So hopefully you have read Chapter 1 before starting on this Chapter, if not I would encourage you to go back and have a quick read. Again, this is a collaboration with the wonderful SiteNonSite.
And as always I encourage you to take the time to read all of SiteNonSite’s stories, if you haven’t already.
Bachelorette
Lying in bed on Sunday morning, my panties are soaked, the wisps of my dream already breaking up. I’ve never had an orgasm in my sleep before, but I woke up touching myself and cumming harder than I ever have before.
‘Did I call out?’ I wonder. I feel like I woke up shouting, but don’t know what. I don’t remember ever masturbating in my sleep. I feel so deliriously turned on and can’t help but to start touching myself again, recollections of the dream popping into my head, of watching Claire… or being watched? Her against the wall, of kneeling behind her… I stop myself, remembering the movie, remembering the dream. As strange and disturbing as it is, I’m able to shake it off.
‘Bad movies and pent-up frustration,’ I tell myself as I hop out of bed. ‘It’s just been too long.’
My Sunday is uneventful, a phone call with my mom, brunch with my friends Darci and Kwasi in Fort Greene at a place inside an old liquor store, and then cooking a big brownie for the week and cleaning my apartment.
‘You’re a hell raiser Sarah Beth,’ I tell myself as I fold my laundry.
Back to work and we are on deadline with lots of long days and late nights making my week go by fast. I had thought about Claire on and off, our funny and friendly real life interactions, and considered calling her or dropping by the gallery. I thought about seeing if she wanted to meet for dinner or catch a show. The Go! Team is playing the Bowery, I wonder if she’d like them; trying to picture her jumping around in that crowd. I can’t imagine it.
I invite Darci and Kwasi instead, but they’ve already got plans. I think about inviting Kip from work, but as much as I like him, I know he’ll already have something ten times more fabulous planned. So in the end I chicken out and don’t go.
Before I knew it, it was Friday again. We’d finished the off-site I’d been working to prepare for all week. It was with staff from a bunch of other departments and was exciting. There were a couple glitches, but my boss, Keith, congratulated me, saying he thought it went really well overall. It had already been a long day, and I felt spent but there was an obligatory dinner and drinks afterwards, making it even longer.
They took us to a steak place in TriBeCa. I’m a vegetarian, so while everyone else gorges, I pick massive sizzling cubes of lardon off a supper of iceberg wedge, despite requesting they hold the meat. While the crowd was friendly, they were mostly a decade or two older. As far as Friday nights go, I really wasn’t feeling it. But for Keith’s sake I wanted to be polite so I continued on to a bar nearby with the group for a couple more drinks.
The atmosphere at the bar was much more relaxed, everyone started to loosen up a bit with a few drinks under their belts. Kip was there, so I was having a great time until he abandoned me to chat up a beautiful young guy from the Business section and one of the guys from the Real Estate Section began to hover. Suddenly I was really looking forward to going home.
I was psyching myself up to tell Keith I was going to leave, when I saw Claire arrive with a group of women. She looked a bit out of place. The other girls looked bridge-and-tunnel.
It was a bachelorette party. They were super rowdy and one of the women wore a tell-tale plastic tiara. Claire wasn’t rowdy like the rest, but she looked like she was having a good time. She’s a lovely woman. Her friends were pretty, but Claire, with her long blonde hair pulled back tight and her tall lean yoga-figure stood out like a swan amongst geese. I wondered what her life was like, tried to picture where she might live, if she had met anyone nice yet.
I got another drink, when a woman named Kathy from the Style section came over and started talking about something she wanted us to work on with her.
‘Not now, Kathy… it’s Friday night,’ I thought.
Part of what I was up against at work was that my department was very new and very small, just my boss Keith and me, and a code geek named Ben. And almost no one at the Times understood what we did or what to do with us. Until a month ago they all seemed to think we were the bar-chart specialists, now we were the map people. Kathy was especially clueless, she wanted help with a PowerPoint presentation, which is not at all what we do.
“Yeah,” I told her earnestly, “let’s check in on Monday to discuss it further.”
I don’t think Claire saw me, and while I wanted to go say hi, I didn’t want to intrude on her fun. I was also feeling a little overserved and figured I’d better make my exit before I said something rude to Kathy or one of the others, but I urgently needed to pee first.
While waiting in the queue at the toilets, kütahya escort someone crashes into me from behind, I turn, ready to give them hell, and see Claire’s laughing smiling face.
