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P. 24
LA SOIRÉE DE NOËL
Catherine Rickman
He had called it a sex party, but it “I’m sorry, we’re all out.”
wasn’t that, not really. It felt more Kyle glared at me. “I bet if we’d
like an office Christmas party been on time, you could’ve
that had gone a little awry. Men gotten one.”
in spandex Santa suits, strings of
colored lights wrapped around “Tito’s and soda.”
bare torsos.
“I hope you brought cash.”
There were the expecteds as well.
Girls in fishnets and lingerie. Men “I had to take the bus,” I hissed.
in shiny pants and sheer shirts “You could’ve taken an Uber.”
unbuttoned all the way to the
1970s. They didn’t have a beauty You could have picked me up, I
quotient to fill, but they would thought.
turn you away if you showed up in I scanned the room. “So,” I asked.
the wrong outfit. “Spin the bottle or sexy Jenga?”
The bartender was beloved, He didn’t answer, instead
practically a household name, and skulking over to an empty seat
when Kyle asked if they had a beer in front of the Jenga table. There
and shot combo she replied by was nowhere to sit next to him,
saying, “If Miss Scorpio heard you so I squeezed in a few seats
say that, she’d bite your head off. down, in between a woman in a
Lucky for you, I’m a Taurus.” lavender wig and a man in a red
vinyl jumpsuit.
“Can I get a White Claw?” I asked,
reading off the laminated menu “Okay,” said a man in a David
taped to the makeshift bar. It Bowie mullet and gold hotpants.
looked like a kid’s lemonade stand “Here’s the rules: you pull a
with top shelf liquor. plank, you do what’s on the plank.
33.
