Convention Hotel Sex
At a convention, Jack Daniels gets Tiffany drunk.
Warning:
A woman cannot legitimately give consent for sex when drunk. This is just a story, even if it depicts a frequent reality.
**
I was exhausted by the day's meetings, and luckily my hotel had a bar. It was depressing to sit alone in a New York hotel room, so I went down to the hotel bar. Normally I hate staying in convention hotels, even if they're Marriott's and I get my points, since they're filled with mindless convention goers, and somehow that makes me feel all the more alone.
This time, however, I was proactive. I went to the conference check-in desk, which had all the badges laid out before it, saw one I liked, and I suddenly became Jack Daniels, Professor of Biostatistics at the University of North Carolina. Yes, I too couldn't believe they had a badge made up for someone named Jack Daniels! It had to be a joke, or was some poor slob actually named Jack Daniels, maybe by a wino mother or something? I'll tell you if my name were Jack Daniels, I'd go by my initials. I'd call myself J.B. Daniels, or something like that.
I went to the open bar, which was the entire point, at least for me, and I had some free drinks. Can you believe they were not serving Jack Daniels? I suffered the indignity of having a Balvenie Doublewood Scotch whisky, on the rocks, which, truth be told, I like a hell of a lot more than Jack Daniels.
Then I had a second, and then a third, and then I felt a hand on my shoulder. The small hand was straining to reach up to my shoulder, as I'm six feet, two inches tall, and the hand belonged to a little minx of around five feet, two or three inches.
"Jack Daniels! I've been wanting to meet you since forever!" said this cute little sexpot. "Your work on the hereditary eye disease, retinitis pigmentosa, is not only ground breaking, but seminal!"
I figured she was around five feet, plus four or five inches, in her heels, maybe in her late twenties/early thirties, pretty face, and she had a dynamite body. Things were looking up, except I couldn't understand anything she said, as she blathered on in biospeak. She also had a huge diamond ring and a gold band on her left hand.
"I'm glad you like it," I said. "I don't, however, discuss work at these convention receptions. I just get drunk. Is that okay?"
"Sure! We can talk about something else. Anything you want!" she said. If she didn't have on those damn rings, I would have thought she was a groupie, if groupies even exist for a scientist studying diseases! Wait a minute -- could groupies be married?
A man, whose name tag said he was Stew, from Yale, came over to her and said, "Hi, Tiff," and she talked with him briefly, but she held onto my coat, telling me in body language to stay around. The guy eventually left.
"Let's start at the bar. Can I buy you a drink?" I asked, once I had her attention again, and making a joke, since it was an open bar. My Scotch seemed to evaporate at a rate science just could not explain.
"I'd better not. I have an alcohol problem," my groupie said. I had learned her name from her badge, pinned right over her right breast. She was Tiffany Goode. Great name for a groupie, I thought, and it also explains that guy, whom she called Stew, calling her "Tiff."
Trying to look like an educated scientist, I asked, "What happens when you drink?"
Being a scientist herself, she was disarmingly open in her answer. "I lose my inhibitions. Like totally. I do things I shouldn't, and things I'd never do if I were sober," she said.
"It sounds like it could be fun, you know?" I said.
"Well, it's not. It's shameful, is what it is. That guy Stew who just said hello? He got me drunk in college. It's only by good luck that I didn't get pregnant," Tiffany said.
"Maybe I should get you drunk, then?" I teased, and in passing, broadcasted my dishonorable intentions.
"Dr. Daniels! Shame on you! Are you suggesting what I suspect you are?" she said, in mock outrage. In a more modulated tone of voice, she added, "The truth is, you're right, in fact. It is indeed fun. Fun, though, sometimes has consequences, and I don't just mean hangovers, you know?"
"Their bourbon selection is sad. How about a Scotch? The Balvenie is quite good," I said.
"I'll have a glass of white wine," she said.
