One Night in New York

Just another little thing I had bouncing around in my head. This one has a slow build-up, so if you're looking for instant gratification, you're probably better off looking somewhere else. The characters in this story have no relation to the characters in the "The Way Things Change" series. Enjoy!

---

It was another Friday night in Joe's basement. The five of us had spent so many similar nights here that the hours had blurred together until whole nights were distilled into anecdotes and stupid stories that were passed between us the way close friends do. They were stories we told over and over again, sort of a way for us to stay connected to the people we had been.

The past was even more important to us now, I guess, because it was the Friday after Thanksgiving freshman year, and it was the first night we were all back together. From elementary school, we had grown up together, gone through high school together, and graduated together, all in the same small town on the eastern side of the Connecticut coastline. For the first time since middle school, we were apart. None of us were even at the same college.

We didn't have a name for our little group, but I always thought of us as a sort of real-life Breakfast Club. On the outside, none of us should have been friends with the other; we were all so different. But when you grow up as kids together, the ties that bind you together end up being stronger than social groups.

Joe was the brain of the group. Straight As through high school, 4.0 GPA, National Honor Society, valedictorian, yadda yadda yadda. Not that any of us were really slouches, but Joe blew us all out of the water. He had been given a full ride to Cornell, and was double-majoring in astronomy and engineering. He literally wanted to be a rocket scientist.

The hell of it was, Joe didn't fit the stereotypical image of a nerd. He was tall and skinny, sure, but he was also a handsome guy, with sharp, angular features. Despite his looks, though, he had had a hard time dating in high school. He would go out with girls for a short time, but they would eventually get scared off by his overly analytical thought process and incessant talk about the most obscure topics. At the moment, he was sitting on the couch on my left as we watched a movie. Joe had been one of my best friends since the first day of homeroom in 6th grade.

On the opposite side of me was Amanda. She was the cool kid in the group. Even tonight, a casual Friday night with her four closest friends in the world, she was fashionably dressed in black leggings underneath a knee-length skirt and a tight t-shirt. The outfit did nothing but accent her ample rack and her long, toned legs. Her bright red hair was always impeccably done; I don't think I had ever seen Amanda look disheveled. Even the morning after prom, when we had all woken up exhausted and hung-over in Joe's basement, her hair was perfect and her makeup had somehow stayed in place without running or smudging.

Even though she was a princess and she knew it, she was also one of the kindest, sweetest people on the planet. She would go out of her way to help anybody who needed it, whether it was through a church group or the Key Club or just someone she had come across while she was out. I also couldn't remember a time she had just walked by a homeless person without putting money in their cup. She was studying Management and minoring in Spanish at UConn. She wanted to work for an urban non-profit after college, which was perfect for her.

Tony and Callie were playing ping-pong at the table behind the couch, and they had been going at it for a while. Tony was Amanda's boyfriend, although they had been members of our group before they had started dating. Tony was probably the second-smartest person in our group, but he had spent most of his time trying to excel on the football field instead of in the classroom, and he had barely graduated in the top third of our class - a failure considering his obviously high level of intelligence. His academics had probably hurt his recruiting chances a little bit, although he had been courted heavily by Big East and ACC schools before deciding to play for Syracuse. Tony had already started three games at fullback for the team, and had played in four more, rushing for four touchdowns. He and Amanda had a flirtatious rivalry due to the relationship between their schools, but it was all in good fun and they were very much in love. When people asked him what he was majoring in, he always told them "football." He didn't have much of a life plan yet, but I think like most jocks, he was planning on working in athletics - probably as a trainer or a coach. He was a small running back, just over six feet tall, but he as was wide across as a school bus. His hair flowed past his shoulders, and combined with his bulk, he looked like he could be a bouncer at a grunge club.

Callie was the biggest prankster I had ever met. She was always thinking of ever more creative ways to screw with us. I couldn't tell you how many times she had scared the shit out of me by popping out of the most unlikely places. She had also spent most of high school thinking of ways to disrupt classes and annoy teachers - but always in a benevolent manner, like if we were taking a test or one of us had under-prepared for a presentation. She was notorious, and I don't think a student in the building didn't know her for the stink bombs or false fire alarms by the time we graduated - no small feat considering the senior class alone had over 500 people in it.

