anton's thigh and would occasionally reach up and "correct" Anton's positioning of some star or another.

     It was after a mild argument over whether Cassiopeia was east or west of the Big Dipper that Mark pushed himself up on his hands and pointed his mildly glassy gaze more or less at me.  "You're always so quiet," he declared, with all the relevance of nothing.

     I stared back.  I was used to being the lone dignitary from the Land of the Temperate.  "Yeah, and you're always talkin'."

     "No, he's right," Jeanine piped up, sending another wave of amaretto soured breath over my face.  "All you do is sit and watch everybody else.  Even when you're *hic* drunk."  She was always fun when she got loaded, because she personified every drunk clichee in the world.

     I raised an eyebrow.  "Because you all are so entertaining.  It's fun to sit and watch."

     At that very moment, Rob sat up with particular vehemence and almost somersaulted over himself, then proceeded to swear because he'd lost count.

     I raised the other eyebrow.  "See what I mean?"

     "No, Mark's right."  Now Anton pulled himself up, turning to face me while steadying himself with a hand on Mark's shoulder.  "You're just always watching.  And...brooding."  He seemed pleased to have come up with the word, and shared a grin with Mark.  "You brood, Zander.  It's like...you're the one the neighbours never suspect."

     My eyebrows came down again.  "What?"

     "Yeah!"  Abandoning his position as leaning post, Mark shuffled forward on his knees, then sat back on his haunches and grinned at me.  "You're like the serial killer that all the neighbours are shocked to find out about.  You know, they're on the news after he's arrested--"

     "Or killed," Dave interrupted cheerfully.

     "--Or killed, and they're all telling the reporters that, 'Oh, we never would have known', 'He kept to himself'..."

     "'He was always so quiet.'"  Jeanine giggled.  "And then they find out he had the dismembered bodies of, like, fifty people in his basement."

     "Zander, it's *you*, man."  Pointing an accusing finger as straight at me as he could manage, Mark said, "You're our serial killer."

     Amazingly enough, it stuck.  I was Zander the Serial Killer until a month before I left.

     Funny how these things work out, huh?

     The group stayed pretty much the same while I was there; we'd sometimes gain a few people who just couldn't work any more, and we'd sometimes lose Mark or Dave--sometimes even myself--to anxious night-before-finals cramming.  Most nights, though, it was the six of us, making the rounds until at least two of us could barely stand up.  We'd pick our drinking hole, we'd pick our poisons, and we'd sit and talk for hours without actually telling anybody anything.  It got to be an art form, especially with Jeanine, Mark, and Anton:  Getting Drunk Without Getting Talkative.

     Of all of us, I was the lone quiet drunk.  But I had my reasons for that.

* * * * *

     Then there were Thursdays.

     Thursday night was bar night, when those of us whose lives revolved around a secluded table in the dark corner of some campus bar were joined by thousands of students looking to party--and thereby get a passable (in their minds) excuse for missing class on Friday.  On Thursdays there were no secluded tables, no comfortable songs, no quiet spaces.  Instead, there was dancing and noise and wall-to-wall crowds.

     We didn't mind.  Everybody has to party once in a while.

     By January everybody had a system for Thursdays.  Nobody was ever out before ten-thirty or so, which left plenty of time for people to get stoked for the night ahead after their classes ended; the easiest and most enjoyable way to do that was to have a pre-party in somebody's room, and on my floor it was Jeanine and her roommate Melanie who played hostesses.  By January they were cramming close to twenty people into a room designed for two people to sleep and read in; it was close, it was noisy, and since every single person there was drinking, it was always a hell of a lot of fun.

     By then, fun was something I had once a week, if I was lucky.  My mom had been upset at the marks I got on my exams, and was getting nosier than usual about what I was doing that I wasn't pulling off straight A's.  By the middle of January she'd started dropping hints about moving me back home, an idea I was less than thrilled with; she would call me three times a week and talk about how "great" things were, how she was finally getting back on track after what had happened, how Dad was starting to "come
around", whatever that meant.  And she would ask me how school was, and I would make something up that made it sound like I was living the high life in between handing in essays that were going to impress my profs so much they'd publish them.  And she would sound approving for about five seconds before wondering a little too casually whether the dorm was the best environment for me to be living in; she'd mention that, as wonderful as
everything was at home, it was awfully lonely, especially now that...

