A Breath of Rancid Air
Dane
I’m half-asleep when I hear the apartment door slam shut.
I get up and put some clothes on. If someone’s breaking in, I’m not going to be one of those people found dead with their dick out.
Slowly opening the door, I wonder if I shouldn’t go for some kind of weapon, just in case. Leila’s not supposed to be back here for a few more hours, and as far as I know, nobody else has the key to the place.
There she is, though, stumbling around drunk, trying to scoop some peanut butter into her mouth with her bare hands.
I think she’s a bit of a lightweight.
“How you doin’ out here?” I ask, trying to sound concerned and not like I’m thinking of her as that good girl who just got talked into breaking into her parents’ liquor cabinet for the first time.
Not that she’d really know the difference right now.
“Men are stupid,” she slurs.
“No argument here. What are you doing home so early, and, you know, drunk?”
“My boss told me to take the day,” she says, holding her peanut butter hand out and making a snatching motion, “so I took it.”
It would actually be somewhat endearing if I didn’t know that I’m going to be the one who has to clean the whole place up.
“I can see that,” I tell her. “Well, I’m going to go back to—”
“Dane,” she whines. “What is it about me that’s so awful?”
“Awful?” I ask. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, don’t act like you don’t know,” she says.
I’m getting the strong impression that she’s a lot drunker than she thinks she is. Hilarious.
“I don’t think you’re awful,” I tell her. I walk over to her and lightly grab her wrists. “I do, however, think you should wash your hands before you get peanut butter all over the entire apartment.”
“You know, you’re not such a bad guy, Dane,” she says. “I mean, you swear like a jackass and your tattoos look like they were done by a sociophatth—a scossiopthahh—”
“A sociopath?”
“Right!” she says, flicking her wrist in a motion that sends little bits of the chunky peanut butter flying in places I’m positive I’m never going to find.
“What was I saying?” she asks.
“Let’s get you washed up,” I tell her, turning on the kitchen sink. “You were saying that I’m not such a bad guy even though I swear and have tattoos.”
“Yeah,” she says, leaning her head back.
“How much did you have to drink?” I ask.
“Let’s see,” she says, “there was tequila and bourbon…” she’s using her fingers to count. Trying to get her hands under the water is a nightmare. “Oh!” she ejaculates, both of her hands going up in the air, peanut butter landing in one of my favorite eyes. “Then there was the big shot, but I puked, so that makes four!”
“You’re not supposed to mix large quantities of different kinds of alcohol,” I say. “It’ll make you sick.”
“I didn’t drink a lot,” she says. I’m having a bit of trouble believing her. “I had four drinks.”
“Four drinks,” I say. “Sounds like you’d better ease up on that party lifestyle, you crazy animal, you.”
I don’t even get buzzed until shot number six.
After finally persuading her to put her hands under the faucet, I squeeze a generous amount of dish soap into her hand and start rubbing her hands together, hoping she’ll get the idea. Her mind is on different things entirely, though.
“It seems like I can’t attract a decent man,” she tells me. “That is, when I can attract anyone at all.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” I tell her. “You’re a beautiful woman. You can’t hold your liquor worth a damn, but that’s not a crime.”
“You’re so nice,” she says, and I’m starting to get worried.
That’s got to be the first nice thing she’s somewhat willingly said to me.
“I do what I can,” I say, and give up on trying the fantasy of getting her to wash her own hands, cleaning them one at a time, myself.
“I’m not a virgin, you know,” she says.
“That’s really none of my business,” I tell her.
“No, I’ve seen the way you act around me. You think I’m some prude who never does anything crazy.”
On the word crazy, both of her hands go up in the air. Maybe the dish soap will help clean up the bits of peanut butter.
“I think you’re a very nice person who’s having a rough day,” I tell her, and help her get her hands under the water. “Maybe you should dial back the drinking, though.”
“Oh, you don’t know,” she says. “I know you stick your dick out and women just come running, but it’s harder for me.”
And now I’m trying not to laugh.
I finish helping her rinse her hands and I shut off the water. The plan was to give her a towel, but she’s decided to use her pants instead.
