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Pastel Pubis
The party had gone on much too long. As Briony had been brought up with manners that insisted a good hostess should always put her guests' needs before her own (she'd been taught to put everyone's needs before her own), she stood in the doorway of the kitchen, gnawing repressively on a piece of wilted celery. The pre-dawn wreckage of her apartment bothered her. She ached to get into the closet and get out the Dustbuster. Wouldn't hurt to fetch out the Mop N' Glo and the 409 either.
But there were still guests, and so she stayed firm in the doorway with her celery. The spaghetti straps on her pastel blue clingy party frock kept flopping down. Earlier in the evening, the straps had been taking turns sliding seductively down a shoulder, often when she found herself in animated conversation with Trevor or one of his friends. But now the straps just flopped. And Trevor had flopped out himself, snoring where he had crashed out on her bed. She supposed she'd have to let him spend the night, seeing as he was her boyfriend and all, but he'd better not complain all the next day of some humungous hangover and try to get her to let him watch a football game and make him omelettes with feta cheese & spinach when he knew perfectly well she had to clean up the apartment from this mess. And, of course, Trevor being Trevor, he wouldn't offer to help her. He was kind of an old-fashioned guy, she once told her mom, and her mom had liked that. Briony was, however, ambivalent.
Old-fashioned, though, was just an euphemism for her mom's sake as it wasn't actually so much that Trevor was old-fashioned, but more that he was oblivious. This often came in handy.
Finished with the celery, Briony scoped out the party tray that had once been a dazzling array of cruditˇs and a faux-guacamole made out of broccoli. She grabbed up the five remaining pitted black olives and affixed them to the fingers of her left hand like she used to do when she was kid. She wiggled them. God, I'm tired, she thought.
Who was left here? Only that annoying Annabella in the corner with the alleged French guys, Bob and Archie. Alleged because whoever heard of French names like Bob and Archie? Briony had thought they were making a joke on her when Trevor introduced them earlier in the evening. But they sounded French all right and were sufficiently arrogant enough to be suspicious. The arrogance, though, might have come from the fact they were film majors. In fact, as Briony wiggled her olives on her hand, she could hear wisps of their chat with Annabella.
"It is, like, in the film, the cat is saying 'I am a snowy white cat. I am a metaphor. Love me.'" That was Archie, the more garrulous of the two. He was tall with long blond hair that started out tied in a ponytail but had somehow come down loose as the evening had progressed so that it was now flowing around his shoulders and being tossed ever-so-gently when he needed to make an emphatic point.
Bob, the dark brooding one, complete with black shaggy hair, a little goatee, and chiseled eyebrows, leaned over Annabella to refresh his wine glass. They were still drinking merlot. How many bottles had they brought, for god's sake? Briony thought.
"This wine has hot pants," Bob whispered and giggled.
They all giggled. Earlier in the evening, there had been a whole exhaustive parody of wine talk. Briony had been busy fulfilling her mingling duties then and mercifully missed the bulk of it.
Just decide, Briony thought irritably, which one of you is going to bed Annabella and collect your prize and get out. It's almost 5 a.m. Just as irritably, she bit each of the olives off her fingers in turn.
"The two most important events in a Frenchman's life are the day he loses his virginity and the day his mother dies. Everything in between is just espresso and cigarettes," Archie said. He laughed. "You think I make joke? This is true almost!"
"So, when did you lose your virginity?" Annabella slurred. She was quite drunk and alluring in her near unconsciousness. Briony supposed she should just pack Annabella off in a cab home -- alone -- but she was feeling too cross to be so charitable. Besides, she wanted to see which of them would woo her woozy heart. The suspense was killing her. Well. Not really.
"More wine?" Bob said to Briony, holding aloft the frightfully nearly full wine bottle.
"No, thank you. I'm fine here with my Evian," Briony said. She'd only allowed herself two drinks throughout the night. A drunk hostess was a sloppy hostess.
"You should sit down. Relax your feet," Bob said. "You 'ave been running around like some neckless poultry all night."
