Party Animals

I remember a flash of red, trailing red fabric blowing in the breeze caused by the rapid movement of the subject it clung to. I remember the sudden forceful feeling of an unrelenting shoulder against my chest. I then remember falling. Then the last thing I remember before hitting the water, was a woman sarcastically chirping "oops."

The pool embraced me, then as I surfaced for air I realised my white summer dress was also embracing me. My mind whirred at the thought of how I was supposed to get out without anyone seeing me, when a naked woman covered in graffiti ran out of the house and jumped into the pool next to me.

~~~

'That can't have been...' Barnaby mused to himself. 'That looked just like Matilda. I mean I have nudity on the brain, maybe that's the latest in the hallucinations. But that's not how the hallucinations have been happening so far, I haven't been seeing things that aren't there, I've been seeing more on the things that are there.'

Barnaby checked the reactions of the party around him, they all seemed to have responded to what had just unfolded. Meagan even looked at him sheepishly, unable to hide the emotions of the situation.

'Holy shit, my wife is at this party and she hasn't got any clothes.' Barnaby realised before retracing her steps towards the pool.

Matilda swam close to the edge of the pool to hide from Barnaby while Tara swam likewise to avoid everyone. So naturally they ended up next to each other, equally confused by the other's predicament.

"I'm Matilda and I'll be your waitress today." Matilda suggested with an upwards inflection, hoping to match the ridiculousness of the situation and so remove the tension.

"Tara, worlds fastest party crasher." Tara joked.

"Matilda? I'm sorry my eyeballs scared you." Barnaby yelled as he tried to find his wife. Matilda sank as low as she could in the water. Tara looked around and saw Marcus coming back with her drink and decided to wave him over.

"Hey there Marcus..." she began before pausing at the look of wonder in his eyes.

"Jumping into the swimming pool in a white summer dress with no underwear? You are awesome." He gushed. "Not only that but you're hanging out with the freakiest of the servers. You are the hero this party needed."

Tara felt a warm blush rise up from her stomach.

"Well, I just thought..."

"Were you trying to get the waitress to join in our game of twister?" He asked.

"Well, if you..."

"$200." Matilda interrupted. "And you'd have to find a way to get rid of Barnaby."

Marcus' face dropped, he'd been trying to get rid of Barnaby all night.

"Hi Matilda." Barnaby added as he leaned over the edge of the pool. "Are you naked?"

"Honey, it's not what it looks like, I'm studying Marxism." Matilda pleaded in response.

Marcus signalled to Tara that they should leave as this was about to get awkward. Tara desperately wrangled with which would be more awkward, stepping out of the pool in this state or dealing with the incoming marital dispute, decided that she'd had enough of people's ruined nuptials for one night and swam towards the ladder.

Weirdly enough, once Marcus and Tara had snuck away, Barnaby nodded knowingly

"Yeah, this can happen when you get into critical class theory." He observed, offering Matilda a hand to pull her out of the water. He took a moment to marvel at his wife, brazenly naked and covered in crude drawings, before turning back into Matilda's explanation that was already in progress.

Matilda was shocked that as she went through all the events that had led her to that moment, the twists, turns, and more importantly the justifications, Barnaby seemed lock step with her. The philosophies she espoused were complimented as revelatory by her husband, he was having a life changing experience listening to the deep things his wife had learnt.

She didn't know that he was on enough acid that he would have responded with similar horizon broadening enthusiasm if she had read the plot of the Rugrats movie to him.

"That makes so much sense. I can't believe I never saw it that way before." Barnaby gushed as Matilda finished her story. "And I'm so glad we finally reconnected. It felt like we were driving apart, I didn't realise you felt ashamed of your lessons and didn't want to share but how lucky you did because it was all invigorating. I'm here because I wanted to network so I could get a partnership..."

"But you hate networking." Matilda interrupted.

"I do, but I hated the idea of growing apart from you more so I figured partnership would give me more time to share more of your life with me. We can start right now." Barnaby triumphantly announced grabbing Matilda by the hand and leading her over to the twister mat where Marcus was still chatting with Tara who was desperately trying to figure out how she could get into something less revealing. "If you want to do naked twister with my wife, it will be $250, because of class warfare."