     And I would put her off by pretending not to know what she was getting at, and she would sound hurt but pretend that she wasn't, and we would ignore the issue until something made us fight, and then we would hang up.  And I knew that she would call back in a couple of days and it would be exactly the same.

     I lived in silent dread of those phone calls.  Anton told me once he knew when Mom had called because when we went drinking afterward I would have two shots of tequila, straight up, regardless of whether I drank anything else.  I'd stared at him when he told me that, because it wasn't anything intentional; it wasn't even intentional that Anton knew enough about my family to put together my bad mood and tequila and come up with
Mom.  I'd always tried to be a quiet drunk, but...well, if there's one thing I'm good at, it's making mistakes.

     So January saw me slacking off even more than I had been, dodging whatever infrequent attempts at concern Anton felt like making, and lying my ass off to my family.  I didn't go as far down as some people might've--I don't think I was depressed, anyway--I just couldn't make myself care about any of it.

     Except Thursday nights.  Because then the music was loud, the drinks were frequent, and I didn't have to *think* about any of it.

     Especially at the pre-party.  Jeanine and Melanie threw good ones; it was strictly bring-your-own liquor, and nobody minded sharing as long as you shared yours in return.  Their room was set up so a bunch of extra chairs could be brought in and arranged in a relatively social way, and those who came late and couldn't fit in another chair were allowed to sit on the beds.  Melanie--who I think was in a couple of music courses with
Anton--had a huge collection of CD's, and there was always something with a good beat playing.

     That night--the night I didn't stop, the night that I can't stop thinking about--it was Thursday.  I joined the party late, after a particularly strained and brutal conversation with my mother over...God, I can't even remember what that one had been about.  All I know is that by the time it was over, I was more than ready to drink it off; when I went to get my provisions for the party, however, all I found was a beer.

     It wasn't a problem.  After all, we were all going to be in a bar in an hour.  So I took the beer, grabbed my wallet, and headed for Jeanine's room.

     There was hardly enough space for me to get across the floor to the bed.  Thoroughly-buzzed people greeted me with loud, sloppy cries, and I returned as many as I could; the usuals were all there, sitting in a rough circle of chairs and pillows on the floor, and most of them had brought a friend or two--some I recognised, some I didn't.  Melanie was draped across her boyfriend's lap, taking huge gulps from her Screwdriver.  Rob was in deep conversation with a friend I'd met once before; another kinesiology student, I think.  Anton and Mark were getting friendly for the benefit of a couple of girls who lived on our floor but didn't come out often and hadn't clued in that they were a couple yet.  Dave was half-flirting with a girl who seemed to know Rob's friend and half
keeping an eye on Jeanine, who was in high-spirited conversation with two other girls--one lived two doors down from me, but I had no idea who the other one was.

     Jeanine also had an open bottle of tequila on the desk beside her hand.  Without looking at Anton, I headed for her little corner of activity.

     She looked up as I stepped close beside her and squeezed her shoulder.  "Zander!" she exclaimed, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed.  "You made it!"

     "Yeah, well.  I wasn't going to sit in my room all night."  I smiled at the girl I knew, then let my attention drift to the other one.  "I'm Zander, by the way."

     "Oh!"  Smacking herself on the forehead, Jeanine gestured from her to me.  "I'm such an idiot!  Zander, this is Gail.  We went to high school together."

     Gail smiled up at me a little too brightly, half-raising her glass in drunken salute.  She was small, blonde, with the usual tarty makeup and clothes that you saw a lot of on Thursday nights.  Her eyes were dark, and shimmering with laughter and whatever was in her glass.  "Zander.  That's an interesting name.  Nice to meet you."

     "Gail.  That's weather."  I waited while the girls giggled at the lame joke.  "And you."  I returned the salute with my as-yet-unopened beer, then turned back to Jeanine, still brandishing the drink.  "Trade you."

