Stringy hair, scrawny bodies, pot, disenchantment...whatever...all of it could be found at Kurt's house that night, or most ts. ts.

I can't say who was there that night--too many years and too many beers have insinuated themselves between then and now to pick out the faces. I do remember us--Nirvana and entourage--and the guys from Alice In Chains. But the place had been wall to wall people--you had to snake your way through groups of conversations and nonconversations to get from room to room, and every room seemed warmer--from body heat, from lighters, from who knows what--than the last.

I'd lost Jerry. Not that I'd come with Jerry or that I'd been hanging out with him at all...I'd maybe nodded a greeting when he and the rest of them showed their faces. But even so...I'd had my eye on him, ever since he showed up.

And then, two hours into the party, he was gone. I wound my way through the living room and into the kitchen, peeked out the window to the porch, checked out the line at the bathroom....

I didn't see Courtney, either. I only noticed this because the last I ~had~ seen of her, she'd been laughing in Jerry's ear.

I hadn't at any point fooled myself into thinking he was gay, but I liked to pretend. I liked to indulge myself in the illusion of it. It was awfully fucking hard, though, to keep up the fucking illusion while the object of your illusion was upstairs boffing your bandmate's wife. For a split second, I thought of marching up to Kurt, letting him in on the news, but then that second split. Thank God. Thank God I didn't let a headful of steam carry me into doing something stupid.

Instead, I turned on my heel and headed for the liquor. My evening of social drinking had changed that quickly into an irrepressible urge to pickle my sour disappointment in something smooth, amber, and manufactured in Canada.

"Okay. Okay! Hey! Everybody...everybody SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

I gritted my teeth at Courtney's rising screech. A half hour maybe had passed since I'd noticed she and Jerry had disappeared from the face of the party. The last thing I wanted to do was sit and listen to whatever post-fuck babble she had for all of us.

"We got any strippin' music?" she called. The crowd's noise had dulled in response to her initial shrieks--most everyone was paying at least token attention to her by this point. I was paying attention to the drink in my hands. Someone called out at her and she called back, "No, not me, fuckwad. You wish! Come on, someone put on something with a hip grinding, pelvis thrusting fucking beat to it."

Half a minute later--as though under some secret alien directive to make the party even fucking worse than it already was--someone fucking did just that. It wasn't stripper music, per se...it was INXS: "Don't ask me...what you know is true...Don't have to tell me...I love your precious--" Ugh. My head dropped. My shoulders slumped. There wasn't enough alcohol in the house to save this party.

"Well...that'll do," Courtney said. "Let's get this shit rolling. I'd like to introduce the evening's live fucking entertainment. It's a little impromptu--no honey, I didn't just call it little--but I think you'll all get a big kick out of it."

I had decided to hate her for the remainder of the night. Regardless, I raised my eyes toward the top of the staircase. She stood at the railing, grinning at someone just beyond the landing. She waved her hand, gesturing for whoever it was to come forward. Then, still grinning, still looking toward someone we couldn't see, she said, "Everybody give a big hand to...Candi Champagne!"

The crowd broke out in hoots and handclaps which became louder and more earnest the minute Jerry poked his head out onto the landing. He wore the perfect expression of a girl who'd never expected to actually have to get onstage--and he looked like he was having second thoughts. Maybe. At the same time, he looked to be thoroughly enjoying himself--as well as all the cat-calls.

I raised my hands over my head and clapped as loudly as anyone else. I sat up straight in the chair I'd spent the last half hour slouching in...fuck...there aren't words to describe how cool it was to see Jerry appear as a chick all of the sudden. His head--his blonde, teased, and hair-sprayed hair and his overdone face--popped back into the shadows of the landing. Half a second later all of him came stumbling backward down the first few steps. He grabbed onto the railing and hung from it, panting as though he'd narrowly avoided breaking his neck. It was evident that Courtney had shoved him back into the spotlight--and equally evident that that was where he wanted to be. He was grinning. I was grinning.

In an instant, the last remnants of the shy stripper act fell away. Jerry, smirking, bumped his hips in stripper stroll down the stairs. I took my eyes off him for an instant--and all I saw were arms raised with dollar bills in them. I laughed.

