CHAPTER 19
We end up walking around London all morning, just doing some sightseeing, without actually going in any of the buildings and being absorbed into the boring history of the place. It’s odd, walking by these buildings that are hundreds of years old, and they’re somehow still together.
Give or take a few stones. Everything in America is new, and the old stuff gets knocked down and replaced, because we have no sentimentality. There are buildings that have been standing for over six hundred years here, and they might have just been a place that a king ate at once. It’s marvelous, and Ashley’s taking pictures left and right. We get a couple to take our picture in front of an old house, and they make it look like shit because we’re all out of focus, but Ashley doesn’t seem to care. She’s just glad to have the picture.
The leaves here have changed to the point of dying, and although it’s a bit on the sad side, it’s also the sign that things are changing. The earth is spinning around the sun and has reached a destination in which it’s cold where it was hot and hot where it was cold, and then I start thinking about living in these houses when they were built without air conditioning and it makes me not miss the past so much.
We get lunch at a place not far from the hotel, and the food isn’t great, but it’s okay for the price we’re paying. The waiter forgets that we’re there most of the time, often walking by our table, and refilling other people’s glasses. He drops off the check when we’re in the middle of eating the entrée.
“Maybe he knows we won’t tip well because we’re American and because we’re young.” Ashley says.
“I don’t give a fuck if he does think that, it’s still his job to wait on us. And he’s not doing a great job at it.”
“We’re still going to tip well, aren’t we?”
“That’s the question. If we do tip well, then he might keep up this way of treating his customers, because he assumes they’ll always tip well. If we don’t tip well, he’ll be right in his assumption that we weren’t going to tip well, but the only reason we weren’t going to tip well is because he’s a shitty fucking waiter. So I’m going to leave it up to you.” She looks at the check for a moment, and then makes a slash through the tip, and writes a note saying ‘You would’ve gotten a tip if you didn’t suck at your job’ with a smiley face at the end of it, just to let him know how much she cares.
As we’re walking along the sidewalk, it starts raining, and I take my jacket off and hold it over our heads.
“You love me, don’t you?” She says, still walking along.
“What?”
“Admit it. You love me.”
“So what if I do?” I say, not looking at her.
“Then it would make it a lot less awkward that I love you.”
I turn to her and smile, then I kiss her on the lips, and the rain gets all over us, so I bring the jacket back up and she holds my arm and puts her head on my shoulder and we walk along in the rain, without a care in the fucking world.
I call Rachel around nine that night, and she sounds like she’s already drunk. She tells me there’s a party she’s going to, but that she needs us to pick her up, if that would be okay. And that the party is a little bit farther away in Oxford. I run the message by Ashley, she gives it the thumbs up, and we get in the car and go to her place.
“Sorry, sorry. I don’t mean to be a burden. It’s just, I don’t have a car here, and the guy I know who does have a car is passed out at his friend’s house. So, you can see the predicament I’m in.”
“It’s okay. We don’t mind. Where’s this party at exactly?” She pulls out a cigarette, then before she lights it, she checks her phone, answering a text.
“It’s at a friend of a friend’s house. My friend will be there though, so that’s our ticket in.
She just texted me the address.” She reads it out to me and I put it in the GPS.
“Is it going to be like the party last night?” Ashley asks.
“Yeah, basically, only a little classier. I think. I’m not sure. I don’t think it could get much worse than the party last night. I think I ended up fucking three different guys. I don’t remember now.” She lights the cigarette and takes a long drag.
“Well, it’s not too hard to get classier than that” Ashley says.
The party is at a mansion in a very quiet part of Oxford, and it looks a lot classier than the party did last night. The house is big, but still small in comparison to Ashley’s. Rachel says that this family is old money, and that they don’t flaunt it as much in England as they do in America. It’s a big square brick house with what looks like six chimneys poking out of the roof and a ton of cars in the driveway. Mostly BMWs or Mercedes.
“That doesn’t make them any richer.” I say.
