by Olivia White
You'll hate this one. I don't know if I should start with the part where I was at home, getting changed and ready for the party, putting my mask on (which is partly a metaphor for obvious reasons) and generally preparing. I could start there, but it's actually entirely inconsequential and I don't really know what I'd say beyond what you've just read. So just pretend I've said all that and we'll skip forward like a game of hopscotch, fast-forwarding through the journey in the taxi where the driver wouldn't shut up about the Lakers game that afternoon. Ignore the part where I got out the taxi, walked into the club after giving my name and being confirmed as being 'on the list' (and aren't we all 'on the list' at some time or another?) and then just pretend we got here with no fuss.
It began in a club. It was one of those clubs where lonely, desperate people go because they're lonely and desperate and also sympathetic. They know that out there, in these lonely, desperate clubs are other lonely and desperate people who, with the right sweet-talking, drink or date-rape drugs will come home with them and fuck them empty and emptily until they're swallowed by the night and/or AIDS.
I often go to clubs like that one, but I've never been lonely, desperate, or even sympathetic, so I've said. I go there because they often play good music, they serve cocktails and they're not at all pretentious. Sometimes they always give away complimentary matchbooks, and who doesn't want a complimentary matchbook or ten? Not me, oh Western Desperado, I'd love some, thanks.
The point was, this club was familiar to me and tonight was a night like any other, only it was totally different this time. This is because for one night only, like Bruce Springsteen or Bill Hicks, the club was booked out for a special party. I was invited to that party. As you know, I was on the list like everyone else there apart from, I should imagine, the staff. It didn't seem prudent to ask the barman, for instance, if he was on the list. His name was Floyd, like something out of a horror movie if you're hard of hearing.
The party was an office party, and you know what they're like unless you've never worked in an office, in which case you don't. It was a "Goodbye, Sorry You Are Leaving, Great Excuse To Get Blind Drunk" party to be precise. The person who was leaving was a man called Bob From Accounts. I assume his name wasn't actually that, but when I asked people that's what they said. Parties are always for someone 'From Accounts'. Nobody who works outside of Accounts ever officially leaves, they either disappear or die like daytime soap stars or Corey Feldman.
So I was at my third-favorite club to celebrate the passing of Bob From Accounts, who by all accounts was a man with absolutely no remarkable traits. I don't think Bob From Accounts ever showed up to a party, definitely not that party anyway, and a voice in the back of my head still insists to this day that he was an admin error, which may seem less likely than the fact he could be living in Florida.
It was quiet when I got inside, the kind of quiet that you'd only find in a club playing loud music when it's half-full of people. People seemed to be standing everywhere on their own, sipping from plastic champagne chutes and glaring at the 'Goodbye Bob' banner which hung limply across the ceiling. Somewhere there was a buffet but nobody seemed interested in finding it.
The point was, I wanted a drink and champagne just wouldn't cut it, so I gave my coat to a cute but ugly girl behind a cute but ugly desk and took a ticket, which read '13'. I wondered if the tickets were in no particular order, or if only twelve other people had brought coats, but again it wasn't prudent to ask so instead I winked at the girl, who chewed her fingernails in defiance.
At the bar there were stools, as you might expect. I sat on one which happened to be next to another one, on which someone else sat. It was a woman. The someone, not the stool. First things first though, it was time to order a drink.
"Hello Floyd," I said in the general direction of Floyd the barman.
Floyd walked over to me, polishing a glass in front of his crotch. It made him look like Jesse James but at least five minutes older. He had an earring in one ear depicting a flamboyant crucifix. I waved in a kind of psychic way and he seemed to get it.
"I'll have a Live Broadcast please," I told him politely, imagining the cocktail into existence
"Certainly, one Live Broadcast coming right up," Floyd told me, more or less, then began to shake the silver until the drink was really mine.
I took a sip. It tasted like crap.
"Floyd, this isn't a Live Broadcast," I said indignantly.
"It is," he replied, his young face beset with the kind of worry that only people in Arkansas can muster, even though this didn't happen in that state.
That settled it then, and the drink tasted like good things, in the way I'd imagine a pop star to taste after they'd embarked on a movie career and done a nude shoot for the cover of a magazine.
It was time to turn my attentions away from the barman and onto the woman to my immediate right. As I suspected she hadn't gone anywhere and was instead drinking red wine through a curly straw, which I found both delightful and repulsive.
"Hello," I said to her and she turned and made eye contact and I knew that soon we would be fucking like Christmas.