Shit. Jerry's--Candi's...whoever's--costume. What a riot. Fishnets, stilettos, tight red mini skirt, one of Courtney's black bras, stuffed. He had a blouse over it, unbuttoned, shirt tails tied above his midriff. Courtney--or maybe Jerry himself--had shoved a blue plastic sapphire into his belly button. That was the absolute best part. I wanted to take in everything, but I kept coming back to that blue belly button glinting in the weak yellow lighting.

He hit the crowd at the bottom of the stairs and started grinding against them for money, spending a second with this chick and two with that one, plucking bills out of people's hands as he went. He comically humped Sean Kinney's ass when Sean bent to pick up a dollar he'd dropped. Then he tried to pull Krist's face into his crotch.

The last strains of "Never Tear Us Apart" died away. His head jerked up, panic showing on his face. The shit they'd found to play wasn't exactly what we tended to listen to, but whoever worked the music let it go on to the next track--"Mystify." With the opening strains, Jerry's face broadened into a grin. He picked up right where he left off, working the crowd, colleting bills, taking sips off people's drinks, tokes off their joints.

When the song was probably half finished, he reached my chair. His back was to me, his ass in my face. I leaned over and drew a finger down one of those long, thin thighs. His hand reached back and slapped me away. I laughed. He hadn't turned, and he hadn't moved away. I slid my hand through the air between us and touched him again, this time on the inside of his thigh, just above his knee. Slowly I drew my finger up the fishnets, heading toward the bottom of his skirt.

Again his hand came back and swatted mine away.

Just as I was reaching for a third attempt, he whirled.

"Where's your money?" he asked, a hand on a cocked hip. "This shit ain't free."

I lifted my ass and felt for my wallet. Inside was two tens. I pulled one out, brandished it in front of his crotch. He put a hand on the arm of my chair and leaned down like he was going to say something to me--instead, he plucked the other ten out of my wallet. Then he snatched the one in my hand.

"You just bought yourself a lap dance," he said, stuffing the bills into his bra.

Well how could I complain about that?

I watched him move in front of my chair. He set one knee alongside me, then the other. His crotch came up in front of my face. I could see a bulge under the tight skirt. Not much of a bulge, but...it was a guy in there, no doubt. No doubt. I wanted to put my palms on the fronts of his thighs, feel that bulge with the tips of my index fingers.

"Now remember." He dropped his face by my ear. "No touching. Keep your hands on the chair arms." With that, he grabbed my wrists and _put_ my hands on the chair arms. The entire crowd in Kurt's house disafuckingpeared.

I was in love--not romantic love: drunk lust swirling head tight-in-the-jeans love--and held hostage by that twinkling blue plastic bauble. He swiveled and grinded inches from my face, shimmied...his belly slid near my mouth...I couldn't _not_ try...I stuck out my tongue, leaned forward...I was so close.

"Rules!" Jerry said, knocking the heel of his hand into my chest. I dropped back against the seat. He put his face in mine. "Are you gonna behave or not?"

"I'll behave. I promise."

He looked me in the eye a moment before pulling his face away again. The scent of make-up and cheap perfume filled the empty space. "Song's almost over," he said, starting to grind again.

My gaze headed back to the blue sparkle in his belly...but... something else caught my attention. The slight bulge had become _some_ fucking bulge. Shit. I shifted between his legs. Fuck. Fuck the bauble. I...fuck.

The song ended. Abruptly. And with it, Jerry swung a leg over me and...was gone, moving through the crowd, ass shaking...fuck. Fuck!

I closed my eyes, let my head fall back. Jesus fucking Christ. I was practically panting. I didn't know how many people were giving me strange looks. I didn't care. I needed another drink. I needed a cigarette. I needed some fucking air.

I pushed off the chair. My smokes were in my shirt pocket. Ihed hed one out with trembling fingers as I pushed through groups of people--people who were completely fucking oblivious to what I was going through. No one gave me strange looks unless I stepped on their feet or knocked into them. I had to get outside. I had to fucking...shit. I needed a moment alone to think, to savor, to burn the last minute and a half into my brain before I lost it. I shouldered the back door open and stumbled onto the porch.