“That doesn’t make them any poorer either.” She says back.
Rachel leads us in, and she doesn’t knock on the door, because she says her friend is inside already. The music isn’t loud, and it’s not party music. They’re playing Mozart and Beethoven, and it’s really confusing the fuck out of me that people would want to have a party and play this, but for some reason, it fits in with the feel of things. Everyone there is extremely well dressed, but in a snobbish kind of way. While Rachel’s tits are barely in her shirt, and Ashley is wearing something even more conservative than last night, but even she looks like a slob in comparison with some of these girls. Rachel runs and meets her friend in the hallway, and Ashley and I are hanging back, watching them reunite, and talk about how long it’s been since they’ve seen each other and all of the other boring small talk you make with people you don’t see on a regular basis. Her name is Elizabeth, and she looks like someone who is very boring, seeing as she’s wearing her dark brown hair up, and isn’t dressed as openly as some of the girls at the party. She doesn’t have a skirt on, she has a pair of khaki pants, and tall boots, but the pants are skin tight, and she has a polo on, with a jacket on top of it. Rachel introduces us, and that’s about it for our conversation, as she turns around and becomes very disinterested in anything dealing with us.
“I feel like this is a hunting club.” Ashley whispers to me as we follow Rachel down the long hallway.
“Maybe they’ll hunt each other, and we can just watch.” Rachel leads us to a bedroom, that’s about the size of a small apartment, and there are two girls making out on a bed, while some guy watches with just his boxers on.
“It’s a game they play. They try to see how fast they can make the guy get a hard on.”
“It’s very strange.” I say.
“I played last week. There’s nothing all that sexual about it. Just a test to see how easy it is to turn you guys on.”
“It’s a shame you can’t do that with women.” I say.
The girls start undressing each other, and the guy loses this round, so they get another guy up on the bed.
“Come do lines. You’re stuck here for the night, anyway.” Rachel says, and she gets on her knees and does two lines off a mirror on the dresser, then cuts up four lines for me and
Ashley. We take ours and I can tell it’s good stuff, which certainly fits the clientele. I take a Xanax out of my pocket and chew it up, and then sit down on a couch in the room beside Rachel and Ashley. Elizabeth is one of the girls on the bed now, and she’s doing pretty well, with the lip biting, and the unbuttoning of things that are only zipped down, but not taken off. The guy who’s up there looks like he’s about to come because he gets a hard on the second she unbuttons her pants.
“Do you want to have a go at it?” Rachel says to me.
“Umm, I’ll pass for now.”
“Come on, don’t be a pussy. Me and Ashley will get up and do it for you. Won’t we Ashley?” I look at Ashley and she looks down at the floor and then back up and nods.
“Damn you, woman.”
Ashley pulls me onto the bed, and I take my pants off, and I’m just lying there in my boxers, with a small crowd of spectators gathered around me, and if it wasn’t for the Xanax, I’d probably be a little embarrassed, but I’m not. They start looking at each other, and Rachel kisses
Ashley on the neck and Ashley moans, and she starts kissing up to her mouth, where they make out for about a minute, checking to see if that got me started, but I’m not turned on by it yet. Ashley takes off her sweater, and she’s only got her bra on underneath, and it’s polka dot, and her tits are pretty perfect looking in that bra, and I look at her, and then Rachel starts to kiss down her neck, and slips off one of the straps, then goes back to kissing her on the mouth, while
Rachel starts slipping out of her top, and she’s got a red lacy bra on, and her tits are basically falling out. So much so that I can make out the top part of her nipple, and she just undoes the bra, and now her and Ashley are kissing, Ashley in her bra, Rachel topless, their hands going all over the place, and all of the guys in the room have hard-ons, except for me, and Rachel looks over at me and I’m shaking my head. She pouts a little, and then lays Ashley back on the bed and undoes her button and starts unzipping her pants, and Ashley shimmies out of them, and they fall onto the floor. Then she starts creeping her fingers down Ashley’s stomach, and the closer she gets to her panties, the harder it is for me to not pop, but the second her middle finger goes underneath, I lose it.
