Understanding seemed to wash over Jim’s face and he nodded his head. The anger I swore I saw flash in and out of his features during this entire exchange suddenly vanished.

"Okay, now that you got all the touchy-feely shit out of the way, tell him about the creepy stalker shit you do," Drew said pointedly.

"Fuck you. It's not stalker shit."

"Right, because dragging my ass into every single f**king girly store and making me stand there while you smell everything that's made with chocolate, made near chocolate or made by something that shits chocolate isn't weird at all. And don't think I haven't forgotten about that last time a few months ago when the clerk asked us how long we'd been dating and you put your arm around me and said, "Well, sugar plum, this big, strong, sexy beast and I have been together for ages now," he said, mimicking the high-pitched voice I used at the time.

Jim threw his head back and laughed and even I had to snicker at the memory. When Drew turned to run out of the store I smacked him on the ass. It really was priceless.

"Alright, so after five years I can't get the smell of her out of my head. Big f**king deal. And it's not like I Google every store that sells lotion and just go down the list every weekend. If I happen to be in a store that sells lotions or soap, I go and smell a few to see if by some off chance I’ll find the one that smells like she did. I just can't pass up the chance to find that smell again. It drives me God damn crazy."

Both men sat there staring at me. Fuck, I really was growing a vagina.

"You, my friend need to bang this chick out of your system once and for all. We really need to find you a nice girl that won't f**k you over and will make you forget about the Count Chocula Cooter," Drew said with a sad shake of his head.

"I may have just the girl for you," Jim said with a smirk.

"Perfect!” Drew proclaimed with a hard smack to my back. “You see, little buddy? There just might be hope for you yet. Hey, maybe we can even convince her to slather some Three Musketeers on her vagina. We'll just tell her you have a Willy Wonka fetish," Drew said with a laugh, finishing off his beer.

I kicked the leg of his chair while he leaned back on two of them. While I watched him windmill his arms to get his balance and not fall backwards onto the hardwood floor, I thought I heard Jim whisper something that sounded like, "That won't be necessary."

***

When we got to Jim’ house, his fiancé came out of the kitchen to greet us and Drew and I both stopped dead in our tracks.

"Hey, aren't you the girl from the bar last night?" I asked. It was the woman with blonde hair that hadn’t been afraid to call Drew out on his lame attempt at trying to get in her pants. "Liz, right?"

As soon as she saw us her eyes got wide and her mouth flew open. But she gained her composure quickly and smiled.

"Wow, I'm surprised you remembered. When you left the bar you were crying and singing at the top of your lungs ‘I got ninety-nine problems and the bitch is all of them’."

I grimaced at the memory that frankly, I didn't remember at all.

"Really, don't worry about it," she laughed when she saw my discomfort. "It was quite fun pointing and laughing at you all night," she teased.

"Remind me never to get drunk around you again. I might wake up with my head shaved," I said with a laugh. Liz motioned for us to follow her the rest of the way into the living room.

"Don't worry, I'd never do something like that," she promised with a smile as we all found a place to sit and she relaxed next to Jim on the couch.

"Don't lie, sweetie," Jim laughed as he swung his arm around Liz and rested it on the back of the couch. "The night I met you, I had to pry a black Sharpie marker out of your hand because you were going to write "insert penis here" on some guy's cheek with an arrow pointing to his mouth. Wasn’t he passed out in some room in a ba-"

Liz jumped up from the couch suddenly and grabbed Jim’s hand.

"Hon, can I talk to you for a second in the kitchen?" she asked, pulling him up before he could answer.

"Sorry, we'll be right back," Jim said over his shoulder as he was quickly ushered out of the room.

Drew leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees and whispered across the coffee table to me.

"Fuck, that chick still looks so damn familiar. I hope I didn't sleep with her. That would be kind of awkward, right? I mean, we just met this guy. He's nice. I don't want to have to tell him I've seen his girlfriend's vagina. He might not let us eat dinner and I'm f**king starving."

