Have You Ever

I downed the rest of my beer and waited for some more entertainment to come into the kitchen. In came a group of five, obviously drunk people. A black haired girl set out five cups, poured a mix of alcohol in and said “Never have I ever.”

A blonde girl clapped excitedly and downed half her drink. “Not yet, Brooke! They haven’t said anything,” a plain looking girl said.

“Well I’ve done it all…” Blonde Girl, Brooke, said sheepishly.

“Wanna play?” Black Hair turned to me and asked.

“Um… Sure,” I hopped off the counter and sat on the floor by Brooke. She smiled at me and blinked her unfocused eyes. “I’m Brooke!”

“Hi, I’m Florence,” Brooke didn’t seem to care, or pay attention. So I waited for someone to start.

“New girl! Start,” some guy in a flannel shirt nodded.

“Okay… Never have I ever…” I thought through all of the things I haven’t done, “Had sex with a guy,” I admitted.

They laughed and took their drinks. All of them, including Flannel Shirt and the hauntingly blue eyed guy.

“Never have I ever,” Brooke started, “kissed a girl.”

“Nuh-uh, you whore! Summer of ’09! Don’t you remember?!” The Plain Girl said.

“Oh right… Oops!” She took a drink as well as the two guys and Plain Girl. I hesitantly did the same.

“Oh! Virgin likes the girls. I get it now,” Black Hair winked. I sank back and blushed. I didn’t know how to handle those people.

“Whatever floats your boat, Virgin,” Blue Eyes elbowed me.

“Sammy! You’re turn.”

Plain Girl, who’s apparently Sammy, rolled her eyes. “Pass.”

“Hey! No passing!” Brooke whined.

“Oh shut it. Go Clarice.”

Black Hair, or Clarice, grinned maliciously. “Never have I ever kissed Brooke.”

Flannel Shirt, Blue Eyes, and Sammy raised their drink. “I’m surprised you haven’t experienced the Brooke yet, Virgin. She gets around,” Clarice raised an eyebrow at the girl. Brooke sat their sipping her drink contently, now oblivious to the game.

“Oh! I got one!” Flannel Shirt grinned, “Never ever have I ever nor will I ever go down on a girl.” I was the only one to take a drink that time.

“Virgin ain’t so virginal…” Blue Eyes observed. They all seemed to enjoy my embarrassment.

Blue Eyes started to think of something to say when my lesbian goddess came to the rescue. In her killer heels and skin tight dress, she cocked a hip and shook her head. “You guys corrupting innocent Florence, here?”

“She’s not that innocent, Ren!”

“I’m aware. Come on Young One. It’s time to go.” I got up gratefully and let her take me around the waist.

“So how was your first party?” I closed my eyes and thought of Astrid.

“I’m not really sure.”

Astrid

I made my way through the house and found the mostly empty kitchen. So I hopped onto the counter and sipped a beer as people whirled around me. A disoriented girl ran in, looked around frantically, grabbed a spoon and ran out without a glance. Two guys fell into the room: lips mashing and hands all over. They glanced at me and groped their way into the next doorway.

Two girls walked in, gossiping so loudly they didn’t see me. I found out a lot about people I didn’t know. They left after awhile and a new girl came into the room. She didn’t look lost or high or intoxicated. Her blue eyes gleamed clearly.

“You seem sober,” she smiled at me.

“Mostly,” I gestured to the cup.

“I’m not too into these things,” she shrugged, coming to sit with me on the counter.

“Me either. I was dragged here against my will.”

“They have services and authority figures who can fix that,” she smirked

“I’m aware, thanks.”

“No problem,” She smiled, “I’m Astrid.”

“Florence Lee,” I half grinned back.

“So Florence Lee, who dragged you here?”

“Renolds. I don’t really know much about her… It’s a long story.”

“Renolds… She’s a crazy bitch. But she’s cool.”

“You know her?”

