Collateral (Number 40)
Did you ever have sex with someone just because you thought you ought to, not because you really wanted to? And before I continue, I don’t want this to sound like a non-consent story. It’s not… I don’t think. I’m fairly certain that I gave some kind of consent, but I’m not really sure why I did. Or what the consent was.
Let me explain and tell you the story of Number 40.
My Mate’s Date’s Mate
I was on the other side of the world and my mate was newly single. Let’s call her Christie. Determined to get one over on her new ex-boyfriend, Christie decided to call up the hottest guy she knew, invite him out to get royally shit-faced, and document the entire night in fun-lovin’ photo form to post all over social media with the intention of making the ex jealous. We were all doing that in our early twenties, right? It was almost a decade ago, before we grew cynical and tired of social media, still living out our entire best lives through the medium of Facebook. I’m not even sure we were on Instagram yet, back then.
“You’ve gotta come out with me. All the other girls are busy and I made my date bring a friend!”
That’s how it always went with Christie. I was usually quite far down on the list of people she actually wanted to spend time with, but I was funny enough and amicable enough for small periods of time. I was also usually up for a good party and less prudish than 99.9% of her friends.
To Christie, I was the sexually open, out-there, fall-back friend for nights out when you wanted to do something you’d probably regret. To me, Christie was the rich friend who took me to all of the coolest places in town and gave me the craziest stories to tell. Midnight snow-tubing. Sneak peeks at some of the most exclusive locations. Last-minute trips to weird, wonderful, faraway places. Getting drunk at work … with the boss. Expensive handbags and other fancy gifts. Christie would throw money at problems like she had a never-ending supply of it. It almost always meant a damn good time and people knew who she was everywhere she went. By proxy, it meant they knew who I was too.
We all met up at the latest hotspot, a local club, and one I’d spent so many nights in before with Big Love — but I tried to push those memories out of my mind. He’d broken up with me yet again. That’s how come I found myself available for a random night out in the middle of the week.
“Oh, come on. You know he broke up with you to fuck someone else. Give him a taste of his own medicine. My guy’s friend is cute, I promise. You’ll love him.”
And I figured, for once, I might take Christie’s bad advice. It was getting to that point where the makeup/breakup cycle Big Love and I had found ourselves in was getting tired and boring, and from the box of condoms in his jeans pocket with one missing, I assumed he’d been keeping himself nice and busy as I cried myself to sleep in the spare room night after night.
So, I let Christie introduce me to the boy that would be her toy for the next few hours. And then I let her introduce me to her boy-toy’s mate — my “date”. He was cute enough. Not offensive to look at. Blonde and quite slender, so not really my thing. But he bought me drinks and was nice to me, paid me compliments and laughed at all the drunken jokes I tried to tell but kept getting the punchlines wrong. I’m pretty sure he even danced with me at one point. I liked him. Not in an I-want-to-fuck-him kinda way, but he was easy enough to be around. And he kissed pretty well.
“We’re heading back to mine now. I couldn’t get a cab so I ordered a limo. It’ll be here in 15, are you two coming with us or …?”
And that’s pretty much how nights with her went. Rides in limousines when we couldn’t get cabs. Afterparties at her house that went on for actual days. Random men doing virtually everything she wanted them to do just because she clicked her fingers. Random women, too. Me included. And because she said it would be a good idea and also because I had nothing else to do, I went back to her house.
Me, Christie, Christie’s date, and Christie’s date’s mate.
After the limo got lost and it took us forever to get back, I was actually relieved when we all stumbled into her house and she suggested making cocktails. Except, as I was about to learn, cocktails at Christie’s house basically meant every and any alcohol she could find in her well-stocked kitchen, thrown into a glass with some apple juice to make it taste better. I was already fairly drunk by the time we left the club, so once the drinks started flowing at our little afterparty for four, I was well and truly finished off. Imagine a dribbling, mumbling, drunken mess … that was me.