"Hi," she replied giddily, overcome with something.
"Nice to see you here," I told her, meaning it. I had no idea who she was or why it was nice, but it felt true which was the point.
"Thank you, you too," she said and giggled, blowing bubbles in her wine by accident. I suspected that it wasn't her first glass, which was also the truth.
I surveyed her up and down without moving my eyes. It's a talent I have which comes in useful when you're pretending not to check someone out, or pretending to be dead. She was dressed in formal attire, which made sense since the party wasn't casual even though the setting was. By formal I mean she wasn't wearing jeans. Clearly she had dressed to impress because her cleavage was prominent and it reminded me of anyone but Joan Crawford.
"Do you work here? I've never seen you before," she said.
"Here? In this club? No, I'm on the list," I said in denial. It was fair to say this since I really didn't work in the club.
"No I mean, in the office. You work with me?"
"I suppose I do, unless you work in the club and/or aren't on the list," I said, taking a sip of my Live Broadcast.
"Oh I do and I am on the list. My name's Rachel, you can check if you like," she said, raising her eyebrows up and down and placing her hand on my shoulder in a way that felt lonely, desperate and sympathetic. I wanted to remind her that this was an office party to celebrate the passing of Bob From Accounts, but then I realized that the two events didn't have to be mutually inexclusive so instead I told her my name.
Her lipstick was bright red and I could see a ring of it around the straw, which reminded me of the fact that a friend of mine had a friend staying over, who also wore lipstick because all girls do, almost. That wasn't going to help my current situation though, which was precisely no situation at all. I wondered if Rachel and Bob had ever done it in the copy room or indeed, done it at all. I suspected that Bob, if he was more than just an admin error, had never done it in the copy room because nobody from Accounts has the passcode.
"Which department do you work in, Rachel?"
"I work in Accounts," she said, "with Bob."
That settled it then. Neither of them had ever done it in the copy room, at least not together.
"So you know Bob then?" I inquired.
"Well…" Rachel paused and looked sheepish, which is actually nothing like a sheep and is a stupid fucking word indeed. "I actually don't know him. I guess he works on the opposite side of the room from me."
"It's odd," I said, "that you work in the same room but you've never met."
"Come here…" she said, gesturing for me to move my head closer. I did. She cupped her hand to her mouth and pressed it against my ear, which felt nothing like a haircut. "I don't think Bob is real," she whispered then giggled loudly, her mouth still by my ear. I could feel her breath on my cheek like Katrina, which was an underrated
experience by all accounts.
I laughed in a polite way, but also took a sip of my drink which suggested I was genuinely amused. Rachel seemed to agree because she started dancing along to a Blue Oyster Cult song which was inappropriately playing at the time. When I say danced, I mean that she nodded her head and clicked her fingers three times.
"How old are you?" she asked me.
"Eighteen," I replied absentmindedly, which was an utter lie. Rachel looked at me and raised her right eyebrow like a bridge, then laughed. "Sorry, I meant twenty seven."
She laughed again. "I'm only twenty four. A baby, really."
I wanted to point out that there were people in the office who were younger than twenty four, but also some who were far older, like Bob From Accounts who was retiring so must have been at least thirty two. Instead I smiled and took another sip of Live Broadcast which had somehow turned into a rather pleasant Kissing Game, probably because I'd asked Floyd for a new drink a minute before. This cocktail tasted of strawberries and girls and I felt distinctly feminine for drinking it. Rachel didn't seem to mind because she ordered one too and we sat there in silence for a moment, drinking Kissing Games. I felt I should make some small talk.
"Did you donate anything to Bob's retirement fund?"
Rachel nodded her head. "I put ten dollars in. I don't know if that was too much or not enough. What about you?"
I swallowed a mouthful of drink and shook my head. "No, I don't like to donate money to people I've never heard of. I put in an IOU written on a Post-It note."
This was only partly true, because I remembered after I said it that I'd actually written it on some headed stationary but I don't think that really matters.
Rachel laughed again, as if she was happy, and a droplet of liquid spilled over her lips. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and sighed loudly.
"I hate clubs like this," she told me in a low voice, in case Floyd was offended I suppose. I didn't think he would be, had he heard, since he'd told me before that he hated clubs like this too, and only worked here so he could buy textbooks. I never did find out which textbooks he wanted to buy but I'm sure he eventually got them. After he told me that, I'd tipped him a dollar every time I went to the club, which was four times up to and including the office party. I didn't tip that night because the drinks were free.
