There are thoughts that go through your head when you groggily wake in an unfamiliar bed and are pretending to be asleep while trying to set free a pubic hair that’s stuck between your teeth. The first is “fuck!” The rest flood in between the pounding beats in your head, which is caught somewhere between hung over and still drunk. Jaime is letting those thoughts race. Where am I? Whose hairy arm is this? What the hell happened last night? Did I have sex? Those are the big thoughts. He tackles the first by checking out the parts of the room he can see without moving. He doesn’t recognize anything. The place seems nice though, so he knows that he didn’t go home with Max, the grad student he was making out with while he was at Roscoe’s. Max’s place is barely furnished and smells like Thai food. Always. Jamie tries to do a mental roll call of who he saw the night before. Random friends, his co-worker Michelle, that Chris guy and oh shit. The creepy guy Jerry, who is in his fifties and hides in dark corners until the young boys get drunk and then he makes his move, was there. He’s twisted. He sucks the souls out of unsuspecting gay boys. A baby drainer. An adorable-eating monster. Jaime’s heart begins to race and he gently pushes off the mystery arm leaps out of the bed. He notices that his pants and socks are still on. Good sign, good sign. He turns and looks at his mystery date. He takes a good look at the man before for him and thinks “he’s gorgeous, he looks my age and I have no idea who the fuck this is.” He starts to look around the room for his things. He’s missing his wallet, phone, shirt and shoes. He fumbles around as quietly as he can until he hears, “Hey.” He slowly pivots around toward the bed and sees his slumber buddy sitting up and scratching his head. Jaime gives him a “hi” and self-consciously crosses his arms when he sees the guy’s broad, muscly chest. “I’m Sasha,” the guy says as he crawls across the bed with his hands stretched for a shake. Jamie sees that unlike him, Sasha is almost naked except for a jockstrap. Jamie shakes his hand and Sasha says, “I guess we have a hell of a mess here, huh?” Jamie answers, “Excuse me? I’m sorry, but I have no idea who you are or where I am and I gotta go.” Sasha falls back and laughs. Frustrated and a ready to leave, Jaime heads for the door. “Wait!” Sasha gets up and grabs a pair of gym shorts off the floor and slides them on, stepping in front of the door and says “I think I’d better warn you.” “Of what?” Jaime asks annoyed. Sasha sits and pats the bed next to him. Now, had he been gross or rude, Jaime would have been out the door, but he wasn’t. He was fuzzy and blond and had a really handsome face, so Jaime sat. “I’m Michelle’s roommate,” Sasha said with a smile and most of the tension and fear washed away from Jamie instantly. He continued, “We were both smashed and on different sides of Scarlet … ” “I was at Scarlet?”, Jaime interrupted. “Oh yes,” Sasha continued, “wasted.” “Michelle was sick of bouncing back and forth between us and finally made us both follow her to a cab. She sat up front and you and I started making out in the back. When we got back here, I said I thought I was going to be sick. We barely made it through the door before I puked all over the hallway. You then followed suit by puking all over me. The last thing I remember was Michelle taking off my clothes and your shirt, throwing them in the bathtub and putting us to bed.” Stunned, all Jamie could say was, “Wow. I don’t remember any of that.” Sasha smiled and said “Yeah. I bet there’s a helluva mess waiting for us outside that door.” They laughed and retraced the bits and pieces of what they remembered and braced themselves for the inevitable.
Sasha was right. As soon as they opened the door there were cleaning supplies, a very strongly worded note and a stench of bile infused alcohol waiting for them. The mess forced them both to reenact their sickness, only this time each of them making it to the toilet. To distract themselves they talked about hometowns, work, school, friends and the things that are usually covered on a first date or an online dating profile. A couple of grueling hours later, they were done and it was time for Jaime to go home and pass out again. As he was leaving, Sasha stopped him and asked, “Would you want to hang out tonight and maybe try meeting each other again? I’d hate to think of this as our first date.” Jaime laughed and nodded and they exchanged numbers. Walking home, Jaime was mortified. He was completely disgusted with everything that had happened. He did at least get a date with a hot guy out of it. His main regret was not remembering the whole making out part. At least he would get a second chance at that. But what about the hair stuck between his teeth? Jaime decided that it would just be left as one of his life’s great mysteries.