WHAT DO YOU DO?

I know I shouldn't be doing what I'm doing but I'm doing it anyway.

I’m going out with the boys, and I have a feeling will happen tonight, but I don't know what and I don't know with who. But I’ve been stuck in the house for the last six months with a crying, screaming, puking, pooping baby who kept me up all last night, so I say fuck it, drink an oversized Redbull, and head towards downtown after work, straight to the bar. The game is in the second half and the boys are already there with a bucket of beer on the table, so I have some catching up to do.

**

It’s so hot and sweaty in the club that my white shirt sticks to my skin, but she doesn’t seem to mind. We grind against each other and I try to make conversation, yelling over the deep bass drums of the endless streams of songs, the rhythms of which are timed with multicolored lights.

Question: Can I buy you a drink?

Answer: For sure.

(Good start.)

Question: What are you having?

Answer: Gin and tonic.

(That’s just disgusting.)

Question: Do you want to get a booth?

Answer: Definitely.

(Keep going.)

Question: My name is Mike, what’s yours?

Answer: Jill.

(Nice name.)

Question: What do you do?

Answer: I work at an architectural firm, where I am a...

(Blah blah blah.)

On and on like this for a while until we’ve had too many drinks and I’ve talked too much and I can’t hear anything anymore and anyway it's closing time.

**

So she says your place or mine? I hesitate for a second then say yours and I get my jacket and take her arm. We walk a couple blocks to her place and go inside and immediately start kissing even before closing the front door.

She stops for a second and says do you want something to drink?

I say yeah, but not a gin and tonic.

She shakes her head and laughs a little laugh. She kisses me again quick then goes into the kitchen. I sit on the couch, kick up my feet on the coffee table, put my arms behind my head and wait for the drink, but I hear a crash as she drops a glass she was trying to get down from the cupboard.

I go in to help her clean it up, but as I’m picking pieces up off the floor, I cut my finger a bit on the glass.

She looks at my finger and the drops of blood and the glass on the floor, and she stops trying to clean up. She sits down on the floor with her back against the dishwasher and she laughs and I do too, but there's blood on the floor and she's going to regret that tomorrow.

**

She says so in that particular way; I put my non-injured hand on the small of her back with one finger in her belt loop and I lead her to her room. The room is clean and she has three pillows on her bed. She takes off all her clothes and I take off all mine and then I'm touching her hair, I'm kissing her lips, I'm putting my hand between her legs, I’m going inside of her, all of that.

She says don't stop don't stop don’t stop and so I don't stop, I keep going and then it's over and that's that.

I roll off from on top of her; she goes into the bathroom. I lay there for a second, listening to the sound of her pissing with the ceiling spinning above me. Then I pull all the covers over my body and instinctively curl into the fetal position, my cut finger throbbing under the band-aids.

She comes back in, silhouetted by pale light coming through the windows. She’s wearing an old hotel bathrobe, glasses on now, her blonde hair up in a pony tail.

Good night, she says in little more than a whisper, then goes into the living room and turns on the TV.

I think I'm already asleep.

**

I wake up the next morning, wondering where I am. I get my clothes from up off the floor and dress quickly. As I leave, I see her sprawled out on the couch, the TV still on with the sound muted, her bathrobe partially open.

The city is silent as I walk a couple blocks back to my car and drive home. At a stoplight, I reach into the glove-box and get my wedding ring from under the insurance and registration cards and an old unpaid ticket. I take the band-aids off and slide the ring back on, careful not to break the scab.

I get home to an empty house, since my baby is at day care and the wife has already left for work. The digital clock on the night table in our room says 9:13. I take off all my clothes and call in sick for work then go vomit in the sink.

I am still a little drunk as I look at my face in the mirror above the sink. It looks like someone else’s face in the mirror, all baggy eyes and fleshy neck and puffy cheeks. My face looks too old in the mirror. I am hoping it is just the mirror.