I wake up with the steady thump, thump, thump of last night’s alcohol banging on my eardrums.

How long have I been asleep?

What time is it?

Holy fuck, am I ever hungover…

Thump, thump, thump…

Was I even asleep?

Or did I just black out?

I wouldn’t put it past me...

(I’ve been better lately, but at that point in my life, I was certainly no stranger to alcohol-induced rolling blackouts.)

Where am I?

Thump, thump, thump…

Actually. I think I’m still drunk.

I've barely even opened my eyes yet, and I'm struggling to sift through the haze - strange room, foreign space, vaguely familiar smells.

Thump, thump, thump…

Wait... Is the bed moving?

I feel my body wedge deeper and deeper into the space between the bed and the wall with every thump. My head throbs in time with the heave of the mattress.

Yep. Definitely still drunk.

I try to take a peek at my surroundings, but there isn't much to see – what with my cheek pressed firmly against the wall and all. The springs are whining under the pressure of every beat. The earliest suggestion of a sunrise is squinting through the blinds. The sheets are rubbing, pulling away from my skin. The heavy, grunty breaths are somewhere behind me - breaths that are obviously not coming from my lungs.

Wait… Am I naked right now?

A couple of someones are having sex in this bed. And as far as I can tell, I'm not one of them.

We were four people sitting around a dinner table. Collectively, we were five? Six and a half bottles of wine deep? At least. One by one, we knocked those little glass soldiers down. Just ruthlessly, too.

The volume was way up. The conversation was scattered. Our innocent game of Scrabble had approached death match level – Chad and I apparently both take the game pretty seriously, and were almost literally at each other’s throats at some points.

No, Chad, actually you can’t. You can’t use a foreign language to make that Q tile work.

IT’S AGAINST SCRABBLE LAW.

You and your dumb white sunglasses…

… and your stupid Tapout shirt that is a size too small…

… and your ironic tribal armband tattoo…

… can all FUCK RIGHT OFF.

Chad is actually a lovely human, by the way. I’m gonna go ahead right now and blame any and all of my outbursts that night on the ludicrous amount of wine we managed to down.

Anyways, after Chad (totally illegally) won the game, no one was really in the mood for Round Two. So, Chad and Sean took that break in the flow to change gears - finally bro down and properly catch up for the first time that night.

Liv, on the other hand, hadn't even been engaged in Round One. Liv was hungry – to be fair, we hadn’t eaten since lunchtime - which might also explain how we had so much room to fill, and why we are such a bunch of dickbag drunks right now - but she really wasn’t all that concerned about food, if you know what I mean.

Throughout the game, she shamelessly teased Sean while making passive aggressive passes, that were just dripping with tension and innuendo, across the table to Chad.

Chad and Liv were sort of secret lovers. I mean, it was no secret to Sean and me at the time – we had spent the whole afternoon with them, even before they'd invited us over for supper, and they were far from shy about displaying their affection for one another all day long.

But I had come to learn that they were both in the throes of their respective divorces, and their relationship was still on the DL with anyone in their inner circles. At least, until all the official papers were signed and sealed. There were kids involved, after all.

But Sean and I were a fun neutral ground because we didn’t even really know each other at the time, never mind Liv and/or Chad, allowing them to let their guard down for the day. And Liv and Chad’s affair was fresh and vibrant and carnal as fuck. I’ve never seen a couple of forty-somethings so revoltingly smitten with each other. We're talking kisses between every few sentences, a lot of "Aw, Baby" and sheepish giggles from both sides, shameless flirty ass grabs, etc. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen any two people so velcroed to one another since the last time I would've walked down a high school hallway teeming with curiosity and sexual awakening. Seriously gag-level adorable.

As far as the boys go, Sean and Chad had been oddly close friends for a long time, in spite of their stark lifestyle differences and the sheer physical distance between the places they call home, thanks to the bonds of heavy metal fandom.

Then there’s the friendship between Sean and I, which is a little unorthodox in the sense that we found (and continue to find) ourselves on epic adventures together despite hardly knowing each other at the time. Adventures that even much closer, more intimate friends would never dream of. And this particular adventure was our inaugural journey.

Just to reiterate. We all barely knew each other – making this tale all the more ludicrous and fantastic. So, needless to say, there were some really interesting and confusing layers of history, or lack thereof, weaving the four of us semi-strangers together that night.

I took my time running my hands under the warm water in the bathroom.

I think I just realized how drunk I am.

I could hear Liv and Sean laughing in the kitchen, though I couldn't make out the nuances of their conversation.

Finding snacks, maybe? Finally making supper? Getting water? I’m not sure–

WHOA!

I never saw it, but I heard Liv crack Sean in the face. Right on the mouth. It was a solid connection too, from the sounds of things.

Chad, who had apparently been lounging in the living room, and I both hurried from our opposite ends of the hall to see just what the fuck was happening in the kitchen.

Oh, shit!

Is his lip bleeding?

What the fuck is going on?

I still have no idea why it happened. I laughed because I didn’t know what had prompted everything, and frankly, I didn’t know how else to react. I couldn’t tell if Sean was upset or just stunned. Chad seemed relatively unfazed, suggested Liv go to bed, and took Sean back into the living room to create some separation. Maybe he knew something we didn’t, or simply wanted to give Liv some space.

But Liv was heated. She was all riled up, obviously frustrated in more ways than one. Plus, she was pretty fucking wasted.

Then, on top of all that, she was pissed that the guys were suddenly ignoring us in favour of bro time. She made a face at me and rolled her eyes.

I swear, her eyes are even drunker than she is right now.

But when her dark irises lolled back into place and locked on to mine, it was like she was seeing me for the first time.

