Page 160 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
I studied the rows of identical brick townhouses on either side of the street. “Which way to your friend’s house?”
“It’s not Justine’s house—it’s her friend’s house,” Allen said, joining me on the sidewalk. He handed me my top hat. “Don’t forget this bad boy.”
“Thanks.” I took it from him but didn’t put it on. The hat was supposed to make me stand out. Right now on the deserted sidewalk, standing out was the last thing I wanted. “Which way do we go?”
Allen looked left and then right. “I think it’s that way,” he said, pointing left.
“You think?”
He threw an arm around my shoulders. “I’ve never been in this area of town before. If we go the wrong way, just think of it as an adventure.”
“Getting shot isn’t an adventure,” I said. “What’s the address?”
He told me, and I read the numbers on the houses closest to us to see which direction the numbers ran.
“What’s the verdict?” he asked.
“You were right.”
Allen did a quick fist pump. I started off toward our destination.
“Hold up,” Allen said, quickly catching up to me. “No need to hurry. There’ll be plenty of dicks to suck, my friend.”
I wasn’t in a hurry. Just the opposite. Now that we were so close, second thoughts had begun to plague me. I really had no idea what was going to happen at the party. The only orgies I’d ever heard of were in movies, such as Eyes Wide Shut. To learn more about real-life orgies, I’d taken to Wikipedia. The first thing I learned was that ancient Greek orgies didn’t even involve sex. Orgies were rituals meant to unite practitioners with the divine. According to the site,
Orgia were ecstatic rites characteristic of the Greek and Hellenistic mystery religions. . . . Some rites were held at night. Orgia were part of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Dionysian Mysteries, and the cult of Cybele, which involved the castration of her priests in a frenzied trance.
Today, orgies are just one of many different types of sex parties, like swinger parties, key parties, rainbow parties, etc. I say “et cetera,” because once I got to the term “bunga bunga parties,” I halted my investigation. Reading about sex parties linked to former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was not how I’d envisioned spending a Sunday afternoon, especially when I had a paper due. If I couldn’t handle reading about sex parties, what right did I have to go to one? I’d had weeks to mentally prepare. Now, at the last possible moment, I was on the verge of chickening out.
When our destination was finally in front of us, I stopped. My legs refused to climb the stairs. “Let’s go back to the car.”
“Did you forget the rubber?”
“I didn’t forget anything. I’m thinking this hat is a bit much,” I said. In my hands, the top hat ceased to be ornamental headgear and instead became a symbol of my anxieties. “Can I just return it to the car? It will only take a minute.”
Allen swiped it from me. He carefully studied its black velvet sheen under the streetlamp before placing it on my head. “It gives you character.”
“Gives me character, or turns me into a character? They’re two different things.”
Allen started toward our destination again. “Does it matter? Everybody needs a little character in their life.”
I grumbled in response. I resolved to toss the damned thing into a darkened corner at the party and forget to pick it up when we left.
“Now remember,” Allen said, climbing the stairs. “The password is fellatio.”
I followed him, nodding.
“I’m kidding,” he said.
“Then what is the password?”
He laughed. “There isn’t one.”
Allen knocked and we stepped back. I listened hard for the clichéd sounds of lovemaking—moaning women, grunting men, squeaking beds—but heard nothing from the doorstep.
“Maybe you should knock again,” I said.
“Maybe,” Allen said.