“Damn. That was harder than I thought!” Ashley says, putting her sweater back on and picking her pants up off the floor.
“I think that’s a new record.” Elizabeth says, and the guys sitting down all start clapping. I put my pants back on, and sit back down and Ashley comes and kisses me on the cheek.
“Now, it’s time for the real show.” Elizabeth says, and she pulls out a bag of pills and one of the guys asks if she’s seen their friend Molly, and she says ‘I’ve got twelve Molly’s right here in this bag.”
She starts handing them out like candy, and all of the people in the room are fat little kids grabbing at them, and putting them in their mouths. Ashley takes two, one for me and her, and I hesitate taking mine, until she takes hers.
“Are you nervous?” Ashley asks.
“Kind of. But I’ll be okay. Where’s the bathroom?”
“Down the hall, first door on your left.” Elizabeth says.
I get up and leave this room and knock on the bathroom door, but nobody’s in there, so I go in and take a piss, looking around at the bathroom, with the heated floors and the grotto-like sink. I wash my hands, and the hand towel is one of those towels that just looks nice, but doesn’t dry shit, so I wipe it off on my pants. When I open the door, I forget which way I came from, and take a left and start walking down the hall. Everything looks different than it did when I came in, and then I realize I still don’t have my shoes on from when I was on the bed. I walk into the living room, and everyone there is smoking weed.
“Where are your shoes, bro?” One of the guys says and they all bust out laughing. I turn around and walk back down the hall and past the bathroom, and take a left and find the original room. But things in the room have changed. People are no longer just sitting around.
People are naked, and two people are on the bed. Ashley and Rachel are kissing on the couch, and I’m not at all bothered by it, but very turned on. Ashley looks up at me and pulls me in for a kiss, and while she’s kissing me, I can feel Rachel biting my ear. Then Rachel gets up and pulls Ashley along with her, and I follow Ashley. We go into this bedroom which is pretty small compared to the one we were just in, and Rachel takes her top off and then undoes her bra, and takes off her pants, to where she’s just in her panties. And Ashley does the same thing, only she leaves on her bra and panties.
“Take off your clothes.” Rachel says to me and I listen to her, and they’re on the bed, kissing already.
I walk over to them, completely naked, and I start kissing Ashley, and Rachel starts kissing me, so I kiss Rachel back, but only for a second, before I go back to Ashley. My head is very swimmy at this time, and I’m not sure who is who, but before I know it, I’m fucking someone, and someone else is sitting on my face.
When I wake up Rachel is naked, lying to my right asleep, and Ashley is to my left asleep but back in her underwear. I look down, and see that I’m naked still, and my pants and shirt are sitting near the door. It’s light outside, and I get up very quietly to put on my clothes, and go to the bathroom. I walk back into the living room to see the damage control after last night, and see if anyone else is awake or just to see what time it is. The living room is empty, and so is the kitchen. I imagine everyone chose a room and stuck with it. But I go outside and notice that all of the cars are gone except for mine and two others. Which look like they haven’t moved in days. I start to get a little nervous, and wonder where the fuck everyone went, when I close the door and turn around, Elizabeth is walking towards me, in her bra with a blanket around her waist.
“Hey, where did everybody go?” She looks at me confused.
“Where did who go?”
“Everyone that was here last night at the party.”
“Oh, they went back to their houses. Why are you still here?”
“I fell asleep.” She looks at me, then turns back around and goes into the kitchen.
I walk back into the bedroom we were in, and wake up Ashley and Rachel. They’re both confused as I am, but I tell them we have to go. That it doesn’t feel right being here anymore. Ashley kind of looks at me funny, and then curls her lips, and puts on her sweater and pants on and Rachel rolls out and puts her clothes on and they follow me outside. Elizabeth is no longer in the kitchen.
“Why are we leaving? Where is everyone?” Rachel asks, getting in the backseat of the car.
