Should Have Known Better

“It’s fine.” I fell back to the pillow and looked at her face over mine. Her blond curls fell all around her head like a halo. The fan spun behind her.

“It’s my last night. Let’s just have fun. No serious stuff.”

“But I have to go back to bed. I told Reginald I’d be back in an hour.”

“Well, you missed that train, girlie.” Sasha chuckled. “It’s after 1:00 a.m.”

“What?” I tried to scramble, but then I realized that Sasha was holding my hands down on the pillows. I tried to move, but the fan was spinning and spinning and spinning. And Sasha became three again. At the window. At the bed. On top of me.

“He’ll probably be mad at you,” she said. “Hey, I have an idea. I can come in with you and say sorry.” She grinned and shook the blond curls. “We can have a slumber party. All three of us. Won’t that be fun?”

“But, I—” My eyes were turning to slits and I saw darkness skipping in circles around my view. Sasha became smaller and then she was nothing.

I woke up in the guest bedroom alone. There was no candle burning on the dresser. No Sasha. The light was off and the fan had stopped.

Everything was fuzzy. More light and like a dream than it had been when I was awake. I reached out to see my hand.

“Sasha?” I called. “Sasha?”

I felt my way off of the bed and stumbled over each step to control my feet.

“Sasha?” I looked into the little bathroom Reginald had built off of the guest room when his parents died. “Sasha?”

I held the walls as I pulled my body through the house, walking and falling and calling Sasha. Everything. The couch. The refrigerator. The dining room table. Seemed brighter and nicer and more slow moving than I’d ever recalled. Or was it me?

I ran out of places and thought that I should go and ask Reginald if she’d left. Where was she?

“Reginald?” I called, nearing our bedroom. I pushed the door open and nearly fell down, but caught myself on the dresser beside the door.

I looked up. Only lights from the lamps on either side of the bed invaded the darkness.

Sasha was lying upside down at the top of the bed in her ivory nightgown, her legs up in the air, making a V over the headboard.

“Finally, you came to join us,” she cheered. “I thought you were out for the night.”

“What? Why are you—? Where’s Reginald?”

The haze in my mind cloaked whatever anger or confusion or resentment I’d later feel.

“In the bathroom. Went to take a shower. Poor thing was fast asleep,” she replied casually. “But now it’s time to party!”

“Party? But—I—I?”

Reginald came out of the bathroom in a little towel he had to hold at his hip. He was still wet.

“Babe,” he called, walking to me with one arm open. “You di

d this? I can’t believe you did this for me.”

He wrapped his arm around my waist and kissed me so softly on the forehead.

“At first, I, you know, I thought it was a joke, but then after Sasha explained everything to me, it made sense. I do deserve a little fun.” He smiled and kissed me on the lips passionately. “Come on.” He started pulling me to the bed.

“Wait.” I pulled away the best I could. “Did you have sex? Did you two have sex?”

“No, crazy,” Sasha proclaimed. “We were waiting for you.”

Reginald sat me down on the corner of the bed and stood in front of me.