Page 27 of So Thirsty

“Thanks. If you’ll excuse us…”

I catch Naomi by the wrist and pull.

10

W e squeeze into a small, dated powder room. Dirty mirror, peeling wallpaper, disintegrating tile, clumps of dust gathered in the corners. The toilet and sink are a sickly green. The bronze fixtures long ago lost their sheen.

Naomi pulls down her stockings and sits on the toilet. “I’m sorry about what I said before. I just think—”

“Um, I can’t believe I have to ask this question, but is this an orgy?”

“God no.” I experience a brief, sweet relief. Then she says, “Well, I mean, it might be.”

“What do you mean, might? I don’t think there’s any middle ground when it comes to orgies. It either is or it isn’t.”

“I’m not sure,” she says. “There was an implication tonight would be wild, but Ilie never said anything explicit.”

“Yeah, we need to go.”

She grabs some toilet paper, wipes, flushes, pulls up her stockings, and pulls down the skirt of her dress. She crosses to the sink and washes her hands.

“Nay—we didn’t sign up for this.”

“We don’t have to do anything we don’t want to do.”

I slap my hands to my forehead in disbelief. “You mean I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do, because you’re clearly into it!”

“So, what if I am? Lee and I went to a party like this in Amsterdam and it was honestly the hottest, most insane experience of my life.”

“But Levi isn’t here, is he?”

“Neither is Joel.”

I’m surprised she’d go there. Now I’m fuming.

“Just because he cheats doesn’t mean I—” I can’t stand to hear myself say it out loud, say that I wouldn’t cheat. Because maybe it’s the truth and maybe it isn’t, but neither makes me feel good. “What about you? Lee would be okay with this?”

She takes my lipstick out of her bag. Reapplies Killer. “We have an agreement.”

“What kind of agreement? Why have you never—” I stop myself because I realize I already know the answer to this question. Naomi’s never told me that she and Levi have an open relationship because of the infidelity in mine, which is so insulting and embarrassing I wish I could crawl into a deep, dark hole and never come out. Turn into Gollum, only a more depressing version, with nothing to love.

“It just never came up,” she says. A lie to spare my feelings that has the exact opposite effect.

“All right,” I say. I take a turn on the toilet as Naomi fixes her lipstick in the mirror, dragging her pinkie nail along the edges of her lips, her finger coming away red.

“The idea of a party like this is a lot, I know, but in practice, if you just go with it, it’s so freeing. So fun. Remember fun, Sloane?”

“Were we not having fun?”

“That’s not what I meant,” she says.

“Sure,” I mutter. I’m distracted by a clanking noise, followed by a low, distant groan. It doesn’t sound like a pleasurable groan. It sounds pained. “Do you hear that?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Nay?”

“You know what?” she says, whipping around as I make myself decent and elbow her out of the way to wash my hands. “No. I’m not going to let you do this. Make me feel bad for embracing the night. For taking you here. For getting you out of your fucking house with your snooze-fest husband who can’t keep his dick in his pants, who doesn’t make you happy, who you won’t leave because you got your heart broken once in college and have been fucked up about men and sex and yourself ever since.”