“I don’t know. Elizabeth said they all left. I don’t like staying over when the rest of the party has left. It’s awkward as fuck. I was expecting at least twenty people to still be here.”
I peel out of the driveway and make our way back to the hotel. Ashley’s staring out the window, her legs pushed against the door. I try to hold her hand, and she holds mine back, but her fingers aren’t down.
“What’s wrong?” I ask her. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure, because you seem upset? Is it something that I did?” She sighs, and then turns around to look at Rachel, and Rachel coughs.
“You were fucking me the entire time last night. You never touched Ashley.” “What? Are you kidding?”
“No, but you kept calling me Ashley, and her Rachel.”
“Then it’s just an honest mix up, that’s all. I don’t even remember. I don’t remember anything from last night really. Except when you two were on the bed.” I say, honestly.
“It was just strange, that’s all. You’d expect someone to remember what their girlfriend looked like, even if they were high. You were a good lay though, so I don’t mean any offense that way. None to you either, Ashley.” Rachel says, real casually like it’s all okay.
“Oh, none taken.” Ashley says.
“I’m really sorry.” I say, to Ashley, and she just keeps looking out of the window.
I don’t say anything else, because I know no matter what I say, aside from that I have in fact poisoned her, and that talking to me will be the only way she’ll get the antidote. I hate this. When girls clam up, and don’t talk. When they don’t want to talk about what’s bothering them. They’d rather keep it in their heads, for as long as they can, and spin it around as many times as possible, until it comes out with so much thinking and anger behind it that no man can really say anything in the world to calm her down. I don’t remember any of it happening, really.
“Sometimes, people come to these parties with girlfriends and leave with broken hearts.”
I start thinking that it was just a slip up; I’m not attracted to Rachel, outside of the fact that she has a good body. She’s not funny, or smart like Ashley. But why did I fuck her instead?
I try my hardest to analyze it again and again in my head on the ride back, but I can’t come to a conclusion, all the while, the two of them aren’t saying a word, so it’s just me in the front of the car, humming Norwegian Wood and tapping the steering wheel.
I drop Rachel off, and she doesn’t say anything besides thanks, and doesn’t tell me to call her anytime soon, which I don’t expect her to, at least after last night. Ashley and I get back up to the hotel and we both shower, but we don’t really speak to each other. She goes and lies down in the bed and I lie down beside her, but I don’t touch her. I just let her lie there, and I don’t say anything.
“How could you get the two of us mixed up? We don’t look at all alike. I just don’t understand how the fuck that would happen.” She says, her back still turned to me, and I don’t say anything, I just lay there, because I have a feeling she has more she wants to say.
“I mean, I know you were high and everything, and I understand that much. But how could you get us mixed up?”
“I honestly don’t remember any of it even happening. So, I’m going to plead ignorance on this one. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it. I would choose you over Rachel every day of the year.” She spins around, and it doesn’t seem like she’s as mad anymore.
“Would you choose me even if I had a disability? Like, I’m missing an arm or a leg.”
“Yes.” I say seriously.
“What if I had a hunchback? To where it looked like I should be ringing bells or some shit.” I pause a bit.
“Why are you hesitating?” She says, and I’m looking at the ceiling.
“I’m just imagining you with a hunchback, and trying not to get an erection.” I laugh and she starts hitting me until she climbs on top of me and kisses me.
“That won’t happen again, will it?”
“No. If it does, you can cut off my dick for all I care.” I wrap my arms around her, and we stay in the hotel room the rest of the day and just order up room service and watch movies. There are a couple of foreign films without subtitles, so we talk over them, and eat ice cream and the awkwardness of last night is lifted off of us, and forgotten about. At eight, she starts getting dressed, while I’m lying on the couch.
“Where are you going?”
“I thought it would be nice to go around to a bar or whatever. Local bar. Try the kind of beer they have here. I don’t know. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.” She rolls her eyes, so I get up and get dressed. Real casual, just jeans and a New Order t-shirt, and I brush my teeth.
