Chapter XII

When Joey returned, he brought more than just a beer. Amber was walking beside him chatting with him. My heart skipped a beat - she was finally here. When she spotted me, she grinned from ear to ear.

She was wearing a grey body-conscious dress which cut short at mid-thigh. If you don't know what that kind of dress is, it's basically God's gift to men in dress form. Yoga pants for the whole body, form fitting and soft, slightly elastic. Only leaving skin tone and freckles to the imagination, her dress showed off her full breasts, the fluidity of their contours, how her entire torso seemed to pour into and out from her lush frame.

Joey walked her over and then passed me a soda.

"Oh, hey, look, it's something really important over there," he said dryly, and then walked away.

Standing in front of me, Amber turned, affording me a view of the wonders her ass was working on the dress - somehow, without appearing slutty, the hem of it appeared as if it could slip up at the slightest touch. I felt electric just being close to her.

She sat down next to me, and without looking at me, took a sip from her beer. I mimicked her gesture, following her gaze, which wasn't on anything in particular. Then, I turned back and looked at the profile of her face, her smooth skin and subtly done up eyelashes. Everything about her face spoke of sophistication and a tamed sexual presence which could rise at any moment. I only ever felt as if I was standing on the brink of something while I was in her presence, one foot on a mountain top and the other plunging into space.

"You know, some people say hi," she said.

"Well, we lesser humans tend to shut right the fuck up when goddesses walk into the room, so, take it how you will."

"Hmm. I have no idea who you're talking about," she said, with a feigned air of disinterest.

We both broke into a minor fit of giggles at the same time, and she smiled warmly, turning to look at me.

"It's good to see you, Peter. I'm sorry about canceling earlier."

"No worries, Amber. Is everything alright?" I asked, genuine concern in my voice.

She shrugged. "I'd rather not go into it right now. In fact, I'd rather forget most everything right now." She took a long swig from her beer, just the sight of her lips wrapped around the rim of the bottle was enough to send a jolt of sensation into my cock, and it stiffened. She brought it down from her mouth suggestively, but subtly enough that anyone looking wouldn't think twice. A small gesture, and a secret - meant for me.

"Well," she added, a thoughtful expression played across her face, "I suppose there are a few things I'd like to remember."

"Like what?" I asked.

She turned, and whispered in my ear. "Like you, and all the things I want you to do to me tonight." A shiver coursed down my spine and I was fully erect in seconds, the raw sexuality, the undertones of carnal desire pressing so closely against my skin...the promise of being with her later that night evaporated all my hesitations and fears, and I felt on top of the world.

"You know," I replied, adjusting my pants, "some people just say hi."

She giggled. "I'm sorry, it's just good to see you. I hope you didn't worry or anything."

"What, me worry? Na. I'd never do that. Nope, not one bit. Never."

"Aww, poor Peter. Well, I promise I'll make it up to you. I'm gonna go make the rounds and say hi to my friends. Somehow I'll navigate the fact that I went to you first and them second." And then she stood up, and walked away.

Damn. What a girl, just not caring in the slightest. The ease with which she discarded me turned me on so much, a fact, I reflected, that was liable to get me into trouble, and probably had already.

I got up and found friends of my own - they were in the middle of trying to figure out whether cunnilingus was something you could only do to girls, or if getting a blowjob also qualified. How on Earth did they get to that topic, I wondered.

"I feel like it's only for girls," I said, tossing in my few cents. "Guys get fellatio, right?"

"Oh, shit, that's a good point," responded Sam, one of my friends. "But hey, you'd know about it, right, you're trying to get some fellatio tonight from Amber, right? My man." He put up his hand for a high five. I rolled my eyes and met him there half-heartedly.

"Yeah. Really trying to get fellatio'd. Goal number one for the evening."

Above the din of the crowd I heard Amber's voice near the front door. I looked over, and she was talking with Allie, who was still standing outside. I excused myself, and walked over.

"Hey, Allie," I said, missing the look Amber tossed my way. Both her and Allie had confused, worried expressions, and as I faced the door I saw that standing behind Allie off and out of sight was Mark. His hands were in his pockets, and he was looking down at the ground. When I showed up, he looked up at me, and his eyes went wide. He stiffened up.

"Hey, Tristan. Um. We're not on the list, we weren't planning on showing up, but, we heard about it from a friend-"

"I told her to come," said Amber. "I didn't expect this guy to show up with her." She was angry, and resentment tinged her words.

Mark blushed. He was different. His entire composure was shifted, and I remembered what I'd done to him. It was more than a temporary dissolution of his anger. I'd profoundly and thoroughly fucked him up in the best way possible, a deep cleaning of all the bad shit.

"I promise he'll be okay. He's different, really." Allie smiled weakly. "You wouldn't believe it, but really, it's like the real Mark. I promise."