“I think it’s really your turn to run into me, but who’s counting?” she quips. “What are you doing here?”
“I was just having drinks with work peeps,” I explained as she embraced me and greeted me with a kiss on each cheek – much wetter and warmer than the last two.
“New York is the biggest small town in the world, right?” She asks, flushed and wet lipped, her eyes looking a little glassy.
I suspect I’m not the only one feeling overserved. “I saw you with your group, but I didn’t want to intrude-“
“Say, do you want to get out of here, maybe get a bite?” She asked, glancing around nervously, a slightly desperate look in her eyes. “The bachelorette has started asking about my date for her wedding. Turns out ALL of her friends have brothers they want to set me up with.”
“Ergh, don’t tell me you’re the only single lady in that group?”
“Yeah… Jessica is wonderful. She’s engaged to one of my best friends from school, but I don’t really know any of her friends, and I’m really not keen to be a date for some Jersey Shore type… oh God, you’re not from Jersey are you?!”
“No,” I laughed, “Buffalo, which is just as bad, if not worse.”
“No,” she said firmly, giving me an appraising look. “Definitely much better.”
“Well,” I stammered, blushing under her warm regard, “I’m done with my thing, I was just about to sneak out when you caught me. Sooo… where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere really; anywhere that’s not this fucking bachelorette party… Hey,” she started, abruptly shifting tone and making a comically apologetic face, “do you think you could, uhh, maybe pretend to be a drunk friend I need to take home, so, you know it won’t seem like I’m ditching?”
It wasn’t a big stretch actually. While I had only meant to have a couple drinks, thanks to Kip I’d had a few. As I hadn’t really eaten and the cocktails were strong, and I am a total lightweight… I was in my cups.
“I can be your drunk,” I told her dryly, eliciting a big smile, “but first I have to pee.”
I was at the front of the queue and the door opened for me. I was a little bit surprised when Claire ducked in with me, but she put herself at the sink and opened her purse, looking at herself in the mirror as if it were nothing at all.
“So what’s new with InfoPorn?” she asked as she examined her lips. I had my panties half down, but stopped short. InfoPorn was the studio name I’d used when I got out of school, before I got hired at the Times. (My mother was still furious about the name.) Claire looked at me in the mirror as I hovered in surprise over the toilet seat. A sly smile stole across her face as I sat down. “I Google stalked you,” she admitted. “There aren’t that many Sarahs doing ‘information visualization’ at the Times – but you’re kind of a big deal!”
I blushed at the compliment, or maybe because I was still hovering bare-assed, and she’s smiling at me in the reflection. I continued to pull my pants down and lower myself to the toilet, mumbling something about awards being stupid.
I had googled Claire as well of course, finding her gallery online, looking at her picture in the directory, sleek and stylish, and then pages of pics of her at parties on social blogs; New York, Paris, London… Looking at them, her beautiful outfits and fashionable friends, I had wondered if I was jealous of her, if that’s what the dream was about. I could feel myself blushing scarlet now at the thought of the dream. I had to fight the impulse to hide my face in my hands.
Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of my looks. I dated the most popular guy in school and was the Homecoming Queen (and Valedictorian). But no one would ever describe me as sleek or exotic. I’m more like the “girl next door” and Claire is a “supermodel”. I’ve definitely struggled with my self image. My mother says I have a “full womanly figure.” But I’m fit, and try to dress cool, or cool enough, but my bosom, hips, and ass don’t lend themselves to haute couture. Danny used to say I could have been a stripper. Claire’s figure is the figure I always wished I had, and her fashion was next level. I tried not to think about it too much as I sat on the cold toilet seat and tried to relax enough to pee.
“Do you like tapas?” Claire asked, she was applying lipstick. She looked like a model; like a photo of a beautiful woman putting on lipstick.
I told her I did.
“Have you been to Puerta Roja?” she asked, “it’s not far from here, and I’ve been meaning to try it.”
“No, but I’ve heard it’s amazing.”
“Perfect, it’s right around the corner from my place, and I’ve never been!” Claire’s enthusiasm was plain, she was looking at me as I finally let go and peed. I could see the surprise in her eyes and felt myself once again blush furiously. It was like a Niagara.
But she seemed unfazed, looking away as if nothing was happening, manisa escort she said, “your work is really lovely. I expected something dry…” she glanced at me and pulled a comic face, “Clinical? But it’s much more abstract and fantastic than I ever imagined charting data could be. To tell the truth, I didn’t really know what I was looking at most of the time, just that it was exciting and beautiful.”