While Barnaby smiled at Matilda like he had just made an incisive order, Matilda sighed and Marcus looked taken aback.

"That is fucking hilarious, I'll cover that." A man in the crowd announced.

"Alright pay up fatcat." Barnaby ordered, watching the man take out his app and process the payment.

Marcus couldn't help but chuckle, this was certainly a memory. Meanwhile Tara was a bit annoyed that she wouldn't have Marcus' undivided attention, but was happy that she wouldn't have the gathered crowds undivided attention.

So the game began: Marcus, Tara, and Matilda began to slowly do the stuttering and awkward dance of a game of twister, each turn forcing them to contort into another position. One moment Tara would feel self conscious having to lean backwards and show off her summer dress tightly clinging to her body, the next Matilda would readjust and be bent over for the crowds delight.

Barnaby felt a tight pang in his chest as he watched his wife expose herself in a variety of positions as the crowd cheered her on. Was it guilt? Or empathy with her abject humiliation? Eventually the machinations of his brain pulled away from these correct answers to a much more wrong answer.

"This isn't Marxism any more, she's not making money." He yelled, confusing everyone, especially Matilda. "The two rich people get to play for fun because they are bourgeoisie, but the working class needs to struggle to earn. Alright everyone, tip my wife $100 and I'll empty this can of whipped cream onto her."

Matilda was about to tell her husband to shut the fuck up, but couldn't has she shuddered at the sudden assault of whipped cream covering her body, her husband hadn't even waited for the tips to roll in. She then felt the unmistakable feeling of Marcus' tongue lapping a bit of excess cream off of her nipple.

Tara could feel the night getting away from her, Marcus was now starting to show this other woman more attention, the sexual dance of twister mixed with the increasing intoxication of her earlier alcohol and drug intake catching up with her meant that she needed to hold his attention, she needed to get that man's cock to finish the job the other prick couldn't.

"This is just getting in the way." Tara announced to the audience, peeling her wet dress away from her naked body and placing it to the side of the mat. She twisted to ensure her breasts were right in Marcus' face, then ordered Barnaby over with another can of whipped cream.

...

The queue outside the toilet was starting to stretch deep into the house, but Gwen held firm despite the increasingly angry knocks at the door and the over-watering of nearby pot plants. She knew she would stay in there until everyone left.

Or at least until an enterprising party guest used a coin to turn the lock from the other side.

"Sorry but I need to piss." A woman apologised as Gwen just sat in the corner covering herself. The woman finished up, washed her hands, then left as the next party member walked in with the same apology and disregard for Gwen's crisis.

'Great, now I'm a toilet ornament.' Gwen thought to herself. 'How could this get any worse?'

"Are you part of the facilities?" A pervy man asked with an unmistakable erection.

"Well that's my cue to leave." Gwen replied storming out of the toilet. Privacy went both ways and if she was exposed at least she wouldn't be taken advantage of behind a locked door. She stepped out into the party and once again all eyes and hands were on her. Eventually she was spotted by the woman in red.

"There you are, I've been looking all over for you, I have a solution to your problem." She announced running to Gwen.

"No fucking way, you always seem to make everything worse." Gwen replied, but didn't move as people backed off when she was arguing with another woman.

"No, this will work. I found a group of men from a farming consortium looking for legal representation." The woman explained as she led Gwen outside. "They're willing to do another bet with you, no matter what happens they'll give you a set of clothes and your firm can have their business. All they ask is that if you lose, well they have this trade magazine that... that..."

Gwen looked over to see that the woman in red had trailed off. She followed the path of her vision to a twister mat where Marcus was busy licking various toppings off two naked women as they contorted around his body.

"Marcus!" The woman in red yelled.

"Juliette?" Marcus yelled in shock. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

