Romance, Our Style

"Not alone, I’ll be there, tell me when you want to go."

I shiver, twisting the taps back to off. Not so long ago, the running water was the coolest sensation in the world. Now, it’s nothing special; maybe even a bit on the uncomfortable side.

I feel like I’m turning the pages of a child’s pop-up book, or trapped inside a computer game. What will happen when I touch this, or look at that? Will it make me laugh? Will it trip me out? Will it make me feel bad? Or will it do nothing?

Kyle and I are searching for a pop bottle and a pen. Well, I am anyway. Kyle disappeared into the bathroom. Bastard. He knew I had to go. Now I’m hopping around from the kitchen to the dining room to the living room and back again, distractedly scanning for anything to make a bong out of and wishing Kyle would hurry up.

I turn around, and there’s Zac. He’s swooping towards me, the green foamie mattress still wrapped around his shoulders. “When did you get here?” I ask with genuine astonishment. Kyle and I had left him out on the roof, watching the waves in the grass and laughing.

“BIG! GREEN! BAT!” Zac screams, flapping his green foamie wings and diving in for the kill.

“Holy shit! Don’t do that!” I gasp. Now, this scenario may seem funny to you, but it’s not. The number one rule of hallucinogenic drugs is you don’t interfere with anyone else’s trip! Zac knows that.

Apologetically, he swoops in and envelopes me with his foamie wings. I huddle against his chest, swearing at him and shaking. We’re both laughing.

Kyle appears in the doorway. Zac and I disentangle ourselves, and Zac charges at him instead. “BIG! GREEN! BAT!”

Rolling my eyes, I duck past the two of them and escape into the bathroom.

I’m going to have to wash my hands again. I twist the ring off my index finger, examining the suddenly intricate network of silver stars and loops and waves. Zac gave me this ring. I don’t mean he bought it for me; we’re not nearly as classy as all that. But one day while he was out at the junkyard searching for parts, he came across this ring. I think it’s sweet that he thought to save it for me.

It’s like last Valentine’s Day. That dumbass boyfriend of mine brought me flowers. Me! Flowers! I could have had a nervous collapse just over what to do about them. Was I supposed to water them? How often? What about when they started to go bad? When should I throw them out? What if I threw them out too soon and hurt his feelings? What if I didn’t throw them out soon enough, and he thought I was gross? I don’t like gifts that expire.

Anyway, that’s getting off topic. The point is that after he brought me flowers, Zac took me out to dinner at The Cave. If you’ve ever been there, you’ll know that it really is like a cave. There are tunnels and twists and turns, and random gaping holes in the walls. I don’t mean vandalism sort of holes; they’re more like windows. Like a real cave. Your placemat is a map of the restaurant, and each table has its own little nook. Well, you can imagine what a couple like us did at such a place. Never mind wanting to play hide n’ seek, or joking about dining and dashing without ever leaving the building. Never mind the urge to crawl under a corner table and make out there, and then when someone was seated there to run our hands up their legs and see if we could make them scream. No, those were just the things we talked about doing, not what we actually did.

Zac didn’t want the wax beans that came with his meal, so I grabbed one and leaned ominously towards his face with it. He responded by meeting the end of the bean with his fork. Unfortunately, our aim was slightly off and the fork ripped the bean wide open.

“Aargh!” Zac screamed. “You’d be a horrible nurse! What if that was a catheter you were trying to insert?”

“Hey!” I protested defensively. “You were the one trying to insert it! You’re the catheter to my urethra!”

We spent a moment pondering the sexual innuendos inherent in that statement, but our attention ultimately returned to the beans. It just so happened that the wall-hole directly across from our table made an ideal target for bean-on-fork catapults.
You know, it’s kind of odd that I’m remembering all this now. Mushrooms don’t usually make me reminiscent, not like ecstasy. The first time Zac and I did E, I told him my whole life story, including a very detailed sexual history. It’s almost frightening how much of our relationship is fuelled by drug use.

Oh well. We’re in love, and we have a great relationship. We just do things our own way. Romance, our style.