Casey felt herself fold inward like a dying fire—flames vanishing, the embers turning to black ash. She wondered if she could survive the moment. Her limbs wouldn’t move. She felt stupid more than angry, and her pride instructed her to be composed in front of these pretty girls who were fucking her boyfriend. She inhaled deeply and looked down at her feet. She’d put on black espadrilles when she left her parents’ house, and she felt ridiculous wearing shoes, because she was the only one in the room wearing any.
Yet she could hardly look away from the three bodies, their bright skin taut and shimmering in the low wattage of the desk lamp. The longer she looked, the less human they appeared, as if they were a more primeval species.
Jay turned his neck a few degrees. “Oh God. Casey. What happened? To your face? Are you all right?” He freed himself suddenly from the girls, saying, “Excuse me.” He pulled on a pair of blue boxer shorts over his condom-covered erection. He was so upset about her face that he didn’t think to explain the ménage.
Casey stared at him as if she had never seen him before, then turned away. It hurt to look at him. She wanted the girls to get dressed, but they were in no rush. They didn’t know who she was, only that she was intruding. Why should they rush to pick up their things?
Jay combed his tousled hair with his fingers. “This is Brenda,” he said of the redhead, and the blonde’s name was Sheila. They smiled genially, not thinking that the Asian girl was Jay’s girlfriend. They’d asked him if he had a girl, and he’d said, “No.”
They were juniors from LSU who’d gone into a fancy Upper East Side bar with their sorority sisters on an annual end-of-the-year trip. After several margaritas each, the sorority sisters played Truth or Dare. Jay was a dare for Sheila, and when Brenda was also dared to find a one-nighter, the girls decided that it would be safer to do a triple rather than split up with strangers. They agreed on Jay. Brenda liked his pretty eyes and his jacket and tie, and Sheila thought he looked disease-free.
Holding Brenda’s hand, Sheila approached Jay and asked if he’d oblige a couple of girls from out of town. At first Jay didn’t understand. Then they asked if he’d ever done a neck shot. A tray of tequila appeared. “Observe,” Sheila said. She rubbed lemon on Jay’s neck, then dabbed coarse salt on it. Brenda licked the area and downed a shot expertly.
“Your turn,” they chirped like twin girls. Sheila applied juice and salt to Brenda’s neck and handed Jay his shot. Jay, seeing himself as a sporting fellow, did it perfectly on his first try.
“Hey, Jay, what do you say?” Sheila asked him—proud of her rhyme.
“Beats quarters,” he said.
Jay’s colleagues, who dragged him to the bar after closing a deal, nearly fell down at the young man’s luck. “Fuck me,” one of the older men cried out.
Brenda winked at him. “No, thank you, sweetie, this one will do.”
Another of the men said, “Young Currie, don’t be a schmuck. This is better than making a million a year. You may never ever—” he appraised Sheila, then took some air into his lungs, “ever—” he shook his head, “get this opportunity again. Carpe diem, you get me?”
Jay left the bar with a girl on each arm, hoots and hollers of applause cresting like a wave behind him. At the apartment, Sheila tuned the stereo and Brenda did a little dance while she took off her clothes. Not ten minutes into their dare, Casey walked in.
“Hey there,” Brenda said to Casey in a friendly voice. It crossed her mind that maybe Casey might be Jay’s roommate, girlfriend, or even just friend. She could be his adopted sister. None of it was very clear, and Brenda’s buzz was fizzling out. Her best friend’s cousin Lola had an adopted sister who was Chinese and looked a bit like this girl, but not so tall.
Sheila hooked her brassiere. “Hi.” She smiled brightly, with some flash of concern for the girl, who looked as if she’d been mugged or something. It was a little spooky how she didn’t talk.
Casey tried to smile, but moving her face hurt. She tried to pretend she was meeting people from school or Jay’s work, but she couldn’t stand it. She turned and rushed to the master bath in Jay’s bedroom and locked the door.
She retched a bitter liquid tasting of cigarettes. With water, she rinsed her mouth quickly, then glanced up. In the three-way mirror, she saw her face. The right side was purple, and her left eye had a curved gash above a blue-green-streaked bruise. Jay knocked, and Casey opened the door to push past him as he was saying something she couldn’t hear. She might have been shouting, she wasn’t sure. It was as though he were underwater and she were standing on shore. She got to the living room, pulled her hat down over her head, slipped on her sunglasses, and grabbed her bags. She dashed out the door and ran down the flights of stairs, gulping air to calm her wild heart.