"Yeah, right, how many times have I heard that before?" retorted Amber. She was fiery when she needed to be - she felt Allie was in danger, I could tell from the protective stance she was taking.

"You know," I chimed in, "that's all well and good, but I'd love to hear it from Mark, personally. Maybe that's just me."

He raised his head, and furrowed his brow. He opened and shut his mouth a couple times. It looked like he was trying to talk.

Allie put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, it's okay. Don't try too hard." She turned back to face us. "He hasn't said a word since, well, you know..." She didn't have to finish the sentence. "But he's been so nice! He bought me flowers, he came over and cooked me dinner, he wrote me the nicest letter. It's the guy I fell in love with at the beginning of high school, I promise. He won't bug anybody. Will you, babe?"

He shook his head in response, and looked at Amber and I with such genuine apology in his eyes that I literally felt Amber soften next to me.

"Well, shit," she said. She turned and looked at me, questioning.

I don't know if it was because of some lingering connection I had to Mark, or because I'd been overwhelmed by the fact that I'd had such a dramatic influence on the guy, but I knew. I knew he was different. I could tell, the person that I was looking at right now was absolutely nothing like the one who'd been tossing punches my way a few days ago.

Or, hell, maybe I was just drunk and feeling generous. Did Joey slip something in my soda? Part of me was just happy to have more friends over, you know? Plus, it looked cold out there. People shouldn't stand out in the cold.

"You're both welcome here," I said. "There's booze and lots of people," I swept my backfoot and opened my arm up to welcome them in. "But, don't try to drink the people," I added, cautioning. "They don't like being drunk. Or, wait, they do, but not by you. They do the drunking themselves."

Allie looked at Amber blankly. "Is he drunk already?"

She smiled and gave me a tight hug, planting a kiss on my cheek. "Aw, little baby Peter can't hold his liquor. Cutie. Don't get too drunk, now!" she said, and in a lucid moment I grasped what she meant - I needed to stay up with her. Right. My head felt heavy, like I was having a hard time keeping it on my neck. Man, Joey really did slip some beer into my soda. How did I not even notice? The bastard - I bet Amber was in on it too. I could really feel it.

"Wait!" I said to Allie and Mark, who were kicking off their shoes and putting them in the shoe rack.

"What?" Asked Allie. Mark turned and looked at me, a little scared.

"There's, already, you know there's stories. Of me fighting Mark 'n shit. Not good for you to walk in alone," I said, then added, whispering, "I think people took my side. Shh."

Mark looked at the ground, ashamed.

"Well what do you want us to do?" asked Allie.

"Mmm, okay, watch. So here's the plan. Huddle up," I gestured for Allie, Mark, and Amber to huddle in a circle. They just laughed, Amber especially at how drunk I was acting. They didn't get the seriousness of this. "No, guys. We need a plan. Huddles are key ingredients to planning. You can't plan without a huddle. Good word, huddle."

They humored me, and we all stood hunched over in the entryway.

"Okay, we can skip code names," I began, "and go straight to the plan. Here's the plan. I walk in and me and Mark are hugging. Then people think we're buddies, and we skip a lot of bullshit."

They stood around me, waiting for the rest.

"That's the plan." I said. "Nothin' else to it."

They burst out laughing, even Mark. There was probably some sort of difference between the instinctual way in which one laughed and the formulation of words, I thought, cutting through the mental fog in an instant, but it returned immediately.

"He's actually got a good point," said Amber. "It wouldn't hurt, and it certainly might do a bit to mitigate any awkwardness. You know how rumors are, people are as quick to drop them as they are to spread them."

"Hmm, well, alright then," said Allie. She nodded to Mark, and he shuffled over to me, somewhat warily.

"It's okay, Mark," I said in what I hoped sounded like a soothing tone of voice but what was more realistically simply slurred. "I won't bite you. Unless you ask me to bite you, then I'll bite you, because friends do things for friends. 'Course you'd have to talk first. But it's okay, true friends can sit in silence and be ever more the closer for it!" I declared, triumphant. I tossed an arm over his shoulder.

"Into the field of battle!" I pronounced, and so with the three of them laughing amongst themselves and Mark shaking his head at what I imagine must have been one of the more surreal experiences of his life, we walked into the main room with the beer pong table where everybody was.

"So, as I was saying, I really do think the effects of Confucianism haven't been closely examined with relation to the neo-liberal capitalistic undercurrents of the mating patterns of the North American chinchilla. A shame, really," I said as many heads turned, shocked, surprised, or totally indifferent to my proximity to Mark. He just nodded along, trying to stifle his laughter.

"But that all feels so irrelevant, too, wouldn't you think so, Joey?" I said, approaching my group of friends who watched me approach slack-jawed.

