Emily
EMILY COULDN’T BELIEVE how many penises Gabrielle had incorporated into the bachelorette party decor. Mark and Gabrielle’s hotel room at the Ritz Carlton had been transformed into a penis wonderland, glowing pink like the Barbie aisle of a toy store.
Emily wore a sexy white bandage dress, but she couldn’t help worrying about the dress’s thick bands, which bisected her belly, giving her baby some weird dent in its head. She had been so excited to wear it when she was planning her bachelorette party, but now all she wanted to do was go home and put on pajamas.
As planned, the rest of the women wore black dresses to help Emily stand out. Lauren was the one exception. She wore ripped jeans and a black T-shirt that said I Breastfeed in Public. A few months ago, Emily might have admonished her for wearing something that would ruin all the group photos, but now she barely cared.
“Are you okay?” Gabrielle asked Emily. “This is supposed to be the second most fun night of your life!”
“I’m fine. Just tired.”
“No worries. It’s your night! I thought that to warm up a bit, we could pregame here and hang out. First thing on the schedule...games!”
She went into her minifridge and got a bottle of cupcake-flavored vodka, placing it on the coffee table. “Here we go, ladies. I also bought some chardonnay, so if you’re feeling like taking it easy tonight, you can take shots of wine. Our first game is...never have I ever.”
“I’m actually not drinking,” Emily said.
“What? No, you’re crazy!” Gabrielle put her hands on Emily’s shoulders. “You can’t not drink! You’re the bride!”
“I’m detoxing. I want to be healthy before the wedding.”
“No fun!” Gabrielle said. “Please tell me the rest of you ladies will be drinking. Except you, Maddyson.” She wagged her finger at Maddyson jokingly.
“What the fuck?” Maddyson shouted, slamming her phone down on the table. “This isn’t fucking North Korea.”
“I can’t let an underage person get drunk on my watch. It would be irresponsible of me.”
“Why am I even invited then? If we go to a bar after this I’ll just drink there.”
“It’s true,” Emily said. “She got drunk earlier this week.”
“Okay, fine,” Gabrielle sighed. “But you can’t brag about this on social media.”
Maddyson rolled her eyes. “Nobody calls it that anymore.”
Gabrielle knelt down in front of the coffee table. “Okay! Each of you ladies can grab a penis shot glass from the table. So the way this works is, each person says something they’ve never done. Then, if you have done that thing, you have to put a finger down, and take a shot. I’ll go first. Never have I ever done it in the butt!”
“Really?” Maddyson said. “But you’re, like, older. And you’re married.”
“Not all married people do it in the butt.” Gabrielle didn’t seem offended by the “older” remark. Emily supposed that was a privilege of people who were otherwise told they looked young. Such a remark, aimed at Emily, would have ruined her entire day.
“I feel like they all go for it eventually. Wouldn’t it get boring otherwise?”
Emily gulped. She had never wanted to do that with David. Did any woman actually want to do that? She was suspicious of women who claimed they loved it. They were like women who claimed they loved football. Sure, they’d watch it, tolerate it and maybe even enjoy it, but it wasn’t like they’d independently suggest it.
The only woman who put her finger down for the anal sex question was Jennifer, who coyly looked around before taking a shot.
“So...” Gabrielle said, finger-tenting wickedly. “How was it?”
“It was with Carl, you remember him. It was our anniversary!”
“And did you like it?” Gabrielle asked.
“Ew, no,” said Jennifer, wincing as the shot made its way down her throat. “He just really wanted to do it, so I gave in. Then the condom got poop on it and he freaked out and never wanted to do it again.”
It was Maddyson’s turn. Emily wasn’t sure if Maddyson was a virgin or not. What was the average age for virginity loss—eighteen? Seventeen? Fifteen? The only things she heard about teenagers came from fear-mongering news specials about dangerous teen trends that sounded made up, like rainbow bracelet sex parties.
“Never have I ever...” Maddyson paused, looking around the room, “...done Molly while in a hot tub with an aspiring DJ who I gave a blow job to while his friend watched.”
“What the heck?” Jennifer asked, choking on her penis-shaped glass of chardonnay, which she was drinking on the side, irrelevant to the game. “Is this just something you did, that you wanted to tell everyone about?”
“I thought that was the point. I can’t think of anything else I haven’t done. Other than butt sex.”
“I’m sure there’s something,” Emily said.
“I guess I’ve never drunk pee.”
