An Idiot in Love (a laugh out loud comedy) (19 page)

              ‘No, no, you’re just on time,’ she said.

              She walked towards me with a welcoming smile. I remained standing, my eyes unable to leave her breasts, which were as perfect as her face.

              ‘Let me take your jacket,’ she said softly.

              I took my jacket off and watched with a low jaw as she took it to a nearby walk-in cupboard and hung it up amongst a mass of other jackets and items of clothing.

              ‘Don’t worry about your clothes,’ she assured comfortingly, ‘you can take them off when you’re ready.’

              I hadn’t been worrying, but now I was.

              ‘Follow me,’ she turned around and waddled off down the hallway, her naked buttocks slipping into a swagger, the tight flesh barely moving as she strode.

              She stood in the open doorway to what I assumed was the main room, it wasn’t until I walked by her side did I hear the noises that should have been apparent earlier, if not for their velocity than for their magnitude.

              Men talked softly, harshly. They grunted and they groaned. Woman huffed and puffed, expressing intermittent calls of pleasure, pain and ecstasy.

              I peered into the room and instantly my heart sank, I realised that as sexy and seductive as Jessie was, I wasn’t going to have sex with her. Not tonight, not ever, but there were plenty of people who were.

              The room was a writhing mass of flesh. A dozen males and females were caught in the midst of mass intercourse. I hadn’t just shown up late to any party, I had shown up late to an orgy, and they had started without me.

              The furniture in the room had casually been coated with plastic or draped with sheets and pushed aside. The floor was covered with mattresses and pillows as couples of varying ages fornicated on them.

              Just a few feet in front of me, a young man with aggressive stubble and heavily tattooed arms straddled a tall blonde over the protected couch, grasping her hips and asking her who he was with a snarled expression, apparently he was just as confused as me.

              In the middle of the room a middle-aged man lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling with glassy and distant eyes whilst two women hovered around him. In the corner of the room, nestled in a groove where I assumed the television usually sat, a man in his late teens snorted intricate lines of white powder from around the areolae of a small breasted teen. It seemed like an extravagantly pointless way to get high, but they were both loving it.

              In the other corner a young woman looked at me over the heaving shoulders of a guy that had her pinned up against the wall. She stared with glistening eyes, licking her lips. She nodded when she saw me looking, a gesture that said
come and join in
. I turned away quickly.

              ‘This--this,’ I stuttered and looked at Jessie, she seemed enthralled by the sex, ‘
this is an orgy
,’ I whispered, as if informing her of something she didn’t know.

              She looked at me, slightly bemused. ‘Of course it is,’ she stated.

              ‘Bu--bu--bu--’

              ‘I thought you knew,’ Jessie rested a reassuring and apologetic hand on my shoulder.

              I shook my head rapidly.

              ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she backed out of the room, tugging me with her.

              ‘Maybe I should…’ I trailed off, hooking a thumb over my shoulder towards the door.

              ‘No,’ she pulled me closer. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said genuinely. ‘But, please, please,’ she looked deep into my eyes, forcing me to listen, to believe. ‘Stay. Just, try to have fun.’             

              ‘It’s not for me,’ I assured her.

              ‘Then don’t do anything. Wait for me,’ she pleaded.

              She had puppy dog eyes. I had no intention to sleep with her -- I didn’t know where she’d been -- but I couldn’t say no to her.

              ‘Okay,’ I conceded.

              She grinned, normality restored. ‘I need to prepare a few things, then I’ll get changed, and we can--’ she shrugged and looked towards the door. ‘Go somewhere maybe?’

              ‘Sure.’

              ‘Excellent, wait here.’

              She ambled off down the hallway. I tried to enjoy watching her move again, but when I looked at her firm backside I imagined what the nipple snorter and his friends had done to it.

              I tried to wait for her by the door, but the noises distracted me, so I ventured upstairs. It was darker up there, quieter.

              I took the steps slowly, keeping an ear out in case anyone was fucking on the stairs or in any of the rooms.

              I found myself admiring the house. The floors were coated with thick, dark wood. The wall leading up the stairs hung with lines of calming landscapes and seascapes.

              The top of the stairs led onto a plush rug which stretched out onto a large squared hallway, immediately branching onto four closed doors, with a hallway leading down to another.

              I ignored the rooms and followed the hallway. The walls upstairs were fitted with portraits of a happy family. I stopped when I recognised Jessie in one of the photos. She was hugging an elderly man and woman, nestled in between them, a broad smile on her gorgeous face.

              In the next one she was younger, eleven or twelve maybe, the old couple now a middle-aged pair, watching their daughter frolic on the swings in a park.

              Then a picture of a sunny holiday. Jessie as a youngster, no more than seven. Her mesmerising features yet to form, her long dark hair cut short. There were pictures of Jessie in the sea, in the pool, on the beach, in the car.

              There was also a framed picture of Jessie with Melanie. It hung near the corner wall, before the hallway turned towards its final stretch and the remaining door.

              I paused to take a second look, suddenly realising that I hadn’t seen Melanie downstairs. Jessie had said the party had been thrown by her
and
Melanie. I tried to think if she had been in the living room, maybe I missed her, maybe--

              I paused and pulled back. I heard a noise. A voice. A voice I recognised.

              I peeked around the corner. The door at its end was open slightly, a soft ambient light streamed through the gap, merging with the stronger hallway fluorescence.

              There were no sex sounds through the door, none that I could decipher anyway. No heavy groaning, no--

              There it was again. The voice.

              It sounded female but it wasn’t Jessie. It wasn’t Melanie.

              I turned the corner and took a few steps forward.

              Soft talking, barely audible. I listened, strained. It was definitely her. It had to be.

              I raised my hand to the door; I felt the flat mahogany against my palm, readied to push.