Joey caught on immediately. "Well, yeah, but you can't just discount the chinchilla like that. I mean, they do occupy a fundamentally powerful position in Wall Street, and without their vote, there's no way you're getting re-elected, even if Mark's your running mate. Hi, Mark, by the way." Joey extended his hand, and Mark shook it, nodding.

Talking in absolute nonsense was one of Joey and mine's favorite pastimes. The goal was to make up something so patently absurd that it couldn't be taken seriously at all, but wrap it in big words and concepts and make it sound serious enough that people who listen just think they must be missing something.

"By the way, Mark's sworn to silence until he defeats the man who killed his Taekwondo teacher. Keep your eyes peeled for a slippery Asian man in a frilly skirt." I patted Mark on the back as Allie and Amber walked up beside us. "You guys know Amber and Allie, yes? And if you don't, now you do, this is Amber, and this is Allie." I said, pointing to them.

"So, how much has he had to drink?" asked Amber. "You know… before I got here.

"No more than three soda, and probably less than that," replied Joey cheerfully, a glint of mischief writ on his face. Yup. He definitely tainted my soda.

"Aw, what a lightweight," she replied.

The group split up, Allie and Mark talking with Joey, and Amber dragged me off into a corner.

"Looks like I've got a fair bit of catching up to do," she said, drinking long from her beer. She cast a thoughtful look my way. "You know, you're pretty awesome. I wasn't on board at first, but you did a really nice thing for Mark there. Allie probably had to drag him here kicking and screaming. Good on her."

"He can't scream, guy can't talk!" I replied, and she giggled. "Kicking and scribbling on a piece of paper, 'ahhhhhhh' more like,"

We stayed in the corner for awhile, talking, being generally goofy, and Amber finished her beer. She went to go get a new one, and when she came back, sashaying her hips in the way that only she could do and which left the rest of the room irrelevant, she slipped an arm around my waist and leaned lightly into me.

"You're cute when you're drunk," she said.

"You're cute when...er, always." I replied lamely. She laughed anyway - alcohol, the best excuse when it comes to saying stupid shit.

I had my back to the corner. She stepped in front of me so that the room's perspective of me was blocked by her, and she surreptitiously brought her hand to my crotch, and gently squeezed, drawing her hand up and down before turning back. Fuck, I was hard instantly, the fact that we weren't fucking right this instant seemed to me a catastrophic mistake on the part of God in the creation of this moment.

"Amber..."

"Do you know a place we can escape to?" she cut me off, staring directly into my eyes. There was no question, thank God we were on the same page. I nodded in response.

"There's a guest room I was going to crash in upstairs."

"Lead the way," she said mischievously, and I boldly took her hand and she happily followed me. As we passed the front door, it opened, and I felt her freeze behind me.

"What the fuck, Amber?" said a voice I didn't recognize. When I turned, I saw a man standing in the doorway, outrage plain on his face. He looked familiar, but my drunk brain couldn't place where I'd met him before.

"What are you doing here, Tyler?" She demanded, letting go of my hand and placing her hands on her hips authoritatively.

"I just wanted to talk, I felt like we left off on the wrong foot earlier." So that's where she'd been. "But I guess it's true, then, the little whore has found herself a buyer."

"But, I didn't pay for her," I said, confused. "That one didn't make any sense, try another."

That caught him off guard, and he didn't know what to say. There was hurt in his eyes, and anger.

"Peter, let me talk to him, okay?" said Amber, without looking at me.

"Oh, so now you want to talk? You're such a bitch, you know that, Amber? You're the worst person I ever met, I thought we were doing good today, and now you're off with some other guy, don't you have any fucking respect for what we had?"

"What we had?" she exclaimed, astounded, "What we had? You suffocated the life out of what we had months before we were over. I'm just ashamed it took me that long to figure it out."

"Guys, I think we should close the door, you're letting a draft in," I said. It seemed like a good idea at the time, a different tack on the conversation. Hey, guys, we could be talking about how cold it is instead of this! I tense up around drama sometimes, it's hard for me to be around, and drunk me was starting to panic.

"Fuck you, Amber, I can't believe I ever loved you. You're a real piece of work, and fuck you, guy, whoever the fuck you are, let me talk to my girlfriend in peace," he said, raising his voice when he turned to me.

"How many times do I have to say it?" exclaimed Amber, "We aren't together! We!. Aren't! Together! Get over it, Tyler, really try and understand this: I never want to see you again."

"Whatever, bitch, you'll be back soon enough. Bet you ten bucks you're sucking my dick before the week is out." he sneered. Amber gasped, taken aback.

Fury built up inside of me. "Hey, don't talk to her that way. You can't do that."

"Oh yeah?" he said, taking a step inside.

