I sat close to her on the bed and put my mouth to her neck. My mouth made the shape of a kiss at first and then I held her neck close, bit down. She moaned and I kept going. I pulled her shirt off. I sat on top of her and felt the round of her belly with my hands. She was soft. She laughed, and for the first time I felt unjudged. I grabbed my coffee mug of vodka and Cherry Coke from her nightstand and took a deep sip, the drink dripping from my mouth and falling onto her. I licked them off, and her hands, grasped tight onto my thighs, gripped harder as she arched her back.
I don’t remember the rest. We woke up with matching bite-shaped bruises on our bodies: neck, thighs, one on my waist, on her lower back. Our arms were crisscrossed on top of each other, a tangled snake of blanket around us. I stared at the rafters and wondered whether last night was something I could achieve without being under the influence of alcohol. There was an inhibition in me, a fear of my own desires or perversions, that dissolved when I’d had enough to drink or when I mixed my drinks with my mother’s pills.
The sunlight painted the white walls pink as it rose through her garden-height windows. We ate bagels with thick cream cheese and left crumbs in her bed sheets and I could hear the sounds of someone, her parents or sisters maybe, stirring milk and sugar into mugs, spoons clinking against ceramic. The smell of coffee wafted down from the kitchen. Jenny’s naked leg was slung over me, smooth. Her skin moved against the cactus pins of hair grown out on my own leg. I needed to shower.
She lay on top of the blankets on her stomach, and I noticed a small black tattoo on her lower back—some Chinese symbol. I thought about Frankie saying she’d tattooed Jenny, but was too afraid to ask. Jenny normally wore glasses, but in this moment, she wasn’t wearing any. Her eyes were the disturbing color of an afternoon storm gathering in the sky.
I ripped off a piece of bagel and tried to stuff it in her mouth. She jerked her head back, her nose and mouth scrunched up in a smile as she laughed. Her teeth were wide and white. I wondered if I could be closer to Jenny. The parts I did remember felt like safe and sure, even now that I’d sobered up. It took me a few moments to work up the courage to say something to her.
“I was a bitch and I’m sorry,” I said. “About Sam, and stupid shit at work.”
She stopped smiling. “I was so embarrassed about the pool thing,” she said.
“Sam is just like that.”
Jenny asked me if I’d spent time with Matt and Frankie yet and I told her I had. I told her about how they had undressed me, but not themselves.
“Frankie seems really into you,” she said. “She texted me about how cute she thinks you are.”
I had worried that leaving before the sex got more involved might have made me look like a prude. Jenny’s assertion made me think it had left them wanting more.
“Oh my god,” she said. “I have an idea.” She spoke excitedly, grabbing my hands like we were old friends. “Dude,” she said. “We should fuck with Sam.”
I still wanted Sam’s attention. I figured this could work in my favor. There were so many times Sam would invite me over, but when I showed up, the house was crowded with other people. Sex with Sam involved a lot of waiting. Sometimes he would say he was tired and go to bed, and I’d leave wondering if I’d done something wrong. Sometimes he would invite me or Jenny over on separate nights, and when we texted him for more details, he wouldn’t respond. The next day at work, he acted like nothing had happened.
I crawled across Jenny and grabbed my phone from the floor, flipping it open.
“Think about it,” she said. “Who is the real enemy here? We don’t need to play games with each other.”
I pulled up Sam’s number on my phone.
“We should get him to sleep with us,” I said. “Like, together.”
Jenny threw her head back and laughed. “Holy shit, yes.”
“What should I say?”
“Tell him we fucked.”
I wondered if Sam would tell the assistant manager, Daniel, about Jenny and I having sex, and about us proposing this threesome, to try and seem cool. I wondered if Jenny was using me to get Sam to like her.
I texted Sam anyway.
He responded back, almost immediately:
—Nice.
“That’s it?” Jenny bit her bottom lip, pulling the skin back. “Tell him we fucked last night and next time we want him to join.”
I clasped my phone close to my chest and laughed, hard and nervously. Jenny’s attitude was audacious. I wanted to move in closer, to feel her hair against my skin or hands again.
“Okay, okay, okay,” I said. “Hang on.” I clicked away at my phone, sent the message, and we waited.
No answer.
By the time I went home, he still hadn’t responded.
Sam’s shift started the same time as mine. I was in the break room getting ready when he walked in, clean-shaven as normal, his shirt untucked. He let the door close behind him and started tucking the shirt into his pants. I instinctively turned away, as if this were a private act and I had never seen him dress or undress before.
Sam scoffed. At work, our relationship was different. It was harder for me to be forward with him, but I hadn’t considered whether it was because I was usually sober at work or because there were more cameras and people around. When he was done tucking
