My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands Read online

  When I got to Lydia's place, all three girls were already dressed. Ivory was a sexy schoolgirl, Lydia was a sexy cop, and Jen was an M&M.

  The genie costume was really cute and fit me perfectly. As soon as Jen saw it on me I caught a look on her face that said, "Take that off, I'm wearing it."

  "Chelsea," Jen said. "I have an idea. You can be the M&M!"

  "That's okay," I said. "You keep it. You like chocolate more."

  "I insist," she said, grinning like one of those crazed cheerleaders after they've been hurled into the air. "And anyway, the genie's my costume in the first place. I brought it for you."

  I put on the M&M suit. The top part was the shape of a pumpkin and formed a perfect green sphere around my body. It came with matching green tights that I wore over my red period panties. Jen's shoes for the M&M outfit didn't fit me and none of Lydia's shoes fit either. The only shoes I had with me were the ones I had worn over. Black Adidas slides. This became my outfit.

  "I need your panties," Jen said while checking herself out in the full-length mirror. You could see right through her genie pants, and she was wearing a leopard thong.

  "I'm not giving you my panties," I said, "and can we please stop using that word?" There are three words that gross me out: "panties," "moist," and "slick." They all seem like words a child molester would use. Together.

  "You need to give me them. I can't wear this outfit with a thong," Jen insisted.

  "Fine!" I huffed as I took them off and put my tights back on.

  "Don't you want some underwear?" Lydia asked.

  "No, I'll just free-ball it." I wasn't in the business of borrowing other people's underwear and could not believe Jen was willing to wear mine.

  "Do you want the green paint for your face?" Jen asked.

  "No thanks," I said, shooting her a dirty look.

  There's a fine line between being easygoing and being taken advantage of, and allowing someone to paint my face green would have been the latter.

  "What's the matter? You look adorable," Jen said in the same voice you'd use talking to a girl who was going to her prom in a wheelchair.

  Holden waddled up to me, wearing a scuba suit with a mask.

  "I guess the two of us will be hanging out together tonight," I said.

  The party had potential, but I never got into the swing of things due to my somber mood. Holden and I sat in a corner, making fun of people's costumes, and when we tired of that, I started making fun of Holden, who was sweating so profusely that he had taken down the top half of his scuba suit and was now topless.

  At the end of the party, Lydia told us that we were all going to after-hours at some guy in a Batman suit's apartment. The only selling point was that the apartment was in Santa Monica, located conveniently around the corner from Lydia's.

  We were approaching the building when I thought it looked eerily familiar. There are many apartment buildings in Santa Monica that are nearly identical; I figured that was the case here. But as Ivory, Jen, Lydia, Holden, and I piled upstairs into Batman's apartment, I glanced around the place and got a not so melancholy feeling. I never forget an apartment. A face, maybe, but not an apartment. I eyed Batman carefully but didn't recognize him at all.

  "How long have you lived here?" I asked as I was checking my e-mail from his computer.

  "About ten years," he told me.

  "Do I look familiar to you?" I asked him as he handed me a beer and I sat there in my M&M costume. I clicked over to Oprah's Web site to see if they had decided on next month's book.

  "Not really, what's your name?"

  "Chelsea."

  "No. Maybe we've seen each other around."

  After realizing that this after-party was going nowhere fast, I went into the kitchen and made myself a bowl of Top Ramen. Unfortunately, I had to eat it right out of the pot with a pair of unused chopsticks, because I didn't spot a dishwasher and judging by the looks of this place, he wasn't a good cleaner. The girls were all sitting on his couch as they listened to music. I was tired and reminded them that nothing positive happens after two A.M.

  Batman looked at me with devilment in his eyes and said, "That's not true."

  I didn't like his tone and left the room. I walked into his bedroom and found a Nintendo box attached to his TV.

  Nintendo had been replaced by Play Station years earlier; I hadn't seen one of these boxes since middle school. The excitement I felt at that moment could be paralleled only by J. Lo releasing another album.

  I was on level four of Super Mario Brothers when Ivory came in and told me that she thought Jen and Batman were going to hook up.

  "She can't," I said. "I think I may have already slept with him."

  "You did?"

  "I'm not sure, but this place seems familiar."

  Ivory left and got Lydia. They stood above me with their arms crossed, watching me play.

  "Well, did you or didn't you?" Ivory asked.

  "I don't remember, but I know I've been here, and I can't imagine sleeping over at a stranger's house without having sex with him." Then Batman walked into his bedroom holding a black piece of tar and asked if any of us were interested in smoking hash.

  "Are you serious?" I said. The thought of smoking a brick had about as much appeal as seeing Michael Bolton perform live.

  "Who smokes hash?" Lydia asked.

  "Wait a minute. I know how I know you," I said.

  Upon being offered hash, the memory flooded back. I was once partying late night at the Compound with some of Lydia's neighbors and Batman was there. He lived about ten blocks from me at the time, so we shared a cab home, but I was so drunk that when we stopped at his place, I got out as well. He didn't remind me that I didn't live there. When I walked inside and realized I was at his house, he leaned in and tried to kiss me. I told him to back off and get me a cold compress, a fan, and a pillow for his couch.

  "I crashed here one night a couple of years ago, remember? I slept on your couch and you brought me a cold compress and a fan? Remember, I didn't feel so well?"

  "Oh yeah, kind of . . . you were pretty wasted," he said.

  "Oh, my God, that is so funny! Where was I?" Lydia asked.

  "You were probably dating Ass Breath," I told her.

  "Did you guys hook up?" asked Ivory.

  "No, I just slept over," I said.

  It was true: we hadn't had sex. I felt an immense pride at that moment for having slept over a stranger's house without hooking up. All of a sudden it was as if I were the mature one in our group of girls, and I made a note to myself to counsel them later on how "no means no!"

  "Didn't you clean my apartment?" he asked me.

  "Yeah, a little bit," I said. I had cleaned up because when I woke up in the morning, I couldn't believe the squalor this guy was living in. I am not a neat freak, so if I'm tidying up around someone's place, it's got to be pretty unsanitary. I distinctly remember there being cold cuts stuck to the wall.

  "How did you remember sleeping here after a couple years?" Ivory asked me.

  "Because he offered me hash that night too, and these are the only two times in my life that has happened."

  "I can't believe you didn't sleep with him," Lydia said.

  "Well, Lydia," I said very condescendingly, "sometimes you have to make smarter choices."

  "Shut up, asshole," said Ivory.

  "Can we go, or does Jen want to hook up with him?" I asked.

  "Yeah, let's go. You wanna sleep at my place?" Lydia asked.

  Holden, Ivory, Lydia, and I called a cab while Jen stayed behind. We got dropped off at the Compound and Ivory had the cab take her home. Holden walked to his apartment and I told him I'd come by in the morning for my car.

  People were still up at the Compound partying. There was loud music playing and strangers were dancing in the courtyard.

  "I'm going to bed," I told Lydia. "Give me your keys."

  She looked through her purse for an amount of time that I knew could only result in her not