Close enough.
“Maybe we should get you to bed,” I tell her.
“I’m not tired.”
“Yeah, but I think you should lie down before you fall down. You seriously only had four drinks?”
“Hey, man, four drinks is a lot for me,” she says.
“Oh, I get that.”
“Maybe help me over to the couch?”
“I think that’s a good idea,” I tell her. “I’ll put on a movie for you.”
“You know, Dane,” she starts.
“Do we have any gum in the house?”
“I almost had sex today.”
“That’s wonderful, Leila,” I tell her, and help guide her to the couch.
“No,” she laughs. “It’s really not. This guy was so stupid.”
“Yeah, we’ve established that men are stupid. You’re going to want to sit down now.”
She doesn’t sit so much as she falls onto the couch.
“I was ready, though,” she says. “I wouldn’t say I was really turned on, but I was ready to just get in there and get it over with so I could get back in the game.”
“Sometimes that’s what you need to move on,” I say absently. “So, are you good? Do you want me to put on a movie or something?”
“Dane?”
Deep breath. “Yeah?”
“Do you think I have a big butt?”
“No,” I answer mechanically. I really don’t know why women ask that question anymore. Everyone knows that there’s only one correct answer.
“Oh, come on, you didn’t even look at it,” she says, rolling onto her side.
For a woman trying to show me her ass, this isn’t the most attractive scene.
“Be honest,” she says. “I need to know.”
I chuckle.
“It’s fine,” I tell her. “So, do you want a thriller? Comedy?”
I turn and walk toward the bookcase where she keeps her movies.
“A foreign film?” I ask as I try to decipher the various French, Italian, and Swedish titles. “Do you actually speak these languages?” I ask.
“Ja,” she says, “sì, oui.”
“That’s pretty impressive.”
“You never answered my question,” she said.
“What question’s that?” I ask, turning around.
Her knees are on the couch and her upper body is resting against the back. Her pants are pulled down around her knees. She’s wearing underwear, but the way she’s trying to fix it to get the best result isn’t doing much to hide her skin.
“Yeah, I think we should get you to bed,” I tell her, shocked. “This isn’t you right now, Leila.”
“Just tell me if I have a nice butt or a dispropriarportionalately…” she sighs. “Is it too big for my body?” she asks, giving up on the word.
I breathe in and out.
“Fine,” I tell her. “You have a very attractive posterior.”
“Yeah, like I believe it when you say it like that,” she says, laughing through her nose. “That’s not how you talk.”
Drunk or not, she’s hilarious right now, and I can’t help but laugh with her.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “What do you want me to say? You’re my roommate and—”
“I’m not your roommate right now,” she says. “Just answer the question and I’ll let you go back to whatever it is that you do.”
“Honestly,” I tell her, trying to find that line between looking enough to form an opinion and staring, “it’s pretty perfect. Not too big, not too small. Good curvature.”
I really hope she doesn’t remember any of this.
“Yeah?” she says. “Chad told me that I had a huge butt,” she sputters.
“Why don’t we just get your pants on?” I ask, and walk closer to the couch.
“He said a lot of things, actually.”
“Well, I don’t know who this Chad guy is, but he sounds like an asshole,” I tell her. “Now, you’re going to need to turn around so we can pull these up, all right?”
Like a foal or a drunken toddler, she slowly makes her way to her feet, her legs shaking and unsteady beneath her.
She turns around to face me, her pants falling to her ankles.
Sure, I may sleep with a different woman every night, but I’m not completely without respect, so I avert my eyes as best I can as I bend down and pull her pants up.
“I’m such a mess,” she says, starting to cry.
“You’re just drunk,” I tell her. “Once you get some sleep and maybe a bit to eat, you’ll start feeling better.”
I’m still holding her pants up, as zipping or buttoning them would be a bit too familiar as a platonic roommate. She fastens the button and zips herself up, then falls back onto the couch.
“What is the matter with me?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I tell her. “You’ve just had a bit to drink—”
“I’m drunk,” she says. “Yeah, I get that. I mean, why is it that everything has to be so screwed up? My sexually inappropriate boss just told me that there’s an opening at the firm and that they’d love to hire me on permanently, but he looked like he was going to burst a blood vessel by being decent to me for once.”