~~~

What the fuck Juliette Selassie was doing at the party

~~~

"Do I have to go?" I asked petulantly.

"You know very well I have nowhere else to go. You have your place in Washington." Marcus replied, his head in his hands.

"Cool, you're having a crisis of confidence in our marriage and your brilliant solution is for me to pay massively out of pocket to catch whatever red-eye has a slot just to spare you the indignity of staying in a hotel. Fuck that, you want to have a break or call time or whatever euphenism you want to use, the least you can do is drag your sorry ass to a Best Western." I yelled, Marcus didn't fight back, he just silently complied. That was not a good sign.

My relationship with Marcus was based on a foundation of truth, entire and complete. We loved each other, we loved our flaws and pitfalls, we shared a stupid life together and laughed at the idea that either of us needed to change a single thing about ourselves for our relationship to click.

From the foundation of truth, we built a life, an edifice of lies. He went into law and very quickly those rough edges of his began to be smoothed. I went into political fundraising, where any hint of a scandal could rule me out of an entire industry.

I once managed to sneak in and streak a full lap of the outer edge of the Harvard Yard, winning myself free drinks for a month. I was only able to do this because Marcus organised an impromptu fireworks display just to distract campus security. Now we sat at home and calmly discussed which brands of whiskey were fancy enough to not be insulting to party guests/political donors but still with a reasonable price point. (The secret is to do bulk orders with smaller Scottish distilleries that they won't have heard of, then use their obscurity as proof of... urgh, why am I so proud and engaged with this meaningless nonsense.)

So our relationship didn't rot from the core, that was strong, it didn't explode dramatically, I would have preferred that to be honest, we just moved to a point where everything that was once honest was only held in nostalgia. Marcus broke first, mid-life crises always hit men earlier and harder. He thought back to our wild days and the growing frustration we had been domesticated. In service of building a better life together, we had slowly allowed ourselves to forget everything that made us want that life together in the first place.

This obligation to each other was stunting our reinvention, Marcus assured me that what he wanted was for us to get back in touch with ourselves before getting back together, whenever I'd heard similar sentiments expressed by big donors, I knew by the next time I saw them, they would have around 50% less assets to use for donations (give or take depending on the abilities of the couples respective divorcelawyers).

"Fine." I interrupted as Marcus wearily began to stand up to pack. "I'm the more mobile one, this house was always a bit more you than me, I'll go stay at a nice hotel by the airport and fly out to Washington whenever I can."

"Thank you." Marcus replied, sitting back down again. "I want this to work out. You know that right? I just want some chaos back in my life, all this structure is suffocating both of us."

"You want to fuck someone else, is that it?"

"Not especially, but not exactly no either. I just want to feel like me again." Marcus desperately tried to explain, before hitting on a good way to explain himself. "I used to think you were the vision of passion when you wore red. It really suited you."

"You know I can't anymore. I'm a senior fundraiser with the DNC, red is the colour of the enemy." I replied, working off a script I had oft repeated.

"There's no enemies at home. If we went out to a restaurant I doubt anyone would recognise you or cause a fuss if you wore red. But along the line you learned to flourish in a world with these stupid rules and there was no reason to buy red dresses any more. Take that one process, and apply it to everything in our lives. And we stuck with it because we pooled our successes and saw what was good for either career was good for us. We need to break that link so we can have a look at ourselves and actually see something." Marcus explained. It didn't matter if this made sense or not, these were personal discussions with personal responses.

"Go jack off in a river." I sneered as I stormed out of the door.

...

Manipulation had always been my natural talent, then nurtured and grown at the behest of my political life. Looking into someone's eyes and seeing what it would take to manoeuvre them into where I wanted them. So when I moved to Washington and re-lived that argument over in my head, it was not about learning lessons, it was about what I should have done to convince Marcus to drop this stupid idea that had wiggled into his head. It wasn't until I had spent a bit of time apart that I realised what I missed about the relationship and what I didn't.

I hadn't done coke in almost a decade when I tried some at a staffers party, and the next day when I finally was functional again, all I could think was that Marcus and I should do coke together again some time. Parties were now just as much a professional arrangement as zoom calls and quarterly reports.

Worst still, as my sex life dried up, I realised how vanilla everyone else was. At an office poker night where I was the oldest by a good few years, I suggested a round of strip poker and was met with similar looks to if I had suggested we break into the zoo and ride all the animals. Marcus had tied me naked in the boot of his car while he went to a drive through as a forfeit for picking the wrong team to win the Superbowl, and that was in the supposedly tame part of our lives.

I didn't want to give up my success, but I did start to see Marcus' resolve that we should be using our expanded means to indulge our wild sides, not bury them.

I didn't keep too close an eye on Marcus during this time. Some cryptic social media posts told me he was having some wild nights out. As co-owner of the house I had to approve building work he had planned to install party bars and clear room for a large jacuzzi, revamp the kitchen, and generally shift our house into more of a party pad. But his lack of contact incensed me.

So one day I spot an invite to a fundraising party at our recently renovated house, and I decide that this should be my chance to make a grand entrance back into Marcus' life. If he wanted a wild party, I would work every moving part in the crowd to ensure things get as wild as possible. He will have an unforgettable mess of a night and then I'll reveal myself and let him know I always had his back. Announcing my presence ahead of time wouldn't do, I need a shock revelation that he need not hold back around me, and that I was on board this entire time.

I bought a scandalously opulent red dress and booked a flight home, Marcus was about to rediscover what made us great.

