Sometime later, Jennifer returned to the table. I came out from behind the menu to see she was now alone, carrying one normal-sized lime green cocktail in one hand, and a shot glass full of dark brown foaming liquid in the other. She dropped back into her seat, putting the cocktail in front of her, and placing the full shot glass in front of me.

“I didn’t want a drink,” I said shaking my head.

“WELL YOU GOT IT NOW, BUSTER, SO DON’T WASTE IT.”

Her tone bothered me. Then I noticed her expression. Her eyes were sunken behind her lashes, dusky, smoldering. It was a dangerous look.

She met my eyes.

“GET ME OUT OF HERE, JERRY,” she said tightly.

“Something wrong?”

She shook her head and was silent for a moment. After taking a sip of her drink, she finally said:

“STUART’S FOUND AN OLD FRIEND OF HIS.” Her brows met faintly. “FEMALE. HE SAYS SHE’S JUST A FRIEND. BUT IF YOU ASK ME, IT’S AN EX.”

I cringed. Catching up with another girl in front of Jennifer was riskier than punching a beehive. Stuart’s naivety continued to astound. But I also couldn’t help to feel a secret thrill of amusement at her jealousy of Stuart. It was how I felt seeing her with him at the Portugal.

After downing more of her cocktail, she added:

“HE BUMPED ME OFF TO HAVE A DANCE WITH THAT – ” her eyebrow quirked thoughtfully as she reconsidered her words, “—HARLOT.”

I let out a long breath. “I can get you out of here, but it’ll be very slow going.”

“I DON’T CARE IF YOU HAVE TO CALL UP A HOT AIR BALLOON TO LAND ON THE ROOF.”

“What about if I grab onto a party balloon and you walk beside?”

Sometimes goofy humor worked to defuse her anger, sometimes it didn’t. This time it didn’t. She frowned, sinking back into her seat and folding her arms. This was deeper than Stuart’s ‘friend’, I intuited. Something had started this from before, maybe even before the waitress.

“What’s that?” I said, pointing at her drink, trying to get her mind off whatever the issue was.

“DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON.”

“It looks like it has absinthe in it.”

“APPARENTLY.”

My eyebrows jumped up. With caution. I didn’t want to admit it, but the prospect of Jennifer being drunk was almost as hazardous to my health as the prospect of me being drunk. Whether I liked it or not, my wellbeing depended on her (and Stuart) to be delicate and considerate around me, and not like blundering bulls.

“That’s stiff.”

She stared at me calmly. “AND?”

“You shouldn’t slosh yourself because you’re pissed off at Stuart.”

“WHO SAID I WAS PISSED OFF AT STUART?” came the cool reply.

I made a ‘whatever’ face and looked away.

“IT’S FINE,” she said. “STUART’S DRIVING. AND HE DOESN’T DRINK ANYTHING HEAVIER THAN ORANGE JUICE – HE’S EVEN CAREFUL ABOUT COFFEE.” She flashed me a look. “HE’S ALMOST AS LIGHTWEIGHT AS YOU.”

“No one’s as lightweight as me, I weigh less than one kilogram. Anyway,” I carried on casually, “it might surprise you to learn that I started experimenting a little more in that department after we split – ”

Jennifer made a face. “’SPLIT’ IS AN UGLY WORD, JERRY. VIOLENT. CAN’T YOU SAY ‘TOOK A BREAK?’”

“That has the wrong connotation.”

“IF YOU’VE STARTED DRINKING MORE, WHY HAVE YOU BARELY TOUCHED YOUR DRINK?”

“The accident changed my metabolism. I get drunk easily now. Even adjusting for portion size.”  

“I SEE.”

Jennifer wasn’t looking at me. She was staring intently at her ‘Y’ shaped champagne flute now, running her thumb around the rim.

“It’s the same with coffee. Can’t have too much. I get worked up like the Energizer Bunny.”

She nodded at the shot glass, looking from it to me. “NOT EVEN A TINY BIT?”

“I realize you’re the most perceptive woman in the world, but I don’t think you understand: at my size, I can’t afford to get drunk. My acute reflexes and rational discretion insure me against accidentally becoming part of the bottom of someone’s shoe.”

Her eyelashes fluttered at me slowly. “DON’T YOU TRUST ME TO TAKE CARE OF YOU?”

One of the huge slender hands that were resting on the table slid gently over to me, and gave my hand a small squeeze between two of her fingers. It was such an earnest, gentle gesture that my stomach flip-flopped.

Reluctantly, I slid my hand out of her fingers, looking away.

“Not if you’re drunk, too.”

“I CAN HANDLE MYSELF. I CAN HANDLE YOU PRETTY WELL, TOO.”

She reclasped my hand between her fingertips and began massaging it.

“EVEN IF YOU PASSED OUT – NOT THAT YOU’RE GOING TO – I CAN JUST PUT YOU IN MY HANDBAG. I WOULDN’T LET ANYONE SO MUCH AS TOUCH YOU.”

Her piquant perfume kept making its way over to me across the table, and it was as intoxicating as anything the bar served.

