Girls' Night Out (2 page)

“OK,” Suzan said, “how about what the guy did to Ellen? I say we do the same to him.”

***

Metafore had about as much ambience as a McDonald's at 11:00 p.m. Canned lighting, canned music, the art one step above painting on velvet, and an abundance of fake plants dulled with dust. The women at the bar wore too few clothes over too much flesh and looks of shifty-eyed desperation, while the men wore the undisguised looks of shoppers at a meat market. This was my second time in the place. Once had been more than enough.

The bartender, a pale, egg-shaped man with thinning hair who had seriously introduced himself as Mad Dog Kelly, was dying to be my new best friend. He leaned over confidentially whenever he could to admire the impressive cleavage produced by Georgia's Wonderbra and Tess's too-small satin camisole as he tried to learn my story. On my last visit—a brief foray to check the place out—I had obligingly disclosed a recent divorce and heartbreak. Tonight I embellished the story with spurts of anger at my imaginary ex.

I was swinging my feet in Tess's hot pink Chinese Laundry stilettos and sipping the girliest drink I knew—a Cosmo—when Hanrahan came through the door. He paused like someone making an entrance in an old black-and-white movie, straightening his tie while his cool eyes lasered the room, falling at last on me, and on the small pink bag—scooped that afternoon from T.J. Maxx—that I'd set on the barstool beside me. Through lowered lashes, I watched Hanrahan look at the bartender and caught Mad Dog's slight nod. The predator, it seemed, had a coconspirator.

I wondered if Hanrahan came in after and shared the pictures. If studying the victims gave the egg-shaped man a vicarious sex life.

“Excuse me? Is this seat taken?” His voice was deep and pleasant. He waited, looking down with one brow raised.

“It is now.” I set my purse on the bar, and the dance of predator and prey began. I reluctantly revealed my loneliness, Hanrahan shared his. We bemoaned our empty places, and I told my sad tale of being abandoned by the friend who was to meet me here and drive me home. He kindly offered a ride. When I ordered my second Cosmo, he ordered one, too, again with an almost imperceptible nod to Mad Dog. My artist's eye, so used to studying the minute details of things as well as the whole picture, saw the bartender's sleight-of-hand, the quick spill of powder into my drink before he set it up on the bar.

I might not have to use the dose I'd brought after all. I just slid my glass close to Hanrahan's, did a quick switch while he and Mad Dog were drawn to the TV screen when a Red Sox batter popped up and the shortstop dropped it, and I was in business.

I was hot to be out of there, moving ahead with the program, but first he had to drink that drink, so I sat through his suave patter, smiling sweetly and twisting coyly on my stool, letting him enjoy the full benefit of the Wonderbra's charms. Men don't know it, but a Wonderbra could probably even give them cleavage. He wove compliments and questions about my sorry situation with his own tale of abandonment and loss. The way he told it, poor Jay Hanrahan had a sadly empty life. I had to admit he was a pretty good actor.

“Even though our lovers were cruel,” he said, dropping a warm hand on my leg and curling his fingers around my thigh, “it's hard not to miss the company.”

Wide-eyed, I agreed. “Tommy was rotten, but it's sad that he's gone.” Tommy was my hated stepmother's ugly old cat, recently deceased. I had to look down at my lap to suppress a smile.

The minute our glasses were empty, I was suddenly tired and wanted to leave. I needed to get him back to my house before the drug kicked in. In the car, he surreptitiously snagged a camera from the pocket on the door.

***

Once or twice, close to my house, his driving got erratic enough so I put a helping hand on the wheel. When I invited him in, I thought he was going to blow the whole thing. “I'm feeling kind of tired,” he said. He hadn't taken his hands off the wheel.

I rested my hand on his thigh, pulling in my elbows, letting the Wonderbra do its thing, and dropped my voice into a lower register. “I could make you some coffee,” I suggested. “Or get you a Coke. You know what we were saying about how empty a place can seem? And I really wanted to show you my paintings.” I was damned if I was going to get dressed up like some pathetic trollop and sit in a bad bar for two nights paying their absurd prices for drinks, only to let him get away. My job was to deliver Jay Hanrahan to the tender mercies of my book group, and deliver him I would.

I snuggled close as we went up the steps. In response, he wrapped an arm around me, his hand “accidentally” finding my breast. Stifling the impulse to slap him away, I fitted my key into the lock and opened the door.

