The Black & The White (22 page)

“
Have as much as you want.
Just don’t get fat,” Stephen said. He laughed and I nudged him
slightly.

“
Jerk!” I said
flirtatiously.

It was four a.m., and I seemed to have
gotten my second wind.

“
Going to brush my teeth,” I
said.

“
And slip into something
more comfortable?” he asked.

“
Yes!” I said as I stuck my
tongue out at him. “Long, comfy, cotton, not-at-all-sexy jammies,”
I added.

I walked through the living room into
an expansive bedroom. Oh, my God! I thought. I was so excited just
to sleep in the big bed.

Through the bedroom an open hallway
led into the bathroom. There was a wall cut out from behind the bed
through which you could peer down into a four-person
bathtub.

“
Everything okay in there?
You fall in the toilet?” Stephen yelled from the living
room.

I was embarrassed that he had noticed
I had been gone a long time. Routinely, I washed my face with the
complementary hand soap, brushed my teeth and hair, and then looked
at the bed and decided to go for it. I jumped onto it. Vegas is so
cool! I thought.

I straightened my pajamas and walked
calmly into the sitting room. Stephen was stirring drinks at the
bar with the silver shaker he had found. I asked what he was
doing.

“
Making you a nightcap,” he
responded.

“
Ooh, looks tasty!” I said
as I placed my hand at the small of his back, not noticing the
intimacy of my gesture.

“
Yes, cranberry and vodka,”
Stephen laughed. “I need to learn how to make drinks with more than
two ingredients.”

I made my way to the sofa and turned
on the television while I waited for my drink to be served. “Here,
let me know what you think. I added a slice of lemon. Now that’s
three ingredients. I’m getting better,” he said, handing me the
drink.

I took a sip and grimaced. “Um, I
think you started with just one ingredient.” The cocktail was
mostly vodka.

I sat on the living room couch as I
watched him leave and head to the bedroom to assess the suite. What
a cute butt, I thought.

“
Holy shit. You have a
better room than I do,” I heard him say. I joined him in the
room.

He continued to look around and then
walked into the bathroom. “Ha-ha! Look at this bathtub. Get in
there and let me picture what you would look like naked with
bubbles,” he said.

I rolled my eyes.

Stephen turned the television on in
the bedroom to the Discovery Channel. He jumped on the bed the same
way I had. One shoe flew off, and I saw that Stephen had a sock on
only one of his feet. I didn’t want to ask what happened to his
other sock, knowing it would be some long, involved
explanation.

The Five Most Deadly Animals was on
TV. We sat up against several layers of soft down pillows on top of
a thick comforter.

“
I wish my bed was like this
at home. This is so cozy,” I said as we sipped our drinks. In
truth, though, I was only pretending to drink mine, pressing the
glass to my lips every once in a while.

“
My God! Me too!” he
replied.

“
Don’t fall asleep yet. We
have room service coming,” he said. I opened my eyes. I hadn’t
realized I was slowly dozing off. “Pancakes and omelettes. Oh, and
a carafe of coffee to keep you up!” He pulled me closer to him on
the bed. “Here! Come sit right next to me over here.”

“
You kind of stink, I’d
rather not,” I said. He laughed. His scent was a mixture of cologne
and stripper.

He tugged me toward him a second time
and I obliged. I comfortably snuggled between his arms and his
body, watching television.

When the food arrived, Stephen
arranged the plates on the bed and told me to eat.

“
I’m too tired to eat and
still pretty drunk,” I said.

He reached into his pocket and dropped
a small white bag onto the dressing table. “This will wake you up.
Take a line with me. You can try a small one.”

He broke the powder up with his black
Amex card, separating it into four lines. Then he separated one of
the lines into two, smaller halves.

“
This one is for you,” he
said as he pushed the line closer to the edge of the counter near
the bed. He reached into his pocket and arbitrarily chose a $100
bill. He rolled the note up tightly until it formed a small tubular
funnel. He inhaled the powder and then pinched his nose. “Do a half
of a line in each nostril,” he said.