"Joey!" I called out loudly. He owned the house, and drunk me felt he needed Joey to kick the guy out. Why I didn't just shove him away and shut the door is a mystery to me still.

"Aw, Amber, I didn't know you'd turned lesbian. Looks like you picked a real pussy to fuck," he said.

"See… again, your insults just, they need some work, man." I taunted, trying to buy time. Unfortunately it just served to piss him off more, and he raised his fist, preparing for a strike.

Have you ever been punched in the face? I mean, really, full on punched in the face? Tyler wasn't by any means a huge guy, but even a skinny dude weighs 120 pounds, easily. And either Tyler got lucky or he knew how to throw a punch, because his right fist slammed hard into my face, and I fell to the floor. It didn't hurt immediately - I had the alcohol to thank for that, but I felt something snap - my nose, maybe - as my face slammed into the floor.

"Told you, can't fight for shit, little guy," I vaguely heard above me, my ears ringing. "Fuck...Amber...ever talk to you again," I pieced together, and then I heard his footsteps running outside. Oddly enough, it was right then, on the floor, that I remembered who he was - the guy who'd been staring at us in the park. I'd erased his memory of those events, thankfully. I could only imagine what would have happened if I hadn't caught him looking.

Amber was above me in a heartbeat, worry all over her face. She turned me over from my side onto my back, which as it was happening, I vaguely remembered you weren't supposed to do to people who'd gotten into serious accidents.

"Oh, fuck Peter I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. Are you okay? Here, follow my finger," she said, frantically waving her finger in front of my face. I tried to follow it, but she was too tense and was moving it too quickly, and I hallucinated a trail of minute butterflies tracing behind her fingers.

"Shit," I heard Joey say. "He's gone. You okay Peter?"

"Yeah," I groaned, "Peachy."

"Wow," said Amber, "that's a fair amount of blood. We need to get you cleaned up"

"I got it, I got it," I replied, finding strength inside me as the wooziness settled. I stood up, and saw Joey and Amber above me, as well as a few curious other people further back. I wobbled back and forth for a moment before fully finding my footing.

"I…" I pronounced, "am going to the bathroom to clean up my face, and we will return to our regularly scheduled programming in a moment." I was still pretty drunk, and the dizziness from being punched in the face didn't help.

"Are you sure?" They both asked in unison.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Listen, if I feel like I need help, I will come out and ask." I said, walking over in the direction of the bathroom. "Back in just a second," I said. I opened the bathroom door, and shut it close behind me. It shut with a strange sound, louder than normal, more final, like jaws snapping shut, and I went over to the sink to look at myself.

Geez, I'd really taken a blow to the face. There was blood smeared all across, coming down from my nose. I ran some water, and splashed it in my face, before grabbing one of the guest towels from below the sink and wiping my face dry, mindful of my nose. My nose kept bleeding, so I got some toilet paper and balled it up, pressing it gingerly against my nose. It hurt when I put pressure there - it was probably broken, I assumed.

The sound of birds permeated the bathroom. That's odd, I thought, finishing up wiping the blood away from my face. What a strange intro to a song.

Once satisfied with my physical appearance, I gave myself a final once over. Doing alright, looked like I'd be able to head outside so long as I kept the napkin to my nose.

I turned, and the door was gone. In its place was a path of white gravel leading up to what appeared to be a monastery in the middle of the jungle. I did a double take, turning back to the mirror, looking at my reflection, wide eyed. Then, back to the door - it was still gone. The birds were definitely chirping through there. Yup, that was definitely a path right there, and I was smelling humid, hot air.

I blinked a few times. Then, it all started coming back to me, like blocks of memory that had been floating aimlessly finally settled where they belonged.

This has happened to me before, the door disappearing, in my home a few days ago. I'd been taken on a crazy journey, met the little boy who was not a little boy, battled wits with a woman while fucking her, and, oh my god, the woman on the throne… She'd told me I belonged to her, that I was chosen for something. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

My stomach sank as I faced the inevitable. I wouldn't be seeing Amber anytime soon, at least that's how it seemed. I vaguely remembered time not passing much the last time I'd been taken away, but who knew if this time would be the same. The only thing I did know, was that I was not going to stand bleeding in the bathroom, waiting for the scenery to change. Drunk me was a prideful person.

Pressing a bloodied napkin up to my nose, I stepped out onto the path, and the world snapped shut behind me. I didn't have to look to know the bathroom had disappeared.

The jungle was tall on both sides of the white gravel, the monastery gleaming in the sunlight, it's windows brilliant beneath the sun. I shaded my eyes with my free hand - fuck, everything was so bright. A dove passed by in front of me, and then flew forth toward the building.

I took a deep breath. There was only one thing to do.

I walked forward.