"Caught me."

I jerked my head around.

Jerry leaned against a railing, a cigarette of his own between his fingers. His hair was starting to fall and frizz in the humidity from the night's rain, but his make-up was intact, and his outfit, and...no bulge, but I knew the possibility that lay under that skirt.

"Hey," I said. "What're you doing out here?"

Jerry took a drag, then looked down at the porch's floor boards as he flicked ash off the end of the cigarette. "Hoping you'd decide you wanted some air."

I patted my pockets, looking for a light. Jerry stepped forward to offer the end of his cigarette.

"You wanna take off?" he asked.

"With you dressed like that?"

He nodded.

I nodded, too. I let out a stream of smoke. "Where you wanna go?"

He laughed. "What the fuck do I care?"

"Okay, let's go." I turned toward the porch steps. No need to fight through the throng of bodies again--no need to risk someone getting in our way, stealing Jerry....

"Wait." Jerry grabbed my arm.

I looked back.

"Let's find a by-the-hour hotel."

"Sure."

In the car, Jerry slid down in the passenger seat and propped his right stiletto heel on the dash. I glanced over. The skirt had ridden up. In the light from the streetlamp ahead of the car, I could see white thigh at the top of the fishnets--white thigh and the smallest patch of purple underwear. I gripped the wheel.

We were moving suddenly--when did I put it into gear and pull out?--gliding down a road in silence. The rain-soaked streets fffffsted under the car's tires. I had no fucking idea where we were going--toward the run-down motels, I guessed. What was more clear to me--more vivid, more insistent on my attention--was the question of just what kind of purple underwear he was wearing under that skirt. The exposed patch--fuck, I wanted to turn my head and take another peek, but I didn't want to get caught looking--was maybe an inch square. It wasn't boxers, obviously, but it still could have been men's underwear.

Or not.

"There's a place," Jerry said without moving. His voice was laid-back, almost disinterested.

I slowed, turned a corner, squinted out the window at the motel's sign. "Is it by the hour?"

"Looks crappy enough to be." He took his foot down from the dash and turned toward me. "It'd be okay with me if it wasn't."

I pulled up in front of it, put the car in park. I had to look past him to see the motel's front door through his window. "You sure? You said--"

I was still trying to make out the front of the motel through the rain when he sat forward and kissed me. Quick. Just a peck and then he drew back, looking at me like a little kid who wasn't sure if she'd done something right, or if it was out of line.

I touched Jerry's hair, wrapped an index finger around a lock of it, leaned toward him...kissed him.... Oh, fuck, when he kissed back...there was nothing like it. I jammed my knee against the console between the seats, wanting to get closer. I had his head in both my hands. Then I dropped a hand to his chest, slid over his tissue- and dollar-stuffed bra, pushed my fingers under the loosely tied blouse. His skin felt _so right_. I don't know how to explain that. Some people when you touch them they feel...like strangers. Jerry's skin felt familiar. Maybe it felt like mine? I don't know. I just knew I liked touching it. I gripped his side. I pushed my hand up, pushing the bottom of the bra. I forced my thumb under the underwire. His hands pulled at my t-shirt, pulling me closer. I got tangled up in my own feet. The steering wheel bruised the side of my thigh. Two six-foot-plus men and a compact car....

I pulled away, panting. Lifted my eyes toward the motel again. "You took all my money."

"I guess I'll have to pay for the room, then."

I looked at him.

He nodded down toward his chest. "It's in there."

I grinned. I kissed his chest, right above his lack of cleavage, then I plucked some bills out of the bra. Jerry helped smooth them out, helped hold them near the window where the light outside the motel shined through.

"This one's a ten."

"I've got six ones."

"Keep digging."

And then, finally: "I'll wait in the car."

I looked at him once more. Yeah, the desk clerk might not understand. He reached up and rubbed what was likely his lipstick off my chin. I grinned. Then I kissed him again--quick, on the lips--before letting myself out of the car. _Jerry, don't fucking change your mind,_ I thought, stepping into the building. _Don't fucking change your mind._

Five minutes later, I opened the door to our room and, hugging himself, he ducked under my arm to enter.