     "For what?"  I indicated the tequila, and she shrugged.  "It's not mine.  Ask Gail."

     Obediently, I turned back to Gail, whose grin was widening and becoming more thoughtful--in a loaded kind of way.  "Allow me," she purred, reaching a thin, beringed hand across Jeanine to the bottle.  Unfortunately, her co-ordination was off; instead of grabbing the neck of the bottle she grazed it, and before I could move the whole thing was tipping off the desk and onto the floor.

     The crash of breaking glass and lost liquor hushed the rest of the room for a moment--then everyone clapped and cheered in true unsympathetic style.  Gail flushed a deep pink under her makeup and giggled at the attention.  "Sorry," she said once everyone had gone back to their conversations.

     I shrugged.  It wasn't as if I couldn't have my shots when I got to the bar.  "Don't worry about it.  Mind if I...?"  I indicated the last empty seat in the room--the spot on the bed next to her--and she nodded; with a complicated, twisting step, I was seated and opening my beer.

     After that I zoned out a little; it was always more fun to watch people when they were drunk and you were sober.  Everybody just got...amplified, like their sound had been turned up too high and they were starting to get fuzzy.  Exaggerated gestures, easier laughter, quicker confessions...

     There was always some way to get people to open up; your typical party game was tried and true, and the group of us would always get around to playing one of them.  The only real objective is to get people falling-down-drunk while making them admit the most useless things about themselves, things that nobody would want to know if they were sober.  Like the one we played that night; what happened was, you went around the
group and everyone said "I have never" whatever--like, "I have never been arrested"--and then if anyone in the group *had* done it, they had to drink.  (Back then, when "I have never been arrested" came up, I didn't have to down my drink.  I wonder what Anton would say if we played this now...)  Eventually, you knew all about the sex lives of the other people in the room, and maybe got away with some of your own dignity intact.

     It was Jeanine who got the game going that Thursday night.  About ten minutes or so after I got there, she leapt out of her chair, clapped her hands together, and said, "Hey guys, let's play a game, okay?  We have time before we go!"

     There was a round of general agreement, and she suggested 'I have never', and we got started with Dave.

     Dave invariably opened with something moronic that he thought was clever, and that night he didn't disappoint.  "I have never...had a Blowjob."

     Melanie was quicker on the uptake than the rest, and tried to pretend it was a good joke.  "You poor guy.  You should have one tonight when we go out."

     As usual, Dave's reply wasn't as funny as he thought it was.  "Oh!  You thought I meant the *sex*...no, the *drink*.  I've never had the *drink* that's called Blowjob."

     Everyone laughed because they were drunk.  I just rolled my eyes.

     Then it was Mark's turn.  "I have never had sex in a boat."

     Again, I didn't drink...but I watched Rob, Rob's friend, Melanie, and her boyfriend look chagrined and swallow another mouthful of alcohol.

     On to Anton.  "I have never slept with a girl," he declared proudly, then made tsking noises as all the other guys in the room--including Mark and excepting me--took healthy swallows.  "Tweech his own..." he commented mournfully, tossing a playful wink my way.

     It was a running joke with us.  I took the ribbing good-naturedly, and settled in for a round of play that wouldn't see me drinking at all.

     The game continued, with lots of unnecessary information shared by almost everyone--even me, when Melanie's boyfriend offered, "I have never been in a morgue."

* * * * *

     About an hour later the group of us headed for the closest bar--The Nag and Hound, a name that whoever created it must've thought was absolutely hilarious.  It was supposed to be in the style of those Olde English pubs, and every night other than Thursday it succeeded pretty well; the tables and chairs were darkly stained wood, and the walls were
covered in fake hunting tapestries and insane amounts of wood trim in the same colour as the furniture.  There was even a fireplace at one end--fake--with hunting horns glued over the mantle.  It was normally a fairly relaxing place to hang out, with dim lighting and a menu full of Olde English fries and burgers.

     Thursday nights, however, the place went to hell.  All but four tables were cleared out to make room for dancers, a section of one of the walls turned out to be the door to a DJ booth, and the relaxed lighting was replaced by a panel of multicoloured strobes that--rumour has it--once caused someone to have a seizure.

