“Please,” Bunny whispered. “God, please.”
Unable to resist any more, Justin reached around to the front. Bunny was popping out of the top of the panties already, and when Justin pulled she sprung out fully, ten cut inches of hard, velvety dick. Justin breathed faster, lust swelling and surging as Bunny shimmied the panties further down her thighs, baring her ass. Justin squeezed her cheeks, pulling them apart so that he could feel the heat from the hole against the tips of his thumbs.
“Eat it,” said Ryan, coming up behind him out of nowhere, like some deep voiced, horny ghost. “Eat that ass. Get it real hot and hungry.” Ryan’s cock pressed into Justin’s back, grinding him deeper against the crease of Bunny’s irresistible ass, and they all moaned – all three of them – the way they did when they cut loose and got weird with it, the way Justin was desperate to do…and oh God, he wasn’t supposed to be doing this, because there was five hundred bucks riding on it, but that ass…that warm, silken crease. His hips had a mind of their own. There was nothing he could do, because he had to come. Had to…
“Justin…”
He breathed in the smell of clean hair. Coconut shampoo and smoke. And that was the sense that reached him where none of the others could, because that was a Luis smell. A Rose smell. Justin snapped awake, to find himself pressed up against the crease of Luis’s ass. Both of their shorts were halfway down, and as he pulled away Justin saw the wet of pre-come glistening on bare, brown skin. The hunger he felt was so huge that it scared him.
“You wanna?” said Luis, and he did. Oh God, he did. He wanted to kiss and lick and fondle and hump, and watch stars burst in those big, golden eyes.
But he didn’t. Somehow he didn’t. Perhaps it was five hundred dollars. Or perhaps it was just because it was Luis, and Luis was his friend, and because friends deserved better than a quick and dirty grind with someone who was so horny he’d fuck a Hot Pocket.
“Nah,” Justin said. “Thanks, but…yeah. I shouldn’t…”
“No. Sure. Five hundred bucks, right?”
“Yeah.”
Luis reached under his pillow to reposition it, then Justin heard the crackle of what sounded like foil, and Luis’s eyes got even bigger.
Last night came back to him in scraps. Luis burying his nose in his shoulder. You smell so fucking good. I miss it so much. In this state it was hard to tell where dreams ended and reality began.
Luis opened the hand that had been under the pillow. Crumpled in his palm was a Kit Kat wrapper. “Oh shit,” he said. “Oh shit.”
His hair had smelled of smoke. One hit, he’d said. Just the one. He’d probably passive smoked more, and that hadn’t shown up in the drug tests. And Justin had said no at first, but Luis had insisted and then one turned to another and then they’d ended up in the kitchen, giggling and making Elvis sandwiches.
“Did we…?” Justin said.
“Oh yeah,” said Luis, turning pale. “We got really fucking high.”
“Shit.” Justin thought for a moment. The important thing was not to panic. “Look, it might not be a problem. If your last test comes back clean then that gives you…what? Two weeks to detox?”
“Is that long enough?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. First things first, you need to drink like gallons of water. Flush it through your system.”
“Fuck, no,” said Luis. “That makes your brain swell up and you die, like that woman who was trying to win a Nintendo or something.”
“Only if you don’t pee. I remember that. It was ‘hold your wee for a WII’. She didn’t pee, and that’s why her cells, like, dissolved and shit. It’s not dangerous as long as you pee.”
“Are you sure?”
“Definitely. We don’t want you to hold it. We need you to pee it out. Ooh…cranberry juice. Isn’t that supposed to help?”
“I don’t know,” said Luis, reaching for his phone. He looked at the screen and groaned.
“What?” said Justin.
“It’s your sister. She needs to retest me. Obviously I didn’t pee enough the last time.”
Justin clapped his hand over his mouth. “Fuck. When?”
“Tomorrow. Oh my God, Justin. I’m fucked.”
He reached for Luis’s phone. “No. You’re not fucked. We’re gonna figure this out. Let me see…B vitamins, cranberry juice…or we can buy fake pee.”