"I quite like them," I admitted. "There are worse places to be, like Vietnam or at home."
Rachel nodded thoughtfully. "There is that, I suppose," she said, and there was.
There would have been more of that, perhaps, if we hadn't been interrupted by an interruption. The interruption came in the form of a co-worker of mine who was neither a favorite nor a least-favorite. A mid-favorite, I guess you could say.
"Hello George," he said to me by way of a greeting. "And hello… you," he said to Rachel.
"Rachel, nice to meet you," Rachel said, extending her hand to Roger. He shook it.
"That's Roger," I told Rachel before Roger had a chance to tell her himself.
"Charmed," Roger muttered in a voice, then turned his attention back to me. He eyed me with a wolf-like stare and asked me about the Rivers account. I pretended I couldn't hear him over the din because, let's face it, nobody wants to talk about the Rivers account at a club, even if that club was booked for Bob From Accounts' party.
Roger stood there impatiently for what seemed like seconds, practically hopping from foot to foot. I realized then that he was almost certainly one of those repressed homosexuals who lived with their mothers and hid porn under the mattress, even at thirty. It puzzled me that I'd never realized this before and I began to feel more sympathetic towards him, even if he did have a double chin.
At that moment he was wearing a shiny red shirt which I suppose he'd been wearing all night. It didn't suit him but I felt it wasn't my place to say, what with Rachel there as well.
"I said," Roger said, "I said that I'll miss old Bob."
"Will you?" I asked. "Will you really? Why have I never met old Bob then? If you know him then I should too. So should Rachel, that's her," (I pointed in case Roger had forgotten) "because she works in Accounts with Bob, but she's never met him."
"Oh," said Roger dejectedly. "I was hoping that either of you would know him and could remind me of who he is. I admit, I have no idea really either."
"We've decided," Rachel said, "that Bob is an elaborate conspiracy and a reason for us to have a party."
'We' hadn't decided this at all, in fact Rachel had expanded that theory herself, but I figured it was as good an explanation as any so allowed her to live the fantasy.
"Ooh!" Roger exclaimed in a camp way that told me one day he'd probably die alone. "How exciting! Bob the mystery man!"
And with that, Roger walked away with a flourish of hips and elbows and stomach. I saw him mooch across the club and stand next to Mai from Customer Relations. Mai was a nice girl but water-cooler gossip suggested she was into things. I saw Roger say something to Mai, who laughed like only those with a maximum of three past lovers can. I knew, then, that the rumors may or may not be true, like most rumors
I turned back to Rachel who had ordered us both more drinks. This time she'd skipped the fancy shit and gone straight for shots of whiskey, which we drank like Tequila Slammers without the salt, lime or tequila.
The alcohol had gone to my head slightly but Rachel seemed positively drunk, possibly because she'd been drinking since before I arrived at the bar, and through a straw no less. You may not know this, but drinking alcohol through a straw can cause stomach cancer, but only in the same way that drinking wine without a straw can.
"You're nice," Rachel said to me, putting her hand on my thigh in order to instigate a life-long friendship. "I can't believe we've never met at the office."
"I know right," I said. "It's not like the place is so big that two people who would get on really well might never meet and never become life-long friends in the way they're destined to."
The words sounded slurred once they left my mouth, but Rachel seemed to understand because she ordered two more shots of whiskey Floyd brought them over with a smile and a napkin, which Rachel took and folded into the shape of a tiny boat.
"Save me this seat," Rachel said, but made no move to get up.
"Save me this seat," Rachel said again, two minutes later, after we'd drank our whiskey shots. "I will be back, you know, in a minute. I have to go powder my nose, or at the very least pee."
I nodded and mentally prepared myself for the task of saving her that seat, which I didn't expect to be too difficult since there were at least five other seats free and nobody else seemed to want to sit at the bar anyway. They must have been enjoying the champagne and the buffet too much, or perhaps someone had found Bob. I found the latter unlikely so looked over to where Roger had been, and saw he was still there. He and Mai had been joined by Victoria, the temp, who had once accidentally emailed the entire department. This was only bad because the email was intended for her then-boyfriend (whom she broke up with shortly after for being 'a prick') and contained explicit language and nude photographs of herself which, for some reason, she had taken on a cell phone in the bathrooms at work. Everyone had expected her to get fired but our department head, who was English, had said she looked 'fit' and they made an arrangement which basically equated to her doing more typing than usual. This was a surprise for everyone because our boss was into blowjobs. The boss wasn't at the party yet and he never did end up showing up, which was just as well because if he had he might have ended up sleeping with Floyd the barman or something. Who knows.