"Chilly?" I asked, letting the door close. The room's heating/cooling unit sat under the window alongside the door. I crouched in front of it, turned it on. When I stood and turned around, I found him in the middle of the room rubbing his arms.

"I'll be too hot in a minute," I said, meaning that that was how cheap hotel heaters worked.

He nodded.

My mouth was dry. I cursed the transition from car to room. What if awkwardness and doubt had set in? What if this wasn't going to happen? Fuck that. We were _there_. I crossed the room, swept my arm around Jerry's back, pulled him close. His hands dropped to my hips.

Oh God! My head was buzzing! I couldn't fucking believe I was standing there in a motel room with Jerry. Right _there_. Eye to eye. Hip to hip. Chest to chest. He pressed closer to me and I realized it wasn't his hip against mine. With an arm circled around his waist, I held him to me, and with the other arm, I pushed between us to finally touch that bulge in his skirt. Drunk lust tight-in-the-jeans love filled every fucking molecule of my being as I walked him back toward the bed, as we tripped and spilled onto it, as I buried my face against his shoulder and pushed my hand under his skirt.

Ladies' underwear. Tiny ladies' underwear. The triangle in front merely held his cock uht--ht--it couldn't even pretend to cover it, or to contain his balls. One was held in place by the strip of lace-edged fabric; the other hung out the side. I rubbed my palm over the trapped one.

"You don't have a condom, do you?" he asked.

I shook my head against his neck.

"Fuck." He lifted his hips restlessly. "I wanted you to fuck me. Should have thought of that before--"

"I can fuck you," I said. I slid my hand out from under his skirt. The sapphire in his belly-button drew my attention. I rubbed the pad of my index finger over it, gently at first, then harder. Jerry's stomach muscles tightened. His foot came up onto the bed. The heel of the stiletto caught in the bedspread as he pushed his hips off the bed, pushed the sapphire against my finger.

I slid my hand up over his chest, flattened my palm between the cups of his bra. His chest rose and fell quickly. He looked at me. I left his chest, pushed two fingers into my mouth. Then, turning my attention back to his body, I slipped my hand, fingers raised, back down to his crotch. With my thumb, I pushed the underwear aside.

Finally, I pressed my saliva-slicked fingers into his crack.

"You wanna get fucked?" I asked in his ear.

He lifted his hips in response. I teased his entrance with the tips of my fingers, letting the middle one slip in--just--and circling my index finger around the outer edges of the sensitive opening.

"Tme yme you want to get fucked," I said.

"Fuck me."

"Tell me you want me to fuck you with my fingers."

"Dave...." He swallowed back an excited breath. "Please." He pushed against my fingers.

I pulled my hand away and propped myself on my elbow. "Roll over. I wanna see that ass."

He didn't waste a minute thinking about it. As soon as he was on his stomach, I pushed the skirt up over his hips. Then I raked the panties down to his thighs. What a sight--red, purple, the black fishnets, and in between it all the mounds of his pale asscheeks. I pressed his cheeks apart with my thumbs, gripped the tips of his thighs with the tips of my fingers, and slid to the floor, pulling him backward toward me. Then I bit his ass.

He yelped, but it was a yelp that ended with a soft groan as my tongue and lips made up for my teeth. I nipped him again, then licked and kissed the red marks away once more. And then I pushed my tongue against his asshole.

"Unh," he said, squirming in my hands. I slid my hands under his thighs and hooked my forearms around them, holding him there as my tongue circled and teased his entrance. He pushed toward me, rubbed his ass in my face. I tightened my grip and pulled him away until the tip of my tongue just grazed those sensitive nerve endings.

I lifted my head, then, and sucked on my two fingers again. Then I snaked my arm free and pressed those fingers against his opening once more. As I climbed back onto the bed, I pushed my fingers inside him. I came to lie next to him, alongside him, my chest against the side of his back, one of my legs bent under me, the other one hanging awkwardly off the end of the bed. I should have moved him back up the bed, but I was fucking him now.

"How's that?" I asked, pushing my fingers into him again, pushing my hand against his ass.