"Drew, I'm pretty sure she would have said something by now if that happened," I assured him.

"I don't know man. She looked surprised to see us just now. I bet you they're in there right now arguing about my penis. What do you think she's saying? Do you think she's telling him it was the best sex she's ever had? I haven't gotten in a fight in a while. Maybe I should stretch."

"Jesus, how do you fit your ego through doorways?" I asked as the sound of the front door opening and closing stopped Drew's musings.

Faster than I've ever seen anyone move, Liz flew out of the kitchen and bolted to the front door. They had a foyer around the corner from the living room so we couldn't see who had just got here, but we could definitely hear her.

"Elizabeth Marie Gates, you owe me big time. That was the single most horrific experience of my life."

Holy fuck, I know that voice. And why am I suddenly thinking about barking dogs?

Muted voices filled the room as Jim sauntered in from the kitchen with a giant bottle of grape vodka in one hand and two bottles of beer in the other. He cocked his head and stared at Drew with a funny look on his face and for a minute, I wondered if maybe Drew was right about sleeping with Liz. After a few seconds though, he smirked like he just remembered the punch line to an inside joke, placed the beers on the coffee table in front of Drew and me and turned to face the direction of the foyer but didn't move from where he was standing.

The voice from the foyer suddenly got really loud.

"I lost my shit after the question on c**k rings getting stuck in vaginas and told them all about my stellar sexual history. Jesus H. Christ, Liz, a woman who has had one point five lays and didn't even come close to getting off during them should not be selling sex toys!"

Ouch. We should probably not be listening to this. She's going to be pissed.

Jim unscrewed the lid to the vodka and tossed it down on the coffee table where it clattered a few times before coming to a stop. I thought he was going to take a drink straight from the bottle or something, but he just stood there holding on to it, as if waiting for something. At least Liz was trying to get her to talk a little quieter. We heard a few of her attempts but they went completely unnoticed.

Shit, one of us should say something. Alert her to our presence by walking around the corner or coughing or something. But like the assholes we are, we just sat there waiting to hear more.

The name Max was yelled and something about him getting two thrusts in before his dad walked in on them. Okay, now I wanted to hear more. Drew must have had the same idea because both of us leaned our bodies closer to the door so we could hear better. Fortunately, there was no need for that. Suddenly, everything was loud and clear as she walked with her back to us into the living room while Liz followed her, shaking her head frantically.

"Why in the hell did you ever think I would be good at this?" she said as she came to a stop and put her hands on her hips.

It was the girl from the bar last night. Halleluiah! And don't judge me just because I knew it was her as soon as I saw her ass. That was a really, really nice ass right there. I wanted to get down on my knees and praise God and the makers of the jeans she was wearing. I wanted to f**k that ass.

Wait, that didn't come out right. I mean, yeah what guy wouldn't? But she might not be into that sort of thing. That's something you have to discuss with a woman. You don't just go poking around or you'll get punch in the face and the words, "EXIT ONLY!" screamed at you.

The word 'vagina' being yelled right at that moment was the only thing that pulled my mind and my dream dick out of this chick's ass.

"By the end of the night, every woman in that room was giving my va**na sad looks. My va**na is going to get a complex, Liz."

Jim was the only one of us with any brains at this point. He walked over to the two women and stood quietly next to the one with the great ass, vodka bottle still in hand.

"It's already judging me because it's only gotten off with my hand. And I don't count dry humping your leg that one time we were really drunk after finals freshman year."

I have now lost all motor function. Someone check and see if I just came.

“Oh my God, I think I just wet myself,” Drew whispered excitedly.