Because the boss wasn't there, it was someone else's turn to do something noteworthy. This came in the form of a noteworthy person sitting on a noteworthy stool, which was Rachel's. I looked at this intruder with compassion because I knew that soon enough he would have to move seats.
He looked back at me with a pleasant expression, the kind which said 'I'm-going-to-kill-you-later'.
Working in a
n office I know about these kinds of people because my favorite book ever is about this type of person, but also another one about secret histories, and the two novels are connected in some way even though they're by different authors. The point was, I knew about people like this and they spelled trouble with a capital TROUBLE.
This man looked like he could both spell and make trouble but I knew at least half of that already because I knew him, and he wrote a lot of correctly-spelled memos and notices.
"I didn't expect to see you here," he told me, which was strange since there was absolutely no reason for this.
"Yes, well, it doesn't pay to think like that," I replied enigmatically, subtly gesturing for Floyd to come to my rescue in the form of a whiskey shot.
"You enjoying the party then?" he asked, examining a crease in his black trousers.
"Yes, exceptionally so," I lied, which was fine because sometimes lying doesn't make one damn bit of difference, especially not when talking to maybe-Serial Killers. "How about you?"
"Exceptionally so too, George," he said, winking. "I sure will miss old Bob, though."
"You know him then?" I asked.
"No," he admitted. "I figured you might, what with working in Accounts too."
"I don't work in Accounts, Alex," I stated. "You know this."
Alex smiled and nodded. "Of course. I was just testing you."
I wondered if this was some kind of deadly game of cat and mouse, wherein he was giving me clues to the fact he was probably a serial killer, but I eventually decided that he was just trying to be funny. His hair was gelled in an edgy kind of way which made me suspect him of at least being the center of attention, which I also knew was true. Water-cooler gossip said that Alex was 'well-hung and up for it', but it also said that he had spread that rumor himself. It was hard to know what to believe around the water cooler, especially when you preferred whiskey
Floyd came over and gave me another shot, to which Alex responded by asking for 'a cool one' and making the shape of a gun with his thumb and forefinger, which added further weight to my theory that he was a serial killer. When he smiled, his teeth were white like a piece of paper which was quite unnerving, even though mine were just as white.
I wondered where Rachel was and considered the fact she might be doing lines in the bathroom or at the very least was lying dead in there, and the idea of doing a line or two wasn't a bad one at all.
The problem was, Alex was one of those people who are clean, and would probably frown if I excused myself to do some coke. Thus I stayed sitting next to him, uncomfortable and warmly drunk, while Floyd brought 'a cool one' over and placed it in front of Alex.
"You know what?" Alex said, and I shook my head because I quite obviously didn't know, and also because Highway To Hell was playing, which seemed like a bad omen when you're drinking with a potential murderer.
"Well," Alex went on, taking another sip of 'a cool one', "the truth is, I'm only here because I'm looking for a woman."
"There are plenty over there," I told him, pointing to over there where I could see plenty of women but also a lot of men. "Mai is over there, for instance, who is rumored to be into things."
Alex chuckled as if 'things' didn't interest him, which to be fair they probably didn't. "I mean, I'm looking for a specific woman," he said.
"Oh," I replied, because I honestly didn't care.
"This woman is called Rachel, and she was sitting here earlier," he said proudly, as if he'd discovered a brilliant clue which I hadn't noticed.
Seeking to shatter his smugness, I replied and said "Yes, I know, I was talking to her," but this did nothing to wipe the harlequin grin from his chiseled face. I say that now in a way that makes it sound as if he was made of stone, when in reality I mean that he had prominent cheekbones, which means something to someone I'm sure.
"She's good," he said. "Good. You know?"
"Good as in, she's probably not in the bathroom snorting lines?" I asked.
"She probably is," said Alex matter-of-factly, which I found bizarre due to the fact that he had killed the last person who had snorted lines in his presence, or had at least tutted at them. "But that's not what I mean. I mean she's good. You know, in a bedroom situation."
I knew, and had also hoped to find out for myself. I almost chastised Alex for spoiling it but then I remembered that he too used the water cooler and not only that, had probably used Rachel.
"I see," I said, ordering another whiskey shot. Rachel had been gone a long time and Alex was beginning to act as if he was sexually frustrated, which is never a nice experience. By this I mean he was tapping his fingers down the side of 'a cool one' and licking his teeth.