"I love it," he said, his ass pushing back. "Do it harder."

"Like this?"

His ass thrust back to meet each thrust of my hand. His fingers pulled at the bedspread, the heels of his hands pushed at it. I kissed him on the back of the head. With every other thrust, we were sliding backward on the bed. His knees hit the floor, then mine. I had my hip behind my hand and with each thrust, I thrust my hips toward him, like I really was fucking him. He pushed a hand between himself and the bed.

"Wait." I brought an arm around his chest and pulled him against me. "Okay," I said, and then watched over his shoulder as his hand grabbed his cock and started stroking it. The thing was enormous. I wished we'd brought two condoms. I nosed his hair away, bit just behind his ear, and closed my eyes, thinking about his cock inside me. Thinking about sitting on him, riding him, fingering that blue sapphire. Thinking about prying that plastic sapphire out with my teeth. The first clue I had that he was coming was the tightening around my fingers. Then he pushed back against me, all of him. I opened my eyes to see his load hitting the end of the bed.

Panting, he laid his head back on my shoulder.

After half a minute, he swallowed, then said, "Your turn to wear the panties."

I laughed. "I don't think I'm exactly the--"

"You want your cock sucked?"

I hugged him against me. "Yeah."

"Wear the panties."

"If that'll do it for ya."

We broke apart, stood, stripped. Naked--and Jesus was he hot naked--he went into the bathroom and ran the water. When he came back, I was lying on the bed feeling more exposed in that pair of purple panties than I would have if I'd been completely naked, and his face was clean. A trace of mascara clung to his lashes. The memory of lipstick stained his mouth. But otherwise, he was all Jerry again. No more Candi. Not even the blue sapphire. He lay down on the bed on top of me, grinned at me, hair hanging into my face. I caught it and held it back. He kissed my neck. My collarbone. My sternum. Soft kisses. Little kisses down the line of my stomach to my belly button. I held his hair back with one hand, held his shoulder loosely with the other. I felt the heat of him approaching my cock. It felt like he'd never get there.

And then he was. Soft kisses, little kisses, all over the head of it. And then tongue, exploring, tasting. I ground my ass against the mattress. He pushed the panties aside so that he could reach more of my cock. Then he encircled the head with his mouth, started to draw it in...pushed it out. Kissed it.

"Wait," he said.

I watched him back off the bed. He picked up my jeans, pulled them on, buttoned them. Then he got back on the bed, laying his head on my thigh, pushing a knee against my chest. I slid my hand along a denim-covered calf until my fingers clasped the bottom of a bare, warm foot.

His mouth was warm, too. Warmer. The room--as I'd predicted--had become too warm. I dragged warm air into my lungs...it felt inadequate...and then I forgot all about the climate. I arched my hips up, grabbed his hair, hugged one of his thighs. It was coming--not right that second, but soon. I stared at the ceiling, trying to hold it--my orgasm--right where it was in the base of my groin. But my body had other ideas. My hips kept pushing forward. My muscles tightened. My hand tried to push Jerry's head--_faster!_.

I caught a breath in my throat, gritted my teeth, felt my body go into slo-mo mode, back arching, ass lifting off the bed, heels, head, and shoulders digging into the mattress.

"Fuck me," I said a moment later as I flopped my arms out to my sides.

Jerry peeked up at me through his hair. He was grinning.

"Wow," I said.

Jerry straightened the panties across my slowly shrinking cock, then kissed it one more time.

I was covered with sweat. I should never have turned on the heat. I needed cool water. I rolled off the bed, got my feet under me, half walked, half stumbled to the bathroom. I kicked the door shut behind me.

I pressed my forehead against the cool glass of the mirror while I ran water in the sink. The water wasn't as cool as I could have hoped for. Beside the sink sat the sapphire, back-side up. Some sort of adhesive coated it. Dulled it. I closed my eyes and let the water run.

When I came out finally, feeling at least somewhat refreshed, there was no one in the room. And no sign of anyone, save for a tight skirt, some fishnets, a bra, a blouse, and a pair of stilettos. And my wallet and car keys, thank God.

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