It was new years' eve 2008. My friend Chelsea and I were at her friend's house, tryna get crunk.
We'd been friends for years at this point, but in the last six months she'd been dropping what I felt were some subtle hints that she wanted to date me.
It all started when she dropped out of GWU, less than one semester in. She flew back home and immediately started talking about wanting to get an apartment with me. All of a sudden, she’d give these weird backhanded compliments, like, "My friends think you're handsome". There was that drunk voicemail she left, gushing about how much she loved me. The unironic Love-You’s that marked the end of all our text conversations. That fall she got a job where I worked, at Peet's Coffee, a job she didn't need - she already had one. And when we worked together, she would spank me and play grab-ass while I worked register.
All really subtle stuff, and it was my fault for reading into it as far as I did. In the back of my head, somewhere, I thought that it all had to add up to something. All the cryptic hints and clues made me feel like she’d left college and come home because she missed me. This was my own narcissistic wishful thinking. I was too clumsy to navigate the nuances of her personality. In retrospect, I had a lot of my own issues to work on - namely, my misogynistic attitude and toxic expectations towards women. Chelsea owed me nothing. I was a pig.
She called me at noon on a Saturday in mid-November, saying she had two leftover parachutes of molly from a halloween rave. Her roommate was gone and she wanted to take them with me, alone. When I got there, she'd already taken both hits. Her pupils were as big as dinner plates – she looked hilarious, like a fucking anime character. I'd been trolled. But now she wanted to do something else. Change of plans. She wanted to go to Santa Cruz. Asked if I could drive. I obliged. Why the hell not? I gassed up the Corolla and we made the six hour trek, and that night she got us a hotel with her dad's credit card. We spent hours on the beach, watching the waves roll in, taking swigs from a fifth of Captain Morgan that a hobo bought for us. The last thing I remember from that night are some scattered bits and pieces of watching her do cartwheels in the sand, maniacally laughing as she fell every time.
I woke up in room 107 of the Casa Blanca Inn. The morning light poured in through the open blinds and fell on Chelsea's nude, porcelain-white skin. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. There she was, completely naked. “How did we get here?” I thought. I was still fully clothed.
Her eyes opened and gazed into mine. A smile washed over her face as she pulled me in close, wrapping her legs around me, nubile breasts squished against my shirt.
“Take me”, she whispered in my ear.
I understood the request.
I got up, tossed her some clothes, and took her to the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot – she’d been talking about it for years.
Still to this day, I have no idea why she was naked. Maybe she liked sleeping in the nude or something.
But I digress.
She invited me to her friend's new years’ eve party. Her - best - friend's party. Chels was selective about which guys she introduced to the rest of her friends. Only if things were serious, and you’d proven yourself, did she allow a loner guy friend into her inner circle. And this year, I was her +1. This was exclusive, this was a VIP affair. You see, in high school, she hung out with the really artistically switched-on, "with it" crowd. Hipsters before the word hipster had been cheapened to "flannel and glasses". These were the sort of kids who would cut class for a week to go crash Coachella with fake IDs, and do mescaline in the desert with Josh from Fleet Foxes - in junior year.
These kids, they were fucking cool.
I rolled into HipsterCon at 9:00pm sharp - not a minute late. I’d been pre-gaming in my car for hours with a pack of Camel Wides and a copy of Dinosaur Jr's Where You Been, which was my idea of cool music. It was at this mansion a few minutes off the PCH, out in the rolling yucca of west Malibu, and as I rounded the last bend of Yerba Buena and its behemoth roofline entered my view I could feel my insides churning. The driveway was littered with Priuses and Range Rovers, all driven by these teenage sophisticates. As I made my way up to the porch, MGMT’s Weekend Wars blared from inside. Sheepishly, I knocked. A girl with bangs and a sundress answered the door and let me in. There were Zooey Deschanels doing jello shots in the kitchen, and Alan Palomo doppelgangers in the living room, playing pong on a mahogany burl table. I was in awe of how upper crust everyone was, with their fucking tortoise-shell Clubmasters and hundred dollar haircuts. How does a 17 year old afford to look like he fucks models? It sure as hell wasn't from working at Jamba Juice. My mind sluggishly processed the scene.
I came wearing a Mossimo hoodie and ill-fitting boot cut jeans, reeking of Axe, with this atrocious overly gelled faux-hawk. I looked like Dane Cook on pizza bagels. It was clear, I didn't belong here. But the kids were all super nice, and they showed me all around the place, knowing I was friends with their friend. There was a long, winding cobblestone path from the backyard down into a fire pit area, and within minutes I was sitting by the fire, belgian saison in hand, listening to some girl exchange Burning Man stories with Daryl Hannah, who appeared to be a long term house guest.
I’d integrated into the party like a virus infects a host.