"Yeah, so the thing is, she won't return my calls," he said and I detected a hint of sadness in his voice, which was reinforced by the fact he looked sad too. I wondered if she'd discovered his vast collection of severed heads or something, then remembered that there was no proof either way that he really was a murderer. I realized that he reminded me slightly of a friend of mine who works in Hollywood, who possibly really is a murderer, but I don't judge him because I don't know for sure. The point was, this was both good and bad because I liked my friend, as people do, but there was still a chance that somewhere, someone lay dead.
I hoped it wasn't Rachel and as if to prove it wasn't, I saw her walking back from the direction of the bathroom, waving behind her to a fat, middle-aged man who definitely wasn't her type and thus wasn't a threat to me or Alex. I couldn't help but notice that Rachel's skirt was barely more than a belt, which was doing nothing to relieve Alex's frustrated sadness. I knew this because he told me in a hushed whisper as Rachel approached. I was angry at him, slightly, because I already decided that he had tricked Rachel into bed and was now pretending she wouldn't call him as some kind of double bluff in which he could make her feel guilty, then probably eat her liver. I then remembered that he was a vegetarian and dismissed this idea as childish folly.
"I am back!" Rachel announced dizzily, stumbling in her high heels and clutching the front of her skirt as if she'd just realized it was far too short when people like Alex were around. I wondered if we'd be sharing a cab that night, and if we'd go to my place or hers.
"I'm afraid someone took your seat," I said. "I tried to stop them, with force, but they insisted and bought 'a cool one'."
I pointed accusingly at Alex who was staring into space, or at least at the floor, and had not noticed, heard, or smelt Rachel. Rachel was wearing the kind of perfume that just smells of perfume, the rare kind that only pretty girls and aged movie stars can pull off.
"Oh dear," Rachel muttered to me, "it's Alex."
I of course knew this, since I knew Alex already, since we worked together and since the time we'd exchanged a joke via email, but it was fairly clear that Alex was a predator so I shrugged and made some kind of face to convey something.
Alex's neck snapped around, in the way that perhaps he might snap a victim's neck, but without the intense pain or death. He looked at Rachel and I could see him thinking things which were probably impure.
"Rachel…" he said, his hands absentmindedly clenching and unclenching in his lap. I wanted to tell him to stop fucking moving and also drink more whiskey, so I drank the shot which was still there but didn't tell Alex a damn thing.
"Hello Alex," Rachel said in an exasperated tone. "You here to see old Bob off too then?"
Alex nodded. "Yes."
"Well neither of us know Bob, so maybe you should go find him and introduce him to us," Rachel replied curtly.
"I'm afraid I don't know Bob either," Alex confessed.
I placed my hand on Rachel's hip tenderly, like a surgeon. She stumbled and sat on my lap giggling, in a way which would have suggested penetration in a different situation with different people. Here it was just something like an accident but less so, because Alex didn't seem to react. Perhaps he didn't see me as a threat, perhaps he'd given up, or perhaps he was mentally digging my shallow grave.
/>
"Rachel, can we talk?" he asked after a minute, when she'd settled on my lap, giving me a view down her top which was probably deliberate but in a tentative way. I could see a tiny bit of white powder on the top of her right breast and the temptation was there to retrieve it but I realized it would look unseemly and desperate to anyone watching, like Mai who was into things. She was watching, you see, and tugging on Roger's sleeve so that he could watch too. He was holding a pint of water which was probably really vodka and I wondered how his head would suffer tomorrow or at the very least, next week.
Rachel picked up Alex's 'a cool one' and took a huge sip. She put it back down on the bar, leaving a lipstick mark all over the glass which Floyd was probably eyeing with disdain. Alex also eyed it with disdain and desire, like he wanted the lipstick on him instead. Rachel must have known this because she rolled back against me and whispered in my ear like we were best friends. She whispered something like 'He's gone a small sun' but it was like fucking Chinese whispers in the club now, because a song I didn't like had started playing. I felt like I was almost part of some kind of intimacy until Alex grabbed Rachel's wrist in a kind of soft, 'I'm-not-a-serial-killer-honest' way which made me think that perhaps I'd misjudged him and he'd only killed one or two people. He didn't smile though, which was a sure sign of innocence, at least to the degree where he'd be let off due to circumstantial evidence and a flawed testimony.
"Let go of me you creep!" Rachel yelled, laughing spitefully as she pulled her wrist from Alex's grasp. "Georgie, don't let him manhandle me!"
