Link to Part 2
She tells me to bite her again, and I feel her body react as my teeth rake her flesh. After a low and sustained moan of satisfaction she tells me to do it once more.
The “home cinema” is just a big rec room. There’s a rowing machine and a weight bench in an otherwise empty corner. No weights, though. A few folding chairs are set up against the back wall, and an L-shaped sofa in the middle of the room holds a few people. A few more lie on big throw pillows and bean bags close to the TV. Dawn of the Dead is over and Will is switching out the tape for The Lost Boys. As he turns the lights back down I lean back in my folding chair and watch the movie for awhile. I nod at the First Couple as they walk in, just as all the guys are hanging off of the trestle bridge. I’m hoping they’ll come sit close to me, but instead they take an unoccupied stretch of floor in front of the sofa.
Right after the Bill and Ted guy gets staked, I notice them getting up from where they’ve been sitting. I wonder if that’s why they’re leaving. I don’t think Grace has any aversion to on-screen blood and gore; I’m positive The Fly is one of her favorite movies, and that’s way grosser than this. Or am I thinking of somebody else? She gives me a smile as they head out. See? She’s really sweet.
I decide to head back upstairs to the nucleus of the party. The family room is where all that throbbing music is coming from. There’s a coffee table near the back wall with a boombox and a stack of CDs. The player is wired to a couple huge stereo speakers and yes, it appears both are up against the wall the family room shares with the kitchen.
An improvised dance floor has been set up in the center of the room, with all the furniture moved out toward the walls. There’s a sectional sofa and a few folding chairs, plus a couple small end tables that are mostly covered with red cups. Right now “All That She Wants” by Ace of Base is playing, but I wish it was something like “The Monster Mash” or “Purple People Eater”. They’re perfect for a Halloween party, and people can dance to them no problem. But this is the mixtape era, and no one has ever heard of streaming. You listen to whatever CDs are available or you listen to the radio.
I take in the assembly of partiers to see if I recognize anyone, but most of what I’m seeing are costumes, not faces. The Crow. Someone in a Devil mask. Howard Stern and the ice skater from the kitchen, the latter of whom I just realized is holding a crowbar. A girl in a neck-to-feet skeleton costume but no mask or makeup. A guy in a Giants uniform dances with seven-months-pregnant Little Red Riding Hood. Morticia Addams, bent over and grabbing the floor, grinds against Gomez so scandalously that Carolyn Jones might turn over in her grave. Off to the side, a witch grooves elegantly and dreamily all by herself. I walk around the dance floor to a sliding glass door that leads out to a concrete patio where about a dozen people hang out under soft yellow outdoor lighting.
A guy dressed as Urkel rushes inside just as I step out into a cool, calm night. A few white bedsheet ghosts tied to the overhang sway slowly in the breeze. There’s a cooler loaded with ice and cans of beer on the ground by the door, and a few high-top tables arranged around the patio with various costumed ghouls gathered around.
Someone yells, “Stafford-Reed Wednesday night!” That’s the teacher and the start time of my Intro Business class, so I turn to see three people looking my way from a table at the far edge of the patio. I walk over.
There’s a guy and a girl, and a very tall person in a gruesome-looking mask and a trenchcoat who I assume is a guy. In fifteen years I’ll make friends with the tallest person I’ve ever known, a six-foot-ten female basketball player. That’ll teach me to make assumptions about height and gender. The first two people hold red cups, and the tall guy in the mask – Jamison, I presume – has a can of Bud Light on the table in front of him. There’s an assortment of little candy bars on the table between them.
The other guy is dressed in a 1970s Oakland As uniform complete with curly Rollie Fingers mustache. It’s kind of ironic that I’ve seen so many baseball player costumes at this party. The girl’s costume, meanwhile, seems to be a cop who moonlights as a stripper. A convincing police hat sits on top of her vibrant red hair. Her light-blue short-sleeve uniform shirt clings tightly to her ample tits, the top three or four buttons undone. Instead of Class B uniform pants she wears a tight black skirt, fishnets, and high heels.
I have no idea what Rollie Fingers’ actual name is but I know the cop is Brenda. I introduce myself, since they probably would have shouted my name rather than our teacher’s name if they knew it. Then I show how observant I am and address the two people I know by their names. The tall guy confirms that he is in fact Jamison, though he doesn’t take off the mask when he says it. And Rollie Fingers’ name is Kevin, which I forget almost as soon as he says it.
Rollie Fingers compliments my costume, which I threw together this evening when I got home from work. It’s just a pair of black pants, black dress shoes, and a white long-sleeved shirt. I’m also wearing a formal black vest I borrowed from my dad, because Dracula wears a vest, or so I think. As I will learn in about ten years when I’m really into Doctor Who, it’s called a waistcoat. The rest of the costume is just makeup and plastic fangs.
Further costume-related small talk is made. When Brenda confirms that she is a sexy cop, I immediately reply with “You certainly are”, and it’s somehow not the most awkward come-on I’ve ever attempted. She thanks me for the compliment, but I can’t tell if she’s actually receptive.
“So you guys know Will?” I ask after the small talk gives way to silence. It’s not the most interesting or intelligent question I could ask, but it’s the only one that comes to mind in the moment. They tell me they all went to high school with him, and confirm that his house has been the “party house” since sophomore year.
“What’s with the guy on the porch? Is he someone from the neighborhood?”
“Guy on the porch?” Brenda asks as she tears open a Kit Kat wrapper, then looks to the guys. “Do you know?” They don’t. I wonder if she’s dating either of them.
“Yeah, he had on a denim jacket and a black cap. Really skinny guy. He was standing on the porch when I got here. He was yelling for someone to let him in.”
“And he didn’t just, like, walk in?” Jamison asks through his gross-out mask. He lifts it up so he can have a swig of beer from the can, then lowers it. I don’t get a good look at his face.
“He was weird. I think he was on something.”
“That’s creepy,” Brenda says. “Maybe it’s someone Will knows.” She licks chocolate off her lips and it’s nice to look at.
I shake my head. “He said he didn’t. I thought maybe he started shit and got thrown out. But like you said -” Here I nod at Jamison – “the door was wide open. He could have just walked in.”
Rollie Fingers waves someone over, then turns to me. “There’s a couple friends of ours you should meet.” We’re joined by a guy dressed kind of like Jim Carrey in The Mask – yellow Dick Tracy fedora, pale yellow suit jacket, tan pants, and a visaged slathered in green makeup rather than a mask – and the witch I’d seen dancing all alone. A pointy, wide-brimmed hat sits atop her long, black hair. She’s also got on a black dress with purple highlights and sheer, billowy sleeves, plus heeled black boots that go up to her ankles and add three or four inches to her diminutive stature. She’s pretty cute, and while it’s true that I think most girls are cute, that shouldn’t lessen her attractiveness in your mind.
The newcomers’ names are Pat (The Mask) and Tiffany (the witch). I’ve got a class with her, and I ask if it’s Chemistry 101 with Cervantes. She says it’s Spanish 101 with Mcallum, Tuesday and Thursday mornings at ten.
In the span of two minutes I learn Pat is a third-year journalism student at Berkeley, he’s related to Will (maybe a cousin, definitely not his brother), he drove here in a decommissioned army jeep (no idea if he owns it), he shaved his head for the costume, and his girlfriend is in her second trimester.
I actually thought about applying to Berkeley.
Continued in Part 4.