Two cold blue eyes were staring her in the face. Lilith sat on her stomach, gazing down at her disaffectedly. The cat licked her lips and turned her backside to Michelle’s face before leaping off onto the ground and disappearing, scratching her human pedestal’s belly in the process.

Michelle winced and rubbed the tiny wounds. Before she could try to remember anything that had happened, the thin man from the bar wandered out from Sam’s bedroom in nothing but his thick plastic glasses and a small towel wrapped around his waist. He walked past Michelle without noticing her, and she made sure to spread the thin sheet she had been sleeping under over her naked body as thoroughly as possible. He went to the kitchen and came back out with a glass of water and a large, homemade cookie. He took a bite of the cookie and looked at Michelle.

“Oh, hi,” he said. Two bits of cookie flew out from either side of his oversized mouth. “Morning.” He smiled with crumbs all over his teeth.

“Hi,” said Michelle, turning her eyes away from the man. “Morning.”

The man – Paul – took another bite of his cookie and savored its mastication. “Michelle, right?”

“Yeah.” She glanced around the room for anything to focus on, anything but the naked, chewing man, and wound up pretending to be engaged by a snow-globe containing a tiny sculpture of a fat woman in a thong bathing suit and a caption that read Michigan – Fudge Capitol of the World. For an instant, she remembered Richard’s face.

Paul spoke. “Mmm. Have you ever tried one of Sam’s cookies? They’re incredible.” He took another bite.

Michelle’s head hurt so badly she couldn’t even think of eating. She noticed her hair was damp. “No,” she said. Her eyes returned to her snow globe.

“Oh, well, hold on.” The man retreated into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a moist, broken cookie and a napkin.

Michelle was very aware of how naked she was in front of this man. The sheet, she was sure, showed a clear outline of every contour of her body, and was probably transparent enough for him to get a rough picture of her belly button and nipples, too. She was also aware of how ridiculous it was for her to be bothered, considering her current line of employment.

She took the cookie, careful not to move the protective sheet, and forced herself to take a bite. It was buttery and fell apart over her tongue as she chewed. “Great,” she said, fighting the sharp, knifing pain in her temples that shouted at her to stop eating cookies and drink some water already. The man – who looked more like a boy somehow, in the daylight – smiled and stuffed the last bite of his own cookie into his mouth. “Hey,” she said, shifting around just enough so her torso was respectably vertical. “Do you know where my clothes are?” Paul blinked twice and giggled like a girl.

He led Michelle, wrapped in her flimsy sheet, into the bathroom where her jeans, top, underwear, and bra were wadded up and soaking in the bottom of the tub.

“You had a little accident,” he said, taking a slow sip of his water. Michelle’s head was being crushed, obliterated.

“Oh shit. Did I puke all over myself?”

“Oh no,” he laughed. “You made it to the toilet. It was impressive, really. You shot across the room like a bullet train. But then afterward you said you felt dirty and climbed into the shower with all your clothes on. It was really funny. A lot of things last night were really funny. Heh.”

Pressing dripping wet garments against the rice paper thin sheet hiding her modesty didn’t seem like a prudent thing to do. Instead Michelle ran down the hall to change before coming back to get her clothes. She returned to Samantha’s apartment with her sheet folded in hand. Her neighbor and Paul were exchanging a good morning kiss in the kitchen when she opened the door.

“Sorry,” she said, averting her eyes.

Sam floated to the door, took the sheet, and in one motion set it on the back of a chair. “Thanks, babe.”

“Well,” Michelle said, “I guess I’ll get my clothes now.”

“Don’t you want to stay for breakfast?” asked Sam, smiling, sparkling, not at all hungover. “I’m making some for Paul before he has to go to work.”

Michelle could smell bacon cooking. “What time is it?” she asked.

“Seven thirty,” Sam said brightly. She cracked four eggs into a bowl in a second, two in each hand. “Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey.”

“I thought you weren’t a morning person,” said Michelle, headache screaming.

Sam shrugged. “I am large. I contain multitudes.”

“Huh?”

“It’s a Walt Whitman quote. From Song of Myself.”

“Oh.” The last thing Michelle needed was to feel stupid before breakfast. She poured herself a glass of water and sat down at the table with Paul, now dressed in his clothes from the night before. He sat comfortably, didn’t fidget, didn’t bite his lip or dart his eyes. He was more attractive during the day, she might have ventured, if she’d had the presence of mind to venture such things.

