The craziest thing showed up in my email this morning. My close friend Karen sent it to me with no comment, just a link to the ad itself. The first odd thing about it was that she sent it to me around 3:00AM. The next odd thing was the content of the ad. It said that a married couple a few towns away was hosting an 'adult' hot tub party with a twist. Naturally, none of the people would know anyone else there, and the twist was that everyone would be wearing only a special blindfold.
According to the ad, this was made up of several layers of lace and nylon. This made it possible to see some very basic shapes, but not enough to identify people. The party was to take place in the host's house, and the house had been set up for limited visibility.
Karen and I had been friends for years, and while we had never spent any time together as a couple, we were there for each other's ups and downs. There have been a few times where I had asked her out but she turned me down each and every time, saying it was never 'the right time' or that she wanted it to 'be special' instead of a random hookup. I'm not really sure if she was interested in me as anything but a good friend, but I could have sworn I saw the signs she was doing her best to cover up. Intrigued with what she sent me, I was going to reply to her email, but decided to go see her instead; this is one answer I wanted in person.
Later that evening, I drove to her apartment with a bottle of her favorite rum. As it turns out that my timing was perfect. She had been at the casino all afternoon with her girlfriends and they had just dropped her off. Naturally, the only sober one of the group was the driver – and that was clearly not Karen.
After a tight hug, Karen softly pushed me back by my shoulders and stared at me. "Don't take this wrong Mark, I'm glad to see you, but what the hell are you doing here?"
Holding up the bottle, I said "Just felt like hanging out with you for a bit, isn't that OK? Got some glasses?"
She laughed and walked off towards the kitchen. "Sure, come on in. What kind of mixers do you want? Sorry I'm kind of not sober to start with, we were having a blast at the casino."
"That's fine with me, it just means I have to catch up with you!"
"Well you have a lot of catching up to do" she replied. "But if you're going to do that, you are going to have to stay here tonight. Any problems sleeping on the couch? Again?"
We laughed at that, seeing how one of us managed to do that at least once a month at each other's houses. We were friends, not lovers, so we got the couch instead of sharing a bed.
"You know better than to ask. Of course the couch is fine with me!" I replied, thinking once again how much nicer the bed would be.
Karen brought out our drinks and we sat on either side of the couch. After talking about her night for a little bit, I blurted out what I was thinking during a lull in the conversation.
"So I'm kind of confused with the email you sent last night. This sounds like an awesome party, are you going?"
A look of total confusion filled her face. "Um, sorry Mark, but I really don't know what you are talking about."
"Come on, stop playing around" I replied. "Late last night, you sent me a link to that hot tub party. Remember now?"
"No, I really don't. What was it about?" she asked, shaking her head. She really did sound as confused as she looked.
"Maybe you should check your 'sent items' folder in your email"
She reached for her laptop, and as she turned away it looked like she had suddenly gone pale and got a bit worried. She wouldn't look at me while the computer turned on, and she would hardly talk to me. Once she logged on she opened her email program and went to the Sent Items folder. Now there was no "looked like" about it, she was ghostly pale and her eyes got glassy.
"I'm so sorry Mark, I really should not have sent that email to you, I don't know what I was thinking."
"So does this have anything to do with you and Max breaking up? Isn't that what you told me you were doing last night?"
Karen sat silently, just staring at the screen. A few times she opened her mouth to talk but stopped before anything came out. Looking up at the wall across the room, she leaned back and picked up a throw pillow, hugging it to her chest.
"Now I remember, and this is going to sound really weird Mark. Please go get the rum and the soda bottles and bring them back here, we are gonna need it."
On my way back into the room she started talking, still not once looking at me.
"So ya, last night I broke up with Max like I told you I was going to do. He was an ass about it at first, but then he tried turning on the charm. We had not done anything remotely sexual for about a month since he never seemed to be interested. Well he was sure interested last night, and our clothes were coming off when I realized that he was just trying to get one last piece of ass before he was out of my life for good. I was so turned on just then, and needed sex so much just then, but I didn't want to feel used. So I kicked him out. I was not wearing much as I opened the door to kick him out, good thing no one was around!"
"Good for you" I nodded, "at last he is out of your life now and won't be causing any more problems with you and your family."
"Ya, I know. Now stop interrupting, I need to get this out. Yesterday morning, my sister said how perfect you were for me, and that I should be with you, but I told her we can't because we are good friends, and that would just be too weird. But after Max was out the door, that was all I could think about. Well, that and the good parts of Max I got to experience. So like any normal person on break-up day, I wanted to drown my sorrows in alcohol, so I sat around and drank while I was online. Because of what Max started, my libido was going crazy, and I started looking up 'hookup' ads online.