"Why don't you try Drambuie? If you don't know it, sometimes it's called the Women's Scotch," I said, making that up. My lady friends do in fact tend to like it much more than Scotch, and if you want to get a girl drunk, wine will work, but it takes longer. Tiffany looked to be the kind of woman who would nurse a single glass of wine for hours.
"You're quite politically incorrect," Tiffany said. "Calling it the Women's Scotch, and all."
"I'm from Oklahoma," I said, as if that would explain it. Tiffany seemed to accept my origin as an explanation. Probably she's from the Northeast, I thought to myself. They tend to think Oklahoma is one big oil well. Our Senator Jim Inhofe is a long-time climate change denier, too, which doesn't help the state's image. People from the Northeast kind of look down on Oklahoma, or at least, that's my impression.
We stood near the open bar and talked and drank. I managed to get Tiffany to drink three hefty glasses of Drambuie. It wasn't easy to do, either. Before each drink she said no, she really shouldn't, and we discussed the way the human body processes alcohol, and even how much a moose can drink. (Maybe Tiffany hails from Montana?).
By her third drink we were discussing the pen-tailed tree shrew of Malaysia, who apparently is a real lush. (I was positive Tiffany was not from Malaysia!) Good to know, I thought, if I ever go to Malaysia and meet a pen-tailed tree shrew in a bar. Did you know that the pen-tailed tree shrew drinks the fermented nectar of the flower buds of the bertam palm plant, which is 3.8% alcohol? Basically, it drinks the stuff all the livelong day, and yet it doesn't get drunk. Yeah, I didn't know that, either. Tiffany sure knew it. Oh, yeah, she knew.
I didn't dare to ask her about why he's called pen-tailed, but if I had, I'm sure she would have known, and maybe sketched a picture of one on a cocktail napkin. She did, eventually, out-drink the pen-tailed tree shrew. The shrew is a small animal, after all, and while Tiffany is a small human, she's a hell of a lot bigger than a pen-tailed tree shrew. Also, and maybe this is just me, but I found her to be a hell of a lot sexier than a tree shrew, pen-tailed or not.
A nice feature of open bars is that they pour stiff drinks, since they want to unload as much booze as possible, as it increases the profits of the company supplying the open bar. Both Tiffany and I were getting sloshed.
"It's time for the big plenary talk of Dr. Watkins. Are you going?" Tiffany asked. I had noticed everyone seemed to be filtering out of the room, heading no doubt to some big room where the plenary talks were to be held.
"I hate those big plenary talks. I think I'll go to my room and watch a movie on television. They have a nice selection of movies to rent," I said, grabbing another Balvenie and another Drambuie from the now slowly closing open bar. A closed open bar sounded like a good conundrum for a scientist, I idly thought to myself.
"That does sound like more fun," Tiffany said. Maybe she actually was a wannabe groupie? "It's too bad I want to go to the first plenary so much. Eugene Watkins is speaking, as you probably know. He gives great talks, doesn't he? Walk me over to it, will you, please?"
I walked her over to it. Basically, we just followed the crowd leaving the rapidly closing open bar. We got there, and Tiffany paused.
"Damn," she said. "There's no empty seats next to a woman. I always sit next to a woman. Or, to be safe, we could sit together? Damn -- there aren't even two seats together left!"
"Sorry, Tiff," I said, not knowing what else to say.
"That's okay. I was late. Those drinks and your company was worth it, though. I guess I'll head back to my Airbnb. See you tomorrow at your talk, Jack Daniels," she said. "Oh, by the way, please don't call me Tiff. Only my intimates call me Tiff. Call me Tiffany, please."
"Your intimates?" I asked.
"You know, my husband, and my former lovers from the time before I met Bill. There's a few who might be at this convention, like Stew who we saw earlier, remember? I don't let anyone else call me Tiff. Sorry, JB. Damn it all, though, there's no good seats for this plenary. I enjoyed talking with you too much, and now I'm too late to snag a good seat," Tiffany said.