She was doing her eyes now, politely speaking over the thunder of my pee. Again I wanted to hide my face, but instead, I think I did a pretty good job of seeming nonchalant.
“The big interactive election map the Times did last month,” she asked after I’d finally stopped peeing, “was that you?”
“Yes!” I chirped. Trying to clean myself without looking like I was, but Claire was so absolutely unfazed. I didn’t get any sense that she cared at all – I do my best to follow her lead. “Or at least, it was my team. It was my boss Keith’s brain child. But yeah, I worked on it.”
“It was really amazing,” Claire told me. “No, really! That was great journalism. I was very impressed. I felt like I really got what happened in a way that no article had made clear.”
“Thanks!” I was pulling up my panties, this was all so strange and funny, but also so fun. I was so excited that Claire got it – that she got me.
“Do you write code?” she asked.
“Some, but I really should learn more. We have a full time coder named Ben,” I said, gesturing vaguely to the outside world. The world of Keith and Ben and Kathy and the rest, all of whom seemed infinitely distant from our little bathroom stronghold. “I studied design, but I used to do all my own code, so I’m good in a pinch.”
Claire gave me an appreciative look and made room for me at the sink so I could wash my hands, but before I could freshen my makeup she stopped me.
“Nope, no makeup, drunks don’t do makeup, time to be my drunk!”
She brushed her fingers across my lips giving my lipstick a little smear. I felt a jolt of excitement and fear as she did.
I hadn’t really pictured making a drunken exit… the bar was crowded but what if Keith or Kip or someone else from the paper saw me? But then I thought of Claire calling me a gem after I’d spilled wine over her, and I smiled.
“What do I do?”
Claire put an arm under mine and around me, supporting my weight and I slumped into her.
“This isn’t the first time you’ve done this,” she accused. I smiled and did my best drunken giggle.
“You’rrrre shooo nishhe,” I slurred. “How’s that?”
“Holy shit, you’re much better at this than I expected… Here we go!” She told me as she opened the door and guided me through the crowd. With comic timing we almost bumped right into the bachelorette, so I let my momentum carry us, making sure we did.
“Claire!” she said in surprise, a pink penis shaped straw dropping to the floor from her mouth and spilling her watermelon daiquiri down my bare leg.
“Jessica! Oh my gosh, Jessica! Jessica, this is my friend Sarah!”
“Whatsh her name?” I asked Claire, who fought not to laugh.
“Jessica, I ran into Sarah in the ladies room,” Claire explained, and then in a stage whisper, “I think she’s had a little too much to drink.”
“TooMUSH?!? I’m fiiiiiiiine!” I declared, but let the daiquiried leg slowly slip out from under me, dragging Claire down, who had to struggle to right and support us both.
“Oh, Sarah, it’s so nice to meet you!” The fear in Jessica’s eyes was palpable. She did not want her party saddled with some random drunk bitch.
“I’m so sorry Jessica, but I think I should probably take Sarah home, you know, before…”
“Are you a queen?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at Jessica suspiciously and making Claire stutter with laughter for a moment.
“Oh I totally understand…” Again, if Jessica made any attempt to hide the relief in her eyes, she failed entirely.
“Why does your crown have dicks on it, your highnessh?” I asked, as Claire held me up “Are you shome sort of cock Queen?”
Claire started pushing me past Jessica and towards the door. “Sarah! it’s Jessica’s bache…”
“Do you live in a beautiful phallush in an enshhhanted CONDOM?” I interrupted, my voice getting louder the closer we got to the door. Claire all but shoved me out the door.
“Oh my GOD,” Claire was whispering in my ear, she was choking back hysterics as we tumbled out onto the street, “SARAH, where did that come from?!”
“Too much? You’re a terrible liar,” I told her, straightening up. “I thought you were in sales?”
“I know,” she laughed. ” I’m a terrible saleswoman as well, but you… you are an actrice!”
“Well I may have done some theater in college,” I told her modestly. “And you did say you wanted take-home drunk?”
“Fuck, you are full of surprises! You really put on a fucking show. I think I’m going to keep you!” she said through her laughter.
We were still holding onto each other, both of us laughing uncontrollably. My sides ached. Claire saw a cab and leapt into action, dragging me to mardin escort the curb with her, and seconds later we were racing across town for tapas.
“You are a very good lady to have around in a jam,” she told me. “I owe you a glass of wine.”
“Just one?” I asked.
“A bottle it is!” She laughed.