“Everyone knows Renolds,” She smacked her lips and curled into a ball. Her blonde hair fell into her eyes. I had an odd urge to push it away. Astrid looked terribly tiny. Not Renolds tiny: short but full of confidence. She looked small in a fragile way.

She turned and looked up at me. “What?”

“Nothing,” I blushed.

“You don’t stare at someone for no reason.”

“I was just noticing you. Trying to read you.”

“Well what do you think of me?” She raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t really know. I’m trying to figure you out.”

“Is it that hard?” she slipped off the counter. “I’m really nothing much,” she shrugged and walked away.

“Astrid,” I called. She paused at the door without looking back. “Did I offend you?”

“No,” she said quietly. With a shy look over her shoulder, she gave a small smile, “I just wanted to make an exit.” Astrid pushed her way back into the party, leaving me wondering.

Eva Darling

Renolds disappeared in the mass of bodies, leaving me to face the new world alone. I stumbled around until I saw Eva, not too far away. Her blonde hair frizzed around an oval face. Black eyes peered directly at me. She had put on normal clothes. Well, a slinky dress which seemed to be normal for the group of people.

I walked over to her, grateful for the familiar person not swept into the smoke. I pretended she didn’t just act like she wanted to sleep with me for Renolds’ enjoyment.

“Hey,” I said. She nodded but continued to stare. “Eva, right?”

“Eva Darling.”

“So you’re an actress, right?” she bobbed her head. “I hope the whole scene Renolds put on wasn’t too awkward for you.”

“Nope.”

I rocked on my heels trying to make her speak. “Are you a lesbian?”

“More or less.”

I figured that’s what I was too: a more or less lesbian. “Me too.” She stared a little more intensely, then looked away.

“You’re not really into that stuff, are you? That S&M.”

“It’s on my sex to-do list.”

“Does everyone have one of those?” I wondered aloud. I felt like the only one who didn’t know anything about anything.

“More or less.”

Fantastic, I thought. I’m a more or less lesbian who’s more or less clueless.

“What else is on your list?” I decide I can steal from her.

She stopped for a second as a thought passed behind her blank eyes. She pushed me against the wall and kissed me hard. Her teeth dug into my lips. Her tongue thrust into my throat.

Eva pulled me into a closet and continued swapping my neck with her tongue. I gagged a little and pushed her away.

“I’ve always wanted to kiss a stranger in a closet.” She shrugged.

I wiped my chin and looked at the dark spot where she probably was. “You can check that off your list.”

“Did you kiss a girl before?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Did you kiss two girls before?”

“Yeah.”

“At the same time?”

“Um… no…” Do people do that, I wondered.

“Oh. I’ve always wanted to. Want to find a third?”

“No thanks…”

“Too bad,” she shrugged and left.

I mentally crossed Eva Darling and kiss a stranger in a closet off my non-existent list.

Anything

When I told Renolds I’d do anything, she looked at me and laughed so hard, she almost rolled over into the wrong lane.

“Anything, eh? Ha! I think I can make you doubt that,” she looked over at me with trouble glinting in her eye.

I gulped and didn’t want to think what was coming.

“Down the hall, first door on the right. Just lay down and I’ll send your anything right up,” Renolds winked. The second we got to the party, she set off to find someone willing to torture me in whatever sexual ways she had planned. I considered whether or not this was rape. But I doubted whoever was coming into this room would be serious about whatever we were doing. I knew Renolds just wanted to scare me into place.

The door creaked open and an eye peaked in. All I could see was the black on white staring back at me. It closed again and I was left in waiting.

A few minutes later, my doom walked into the room clad in a black leather body suit. Her deadly heels clicked under her as she flung her long blonde hair dramatically.

“Hello. I’m Eva. Are you ready?” She punctuated with a slap of the whip in her hand.

“What is this?” I backed away.

“It’s S & M, sweetheart. Sadist and masochist. Dominant and subdominant,” she swung the whip and smiled greedily.

I wasted no time getting up and running out the door. What the fuck?!

