River, Chanty, River

I was out drinking with my roommates by the riverside. We all came from different countries and at the time had lived together for half a year or so in a small apartment. That's how I liked to live in the big cities, a nice little foreign family. There was Filip from Canada, my best mate, Tom and Alesa from Italy, who won't really be in the story, and of course the guy with the cuts in his face: Daryl. He was one of those people you can tell great stories about at parties, but secretly you're happy they’re not in your life anymore. He grew up in the bad part of a bad city, in the worst times you could grow up in this little country, which will remain unnamed.

Anyways. We were having a nice time at the river. The summer was coming to an end, but it was still warm in the evenings. We had more beer than we could drink and Filip, Tom and Alesa less pot than they could smoke. As always. I didn't smoke back then. Daryl smoked. A lot. But only Camels, on which he cut the filters off with a nail clipper.

After an hour of us having a nice time, a little group of people we didn't know sat down close to us, down the river. Two girls and a guy. The guy was pretty fat, seemed nice. The two girls were alright looking. But then again, I'm not too much of a prize myself. I liked the smaller one. She had long brown hair that fell down the sides of her head unevenly. A small nose over dry lips. Although it was getting colder, she only wore a worn-out shirt.

Daryl saw the look in my eyes and immediately went over to them. That's something he could do. Just go to a group, any group, and engage them in a discussion, even when he had no idea what he was talking about. I always thought that Daryl was one of those guys that would either die completely broke or make an unreasonable amount of cash out of a dubious car-dealership. I never found out where he ended up.

He went off to speak to the little group of three. He wasn't there long, when he already came back again. The others and I were laughing. We thought the other group had sent him to hell immediately. But just after he left there, they packed up their belongings and moved over to us.

The smaller one was called Chanty.

To be honest, so may things happened that night, I don't remember the other ones names exactly. The second girl was Becci or Jenny. I'll go with Jenny. The guy had one of those names that sounded like the noise you make when someone's punching you in the guts. Kuuuurt (or something similar).

Chanty, Jenny and Kurt. What a bunch of weirdos.

Kurt told me right off that I should go for Chanty, supposedly she said she wanted to have sex with me. Nice of him to tell me. Daryl was already working on his connection with Jenny. Filip, Tom and Alesa just sat there and watched. Then Chanty turned around to the two Italians and they talked I little. I didn't listen in, although I should have. I was excited about what Kurt had said and drank one beer after the other with Filip, to get rid of my excitement.

Then I talked to Chanty. I don't know what I said, it sure wasn't anything smart, but she kept on laughing. I thought I was "picking her up." In hindsight, she picked me up. After a while she asked whether my friend, meaning Daryl, who already was all over Jenny, and I wanted to join them for a little house party. Daryl overheard this offer, jumped up and said yes.

We got into Chanty's car. It only had four seats, so Kurt stayed behind with Filip, Tom and Alesa. Nice guy. The car was a little red smelly thing. Daryl and I in the back, the girls up front. Chanty was quite drunk already, jumped around in her seat while she was driving, imitating having sex on the driver seat. I sat in the back, my eyes wide open. I was always overwhelmed by overly open women. Jenny was rapping along to bad pop music, making silly space noises in-between.

We drove for a while, somewhere outside of town, into a small neighborhood with run-down houses. Arriving at her place, Chanty started bragging. That she just bought the house and the car's also hers.

We went in. Unexpectedly it was clean inside, rather tidy even. While Chanty gave us a little tour of the three rooms there were to see, I could hear Jenny hitting a bong in the living room. And that's pretty much all I remember of the following three hours. Drinking beer after beer, half-heartedly smoking weed out of a dirty glass pipe and getting shots of cheap liquor.

Next thing I know, Daryl took me outside. He told me to drink less in order to still have sex later on. I told him I was fine, that I just needed some air. He went back inside. I went behind the house and puked below some bushes. I wasn't fine. Then I went back in, as well.

I was able to overshadow how drunk I really was and continued talking to Chanty. Around one o'clock in the morning, Daryl had his hands under Jenny's shirt and she had hers somewhere, I don't want to know where. Then they took off to Jenny's place together.

Now it was do or die for me. Or something like that.

I had had sex before at the time, but never with a stranger on a weird drunken pick-up. But I thought I had to do it. What would I have told Daryl when I went came tomorrow. After all of this big set-up. That's what guys expect from one another. What would the other two have thought, Tom and Alesa, these oversexed stoners.

At a certain age you just assume everyone around you is having sex. Like you have to make up leeway, in order to keep up with the world around you, which is a fucking lie.

But don't get me wrong. This isn't some happy-thoughts talk where I tell you whether or not you should be having sex. I don't care. Do whatever you want. For me, however, I was really not in the place to do so. I was drunk.

And I was in a predicament. Either I was going to have sex with her on the risk of being too drunk to do so. Or I could pretend to have fallen asleep on the couch and just hope Chanty would let me be.

No matter which one of the two I decided for, I had to go to the toilet first. I went in, took a piss and splashed some water in my face. When I got out, Chanty was standing in front of the door. I grabbed her around the waist and kissed her. In my mind this scene still plays out pretty romantically. It probably wasn't.