Despite her somewhat...criminal nature, she was also very creative and had a knack for writing poems and telling stories. This talent had led her to the creative writing program at UNC in Chapel Hill. I had spent so many nights listening for hours, spellbound, as she read her latest creation to me over the phone. She would call me at all hours of the night, as soon as she finished a story just to read it to me. Even though she woke me up most of the time, I would always listen. Callie and I had been friends since she had moved into the house around the corner from mine in 2nd grade. She was also my best friend in the world, and we knew everything about each other. Over time, I had watched her go through the usual phases of childhood: from the tomboy in overalls who refused to wear skirts or anything pink to the gangly teenager who shot up about six inches in a year.

What would she think about me? How would the rest of the group describe me? I guess I was the artsy one of the group. I had been involved in every play from the fall of freshman year to the spring of senior year the school had put on, and a number of productions outside of the school. I had acted, directed, created lighting, sound, props, sets...you name it, I did it. Along the way, I had developed a reputation as being something of a basket case. I think it's common for creative people to be very emotional, and in my case, my emotions were displayed through my temper. I wasn't angry all the time, but when I did, I blew my top. I had broken a few doors and walls in my time; too many, but it was something I was always trying to work on. This usually led me to being typecast as the antagonist in most of the plays I did.

Callie was the only person who was able to calm me down, and she was usually the only one who would come to me and talk me down from the precipice I had been perched on. Usually, she pulled me away to a quiet place and let me vent, no matter where we were or what it was that had set me off. Most of our teachers had tolerated it in high school because they knew there were few other options other than to let me progress from frustrated to angry to depressed to utterly despondent. With Callie, I usually stopped at depressed, and it passed quickly. With her encouragement, I had auditioned for, and was accepted to, the Carnegie Mellon University drama program, where I was focusing on acting.

So there were the five of us, hanging out in Joe's basement like we always had. Things felt different, with high school memories far enough away to be nostalgic, but close enough for us to still be attached to them. We had already started to branch out to other groups of friends at our respective schools, but we had somehow kept our roots in the right place.

"So what do you guys want to do tonight?" Tony asked as he sent back Callie's serve. "It's our first weekend back together! We have to do something special."

"Yeah, but there's nothing special to do in the middle of nowhere," huffed Amanda. "Not unless you want to go to another one of Scott Palmer's parties." The four of us groaned. The last party that Scott had thrown was the weekend before most of us left for school. It ended with one of us passed out in a neighbor's hot tub, two of us in the waiting room of the free clinic, and all of us in deep shit with our parents.

"I don't think any of us want to repeat that experience," I said. "Besides, it's going to be the same people doing the same stupid shit they did last year."

"And it's not like they're the only ones," Callie teased. I flipped her off, and she stuck her tongue out at me, grinning. I didn't mention that I was in the hot tub, or that I was in it naked with Miranda Roberts, who had a face permanently fixed into a scowl, and a personality to match. We had all done stupid stuff, so most of the others didn't tease me too much about it, but Callie brought it up whenever she had the chance.

"So what should we do?" asked Joe. "There's not much worth doing around here in the winter." This was true. Most of the under-21 entertainment in the area was geared towards warmer months, like the mini-golf course or the swim club in the middle of the woods that we'd hop the fence of and swim in after hours.

We all sat around, silent except for the tapping of the ping-pong ball off of the table and the paddles. All of a sudden, Tony grabbed the ping-pong ball in mid-flight.

"We should go to the city!" he exclaimed, as excited as if he had just discovered a cure for cancer. "There's tons of stuff to do in New York!"

"Dude, nobody wants to drive down to New York," I said. By 'nobody', I meant 'me'. I was usually the one who drove us everywhere. Not that I minded, but I didn't want to drive the two hours it would take to get there.

"Come on, it'll be great!" he said as he started to grab me up off of the couch. "It's only seven! We could be in the heart of Manhattan by nine-thirty, ten o'clock at the latest! Then we could party all night!"