     In other words, The Nag and Hound was one of the most popular places to go on a Thursday night.

     By the time we got there, it was packed.  The line outside was non-existent because everybody who wanted to be there was already inside; as usual, nobody got carded, and we shoved our way into the press of bodies just inside the door without stopping.

     The music pounded into my head as I brushed past the comatose bouncer and made my way inside.  I've never really liked club music; techno, dance, funk, hip-hop, whatever it's called, I don't prefer it.  It has its place, and I doubt I would've done such good business at the raves if the music hadn't set the scene and freed some minds...but what I like is quieter.  Easier on the bass, with singers who can sing.

     For dancing, though, you couldn't do better than what was spinning at the Nag and Hound--and everybody who'd been drinking in Jeanine's room wanted to dance.  All I'd had, however, was my lone beer, and the craving for tequila was getting stronger by the minute.  The problem was the line at the bar; it was the whole length of the room away, but two steps in the door I was already rubbing elbows with the last few people waiting for drinks.  I was happy to wait--I'm not really into dancing, and I usually have to be pretty hammered before I even think about it--but Jeanine and her friend Gail were awfully vocal about getting me on the dancefloor.

     As the others made their way through the throng, Gail noticed I wasn't following.  "Don't you want to dance?" she yelled at me over the throbbing of the music.

     I jerked my thumb in the direction of the bar.  "I want to get a drink first."

     Jeanine, who'd hung back with Gail, put on a sloppy pout.  "Come on, Zander!  There's plenty of time to drink.  Come dance!"

     I was about to shake my head and tell them to go ahead without me when Gail suddenly slunk over to my side and wrapped her arms through mine.  Leaning right up against my chest, she looked up at me through dark, long lashes, and curved her full lips into a cajoling smile.  "Come and dance with me, Zander."

     I paused, and a hundred thoughts flew through my mind in the space of a second.  Gail was wrapped around my body very tightly, a position I realised damn quick I liked the feel of.  She was also well on her way to being stinking drunk; I'd watched her in Jeanine's room, and the way she drank rivalled even Anton on a thirsty night.  I, on the other hand, had downed a single beer--which, considering the way my tolerance had built
up over the past few months, left me as clear-headed as I was when I was sober.  And the tequila I'd been craving since talking to Mom was right over at the bar...

     But as I looked down at Gail's face, an ugly little idea slid out of the back of my mind.  In that second, I *knew* that there were other ways to control that particular thirst.

     I nodded, slowly, feeling my own mouth shape itself into a grin.  "Okay.  Let's dance."

     At that, Gail's eyes lit up and she grinned back, impishly.  "I knew you wanted to!" she declared as she stepped back and turned around, then led me to the dancefloor.  I followed, allowing myself to be dragged by one hand while I slid the other onto her hip.

     As we joined the rest of the group in the middle of the shifting, bobbing, frenetically moving party people, I caught sight of Jeanine out of the corner of my eye.  She was looking at me as steadily as she could with a bottle of wine and two coolers inside her, and I met her eyes for a moment before smiling a little and half-raising my shoulders in an innocent shrug.  She blinked--then was forced to glance away for a moment when Dave grabbed her hand and tried to spin her.  The second her attention was off me, I adjusted my grip on Gail's hand and casually moved us further into the crowd, letting the path between us and Jeanine close up as dancing people moved their independent ways.

     As soon as we were safely hidden in the crowd, I tightened my grip on Gail's hand, pulling her back toward me so my mouth was next to her ear.  "Sure you don't want something else to drink?"

     She drew back slightly, just so I could see the gleam in her eyes and the set of her lips.  "I'm sure.  Dance!"

     Without letting go of my hand, she began swaying and writhing to the music.  I didn't stand still, but I also didn't move very much; mostly I watched the way she moved, coming steadily closer, slower than the beat demanded but at just the right tempo to make every twist of her arms and bow of her shoulders seem full of suggestion.  I kept my eyes glued to hers and an appreciative smile on my face, all the while trying to figure
out what the next step was going to be.