She took me to her bedroom, undressed herself. I undressed myself. Suddenly I remembered, that Daryl had given me a condom earlier in the car. For this short moment, I forgot how shitty he sometimes was. Thank you, Daryl. I put it on. Or it least I tried to. I was too drunk to get "it" up. "It", meaning my penis of course. I hate when people cannot say what they mean. I tried masturbating a little, but the added pressure and the picture of a limp dick in my head made it impossible. I tried overplaying it and went down on her. I could barely talk, drunk that I was. Everyone can imagine how oral sex works out when you're unable to move your tongue. But at least I had time to get an erection.

Then it dawned on me: I didn't have a second condom.

The first one was already rolled out, utterly useless. I told her about it. She said she didn't care and went on top of me, to ride.

I did not stop her, although I should have.

After a while we swapped roles and I went on top of her. She didn't like it; I hear drunk people are as agile as sack of potatoes ...

So, she went up again and I don't remember what happened after. I guess I passed out and she gave up after a while. Maybe we even finished, I don’t remember.

I woke up naked in her bed. Sometimes it takes me a second to figure out what happened the night before. This time I remembered instantly. I looked around me, but Chanty wasn't there. I slowly got up and walked around her house in my underwear, my throat screaming for a glass of water. After trying a few cabinets in the kitchen, I found glasses and even some orange juice in the fridge. There is no greater relief to a hungover body than a cool glass of orange juice. Suddenly, I heard to front door open in the living room. Footsteps. But it was more than one pair of shoes. More than I could count. At least five people had entered the house.

Then it dawned on me. The house was tidy. Of course, it wasn't hers: She lived with her parents.

I fled back into the bedroom, which was right next to the kitchen and peaked through the door. Chanty walked down the corridor with an elderly woman, her mom. They went inside the kitchen.

She tells her mom about a guy she picked up last night. The mom asked: "How was he?" with a sensual undertone. I covered my ears to not hear Chanty’s answer. Reflecting back on it, I don't know why I did that. Ignorance is bliss, maybe. In response to her mother’s question I could hear laughter, terrible laughter, dull and quiet in my ears. I felt ashamed.

I collected my clothes off the floor and got dressed. Some moments later Chanty stood in the door and asked whether I wanted to continue hiding or come out and meet her family.

No. I definitely did not want to meet her family.

"Yea, of course." I said. Stupid idiot that I am.

We walked through the hall into the living room, she was even holding my hand and lead me there. As if all of this meant something. As if both of us had looked forward to this moment for a long time.

The aggravating terror of my next 60 minutes is quite easily explained. In the living room was an unusual cross section of a family: Her mother, who already knew how last night went, her wimpy step-dad and her mustache-wearing real dad, together with two smaller brothers, both around 16, and two cousins of her, loving this awkward situation. To this day I have no idea, how and why this section of the family was hanging out together.

Her mom kept on looking at me in pity, while wimpy step-daddy in an instant welcomed me to the family. Real daddy on the other hand eyed me angrily. There is nothing like knowing which loser fucked your daughter last night. The cousins made sex-jokes, which enraged real daddy even more. At least her brothers were affected enough by this uncomfortable situation to not talk at all.

I direly needed to get out, but besides not having any sense of where I was, I had no more battery on my phone left. Obviously. My only way out was Chanty and her shitty red car.

So, I did what any idiot would do: I played my role. I told wimpy daddy that I would really like to accept his invitation to next week’s family-trip if I could find the time, and I asked her brothers if they were still in school and if so, what subjects they took.

After an hour Chanty asked me if I needed to be somewhere today and I lied that I actually need to get home, my roommates and I wanted to go hiking today. "Why didn't you say so earlier?"

Yeah, why didn't I?

I apologized to the family for having to take off so early and got the rest of my things out of the bedroom, which earned me a last berserk look of real daddy.

Leaving the house, Chanty’s masquerade abruptly ended. She had led me my hand again but passing over the doorstep she instantly let go of it. We went into her car and didn't talk the whole ride.

It seemed like everything that was yesterday’s thrill and excitement was suddenly reverted into numbness. The orange streets of yesterday’s sun were now grey and cold. I looked over to her while she was driving. She looked depressed. Her hair was thin and greasy, she hadn't showered today either. I examined her further. For the first time I actually looked at her. Chanty's face was the face of a young woman, but without any of a young woman's features. Her skin was soft and smooth, but grey in color and fallen-in over her cheek. Her forearms were thin and boney. She looked lifeless. The absurdity of this morning carved in her face. I tried to remember how she looked when were were having sex, I couldn't remember.

She did not ask me where I live and let me out where she found me. Chanty drove to the riverside and I stepped out. I lifted the corners of my mouth in a stupid attempt to look thankful for the ride. She gave me a little white box and said it's for the Italians. Then she drove off.

I walked home and tried to line up everything that happened in the last hours in my mind. I was wide awake and yet horribly tired. I needed to make something up, about the night; how it was a good fuck. That's how it goes. Nobody wants to hear a story about how you barely got it up.

When I arrived at the apartment, Tom and Alesa were in high alarm. I believed they were worried about me, which felt good. Then they asked for the little white box.