“The living room is that way…” I said, turning on the small light on the foyer table.

He pulled some capsules from his pocket and asked for the washroom. “Yohimbe,” he said. “It helps me stay awake.”

Herbal Viagra. “Never heard of it,” I said. I must look even more vulnerable than I thought.

“You want that coffee? A Coke? A glass of wine?”

“Wine would be good.” He headed for the bathroom and I went to the kitchen.

There were five women sitting at the table. Callie, Tess, Suzan, and Georgia I expected. But Ellen was there, too. Three big pizza boxes were open on the counter. There was a pile of crumpled napkins. And five wineglasses.

“Hope you saved some for me,” I said. “I'm starving.”

“The hero didn't spring for food?”

“The hero went straight for the horizontal.”

“You got the drug in his drink OK?” Suzan asked.

“I didn't need to use the drug,” I said. “He drugged my drink. I just switched glasses when he wasn't looking and the big fool drugged himself. Bartender's in on it, too.”

She shifted the pizza boxes and held up a package. “In here I have got a dildo as big as the Ritz. When we're done with him, that asshole will never be the same again.”

Tess exploded with laughter, catching the spraying wine with her napkins. “Oh, man, Suzan. That's good.”

While the others were high-fiving, I said, “It seems to be kicking in awfully fast. He says he's feeling tired and his driving was very erratic.”

“Well,” Georgia said. “Unless he's dead or dying, we're going through with this.”

“Don't worry,” I said. “If that man was teetering on the edge of a bridge, I'd give him a push. But we brought him here to teach him a lesson, right? One he'd remember? Well, the way he looks I'm just hoping he stays focused enough to learn that lesson.”

“I'm not letting that stop me,” Suzan said. “For all we know, all his victims felt sick and he just went ahead and screwed them.”

“We
do
know that,” Ellen said.

They were really psyched for this. Even Ellen looked better. “He just went to the bathroom to take this stuff…yohimbe…that stuff they call herbal Viagra…and get ready for his good time.”

Callie reached around behind her and got a big brown paper grocery bag. “Then let's get ready, ladies. You go ahead and get Lothario in there warmed up, Rory. We'll be right behind you.”

“Oh, boy,” Tess said, “I've really been looking forward to this.”

I turned to Ellen. “What are you doing here?” Then to the others. “Weren't we trying to keep her out of this?”

“It's not their fault, Rory. I invited myself,” Ellen said. “I think I have a right to be here.”

More than the rest of us, I supposed. I shrugged. “You do. I just think you're taking an even bigger risk than the rest of us.”

But, as she often told me, I wasn't her mother. I looked at my friends. At the pizza and wine and salad. At their eager faces in my bright kitchen, ready to have a lot of fun on our girl's night out. I thought how utterly insane this was.

Suzan dumped the dildo from the box and hefted it. It was bright pink and scarily big. “Come on, ladies. Let's go have some fun. And just to show that I am entirely humane…” She dug around in the bag and pulled out Astroglide. Tess had an offering of her own—a genuine Japanese-import Hello Kitty dildo.

***

It's good to do things as a team, because there are things I'd never think of—like the Astroglide, a product obviously named by a man. I wondered if it was some offshoot of the space program? And Callie was on the case, efficiently handing out lab coats and examination gloves. As we entered the living room, I heard giggles behind me. Turning, I saw that they were all wearing masks. Jay Hanrahan was about to have an unusual sexual experience courtesy of Hillary Clinton, Marilyn Monroe, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Betty Ford. Queen Elizabeth was carrying the camera.

Hanrahan seemed to have recovered. He lay on my couch, shirt unbuttoned and shoes off, looking ready for an evening of predatory lust. The bulge in his pants suggested the yohimbe was working fast.

“I hope you don't mind,” I said. “I invited a few of my friends over to share the fun.”

He stared over my shoulder at the parade of distinguished ladies, and the lust fell off his face like a false smile. “Oh, Jesus. Oh God. What the hell is this? What do you want? What's going on?” His fingers scrabbled at the buttons on his shirt as one foot flopped around the floor, searching for a shoe. “I am not feeling well,” he said. “I think I'd better go home.”

“I'll bet there are a lot of women out there who can relate to that statement,” Betty Ford said. “Who took one bleary, woozy look at you, grasped a corner of what you were planning to do, and said they'd like to go home. Am I right?”

