Bang the Doldrums

I fumbled with the tube of lipstick I had found in her clutch. No pen, no paper.

Carefully (I knew she wouldn’t wake from this drunken post sex slumber), I lifted her arm and placed the tip of the ruby lipstick to her arm:

Till next time… - your best friend (or will it be ex-friend?)

I read it over, unsatisfied with the message, though I couldn’t think of anything better to say. My mind was in a haze.

She was one of the few friends leftover from my days in Chicago. She hadn’t been jealous or resentful of the rising success of my band. She had been ecstatic, supportive…everything your best friend should and could be.

A few times a year we were able to meet up to get drinks and just forget about the stress in our lives. Sarah lived in New York City, a successful photographer for a few magazines. She was always the first person I called when I was in the area and she would happily agree to meet me at one of our usual bars so we could get some drinks and talk before eventually ending up at a club or something.

I don’t know where I would be without Sarah. She had been with me through everything. She was the constant in my life, always there when I needed her, and I always tried my best to reciprocate.

It was funny to think of how in high school we had dated for a little bit before eventually deciding we’d be better off as friends. We had lost our virginity to each other during that time, and when we finally decided we should be friends, we promised each other that we wouldn’t go down that road together in any way, shape, or form. We didn’t want any complications in our friendship.

But of course that didn’t happen. Now I was crawling out of her bed after writing a goodbye note on her arm with her own lipstick, getting dressed quietly and leaving the apartment. I didn’t know what else to do. We had broken our one rule, which always seemed to happen with people who promised each other they wouldn’t go down that road. How typically cliché of me.

Several hours ago, if I had known this was going to happen, I would probably… who am I kidding? I don’t know what I would have done. Knowing me… knowing how much of a narcissistic asshole I am, I probably would have just continued on with the night. But I’d like to believe that I would try my best to not let it happen.

Of course, the lead up to this probably could have started when I moved to New York City about a month ago. Sarah and I had been able to hang out a lot more…

Several Hours Ago

“Pete, we need to go out tonight,” Sarah said enthusiastically over the phone. “We haven’t gone out for drinks since you moved here.”

“Isn’t spending sober quality time with me good enough for you?”

“No!” she laughed and I joined in.

“You make a valid point, I suppose,” I said. “Meet you in an hour at our favorite spot?”

“Yes,” she said. “And be ready to go hard.”

Two hours later and we were drunk. Drunk on alcohol, on each other, on the city. We were full of energy.

We laughed happily in the backseat of a cab as it drove us to our favorite club. The windows were down, letting a soft summer breeze flow through, the scent of the city tickling our noses. Lights upon lights shined around us, creating a colorful haze that matched our moods perfectly.

When I had paid the driver and we got out of the cab, Sarah looped her arm through mine and smiled at me.

“You’re my best friend, ever, you know that?” she asked.

“I know it just as much as I know that you, dear sir, are my best friend ever as well,” I said. She slapped me playfully as we walked right into the club. The perks of gaining fame.

The throbbing pulse of the music consumed us immediately and I could see Sarah was aiming right for the dance floor. She turned to smirk at me, the flashing lights turning her blonde hair into a neon rainbow. I would be lying if I said she wasn’t beautiful.

We danced for a bit; I think she was the only person who I could be completely silly around and not feel ridiculous.

You ever just drink and have fun with your closest friends, maybe dance together? And then get to that one moment where you look around and just feel like you’re having the time of your life? It’s almost like a great scene in a movie; you’re entranced by what is occurring and never want to forget it. The image is branded in your brain and you can look back at it fondly the next day, excited for the next opportunity to recreate it.

I was in that moment now, glassy eyes looking back at mine. It’s amazing when you have that one moment of clarity when you’re drunk. I grinned at Sarah and pulled her towards me, wanting to feel her near me.

Through the music her laugh filled my ears as we stumbled against each other. Her arms wrapped around me and she held me close. I didn’t want to let go.

Her hand found its way into mine and she pulled me off the dance floor. I followed her outside, the cool air feeling refreshing on my sweaty skin.

“Where are we going?” I asked, my own voice muffled by the after effects of the loud music pulsing in my ears.

“My place,” she said, trying to hail a cab. “I’ve had enough dancing. It’s time for some just Petey and Sarah time.”

I laughed.

“Petey?”

“Yeah,” she giggled. “I like it, I think it works well for you.”

A cab had pulled up before us and we climbed in.