"Yeah, but where would we go?" asked Callie. "It's not like any of us have good fake IDs." Callie had had one, but it was confiscated at a bar in Chapel Hill two weeks into the school year.

"There are plenty of 18+ clubs in New York," Tony said. "I went to a few when I visited my sister this summer..."

"Dawnnnn..." Joe and I sighed together. Dawn was Tony's older sister, and she was HOT. Ever since our balls had dropped, we had teased him mercilessly about it. He took a few playful swings at us. Callie and Amanda both rolled their eyes.

"Seriously. I went to this place with her and a bunch of her friends. I think it's called the Shadow Room, or something like that. It was insane. Lots of good looking people grinding on each other. Plenty of single guys, Callie," he said as he winked at her. I was loath to admit it, but comments like that always made me a little jealous. "And Don, there are plenty of girls with lower standards that would be wiling to give you a shot, I'm sure."

Choosing to ignore that sideswipe, I looked around. Joe and Callie seemed genuinely interested. Amanda had a resigned look on her face, as if to say "I don't really want to, but I'll go if you drag me there." Tony looked at me. "Come on Don, it's up to you."

I hesitated for a second, then realized that this was probably the last chance we'd have to do something like this before the new year. I sighed, then nodded my head. "Fine, but you can drive."

"Awesome! Let's go!" And with that, we went. Little did any of us know that our group would be irrevocably changed by the time we returned early the next morning.

***

We left Joe's house in Tony's aging Taurus, with Amanda in the front seat and Callie squeezed between Joe and I in the back. For some reason, I was hyperaware of Callie's thigh pressing against mine. Every time she shifted in her seat, I tensed up slightly. I kept anticipating her placing her hand on my knee or her head on my shoulder, although I had absolutely no reason to think she would do such a thing.

The drive to the city took a little under three hours, and as we drove, the five of us kept an almost constant stream of chatter. Most of the conversation focused on the separate lives we had led over the past two months. We talked about classes, professors, roommates, and of course, sex.

"So who's still got their Streak going?" asked Tony at about the time we drove through New Haven. Callie and I raised our hands. Tony looked at us in the rearview, then spun around in surprise. "No more, Joe? Like, no shit?" Joe nodded. "Nice! Details?"

I should explain. When Tony and Amanda first lost their virginity to each other, it was the middle of baseball season, and Tony's baseball idol was Joe DiMaggio. Tony first told us about him and Amanda by declaring his streak of "seventeen sexless years was over!" We all laughed at him when he explained it at first, but from that point on, we referred to the quest to lose our virginity as "trying to end the streak."

"So who is she?" asked Amanda. "You're still single, right?"

"Yeah, this wasn't with anybody I dated," Joe responded. "It was this girl from my dorm that I met at one of the honors orientation meetings. I think she was more interested in me that I was in her."

"But you still slept with her?" Tony asked, incredulous. We all were. This wasn't like Joe at all.

"Well, I didn't find out I wasn't interested in her until after we hooked up. But, yeah, I guess so..." he mumbled, obviously embarrassed at his out of character actions. "It wasn't like I set out to be a dick."

We drove along in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Amanda broke the silence.

"Well, it doesn't really matter, I guess, as long as you both enjoyed it." She turned around to face Joe. "So, was it good?"

"I don't know," he exclaimed, throwing his hands up in frustration. "It was my first time! How do I know what good is? I don't have anything to compare it to!"

"Well, did you both get off?" asked Tony.

"Yeah, we both got off," Joe said a little more calmly. "It wasn't her first time. She knew exactly what she was doing."

"That's all that matters, man," said Tony sagely.

"How would you know?" Callie said tauntingly. "You've only had sex with one person! It's not like that was anything close to a one-night stand."

"But it feels good every time." He glanced over at Amanda. She slapped his arm.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it," Callie huffed. "I don't like the idea of losing it to someone I don't know, or don't care about." She was actually starting to get riled up.

"Hey!" said Joe defensively. "It wasn't my first choice either. It just kinda happened."

"Well, that's fine for you, Joe, but I hope my first time isn't like that," she responded. She was starting to get snippy.

"Is that why you haven't done it yet?" Tony challenged her point-blank.