“What the fuck!” He grasped for volume as he struggled for control, some mastery of the situation. Pushing himself to a sitting position, he planted his feet on the floor and tried to rise on rubber legs. His eyes looked as glazed as Ellen said hers had been. A swoony victim of his own date rape drug.

“Oh, let us help you,” Marilyn crooned, taking his arm. “Are you not feeling well? You need to get out of those tight old clothes and lie down.”

“And since we hear you're just the guy for a power fuck,” Hillary said, seizing his other arm, “I am definitely your dream girl.”

“You're all a fucking nightmare,” he said, trying to shove them away. “Leave me alone. I'm going.”

He was the rabbit batting at the fox. His legs skimmed the floor like a cartoon character as the Hollywood icon and the former first ladies led him into my guest room. Someone—good planning again—had spread a shower curtain over the mattress. Despite his incapacity, we could all see comprehension dawning. Would the drug take that away, leaving him with no memory of the assault? I guessed that was what the camera was for.

 Being undressed by Queen Elizabeth is probably a fantasy few men entertain. In short order, we had him out of his clothes and down on the bed. Hillary Clinton produced restraints and our serial rapist, still cursing and threatening, was ready for a dose of his own medicine. We decided to begin by letting him enjoy the oral pleasures of Hello Kitty, shoving the bizarre thing between his resisting lips as Marilyn cooed, “Come on, baby, open up. You know you want it.”

“Hold his nose,” said the queen. “He'll have to open his mouth to breathe.”

Watching Hanrahan's gleaming white teeth parted to admit a kinky Japanese sex toy was so funny Eleanor Roosevelt got a bad case of the giggles.

Then Her Majesty produced a set of nontoxic sex-play paints, and we decorated Attorney Hanrahan in a variety of pretty pinks and purples. Pink nipples with red bull's-eye circles around them. A bobbling bright purple cock atop a pair of saggy sky blue balls.

“Oh,” Hillary said, flicking his dick, “aren't blue balls just the saddest thing?” When she pulled a pair of shiny kitchen shears from the pocket of her lab coat, Hanrahan gave a genuinely girlish shriek.

“Let's turn him over. It's time to get to work. You got any duct tape, honey?” she asked.

“Yeah,” the queen said. “He's not exactly with the program. It's time for him to lie back and think about the British Empire.”

Betty Ford hooted and put a hand to her mouth as Eleanor Roosevelt brandished the massive pink dildo and the movie star and the other first lady and the queen flipped him over. “Open wide,” she said, slapping him on the rump. “This will only hurt for a minute.”

It didn't hurt at all. Just seeing that monster dildo did the trick. Hanrahan squealed like a stuck pig and fainted like a fragile flower.

***

I love my book group. Sometimes we talk about Proust. Sometimes we read nonfiction or other classics that we've missed. We always enjoy each other's company. It's a great way to stay in touch.

We've been through grad school, a couple of nasty breakups, my excruciating divorce from an initially sweet husband who turned out to be controlling and insane and once tried to kill me because his voices told him I was evil. We've been through the loss of Ellen's husband and the birth of Suzan's baby. We're as close as a group of women can be. We would need all of that strength and closeness to get through this.

Jay Hanrahan was dead. Not because of anything we'd done. We hadn't beaten him or terrified him into cardiac arrest. He hadn't choked on his own vomit because we stifled his complaints with duct tape. Callie thought he'd died from an unfortunate combination of yohimbe and a date rape drug. In his eagerness to get the maximum benefit from drugging me, he had taken an overdose of yohimbe, apparently an easy thing to do. It had interacted badly with his own date rape drug and sent him into cardiac arrest.

But we had committed a few crimes ourselves tonight, and now, at 1:00 a.m., I stood with three former first ladies and a Hollywood icon in my pretty guest room staring at the already graying body of the serial rapist sprawled on the bed.

“We've got to clean him up, get him dressed, take him home, and leave him in his own bed,” I said. “I'll need one of you to help. We just have to pray for a building with no doorman or security cameras. Ellen, you stay here and make sure that every trace of him is gone. Tess, you follow me so you can help me get him inside and drive me home. The rest of you—go home. You were in all evening. We haven't seen each other since book group. No one talks about this on the phone or by e-mail. Not one word.”