I did a double take. “Like Lassie?”
“No, like the goddess of death and destruction,” she countered, rolling her eyes.
“Ohhh, Kali,” I said, laughing at my mistake. “The one who wears skulls around her neck and carries a big knife?”
The girl looked surprised. “That’s the one.”
“Good namesake,” I said, pouring a splash of rum into the blender. “Your mother give it to you?” I couldn’t imagine Chris' mother ever naming a child Kali.
“Colleen,” the girl said, rolling her eyes again. “But I like Kali.”
“I like it, too,” I replied, turning on the blender and talking over it. “So are you in college?”
“Yeah, sophomore year,” she said, talking over the blender, too. “You?”
I laughed, turning off the switch and pulling off the lid so I could start pouring drinks. “I finished college eons ago.”
Kelly came up behind me, her hip rubbing up against mine. “No drinks for you, missy,”
she said to Kali with a wink. “You’re not twenty-one.”
“Oh, come on,” I said, sliding a daiquiri across the counter to her. “Pretend we’re in Canada. Besides, if she’s going to have to put up with us old folks dressed in lingerie all night, she better start drinking now.”
Kali laughed, picking up the daiquiri and taking a sip.
The doorbell rang and Kelly went to get it. The daiquiris were soon dispensed and half gone, and I started working on making more. Kali helped me, going to get more ice from the freezer.
She tipped my hand a little while I was pouring the rum, making more splash into the mix. “Hey!”
“Come on, old girl,” she said with a smile. “Let’s make it interesting.”
I snorted. “Hey listen, I’m not that old.”
“I noticed,” she said, putting another cherry into her mouth and sucking. I flushed, pouring another set of drinks.
Kali reached above my head and opened a cupboard, taking out two shot glasses. She sat back on the stool and poured rum into each, sliding one across to me.
“This is how you do it,” she said, tipping her head back and drinking the shot, making a little sour face at the end. I watched, fascinated. The most I ever drank was wine. She nudged the other glass toward me. “Now, you.”
“I don’t know,” I said, my fingers touching the little glass. She winked at me, digging for something in her pocket. I lifted the glass to my lips.
“Fast,” Kali advised. “Just swallow.”
That’s what I did, the alcohol burning my throat. I choked a little, gasping.
“Awesome.” Kali grinned, taking the glass back and pouring us each another.
“Now, let’s do this one together. You ready?”
“Okay.” I picked up the shot glass, my chest warm already from the alcohol. Kali counted, one, two, three, and we drank the shot together, looking at each other with silly grins and watering eyes.
“What’s your name?” Kali asked me.
“Tara,” I replied, watching her fill the shot glasses again.
“That’s quite an outfit, Tara,” she said, raising her glass to me and waiting for me to do the same. I did, flushing at her compliment. I was already starting to feel buzzed.
“Thanks. It was all Kelly’s idea,” I said and she was counting again and we were drinking some more, but somehow there was more rum in the shot glass in front of me.
“I know, she wanted me to wear one, too.” Kali snorted, and I noticed she had pulled a little tin box out of her pocket. She opened it, putting a little pill into her mouth and washing it down with the shot.
Curious, I asked, “What’s that?”
“Ecstasy,” she said, smiling and pouring herself another.
I drank another shot with her, feeling everything growing fuzzy around the edges.
“What does it do?” I asked. I loved the name of it. Ecstasy. “Does it make you hallucinate?”
“No… it won’t hurt you,” she assured me. “It just makes you feel… really good. It heightens all your senses. Everything around you becomes a sensual experience.”
It sounded like heaven. I stared at the tin box on the counter, licking my lips.
“You want one?” she offered, holding a pill out to me on her palm and pocketing the tin. I hesitated. I'd never done any sort of drugs. I hadn’t even smoked pot in college.
“Come on, you two!” Kelly poked her head into the kitchen, and it was the first time I noticed that everyone had migrated somewhere else and Kali and I were alone.
“Yeah, yeah,” Kali said, grabbing a daiquiri and standing up.
“Wait,” I said, catching her hand. She smiled, turning her palm into mine and giving me the pill. I put it into my mouth, taking my own daiquiri and swallowing it down.
“So, do you have a boyfriend to model any of this stuff for?” I asked, following Kali toward the living room.
“Nope,” she replied, sitting on the loveseat and patting the spot next to her. “Not so much into them.”
I sank into the seat beside her. “Boys?” I asked. “You’re not into boys?”
“I like the other kind better,” she replied with a sideways smile, her eyes on the belly dancer girl, who was showing off some moves in the corner.
“Oh!” I looked over at the hostess, who was getting her act together at the other end of the room, just to have something to look at. The hostess started talking but I didn’t really hear her for a while. I was thinking about the fact that the young girl sitting next to me, who wasn’t even quite drinking age, knew emphatically that she liked “the other kind” better.
I was curious. The thought of this young girl with another woman was making me warm. Or maybe it was the alcohol. Or perhaps it was the little pill I'd swallowed. I looked over at the belly dancer woman gyrating her hips in slow, easy circles. I was fascinated with the motion, remembering Kelly dancing with me, her mouth suddenly on mine. Everything felt all tangled up in my head.
I wasn’t really paying attention to much of anything, and yet it felt like I was paying attention to everything all at once-Kali’s bare arm brushing against mine, the sound and feel of Kelly’s voice leaning over to whisper something into my ear. I couldn’t even remember the words.
The hostess, I think her name was Jennifer, clapped her hands to get our attention and said, “Ok, let’s play the alphabet game to get into the mood.”
The mood for what, I wondered? I caught on pretty quick-I think I was already in the mood. The idea was to go around the room and think of a “sexy word” for every
letter in the alphabet. Whoever couldn’t come up with one had to… do something. I hadn’t heard that part.
“G-string,” Kelly said, looking over at me.
“Uhhh.” I looked blankly at the brown carpet. “Hooters?”
Kelly snorted in the chair on the other side of me.
“Ice,” said Kali.
“That’s not sexy,” I whispered to her.
Kali nudged my hip with hers. “For an old gal, you got a lot to learn.”
I flushed, imagining what someone might do sexually with ice.
And around it went again. No one missed any, but there were some real stretches. The pink teddy woman said, “money,” and everyone laughed. The sound was like bells and I stared around at all the women, like angels sitting and chatting in their flowing attire. The cheerleader giggled and said, “vibrator,” which just got me thinking about mine sitting at home. Then the cat woman said, “Winnebago,” which wasn’t sexy at all, but she had some story about sex in one which had everyone laughing hysterically.
“Y” was mine, and I looked over at Kali and said, “Young,” although I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t seem to help saying what came into my head.
She licked her lips, her eyes flicking from mine to the hands in her lap. It was “Z,”