Behind His Back

by Stranges, Sadie

  Nicole reviewed this place favorably in our last issue, though I have no idea why. It’s all exposed brick and bare pipes, and I feel like I’m drinking in an abandoned factory in Detroit. Which makes me way overdressed in my expensive fuck-me jeans and black halter top. I figured that since I’m taking the initiative of fucking random guys, I can man up and suggest a bar for my girls’ night with Cassie instead of always letting her take the lead. But given the sour look on her face, I think I might have fucked up. College bars are always iffy, and now that we’re past that phase, they can easily be a disaster. Cassie’s main source of satisfaction in life comes from being a sexual being who drinks and dines and flirts and fucks—the last thing a woman like her wants is to be surrounded by fresher faces and skinnier bodies wearing fashion that’s forbidden to our generation. Not that anyone here is scandalously dressed. If anything, it’s the opposite—that’s what feels so weird. It’s a bar, but no one, except for maybe Cassie in her skimpy skirt and backless top, is dressed provocatively. The girls are actually outfitted pretty similar to the guys, if you could call them guys. They’re in skinny jeans and baggy sweaters, and their long, straight hair is hidden beneath wool hats that don’t suit the mild weather outside. They’re drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon and Red Stripe beer, and none of them are dancing. A few of the girls are in little cut-off shorts, but their legs are so thin and gangly that I don’t feel threatened. There isn’t a decently firm ass in the entire crowd.

  If anything bothers me, it’s the ubiquity of sleeve tattoos. Ink can be sexy—Miss Sassy Pants being a prime example—but why would a man slather his forearms in designs that distract from his potential hotness? Then again, none of these sissies are sporting forearms worth noticing. They’d get chewed to pieces among the warriors I ogle at Rev.

  “How old do you think these girls are?” Cassie says.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Twenty-one? Maybe twenty-three?”

  “Jesus Christ. Twenty-fucking-one. Do you remember what we were doing when we were that age?”

  “College wasn’t that long ago for us,” I say. “And when I wasn’t studying, I think I was drinking with you in bars pretty similar to this one. Maybe with a little less reclaimed wood on the walls.”

  “Yeah, except we made an effort to look hot,” she says. “What the fuck are these toddlers even wearing? Do they not want to get hit on?”

  Cassie makes a valid point. It’s an incontrovertible fact that young people in every culture are perpetually horny and eager to act on their impulses—though maybe not as compulsively as me lately. But the kids here aren’t all right. No one’s canoodling in the corners, and no obnoxious young men are sidling up to drunken girls, annoying them with their clumsy advances. I think back to the article I’m prepping. Maybe flirting is now something that happens purely through smartphones, and it doesn’t spill over into the real world.

  “Look at her,” Cassie says, gesturing to a could-be-pretty girl in skinny, faded jeans and a loose flannel shirt. Her brown hair is cropped short and has no coloring, and she’s wearing hardly any makeup besides a little mascara and foundation. “How many guys do you think she’s fucked?”

  The girl in question is chatting and laughing with two guys in a booth across the bar from us. Both of the guys are skinny and have those weird pomaded haircuts from the twenties. The sides of their heads are cropped so close that you can see their scalps, and they’d look like extras from Boardwalk Empire if it weren’t for their thick-rimmed glasses and their fitted flannel shirts.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “It doesn’t look like she’s fucked those guys. I can’t even tell if she’s into guys. Or if they’re into girls.”

  “What the fuck is going on with the world?” Cassie says. “Do college kids not fuck each other anymore? Are elderly people in Cialis commercials the only people having sex these days?”

  “Them and us,” I say.

  “Gross.”

  Cassie’s getting seriously worked up, so I decide this would be a good segue to reward her with some heavy gossip. I figure I owe her after dragging her to this too-cool-for-sex hipster pub.

  “I’ve actually been having more sex than usual lately,” I say.

  Cassie’s eyes light up like brandy-flooded flambés at a French restaurant. This is exactly the distraction she needs.