“Leila,” I tell her. “I know you don’t think so right now, but this will all be better after you’ve had a chance to sleep it off, all right? I’m going to bring you a blanket and put on a movie for you. You can sleep on the couch.”
“I think you’re right,” she says.
“Good, do you want me to grab a blanket from your room, or—”
“No, I mean about what you were saying before. When you said that sleeping with someone is what it takes to move on sometimes. That’s what I was trying to do earlier, but that idiot got in a cab and left me there.”
“He left you?” I ask.
She relays the story and I do my best not to crack a smile.
“Some guys are like that,” I tell her. “People can get weird when they haven’t been with someone for a while.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“But do you know what’s going to help even more?”
“Yeah, yeah, sleep and alcohol wearing off and blah, blah, blah,” she answers.
“That’s right,” I tell her. “Do you want me to grab you a blanket?”
“You know, Dane,” she says.
“Yeah?”
“Maybe we could, I don’t know.”
I think I know where she’s going with this.
“Let’s talk about it in the morning.”
“You’ve been so nice to me today,” she says. “I always thought you were kind of a jerk, but you’re really taking care of me right now.”
“Leila, I’ve got to level with you.”
“What’s on your mind?” she asks.
I’m not sure whether it’s the guilt from not having told her yet, or if I’m simply trying to change the subject, but I blurt out, “I’m losing my job.”
“What? What happened?”
“Well, let’s just say the place where I work,” I start, trying not to throw the fact that I lied about what I do onto the pile of things I should have told her a while ago, “they’re having some money problems. People just aren’t coming in like they used to. My boss told me that he could keep me on for another month.”
“When did he tell you that?” she asks.
If this conversation’s going to take a bad turn, it’s probably going to be right here.
“About a month ago,” I tell her.
“Oh,” she says.
“Yeah, he hasn’t said anything to me yet, but it’s probably not going to be long. I’ve been putting out my resumé, but I haven’t heard back on any—”
“Musicians use resumés?” she asks.
“Everyone does,” I answer.
“You know,” she says with a knowing look, “I’ve seen your guitar, but I’ve never heard you play.”
“I like to save that for…” I start but don’t know how to finish.
At this point, I’m just lying about my job because I’ve been lying about my job.
“Whatever,” she says. “I’m sure you’ll find something.”
She has a lot more faith than I do.
“You look like you were really worried to tell me that,” she says.
“Yeah,” I answer. “I was. Still am, actually.”
“We’ll figure it out, all right?” she says.
She holds her arms out.
I don’t know, maybe I should take the hug now and maybe when she sobers up she’ll be less likely to get pissed that I waited a month to tell her that I was going to be losing my job in about a month.
The logic is blurry at best, but it’s worth a shot.
I bend down and put my arms around her. She embraces me, and it actually feels pretty great.
I can’t really remember the last time a woman, drunk or sober, showed me affection just to make me feel better about things.
Her head starts to pull back and her grip loosens around me, so I start to pull away, but her face turns toward mine. Leila’s eyes are closed and I can feel her hot breath against my cheek.
When her eyes open, she’s looking into mine in a way I’ve never experienced. It’s like she’s actually seeing me for the first time, really seeing me, and she’s not put off. She’s not scared or disappointed.
She pulls back a little further and our lips are almost touching when I hear the sound behind me.
“Dane? Have you seen my panties? I can’t find them anywhere.”
“Well,” Leila says, pulling away entirely and patting me on the cheek. “I don’t see anything in your eye. You’re good to go.”
“Thanks,” I mutter; my eyes still intent on Leila.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Wrigley asks.
I turn, and Wrigley’s standing there in the doorway to my bedroom, naked from the waist down.
“I’m not feeling so well,” Leila says, getting up, her eyes on the ground. “It’s nice to meet you,” she adds as she passes Wrigley and makes her way into her own room.
“Too bad,” Wrigley says. “She looked like she was ready to go.”
What the fuck just happened?