Page 30 of So Thirsty

I take a puff without inhaling and pass it back to the man, whom I can’t really see, his face obscured in shadow.

“How scared?” I ask. For some reason, I’m now more intrigued than afraid.

“Depends,” he says, then pauses to take a long drag.

Spellbound, I wait for the rest, until I can’t any longer, until I have to ask, “On what?”

“How brave you are.”

“Oh,” I say. “Not at all.”

“No?”

“No.”

“You admit to being a coward?” He’s British, his accent haughty.

“Not being brave and being a coward are two different things,” I say.

“How so?”

I think for a moment. He passes me the cigarette again, and this time I inhale, welcome the poison into my lungs. I wash it down with gin. I haven’t smoked a cigarette since I was twenty.

“Cowardice is selfish,” I say. “It’s an active choice to do the wrong thing. Not being brave…it’s passivity. And no one suffers but you.”

“You suffer?”

“No,” I say. “Well…we’re off topic. You were warning me.”

There’s a very loud grunt. Costel is taking Miri from behind. I avert my eyes, my cheeks scorching red.

“You were brave enough to come here,” the man says.

“I didn’t know I was coming here until I was here,” I say, and finish off my gin. “And I didn’t know the, um…I didn’t know what kind of party it was until about five minutes ago.”

“If you did, you wouldn’t have come?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you leave?”

“Do you want me to leave?” I say, surprising myself.

“I’m asking.”

“I don’t have a car. And I can’t call one because I don’t have my phone. And the weather is bad. And I’d have to convince Naomi to come with me, and it’s pretty much impossible to talk her out of doing something she wants to do.”

I gesture to the room, to the giant knot of bodies.

“You wouldn’t leave without her?”

“No,” I say. “I wouldn’t.”

“You’re a good friend,” he says.

“Thanks. Thank you. For your, um, approval. Sorry—it’s a little hard to carry on a conversation when…”

Someone’s getting spanked. There’s the distinct sound of a hand smacking against skin, at a very specific cadence. There’s a chorus of incredibly enthusiastic, sensual moaning. I haven’t watched enough porn to confidently say this sounds like live porn, but it sounds like live porn.