  “So Mr. Perfect’s found his mojo, has he?” she says.

  It takes me a second to realize that Mr. Perfect is a reference to my husband. “Not exactly,” I say. I pause and let her savour that juicy morsel. Her eyes widen as she adds two and two.

  “Wait—you mean that hot Australian guy from the last time we got plastered?” she says.

  I smile and leave her hanging just a little bit longer. Fucking with her is the next best thing to fucking Hunter.

  “Yup,” I say. I swig my opaque yellow beer and peek at Cassie over the rim of the glass. She’s gripping the table.

  “Shut the fucking front door,” she says.

  “I think the whole front door thing is to avoid the fucking,” I say.

  “And what would you know about avoiding fucking, you late-blooming slut?”

  If Cassie and I weren’t already best friends, we would be now.

  “Okay, okay,” she says. “I want details. Describe every last drop of bodily fluid you exchanged that night.”

  “First, eew. And second, it wasn’t just that night,” I say.

  “Oh my fucking God. How many times have you fucked him?” There’s a good chance Cassie’s going to flip out and throw our table clear across the room.

  “Just three times so far,” I say. “And a blow job in a dressing room at Holt Renfrew. But I plan to do it as often as possible.”

  “You perfect, beautiful slut,” she says.

  “Thanks,” I say. “I think.” I knew I could count on Cassie to see my side of things.

  “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod,” she says. “So many questions. I’m guessing I don’t have to ask whether it’s good.”

  “It’s good,” I say with a smile. I’d need a film production crew and James Cameron directing to properly show her how good it is.

  “Better than David?”

  I roll my eyes.

  “Okay, obviously,” she says. “But how? Spill it, you slutty bitch!” She shakes the air between us like she’s gripping me by the ribs and rattling the details out of me.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Like in every possible way, I guess.”

  “You guess? You’re a fucking magazine editor and you can’t come up with a better description than that? Faith, I’ve been your friend for more than a decade, and I’ve dished about every one-nighter and every shitty boyfriend I’ve ever had. And so help me God, I will pour this nasty piss-colored microbrew directly into your purse if you don’t return the favor. Draw his penis on a cocktail napkin if you have to.”

  I giggle. “Cocktail.”

  “Yes, I heard it,” she says dryly.

  “Well, for starters, his cock wouldn’t be to scale if I drew it on one of these napkins,” I say.

  “Now we’re talking,” she says. I’m glad to be on her good side again.

  “It’s big, which is great and all,” I say. “But it’s better than that, because it gets really hard. Like really, really hard. Like I could chip my tooth on it.”

  “Dear God,” she says. She takes a hard gulp of her vile beer.

  “And you know how some of them are all bendy in weird ways? Like not just to the right or left?”

  “Downward dogs and rhino horns,” she says. “Every cock is a strange and mysterious snowflake.”

  “Right, well his is perfectly straight. Every time I pull it out of his boxer briefs, it points right at me like it’s angry that I woke it up.”

  Cassie’s laugh sputters into her beer mid-sip. She wipes the foam from her upper lip and says, “So he’s got a big, straight, angry cock. Sounds like Heaven. Is he any good with it in bed?”

  “Good enough that
we haven’t made it to the bed yet,” I say.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “He’s just so bossy, but in a good way,” I say. “Like he really takes charge and tells me what to do.”

  “God, bossy is so hot,” she says.

  “And that’s something that David’s never done. With him, it’s like I’m begging. And he’s always looking at me like he needs my approval.”

  “I get it,” she says. “Sometimes a girl just needs to be held down and fucked.”

  My face turns red as I realize just how intimate these details are. This is stuff I wouldn’t want to share with a shrink. Luckily, Cassie’s the kind of friend who can make even a full-fledged deviant like me feel like a good girl who’s just up for a little cheeky fun now and then.

  Emboldened by Cassie’s approval, I take another awful swig and decide to go all in. “And you know how I was telling you about that trainer who owns the gym I go to?”

