"Never have I ever had sex in a kitchen," Kim says and the room erupts in laughter. To my surprise, the rest of us - including Andrea, the bride to be - all must have done this, because we take a drink.
"Wait, wait, wait, hold on - Andrea, what the hell! I've never heard that story," Miranda yells, playfully smacking Andrea's arm. Miranda is Andrea's childhood friend. She and Kim grew up in Andrea's neighbourhood, and I could have sworn there were no secrets between them.
Andrea is blushing and I can see that she's getting drunker as the night goes on. Her friends, after all, know a lot about what she's done over the years, and asked just the right questions to make her drink as often as they could. "I don't know if I should tell this story..." she says.
"What if we all go around and share our stories? Will you tell us yours, then?" Kim asks. Miranda and I nod.
"Fine, I guess..." Andrea says. She's not normally this shy - I'm really curious what her story is going to be.
"I'll go first," Miranda says. "When I was with Kevin - "
"Ew," Kim jumps in.
"Yes, ew, Kevin," Miranda replies. "We decided to try and spice things up one night by having sex somewhere new. We looked up some new sex positions to try and started doing it on the counter. It was fun for a while, but then I put my hand into the butter dish, which killed the mood pretty quickly."
Everyone laughs.
Kim tells her story next. "A few years ago, I brought this beautiful guy home from the bar. But I hadn't washed my sheets, so I made him come to the kitchen with me. I pretended it was because I was super kinky, but really I was just embarrassed that I hadn't cleaned my room."
Miranda laughs and then looks at me. "Okay, Jess, your turn."
"Well, there have been a few too many times to count," I say, trying to keep it vague. I barely know some of these girls. "But let's just say that a counter is the perfect height to go down on someone, and it doesn't hurt that the mat in my kitchen is really plush."
"How scandalous!" Kim squeals. The other girls laugh.
"Okay, Andrea," Miranda says. "Your turn."
Andrea turns bright red and says, "Uh, well, I don't know if I shared this story with you, but a few years ago I brought somebody home from the bar. She was a bit more, um, adventurous than I normally am, and - "
"Wait, wait, wait - you brought home a woman?" Miranda asks.
Kim's face is shocked, so I can tell she's thinking the same thing. I have to admit that I'm also pretty surprised. I'm openly queer - Andrea knows this, of course, since I came out when we were in college - but she's never mentioned this experience to me.
"Yeah," she replies, looking extremely uncomfortable. "It was right before I met Jake which clearly got pretty serious after." She points at her engagement ring.
"Damn, Andy! I didn't know that about you." Kim says, smiling.
"Me either! I guess we have our next question, then," Miranda says. "Who's hooked up with a woman before?"
I sigh and take a long drink. Andrea and Kim both blush and do the same. I can't believe that people are still scandalized by this. It is the 21st century...
"Okay, wow, I had no idea. I need all the details, please." Miranda says, looking at us expectantly.
Andrea is still blushing, so Kim jumps in.
"Well, I had a few threesomes over the years, which were really fun. I never thought I would find myself sexually attracted to women, but once we started I got really, really into it..."
Andrea has finally stopped blushing. "Yeah, same," she says. "I had never seen this happening for myself, but then I was tipsy at the bar looking at somebody beautiful out of the corner of my eye, and the next thing I know we were kissing in the cab on the way to my place."
Miranda looks at me, waiting. "Well, I'm queer, so..." I trail off. I probably won't say more than that.
Miranda looks at Kim and asks, bluntly, "What did you do during the threesome?"
Kim looks right at her and answers, "All of it." She takes another sip of her drink and continues. "At first I was a bit uncomfortable. I didn't really know what to do, and wasn't sure what I wanted to try. But she was really attractive and we started slowly. By the end of it, well, there wasn't much I hadn't done..."
"Wow," Miranda says. She takes a big sip of her drink.
Andrea is nodding. "Obviously I'm really happy with Jake and I can't wait to get married," she looks down at the ground. "But part of me feels like I didn't really get to explore that side of myself."
"Have you talked to him about this?" Kim asks.
"Yeah, a bit. I don't think he would be interested in having a threesome or doing anything in a group, but he did say he wouldn't mind if I did it on my own. In fact, I think the idea turned him on a little bit..." Andrea is blushing again and clearly deep in thought.
I take this as my cue to refill my drink from the big bottle of wine on the coffee table. We're renting an apartment in the city, and I can see the watermarks from past parties staining the table like the rings of a tree. If you count them all you can probably estimate how many bachelorette groups have been here before.
"Wow," Miranda says. "Have you thought about doing it at all?"
"I don't know," Andrea says. "On the one hand, I really, really enjoyed myself that night. It was some of the best sex I've ever had. But on the other hand, there haven't really been any chances to do it, and I don't even know where I would start..." She pushes her long, red hair away from her face and I can see how flushed she is. I wonder if she's getting turned on talking about this, like Miranda clearly is. For someone who's never had sex with a woman, Miranda sure is asking a lot of questions...
"What did you like most about it?" Miranda asks.
"She was really, really good at oral..." Andrea answers immediately.
We all start laughing.