             
But it couldn’t be, could it?
I wondered.
Here, now?

              I’m just hearing things.

              I pulled away, but the voice called again and was followed by a deeper voice in reply, a male voice.

              I shoved open the door and stepped forward.

              The room was heavy with smoke. There were two windows inside but both were covered with red sheets, blocking out what remained of the daylight and leaving nowhere for the smoke to escape; it sat heavy in the air, thick from floor to ceiling.

              There had been no sex sounds in this room, but there was certainly a lot of sex.

              Melanie was on her back, receiving oral sex from an enthusiastic youngster. Her eyes were closed and she seemed dead to the world.

              On the couch, mumbling under her breath in a haze of smoke and a torrent of ecstasy, was Melissa.

              I wanted to turn and leave; I could scarcely believe what I was seeing.

              ‘Melissa!’ I couldn’t help myself; the words forced their way out of my mouth.

              The guy nibbling gently on her breasts was the first to notice me. He looked up at me with something resembling mild contempt. The man with his fingers between her legs and his tongue in her throat did the same.

              I heard her mumble again, upset that the two men had stopped, then she slowly sat up, followed their eyes and saw me.

              I expected to see shame or embarrassment, but I only saw anger and pure rage in those drug filled orbs. She bolted up and strode towards me, her hair matted with sweat and stuck behind her head, her make-up forging her face into the features of an insane jester.

              ‘You’re fucking following me now!’ she growled. I had never heard that tone from her before, never seen that degree of anger and hatred in her eyes.

              I took a step back, away from the smoke-filled room. She bounded after me.

              ‘You're fucking sick!’ she spat spittle’s of hate as she spoke.

              She looked unsteady on her feet, she probably hadn’t moved for a couple of hours, but she strode on with determination.

              ‘You’re perverted! You’re disturbed.’

              I continued to back off; I had already turned the corner and was now heading for one of the unmarked doors. Not willing to enter, God knew what else I would see.

              She was inches away; I could smell stale smoke and vodka on her breath.

              ‘You’re pathetic,’ she said, raising a hand and using it to prod an accusing finger into my chest. ‘You’re fucking wrong in the head!’

              She continued to poke me. I held up my hands in defence. I dragged some words to my throat, but when I tried to speak them they crackled out and dissipated.

              ‘How did you get in here?’ she demanded to know. ‘Eh? How!’

              My arms were still held up. Her finger was now a permanent fixture on my chest, I could feel it pressing into my sternum.

              The memories of the times we had spent together flashed before my eyes and were instantly erased and replaced by this furious, spitting she-beast who stood in front of me.

              A couple of doors opened behind me. I dodged the emerging spectators, shifted to the top of the stairs; Melissa followed, prodding. A few more naked bodies appeared in the doorways, craning their necks to see over the initial onlookers; all were drunk or drugged, all amused.

              Melissa turned to them: ‘He
used
to be my boyfriend,’ she said, wickedly. ‘He came here to spy on us; he’s probably had a wank watching some of you already.’

              I shook my head and stuttered a hastily and incoherent objection.

              The faces in the doorway looked appalled; some of them were advancing towards me. I backed up to the edge of the stairs.

              Melissa stayed on me. She looked me up and down              slowly. ‘You’re a disgrace,’ she muttered with a twisted face, and then she shoved me.

              I remember very little about the next few hours.

              I had glimpses of falling, tumbling, hurting. All around me I could hear calls of disgust, triumph and pleasure. I remember looking up and seeing Melissa's twisted face as she glared down at me, naked. No longer attractive, now the body of a shrunken devil, the face of an evil sociopath.

              I saw Jessie. She was fully clothed, she looked concerned. She was screaming at the others, threatening them.

              I was reluctantly bungled into the backseat of a car by two naked, sweaty men. Then a car journey, I didn’t know how long, aided all the way by Jessie’s soft worried voice.

              I woke up in a hospital bed with a very bad headache.

              Matthew was sitting by the side of the bed, reading a magazine with little interest in its content.

              ‘Where am I?’ I said. I expected a croaked voice, but it came out fine.

              Matthew looked at me and then closed the magazine and placed it down. Somewhere in the far reaches of the hospital I heard a loud clatter of dropped equipment. The sound screeched like lightning bolts in my head, I closed my eyes, scrunched my face and waited for the pain to go away.

              ‘Hospital, dipshit. Where else?’ Matthew said casually.

              ‘Where’s Jessie?’

              I opened my eyes in time to see Matthew shrug. ‘She brought you here, phoned me and then left. Told me to say she was sorry. She left her number, said to ring her.’

              I nodded.

              Matthew slowly folded his arms across his chest and glared at me. ‘So,’ he said slowly. ‘You went to an orgy and you didn’t tell me?’

              ‘I didn’t know.’

              He didn’t look too impressed; he sensed he had missed out.

              ‘You should have told me about them,’ I said. ‘I got knocked the fuck out because of you.’

              He held up his hands. ‘Melissa knocked--’

              ‘Your fault!’ I spat. ‘You should have told me they were like that.’             

              Matthew gave in, he slumped, ‘You're right, my apologies. But I honestly didn’t know. I never listened to her, she rarely spoke and when she did we were drinking or fucking, never a good time to try to get me to listen.’

              I allowed myself to calm down. ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘It’s over with now, it doesn’t matter.’             

              ‘No,’ he said, looking shocked. ‘They didn’t tell you, I mean, you don’t know?’ he said, worried.

              ‘What, what is it?’

              He averted his eyes, looked at the bed, and then darted them worriedly around the hospital dorm where five other patients rested. He looked anxious and that made me worry.

              ‘Is something wrong with me?’ I said. I tried to sit upright, but the movement sent stabbing pains around my skull.