Laughing. Summer breeze. City smell. Blurred lights. Sarah’s lips.

Somewhere along the way, in the space between the club and Sarah’s apartment, her lips had collided with mine. It was soft, comfortable, familiar. It didn’t last long enough.

Sarah gave me a sheepish look when she pulled away.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I kind of just got caught up in the moment.”

“You have to hate rules,” I said quietly in response. Her eyes met mine, and they were intense. They were intense like when she was thinking about something completely seriously.

The cab stopped outside Sarah’s apartment and she paid this time before we climbed out. Nothing was said until we were outside the door to her apartment.

“Isn’t there a saying about how some rules are meant to be broken?” Sarah questioned as she reached into her clutch to pull out her keys.

“Yeah,” I said. I may have been drunk, but I knew that there was a line in our friendship that I had a feeling may be crossed. “But is it one you want to break?”

She didn’t answer as we went inside her apartment. I followed her as she headed for her bedroom. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence. Normally after our night of drinking, we’d head back to her place and lay in her bed and talk until we passed out.

She threw her clutch onto the nightstand next to the bed as I sat down on the end of the mattress, pulling off my shoes with my feet. A moment later and Sarah was standing in front of me. I looked up at her and smiled. She smiled back, but it was quick. If I had blinked at that exact moment I would have missed it.

“Could you unzip my dress?” she asked, turning around. I stood up, and moved her hair to the side, over her shoulder. Unzipping her dress, which was sometimes a normal occurrence, turned out to be more of a slow torture this time. Questions were still up in the air, unanswered.

When I was done she turned around and pulled the dress the rest of the way off. My breath caught in my throat at the sight of her bare skin. Was this going to happen? Were we going to break our one rule?

Yes. Of course we were. We had both had enough alcohol that at this point rules did not matter. And we were best friends, we loved each other, and there was a definite attraction between the two of us in some form.

---

Sweaty skin stuck to sweaty skin. She leaned in and kissed me softly after we had caught our breath. We had both come a long way since losing our virginity to each other.

Sure, we had fallen in a messy, drunken heap on her bed and maybe some aspects of it had been sloppy, but otherwise, it may have been the best sex I’d ever had. I hadn’t been happier.

And then everything changed in a second.

“I’m moving to California next month,” she said, hot breath hitting my face. “I was offered a job out there and it pays a lot better. It’s an amazing opportunity.”

“I’m glad,” I mumbled, but of course it was a lie. I had just gotten to New York and now Sarah was leaving.

She slept; I couldn’t shut my eyes.

Lipstick. Note. Gone.

---

She showed up at my apartment the next day, arm extended in front of her, displaying the slightly smudged note.

“What’s this?”

I ran a hand through my hair, not knowing what to say. I shrugged.

“I never understand what’s going on in that head of yours, Pete,” she said. She moved through the apartment before ending up in the living room, sitting down on the couch. I sat beside her.

“I don’t understand most of it myself,” I finally said. She smiled at me for a moment.

“Does this have to do with me moving?”

“In a way,” I answered, I focused my eyes on the bright red markings on her arm, zeroing in on ex-friend. “I think… are we going to talk about last night? We broke our one rule.”

I looked up at Sarah, but now she was the one avoiding my gaze. I saw that her eyes were on my note now.

“I guess last night kind of changes a lot,” she said. I watched as her finger traced over my words. “This makes some sense now I guess.”

“Are you saying we shouldn’t be friends anymore?”

“In a way,” she said, repeating my words from before. Our eyes met. “We promised that as long as we were best friends, we wouldn’t have sex and now that that’s happened… well, I’m not really sure what we are now.”

“Do you want to have sex with me again?” I asked. She looked up at me in surprise and I saw her cheeks getting red.

“I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t want to do what we did last night again,” she said. I leaned in quickly, kissing her. She looked stunning when she was embarrassed.

“Then ex-friends it is,” I said when I pulled away, leaving our eyes connected. “I think we’d be better off as lovers anyways.”

---

Sarah promised we’d see each other soon. We had done the long distance friendship before, though seeing as in our own weird technicalities we weren’t “friends,” I wasn’t sure how things would turn out. And this time she was on one coast while I was on the other, rather than her just being in New York while I was in Chicago. We were even further apart.

We’d spent the month leading up to her move to California in each other’s beds, just talking nonsense in between kisses and intimate touches.

I knew this was going to be hard, being apart from her.

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t fallen in love with her.

But I guess for us, it was just happily ever after below the waist.