"Yes," she replied simply.

Tony exploded with laughter. "Oh, Callie the virtuous! I'm heartily sorry for having offended thee!"

"You're such an asshole Tony," Callie snapped back at him. "Just because all you care about is getting your rocks off doesn't mean that's what everyone cares about." She sat back in her seat and pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head before crossing her arms over her chest.

"Oh, come on, you know I'm just kidding with you," Tony replied. She didn't reply, staring silently at her chest.

We stayed fairly silent for most of the rest of the way through Connecticut, the conversation not resuming until we neared the New York border. Callie remained quiet for the rest of the ride, only talking when addressed directly, and then only in monosyllables.

I was surprised by her reaction to Joe's story. Sex was something we had never really talked about, considering how little we knew about it. I had had a fairly average dating life throughout high school, and despite repeated attempts to score, hadn't yet succeeded. The only time I had even been totally naked with a girl, I couldn't even remember, I had been so drunk. I knew Callie hadn't really been interested in anybody, and I always assumed that meant she had little interest in sex. Now, however, I wondered. It was something she had obviously thought about, and the way she spoke, she seemed to want to find somebody. I don't think the others in the car picked up on it, but I had known her longer than any of them, and I could hear the subtle traces of regret in her voice.

We parked the car at New Rochelle and took the MTA the rest of the way in to the city. By this time, Callie had taken off her hood and was talking with us again, although there was a fire in her look I couldn't quite place. Tony led the four of us to the right subway at Grand Central, and we arrived downtown around 10:30. After fifteen or so minutes of wandering, we found the place Tony was looking for. It was a huge building in the middle of the block, with a neon sign that spelled out "MIDNIGHT LOUNGE" over the entrance. It was so bright, it lit up the sidewalk and the surrounding buildings as if it were day. There was a long line leading to a big bouncer guarding the door, marking some hands with an "x" and affixing wristbands to others. We got in without a problem, the "x" mark on our hands a signal that the bartender couldn't serve us alcohol.

We crossed the threshold of the door, shedding our sweaters as we went to the coat check-in. The entrance to the club itself was covered by a black curtain, but as people walked through, you could see the bright lights bisecting the darkened room, people melded to each other and moving in time to the deafening thud-thud-thud of the bass. Finally, our coats stored, we walked through the curtain.

"What did I tell you guys about this place?" yelled Tony as we took the scene in. The room was about the size of a gymnasium, and it was packed. The crowd thinned out as one moved further back from the stage the DJ was set up on, but up in front, all we could see was a wildly gyrating mass of bodies. Amanda, energized by the crowd, grabbed Tony's hand and started working her way into the middle of the dance floor. Tony followed obediently, and they disappeared from view, with only an occasional glimpse of their heads revealing their location. Joe, Callie and I all looked at each other for a moment, wondering what to do. Joe was the first to move. Shrugging his shoulders, he headed towards the large group of dancing bodies, hoping to stay close to Tony and Amanda. However, he was immediately intercepted by a petite dark-haired girl who grabbed his wrist and danced seductively in his direction. Grinning, he started moving with her in the same direction Tony and Amanda had gone. Soon, we lost sight of him, as well.

Callie and I stood there awkwardly for a moment. I wondered if she was even interested in dancing after the argument she had had in the car, but that question was quickly answered as she moved closer to me. Bringing her lips to my ear, she shouted "Fuck it! Let's dance!" Her early moodiness was gone; she seemed more eager to be here. I nodded, and we belatedly followed the others into the crowd.

***

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed dancing. I was awful at it, but with my friends around, it didn't seem to matter too much. Tony and Amanda initially stayed close to each other, as did Callie and I. Joe had a constant stream of hot girls coming up to him, so he started out dancing with them. We all traded off time on the dance floor, with the three guys dancing with the two girls. I was always amazed that Amanda and Tony were both secure enough with each other to not feel jealous when we switched partners, but they had always been that way. Besides, I liked dancing with Amanda. She wasn't above dancing dirtily with any of us, and she kept grinding her tight ass against me as she moved around me. I couldn't help but get a little aroused. These were my best friends, but I'm only human.