“Is that what we’re stooping to?” Lauren asked.
“Well, sorr-y. I’ve already done loads of sexual stuff, and I do lots of drugs, so whatever.”
“Ears, ears!” Gabrielle said, covering her ears with her hands. “Not in front of me! I’ll feel the need to tell your mother!”
“You won’t say shit,” Maddyson said. She reclined in her chair as she delicately twirled the plastic penis shot glass between two fingers like a baton.
“I’ll go next,” Jennifer said. “Never have I ever had a threesome.”
Maddyson and Lauren both took a shot.
“What?” Emily laughed as Lauren downed the shot. “You had a threesome?”
“Why is that surprising?”
“Well, it just seems like the kind of thing you’d hate, because it’s all about the man, pleasing him—it’s like a porn fantasy.”
“Who’s to say it was with a girl and a guy? For your information, it was with two guys I knew in college.”
“What? Seriously? You got Eiffel Towered? You didn’t find it degrading or whatever?”
“Nope. In fact, they didn’t do much to me. I pegged one of them while he sucked the other guy’s dick. That was pretty much the end of it.” She said this as if she were recounting what she had that day for breakfast.
“Oh...my...gosh,” Gabrielle gasped, her hands over her mouth.
Emily couldn’t help but picture it: Lauren, wearing her beige sports bra and retro makeup, her short black bangs harsh against her moon face, thrusting a giant strap-on into the little pink butt of a college guy. Suddenly, she heard Lauren’s voice in her head saying, Why did you assume he was white?
“They wound up being gay,” Lauren said nonchalantly. “They’re married now and they breed salamanders in Arizona.”
“What about you, Maddyson?” Emily asked. “What’s your story?”
Maddyson put down her shot glass and sighed deeply, as if she were a grizzled pirate about to tell his many tales of looting and plundering. “My friend Belinda and I three-way kissed with this guy Edmund at camp,” she finally said.
“That’s not a threesome,” Jennifer said.
“You didn’t specify sex! How was I supposed to know?”
“Let me just add,” Lauren said, “that sex doesn’t have to be P in V.”
“What’s P in V?” Jennifer asked.
“Penis in vagina.”
“You mean...sex?”
“No. I mean P in V.”
“Let’s move on,” Gabrielle said. “Lauren, what have you never done?”
“Hmm,” she said, tapping her chin with her index finger. “Let me see...never have I ever...fully come to terms with my white privilege.”
“Huh?” Jennifer said.
“You heard me. I mean, obviously this question doesn’t apply to Gabrielle, but for the rest of you. I have never fully understood the scope of my white privilege. The other day a policeman walked by me and didn’t stop me for anything, and it took me a few minutes to realize that was my white privilege.”
“You sure know how to ruin a buzz,” Jennifer said. “And besides, I’m half Japanese.”
“Just because you’re a person of color doesn’t mean you don’t have white privilege. I thought you were white when I first saw you.”
“Okay, well, I guess I take a shot then,” Jennifer said, “because I’ve never even heard of this stuff.”
“I guess I’m exempt from taking a shot,” Gabrielle teased. “How racist, Lauren. Your question only applies to white people.”
Lauren’s jaw dropped. “I am so sooooo sorry,” she stammered. “I hadn’t even thought of that, but that is no excuse. I totally fucked up. I’m horrible.”
Gabrielle smiled nervously and blushed. “Um... I’m totally joking. It’s fine. I guess I was just expecting something along the lines of, ‘never have I ever skinny-dipped.’”
Lauren shrugged. “I skinny-dipped during my period for a protest against the Peninsula in Midtown,” she said. “So that wouldn’t work.”
* * *
Emily sat blindfolded in the dark in the center of the room. She assumed that whatever was about to be unveiled for her had sparkly penises on it. “Time for your surprise!” Gabrielle said.
“It’s not a stripper, is it?”
“No, of course not. Just stay still.” Through the candy-pink polyester of the blindfold, Emily could see the lights being turned on. She heard whispers, little giggles and hushing.
“Guys, what is it?”
She heard EDM. Someone’s hands were behind her head, untying her blindfold, which fell to her lap.
She saw a tall bronzed man wearing nothing but a thong depicting a cartoon pink elephant face. His flaccid penis flopped around inside the sheer pink elephant trunk. His bulging muscles were oiled up and his short black hair was gelled, spiked and shaved on the sides. He appeared to be wearing clear lip gloss and shimmer bronzer on his cheekbones.