There was way more than one bottle of wine. There was dancing, and cocktails on the house, and there may have been dancing on the tables… that part is a little blurry. At some point, long after closing time, Claire decided it was time to go home.
“I am take-home drunk!” She told all our new found friends as we stumbled out onto the street; this time in earnest.
It was a short walk, or maybe stumble, to Claire’s place. She was serenading the neighborhood on our way home. “Je suis ton pile, tu es mon face,” she vamped in a smokey husky voice. “Toi mon nombril… et moi ta glace!”
It was so beautiful and sexy. I couldn’t understand what she was singing, but the words just flowed out of her mouth as she swung her hips and smiled, backing down the block pulling me by the fingers. “Tu es l’envie et moi le geste, toi le citron et moi le zeste! Je suis le thé, tu es la tasse, toi la guitare et moi la basse!”
“That’sss such a beauuuutiful song,” this time not even faking my slur.
“Oui, c’est une chanson française des amoureux.”
“My Frencshh is merrrrde, what’s it mean?” But she wouldn’t tell me, and then I wiped out, sprawled across the pavement.
Claire’s place was enormous compared to my little apartment, despite her trying to convince me it was small, it had high ceilings and huge double hung windows facing the street. She sat me in a chair and got me a glass of water while I studied the wreckage of my shoe. The heel had sheared off and was dangling by a strip of leather.
“I’m really ok,” I told her. Too loud, she was already back, I had shouted in her face. “I’m just such a klutz,” I whispered.
“Here, drink this.” She handed me the glass of water, her eyes looked a little out of focus. She seemed to have reconsidered, and taking the glass back, took a long drink from it before handing it back to me, disappearing again. The water was wonderfully cold and I took greedy gulps, emptying the glass. Claire was back with a wet washcloth. She knelt in front of me, and dabbed at my bloody knee.
“Your French is beautiful,” I told her. “Where did you learn?”
“Paris,” she said with a smile. “I’m French.”
“You have no accent.”
“I grew up in Asia. I went to American international schools, and then we came here.” She had taken my hand and was cleaning the scrape on my palm. “It’s not so bad.”
There had been a number of times that night – that I’d said something about a tv show or someone had referenced politics or an event – and Claire had looked strangely blank, a little confused. Almost like she hadn’t understood the words. It made sense now. The references were lost on her because she hadn’t grown up here, she just sounded like she had.
She was looking up at me guilelessly; those enormous eyes, that too-pretty face. I realized I was staring.
“I’m so sorry, I should just go…”
“Noooo… stay!” she said, looking up at me. “Please. It will be fun, a sleepover? It’s almost morning.”
“I feel so bad.”
“Shhh. Enough of that. Let’s get you ready for bed.” Claire stood and offered me her hands. I put down my glass and took them. She danced me to the little bathroom, one hand in mine, held high, the other arm tight around my waist. Parking me in front of the sink she left me while I washed my face and brushed my teeth with my finger.
“Do you have something I could sleep in?” I called through the door.
There was a loud crash of something large falling over and she reappeared at the bathroom door, eyes wide and a big goofy grin on her face.
“It’s fine! Everything’s fine!” She exclaimed. “Here.”
She shoved a towel and a t-shirt at me and closed the door. I pulled my dress over my head and hung it on the door. Undoing the clasp of my bra I looked at myself in the mirror.
I looked drunk. My nose and cheeks were flush, my hair was a bit wind-blown. My makeup was a mess.
“No makeup, drunks don’t do makeup!” I whispered to myself.
Even if my eyes and lips were smeared, my hair actually looked really good, all loopy curls and coppery highlights.
“I should get drunk more often.”
I get a lot of compliments on my hair, I think because of the strawberry blonde color, but maybe because it’s so thick. My breasts are both my favorite and least favorite feature. I touched them now, hefting their weight. My nipples were puffing up. I thought of Claire’s comment at the tapas bar. She had told me I looked like Emilia Clarke and how much she liked my eyebrows. I looked at myself with new pride and thought about her dark hard nipples.
“What are you doing Sarah?” I muttered to myself. I was squeezing my breasts.
“What?” Claire called from the other room.
“Nothing!” I called back, jumping into the shower. I took a quick cold rinse, just enough to wash off the sweat of the dancing and grime of the city and sidewalk – and maybe hoping the cold would sober me up a little. Drying off, I put on the t-shirt she had given me. It was a little small, a bit tight across the boobs, not quite reaching my panties.