  “The one with the Hugh Jackman body?” she says.

  “Yeah, I kind of fucked him too.”

  This time Cassie goes full slapstick, spit-taking a fine spray of microbrew onto the table between us. Then she puts a palm on my forehead. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I think about this for a few seconds. I’ve been thinking about it for a year, actually, and I still don’t have an answer.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I know I’m not happy with David, even though I have nearly every reason to be. I just reached a point where I realized I couldn’t live without sex, and he can. And now I guess I’m making up for lost time.”

  “Does David know about any of this?” she says.

  “God, no. At least I don’t think so,” I say. “I’m not sure whether he has any suspicions. He’s always away on business, and he’s so distant even when he’s home.”

  “That all sucks, Faith, but he’s going to find out eventually, whether you tell him or not. And when he does, this is going to look bad on you, not him. No matter how soft his cock has been for you.”

  “I know,” I say. “The weird thing is, I don’t even feel that bad about any of it. I mean, I try to, but whenever I think about it I just want more.

  “Do you love him?” she says.

  “Hunter? No, I don’t think so. I mean, I’m possessive, but it’s like this pure physical thing. It’s almost like—“

  “Like you’re a guy?” she says.

  “Exactly!” I spare her the details of my frat boy hypothesis.

  “Well, I think you’re in for a rough ride here, but I’m glad you’re getting some rough fucking in the meantime,” she says. She holds up her nearly empty pint glass to cheers me, and I reciprocate.

  “Now I’m all excited and I have to pee,” she says. “Keep your fingers crossed that I don’t get into a fight with one of these twelve-year-old lesbians on my way to the ladies’ room.” I show her my crossed fingers, even though there’s a pretty good chance I’ll be hearing the sound of ripping flannel in the next few minutes.

  Alone at the table, I hear a song that catches my attention. A female singer with a haunting voice is pining about lost love, and the chorus, “Can’t go home alone again—need someone to numb the pain,” nearly floors me. I check to make sure no one’s watching me, and then I pull out my phone to Google the words and figure out who’s singing them. Fuck the hipsters who might catch me in the act—I need to know.

  But before I start the search, I see that I’ve missed a text from a few minutes ago.

  Holy fuck. It’s Hunter.

  “I see you’ve been a bad girl,” it says.

  Shit. I forgot about that stupid pearl-necklace picture I sent him. But at least he’s responding. That’s a good sign, right? There’s only one direction I can go from here. For all I know, some fitness supermodel had her lips wrapped around his cock while he was typing the text.

  “I’ve been so bad,” I write. “But I’m just getting started.”

  He responds instantly. “Let’s see just how bad you can be. Meet me in the bar at the Lotus hotel in one hour.”

  I set down my phone and feel my face flush. I played a risky hand by sending him that photo, but it looks like I got his attention. My mind rummages through the various punishments that might await me, and every possibility makes me wet with anticipation.

  I’m planning my early escape when one of the skinny-jeaned hipsters approaches my table. He’s tall and cute with full, foppish hair and a few days of stubble covering a decent chin, but his chambray shirt is rolled up at the sleeves to reveal smooth forearms that aren’t much thicker than Cassie’s. Like the arms of nearly everyone else here, his display a random smattering of tattoos that will likely unite in a full sleeve once he can convince his parents to pony up the cash.

  “Do you work out?” he asks from a few paces away. I can barely hear him over the din of the music.

  “What?”

  “You look like you work out,” he shouts. He musters the courage to come closer and then smiles.

  Good God, is this weak little puppy hitting on me? Maybe my flushed face from Hunter’s text beamed out some kind of evolutionary signal that I’m good to go.

  “Yeah, I train at a place called Rev Fitness,” I say. “It’s this new kind of warehouse gym.” I feel like such a bad-ass just saying that.

