“Thomas fucking Jefferson.”
“Of course,” Connor says with a sarcastic smile. Thomas Jefferson doesn’t pick it up, and before hanging around Connor, I wonder if I would have noticed it. Connor motions to Lo and me, and I grip onto Lo’s hips, hiding my exposed midriff behind half his body. “These are my friends. Lily and Lo.”
Thomas Jefferson narrows his eyes at Lo and I duck further behind his back. “What are you?” he wonders. “Mr. Spandex?”
“Clever,” Lo says with a glare.
“They’re X-Men,” Connor clarifies.
With this, Lo grabs my wrist and pulls me into view. He plants a hand firmly on my waist, as if this guy will know the new mutant couple.
Thomas Jefferson stares at my long claws. “Right!” He claps his hands in recognition. “Wolverine Girl.”
“There’s no such thing,” I correct him. He gives me a funny look, and Connor sighs, slight impatience cracking his leveled exterior.
“Can we only be invited inside if you understand our costumes?” Connor asks. He cranes his neck to look past the host’s shoulder. “Because I think I spot a Sweeny Todd in there, and I know for a fact you’ve never heard of him.”
“Huh. Connor Cobalt. Always got to be right.” He swings the door and mockingly motions us inside. His staff must have evacuated for this college party, not wanting to be swept up in a hurricane of puke and candy corn.
Unfazed by the insult, Connor steps into the massive grand foyer where crystal chandeliers twinkle from the ceiling. Partygoers go up and down the marble staircase and further into glowing rooms, cobwebs strewn across doorframes. People stumble around and sway to hypnotic music.
I step through the doorway, and then Thomas Jefferson blocks off the entrance before anyone else can cross.
“I don’t know you,” he says to the people behind us. “Or you.” The door slams. He traipses back in and passes Connor. “Freeloaders,” I hear him say, as though Connor will nod in agreement. He doesn’t do anything but pluck a steaming pumpkin mug off a goblin’s tray. Now those hairy things are models, waddling about with warty faces.
Unlike the highlighter party, Solo cups are replaced with champagne glasses and pumpkin mugs. Little baggies of pills and powder are clandestinely passed from palm to palm. I grew up with these blowouts—rich teenagers needing drugs to satiate the endless expanse of time. As if they reanimated straight from the pages of Bret Easton Ellis’ Less than Zero.
Drugs have never been my problem, and maybe I should feel a sense of gratitude that my compulsion is less dangerous than shooting liquid fire into my veins. Sex is a part of everyone’s life, addicted or not. Drugs aren’t. Alcohol isn’t. You can spend years without both, but most people never become lifelong celibates. Every time I catch a girl tucking a baggy into her bra, eyes glazed and gone, I feel a pang of jealousy. Why can’t I have an addiction that people understand? It’s a vile thought—to wish for an addiction many die with. I’d rather have none at all, but for some reason, I never allow myself that option.
Before I made sense of my compulsions, I would spend hours lying in bed, emotionally drained from my ping-ponging thoughts. One minute, I vehemently defended my actions inside my mind. It was my body. Sex made me feel better and stopping would cause more problems than continuing down the destructive path. The next minute, I cried for hours and convinced myself to quit. I told myself I didn’t have a problem. I was just a whore looking for a way to justify my constant sexual thoughts. Sometimes I tried to stop. I trashed my porn and refused my body the luxury of climaxing.
But I couldn’t stomach the withdrawals, and those fruitless goals quickly ended. I always found a reason to start again. Maybe that’s my biggest fear—that I’ll find one excuse to move on from Lo. And I’ll be compelled to take it.
Lo dashes off in front of me, and I run to keep up and hide behind his back. A gaggle of hippies in flowery mini-dresses bombards Connor. He nods and smiles perfunctorily, and it sets off a wave of giggles.
He’ll have to fend for himself. I trail Lo into the kitchen where bodies compact near the silver stove. They flick on the gas and light cigarettes from the flames. The sliding glass door sits ajar, smoke wafting out into the chilly night. A couple girls in bikinis shriek and laugh loudly as they race into the house, goose-pimpled and wet.
Lo jiggles the knobs to a glass cabinet. Crystal bottles line about seven shelves, filled with amber liquid. Every lavish party starts the same. Lo beelines for the most expensive alcohol in the house and impulsively craves the taste of the different brands.