“Uh, where?”
“On the internet.”
“For tomorrow? Do they guarantee next day delivery?” said Luis.
“I don’t know. Amazon probably do.” Justin looked. “Yep, they do. Oh…shit.”
“What?”
“Lotta one star reviews from pissed off stoners. ‘Looked like apple juice. Smelled like apple juice. Tasted like apple juice. Lost my job.’ ‘Total rip off. Do not buy,’ and so on…”
“Okay. We’ll skip that. What else?”
“Uh….” Justin stuffed in another search. “Cider vinegar? Uh…what the fuck is chaparral poke root.”
“I don’t know. What does it do?”
“It’s supposed to be a blood cleanser.”
“Says who?”
“Gwyneth Paltrow, I think.”
“Ugh, fuck that shit,” said Luis. “I’m not taking detox advice from anyone who says you should blast hot steam up your vagina. Like, I may not be a world expert on vaginas, but I’m pretty sure if you have one you shouldn’t do that to it.” He sighed. “Although I’m not in any shape to judge stupid decisions right now, I guess. Oh God, why did I do that? What the fuck is wrong with me?”
“It’s my fault,” said Justin, still searching. Pectin. What the fuck was pectin? “I should have stopped you.”
“Shut up. You couldn’t. I know what I’m like. If there’s a bong in the room and I wanna get a hit off that thing then I’m gonna. You’d have to physically restrain me.”
“I should have. I should have tossed the thing out of the fucking window.”
“Justin, stop. I did this, okay? I’m an adult. I should know better, but I didn’t. And now I’m going back to fucking prison and it’s gonna be ten times worse because now I know what it’s like to be out and having fun.”
Justin threw an arm around him. “Luis, relax. Okay? We can fix this. If we can’t detox you in time then I’m sure we can find someone to pee in a cup for you. Bunny would piss in a cup for you, and you know it.”
Luis exhaled. “Nope.”
“What do you mean, ‘nope’?”
“I mean Bunny has weed in her sewing box. And I know I’ve smelled it on Helena. I’ve got a bloodhound nose for that shit since I quit.”
“So…Hu. Hu doesn’t smoke, right? Look, if it really comes down to it, my Nana still has that bag. You just…siphon it off.”
Luis pulled away and blinked. “You…siphoned…”
“…yeah. Piss…”
“…from your grandmother?”
“Look, people pay a lot to pass drug tests,” said Justin. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“You sold your grandmother’s piss?”
“We cut her in on the profits. She got a lot of nice things. Got her hair did regular. Mani-pedis. Even a new TV. Flat screen. Fifty inch. Seriously – please stop looking at me like that.”
*
That morning, while he was shaving and in the shower, Adam had rehearsed several different conversations with Justin. About how they all needed to sit down and talk about where they stood, and how maybe there might be room for a more open ended arrangement than they had already. Polyamory. He kept trying the word out as he ascended the stairs, and tried to forget about all the times he’d heard it in conjunction with the kind of trainwreck advice column stories that were so much fun to read when you were bored and half drunk.
“We are open to experimenting with polyamory,” he said, under his breath. “Like we did before, but with better boundaries. Yes. Yes, that sounds good.”
He turned the key in the lock, but as soon as he entered the apartment it w
as as though he could see his chances of having the rehearsed conversation disappearing in the rear view mirror. Because something smelled very peculiar. Herbal, and not the usual kind of herbal he associated with Justin. Was Justin cooking? Or was it Rose’s penchant for weird teas?
Adam walked into the kitchen. The conversation was now little more than a speck on the horizon, because whatever Rose and Justin had been up to, they looked thoroughly furtive about it. There were numerous cartons of Ocean Spray on the kitchen sideboard, along with a box of red clover tea and several cartons of an unidentifiable substance known as Certo.
“What the fuck is this?” he said.
“It’s herbal,” said Justin. “We thought we’d get healthy. For New Year.”