~~~

Juliette had spent the party sewing chaos, all semblance of decency discarded for sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But the covert nature of her mission came to an abrupt end when she saw her husband on a twister mat, licking whipped cream off Tara's nipples.

Juliette paused for a moment, her brain whirring with possibilities, her many schemes and plans that she had been working throughout the party came crashing down around her. She had hoped that by pushing Tara in the pool she would retreat from the party and Marcus' flirtation would come to an abrupt halt, but she failed to realise how well she had introduced casual nudity to the assorted guests. There were even a few strip games starting up in various corners that she had not orchestrated.

"Who are you?" Tara finally asked, breaking the silence.

"This is Juliette." Marcus sheepishly informed. "She's my wife."

"God fucking damnit." Tara responded, walking away from the twister mat. "Seriously, do I have a wedding ring magnet in my vagina."

"Oh don't worry about that." Juliette calmed, not wanting the party to turn sour and sensing an opportunity. "You are a very attractive lady and my husband is only human. Keep having fun. Hell I'll even join in if that makes you feel less guilty."

"Um, no thanks." Tara responded, trying to get the measure of the situation. "I mean he's cool, but I'm not into sharing." Just then, Juliette had an idea.

"You guys wait here, I have an idea. Marcus, come chat a moment." She said waving him to one side.

"Look, I'm sorry but..." Marcus began.

"No, wait. Shut up a second. I've been working overtime to make this party awesome and we are on the brink of something great here." Juliette interrupted. "From what I have seen, we have the ingredients to put on a show and truly make this party unforgettable.

Marcus smiled to see his wife excited and chaotic, waiting for her suggestion.

...

"Ladies and gentlemen, who's ready for a competition. Today we are going to crown the queen of this party." Juliette announced to an audience she had gathered around the gazebo. Tara, Gwen, and Matilda awkwardly stood naked behind her. "So let's welcome our contestants!"

~~~

Matilda

~~~

Juliette discussed things with me and Barnaby. Promising not only a big payday if I competed in her competition, with a bonus if I did win, but also that she would hook Barnaby up with a law firm that would be willing to open partnership discussions with him.

She never mentioned the punishment for losing.

~~~

Gwen

~~~

Juliette told me about a consortium that was looking for a lawyer that she had sweet talked into favouring Blackmore & Jones for representation in a court case she knew was coming down the line. She even said that she had a talented up and coming lawyer who would be interested in investing in the firm and becoming a partner. All I had to do was compete in her party games and I could return to my boss claiming the games were a complete success.

She never mentioned there was a punishment for the loser.

~~~

Tara

~~~

Twister had clearly lowered my defences, plus Juliette seemed to look into my soul and see what I wanted. I was feeling undesirable and not in control of my destiny, somehow she managed to convince me this was a way to have the pick of any man at the party, and take charge of my destiny while I was at it. I probably would have said no while sober but I went for it.