  “That’s cool.” He slides his narrow ass into Cassie’s seat without an invitation, and the sloppy way he slams his tailbone onto the wooden bench tells me he’s more than slightly inebriated. “I just started doing yoga,” he says.

  I stifle a laugh. Of all of the cheesy pickup lines he could have pulled out, telling me about his new penchant for yoga is the lamest, most barf-worthy move he could have made.

  “I’m sure your boyfriend will appreciate your newfound flexibility,” I say, and I nearly cup a palm to my lips as the last syllable escapes. I may have gone full frat boy, but I’m not out to hurt anyone’s feelings. Still, I’m proud of the quickness of my quip. I give myself a mental high five.

  Yoga boy laughs uneasily. He’s a guy—he can take it, right? I wonder whether he’ll continue his pick-up plan after I’ve taken the wind out of his sails, but it appears he’s drunk enough to plow through.

  “I just think it’s really cool that you do that,” he says. “You have to be good to your body, you know?” He punctuates his wisdom with a sip of imported beer that has a Canadian maple leaf on the label.

  “Right,” I say.

  “So do you go to school here?” he says.

  Really? That’s his tack? Make me feel good by pretending I look like I’m still in college? Please.

  “No, I’m an editor at Simply Living.”

  “No shit,” he says. “Is that like a magazine or something?”

  “Yeah,” I say. I’ve had just about enough of yoga boy and his clumsy compliments. If I want a self-esteem boost, I’ll watch Hunter’s cock harden as I undress. Which is exactly what I plan to do as soon as I can find a graceful way to get out of my girls’ night.

  I spot Cassie coming back from the bathroom with a stern look on her face, and I hatch an idea.

  “Listen,” I tell him. “Do you like to fuck?”

  His jaw falls open, and he nearly drops his brown bottle.

  “I mean like good, hard fucking?” I say. “No pussy bullshit?”

  “Holy shit,” he says. “I mean—yes. I’m down with hard fucking. Where do you want to—”

  “Not me,” I say. “No offence, but I would break you. You’re a skinny guy who does yoga. And I don’t fuck skinny guys who do yoga.”

  “Damn,” he says, looking like he might cry. In five seconds this night has gone from the best of his life to one of the worst.

  “Pay attention, okay?” I say. “I’m going to leave, but my hot friend over there is a sure thing if you play your cards right.”

  He turns his head to scan the room for my fabled friend. “Don’t look,” I say. “Just listen. If you want to get laid tonight, don’t tell her abo
ut yoga and don’t ask her if she’s a student. Both of those things make you look weak and retarded. Look her in the eye and tell her she’s smoking hot, and that you came over here to get some dirt on her while she was in the bathroom. When she asks you what you found out, tell her that you know exactly what she likes in bed, and scold her for being such a dirty girl. Be mean, because I’m guessing that your version of mean is just being slightly less of a pussy than the singer from Coldplay. If that works—and it will—follow through. Take her home, fuck her hard, and be extremely bossy. Understand?

  “Yeah. I think so,” he says.

  “Good. She just finished a pint of the house microbrew, and she hated it,” I say. “Buy her a proper drink. Something that’s the opposite of anything you and your friends would order. Something with vodka.”

  “Thanks!” he says.

  “Shut up,” I tell him just as Cassie arrives.

  “Who’s this,” Cassie says, smiling at yoga boy.

  “This is—what was your name again?” I ask him.

  “Caleb,” he says.

  “Of course it is,” I say. “This is Caleb. He was just asking about you.”

  I slide out of the booth and pull Cassie aside. “I’m so sorry,” I say.

  “Let me guess. You’re ditching me to go meet your new Aussie fling.”

  I’m still searching for a polite way of rephrasing it when she smiles and says, “It’s cool. Go and get you’re fuck on. But I get to hear every dirty detail tomorrow.”

  “Deal,” I say, and I give her a hug. If yoga boy comes through, she’ll have some details of her own.

  Cassie immediately turns her attention to the skinny stranger, who’s still sitting at our table and watching us with a confused look on his face.