The Numbers Game (29 page)

            “Yes you
did. You failed to mention who the genius that constructed such a hilarious
photograph was.” 

            “Oh.” Lola
smiled again.

            “Would you
prefer that I make incorrect assumptions, or that you tell me instead?”

            “You can
make incorrect assumptions if you like…”

            “Yes I
could except that isn’t my preference.” This time Markie smiled.  “So…”

            “What do
you want me to say?” Lola smirked, “That I did it? Would that make you happy?”

            “Having
you tell me the truth in this instance would indeed make me very happy.”

            “Good then
I plead guilty,” she laughed. Just like that, as if she hadn’t totally
humiliated Rick and Markie beyond belief!

            “I did it;
I pulled you and your wanker boyfriend out of the closet for the whole world to
see; so that you both now have the pleasure of being free. Really you should be
thanking me.”

            “I should
be? I should be what?” Markie spluttered the words all over the table. If truth
be told it took all his energy, all his control to stayed seated and keep his
arms by his side.

            “I gather
that you know you’re fired, right? Instant dismissal.”

            “No, I’m
afraid you can’t fire me,” Lola sneered.

            For a
moment there, Markie thought he was really truly going to have a cardiac
arrest. The muscles around his heart tightened; his breathing became shallow
and constricted. Oh feck he was gonna die, he was gonna die right here, right
now in his office and the whole company still thought he was a homosexual who
tried to screw Lola in order to cross to the other side.

            He
clutched his chest as Lola got up to leave the room.

            “That’s my
retrenchment letter you’re leaning on,” she said, reaching to shut the door
behind her.  “I must thank you for being so utterly generous with my redundancy
package. Deposit it today and I’ll make sure to stay out of The Guerrilla Zoo
and harm’s way forever.”

            So that
was how it eventually went; one down, but another two hurdles to go.

At eight eleven on
Sunday night, a door bell ringing at Tabitha’s place sent the place into total
chaos.

            “Yippee,
it’s PARTY TIME! Tabitha squealed, running through the house like a maniac.
Along the way she swallowed a few more potent vodka jelly cubes (penis shaped
of course) and slipped on a pair of impossibly high stilettos. With them on she
hovered at way over six feet tall.

            “Our first
guest, our first guest, he’s bound to be the very best,” she sang as she
skipped down to the door. Secretly she had been hoping to be a lot more drunk
by this time but seeing as she wasn’t (fuelling Serena had taken up much of her
effort) she had to depend on juvenile enthusiasm instead.

            Speaking
of Serena, the girl was right now spying from the upstairs platform, calling
out a paranoid “Who is it?” to Tabitha over unfamiliar hysterical screams. Not
that Tabitha bothered to reply, she was too busy playing the perfect hostess
role.

            “Argh!
Look at you guys, I don’t believe it; you look like real down and out whores. Your
tits, they look so authentic!”

            “That’s
because they are,” the voice insisted and Serena relaxed immediately.      

            Champagne,
owner of the two breasts that sat as naturally as rocks on her chest; one had
to give her credit - Serena decided after popping her head around the corner
once more that her tits did go awfully well with the spider web bra and
g-string. As for Violet, she wasn’t surprised to hear her blabbing about being
one degree away from sex with the little napkin she was wearing.

            Serena
glanced down at her own provocative devil outfit and promptly discerned that
next to them she already looked more like the pope’s daughter. Or make that his
seventy year old mistress. What had she gotten herself into? A party with real
life people, real life music and real alcohol at a time when she was feeling
anything but crash hot. All thanks to a stupid bear accident that destroyed
Jasper’s car.

            “Bloody hell,”
she cursed under her breath.

            Whenever
she thought about this morning’s episode, it made her cringe. Everything had
been going so well in their relationship until then. Now Jasper was acting
distant, as if he didn’t really give a crap. Serena’s first reaction - her
innate “I’ve feel like I’m being treated unfairly” one - made slinking and
crying in a corner seem very attractive, but upon hearing the laughter and
animated talk coming from down below something stirred within her. Damn it,
maybe this was what she needed: One night to forget about her stupid innocent
mistake, one night to really let herself go with friends.

            Yes, she
would have fun, even if Jasper couldn’t be here thanks to his ‘prearranged
commitment’. She would attempt to enjoy this celebration, her celebration,
given that Tabitha was right. This was her last weekend at Hotel Ancient Cave.
Next week she was moving back home and who knew if things would ever be the
same? Serena felt better at this resolve, slipped the horns back onto her head
and walked downstairs.

Two hours later,
Serena didn’t quite know what she was thinking. The party was packed and in
full force, and in the sea of floating happy faces she swore she could see
people she shouldn’t be seeing; awful blasts from the past. Or maybe it was
just the drink. Lord knows she had guzzled more tonight than most normal social
drinkers sip in a month.

            Hey Tab,”
Serena screamed, leaning across the Balinese plank of wood. On the other side
of it Tabitha was buried beneath three or four gorgeous pieces of specimen. As
per normal, Tabitha opted to ignore her (much better Serena guessed to have hot
breath shooting down your neck) but Serena was persistent.

            “TABITHA
YOU SLUT, I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME!”

            Oops. It
appeared this time Serena was not only successful in grabbing her best friend’s
attention with the magic word but the boys as well. But so what? It wasn’t like
Tabitha could very well deny the insult given that the top she was wearing was see-through
and her pink erect nipples were peeking through the bits of the mesh.

