Being Kalli(3)

Just my luck to fuck up the night.

It’s too late to find someone new. I tell myself that’s because of the time, and not because I’m too tired, too wound up.

During my search I find a plastic bucket, bottles and ice clinking. The only thing remotely desirable is a blue-coloured vodka mix, and I settle to scull that.

As I wobble-dance by myself to this David Guetta remix, someone slaps my ass. I wind my fist back to launch one in this slimebag’s face until I see his brown hair. It still looks perfect and windswept, as if blown that way and hairsprayed in place. In reality, he only spends as long on his hair as he takes to down a shot.

His pale eyes are electrifying in the darkness, and I notice, even though its dark save for the glittering lights bouncing from the disco ball, he fills out a shirt well.

He gives me a smirk and kisses my cheek. “Kall Bell.”

“Nate, I swear …”

I look at his hand. He’s holding two shot glasses filled with clear liquid.

“This place just has stupid vodka and beer.” I hold up my candy-looking water in its bottle.

“Not for me, Kall Bell.”

“May I?”

He thrusts a shot my way. I hate rum even more than vodka, so he wouldn’t be stupid enough to give me that. I say as much.

“Trust me.”

He’s off his head too. He looks dreamy tonight and seems to sway. I look down to my off-the-shoulder top where it’s slipped far enough to hint at cleavage. Nate has seen this too, clearly. Nate, unlike me, is shy. He won’t tell me when he’s in the mood to hook up or just hang out, so I have to read him. Him unashamedly staring at my body is my hint.

I dip my tongue seductively in the shot. Tequila.

“Nate!” I squeal. He did good.

He gives me a click of his tongue and nudges his head over near the bar. There is a bowl of ready-sliced lemons and someone has left the salt out too. I lick between my thumb and finger knuckles in anticipation. He passes me a slice and grinds the salt onto the bit of skin between my thumb and finger, then does the same for him.

We down that shot and as soon as I’m done squinting and shaking away the kick of the burn in my throat, I make us another round.

“Where’s Scout?”

“She’s hooking up with some four-foot-nothing girl.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Even in heels.”

We shit-talk for probably half an hour. It’s only when we stop that I’ve realised this fact. With Nate studying photography at uni and Vain Kalli out to play, I ask him if I’m pretty enough to model for him. He tells me it’s about having the right body shape, to which I reach to his thigh and pinch him through his khaki shorts. He tenses and grunts at the same time, and I even hear a long, breathy exhale from his flared nostrils. I think. I’m definitely some version of drunk, and this leads from me pouting about his backhanded compliment that I may or may not have the right body, to his sidestepping of my “pretty” hint, to a conversation about degrees of drunkenness. We begin at knee level and decide that’s when you can feel your teeth and act bold but not weird. We work our way up. This varies in degrees until hammered—a step before passed out—where we agree on slurring, talking to oneself, thinking oneself is damn awesome, falling all over other people, announcing abrupt conversation changes and more, until I ask him if he knows how mesmerising his hair is, and simultaneously fall forward and run my hands through it. He says he knows I’ve been thinking this because I apparently have been talking to his hair most of the time I’ve been sitting here, but being drunk as well, he doesn’t pull me away but cups my waist and rubs from the front to back, even up at the bottom of my ribs.

The moment I personified almost being “hammered” I knew how drunk I was, so I gesture outside and suggest for us to get some fresh air. Nate walks outdoors where freestanding gas heaters have been brought along and set up at random. We find one in a far corner of the pavement without anyone else seated at it. “She’s in a girly mood tonight.”

That’s Nate’s and my code for Scout’s hook-up tendencies, whether she’s into girls or guys at a party. Like me, Scout is straight, but unlike me she hooks up with anyone hot. I can’t usually bring myself to kiss another girl, so I don’t know why I can do it with her. She’s the only constant in my life, and we’ve done everything from change in the same room to cry ugly tears about the usual assignments together. So, when we’re drunk we kiss and it makes me feel—just for that moment—that someone loves me enough to be with me and stick around for the rest of my life.