by Schow, Ryan
On a scale of one to ten, she was Jennifer Aniston hot. Horrible Bosses Jennifer Aniston. She had a wedding ring on her finger, two kids and an asshole dog in tow (her husband’s Yorkie), yet still she gave him all the signs and her cell number. Still she told him to text her at exactly eleven thirty.
She said, “That’s eleven thirty P.M. Don’t call, you understand? Just text.”
He understood. It was late; she was sneaky.
Satisfied, finally feeling good about himself, he ate a steak dinner then headed to VDKA, one of the more informal bars in the Wynn. He sat in one of the plush white barstools, then pulled out his fake ID and asked the bartender to surprise him.
6
The bartender, a hard, sexy blonde that looked thirty-five but was—in all reality—probably in her mid-twenties, said, “What’s your mood?”
With the biggest smile ever, he said, “Hopeful.”
She didn’t smile back, but she didn’t groan either. As far as responses go, he could give a shit what she thought of him.
“Flavored or straight up?”
He felt himself relaxing. Sitting up, smiling an uncomplicated, airy smile, he said, “What flavors do you have?”
The blonde went into bartender mode. “We have tangerine, cucumber, red grape hibiscus. Or if you want something different, there’s bacon, maple syrup, espresso, bloody Mary, cinnamon—”
“What about in premium vodkas, something that can stand on its own?”
“How deep are your pockets?” she said, very businesslike, even though they both knew she knew he was a kid and most certainly underage.
“Deep,” he said, grinning and cocking his eyebrow the way he was taught.
“The Beluga Noble Gold is exquisite, I like CLIX, and Jean Marc XO—”
“Tell me about the Jean Marc.”
“Amazing,” she said. She said this the same way she would say great sex is amazing. “It’s a hand-crafted vodka from the Cognac region in France. It’s distilled nine times in small batches using copper stills, and it’s charcoal filtered through Limousin oak.”
“At this point, I don’t know what you’re saying,” Brayden teased. “In English, please.”
“It’s like warm silk going down, plus it has a long finish, which is something girls like me appreciate.”
“That sounds good,” he said, grinning. “I’ll take that, straight up.
“I need to see—”
Brayden slid his very expensive, very flawless fake ID across the bar top and said, “I’m thinking of putting it on a lanyard, the way it’s being forced out of me wherever I go.”
She smiled, looked at it a long time because deep down, in her gut, she knew he wasn’t twenty-five, then she slid it back and said, “You look young.”
“Like I said, thinking of putting it on a lanyard.”
“It’s a good ID,” she replied, not meeting his eyes.
“I used to date this older woman, she was in her early thirties, and she said looking as young as I do, in my later years, I’d appreciate it. Right now I’m just tired of everyone thinking I’m a kid.”
The bartender filled a glass, dropped in a black stir straw for no good reason he could figure, then set it on a cocktail napkin and pushed it in front of him. He didn’t drink it right away, he simply thanked her and took in his surroundings.
The place was busy, but not packed. Conversations floated through the air in pieces, along with laughter and the stern tone of self-importance coming from some fat dude with two gorgeous hookers on his arm.
The way it was in the movies, where some lonely, hot broad in a red dress with ample cleavage and overdone hair and perfect makeup sits down next to the leading man? That wasn’t how it was with Brayden. Even in a crowded bar, he felt shut off from the world. Not that it mattered. He told himself he was celebrating. Tonight he was going to pound out all his depression with a married woman. She would be his first. The one to convert him from a boy into a man.
After a sip of vodka, which went down smooth and did finish long, he asked the bartender for a pen and another napkin. She gave him both and he started taking notes about the evening. About what openers worked best.
Titan said, “Keep a journal, that way you don’t forget those hard lessons.”
By the time he was done, black ink covered both sides of the napkin. When the bartender finally got the nerve to ask what he was writing, Brayden said, “My manifesto. One day I will be famous, then desolate and then humbled. I’ll want to know how it all began, and where it all went wrong.”
She smiled, relaxed for a moment and then said, “How did it begin?”
“Presumably with a married woman and her husband’s asshole dog. It should make for a great story.”
She laughed and said, “I hope it does.”
He was just finishing his third drink and trying not to wet his pants because his bladder was that full when a three-set of college girls took the bar stools next to him.
Immediately they had his attention.
They were laughing and joking and talking a hundred miles an hour and for the first time ever, he didn’t feel intimidated. Carefully, he folded his napkin, slid it into his pocket then sighed. It was deep and satisfying.
For the first time since Abby’s father kicked him out of the house, he felt the sweet nectar of promise glistening in his heart.
One of the girls looked at him and he held her eye. Before he would’ve looked away. Now he just sat there. Content. His face curved into that of a man with a dark, coveted secret he has yet to tell. That’s the look Romeo says drives women nuts.
“These girls, they’ll see that look on your face, and they’ll have to know what you’re thinking,” Romeo had said. “They’ll just have to know.”
The girl next to him, a nice looking brunette with a good body and straight white teeth, said “hi” and he said, “hey” back. And then her skinny blonde friend was like, “This is Vegas, why are you alone right now?”