“Hey,” said Paul. “I wanted to say, I really respect how you handled yourself with my cousin last night. He totally had that coming.”

“Yeah. Um. Thanks. How exactly did I handle him?”

After that last sentient moment, Matt had tried to kiss Michelle on the mouth. When she refused, he tried harder, and she pushed him away, propelling him backward and causing him to stumble, compromising his composure. When he regained balance, he started shouting, calling her a dyke and a bitch, and Michelle, remembering her education in the handling of these situations from countless old movies, dumped a fresh drink over his head.

Her suitor sprung up out of his seat, screeching like an otherworldly demon about the price of the shirt she had just ruined. As he jumped, his shin collided with the pointy corner of a nearby novelty chair, and he fell to the floor, shouting haphazard obscenities at the blonde bane of his present existence. Then Michelle, as they say, let go.

“I swear, it sounded like you were possessed,” Paul said. “I mean, just looking at you, I never would have thought you were capable. Just yelling and yelling like a sailor with Tourette’s. You made the bartenders blush.” The sober Michelle did the same.

“Matt was totally mad,” he went on. “He couldn’t do anything. He just stormed out all red in the face and sneering and I guess went back to his hotel. It was awesome. That guy’s such a prick.”

“You were inspirational,” Sam said. She was buttering English muffins, her wrist moving sensually and freely. “I was truly proud.”

Paul continued. “Then you started telling us how we were the only ones you trusted and you came back to the apartment with us. You said you were afraid to be alone.”

“It was adorable,” interjected Sam.

The food helped Michelle’s hangover, and she was feeling more or less herself by the time Paul left for work. When he left, he kissed Samantha on the cheek. Michelle helped her clean up.

The tedium of washing dishes in circles, rinsing, and handing them to Sam to be dried helped clear Michelle’s head. Her mind began to return. “Hey,” she said after a while. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t want to offend you or anything.”

“No problem. I’m unoffendable.”

“I – just, in the dressing room I hear stuff. You’re not a – a hooker, are you?” Samantha laughed, no, cackled. “Ha! You think that guy paid me to have sex with him? Please. I got just as much out of that as he did.”

Michelle’s words caught in her mouth. “Well, no, I didn’t necessarily mean that. Just, I heard some girls take um, names, or I mean, turn… turn tricks. Like they meet them in the club and arrange to uh, do stuff.”

“Some girls do that,” Sam said. “But those girls are usually at the bottom. I mean desperate. Whether it’s drugs or money or what, they’ll do anything. I would advise against it. I’ve never seen it lead anywhere but down.” She placed a plate into the dishwasher.

“Okay, no. I wouldn’t. I just wanted to ask if you ever did. Just from what I’ve heard, it seems like it happens a lot.”

“It happens a lot with girls who never get out. Once you start turning tricks, you don’t come back, you just sink deeper and deeper. I’m not saying that’s what always happens, I’m just saying that’s what I’ve always seen.”

“Oh, yeah. I know. I would never. I guess… I guess I’m just um, worried about the lap dances. Do they ever turn into… well, you know.”

Sam smirked. “Oh, that. Don’t worry, there’re cameras in the private dancing rooms. If the customers get out of hand, someone will come and take care of it. Don’t worry. Nothing happens that the dancer doesn’t want to.”

“Okay. But that means there are times when the dancer does something more in the rooms?”

“It happens. Some of the girls do it. Princess does it all the time. The management asks her to stop, but she won’t. She brings in too much money for them to fire her. A beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed pin-up who can’t talk. Every meat-necked, gym-going ex-frat boy is just drawn to her. She is, after all, a living, breathing, dumb belle.”

“Ha. Did you make that up?”

“The first time I met her,” said Sam. “But it’s definitely a bad idea. Completely unsafe in every way.”

A pause.

“You never did, did you?” ventured Michelle.

The gleam dulled in Samantha’s eyes. “Just once,” she said softly. “A long time ago. And it was a mistake. Don’t you do the same.”

Michelle was quiet for a moment. “I wouldn’t. I won’t. Thanks.”

They finished the dishes in silence. Michelle lulled into the rhythm of the routine. Wash. Rinse. Pass. Wash. Rinse. She washed each cup, each spoon, each pan, hearing music in her head and looking as she passed to Samantha who stared down, focused with terrible unblinking attention on the objects she dried, placed, and put away.

Filed under: Michelle, Samantha, alcohol, sex by Jade