I have no idea where we are when I step out onto the path on a residential street. Alistair’s house is three stories high and surrounded by brick walls. I momentarily think it must be his parents’ place, but then I remember Sasha telling me that he bought his own house last year. At the time I’d imagined a small little starter home, absolutely nothing like this. There must be money in the restaurant business. That, or he got himself a highly ambitious mortgage.
The music coming from inside can be heard pumping loudly even out here in the garden because the front doors are wide open. There’s a huge crowd inside; half of them probably weren’t even at Alan’s party in The Dorchester. Back there the age bracket had been much older, while here I can’t see anyone over thirty. Someone has affixed disco balls to the ceiling, and there are colourful lights flashing everywhere. It’s a touch disorienting. Spread around the expansive living room are makeshift stripper podiums – sans any strippers for the moment.
Alistair suddenly appears in the wide double doorway between the living room and the kitchen, brandishing a pint glass of beer. He looks completely drunk; his long brown hair (usually tied back in a ponytail) is loose around his shoulders. He raises the glass to us and begins chanting a song:
When the glass is full, drink up, drink up!
This may be the last time we see this cup
If God wanted us sober he’d knock the glass over
So while it is full we drink up!
“Hey Al, mate, I think you might have had one too many,” says Robert, eyeing him speculatively.
Alistair slurs something at Robert, shaking his head.
“What’s that song from?” I ask. “I’ve never heard it before.”
Alistair wobbles on his feet, his face scrunched up as he thinks on it. “Heard some guy with a beard and an accordion singing it at a random gig I went to last year. It stuck in my head.”
“Oh,” I say, nodding, as he brushes by me, shouting at his girlfriend Sandra and calling her a wench.
“It looks like my boss is a sloppy drunk,” I comment.
Laughing, Robert pulls me into the kitchen, where there’s a selection of drinks spread across the long countertop. He pours me a plain orange juice, for which I’m grateful, and then grabs a tumbler glass for his scotch. This is the first time he’s stopped touching me since we left the hotel, and finally I feel like I can breathe. His attention can be so consuming that sometimes it feels like I’m underwater when his hands are on me.
I stare about at all the nameless faces, managing to spot the back of Sasha’s head as she walks through the wide kitchen entryway, going back out to the living room. I might be mistaken, but it kind of feels like she’s avoiding me.
“Where are you?” Robert asks, handing me my drink.
“Huh?”
“You look a million miles away,” he explains, moving his body in close but not touching me.
“Well, this day has been very disconcerting,” I say, taking a sip of the sweet, tangy liquid. A small wave of nausea overcomes me. It’s not that the orange juice tastes bad; I think I’ve just eaten a lot and experienced a bit too much excitement today. My body can’t absorb any more.
“We don’t have to stay here, you know. I could take you home in a cab.”
I wave him off. “No, no, I’ll be all right. I want to stay another while.”
At this moment a new song comes on in the living room, and people start cheering. Robert takes my hand and leads me in to see what’s going on. For a moment I can’t see past the people standing in front of me, but when I go up on my tippy toes, I spot the strippers entering through the other door. It looks like some sort of burlesque troop; male and female dancers are decked out in frilly undergarments with brightly coloured hair, tattoos, and piercings.
I glance at Robert beside me out of the corner of my eye. He’s taking a sip of his scotch and surveying the room with an amused look on his face. He doesn’t appear overly excited at the prospect of seeing the strippers perform, more vaguely entertained.
Marilyn Manson’s cover of “Tainted Love” is playing, and the strippers are getting up onto their podiums in, uh, creative ways. One girl with fire-engine red hair grabs a hold of the pole and swings her legs up and around it, baring her rear end to one half of the room. Kind of a cool move.
I spot Alistair standing to the front of the room just before he lets rip an ear-splitting wolf whistle. His girlfriend Sandra shakes her head at him with a grin. I think she knows he’s just trying to play the part of the wild and crazy host.
This might sound ridiculous, but I’m actually too nervous to bring myself to look directly at the male strippers. Don’t get me wrong, I want to, but I’m just afraid that Robert will catch me looking and tease me about it. For a split second I allow my eyes to take in the ripped stomach of one guy with bleach-blond hair before I focus my eyes somewhere in the middle of the room.
Robert moves behind me now, folding his arms around my waist and allowing the back of my head to rest against his collarbone. One hand spreads out over my thigh as he brings his mouth down to my ear so I can hear him over the music.
“I wish your skirts weren’t so long,” he says, his voice low.
I swallow hard.
His hand moves to the left a little, grazing me in the spot he’d touched so passionately earlier today at the store, and I tremble.
“What do you think of the show?” he goes on huskily, the slight smell of scotch on his breath.
“It’s…impressive,” I manage, and he chuckles.
“How does it make you feel?”
“I don’t know.”