Beside the two of them, the furthest away, sat the requisite chubby friend. She had a pretty face, but her body wasn’t as good as either of her friends. He tried not to look at the roll in her tummy.
Brayden smiled and said, “You know when you’ve been partying forty-eight straight hours and you’re so tired, but you’re totally wired from no sleep and too much fun?”
They were like, “Yeah,” and he was like, “Me and my buddies, and a few girls whose names I’ve already forgotten, we were partying in a suite upstairs when Miley Cyrus comes waltzing in with a mob of groupies like fifteen deep. Now I’m not a fan, and that twerking thing on the VMA’s didn’t make me feel like I was missing anything special, but she sat down on the couch right next to me and sang one of her songs and I swear to God it was mesmerizing. That was practically two hours ago. I’ve been sitting here, alone since then because I just want to marinate and reflect, you know?”
The girls were spellbound, hanging on his every word. His every lie. A real player, a guy with consummate skills, he could paint every situation as a Hollywood moment. Even being alone could be cool if you just have the right story.
He put the rest of the vodka down, then turned his bar stool ever so slightly toward them. The cutest of the three, the brunette, she said, “What’s your name?”
He made a show of looking uncomfortable and said, “I’m not supposed to be here right now. I think maybe me being here is illegal, or at the very least a breach of contract, so I’m not sure I should be throwing my name around, even though I’m no one special.”
“Why aren’t you supposed to be here?” the skinny blonde asked. She wasn’t that cute the more Brayden studied her, but there was something magnetic about her personality.
“I’m supposed to be in New York with my father signing a book contract right now, but the truth is, I didn’t write the book. My father paid Stephen King’s kid to write it for me.”
It was almost scary how easy the lies came. Then again, when you don’t believe in
soul mates, the idea of a long term relationship takes up exactly no space in your head.
They all laugh, like they can’t believe it.
“I’m not the writer type, you know?” he continued. “My father, he wants me to be, but I’m not. I’m more into celebrity scandal, taboo behavior, the seedy underbelly of places like L.A., New York and Vegas. It all just seems—I don’t know—so much more interesting. I mean, who wants to sit in a room strung out on coke or Oxy or porn, struggling to craft something witty and interesting so that someone I don’t know can one day read it and say I’m so clever, so insightful? Not me, that’s who.”
“What would you rather be doing?” the smoking hot brunette sitting next to him asked. She turned her bar stool completely away from her friends to face Brayden. Their knees were practically touching.
“Get any closer and I’ll have to tell you about invading my personal space,” he said with the slyest grin. Her face crinkled. He put his hand on her knee, gave it a shove. Her bar stool swung back, but then he grabbed her knee again, pulled it back halfway and said, “Don’t want you going too far.”
Right then, the chubby blonde chimed in. “So seriously, what would you rather be doing?”
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, “no offense, but my life is exciting to other people, but boring to me. I’d rather hear about you guys.”
“We were going to get drunk, then stoned, and then we were going to have a slumber party,” the brunette said. She wore the invitation on her body. “You want to join?”
He thought about the married woman, and then he thought of these three girls and he was like, “A slumber party sounds divine. It’ll have to be later though. So why don’t I call you in a couple of hours? It’s probably time to get back to my friends, and maybe pop an upper so I can go late.”
He handed his cell phone to the brunette and said, “Put your number in here.” She did. After that he said, “Kiss me before I leave, in case we don’t see each other again.” He pointed to his cheek and she kissed him in that exact spot.
He paid his tab to the bartender, who was watching the scene intently and smiling but in a curious kind of way. He started to leave when the so-so blonde said, “What are we, chopped liver?”
He smiled, then let her kiss him, too.
The chubby one, whose face was almost as pretty as the brunette’s, actually kissed him on the mouth. Her lips tasted like lemon drops.
“We have a winner,” he said in a low, sensual voice, then he turned and waved good bye as he disappeared into the crowd.
On the way up the elevator, the chubby girl who had kissed him brought something to mind, this thing Titan said when they were out last. He said, “Never write off ugly girls or fat girls. They may not be so easy on the eyes, but an ugly broad with ambition is sometimes better in bed than a hot broad who acts like her dick smells like warm toffee.”
7
When he got to his room, at exactly eleven thirty P.M., Brayden texted the married woman’s number, and ten minutes later she was knocking on his hotel door.
The way you sometimes get so nervous you feel like you have to shart your pants, that was how Brayden felt. He couldn’t even swallow his throat was that dry.
When he opened the door, she stepped inside, kissed him hard on the mouth, then shut the door, half-licked her lower lip and said, “Whatever little girl you kissed before me, by the time I’m done with you, you won’t even remember her name.”
Insightful, this one.
In the span of those searing hot thirty-five minutes, Brayden learned many things, but mostly he learned married women scared the shit out of him. The way she tore apart his virginity, how she sucked it up and abused it, how she rode him ruthless until his hip bones were bruised and his body was like a wrung out sponge and wrapped in a well-lathered sweat, she was monstrous and wonderful. She left him sprawled out on the bed…naked, pale and spent. She left him wrecked and content. Then she left him without a single word. Not even a good-bye. Ten bucks said her husband’s dog needed her. Not that it mattered. He didn’t even get the woman’s name.