I followed his lead and snorted the
white powder from the nightstand. I was surprised that I was doing
drugs. It seemed so contrary to me, yet it seemed appropriate to do
it with Stephen. This drug was ubiquitous, and why not? I had
already gone to a strip club. Why not do a line? Everyone else
seemed to enjoy it. It can’t be that bad. I was committed to being
open-minded for the weekend. And with Stephen, I knew my secret was
safe.

“
I don’t feel anything,” I
said, wiping my nose. “What am I supposed to feel?” I
asked.

“
Nothing. Just keeps you
up.”

Minutes later, I started to feel
somewhat hypocritical about my attitude toward Kim and her drug
use. What had come over me?

I looked at the pancakes. They looked
delicious, but I had no appetite. Suddenly, I began to feel my
heart race, and my mouth felt dry. I was wide awake and feeling
slightly euphoric. I suddenly didn’t feel so drunk.

“
Ha-ha! Look. You have stuff
on your face. You missed your nose.” He laughed as he took his
finger and wiped my cheek clean of powder and then he rubbed the
excess under his bottom lip.

I asked if I could do another line.
The drug had made me feel good.

Stephen handed me the bill with one
hand as he stuffed a forkful of pancake into his mouth with the
other. He seemed to be concentrating on the TV show. “God, imagine
getting Bot worm!” he said.

I was absorbed in trying to make a
line of equal measure with the card that was as perfect as the one
he had made.

“
It uses you as its host!
Fuck! That’s gross. You can see it move! Look,
Isabelle.”

He turned to see what I was doing, but
I was more concerned about taking a cleaner hit of the cocaine than
listening to Stephen ramble with his mouth full of syrupy pancakes.
I snorted half of the line, pushing aside the other half to save it
for my left nostril. Apart from the illegality and the awful
chemical taste, I could understand the addiction. It was giving me
focus and confidence. Why had I thought it so taboo?

Stephen rolled over, grabbed me from
my waist, and pulled me toward him. I fell back onto his chest. He
pulled me further onto the bed before he pried his way out from
under me and rolled over on top of me.

“
Kiss me,” he
said.

Our lips met. I closed my eyes,
feeling his breath on my face and his weight on my body. He
whispered my name into my ear. I felt his lips linger on my
earlobe. I felt each follicle on my arm rise. His lingering lips
made his way slowly down the nape of my neck.

“
Kiss me again.”

Suddenly there was a noise at the
door. In a matter of less than a second, we hastily jumped away
from each other and to our own side of the beds, acting as though
we were just watching television.

“
Hey, you guys!” Carin
greeted. She staggered toward the food. “I love room service. I am
so hungry!” she said.

Yasmine followed her into the room.
They both picked with their fingers at the food Stephen had
ordered. I looked back to make sure the lines of cocaine Stephen
had prepared earlier weren’t still visible.

“
Ha-ha! You girls are
funny,” Stephen said. “Looks like girl talk. Time to gamble.”
Abruptly he got up, kissed me on the cheek, and whispered, “Thank
you,” into my ear as he left. I regretted telling Carin and Yasmine
what room I was in.

“
Hey, girl, nice room!”
Yasmine exclaimed from the bathroom.

“
Did you kiss Stephen?”
Carin asked me quietly. I looked at the ground, trying not to look
her in the eye.

“
Oh, my God, Isabelle you
did!” She jumped in the air and danced like a clown. “You kissed
him! You kissed him!” she sang out in a decibel loud enough to not
be a whisper.

“
I didn’t. Stop it! He’s
married, Carin.”

She looked at me with doubt. She could
tell I was lying.

“
Yeah, whatever. You kissed
him!” she laughed. “Let’s call Kim. We have to tell
her.”

“
No way! I didn’t do
anything.” I wanted to quickly change the subject, uncomfortable
with her knowing the truth. “By the way, what was that display in
the club?”