Earlier in the day, I'd made up my mind that I was gonna ring the new year in with a kiss. When the ball dropped and the clock struck 12, I was gonna fuckin’ do it. I was gonna kiss Chelsea. She was gonna get smooched. The entire night leading up to this, I was so nervous that my hands and feet kept going numb. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I was nauseous with adrenaline. The only remedy was to get drunk. So get drunk I did. The first two hours of the party, I must have puked in the bushes three times. Not just from sheer autistic terror, but also from being a rookie at tequila shots. I don't know if anyone saw how much of a wreck I was. They must have. The entire night, Chelsea was avoiding me, as if she was embarrassed and knew she made a mistake by inviting me. I didn't realize this at the time - too fixated on the task at hand.
11:56 – Everyone gathered in the living room. We were packed in like sardines.
11:59 – There were 5 or 6 people between her and me, and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get to her. I began to push through the crowd.
TEN. NINE. EIGHT. SEVEN.
I had no idea what I was doing.
SIX. FIVE FOUR.
I hadn't thought this one through. Her back is turned to me oh fuck shit fuck how am I gonna do this--
THREE.
TWO.
ONE.
I grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to turn her around. People gasped. The whole room parted around us like the red sea.
She ducked and squirmed out of my grip, lunged forward, and turned to face me, withdrawing a blade. It was a 12th century Saracen's sabre. Wootz steel. The light from the foyer gave its patina a purplish glow. Beautiful. She drew back before plunging it into my stomach. I stood there in shock - not even feeling pain yet. She pulled it out. I looked down to see rich bright red arterial blood, along with bits of eviscerated liver tissue, drooling from my gaping misogynistic wound. I was so fucking embarrassed. The whole room pointed and laughed at me. Tears began welling up in my eyes. Partially digested food seeped out of a slit in my small intestine and spilled all over the floor. People were crying with laughter. I looked out over the sea of people to see a girl leaned up against the staircase who had pissed herself laughing.
I looked back down and my gaze settled on my friend, who was still standing in front of me, smirking. The sword dropped to the ground and she approached. She inserted two fingers into my abdominal cavity, making a "come hither" motion and tickling my gallbladder. My grey hoodie was now red and dripping. The stench of iron and shit stained the air. I began to feel woozy. She took her hand out of me and licked her fingers, savoring the taste of my blood and bile.
The room was quiet.
She looked me in the eyes, and with this cold, silent stare - eyes as black and dead as a gerbil's - she said,
"I’m telling mom, bro. You’re so grounded."
We'd been friends for years at this point, but in the last six months she'd been dropping what I felt were some subtle hints that she wanted to date me.
It all started when she dropped out of GWU, less than one semester in. She flew back home and immediately started talking about wanting to get an apartment with me. All of a sudden, she’d give these weird backhanded compliments, like, "My friends think you're handsome". There was that drunk voicemail she left, gushing about how much she loved me. The unironic Love-You’s that marked the end of all our text conversations. That fall she got a job where I worked, at Peet's Coffee, a job she didn't need - she already had one. And when we worked together, she would spank me and play grab-ass while I worked register.
All really subtle stuff, and it was my fault for reading into it as far as I did. In the back of my head, somewhere, I thought that it all had to add up to something. All the cryptic hints and clues made me feel like she’d left college and come home because she missed me. This was my own narcissistic wishful thinking. I was too clumsy to navigate the nuances of her personality. In retrospect, I had a lot of my own issues to work on - namely, my misogynistic attitude and toxic expectations towards women. Chelsea owed me nothing. I was a pig.
She called me at noon on a Saturday in mid-November, saying she had two leftover parachutes of molly from a halloween rave. Her roommate was gone and she wanted to take them with me, alone. When I got there, she'd already taken both hits. Her pupils were as big as dinner plates – she looked hilarious, like a fucking anime character. I'd been trolled. But now she wanted to do something else. Change of plans. She wanted to go to Santa Cruz. Asked if I could drive. I obliged. Why the hell not? I gassed up the Corolla and we made the six hour trek, and that night she got us a hotel with her dad's credit card. We spent hours on the beach, watching the waves roll in, taking swigs from a fifth of Captain Morgan that a hobo bought for us. The last thing I remember from that night are some scattered bits and pieces of watching her do cartwheels in the sand, maniacally laughing as she fell every time.
I woke up in room 107 of the Casa Blanca Inn. The morning light poured in through the open blinds and fell on Chelsea's nude, porcelain-white skin. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. There she was, completely naked. “How did we get here?” I thought. I was still fully clothed.
Her eyes opened and gazed into mine. A smile washed over her face as she pulled me in close, wrapping her legs around me, nubile breasts squished against my shirt.
“Take me”, she whispered in my ear.
I understood the request.
I got up, tossed her some clothes, and took her to the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot – she’d been talking about it for years.