Briony, charmed by the fact someone had noticed her efforts, decided to take his advice, and sat on the chair by the couch where the three of them were planted. Bob, pouring her a glass of merlot, held it out to her.
"Take it, take it. It is superb."
"Yah, the wine has hot pants!" Annabella added.
"Take it. It, you 'ave earned. You 'ave been such a kind and super 'ostess," Bob said. His eyebrows knitted in the most sultry and comforting of fashions.
"Oh, all right, I guess it's okay," Briony said, accepting the glass. After all, the party was over really.
"So," Annabella said, poking Archie in the chest, "you didn't answer my question."
"Mmm?" Archie said, leaning into her, nearly onto her shoulder. His face was inches from hers. "What question is that?"
Just kiss her now, Briony thought, and get it over with.
"Oh, you know, the virginity one," Annabella replied, giggling and burping at once. "Oh, pardonez-MOI!"
"I lost my viriginity two days after maman died. No, really," Archie said.
Bob laughed so hard he nearly snorted the merlot through his nose. Annabella hadn't stopped giggling over her burp, so she just maintained the giggle in a dull stream.
"No, really!" Archie said, but as he was grinning maniacally, no one was offering him any condolences. "The woman, she was a lovely. A second cousin of maman's. She came to the funeral, and she was a hot one in this little Chanel mourning-type dress that was all tight around here and here," demonstrating the here's by touching Annabella's equivalents, "and I was, of course, weeping from my loss. I was seventeen. And she took it into her mind to console me in the only way one can be consoled by a woman wearing such a dress. It was -- how you say? -- a pinnacle? A pinnacle of grief. A pinnacle of passion. I have felt such sensitivity never again!"
He sighed and tossed his hair.
"Oh, you're serious!" Annabella said and clutched his hand. "You poor thing!"
Bob leaned over to Briony and whispered. "It all the time works."
"Works?" Briony said.
Bob slid over to the edge of the couch, so he could lean over it to speak more initimately with Briony. "His story. It is a bunch of -- ah ha ha ha -- well, you know. He uses it on the ladies. And, damn, it works."
And so it had. Briony glanced up from Bob's expressive eyebrows to note that at long last, the suitor had been chosen, and they were mangling their tongues together. Maybe she'd get to sleep before dawn, after all.
"We are keeping our 'ostess awake past 'er bed long time, no?" Bob said, deftly refilling her wine glass without her noticing.
"Oh, no," Briony protested lamely. "Not at all!"
"Will you permit me to do something reckless, although I 'ardly know you?" Bob asked, and before permitting could be granted or refused, he had sprung from the couch, grabbed her up from the chair, and gave her one of those French pinnacle-type kisses. Briony went a little wobbly, until she remembered Trevor was snoring in her bed.
"No, no," she breathed. "My boyfriend -- Trevor -- is in the next room."
"Yes, I know. I saw 'im pass away. 'E is a fool," Bob said, and fondled her breasts.
"No, really," Briony said, casting a glance at Annabella. She would die if Annabella saw this. Annabella would tell everyone. But, mercifully, Annabella was now lying under Archie who blocked any view Annabella may have had.
"The kitchen," Briony said finally. She could close the shutter doors.
Bob spirited her into the kitchen, which was really a mess from the party. They closed the shutters, and with very little preliminaries, Bob had her half-undressed and sitting up on the table like that scene from The Postman Always Rings Twice. She had hardly any time to feel guilty at all.
Afterwards, they sauntered merrily out of the kitchen. On the couch, the other two were going at it, and Briony watched indulgently. Picking up another piece of wilted celery, she thoughtfully chewed it as she looked on.
Not wishing to continue her voyeurism, she had to find something to do now. "The bathroom," she whispered to Bob and he whisked her away obligingly, making whispered reference to sharpening the pipe.
In the bathroom, she had a little digital clock on the white wicker shelves that straddled the back of the toilet. She noted it was just a little after five as Bob gently laid her down in the bathtub. She calculated that Trevor would most certainly be passed out until at least ten or eleven, and cleaning the apartment could certainly wait until at least then.
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