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I had left right after the part of the party where the karaoke machine came out. I wasn’t feeling for a shameful display that night and so I snuck out while others were arguing about cords and the right places to put them. I first went to the fridge and stuck two beers into my purse, making sure they were the kind I could open on my own. I walked out the front door to the sound of someone ripping the shit out of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” which usually wasn’t attempted until much later in the proceedings.
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I knew I had made the right decision.
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Once outside and free on the street I went over to the park that was a few blocks away. I sat down on a bench and cracked open one of the beers in my purse. As I sat there, sipping in the dark and quiet, I noticed down on the lower part of the park, which was on a hill, that there was something writhing there. I sat up, squaring my eyes to focus.
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What it looked like to me was a couple fucking in the grass.
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I trained my ears in that general direction and caught moments of moan and relish. They looked bone white in the moonlight, almost as if they were two skeletons maneuvering their bones into a twine of togetherness.
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I took another sip of my beer. It tasted cheap, like I then felt.
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I felt my eyes water, dripping salty that cut the drabness of my tongue flattened by bad hops and bland. My tongue lapped up the mess I was in with a seriousness that I couldn’t be entirely sincere about now, but was then.
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A young guy in a hoodie and headphones came over and sat down next to me. He nodded at me and then sat there staring out at the grass before us, moving his head in a musical fashion.
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I took my hand and reached into my pants, toying with myself in a way that was both pleasant and incredibly depressing. I tried to make my finger dance to a similar beat that the boy next to me was listening to, totally ignorant of what it was that I was then doing.
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I wanted him to see me, but knew that I wouldn’t be able to come if he did see me doing what I did.
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The sounds from the grass below became louder, less timid, and I came at what I guessed was the climax of the song the boy next to me was listening to.
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It felt harsh and cruel and almost like I was raping myself.
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When I was done, I offered the boy next to me my last beer, by way of a thank you.
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