“It’s the bride to be!” He jiggled toward her in a splayed-leg hop. “Time to get down!” He spread her legs with his disturbingly slippery fingers. She clamped them shut.
“No, no, no,” she said. Her heart was racing.
“Aw, don’t be a party pooper!” Gabrielle said. “I was taking pictures!”
“Delete those,” Emily said. “Get rid of all this.”
“Uh...” The stripper put his hands on his hips and looked down sadly at his penis-filled elephant trunk. “I was booked for two hours. I still need to be paid.”
“Who’s paying for this?” Emily turned to Gabrielle. “You told me it wasn’t a stripper.”
“I couldn’t say that it was—then it wouldn’t be a surprise.” She turned on the lights, further illuminating the glitter on the stripper’s face.
“Well, shut this down,” Emily said.
Gabrielle turned to the stripper. “Don’t worry, I’ll still pay you. That’s three hundred for the two hours?”
“Not including tip,” he said, arms crossed, trying his hardest to look serious while wearing the elephant thong.
“I feel sick, guys,” Emily said. She didn’t feel nauseous as she had the past few days, but her stomach was flipping, twisting, contracting. “I basically just cheated on David.”
“Oh, come on,” Maddyson said.
“Seriously, you guys. He touched me. David would be so pissed off. We had a no-touching policy tonight. I said strippers were okay, but no touching. Should I tell him?”
“Why would you tell him?” Jennifer asked. “It’s not even a big deal.”
“Yes, it is!”
“Ma’am, calm down, I only touched your knees,” the elephant stripper said. Suddenly he was all professional, like a United Airlines customer service agent calming down an irrational person trying to claim expired miles.
“Ugh, I need to text David.” She reached for her phone.
Gabrielle lunged at her. “Don’t! Why tell him? I guarantee you he’s at a strip club now. You have nothing to feel bad about!”
“Fine. I’m not going to tell him what happened but I am going to text him.” She typed, Love you, baby. Thinking of you!
“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, ma’am,” the stripper said.
“Okay, stop calling me ma’am, I’m twenty-eight.”
“You’re only twenty-eight?”
Something in his voice sounded familiar. She took a closer look at him.
“Wait, are you... John Russo?” She squinted.
“Fuck yeah!” he said, smiling and putting his hands on his hips.
“I’m Emily Glass.”
He looked perplexed. “Do I know you?”
“We went to high school together.”
“Oh, fuck, wait! Are you the girl who got her period in chemistry class and the guy next to you kept asking who packed tuna salad for lunch?” He pointed at her and smiled at the other women in the room as though they would know what he was talking about.
“I mean, yeah. I did other things too, obviously.”
“Yeah, sure, sure. Shit, Emily Glass! We used to call you Emily No-Ass! I remember my girlfriend totally hated you.”
“Wait, which one?”
“Larissa Shapiro. You guys had a weird frenemy thing going on, right?”
“No. I didn’t even really know her. She just told everyone I was a lesbian freshman year for no reason.”
“Shit, man. That is so Larissa. Fucking crazy. So what are you up to now?” He crossed his arms, as if to cover up his nipples out of modesty.
“You don’t really remember me that well. You and Larissa made my life a living hell. And her friend Sabrina, or whoever.”
“Oh yeah!” he said, as if recalling a character from his favorite childhood cartoon show. “Sabrina was awesome.”
“I cried every day after school because of you assholes!” she shouted. “Fucking douchebag!”
“What?” He furrowed his plucked brow. “What? How?”
“Um, I don’t know—making up rumors about me so no boys would date me? Calling me Emily No-Ass? Telling everyone I had a hairy back? Writing Dickslut on my locker?”
John laughed nostalgically at Dickslut. Emily slapped him across his glittered face. At first she almost couldn’t believe she did that—she had never physically fought someone in her life, minus that one time that she bit Jason’s nipple in the pool when he had her in a headlock, but that was the nineties.
“What the fuck?” he said.
“That’s enough, asshole,” Lauren said, approaching him. “It’s time to go. Take your money and leave, whore.”
“Whatever,” he said. “You’re fat.”
* * *
“Shit, nobody’s carding!” Maddyson said. “This place could be okay.”
“One day you’ll be happy to get carded,” Emily said.
“I get carded all the time,” Jennifer said. “It’s so embarrassing.”