Adam picked up the box of red clover tea, and realized where he’d heard of it before. Several of the women in his mother’s circle of friends had sworn by it during those difficult, humid years. “You know this is for menopause, right?” he said.
“It is?”
“Are you feeling warm?” asked Adam, setting down the tea and picking up the Certo. Pectin. “Brain fog? Difficulty concentrating? Vaginal dryness?” He read the side of the box. “And apparently you’re taking up jam making?”
“Yeah,” said Justin, nodding far too vigorously. “Jam.”
“My God. You really are menopausal. Congratulations on your second spring, I guess. Keep up the kegels. I’m told they’re the key to the whole…downstairs situation.”
Justin and Rose looked blank. And guilty. As hell.
“No, seriously,” said Adam, setting down the pectin. “I can do this bit all day. We can talk about hazards to the soft furnishings every time you sneeze, or you can tell me what you’re really doing with red clover, pectin, cider vinegar…” He reached for a jar of what looked like vitamins. “And fiber pills?”
Something clicked inside his brain. Something he’d once heard about how THC binds to fiber. Urban legends.
“Oh my God,” he said. “Are you idiots trying to pass a drug test?”
Rose’s expression said it all.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” said Bunny. “Oh my God, child. What did you do? I told you to stay the fuck away from Justin. Didn’t I say you’d get a contact high?”
“It…it wasn’t a contact high,” said Justin, looking sheepish, but not nearly as ashamed of himself as he ought to be. Full on sackcloth and ashes couldn’t satisfy Adam in that moment.
“Okay,” he said. “How bad?”
“Bong bad,” said Rose.
“Oh my God. Great job, Bride of Dankenstein. Great job.”
“We made sandwiches,” said Rose. “Peanut butter, bacon and banana.”
“The Elvis,” moaned Adam, sinking into a kitchen chair. Oh, that was when you knew you were baked, when you staggered into the kitchen at two in the morning and cooked up a regicide sandwich. The only levels above that were full on couch-glue, drooling-and-mumbling-about-the-pyramids stoned. “Okay,” he said, determined not to turn a crisis into a drama for once. “You just had a urine test, and if you pass that one…” And now Justin was making a face that said there was more. And worse. “What? Why are you looking like that?”
“There wasn’t enough pee from the last test,” said Rose. “They have to repeat it.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Oh God.” Adam groaned. “Justin, you absolute dumbass.”
“I know. It just sort of…happened.”
“Yeah, thank you, Captain Chronic. You want to get healthy for the New Year? You should take up yoga. You wanna know why? Because you’re gonna have to suck your own damn dick from now on.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t help,” said Bunny. “Jesus, Justin. Why didn’t you stop her? Why couldn’t you be the adult in the room for once in your life?”
“He tried, okay?” said Rose. “He told me not to do it. Several times. But I did it anyway. I made the mistake. Me. Because I am also an adult.”
“Are you?” Bunny waved an arm over the debris of half-baked drug test paraphernalia. “Because I’m not seeing a lot of adult decision making going on in this kitchen. I’m seeing a lot of ‘Oops, I’m twenty and my frontal lobes haven’t finished developing yet,’ but not a great many adult decisions going down. Long term consequences, Rose. These are things that exist in the world.”
Justin rubbed his temples. “Okay, can you stop screaming and flailing your arms around like Kermit for five fucking seconds? Because it’s not helping.”
“Oh, really? And what would help, Justin? Because I’d love to hear your thoughts on this matter.”
“Piss,” said Justin.
“Piss?”
“Yeah. Clean piss. Can you piss in a cup?”
It wasn’t the most challenging question in the history of the universe, but in that moment it had Adam stumped. Yes, he could pee in a cup. Whether what came out would pass a drug test…that was a whole different ball game. Two pairs of eyes, blue and brown, smug and smugger, gazed back at him.
“Shut up,” he said, in response to what both of them were thinking. “I’m thirty-two and I’m not wearing an electronic tag, so shut up.”