What the hell. I felt on edge; I needed to relax.

I got up and reached around the shot glass and began to dip my head in. It was a clumsy way to take it in – I felt like a horse at the trough – but at least it kept me from swallowing too much too fast.

But it tasted good. Too good. Like, so good I actually wished it was non-alcoholic so I could just chug it like a milkshake.

It must have shown on my face, because all of a sudden her face totally changed. She gave me this radiant smile and said: “YOU LIKE THAT, HUH, CUTIE?”

She leaned forward in her seat and, brushed some foam off my face with the tip of her little finger. Then she turned her finger back and sucked it off. I found myself staring at the display a moment too long and then tried not to think about the growing blush in my cheeks, which surely was the result of the alcohol and nothing else.

She went on:

“WHEN I SAW ONE OF THE COCKTAILS HAD LICORICE LIQUEUR IN IT, I KNEW I HAD TO GET IT FOR YOU – YOU STILL LOVE LICORICE, RIGHT?”

“Always have.”

She gave a low chuckle as she watched me scoop some foam out and try to eat it (actually trying to reach the liquid surface underneath) – and probably, ashamedly, resembling a mouse eating cheese out of its paw. Yeah, I’m pretty sure James Bond looked a lot more debonair when he sipped martinis.

The surface of my drink was rapidly shrinking down the glass. Pretty soon it was too low for my head to reach, so Jennifer lifted the glass and tipped it to allow me to finish the remainder more like a normal person and not a lapping baby animal.

It was still a little degrading to me, as much as I was grateful. But Jennifer seemed to enjoy helping me almost as much as I was enjoying the drink. She leaned right over the table towards me, patiently lifting and tipping the glass against my face, in between periods of putting it down again to let me have a break.

I closed my eyes a second in pure bliss at the ethanol infused licorice fumes headily circling my face, and when I opened them again, found her staring down at me with satisfied smile.

In the back of my mind it struck me that hand feeding – or drinking – had an unavoidably romantic connotation. You did not do it with your friends, family members, or anyone. And that included exes.

But there were exceptions. For instance, infants, or the very ill or infirm. I definitely didn’t feel I fit into the former category, but maybe my size disability applied for the latter. It didn’t really have to be read as a romantic gesture…

I finished the drink, and feeling a little overwhelmed, dropped down onto my butt on the table, with my legs splayed out, my nerves buzzing pleasantly.

Jennifer swept the empty shot glass to the side of the table, along with her now empty cocktail glass. Then she hunched up and leaned over the table like she was trying to get her face as close to me as humanly possible.

I didn’t budge from my position; my stomach ached and I was beginning to regret drinking the entire glass.

“IT LOOKED LIKE YOU ENJOYED THAT.”

She was so close that I could smell the alcohol on her words, and I was tempted to make a joke about her having ‘death breath’ as a reference to her drink but I probably would have earned myself a pinky finger slap.

“OOPS YOU STILL HAVE SOME ON YOUR FACE.”

She began brushing her thumb gently over my face to wipe my mouth. I closed my eyes and wordlessly let her do it, although a small part of me was now wondering what was taking Stuart so long.

A loud rumbling sound came from my stomach.

Suddenly there was a firm pressure around my midsection, which gave me a couple of gentle squeezes until I burped. As her hand slid back over the table, I stared at it in bewilderment. Would she let me do anything on my own? She made it seem like my whole existence was one big cry for help.

“FEEL BETTER?”

“Jennifer,” I said, frowning, “thanks for the drink, but you don’t have to condescend to me.”

“I’M NOT CONDESCENDING TO YOU.”

“You’re treating me like I’m a baby.”

She gave me an uneven smile as she slid back in her seat. “IF YOU WERE A BABY I WOULDN’T HAVE BOUGHT YOU THE NICE STUFF. YOU’D BE DRINKING WHAT BABIES DRINK.”

The neons seemed to glare and the room suddenly felt too warm. I looked away.

Around this time, Stuart sauntered back over to the table and was smiling inconveniently, his face looking a little flushed. Jennifer didn’t turn her head to face him but her eyes flicked up and followed him in that catlike way of hers.

Because she was sitting on the edge of the booth seat, he was forced to slide in on the opposite seat, on my part of the table. He was smart enough not to tell Jennifer to scoot over at least.

Now Stuart was sitting directly at my back, which would have bothered me normally, except I was still in the buzzing afterglow of my drink and didn’t care.

“HAVING FUN?” Jennifer asked Stuart in a veiled way.

“OH, MARGO ALWAYS HAS THESE FUNNY STORIES. SHE TRAVELS A LOT – ”

“WELL, WE’VE GOT TO MAKE TRAVELS TOO, STUART. LIKE, HOME. NOW. JERRY’S TIRED.”

I was noticing ‘Jerry’s tired’ was becoming a reliable dispute terminator; disputes which didn’t even have anything to do with me.

Still, I didn’t complain. I had finished my drink, now. Probably too quickly. The blood running through my ears felt as bubbly as the foam that had formerly covered my drink. Shaken, not stirred? My head felt shaken and stirred.