Emily looked at her. “Why is that embarrassing?”
“It’s just... I’m a doctor, I don’t want everyone thinking I’m eighteen.”
Maddyson turned to her. “Don’t worry. I’m eighteen, and you definitely don’t look like anyone my age.”
Jennifer smiled weakly. “Good to know.”
They were in front of a Lower East Side bar called Establishment, its name engraved on a black sign above the front door, adorned with white engravings of a goat’s head and a hammer. The women walked inside. It was dark, narrow and cramped, despite the absence of many customers. The wallpaper had been intentionally printed to create the appearance of moldy, chipped paint. There was a small loft above the bar with an old-fashioned wooden railing. Behind the railing was a random collection of antique spinning wheels.
“This place is weird,” Jennifer said.
“A jar of mayo exploded in here,” Lauren said.
“Ew, where?” Jennifer said.
“I mean all the white people. Fucking white people.”
“Look at all the drinks!” Gabrielle pointed to the blackboard behind the bar. The names and ingredients of the drinks had been written in what looked like Victorian cursive.
Maddyson walked up to the bar. “I’ll have a Rutherford Wisp.”
“That’ll be eighteen dollars,” the bartender said. He was a husky man in his early thirties, wearing a gray tweed newsboy cap. He had a brown handlebar mustache and a saggy hole in his left ear where an earring used to be.
“Eighteen dollars? Is that a joke?”
“Our drinks are artisanal, miss,” he said flatly. “If you want a Bud, you can go to O’Flannigan’s.”
“What’s in a Rutherford Wisp anyway?” she asked, pulling cash from her cross-body bag.
“Chartreuse, lemon rind, bay leaf, lavender honey, grapefruit bitters, gin, elderberry liqueur, vermouth and egg white froth,” he said, filling a shaker with ice.
Maddyson watched him make the drink. “Uh, can you add extra alcohol?”
“I can’t alter the recipe. It’s one of our rules.” He pointed to a brass sign behind the bar that read No Drinks Will Be Altered, next to a little engraving of a top hat.
Gabrielle joined Maddyson at the bar. “I’ll just have a glass of water.”
“That’ll be seven dollars, ma’am.”
“For water?”
“Our water is pumped from an artesian well, then home infused. We steep it in lavender and cucumber peel before cooling it.”
“You don’t have just...regular tap water?”
“No.” The bartender was starting to look irritated.
“I see a sink right behind you.”
“That’s not for drinking.”
The other women sat down at the bar. Jennifer ordered a Foxtrot Julep, a greenish-white drink with a mandarin orange rind floating on the surface, and Lauren ordered Priestly Savage, the home-brewed beer.
“I made that beer,” the bartender said. “Let me know what you think.”
“It’s delicious. Is this your place?”
“Hah. That’s funny. If I had a bar, it would never be like this place. It’s way too commercial. Not curated enough. I’m actually trying to start my own food truck, but with all craft beers, no food. What’s your name?”
“Lauren.”
“Will. You from around here?”
“I live in Greenpoint.”
“Cool. I buy my spurs there. Hey, while you’re finishing that up, I’ll make you a Wilford-Humphrey on the house. How could I resist a woman who looks like Bettie Page meets awesome meets wow?” Lauren blushed.
“What world do we live in,” Jennifer whispered to Emily, while staring at Lauren, “where we go to a bar and Lauren is the one getting hit on?”
“He’s a hipster,” she whispered back. “I can’t explain hipsters. Maybe he’s hitting on her ironically?”
Jennifer leaned over the bar and put her arms close to her breasts to push them together. “That drink sounds literally amazing,” she said. “Perfect for the bachelorette party.” While Jennifer complained to no end about “not being taken seriously” in her line of work, she was more than happy to use her sexuality to get anything, even just attention.
“This is a bachelorette party? Who’s the bride?” The bartender turned to Lauren. “Not you, I hope.”
“My sister,” she said, indicating Emily.
“Forget this,” Jennifer said, returning her breasts to their normal position. “Let’s dance.” She pulled Emily off her chair and brought her to the middle of the floor. Jennifer started rocking her hips back and forth to a Kanye West song. Emily was surprised that the bar even played rap, let alone mainstream rap. Was Kanye already ironic? She had expected 1920s music to start playing and for some man in a bowler hat and monocle to emerge from the janitorial closet and instruct everyone to do the Charleston.