Renolds was waiting outside with a prideful smile on her face.

“Happy?”

“Extremely,” she cackled.

The door opened and the blonde girl strutted out. Renolds slipped a twenty into her long hand, “That was so worth the money. You were perfect, Eva Darling. I loved the whip cracking! It totally made everything better. If you ever need an acting reference, just call me.”

“Sure,” Eva nodded and looked at me. “Cute,” She blinked emotionlessly.

I blinked back at the blonde. “I’m Florence Lee.”

“I know,” she nodded and walked off. Odd child, I thought.

“You didn’t even know what S & M was before, did you?” Renolds asked.

“Well…”

“It’s okay. If no one teaches you, how should you know. Let’s start with the basics. Do you know what a 69 is?”

I bit my lips and looked at her awaiting eyes. “Goddamn. Time for sex-ed. Everything you will ever need to know about sex is in a handy little book called the Kuma Sutra. We’ll be making an emergency trip to borders first thing tomorrow morning. For now, just don’t get yourself into any bedrooms. I think there may still be hope for you if you just follow that one little rule. Now come on.”

She took my hand and thrust me, head first, into a smoking world of lust that I never knew.

Experiments

We were in the car again driving to another unknown location. I was wrapped tightly in one of Renolds’ little black dresses. “We’re going to a party,” she smiled.

I looked over at the lady next to me. Her angular face was focused on the road. Her hair seemed to be an overgrown pixie cut. A piece of maroon cloth knotted around her just barely covering her skin. She didn’t look so angelic anymore. She didn’t look like a goddess.

She looked like a normal girl that I barely knew. But she was the person calling the shots in my life. It all seemed too much for me.

“What’s something you’ve always wanted to try?” Renolds asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re on a sex-capade. You can do whatever the hell you want. It’s like Vegas. What happens on a sex-capade, stays on a sex-capade. Except for STD’s… STI’s… whatever the hell they’re called. Those tend to haunt you for awhile. So be careful, Young One. ”

She rolled halfway into a crosswalk, scaring the life out of a tiny child. She rifled through her purse as the boy ran the other way. “Here you go,” she said throwing a handful of condoms into my lap.

“What are these for?”

She slammed on the breaks, this time in the middle of an intersection, “Are you serious?!”

“You’re making me nervous… Please refrain from stopping in the middle of dangerous places. It’d make me feel better. But I thought I was just going to be with the girls… these certainly are of no use between two girls.”

“They’re loads of fun! You can blow them up like balloons and… oh never mind. But the traditional sex-capade calls for intercourse between both male and female kind,” Renolds recited.

“That sounds like a dictionary definition. Am I really so behind on life that I didn’t know these were so common.”

“I made it up. More or less. But come on! You can’t completely rule out males. You’re virginal, missy! Well, in the world of straights. I can’t let you decide right now that you’re not going to ever be with a guy when you don’t even know what you are. One must always be prepared for spontaneous sex.”

“Right from the girl scout handbook?”

“Of course! Now, what have you always wanted to try?” she prompted.

“Well… Shower sex, I guess.”

“Shower sex? Is that it? No S & M? A little experimenting in expeditions outside the bedroom? Be adventurous! Anything in the world that you could ever try. You have all the possibilities on your fingertips. What would you try?”

I tried to think of something to make her happy. But I didn’t even know what S & M was. As for outside the bedroom sex, the most creative I could get was the shower. So I closed my eyes and reluctantly said, “Anything.”

Story Time

“Once upon a time there was a boy. And of course there was a girl too. When there’s a boy there’s always a girl. The heterosexuals try to take over the real world and they’ve taken over the fictional world as well… That’s another rant for another day.

“As I was saying, there was a boy and a girl. The boy was a dick. Of course. He liked this girl a bit. But he mainly just saw her as a play thing. Something to mess around with and get some action from. He would say sweet things to get her to do whatever it was he wanted. He’d kiss her in all the right places. He’d even “waste” some of his precious time holding this girl. He knew the longer he was nice to her, the more he’d get from her. He was the guy parents warn you about.