As I curled up on her big leather couch and prepared to pass out, the sounds of Christie and her date doing something that sounded almost like it might be pleasurable danced around the house. The sound of sloshing water too, so I assumed they were making use of her hot tub.
“Sounds like they’re having fun, eh?” said Christie’s mate’s date. I don’t even think I ever asked for his name.
“Mmmhmmm.” I mumbled back.
I’m not sure why I let him grab me by the hand and raise me from the couch. I was too tired to move. Definitely too drunk for walking around. But still, I let him grab my hand and guide me to the stairs. I also let him guide me right into Christie’s massive walk-in closet and not one of her spare bedrooms even though I knew the layout of her house like the back of my hand. But that’s how drunk I was, I couldn’t even have found my way to the bathroom even though I’d probably peed in her loo more times than I’d peed in my own.
I don’t remember what happened next. I can’t recall how come we ended up naked on a pile of clothes that were once hanging up on a rail in Christie’s closet. I couldn’t give Christie a reason as to why there were THREE condom wrappers scattered around her closet floor, or how come we’d even ended up in her closet at all. Three condom wrappers? No condoms, thankfully, because that would have been gross; but THREE condom wrappers?! I don’t remember having sex with him one time, so how we could’ve possibly managed three rounds is completely beyond me. I’m not even sure I was 100% conscious for one of those rounds. Not all the way through. I am thankful we managed to remember the condoms, though. I’m assuming that was all him because I certainly can’t take any responsibility for it.
Thinking back over that story now, I can’t help but be shocked at how the night played out. How I *let* the night play out. I could’ve left at any point, gone back to my own bed, slept the bad and drunken decisions away. But I didn’t. I got in that limo and went back to Christie’s house even though I wasn’t all that interested in the guy I was going back there with. And still, despite that, I let him guide me up those stairs even though I didn’t really want to have sex with him … and wasn’t really in any fit state to. I’d like to think that he would’ve stopped if I’d said no, but I don’t know that he would have. And I don’t actually know/remember what I said — yes or no. I don’t remember much about the night at all. He was gone by the time I woke up the next morning, still sprawled across a pile of Christie’s clothes (that I then had to wash because she was hella mad) and I never really thought about him again. He was just another unnecessary notch on my bedpost. Absolutely nothing learned, absolutely nothing gained.
Drunken nights like that, filled with poor decisions are one of the biggest reasons I decided to stop drinking entirely. He probably shouldn’t have fucked me in the state I was in, and I probably should’ve had the good sense to go home when I knew I was out of my depth. I knew how drunk I was. I also knew that I’d probably let him have sex with me once we got to Christie’s house. Before that, even: when I got into the limo. But why? If I wasn’t that into him, why? Was it because he laughed at my shit jokes and plied me with alcohol? Or because it was implied by Christie and her date that we should sleep together before we’d even met?
And what would have happened if he hadn’t had condoms, or found them, or whatever? Would we have slept together without condoms? Did we do that anyway? I was tested and everything came back negative, thankfully, but my experience could very easily have gone a different way; I could have caught something from him, or gotten myself pregnant.
Speaking of which …
I later learned that my “date” (I definitely don’t enjoy calling him that) had a possibly pregnant girlfriend waiting for him back in his home town. I’ve always had a strict no-regrets policy when it comes to my sexual escapades, but I might just regret this one. I guess I did learn a lesson from it in a way: don’t sleep with someone who buys me drinks on a night out just because it feels like I ought to when I don’t really want to. I could’ve broken some poor girl’s heart. A potentially pregnant poor girl’s heart. I could have caught an STI. And for what? A night I can’t remember, I definitely wasn’t sober enough to enjoy, that served absolutely no purpose in my life? I didn’t even really like him that much.
I also later learned that Christie knew about the potentially pregnant girlfriend when she set up the fabulous foursome. But there you go, that was the kind of friend Christie was. She got her way — the boy-toy to play with in the hot tub on party night — and she would’ve done whatever she needed to do in order to get it.
Me and her mate’s date? We were just collateral damage.
Thanks for reading, folks! 💜
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