When we get outside, it’s chilly, but we both have on coats, and the wind kind of cuts at our faces from time to time, but we don’t really seem to care all that much. Ashley puts her hood over her head, and we pass people who are still wearing their summer wear, and can spot out tourists like us pretty easily. Some of them laugh as we walk by, and I think about turning around and saying something, but I don’t have the energy, and sadly, I don’t care enough to do anything about it. We get to a pub that looks pretty packed. It is, and full of old people that are drunk out of their minds. We try to find a seat somewhere, but the bar is full, and there’s one booth open, and one booth behind it with a girl who’s sitting by herself. I smile at her and she smiles back, and we sit down and take off our jackets because it feels like it’s about a hundred fucking degrees inside the bar, and I’m already sweating.
An old lady, probably in her fifties or so comes up to us and asks us what we want to drink, we both say water, and then ask her to bring the best beer they have on tap. She checks our ID’s and laughs, and then goes back to being a fat, disgusting old lady, who still waits on tables to make a living.
“Is this what you imagined?” I say to Ashley.
“Not really. Less old people I guess. More college kids, just drinking and fucking around. But I can deal with this.” She says, and looks through the menu. I don’t bother flipping through mine, because I wouldn’t eat anything here anyway .Probably just something they threw in the microwave or the deep fryer, and then put it on a plate. Ashley just points to the chips, which we have to call them now, because we’re in England, and if we call them fries, we’ll be laughed at even more than before.
The waitress comes back, all hobbled and fat, and her sweat is pouring off into our waters, which I make a note of and remind myself to tell Ashley to not drink the water, no matter how thirsty she might be. The beer is tall and dark, and I don’t know the name of it, and neither does Ashley, but it tastes okay, and it’s our first English beer, so we imagine we’ll have to try others. Ashley orders a double side order of chips, and the waitress walks away without saying anything.
“This is why they keep getting shit tips. They’re not personable. They don’t seem to give a shit about the customers.” She says, drinking the beer.
“I’m beginning to think the same actually. But, what can you do, really? I think it might be the fact that we’re tourists. Probably why she laughed when she looked at our ID’s.” She nods, and drinks another sip of her beer.
The girl in the booth in front of us gets up, as a man in a very black suit that looks unusually well fitting, shakes her hand, and sits down in front of her. She seems nervous about the handshake, and I can see that she’s sweating, but I can’t tell if it’s from the temperature, or because of the man she’s meeting.
“Hey” I whisper to Ashley. “Can you listen in on the conversation going on in the booth behind you at all?”
“I don’t know. I’ll try. It’s kind of hard to hear in this bar. Why?”
“Just curiosity, that’s all.” She leans her head back to the side of the booth, closest to the window and cups her ear.
“What can you hear?”
“Muffled introductions. He says his name is Daniel. Her name is Michelle. Maybe they’re here on a date?” I look at her, and think for a while, while she’s still listening. The fat waitress stops by their table, and takes their orders, and then walks away.
“What did they order?”
“He ordered a scotch on the rocks. She ordered a long island. At least, I think that’s what they said. I can’t tell.”
“Any food?”
“No, no food. Not yet at least.”
“First dates don’t order alcohol as their first drink.” I say to her, looking over at the bar. “Some do. It helps loosen up the conversation. Makes the people more relaxed. I’ve ordered alcohol as first drinks before, but it didn’t end up working out too well. I just made an ass of myself.” She goes back to listening, and her eyes start getting wide.
“What is it?” I say, and lean in close to her.
“He’s asking for pictures, and she says she only has a couple, and he says a couple will do.”
“Weird. Maybe they’re off her dog. Or her kid.” I say.
“No, I don’t think so. He said it very seriously. Like, that’s why they’re meeting.” She shushes me, and I go back to drinking my beer, and I’m sweating pretty hard right now. Alcohol plus heat never equal any good. I’m starting to feel thirsty for something else, but I know that if I order water, it will come with a side of sweat, and that’s something I don’t want, because that’s something I already have sitting in front of me in all of its disgustingness.