“I realize this may sound terribly sexist. But it’s not. It’s just this one guy. And hundreds of others out there. But for every one guy out there who’s an asshole, there’s a girl. I promise you, even if you’re gay you’ll have to put up with them.

“Anyways. The girl loved this guy. She loved when he held her. She thought it meant she was his everything. She thought his kisses were tiny whispers from his deepest thoughts. In her mind, every kiss was a word he could never say. In her mind, he loved her more than anything.

“It may seem like a matter of miscommunication. But that’s just an excuse people make up to make themselves feel better when they lie. They were living in two different realities. What he thought was innocent and pointless, she took as everything. What she thought was love, he took as lust.

“Nothing we think is real is reality. The reality of life is somewhere in the gray between what we think and what they think.”

Reality

I walked into a piece of Renolds. Flashes of her fiery red hair and emerald green eyes shined in splotches around the rooms. Skirts, shirts, pleather, shoes, couches, carpets, curtains, coffee mugs. It was a colorful clash of a mess.

Pictures hung around the walls in various states of crooked-ness. A picture of a family sat on its side. A girl with long black hair kissing the cheek of a younger Renolds tipped into the window. A smile-less red head with dull green eyes laid upside-down. A poster from a band I never heard of was the only semi-straight thing there.

“Wow,” I said as I looked around at absolute disorder.

“I’m only ever here long enough to make a mess. Never long enough to clean it up,” she said dangling molding food over the garbage can. “I rarely ever have good food in here… I’m a mess,” she sighed and flopped onto the couch.

I stayed behind in the door way and just looked around. The room was as cluttered as my head.

“Is any of this real?” I asked.

“Most of it,” she said without question.

“Why only most?”

“Because I don’t have the money to afford real leather and designer purses,” she scoffed.

“No. I mean everything that’s happening. Is that real?”

“Still only most of it.”

"Why?"

“Because you never know the complete reality of a moment. Why don’t you come cozy over here on this couch and I’ll tell you a story.”

I stepped around the clutter and sat lightly on the questionable couch.

“Don’t worry, the pleather won’t bite.”

“Sure…” I doubted.

“Do not doubt me! Do I look like the kind of person that one doubts?!” she did a quick turn and swept her hands over her body.

“Look at your apartment. Look at what you’ve done. You’ve practically kidnapped me just so I would stop questioning my sexuality! What is that, your job? If so, then this is a rather sketchy franchise you’re running here, dear sir.”

Renolds narrowed her eyes at me. “Touché. You are a rather spiteful one, missy. And by the way, I may be a God but I’m certainly not a sir! Do you see a bulge? I don’t see a bulge, thank God. So it’s Miss. Got it? Good,” she nodded conclusively. “Now! It’s story time so you best be comfy because it’s a long one. Hell, it’s me, it’s always a long story,” She grinned with excitement and lunged into an tale.

Home

The sun was starting to rise as my eyes started to close. I pulled off to the shoulder of the road and sat back in the seat. I watched as the reds and oranges paved the way for the bright sun. My eyes felt too heavy and shut against my will.

    

“Wake up, sweetie pie!” A harsh voice screamed in my ear. I jolted up to find Renolds gripping the door. Hip cocked, she pulled me out of the driver’s seat and resumed her position. “Now that I’m sober, there will be no more of you touching my precious car,” she humphed and waited for me to settle into the passenger’s side.

“Now what?” I ask.

“We go home. Well to my apartment. You needn’t go home yet. Actually, you should just erase all notions of home.”

“Are you kidnapping me?”

Renolds’ laugh rang around the car, “Yeah right. Besides, you got in the car willingly.”

“Yeah…”

“What I meant was you never know where home is. Home doesn’t necessarily live in four walls. It’s wherever you long to be when you need a home.”

“Where’s your home?” I ask.