Lauren
Will handed Lauren her drink. “The Wilford-Humphrey. Mint, seltzer, gin, crushed rosemary ice, lemon bitters and maple syrup with a dollop of extra virgin olive oil.”
She took a sip. “This is amazing.”
“So what’s your story?”
“I’m a blogger for Cunt.”
“I think my sister reads that,” he said, totally unfazed. “It’s a feminist magazine, right?”
“I’m one of their head bloggers. Ask her if she’s heard of Lauren Glass.”
“Are you married?”
“Oh, no.” Technically it was true.
“Didn’t think so. Personally, I don’t even believe in marriage.” He stared directly into her eyes. Eye contact was so terrifying and arousing at the same time, when it lasted more than a second.
“Why not? I mean, neither do I, but I’m curious.” She took another swig of beer.
“I don’t think a person’s body can belong to another person.”
“I agree,” she said, sipping her drink. “I mean, my vagina is my vagina and I can put it on whatever penis, vagina or ambiguous genitalia I want.”
“So well said,” he said, nodding. “I can see why you became a writer.”
Emily
Emily looked at her phone. It was past midnight and still no response from David. Maybe he had seen her text but didn’t think it warranted a response. She was starting to worry that something had happened to him. Surely the other men in the group would have told her, but what if something happened to all of them? What if they got into the middle of some Sharks vs. Jets–style dance war?
“I need to text David something better,” she told Jennifer.
“Do not tell him about the stripper. I guarantee you he’s doing something worse. He’s probably getting a lap dance right now. Men are pigs sometimes. Ugh, I hope Kevin isn’t getting one. Would he get one?”
“I don’t know. I barely know him and neither do you. Hey, can you help me out?”
“With what?”
“I need to send David a sexy picture. Come to the bathroom with me and take it so the angle looks good? Every time I try to take a sexy one of myself, it’s either in the mirror so it’s all fuzzy, or it’s at a weird angle and it makes me look lopsided.”
“You are crazy.”
“I know, I know. But if he’s at a strip club I need him to be thinking of me, not those girls with the fake boobs. I hear they’re all prostitutes too.”
“Ugh, now you’re making me worry about Kevin.”
“Come on.”
Emily took her into the bathroom and locked the door.
“I’m just going to take off the top part of my dress,” she said. “Can you snap a good picture of my boobs? Don’t include my face, just in case he gets hacked.”
Jennifer laughed. Emily rolled down the top of her dress and unsnapped her bra, letting her bloated pregnancy boobs tumble out.
“Your boobs are huge,” Jennifer marveled. “I am so jealous.”
Emily knew this was the point where she was supposed to compliment Jennifer on something, or tell her that her boobs were just as nice, but she didn’t have the energy for that. “What? They’re the same as they’ve always been.”
“I’m still jealous. I have no boobs, but I have this giant Nicki Minaj booty I’m trying to get rid of.” She pointed to her butt, which was as small as a runway model’s. Emily wasn’t sure if that was a humblebrag or a “Please tell me I have a small butt” plea, since she wasn’t sure if Jennifer was aware that big butts were now the societal ideal, so she didn’t say anything.
Jennifer snapped a photo of Emily. Jennifer inspected it and started swiping.
“What are you doing?” Emily asked.
“Adding filters. Don’t you want to look tanner?”
“Give me that. Thanks.” Emily took the phone and texted the photo to David before deleting it. She didn’t want drunk Jennifer accidentally texting it to a coworker.
They heard a noise coming from the other side of the wall. It sounded mechanical at first, but it was followed by a rhythmic pushing sound, grunts at two-second intervals and then moaning, screaming. Emily hadn’t heard anyone having sex since college. She turned to Jennifer and put her hand over her mouth in a schoolgirl giggle.
“Someone is literally having sex in a bar,” Jennifer said.
“Weirdos,” Emily said, laughing and putting her phone away.
They left the bathroom, past a line of irritated women waiting to use it. “Oh my gosh,” Jennifer said. She pointed to the men’s bathroom, where Will, the bartender, was staggering out. His denim vest was draped over his hairy forearm and his newsboy cap was askew. Behind him, her mascara melting and her lipstick smeared, was Lauren.
“Lauren?” Emily shouted her name, hoping on some level that it wasn’t Lauren after all, just some woman who looked exactly like her.
Lauren looked mortified. She stumbled forward, wrapping her arms around Emily’s neck.
“I did a horrible thing,” she moaned into Emily’s hair.