Nicole and I used to wait tables together when we were in college and we did a good job of remaining friends thereafter. We'd go out once a month or so with her crazy girlfriends to a karaoke night downtown. She was a party girl in college and she showed no signs of slowing down in her thirties.
It was at karaoke night that she introduced me to Dustin, her latest boyfriend.
"Hey, Nicole told me a lot about you," he said, shaking my hand. He had a nice smile, a shaved head and a killer body, his t-shirt and pants filled out with rounded, smooth muscles. We made small talk before I headed off to sing "White Wedding." When I was done, Nicole pulled me off to the side.
"He's in fucking med school," she said, wide eyed.
"Seems younger."
"Twenty fucking five," she said. "Score of the century, Daniel."
"He smells great too," I said. Nicole slurped down the dregs of her gin and tonic and reached for the fresh one on the table.
"His body..." she said, leaning into me and spilling a little of her drink on the floor. She bunched her fingertips and kissed them off. "Not an ounce of body fat on him, totally smooth, you could lick him head to toe like a fucking ice cream cone. And I do, Daniel, believe me, I do."
We looked at him across the room, ordering us another round at the bar. "Great ass," I said, admiring the plumped-out rear of his shorts.
"Grabbing on to that thing, all muscled...and his cock - it's not the biggest one I've ever seen, but it is by far the nicest. It's fat, you know? It's like the cardboard tube inside a roll of toilet paper. Uncut...oh my god, we have to stop talking about this!"
"Sweet jesus," I said, nursing the mental image. Just then he turned and saw us staring at him. "He totally knows we're talking about him."
"I am gonna fuck the life out of that boy tonight," Nicole said, licking her lips. Dustin blushed adorably and looked down at the bar, and Nicole and I laughed like the horny little beasts we are.
Over the next few months I got to know Dustin and, pleasingly, found that I had a genuine connection with the guy. He had a laid-back intelligence that resulted in deep philosophical conversations, or at least as deep as you can get when you're drunk at the bar. Karaoke nights often resulted in the two of us off by ourselves, shooting the shit while Nicole and the girls did their best Journey and Alanis homages.
Time went by, and it shocked me to realize one night that the two of them had been dating for eight months - a record for Nicole, as far as I knew. That was the night that a group of fratty-looking guys joined us. One of them was dating Nicole's friend Jen. They were friendly. Dustin was in a mood, though, and wasn't interacting with us that much.
"I need to tell you something, it's just between us though," Nicole said about fifteen minutes before the bar closed. She pulled me in front of the ladies' room. "Did you meet Mike?" she said, motioning toward the fratty dudes.
"Is he the dark-haired one?"
"Yeah," she said, sucking on a cigarette. I'd known Nicole too long not to know where this was going.
"Don't tell me you want to fuck him."
"Goddammit, Daniel. I have been fucking him. For like the past three weeks." I wasn't good at hiding my disappointment. "C'mon, don't judge me."
"I'm sorry. I just...I like Dustin. I was hoping...I don't know.
"I know," she said. "I know." She looked up at the ceiling. "He - Dustin - he wants to get married."
"Oh man."
"It's a total fucking mess. I'm a total fucking mess."
The next day Nicole and I met for lunch. That's when I found out she wasn't just fucking Mike - she was fucking Tom, Dick and Harry too, on a commitment fear-based rampage. "I have to tell Dustin. Don't I?
"You should, but that's easy for me to say."
"I can't do it," she said, maniacally poking a fork into her shrimp salad. "I don't know what I'm gonna fucking do, I can't do it."