We only have 8 minutes….
This is a true story….names and identifying details of the guilty, or otherwise foolish, have been altered. It began, as many evenings do, with a few drink at the apartment of Engineer Girl (EG). We were joined at some point by Reporter Girl (RG), and eventually by RG’s friend Red. We weren’t really close to Red, but had made an effort to incorporate her into our circle of friends. Red was a hard charger, a graduate school friend of RG who had made her way into the editorial ranks of one of Washington’s web-based news outlets. From the West Coast, and very Catholic, Red was nonetheless a lot of fun in the right context, bright and acidly funny. On this occasion, Red was perhaps a bit too much fun.
We’d been drinking for a couple of hours when Red began to get very friendly with EG, pulling EG into her lap and telling her she was so cute and tiny. EG was flattered, as what woman doesn’t want to hear that she’s cute and tiny? EG also had a very long-distance boyfriend, so she wasn’t averse to the attention. Red then decided that she would sit in my lap and regale me with the reasons why she thought I should be a journalist, and how I could be a Hunter Thompson for a new generation because of my eagerness to strike a blow against “the Man”. While I had always been attracted to Red because of her looks and her fierce intellect, I was profoundly uncomfortable with her newfound friendliness. Red had a boyfriend, a friend of RG’s I had met a few times and generally liked as an all-around stand-up fellow.
The rest of the night grew fuzzy, but ended fairly abruptly when we had to separate Red and EG in the latter’s bedroom, making out on the latter’s bed. At that point, RG asked me to help her get Red home. Red continued to verbally stroke my ego on the short stumble to her apartment, telling me she liked me because of my acerbic wit. I began to dread the inevitable point when we would get Red home, but took solace in the fact that RG would be there to act as a buffer. Upon reaching Red’s house, RG announced that she was going to walk Red’s dog. A wave of panic washed over me, but I realized that things couldn’t really get out of hand in the time it took RG to walk Red’s dog. I think Xerxes must have muttered similar words when trying to attack the Spartans at the pass of Thermopylae.
As soon as RG was safely outside the house, Red turned to me and said, “We only have 8 minutes”, and then launched an attack said Spartans would have been hard-pressed to repel, phalanx or no. I vaguely wondered how she knew we only had 8 minutes, and what she planned on doing in that span of time, but I came to the dual realizations that: a) it was her dog, so she would know how long it would take him to do his business, and b) it was utterly impractical, given the amount of clothing each of us wearing, that anything really serious could occur. At this point I realized I could either go with the flow and make out with Red, or search my alcohol-besotted brain for a rationale as to why I wouldn’t make out with her, and then prepare for the next few (or several) uncomfortable minutes. The best case scenario I could devise was Red collapsing in a heap crying and bemoaning the fact I wouldn’t make out with her, leaving me to explain to RG what I had done to her friend in the brief interlude while Red’s dog was being walked. Aside from that fear, being drunk, male, and not overly constrained by any moralistic compunctions (boyfriend or no) led me to just for it. Red was a good kisser, and felt nice to the touch. I walked away from the encounter the distinct impression that Red would be quite a handful in bed, once she got over that whole notion of Catholic guilt (Lord knows I had done so). We knew we couldn’t get too carried away, given the limited time we had, but Red left me with this parting shot as we heard RG enter the security gate of the apartment, “Obviously, we can’t do it tonight, but sometime soon I’ll let you fuck me any way you want“.
Red, EG, RG and I had all agreed that the evening would be a “Cone of Silence” night, and would not be spoken of again. I told EG and RG what happened the next day, largely out of a sense of guilt. EG reached out to Red to ensure that everything was A-OK between the two of them, and Red said that it was. I mostly stayed silent, because it wasn’t entirely clear if Red even remembered making out with me. And we kept to our word, not discussing the night with anyone who hadn’t been there. Then we began to notice that Red was no longer coming out with us, and that it seemed she was going to lengths to avoid us even on those occasions where RG had invited all of us out. After several weeks of this, I quietly confronted RG about my suspicions and learned that Red was, indeed, avoiding us like we had H1N1. She has somehow twisted what happened to her into some sad-sack tale of victimization at our hands, and could no longer bear to be friends with us. Now I’m not sure whether we somehow deeply offended her Catholic sensibilities, or whether the reptilian sense of ambition she harbored realized that consorting with us could be a career-limiting move. To this day I don’t know, and haven’t had the meaningful discussion with Red to clear the air as to what really happened. I’m not holding my breath until that discussion happens.
So there you have it, gentle readers. I quickly dropped the “Cone of Silence” pretext, as it was unlikely that any of us would see Red again, given that RG was our conduit to her. On a Sunday not long ago, I saw RG, Red, and their friend the Mermaid at the movies. Red deigned to even acknowledge my existence. That gave me the impetus to finally publish this story, as I had waited for the dust to settle and for both the innocent and the guilty to reflect on what had occurred.