She pressed herself tighter against me as some kind of escape. I didn't really like being called Georgie but she was allowed to after all because her ass felt soft in my lap and because she'd been doing coke.
"Alex," I said, as nicely as possible. "Perhaps you'd better go away."
Alex nodded and in that moment, behind his maybe-serial killer eyes, I realized that the truth was this; Rachel hadn't called him and had probably mistreated him like a country and western singer or a parakeet. Alex looked even sadder than when he'd been sad before, which would have been heartbreaking if I'd been the sympathetic type. He just got up off the stool, all the fight and murderous intent leaving him in the form of the word 'okay', which he said.
"Thankyouthankyouthankyou," Rachel gasped in a cocaine kind of way, then kissed me on the cheek which didn't feel like anything at all intimate, because it wasn't. Her legs were either side of my left leg, which actually felt quite uncomfortable and suddenly I wasn't sure if I was in the mood or not. Then I decided I was, and rested my hand in her lap which she didn't care about, even though we were balanced on a stool in a club, at a party for Bob From Accounts.
I watched Alex walk across the club and past all the people who, in this account, don't even have real names and didn't work in Accounts or anywhere but my department or at least some other department, and it reminded me that I wanted another drink. Rachel knew somehow and got up off of me for a second as I ordered, then sat back down uncomfortably. We just drank things until we were even drunker than before and I'm sure, at some point, we kissed in a way that made Roger giggle queerly and people gossip over the water-cooler the next day, because everyone was liberal but it was still uncommon for such things.
Something strange, though. After that we were even more drunk and Floyd was flirting with Rachel which I found a turn-on, even though he was at least only twenty two, which was young. Then we drank some more and danced a bit, all over the place with the people who weren't, and will never be, important. At some point a genius/idiot decided that karaoke was a good idea and I opted out of it because I couldn't and can't sing.
Rachel decided she would and peeled herself away from a group consisting of some people, as groups usually do, and sang some kind of song which I liked, possibly one by someone dead.
Then Alex murdered Frank Sinatra. My Way, to be exact, which was, as it happens, the only thing he murdered that night. It was quite endearing, in a way, because he looked at Rachel sadly the whole time, making stupid gestures with his hand as if to say "I did it my way" which really meant "My way doesn't get the girl". I felt like I was in one of those feelgood movies that people watch, like It's A Wonderful Life or The Crying Game, but I wasn't which was a disappointment until finally Rachel took me out back and we did a couple lines.
The following part is speculation, or at least almost certainly what happened but not definitely for certain, and I can say this with certainty because I was trippy by this point, but not in an 'I love the 60s' way. I think someone said that there had been an admin error and Bob From Accounts had actually retired fifty years ago, which seemed right. Thus I deduced that Bob From Accounts was never real in the first place and the party was a sham, and to this day I'm still not sure whether he exists or not, and if he even had a short career in porn during the 70s as Mai once suggested.
Whether it was a drug-induced haze or something less real, like the truth, it didn't change the fact that without Bob we were just people in a club. Lonely, desperate, sympathetic people in a club who, no matter what drugs we took or drinks we sipped or people we fucked or songs we sang, could not deny the fact we were just looking for security.
The music made itself silent, like everywhere was a library, and Roger climbed up onto the hastily erected stage which was more of a table because that's exactly what it was.
"To Bob From Accounts!" he shouted, raising a half-full bottle of champagne into the air. "May you have a long and prosperous retirement, free from serial killers, terrorists, loneliness or talk-shows."
When he finished there was not a single dry eye in the house, for a variety of obvious reasons. A song came on, which was Boston's More Than A Feeling, even though everybody almost certainly felt numb and drunk now, apart from Floyd, the cute but ugly girl from the coat booth, and some other staff, all of whom were sober and feeling. Having recently developed sympathy following Bob's retirement, I felt sorry for them because unlike us they weren't dizzy and desolate. Mai was flirting with a man from Quality Assurance who was also almost certainly married and I wondered if perhaps she was into things like that. They went home alone later though which proved she was the kind of person who owned at least one cat. Victoria the temp went home and left the office shortly after and really did have a career in porn until she left the business to write a best-selling book which nobody bought because it was shit and about sex, which nobody is into these days.
The thing was, they hadn't gone home yet which was fine because everybody still wanted to dance, but then Floyd and the staff decided enough was enough and told us all that the show was over.
I still had that ticket saying '13' in my pocket which was lucky because otherwise my coat could still be in the club to this day, and I like that coat, which I have had for years and even wore the day before I lost my virginity, which wasn't until I was eighteen for obvious reasons, or maybe not if you're English.