Her gaze was dreamy, yet intense and contemplative, like a snake trying to hypnotize her prey. Or a cartoon character who just shook the stars away after being banged a little too hard on the head. At any rate, it seemed she had forgotten why she was upset.

After a long pause, she stroked down the soft side of my face with the back of her hand, and tucked some of my hair behind my ear.

Well. That’s not suggestive at all.

She told me how pretty I was. I thanked her. I think she was about to say it again, but then she lost her balance and nearly fell out of the chair. I echoed Chad's suggestion.

"Maybe you should actually go lie down."

She didn't put up a fuss with me, got up and stumbled down the hall.

I wonder if she’s in the bathroom or her bedroom.

I’m not sure what to do.

Should I do something?

I stared blankly at the wall. What I did know was that I didn’t really want to join the guys to talk about the glory days of heavy metal.

Maybe I should check on Liv to make sure she’s okay.

Yeah, I’ll get her a glass of water.

Standing at the sink, I got caught up glaring at nothing again until I felt the cold water flow over my grip on the glass. On some level, I must have known what I was about to walk into, but something blocked my ability to evaluate potential consequences. Maybe it was wishful thinking, drunken denial, general naivety, some combination of the above...

I don't know. Can’t really confirm or deny either way - it’s just one more black spot on my severely scorched film reel from that night.

I’m not even going to acknowledge those two in the living room as I walk by. I’m on a mission now... I guess?

There was no sign of anyone in the bathroom. The door across the hall was closed though.

She must be in there.

I opened the door carefully, not wanting to startle her.

Doesn’t look like I could scare her even if I tried.

She was sprawled face first on the bed. Eyes loosely shut, with a slight, goofy smile on her face. She was quite obviously hammered, but she seemed to be winding down. Didn’t look like she was going to hit anyone again, anyways.

She must have heard me come in - her one eye had opened a little more, and she was smiling in my general direction.

I’ll just put the water on the bedside table next to her, and let her know it’s there for her if she needs it.

She was responsive, if you can call it that, to the sound of my voice.

We’re chatting sloshy nonsense now.

Is she saying words?

We were clearly having an exchange of some kind, but I was having a hard time remembering the sentences that came before whatever was being said. I think she was telling me a story. My thoughts were everywhere.

This mattress is soft.

I nodded to acknowledge her garble – both of us were dozy, but conscious enough to pretend to be paying attention. She was still lying on her front; I was still sitting on the edge of the bed next to her.

She’s stroking my arm.

She told me again that she thought I was pretty.

Am I blushing?

My face is hot.

I might be blushing.

I asked her if she wanted me to get Chad to come in and take care of her.

“No,” she said. Slurry, but self-assure. “Not yet, anyways.”

The insinuations were becoming more and more palpable.

Now, generally, though I tend to prefer taking on a more submissive role, I can usually drum up the confidence to get the ball rolling. Especially if we've managed to come this far and my partner is going to beat around the bush for too long, so to speak.

But this here was new territory.

It was far from my first time with another woman, and I was no stranger to being the other woman either.

But I've never been the other woman for another woman.

A woman who, babely as she is, is twice my age.

A woman whose beefy, ultra-hetero boyfriend is right down the hall.

I got literal motion sickness from all the spinning thoughts getting tangled up with the alcohol buzzing around my body.

I obviously don’t want to risk taking advantage of someone so intoxicated...

But I also desperately want her to take control already.

Either way, I couldn’t find it in me to make that icebreaking move myself.

As if she could hear my inner dialogue, she sat right up, and looked at me dead in the eyes. There was a new alertness about her. Like the hunger that had been riling her up all night had a sudden sobering effect.

And then she kissed me.

Oh fuck. Here we go.

It was so soft and careful. At first. On both sides.

But you know like in pretty much any vampire movie ever when the fledgling vampire takes the first bite and gets that first taste that throws their ravenous, insatiable appetite into overdrive? And they lose control because no one has taught them how to be a well-behaved monster yet?

That. That's what I felt from her.

She grew exponentially more aggressive with ever pass of her tongue, and bit right down on my bottom lip. Hard enough that it might bruise, but not enough to break the skin.

My lips were still on hers when I heard the faint murmur of male voices down the hall and remembered where I was.

I cautiously ran my fingers through her pixie-short hair, perpetually checking in with our eyes.

We might have been making out still when Chad walked in.

I froze. She pulled away slightly to acknowledge him. I had no idea how he was going to react.

But I'm not nervous. I don't think...

I assumed, rightfully or wrongfully, that perhaps this was a common occurrence in their relationship. At the time, it made total sense to me that they would not only open to, but also well-versed in inviting beautiful strangers into their bed.

The look on his face though...

Actually, to this day, I don’t think I remember what his face looks like. He was just another body, another presence, another blur on a very poorly filmed and edited tape. So, I think that look on his face - shock, upset, excitement, confusion? – is a contrived memory at best.

He wanted to know if she was all right. If we were all right. She told him to leave us alone. That he should go back to his little bromance and proceeded to rattle off a list of either butchered or made-up names of metal band frontmen.

I don't know the difference, to be honest.

We were alone together, and her tongue was in my mouth again.

She kissed down my neck, and I felt my reservations melt further away with every nip. I ran my hand down her arm.

My god, this woman’s skin is so soft. Especially for someone her age.

Is that normal? I guess I don’t go around touching older ladies.

I guess my mom has always had soft skin. Not that I’ve taken a lot of time to stroke her all over.

What the fuck, Jayne?! Are you serious? Don’t think about your mom right now!

Definitely not right now!

But, I mean, incest is so hot right now…

Jesus christ, woman, would you shut up--

My inner banter was cut short when Chad came in again, closing the door behind him.