Dumb Blonde

He grins his mad grin, that affectation he applies when he isn’t around somebody who is talking about how well he sings. Me, I can’t believe I am listening to Tenacious-D mimicking Chop Suey and am falling off, my leg tripping off his chair onto hers - in each others arms, my calf hovering over his crotch and ending gracelessly against her chest, heaving from amusement. For a moment it doesn’t matter that nobody understands, nobody cares and everybody misunderstands. I am a vessel of sadness being plugged by a big blob of ecstasy at this moment. He looks sideways and keeps staring. The empty common room with its four chairs and a laptop tumbles out from the corner of my eye to watch him watch me. For a moment I wonder if I could just hug my legs around his waist. I feel her hand caressing the sole of my feet and sliding the other leg, letting it fall onto her thigh.

A cheap gin warm rush flushes within me and like when on a heavy dose of it all my sleep turns into a chain of crimson draughts taking over me. Tenacious D gives away to Hakuna Matata and they all begin singing. I howl, my thigh pressing into both of them. Swinging the bit of my body that trips, jumps, bobs around as they watch all around them, empty eyes filled with glimmer.

A strand of hair passes across my face and he moves forward to pull it off. I watch the finger trace my eye and trail down, vaguely outlining me before going down to hang off my calf. Somebody comes in, calls out and we unwrap, I kiss him on his shoulder and standing awkwardly over his lithe little body, bottom sticking up in air, balancing on leg, her on her head. For a moment there I let the shallowness enwrap me in its omnipresence and let it wash into me without asking for any more.

For a moment there I was what I really was – ninet…no, eighteen and unsure.