Laughing out loud to himself, he thought, this was perfect.
When he finally sat up, after he showered, he called the brunette. She answered the phone and she was like, “We’re so high right now!”
There was a lot of giggling going on in the background.
“On what?” he said.
“Pot. The best blend ever. It’s called God’s Uterus and it’s heaven. Swear to Jesus, you need to get your balls here like right now.”
She gave him their room number and he went two floors down. When the smoking hot brunette opened the door, she was in her lingerie, a sheer purple and white laced two piece that was sexy as hell. The other two girls were in their lingerie, too.
“We need to get you out of those pants,” the brunette said. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her mouth was hungry. She reached down and started undoing his belt. Her right breast fell out. She didn’t seem to notice.
Oh my God, he thought. Oh my motherfreaking gawd!
The brunette let his pants fall to the floor and he just stood there. Not picking them up. Not really caring because apparently this was their regular Saturday night and who the hell was he to cock block anyone’s regular Saturday night?
“You want a hit?” the blonde said. The chubby one was taking a hard pull on a fat, homemade joint, but he was like, “I’ve got drug testing in the morning.”
“What for?”
He mumbled something unintelligible then said, “So how do you all know each other?” and that’s when the chubby blonde passed the joint to her skinny blonde friend, then started touching the girl’s arms and back seductively. The skinny blonde girl, her nipples were like spent bullet casings pressed against sheer fabric.
“We’re roomies at ASU,” she said.
“You seem close,” Brayden said. The brunette’s hand went to his neck. Fingernails raked over his head. Her tit was still out. Then all their tits were out. Then all of them were making out, watching him watch them.
“You want to join us?” the chubby blonde asked. For some reason, he found her charming, even though he was sure he didn’t want to have sex with her.
“I’m totally enjoying the voyeuristic nature of all this,” he said. Thinking about doing this again, having sex and not having any bullets left in the proverbial chamber, it made him nervous.
The Jennifer Aniston look-alike, the mom he just had, she turned him inside out and left him dry. She took everything from him. To the brunette, he said, “Kiss her, but with tongue this time.”
The brunette turned and kissed the chubby blonde and that was how it went. They all got each other off, then they asked to get him off and he said, “About an hour and a half ago, I hooked up with this married woman who did things girls your age still haven’t even heard of yet. In fact, she did some things to me that don’t yet have names.”
They were all naked, wet and writhing. When he said this, they all sort of stopped moving. Like they didn’t know what to make of what he just said.
“The thing is,” he said, turning down the lights and taking off his shirt, “there was one of her and three of you, so if you don’t mind, please just enjoy yourselves and in a moment or two, I’d be delighted to join in.”
Much to his satisfaction, not a single one of them objected. They were merely thrilled to have an audience of his caliber.
8
The next day he woke up in his hotel room, went downstairs and worked out, then decided it was time to put his defining tragedy behind him. After all, he was no longer a virgin. No longer a boy. No longer inexperienced.
Following a quick shower, he bought some board shorts at a gift shop downstairs and headed out to the pool to work on his tan.
The idea of sitting out at the pool in front of all those strangers with his scars in full view gave his stomach a reason to make a really tedious, really exhausting roll. The excuses poured into his mind. He stoppe
d in the middle of the hallway. Someone bumped into him, a woman with her kids on the way to the pool as well.
“Excuse us,” she said coldly.
You need to do this, he told himself. He started to sweat.
Go.
Go!
He put one foot in front of the other and walked toward the pool. His face burned hot, his bowels sagged loose. Still he forced himself outside to the pool. Girls in bikinis were everywhere. Smoking hot girls he would lop off a baby toe to hook up with.
Just do it.
He reminded himself he was with the married woman last night, the virgin killer, and she hadn’t said word one about his scars. And of the three girls, the only one not high enough to notice was the fat girl and she was like, “Oh boy, I bet there’s a story behind those!” And there was.
Screw it.
He pulled his shirt off. His scars were officially out in the open. He sat down thinking it would have been easier to pull off his pants instead. He would have been less embarrassed with his ding-dong hanging out in the open for everyone to see.
As he sat there showing the world his scars, he thought, this is the end of my weakness, my fear, my insecurity. He forced the sly grin. He made his face look like he had the juiciest secret in the world, and then he laid back and soaked in the sun like it was no biggie. Even though it was.
Having game was about believing girls want you, and if they don’t it’s their loss, not yours. At the pool, he chatted up a few of the guests. One of them, roughly the same age as the Jennifer Aniston look-alike and nearly as beautiful, said, “I make a killer drink,” and Brayden was like, “Just one drink?”
“You’ll only need this one,” she said. Her body was tanned and beautiful, and he watched her eyes drift down his body, roaming through his patchwork of scars.
“It must be a special drink,” he said. At this point, now that he saw her seeing his scars, he was waiting for the excuses, the reasons to move on.
“Adios Motherfucker.”
“You’re leaving? So soon?”