“They’re pictures of her.” Ashley whispers. “How can you tell?”
“He’s commenting on the size of her breasts, and her rib cage. How long her hair is, little features about her body.”
“Maybe she’s a model?” I say, but then think about how she looked, and she wasn’t model material. Unless it was for porn, and even then, that’s a stretch.
“Maybe.” She says.
“I’ve got to use the bathroom.” I get up and walk past the booth, making sure not to turn around, because I’d see his face when I came out.
There’s a problem with the sink, and it blasts hot water and freezing water, and it blasts it too strongly to really deal with. So I slide my hands under an air-dryer and walk outside, noticing that the booth where the man in the dark coat and the girl were sitting at is empty, the drinks hardly touched and some money on the table.
“Where did they go?” I sit down, talking in my normal voice.
“He said that she was perfect, and they both got up and walked out. It’s creepy though. Too creepy. Maybe it’s a sexual thing. Like, he found her off of a dating site.”
“Did you get a look at his face?” “No, never did. Was I supposed to?”
“Ha, no. I never asked you to. Just strange is all. Poor girl.” Our waitress goes missing for the better part of the night, so we go up to the bar and order more beer, and the bartender seems to be a bit nicer than the waitress. Much more personable and much more attractive. Especially in comparison with how fucking ugly our waitress was.
We leave and go back to the hotel room, both a little drunk. But not drunk enough to not know where we’re going. We get up to the room and Ashley gets naked and jumps in the bed. I take this as an invitation, but she’s got her eyes closed by the time I walk back there, so I take my shoes off and lay down on the sofa and turn on the TV.
Tomorrow it’s going to be chilly, so make sure you bring a jacket. Slight chance of rain. Back to you, Kim.
Thanks, Jeff. In bigger news, two people are found shot in their home in Oxford, with nothing stolen, and no evidence as to who the killer might be. It turns to an eyewitness. I know they had a party here the other night, but outside of that, they’ve always been pretty quiet people. Never really doing anything. I told the cops all I know. It’s sick, what happened. Makes me afraid to let people into my house. I fall asleep on the couch, with the news still on, and I have a dream that I’m a weatherman, but I’m watching myself give the weather from third person, like on a TV.
“Hi there, folks. Boy, have we got a rough week ahead of us. It looks like we’re going to have rain every day for the first five days, and then thunderstorms every night. On Tuesday, it looks like the rain is going to turn to blood at some point, and wash away all of the sick people in this city. It’s going to be a nice, warm rain, and I for one am really looking forward to it. For those of us out there who don’t know what I’m talking about, then it’s already too late for you. But I’d say to get your umbrellas out just in case. Who knows? It might save you from slipping down the drain pipes and into the sewer, where your soul will be tormented for eternity. But I wouldn’t count on it. Back to you, Tom.” The camera switches to another man, and it goes for a close up of his face, with a picture of a snake on the screen beside him.
“In other news, a snake in Australia swallows an entire family whole, while they were sleeping. Officials there tried to cut open the snake, but were stunned to find nothing inside but a few pictures of the family, all post mortem. That’s some weird stuff, if you ask me.”
“I agree, Tom. Some crazy things going on in the world today.” It pans to a woman anchor who’s sitting beside Tom.
“A happier story comes from America, where they finally catch a serial killer who had killed over three thousand people. This is a case that’s been going on for ten years, so we’re happy to hear that this guy is no longer out there. I’m sure, as the weatherman said, he’s got a place in the sewers. Along with all of his prostitute victims. Back to you, Tom.” She’s smiling, and I wake up and the news isn’t on anymore.
It’s just some infomercial for knives that can cut through a shoe, and all of these people are giving their two cents on how fucking amazing these knives are. At one point, one of the people ask if it can cut through bone, and they take out a bone of a bird and the knife cuts straight through it, without any problem. I turn off the TV and get in bed with Ashley, who is sound asleep.