My euphoric state of awareness from
the drug was beginning to wear off. Carin was speaking but I wasn’t
listening. All that occupied my mind were the last two lines that
sat on the nightstand. Minutes of scheming seemed like forever as I
was trying to concoct a plan to get the two girls out of the room
long enough for me to snort another line. I could do one then and
save the other for the morning, I thought.

Carin was speaking but I wasn’t
listening.

I lay back, propped against the down
pillows stacked on the bed. My body was tired, but my mind was
racing. I began to tune into Carin’s monologue. Periodically, I
would think of my gentle kiss with Stephen. Carin and Yasmine’s
conversation became louder and louder as they tried to talk over
each other.

The sun began to rise and cast a red
glow on the strip. From my vantage point, I watched the sun inch
slowly from each house’s rooftop, making its way toward me. Vegas
in the sunlight was different from the glittering bright lights of
the night.

I tried to remember the last time I
had seen the sun rise. It was in college. I was typing my
dissertation, caffeinated and overly exhausted. Seven months
earlier, I wouldn’t have foreseen myself being in Vegas, doing
drugs, going to strip clubs or kissing married men. My whole world
seemed to have been turned upside down very quickly.

There was certainly going to be no
hope of sleep at this point.

Carin jumped from the bed. “I need to
grab another cocktail. Do you think I can make a Bloody Mary from
this bar?” She raced back into the room. “Or! Or! Or! We can just
order it from room service! Got to love room service. They probably
make a better drink than I do.”

“
Yeah, order two,” Yasmine
told Carin. I wondered why this girl was in my room? “I got to piss
like a racehorse. You order.”

Carin went out to use the toilet while
Yasmine went into the living room to place an order. Hearing
someone urinate would normally disgust me, but at that moment, I
didn’t care. I couldn’t stop the urge to finish the last line. I
snuck over and did the line quickly, then wiped my face on the
pillow just in case.

Carin began to recount her evening in
Andrew’s hotel room. “Did you hear Andrew throwing me around in
that fucking bathroom? I even slipped and hit my chin on the sink.
Freaking hurts.” Carin ran from the room and jumped on the bed
where Yasmine was picking at pancakes. She lifted her chin and
showed me, but I couldn’t see anything.

“
I know! I heard him yelling
and screaming! We were like in the bed trying not to crack up,”
Yasmine said as she checked Carin’s chin.

“
Wait!” I interrupted.
“When? Where?” I asked. “Tell me. Tell me.” They both looked at me
as though I had asked a stupid question.

“
Where do you think we just
came from?” Carin asked. “We just left their rooms.” Carin and
Yasmine snickered.

“
We heard you two also!”
They both burst into laughter. I hadn’t seen Carin this happy in a
while.

“
I have no idea how I
slipped going down on him, but ouch! He picked me up from the floor
and pounded me like a jackhammer. Boom boom boom boom!” Carin
demonstrated by thrusting her hips back and forth, mocking
Andrew.

I suddenly saw Andrew
differently.

“
Yeah, his thing nearly
choked me! I need to work on my gag reflex!” Carin said. Her
comment was slightly repulsive, but I laughed anyway.

“
That’s crazy!” I laughed.
“But I work with the man!”

We all laughed. As much as I claimed
that I didn’t want to know intimate details about Andrew, I really
did.

It wasn’t long after the Bloody Marys
came that Carin and Yasmine fell asleep on the bed. I watched a bit
more television then started to doze. The surge of energy I’d had
was gone, and I was now very tired.

I fell asleep but was awakened by
gentle nudges.

I whispered, “What are you doing
here?” My half-closed eyes were fervently trying to make out the
figure that was hovering above me. Had he come back for me? I
wondered.

“
I haven’t slept. This is
the only key I had. I lost the others. I hurt my foot.”

“
Stephen,” I said slightly
worried yet also disturbed.