Rose nonchalantly inspected her manicure. “Hey, remember that time you went to prison for weed? Long-term consequences, Bunny. How’s that working out for you?”
“You little…”
Justin giggled. “Aw. She takes after you. It’s cute.”
“Shut your goddamn bong hole. I can’t believe you right now.” Adam gazed over the ruin of the kitchen. “Do you bozos actually think any of this is going to help you pass a test?”
“I don’t know,” said Rose, getting up from the table and digging another box out of a drugstore bag. It was a home testing kit. “But let’s find out, because I’ve got a full bladder and a thing I need to pee on.”
“Jesus Christ. It’s starting to sound like Helena’s perfect Saturday night around here.”
Rose left the room. The smug slid off Justin’s face, leaving him looking sheepish once more.
“I hope you’re thoroughly fucking ashamed of yourself,” said Adam. “I know you and shame have never been on the best of terms, but for God’s sake, Justin – what were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t thinking,” said Justin. “I was baked.”
Adam sighed. “Well, at least you admit it, I guess.”
“Look, it’s not so bad. I’m sure we know someone who doesn’t do drugs.”
Did they? “Justin, most of my friends are drag queens. Do you know how much drag queens love coke? That’s probably how Venus wound up with a ‘deviated septum’, now I think about it. I expect she sneezed and the whole fucking thing shot out and landed on the glass topped coffee table.” Justin had his phone out. “Who are you texting now?”
“Sheila.”
“What the fuck would Sheila know about passin…oh, no, wait. Good thinking.”
“She might even have some synthetic piss that’s better than the stuff on Amazon,” said Justin.
“You can buy synthetic piss on Amazon?”
“Next day delivery,” said Justin. “But the reviews aren’t great. One star. Mostly apple juice.”
Adam took a moment to digest this awful new information. “This is so not how they imagined the twenty-first century was gonna look, back in the fifties and sixties. We were all gonna have flying cars and silver clothes, but instead we’ve got guaranteed next day delivery on synthetic urine.”
A toilet flushed, and Rose came back in.
“So?” said Justin.
Rose shook her head. “Nope,” she said, and clutched her belly. “Still dirty. And that pectin stuff has made my stomach feel all kinds of not-right.”
“Isn’t it supposed to do that? It, like, fat-soluble or something. And so is THC, so they bind to each other and you just…poop it out.”
Adam
got up from the table. “I don’t think I can watch this.”
“What?”
“Watch you two practice weird science and inflict the worst things on a human colon since Haribo sold that five pound bag of sugar free gummi bears. I’m gonna go find someone who is willing to pass a drug test for us.”
“Bunny, relax,” said Justin. “Sheila will know how to pass. She’s Sheila the Dealer, for fuck’s sake. And even if she doesn’t, I can always harvest piss from Nana.”
Adam rolled the phrase around in his head for a moment, like a rare but still deeply unpleasant wine. “‘Harvest piss from Nana.’ You know, I always wondered what those words meant—”
“—she’s got a bag, you see—”
“—and now I regret my curiosity more than you could ever imagine.”
Adam went downstairs. Hu and Helena were on the stage, tinkering with the effects for New Year’s Eve.
“…we could always jazz it up with a little fireball effect,” Helena was saying.
“No. No, no, no. I think we’ve had enough fire this year, don’t you?”
Adam lurked. Helena, halfway up a stepladder, didn’t see him. “Point. Okay, so just the glitter bombs. And the dry ice.”
“You’ve also got the balloon drop at midnight,” said Hu. “Less is more.”
Helena snorted as she descended the ladder. “Did you seriously just use the words ‘less is more’ to a drag queen? Oh, let me go find that air pump. There’s no way I’m blowing up all those balloons the old fashioned way, not after last time.”
Ryan’s birthday. Adam had got way too many balloons, and the night before they had all sat around drinking and huffing red wine fumes into balloons. Helena’s ears had popped, and Justin had hyperventilated and had to lie down.
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