Lines (Part One).

1.

So far.

This year.

We sat in her living room and snorted cocaine and crushed MDMA off of the back of her post-punk validity selection and I didn't know what to expect. Her father rented this apartment for her but she wouldn't admit it. I kept catching glimpses of her underwear and her thighs and my wife was across the room and I didn't care and she didn't care and my wife didn't care. I made fun of her. I called her a trust fund cunt and she touched my thigh.

Her boyfriend is my close friend and I love him.

It was New Years Eve.

Drink. Laugh. Whatever.

2.

I had looked forward to leaving the house all day and we drove to my close friend's house for forty five minutes. My wife shaved her legs and pussy before and I wore whatever and we bought a ten dollar bottle of wine and drove. We laughed. She and I. We sang songs on the radio together and I tried to get her to suck me off in the car. It didn't happen and I smirked and let it go. I had thought before that I could let someone else fuck me and let someone else suck me and touch me and kiss me and still love her. I had thought it. I had felt guilty. I remind myself of my guilt.

We drove to my friends house, parked on the ice and snow and walked to the door. My wife was in heels and I held her up most of the way. She smelled wonderful.

I knocked and just went in.

“I'm here.”

“Come in then.”

He was in the kitchen. He wasn't drinking but we had the wine and when we got to the kitchen and found glasses he was and we all were. I had woken up in his apartment before and when I looked at the floor and the ceiling and the walls I remembered it. I felt it again and when I looked in his eyes as we spoke I was ashamed. I know I shouldn't have been. I was. That's another story.

She was heart-breakingly sexy, my wife. Her stockings. Patterned and tight, translucent and tight. Her dress. Black. Short. A mint slip underneath and showing through the black lace. My wife. Sexy. And mine. I know people look. I don't mind and I'd lie if I said I didn't like it somewhere in the rust and slop and trash of my mind and my dick. I sometimes thought it was a disgrace for me to think like that. I was ashamed of it foremost, it didn't stop me and I wondered if this was how homosexuals felt in the closet. Or pedophiles. Or murderers. In my mind, in private, in darkness, I allowed it. I reveled in it. I accepted it.

We sat in the kitchen and the wine was in coffee mugs that had sayings on them. Hers was “Young Fart”. Mine was “Kill Yourself and Feel Better.” His had a picture of a cartoon dog smelling a daisy and when he sipped from it his face scrunched and the wine soaked into his beard. I wondered where he got the mugs.

“It's terrible,” he said about the wine. It was. We all agreed. It sat thick in your mouth like tar and was both bitter and too sweet and attacked you. We had nearly three liters left.

“We can't go anywhere until it's gone,” I said.

We agreed on that too and muscled through the first mug worth each. There were framed pictures on the walls of the apartment. Show fliers. Clips from magazines. Collages he had made. Framed and celebrated irony. I looked around and my wife looked at me and her pink hair and black stockings and black and mint dress that rode up her thighs and I could have taken her then, had it not been so public. I wanted to rip her from her chair. Slam her to the wall. Tear her stockings and yank her hair. I wanted her there and then and I always do. It can be hard to look at her.

“There's this girl that's having a thing if you guys want to go,” he said.

“That's pretty fucking vague,” I said.

“You remember that girl that came to the Halloween party with me? With the knife in her head?”

“Yeah.”

“Her. At her place.”

“Oh.”

“Oh,” my wife said. “We tried to convince her you were a piece of shit.”

“That's nice,” he said.

“No, we really tried,” she said. “Are you still fucking her, or did she listen?”

“You know,” he said.

I laughed and my wife drank more wine. We had the rest of the bottle still and it seemed to be refilling itself.

The kitchen was filled with a pale yellow light and we sat uncomfortably on dinette set furniture and mumbled bullshit back and forth and then half of the bottle was gone and someone was walking up the stairs.

“You home Michael?” the guy called as he came into the living room and then the kitchen. He looked like all of us. Ironic tee-shirt. Black skinny jeans. Beard. Wool cap. We had to all notice it. We had to all see the idiocy in it. I don't think he saw it. Michael may have and ignored it. I drank more wine for the team.

His name was Zeph and he told us how to spell it. With a “Z” and a “P-H”. He assumed we could grasp the “E” on our own.

I introduced myself and he said he had heard of me somehow through someone maybe and I nodded. I got that a lot and I didn't know what it meant. I still don't. My wife introduced herself with a fake name and Michael and I knew it was fake but Zeph didn't and he shook her hand and was quick to shift his attention to the floor and then me and then Michael. Chair. Wall. Stockings. Hair. I understood.

“You want more wine Rachel?” I asked my wife who's name isn't Rachel.

“No, but yes, I guess.”

I filled her mug and mine again also.

Zeph and Michael were standing and talking about a girl they both worked with. They shifted and paced and we all muscled through the wine. They eventually went into the living room and I took the wine with me and sat on the couch near them and my wife sat next to me. Zeph and Michael went on about something that I don't remember.

“So, when do you want to leave?” Zeph asked Michael.

“When we finish the bottle,” I said.

“It's only halfway, though. We'll be here all night.”

“Drink up then,” I said.

“I'll get you a mug,” Michael said and got up to get Zeph a mug. I wondered if it would be a clever saying or a clever cartoon or cleverly blank and I thought about how hateful I can be.

“So you guys from Springer?” Zeph asked.

“No. Spier Falls.”

“Oh. That's kind of a drive.”

“Not really. Fifteen minutes.”

“Oh.”

Michael brought out a plastic yellow cup and filled it with wine and handed it to Zeph. “Drink and save us all,” Michael said.

Zeph laughed. Rachel (who isn't Rachel) filled her mug again.

We made small talk and Zeph was all right and Michael was sketchy and Rachel Who Isn't Rachel was intoxicating and so was the tar of wine we eventually finished.

“When the bottle was finally empty Rachel cheered and Michael clapped and Zeph looked sick. I brought all of our mugs to the kitchen.

“Christ,” I said. “Let's go now.”

There was an hour and a half until midnight.