Curt was dancing with her in that awkward, self-conscious way most guys had. He wasn’t a natural mover, but he was doing his best, following behind Jules and cupping her butt when she wasn’t writhing and twisting too much, squeezing, and running his hands up and down her stomach and chest from behind when she gave him the opportunity. She was the seductress and he was the poor, led fool. It would have been pitiful if Marty didn’t know Curt well enough. Last thing he was, for a fact, was desperate. He was going along with it because he wanted to go along with it, and that was that.
Jules moved into the seating area, knocking the table slightly with her legs and spilling a slick of beer, arms raised and hands entwining each other like dancing snakes, hips twisting. She moved in front of Holden and performed a quick, suggestive lap-dance for him, bending over to wave her ass in his face, then turning and stretching one foot up onto the couch’s back right next to his head. She flexed to and fro, running both hands along her leg to her foot and back again.
Dude, you look so awkward, Marty thought as he watched Holden. The guy was looking anywhere but at Jules—though Marty thought he did see his eyes flicker just briefly to her cleavage a couple of times, and once to her crotch, denim shorts stretched tight by her movement. He looked sidelong at Dana, who was still involved in the diary but obviously not too thrilled at the display.
“Go baby, oh yeah!” Curt called. “That’s the goods right there, fuck yeah!”
“This is so classy,” Marty said.
“Like you wouldn’t want a piece of that,” Curt scoffed.
“Can we not talk about people in pieces anymore tonight?” Marty held up his joint, raised his eyebrows as if to make a point, then took another puff.
Jules slipped away from Holden, and his relief was obvious. She turned on Marty this time, moving luxuriously, running her fingertips up her stomach and over her chest. Her nipples were obvious against the strained shirt.
“Oh, are you feeling lonely, Marty?” she asked. She plucked the joint from his fingers and sucked hard. “Marty and I were sweeties in our freshman hall,” she said over her shoulder. “We made out once,” Marty said. “I never did buy that ring.”
Jules pouted.
“But we’re still… close.” She blew smoke in his face, lips close to his, and then handed him back the joint. She’d smoked a third of it in one hard puff, and he wondered how the hell she wasn’t coughing her guts up on the floor. She danced away, back to the open area between sofa and dining table, where Curt awaited her with his questing hands.
“You know, I have a theory about all this,” Marty said.
“That’s our cue to bail!” Curt cried out, throwing up his hands and showing the sweat patches on his tee-shirt. “Tommy Chong has a theory. You can tell it to Egghead Holden here, if he’s not too busy devirginizing Dana.” Dana pressed her lips together, stood, and dropped the book on the couch. She paused for a second, looking into the fireplace at the fire that was burning down because no one had thought to add any more logs.
We can’t look after ourselves, Marty thought. Dana shot a quick glance in his direction, then turned to her roommate and spoke up.
“Jules, do you want to lie down?”
“That’s exactly the point!” Curt said, shoving Jules toward the door. “Mush! Mush!”
“Don’t push me around,” Jules protested, but she wasn’t upset, and she even made her objection sound suggestive.
“Not around, baby,” Curt said. “Straight line. Right there. Out there. Pretty stars!” He reached around her and tugged the door open, and the breath of air made the dying fire glow brighter for a few seconds. The two of them left the cabin and it suddenly became motionless, music still blasting, a knot in the fire popping.
Then Dana sighed and crossed to the kitchen to pour another beer.
Marty hauled himself up from the chair. Holden was still on the couch, avoiding his eyes, tapping his fingers on his knee.
“Hey…” Marty began, but Holden picked up the leather-bound diary and started flicking through it, pausing here and there as if he’d found something interesting. “Dude, it’s cool,” Marty said, but walking across to Dana he felt the lie in that.
Reaching the place where she stood, he handed her his own beer cup and she started filling it. She didn’t look at him or speak.
“Do you seriously believe that nothing weird is going on?” he asked, surprising himself with the bluntness of the question.
“A conspiracy?” she asked wryly. She smiled, but it was without humor. He saw the strain in her beautiful face.
“The way everybody’s acting!” he said.
“I’m sorry about downstairs,” she sighed, waving at Holden and the diary.
“It’s cool, it’s not…” Marty shrugged. “I mean, when did Curt start with this alpha male bullshit? He’s a sociology major; he’s on a full academic scholarship! Now he’s calling his friend an “egghead,” whose head in no way resembles an egg…” He looked over at Holden. “Except… ahhh. Okay, kinda, from this angle, it’s…” He smiled and held his own head in an effort to keep it from becoming egg-shaped.
“Curt’s just drunk,” Dana said.
“I’ve seen Curt drunk,” Marty said, serious again. And serious hurt his head. “Jules, too. And this ain’t them.”
“Then maybe it’s something else,” she said, pointing at his joint with one hand and taking a sup of beer with the other. She had a line of foam settled across her top lip, and Marty found it unbearably cute.
“My secret secret stash is a gateway to enlightenment,” he said. “It’s not a devolvafier.” He glanced at the stuffed wolf’s head, still unreasonably disturbed by the terrifying growl it had found for eternity. “Moose, back me up on this. Dana, you’re not seeing what you don’t wanna see—the puppeteers.”
“Puppeteers?” That caused him to toss her a puzzled look.
“Pop-tarts?” he asked, frowning, putting one hand to his head and wondering what he was on about. Backtrack a little here, he thought. “Er… did you say that you have pop-tarts?”
Dana laughed.
“Marty, I love you, but you’re really high.”
“We are not who we are,” Marty said, deadly serious. He closed his eyes and tried to find where that had come from, but there was a part of him removed now, conducting this conversation and tweaking his emotions while the real Marty sat back in the armchair, chilled and smoking and without a care… “I’m gonna read a book with pictures.” He ambled down the corridor to his room, feeling Dana watching him go.
What does she think, the gorgeous Dana who can never be mine? He wasn’t sure. Wasn’t even sure what he thought. A lie down, that’s what he needed. A rest. Rest those eyes, that mind.
Rest.
Dana watched him go. Marty. He was sweet, and a great friend. She’d never wanted to spoil their friendship with anything more, and she never really thought of him that way. But usually when he was high he didn’t freak her out so much. The few times she’d tried pot she’d gone pale and sweaty, her heart-rate had increased, and she’d ended up puking or lying on her bed for the next three hours while it left her system. Marty was a pot veteran; she’d never seen or heard of anyone smoking as much as him, without it seeming to impede his judgment or consciousness. Not too much, at least.