Chapter 5
I could have waited until somebody else came outside, but it was getting cold and that might be a while. So I walked around the perimeter of the building intending to find an employee entrance and explain the situation. As I was looking, I found a window that had been left cracked. My better judgment muttered inside, but I had always been pretty good at ignoring it. I pushed the window the rest of the way open and reached up to grab the edge. With only a little effort, I scrambled up and over the windowsill, falling none-too-gracefully onto my side. I bit down a curse and stood up. Nearby, I heard somebody whisper hoarsely. I froze--it wouldn't look too good for the restaurant staff to find me sneaking around where I wasn't supposed to be.
It was a supply room that I had climbed into, filled with shelves and boxes and packages of dry ingredients. A faint smell of mold permeated the room--the staff had probably cracked the window to air it out. I could barely see anything in the dark, except what a dim red emergency light in the corner lit up. I had almost convinced myself that the whispering was my imagination, but after a moment, I could hear a woman's voice. "I heard
something
. We should stop."
And then, a voice I recognized as Cary's husband Eric. "Nobody's here. It's a private party. They're all too loud, my guys are distracting my frigid bitch wife, and your husband is busy. Come on, I've been waiting."
"The game will be starting in a few minutes anyway, right?" the woman's voice wasn't quite anxious, but nearly.
Eric didn't answer, but the unmistakable sounds of sex followed, and I gritted my teeth. He was cheating on his wife at her own birthday party--a party he had invited almost none of her friends to, and most of his own. Including, apparently, his mistress. And hearing Cary described as a "frigid bitch" made me furious.
I moved as unobtrusively as I could through the room. Eric and his mistress were off to my left by the sound of it, so I tried to tiptoe through the stacks of boxes on my right towards the door. Now that I knew where to look, I could see their shadows bouncing and thrusting. In between the shelves and boxes that blocked them from seeing me, I could just barely make out what was happening. Eric in his crappy cowboy outfit stood his with back to me, his pants down to his knees. Pushed up against a shelf and holding onto it to avoid falling forward was the woman Cary had been starting daggers at. Her skimpy saloon girl costume was bunched around her middle--skirt pushed up and bodice unlaced and pulled down.
I was too outraged for Cary to be turned on. Still, I was mildly impressed by the woman's strength and flexibility. Her arms were stretched above her head holding onto the support bars for the shelf and her legs were wrapped around Eric's butt, which he held in the air. She was half supporting herself as she threw her head back and moaned, tits bouncing. For somebody who had been protesting only a moment before, she sure seemed to be into it. Maybe even suspiciously so--I had seen enough porn to suspect that maybe she was overplaying her reactions a bit.
On the other hand, I knew that some people got off on the thrill and the danger of doing it in public. So maybe her dramatic moans and twisting back and forth in pleasure weren't feigned. Either way, I needed to get out of here before either one of them saw me.
I finally found the door and eased it slowly open, feeling like a voyeur creep. The hallway outside was lit, but not brightly. I hoped it was inconspicuous enough to avoid detection. I was burning with embarrassment and anger on Cary's behalf as I left. My mouth felt dry and my head was spinning. I had to find Cary and tell her. Or at least give her a ride home before she found out. I couldn't decide whether it would be better for her to know or not. Her big surprise could wait.
"Okay, party people," the MC's voice floated down the hall. "It's game on! If you know, you know! Now, let's kick it up a notch with this next one!" A deep thumping bass line and the sounds of drunken cheering led me back in the right direction.
Finding my way to the dance floor, nobody seemed to have seen Cary. A few of the older guys I had seen fawning over her earlier shot some smirks my way as I asked around for her. I scanned the thinning crowd for a maroon saloon girl outfit with no success. In fact,
none
of the women who had been in the saloon girl outfits and gold anklets were visible. I headed back to the bar, just in case.
"Want another?" the bartender was asking the guy in the snakeskin boots as I approached.
"Nah, I'm good," the man adjusted his giant red ten-gallon hat. "No need to get a case of whiskey-dick before the big event." He waved a small piece of paper with the number 3 on it back and forth. Seeing me, his smile curdled before turning into a sneer. He sauntered away, whistling.
The bartender hadn't seen Cary for at least ten minutes, since her last 'birthday girl special.'
"What's that?" I asked. I'd heard him mention it before.
"Champagne, Angostura bitters, and vodka--just the way Mr. Woodley says she likes it!" He smiled skeptically as he eyed me. "If
you
want one, I'm gonna need to see some ID."
"No thanks." I turned away. Cary was probably absolutely blitzed by now if she had been drinking vodka-champagne at that rate it seemed she had. And Eric had been tricking her into getting drunk
and
using his friends to keep her distracted while he screwed his mistress. I was getting both suspicious and worried. I wished I'd told Jack about my concerns before he'd left.
I decided to go and change back into my regular clothes myself before taking another look for Cary. I picked up her knife in its sheath from the table where she and Jack had been sitting--no need to forget
that
in the shuffle. I'd give it to her when I found her. I had left my jeans, sneakers, and stuff in the coat closet, so I headed that way. There was no attendant--the place was technically closed now, after all--but the coat closet was hardly empty. As I opened the door, there was a muffled shriek, and I scrambled backwards into the hall.
One of the middle-aged guys was busy fondling one of the office ladies in a saloon girl outfit. She turned towards the wall quickly enough that I didn't see anything except that she was wearing less of her costume than she had started the evening with and that her flouncy skirt had been hiked up over her hips, revealing satiny panties. The guy gave me an exasperated look. It hadn't been that long since I had walked in on Jack and Jenna, and the image of their pumping, rocking bodies flashed back into my head.
"Shit, sorry," I muttered. Spotting my jeans and sneakers in a crumpled heap on the floor where I had left them, I snatched them up and bolted back into the hallway, heart pounding. The guy pushed the door closed behind me, muttering "Asshole."
The women's restroom echoed with the sound of high-pitched giggling alongside a distinctly male voice. I kept my head down and pretended not to hear anything. I wondered whether the chick getting nailed in there was also wearing a saloon girl outfit. My suspicions had begun to crystallize into something more definite. What
else
had Cary's dirtbag husband planned? The 'big surprise' seemed less and less likely to be something she would appreciate.
I walked past the crowded men's room to a unisex restroom I had seen way off in the back of the building. Maybe it would be emptier. A square paper with a number 1 on it had been dropped in the hallway a few yards in front of it. I frowned, remembering the harmonica guy's and snakeskin boots' similar papers. I wondered belatedly if we had been meant to check our coats.
Approaching the door, I could hear Cary's voice. My heart rose initially, but plummeted as soon as her tone became evident. I couldn't make out the words at first, but the pitch of her voice was angry--maybe even scared.
"I said