I handed the ticket to the cute but ugly girl who I realized was actually just cute, and the disfiguring mark on her face was just a trick of the light, and she gave me my favorite coat which I put on when I got outside, since the air was cold and hung over, like morning coffee and a cigarette from before I quit smoking, which I never have.
I was smoking outside the club in fact, because I'd left my cigarettes in my coat pocket and the club had a No Smoking policy anyway. I was smoking and looking for Rachel who I had planned to take home with me in a cab or maybe go back to her place, and do some things, some of which involved contact.
I saw her and waved, and she waved back, and Roger waved too but only with one hand because the other was up Rachel's skirt at the back, which struck me as incorrect behavior for a repressed homosexual, so maybe I'd been wrong about him, I thought. The other thing was, Rachel seemed to have a glazed, happy and aroused expression on her face which suggested to me that she felt glazed, happy and aroused as opposed to lonely, desperate and sympathetic like people like me, Mai, Victoria, Alex, possi
bly Bob, maybe the boss and Floyd. I do not include Cute but Ugly but Actually Just Cute girl here because it was pretty obvious she'd have a boyfriend, which was nice for her if she was into that kind of thing, which I think she was. I've later seen her walking hand in hand with someone who I suspect is her boyfriend because they usually kiss passionately and one day, she was pregnant. Good for her, I say.
Rachel however was looking like the opposite of someone who was with child, which probably meant she wasn't being sick every morning, just almost certainly the next morning because we'd drank one hell of a lot, and done some drugs, which will make people sick. But she also looked happy, with Roger's hand up her skirt, and who was I to spoil that by reminding her that we could have a different kind of sex than she could have with Roger, who actually was most likely straight after all.
They both waved to me in a kind of apologetic-but-not-really way, which is to say dismissively, then got into a taxi together.
I would have suspected that was the last time I'd see Rachel, and figured that she'd been killed by Roger overnight who, if he wasn't a repressed homosexual, was a serial killer. However, I saw Rachel at work quite a few times since then and we became friends, which was nice, and still are. Amusingly though (and it's okay to laugh about it because everyone's pretty liberal), Roger really was a serial killer to some degree, at least in that they found some things he was into on his computer one day, which implied he had killed. Rachel probably had a lucky escape, but we don't look at it like that because otherwise, who knows what other lucky escapes we'd devise for ourselves if we thought about it too much?
FOR EXAMPLE: Just yesterday I was walking across the road and five minutes after I'd crossed, a car drove past. If I'd been crossing the road five minutes later then the car could have hit me, which would qualify as a lucky escape.
FOR EXAMPLE: A terrorist, or at least a junkie, went into a diner and threatened a certain menagerie of people with a gun. If a friend of mine hadn't ever met a friend of hers who had stayed with her for a while, near the club where Bob From Accounts had a party, the friend of a friend would never have gone to the club and met a man who, from the sounds of it, stopped anything bad happening due to the fact he and the friend of a friend were in the diner at the time, and were of a disposition to perform some thrilling heroics. This would also qualify as a lucky escape, not for me but for other people.
FOR EXAMPLE: If Alex had left the club earlier he would have gone home alone, woken up alone, desperate, lonely, hung over and sad, missing Rachel and great sex and lipstick marks. However, it was true (and it's not right to lie about these things) that he had tried to leave the club early, but had lost his coat ticket, number 18 in fact, and had spent far too long searching the club for it. It had turned out that he'd dropped it on the bar and myself and Rachel had later used it in place of a bank note, leaving the ticket and the powder residue in the bathroom. Floyd found it and gave it to Alex after what was probably a long time, thus causing him to leave later than everyone else (apart from the staff of course) and walk straight into the back of me as I stood smoking alone. This definitely qualifies as a lucky escape. Here's why.
Alex walked into the back of me in a way that suggested sex between two men even though it was nothing like that, for obvious reasons. While Roger and Rachel were doing who knew what, Alex and I stood outside a club for lonely hearts, while I smoked three cigarettes to sober up, which was looking unlikely. Alex didn't smoke but did when I offered him a cigarette, which the boss would call 'fags' much to our amusement. Alex and I laughed together when three matches from a complimentary matchbook went out in succession before the fourth did not, and lit his cigarette so he could get lung cancer too, which is always nice to share even though neither of us have it.