"Why the hell are you staring at me like that?" the woman asked irritably as she looked back and forth between Liz and Jim. She whispered something and Liz just nodded her head and looked in our direction. By the speed with which her hand flew out and grabbed the vodka bottle and chugged it, I'm guessing she just realized there were other people in the room listening to her talk about blah, blah, blah, masturbation, blah, blah, girl-on-girl-action. She slowly turned her body around and her eyes flew right to mine. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me and watched the bottle of vodka slip from her hands. Jim calmly stuck his arm out and caught the bottle before it hit the floor, while I just sat there staring at the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

Okay, I knew I saw her last night, but I was drunk and objects in drunk eyes may appear hotter than they actually are. My recollection of her face in my mind might not have been as accurate as I thought it was. Thankfully, she was just as beautiful as I remembered. And now I felt really bad that she looked so horrified by everything she blurted out to Liz when she thought no one else was here.

"So, who wants another drink?" Liz asked cheerfully as she moved around the brown-haired beauty.

Drew and I wordlessly lifted our beer bottles to show Liz we were all set. She grabbed onto the poor girl's arm and dragged her into the living room. I watched her bring the vodka bottle back up to her lips and take another swig as she walked. Liz snatched the bottle away from her and slammed it down on the coffee table.

"Carter, this is Claire. Claire, this is Carter," Liz said, emphasizing our names for some reason. I feared for Liz’s life a little right now. I was afraid Claire might claw her eyes out.

"We sort of met last night," I said with a smile, trying to move the attention to me and save Liz from disfigurement.

Claire let out a hysterical laugh.

Liz sat down on the couch, pulling Claire down next to her.

"Well, we have a few minutes before dinner will be ready. Jim tells me you guys just moved here from Toledo, is that right?" Liz asked as Jim walked in front of the women to take a seat on the other side of Claire.

I nodded my head. "Yeah, we were transferred here from the Toledo Automotive plant."

I turned my gaze back to Claire. Her knee was bouncing up and down at a frantic pace. Liz reached over and put her hand on it to stop the movement.

"So, Claire, how long have you been a bartender?" I asked. I wanted to know everything there was about her. And I wasn't going to lie, I was dying to hear her voice again and learn more about her va**na and how often she found herself humping girlfriends. Shit, please don't let me get a hard-on right now.

"Almost five years," she said as another awkward laugh bubbled out of her and Jim reached up to pat her on the back a few times.

How much of the vodka did she chug from that bottle?

"Liz, I can't take it anymore," Drew interrupted. "You look so f**king familiar."

Claire jumped to her feet, her knee slamming into the coffee table and knocking over the two beer bottles. Thankfully they were already empty.

"I think I heard the timer go off on the oven. Liz, did you hear the timer go off?" she asked.

Liz shook her head casually. "Nope. Definitely didn't hear the timer," she said with a smile.

I watched as Claire turned her back to us and faced Liz.

"The timer definitely went off. You just didn't hear it because you weren't paying attention. We need to go check on the food. Because the timer. It went off."

"Hey, Liz," Drew said. "I think she's trying to tell you the timer went off!"

He laughed at his own joke and I reached over and smacked his arm.

Watching her go from horrified to embarrassed to nervous was fascinating. She was like a beautiful train wreck and I couldn't stop watching.

Liz sighed and finally stood up, smiling at Drew and me while she excused herself and followed Claire into the kitchen.

Drew leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Did you see the way Liz looked at me? I think I definitely banged her."

9. Claire’s Coochie Kills

Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, fuck. Can a person die from humiliation? Shitfuckdamn.

"I think I'm having a heart attack. Or maybe a stroke. Which is the one that makes your left arm numb?"

I've lost all brain function. This is it. I'm dying. Tell my folks I love them.

"A stroke," Liz said in a deadpan voice as she followed me into the kitchen.

"Shit. I'm having a stroke. Feel my pulse. Does it feel weird to you?" I asked, thrusting my arm out to her.

Liz smacked my hand away. "For fuck's sake, Claire, get a grip."

"Carter. His name is Carter. And he has no idea who I am," I whined.

Fuck, I hate whiney girls. I'm turning into an insecure, whiny girl. I'm going to have to kick my own ass. Liz bent down in front of the oven and took a peek at the lasagna cooking inside. She stood back up and crossed her arms in front of her chest, leaning her hip against the front of the oven.