            “You were
calling me?” Tabitha replied, removing her head from beneath Definitely a Gay
Man’s Armpit. What was wrong with Tabitha? Why couldn’t she see that the man
was a fag when the spiky dog collar and leather whip gave it away?

            “Yes, yes
I was,” Serena screamed back. “I need to speak to you, get off that bloody
couch and come with me to the bathroom.”

            “But I
don’t need to go…”

            “Tabitha!”

            “Okay,
okay. But it better be worth it.”

            Making it
to the bathroom ended up being a feat better suited to the National High
Security Defense Force.

            “Where is
our bathroom again?” Serena asked, bopping up and down to see over the swarm of
heads. Rather unsuccessfully she should add. The real question should have been
where did all these tall people come from? She looked up to Palm Tree Tabitha
for assistance and Tabitha smiled, dragging her harder through the crowd.

            “Not much
further, only two meters away.”

            Hmpf!
Maybe in normal houses two meters meant two seconds and two calories in
exertion but here in this terrace, with a full party in progress, everything
was multiplied by a hundred. The way Tabitha’s home looked now actually
reminded Serena of those notorious college parties shown on teen flicks which
we all knew never really took place. Nothing ever was that wild or fun and in
real life something always inevitably dampened the spirit – a row between a
boyfriend/girlfriend for kissing the other’s best friend, boring music, cranky
neighbors, or at the very least speedy evaporation of alcohol (though usually a
combination of the three). But here at Tabitha’s guests were for the first time
ever experiencing the real thing.

            “What is
it?” Tabitha asked when they finally made it inside, shoveling out the current
inhabitants on grounds of permanent residence. “That was so important you had
to grab me away from Huey and Luey?”

            “Huey and
Luey? Christ doesn’t that say it all? Tab, that guy and his friend are gay.
G-A-Y, do you want it spelt out for you on paper?”

            Tabitha
didn’t look at all convinced.

            “If
they’re so gay then why do they want to take me to bed? Huh?”

            She had
the cockiness of a drunken person with none of the intelligence to match.

            “Maybe
because you’d be the perfect third wheel. Even straight people sometimes add
another spice into their bed for more flavor, you know. But don’t expect the
cock to go anywhere except your ass.”

            Now Tabitha
looked miffed.

            “So? Maybe
I like it up the ass occasionally too. For a change.”

            Right…
with every passing second Serena was straying further and further away from the
original topic at hand. The beauty of being drunk: an attention span of ten
month old. She didn’t even have time to catch the passing thought “Who the hell
are all these people?”

            “Tabitha
you won’t believe who I think I just saw,” Serena screeched, the moment she
remembered why they were there, in the bathroom.  “I think I saw some of those
old South American wankers.”

            “Really?”
Tabitha replied, sounding very… very strange. “That’s nice.”

            “Excuse
me, did you just say nice? Tabitha look at me. What in the world are you up
to?”

            But no,
Tabitha insisted on swiping lipstick across her mouth like a credit card across
an electronic swiper.  Without even stopping to wipe off the crap she’d smudged
too far across her face, Tabitha mumbled something about restocking the liquor
table and took off.

            It could
only mean one thing.

            “You frigging
little cow,” Serena hollered beneath her breath. That was it, if she found out
that bitch under any circumstances went through her precious black book she
would kill her, rip her head off with bare teeth and shred it to pieces using a
blender. Make it her blender.

            Okay stay
calm; Serena tried not to drown in the deep doggy-do quicksand she was swimming
in.

            If her
suspicions were right (and they often were in these moments of intoxicated
clarity) Tabitha had gone ahead and invited her ex-lays. Who exactly though,
all of them? The only ones Serena could say she had seen for sure looked like Dominique,
Enrique and Ramiro which meant even Feckwit Fernando could be about. Damn, and
to think she would be bumping into them dressed as a high class hooker. At
least all her important parts were covered.  

            Serena
took a deep breath as she fixed up her devil’s tail which had only being
stepped on (and nearly ripped off her underwear) about a dozen times tonight.
Okay, here goes, if her suspicions about her exes were correct, she had to be
prepared to get launched back into the grooving and moving, bumping and
grinding horde. Oh gawd, was that a flutter in her stomach? It was, it was, she
realized. She actually nervous or was it excited?    “Hell I don’t know”, she
laughed. Who cares? As long as she had fun, that was the most important thing.
Whatever she did she mustn’t think about…she didn’t even remember his name
anyway.   

There they were
standing in the corner by the liquor table, looking very comfortable in foreign
surroundings, as if they dropped into houses of complete strangers all the
time.

            And she
was right; it was just Dominique, Enrique and Ramiro, three quarters of the
former South American Strike Force. Older, wiser and even more good-looking.
Damn. If they were ugly then it would be easy to go over, look surprised and
start a casual “so what have you been doing all these years” conversation. It
would help too in forgetting that she’d slept with not just one or two of them but
the entire trio.

            But hey
that was beside the point; it wasn’t like she didn’t witness them on the social
circuit all the time back in her heyday. Serena started counting to ten again,
this time with the intention of walking over there and saying hello before the
end of it. But ten quickly became twenty and then fifty until finally Serena was
forced to give herself a kick up the ass.

            “A
hundred, you better be giving hellos kisses before a hundred or else Tab gets
to KEEP the precious black book.”