Still to this day, I have no idea why she was naked. Maybe she liked sleeping in the nude or something.
But I digress.
She invited me to her friend's new years’ eve party. Her - best - friend's party. Chels was selective about which guys she introduced to the rest of her friends. Only if things were serious, and you’d proven yourself, did she allow a loner guy friend into her inner circle. And this year, I was her +1. This was exclusive, this was a VIP affair. You see, in high school, she hung out with the really artistically switched-on, "with it" crowd. Hipsters before the word hipster had been cheapened to "flannel and glasses". These were the sort of kids who would cut class for a week to go crash Coachella with fake IDs, and do mescaline in the desert with Josh from Fleet Foxes - in junior year.
These kids, they were fucking cool.
I rolled into HipsterCon at 9:00pm sharp - not a minute late. I’d been pre-gaming in my car for hours with a pack of Camel Wides and a copy of Dinosaur Jr's Where You Been, which was my idea of cool music. It was at this mansion a few minutes off the PCH, out in the rolling yucca of west Malibu, and as I rounded the last bend of Yerba Buena and its behemoth roofline entered my view I could feel my insides churning. The driveway was littered with Priuses and Range Rovers, all driven by these teenage sophisticates. As I made my way up to the porch, MGMT’s Weekend Wars blared from inside. Sheepishly, I knocked. A girl with bangs and a sundress answered the door and let me in. There were Zooey Deschanels doing jello shots in the kitchen, and Alan Palomo doppelgangers in the living room, playing pong on a mahogany burl table. I was in awe of how upper crust everyone was, with their fucking tortoise-shell Clubmasters and hundred dollar haircuts. How does a 17 year old afford to look like he fucks models? It sure as hell wasn't from working at Jamba Juice. My mind sluggishly processed the scene.
I came wearing a Mossimo hoodie and ill-fitting boot cut jeans, reeking of Axe, with this atrocious overly gelled faux-hawk. I looked like Dane Cook on pizza bagels. It was clear, I didn't belong here. But the kids were all super nice, and they showed me all around the place, knowing I was friends with their friend. There was a long, winding cobblestone path from the backyard down into a fire pit area, and within minutes I was sitting by the fire, belgian saison in hand, listening to some girl exchange Burning Man stories with Daryl Hannah, who appeared to be a long term house guest.
I’d integrated into the party like a virus infects a host.
Earlier in the day, I'd made up my mind that I was gonna ring the new year in with a kiss. When the ball dropped and the clock struck 12, I was gonna fuckin’ do it. I was gonna kiss Chelsea. She was gonna get smooched. The entire night leading up to this, I was so nervous that my hands and feet kept going numb. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I was nauseous with adrenaline. The only remedy was to get drunk. So get drunk I did. The first two hours of the party, I must have puked in the bushes three times. Not just from sheer autistic terror, but also from being a rookie at tequila shots. I don't know if anyone saw how much of a wreck I was. They must have. The entire night, Chelsea was avoiding me, as if she was embarrassed and knew she made a mistake by inviting me. I didn't realize this at the time - too fixated on the task at hand.
11:56 – Everyone gathered in the living room. We were packed in like sardines.
11:59 – There were 5 or 6 people between her and me, and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get to her. I began to push through the crowd.
TEN. NINE. EIGHT. SEVEN.
I had no idea what I was doing.
SIX. FIVE FOUR.
I hadn't thought this one through. Her back is turned to me oh fuck shit fuck how am I gonna do this--
THREE.
TWO.
ONE.
I grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to turn her around. People gasped. The whole room parted around us like the red sea.
She ducked and squirmed out of my grip, lunged forward, and turned to face me, withdrawing a blade. It was a 12th century Saracen's sabre. Wootz steel. The light from the foyer gave its patina a purplish glow. Beautiful. She drew back before plunging it into my stomach. I stood there in shock - not even feeling pain yet. She pulled it out. I looked down to see rich bright red arterial blood, along with bits of eviscerated liver tissue, drooling from my gaping misogynistic wound. I was so fucking embarrassed. The whole room pointed and laughed at me. Tears began welling up in my eyes. Partially digested food seeped out of a slit in my small intestine and spilled all over the floor. People were crying with laughter. I looked out over the sea of people to see a girl leaned up against the staircase who had pissed herself laughing.
I looked back down and my gaze settled on my friend, who was still standing in front of me, smirking. The sword dropped to the ground and she approached. She inserted two fingers into my abdominal cavity, making a "come hither" motion and tickling my gallbladder. My grey hoodie was now red and dripping. The stench of iron and shit stained the air. I began to feel woozy. She took her hand out of me and licked her fingers, savoring the taste of my blood and bile.
The room was quiet.
She looked me in the eyes, and with this cold, silent stare - eyes as black and dead as a gerbil's - she said,
"I’m telling mom, bro. You’re so grounded."