He had previously said; "Hello George," again, to which I said; "Hello Alex," again, or maybe for the first time that night, and things kind of went from there really, as they normally do. He called me Georgie once, which I chastised him for because his skin wasn't soft like Rachel's, and he didn't have coke on his breast or even breasts at all, because he quite obviously was a man, which I could tell for obvious reasons like later, when I saw him naked.
The most significant thing was that we were standing on the sidewalk smoking cigarettes, or fags (but not the Roger-but-not-really kind) and that by now I had decided that Alex wasn't a serial killer. After all, the only thing he killed that night was Frank Sinatra, and that extends up till now, at least I think. You never know but I'm fairly sure.
So we were standing there and talking about Rachel and I admitted to him that I'd wanted her for more than just a coke buddy and a friend, and the closeness had been because earlier I'd thought we'd end up in bed together. I didn't add the part where I thought he was a serial killer because I didn't want to hurt his feelings any more, especially not when he was shocked to find out I'd wanted Rachel. He said he'd thought I was, you know, the other way inclined, to which I told him honestly that I was both, which he seemed pleased by for obvious reasons.
I remember it as clearly as if it were no more than three years ago, because that's how long ago it really was.
"Do you, kinda, you know…?" Alex asked clumsily. It was fairly clear what he was getting at and it was far from 'a cool one'. It was pretty funny (and it's okay to laugh, everyone's pretty liberal as I've said) that earlier he'd been telling me things about Rachel and now he wanted to put me in a position where he could tell people things about me, although I didn't think he would. I suggested this to him.
"It was, I don't know, a kind of rubbish flirting technique," he admitted, which made me feel better about myself on the whole, even though I felt like shit due to alcohol.
I'd had, quite honestly, no idea that he'd been flirting with me and why would I have an idea anyway?
"So do you want to?" he asked, gesturing to a nearby cab, stepping from foot to foot to combat the cold and the atrophy. His breath was steaming as it left his mouth and he reminded me of an adolescent on his first voyage of sexual discovery, even though he obviously wasn't.
I spent some time thinking about whether I wanted to or not, even though I already knew the answer for absolute certain, to the point where I was almost sure. It was 'yes, of course'.
There are some words I hate, for obvious reasons. These include, but are not limited to; demographic, targets, cunt, whore, potential, and love at first sight, which is at best four words and I apologize I don't know if it was love at first sight or even love at second sight, or third when the lights were on in the bedroom and we still made love even though we were both shy, it was our first time together and neither of us had the energy to turn the light off to make things more civilized It wasn't love then, or later, or maybe even now, although it almost certainly is after three years. Mostly we were both loving the fact that we'd stood on the sidewalk, dragging in smoke and talking about a girl, like two teenage boys even though we weren't that for obvious reasons. Reasons being age and gender and the fact that Alex is thirty now and I don't think anyone would call him a teenage boy now or even then, when we were both twenty seven. Maybe when he was eighteen, nineteen at a push if you're being pedantic, and for me it was never, for obvious reasons involving male genitalia and things.
The thing is, we could share a cigarette or fag, we could talk and laugh and isn't that always enough for everyone? Finding someone with whom you can do those things even if it's cold and you're hung over and disapproving and you can still go back to his place or my place and fuck shyly. Yes, it is enough and eventually I, Georgina Rose Young took him, Alex Brandon Ford to be my lawfully wedded husband, in sickness and in health, till death do us part, which it no doubt will one day, but not yet.
I invited everyone in the whole world to the wedding, or everyone who'd been at the club that night, apart from a few members of staff who'd since retired, disappeared or died. Mai was there and as it turned out, she was into things like acupuncture and homeopathic medicine which just goes to show that yo
u shouldn't walk away from the water cooler before the gossip has finished. Victoria was there like a pornstar, which she was, until she became an author which she never did quite so well. Roger wasn't there for obvious reasons. Rachel was there with her girlfriend which I found to be an ironic twist after all. Floyd was there, behind the bar at the reception afterwards which was for all intents and purposes in the same club, invite-only and no karaoke.
And even after everything he'd done, or hadn't done, I invited Bob Formerly From Accounts in case he decided to exist one day. He didn't turn up which surprised no-one. Last I heard he's in Florida or at the very least is an admin error which is more likely than Alex being a serial killer, which he's not (I think) or smoking kills.
Really the point is that we all lived sort-of happily ever after, at least until now. Apart from Roger who is in prison but it's okay because everyone's pretty liberal, and we still send him a Christmas card each year. After all, isn't that the most important thing? I like to think so, for obvious reasons which are probably meaningless to someone like you.
XVII - The Signal Master