The next morning her cell started to ring and Carol while opening her eyes tried to realize what was going on. She felt like she was hit by a train. “Where is that fucking cell”, she thought.
“Hello” she said halfheartedly.
“Good morning! Am I talking to death on leave”, she heard Natalie’s cheerful voice.
“What?” mumbled Carol.
“So how did it go yesterday?” Natalie asked excitedly.
“Oh everything went great until I managed to puke all over his bathroom while he was holding my hair!” said Carol.
“No shit, really??!” Natalie said while laughing, “How did that happen?”
“Loooong story. I bet he will never call me again after this”, she told to Natalie.
But she was wrong. He did call the next day. He asked her to hang out again. Carol felt sure of herself again.
“He must like me too”, she thought. She was glad and she came. She guessed the right street the second time around, after all last time she drove behind him while tipsy. But she guessed the house right away, since it really wasn’t tough to miss the biggest house in the neighborhood. She parked at the driveway and checked her hair once more in the rearview mirror. She rang while his cell getting out of the car. The outer light automatically turned on and she could hear him coming down the stairs to open the door for her.
“Hey you” Chris said.
“Hey”, said Carol with a broad smile. It was nice to see his face again.
“My friend is here, he just surprised me. You’ve met him, John, from the cafe… remember?” he asked.
While she tried to remember “John, John, hmmm doesn’t ring the bell”, he already continued
“You don’t mind do you?”
Carol would have liked for them to be alone but she was cool about it “Of course I don’t mind.”
John obviously felt at home in Chris’s party house because he was standing behind the bar when Carol and Chris walked in and was serving him a drink.
“Hey little girl, I saw you coming when you parked in front of the house. I walked…yes, yes…fixed up your hair and make-up a little in the car so you didn’t notice me walking in the yard”, John smiled.
If he didn’t get on her nerves before, he certainly did now, she thought, because of that stupid hair comment in front of Chris. He didn’t have to hear that. Now he will know that she liked him. And what kind of joke was that to call her little girl? She continued to think. He was older than both of them (Chris was her age), but not that much older to call her little girl.
Over the next hour of spending time together Carol thought more and more John was to chatty and had really sick jokes. He spoke words like “dick” and “cunt” without a problem in front of her, like he was in male company. In the last few years Carol was used to men apologizing using those words in her company, if they happen to slip out. She is still a lady, and not some twenty year old hussy. He told the stupidest story eve of how he used to buy vibrators for his girl friends who were ashamed to enter a sex shop.
He was brutally frank and talked about anything he could think of like it was normal. Chris wasn’t impressed by that. He coolly rolled up a joint and started smoking. He would glance up at Carol from time to time like he wanted to say “Fuck it, he’s just like that.”
All the other time he tried to be a good host to John and her. He was probably used to him by now. Carol took a drag of the joint after Chris and pretended to be interested in John’s stories, all the time thinking “who in their right mind talks about vibrators to someone he just met a few seconds ago?! To a female!! Go home buddy.” But the weed started to work and Carol started to tolerate the intruder much easier. Chris was occupied with the choice of music. He gave Carol a gentle look when he saw her inhaling a smoke and said “take it easy“, and then he smiled.
Carol knew what he was getting at (throwing up from last time) and smiled back at him. John saw that as an internal joke between them and finally said:
“Ok, I am leaving you two alone. Enjoy watching the movie.” winking discreetly at Chris.
Carol ignored the obvious signs when he mentioned watching the movie. She was pretty stoned by now so she thought how John reminded her of those court jesters they had at royal courts. He had that kind of face and everything else that jesters have so Carol just smiled to herself.
Chris walked his friend out. Returning he said, “And?” he smiled showing off a perfect teeth.
“And what?” Carol smiled.
“What is it?” Chris continued to laugh.
“And you what?” joked Carol.
“Nothing” while flashing a broad smile. “And you?” Chris continued to joke around.
“Well nothing, what about you?” Carol said biting the edge of her lip.
Chris thought “Fuck it, she’s cute!”
“Are you stoned?” he asked.
“Well not too much” she answered.
And so they would continue with their very “intellectual” conversation if his cell phone hadn’t rang. Carol watched as Chris picked up the phone in a cool manner. She saw animalistic attraction in his cool manner. She wasn’t going to be able to resist not wanting him.
By the way he changed his face expression she concluded that the phone call was not nice, and he probably wasn’t expecting to get a call from the person on the other side of the line.
Like he wanted to hang up as quickly as he could but had respect toward this person to listen to the end. She didn’t want to seem rude and listen in on the conversation so she flipped through the CD-s pretending to search for some music. She also used this opportunity to go to the bathroom. When she came back he wasn’t on the phone anymore and he greeted her with a question:
“Do you want to watch the movie we were supposed to watch last time?” he smiled showing off his perfect teeth.
“Great, sure”, Carol laughed.
They settled on the movie very quickly because Chris was ready for all compromises. The guest had the advantage here after all.
They lay one next to the other on a large bed in front of his home movie theatre.