     The strange thing was, I didn't feel at all out of my depth.  I didn't know exactly what the hell I thought I was doing, but under the surface of my mind I knew *how* I was doing it--and it was insanely easy.  Especially when the girl I was doing it to was so drunkenly willing.

     And especially when the DJ seemed to know exactly what I was thinking.  The song we'd been dancing to ended after a couple short minutes, and suddenly the beat slowed.  The next song spun up a throbbing, sinuous rhythm, the kind that goes straight to your hips and pairs people off into couples that press against one another so tightly you can't
tell who's who.

     After barely a second of realising what I was hearing, I reached out and wrapped my arm around Gail's waist, pulling her to me in a rush of sweat and harsh breath.  She hadn't been expecting that, I don't think; she almost fell against my chest before steadying herself and fitting her body around mine, her lips curving invitingly as she leaned into the
dance and laid her cheek against my neck.  Her hands slid with exaggerated slowness up my arms and over my shoulders until they met behind my head, then hung limply down my back.

     We swayed to the beat, close and steady but deliberately unromantic; I could feel how tense she was, and she had to have felt the muscles in my neck tightening as the seconds passed.  When she opened her mouth and spoke, I was wound so tight I almost jumped.

     "Can I ask you something?"  Her voice was pitched low, and if her mouth hadn't been beside my ear, I wouldn't have heard her at all.

     "Sure."

     "Back in Jeanine's room, when we were playing the game...have you really never had sex on a boat?"

     I smiled, and felt the tension flow from my muscles.  This was going to be easy.  "Nope."

     I felt her hands move, and suddenly she was tangling her fingers in the ends of my hair.  "And you've never had sex in a shower, either."

     "Never."  The slow, methodical movements of her fingers were getting to me; in response, I tightened my arm around her waist and flattened my palm against the small of her back.  My own fingers were right on the waistband of her tight jeans, and if I moved them just a little, I could find skin...

     "And you've never had sex with your friend Anton."

     I started, then relaxed again as I felt her trembling with laugher.  I leaned back so I could look into her eyes; the shift also happened to grind my hips into hers in a way that seemed to surprise her.  Setting my face into my most serious expression, I answered with all the force of complete honesty, "No, I have never had sex with Anton."

     Her mouth abandoned the small 'o' it had formed at my sudden movement, and curved into a demure grin.  "I thought I'd make sure.  You never know with some guys these days, and you two did have a lot of meaningful eye contact going on."

     "Well," I said, quirking an eyebrow and changing my tone to one of innocent conversation, "in order for me and Anton to have sex, he'd either have to break up with Mark or sneak around on him.  And Mark probably wouldn't let him go without a fight--and Anton happens to *suck* at lying."  I paused, and waited until I saw Gail's smile begin to waver before continuing, "Not to mention the whole thing where sex with guys isn't exactly what I'm looking for."

     Her smile widened again.  "Tease."  She leaned against me once more, and we swayed for another long moment.  Then, slowly, she peeled away from me just enough to be able to meet my eyes.  She wasn't smiling anymore; instead, her expression fairly radiated tanked intensity.  "But you did say that you've never had sex with a girl..."  She trailed off, but kept her glassy eyes fixed on mine.

     I swallowed, and felt her hands slide down over my arms and onto my waist.  "Did I say that?"

     Her answer was a slow grind across my body, and suddenly I didn't care about what I'd said.  I grabbed her hand and pulled her around so my mouth was next to her ear.  "Follow me."

     Jeanine didn't even notice us leaving.

* * * * *

     The Nag and Hound was practically on the back step of my residence building; it took Gail and I less than two minutes to make our way from the bar to the door.

     As I fumbled in my pocket for my keys, Gail pressed herself silently against my back, wrapping her arms under mine and running her hands over my chest.  Her harsh breathing echoed in my ears, and it took all my concentration to find the right key, jam it in the lock, and get us inside; once there, we had to go up a flight of stairs, through a door,
down the hall, and around the corner before we got to my room.  I took her hand and led the way, trying to ignore the way my gut was quaking, forcing my hands not to shake.