“In a bed, if you know what I mean,” she winked and let out a giggle. “I’m kidding. I haven’t found a real home yet. Homes are hard to come by. People who have them are lucky.”

I tried to think of my home. The swing by my tree in the middle of spring? No, that’s just comforting. My room? I don’t miss that a bit. My friends? They come and go. Nothing stable. Lika? She got me into this mess in the first place.

With a sigh, I nodded and watched the streets pass by. I didn’t know where I was. It was some highway between here and there. I wasn’t even sure where here or there was. So I decided to just breathe and go wherever I ended up.

Electric Kisses

Renolds was sitting in her car, sunglasses perched on her nose, in the middle of the lawn. I jumped inside and she recklessly pulled onto the road.

“You fucking idiot! Are you trying to get us killed?!”

“Hehe. No,” she clucked. “How was it?”

“Like sex and coffee.”

“Sounds scrumptious!”

“Not really.”

“I want Starbucks! No… I want Burger King… Do you want Burger King? It’s the best thing after sex!”

“Are you high?” I realized.

“No!” she laughed as she zigzagged on the road. The car stopped abruptly at in the middle of an empty road and didn’t move.

“You aren’t driving. You’re high. Give me the wheel,” I reached over but she hugged the wheel.

“No! No!”

I took the keys out of the ignition and crawled on top of her. I pinned her to the seat and took off her sunglasses. Red glassy eyes.

“Goddamn it, Renolds.”

“Are you going to kiss me?” she asked. Her eyes were a different kind of bright. Something shined under the green.

I leaned down and gently kissed her.

“Electric kisses!” she exclaimed and kissed me again.

She lowered the seat and got on top of me. “Now I can show you the right way to do things,” she grinned evilly. I let her go for it.

She lulled over and rested her head on my thigh. “I’m tired, Florence.” I pulled her next to me and stroked her cheek. “I miss Avie, Florence. Bring her back.”

I held her to me and shushed her. I didn’t know who Avie was, but I wouldn’t question. I laid her in the back seat, when she was finally asleep, and started driving. I didn’t have anywhere to go but that didn’t matter. You don’t always need a destination.

Sex & Coffee

Coffee Girl’s name was Elaine. She lived in a tiny apartment in the middle of nowhere. And she smelled of coffee. Everything she owned smelled like coffee. It was a little piece of caffeine purgatory. Too much of a good thing.

That was all I knew about Elaine. I didn’t even know her last name.

There we were, making out on her bed. Her hands were grabbing my hips. My fingers tangled in her hair. Her lips tasted like cherry lip-balm and vanilla. Her neck tasted like a vanilla frappuccino. Her body tasted like a long day at work and fabric softener.

And that brings me to the dreaded button. You undo it and suddenly you’re in a completely new world. You don’t open it, and you kill a land of possibilities.

“Go ahead,” she grinned.

I didn’t really have a choice after that. My shaking hands fumbled with it. It’s not that easy on someone else. It popped open with a sigh. Then I realized, I didn’t know what was next.

Pull the pants off? Go for everything else? Keep kissing her? I wondered again, what the hell was I doing?

She took charge and shimmied out of her black jeans. With a raise of an eyebrow, she flagged me forward.

 ***

Elaine wrapped her arms around me and kissed my neck. I pulled away and practically ran into the tiny bathroom. I sat on the edge of the tub and didn’t look in the mirror. I didn’t feel like myself. I felt odd and different. I felt… sexual? I wasn’t really sure what the feeling was so I kept breathing and didn’t think. I called Renolds and told her to hurry. She slurred a promise that she’d be there soon.

I walked back into the sex and coffee flavored room and pulled on my clothes.

“Where are you going, Florida?” Elaine said dreamily.

“I’m leaving. Go to sleep. By the way, my name’s Florence and this isn’t what I normally do,” I kissed her forehead and went to leave the room.

“Stay till morning,” she groaned.

“Sorry,” I lied and tiptoed out of the apartment.