     I never locked my door, because I knew everyone on my floor and there was no point.  I was incredibly thankful for this bad habit that night, because by the time we reached the room there was no way I was going to be able to work the key.

     I pulled her out of the obnoxiously-lit hallway and into the darkness of my room, then made an abrupt turn and used her body to press the door closed behind us.  She made a little sound of surprise as I pushed her up against the wood, but by then my mouth was on hers and I was swallowing every gasp, every breath, without caring whether it was hers or mine.

     Her surprise didn't last long; I felt her hands working their way under my shirt, and the sensation of cold fingers on my skin raised gooseflesh along my arms.  I returned the favour; her skimpy clubwear seemed designed for easy access, and soon my hands were roaming everywhere they could touch.

     Somehow we managed to hit the bed, but beyond that it's all pretty much a blur.  Hands, fingers, tongues, lips, teeth--harsh breaths and hoarse words--the sound of sweat-dampened clothes peeling off bodies in perpetual motion.  I remember fumbling in the drawer of my bedside table for a condom, but that sticks out only because *I* was the one insisting we use it.  She was writhing, gasping, telling me in breathless urgency to
hurry up, hurry up, hurryhurryhurry--

     I remember thinking that she felt incredible as she trembled, and I remember snaking an arm around her shoulders and over her back until my fingers found soft blonde hair to tangle themselves in.  I remember clutching her to me, feeling her body quiver in boneless tremors until I didn't know who was moving more, me or her.  I remember forgetting everything about that evening, everything about my life, everything except the feeling that I was about to break her in two...

     The bed was tiny; we couldn't roll away from each other when we were done.  After an infinite moment of stricken silence in which neither of us moved, I slid away from her and lay on my side with my back pressed against the wall, trying to slow my breathing and trying not to touch her.  She took her time; a deep breath, a listless sweep of her hands across her face and through her hair, a restless tug of the blanket that half-covered nothing important...then she moved.  She sat up, swivelled, hung her legs off the bed, stood up.  I stayed pressed against the wall, watching her as she picked through the clothes on the floor, watching as she got dressed and rearranged her hair as best she could without a mirror.

     When she was ready, she turned and gave me a thin smile.  "We'll have to do this again some time!"

     All I could do was close my eyes.  She was still drunk; she tripped over her feet and giggled on her way out the door.

* * * * *

     The next morning Anton wore his sunglasses everywhere, Melanie and her boyfriend made an emergency trip to the doctor, Jeanine was solidly and loudly hungover, and I slept in.  I woke up once, briefly, and realised I should be in the middle of my ten-thirty social science class--but somehow, getting up and going just didn't seem to be that
important.

     What woke me up for good was my mother's phone call at noon.  It was one of the shortest conversations we'd ever had; I was tense and kept biting off my answers to whatever she said, and she seemed more than usually sensitive, so we said nothing much faster than was normal for us.

     I didn't realise until much later in the day that after we'd hung up I hadn't even *thought* of tequila.

* * * * *

     The light outside is gray now; it's Friday morning.

     Emily looks so peaceful, feels so warm tucked under the blanket with me on this lumpy old couch.  I can't believe I've been awake so long, all this time...

     That's what bad memories do, I guess.

     I hope she understands why I stopped us.  I mean, I think she does, I think I got through to her about that, but--after the way she reacted, I just--

     I want Emily; I want her so much I can hardly stand it.  I just can't think that I want her the way I wanted Gail.  Emily's different; she's better.  And I want her to know that.

     I just don't want her to know about all this stuff I've been carrying around with me.  It hasn't been easy for her, knowing me.  I want to fix that; I don't want her to have to deal with knowing that everybody's right when they tell her I'm worthless.

     I'll have to tell her everything eventually.  I already owe her at least that much--but telling her, saying those things about myself, opening up and *showing* her who I really am...the thought of doing that to her scares the hell out of me.  I don't *want* to do it.

     I don't have to right now.  Right now, all I have to do is hold her a little closer, kiss the crown of her head, and feel her snuggle down against me.

     I'll have to tell her eventually...but that can wait for another Thursday night.

End.

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