*

I sat on my sponge bed in the living room, taking off my shoes. The room was empty; the other two had disappeared in opposite directions: one into the bedroom, the other down the corridorr into the bathroom.

I was glad for the quiet; still feeling a little miffed off about being treated like a baby in the restaurant. It was one thing to be fed drink from the glass – I couldn’t, after all, have drunk it all myself. But being burped was going too far; I didn’t need help for that. Not to mention it was degrading, and in a public place filled with people!

Suddenly I was thinking about Stuart and Jennifer having babies: me being confused as a toy by a gurgling toddler, chased down and grabbed and waved around in its uncoordinated hands, having my head thrust in its drooling mouth. There was no way I could afford to hang around the house if that happened. Not to mention it would be painfully depressing, the ultimate death toll signaling Jennifer was lost to me forever.

My insides seemed to quiver, like I was going to cry. The alcohol was making me sensitive, I urgently needed a distraction.

Her phone was lying on the table nearby, with earphones attached. She let me use it to listen to music sometimes. I pulled one of the earphones onto my sponge bed and lay down, listening to some quiet jazz, my eyes closing gently.

Then the trumpets stopped as the cable was ripped from the phone. I rolled over to see Jennifer taking the phone and connecting it to some speakers. Rave music filled the air.  

"GET YOUR BUTT OVER HERE, STUART,” she called into the kitchen, where Stuart was standing at the sink. “COME AND DANCE WITH ME!"

“OH, BUT WE DANCED AT THE RESTAURANT.” There was the sound of a glass clinking and water running as Stuart either got himself a drink of water, or carried on washing dishes.

“YOU DANCED…WITH THAT GIRL. I WENT BACK TO MY SEAT.”

"OH, BUT JEN…" he let out a great sigh, and emerged from the kitchen, swinging his arms loosely and not really looking at her as he carried on into the alcove that led to the master bedroom. "I’M BEAT. I’M CHANGING INTO MY PAJAMAS AND WINDING DOWN FOR THE NIGHT.”

Her eyes watched him leave, and her lip turned up into a silent snarl.

Then, flicking around and moving onto the living room floor, she started wiggling her hips and dancing to music with her eyes closed. She was still in her dress but had taken off her heels so her feet were bare and she moved without any self-consciousness.

Having been robbed of my music, and unable to rest with the blaring music, I propped my head up and just watched her for a little while; her curves and sashaying hips, her breasts springing as she bounced on the balls of her feet. Even if I wanted to move, walking around on the floor while she was dancing blind was just asking for trouble.

Besides, she was mesmerizing. I hadn’t properly seen her dance in a long time. She’d danced more when she was single and on the prowl for male attention, not so much while we were together.

As one song ended and another began, she turned and opened her eyes to see me watching her.  Next second she was gliding over, her ‘bedroom eyes’ fixed on me, before she began to grind lustily against the table leg.

“DANCE WITH ME!” she insisted breathlessly.

My balance was too precarious and I shook my head. But she was already taking each of my palms between the fingertips of each of her hands and then my arms were pulled up over my head as my feet left the table. Then I was flying over the floor, dangling from my arms, before the living room carpet rose up and planted itself against the soles of my feet.

Facing me, one either side were the big, long masses of her smooth, pale feet, the toenails glittering with the translucent polish I’d only earlier painstakingly applied. The extensor tendons running down her feet flexed against her skin as her toes tapped to the music.

Crouched in front of me, she extended her first two fingertips out at my chest level. Too drunk to care, I held them with my hands and began to dance, pretending her fingertips were the hands of a dance partner, while she moved her fingers gently in time with me.

Then we pretended to ballroom dance, with me placing one hand on her thumb in lieu of one normal sized hand, while my other hand held her middle finger, and her index finger slid over my shoulder. The only problem was her hand was quick to assert the dominant male role, pushing and pulling me, steering me around, lifting my hand above my head and even directing me through a girly little spin. It started as a slow waltz and suddenly I was being jerked around like it was a charged tango. As drunk as I was, I just let her coerce me through these motions.

She then decided to compel me through a tango dip – only, with me in the woman's role. One finger curled under the small of my back as her thumb slid against my belly, up towards my chest, steadily pushing me backwards over her fingers. As it reached my neck, the tip of her thumb gently tilted my head back so that I was baring my throat. My vertebrae began to groan and my back muscles trembled as she held me there a second, before easing me up again.

My shoulders slumped a little as I assumed we were done, but then she took my hand and bodily yanked me against her hand for another round. We seemed to now be imitating a saucy dance with the partners pressed right against each other. While I had my hands full with her pointer finger and thumb, her other fingers got frisky; stroking up one of my legs, poking my butt. At one point I took a wide step to keep up with her hand; my legs came apart and her pinky finger slipped unannounced between my thighs – keeping them apart – and for the briefest instant, I could feel my groin balancing on the end of the fingertip, like she was weighing it. Then she twirled me around and yanked me back against her hand, leaving me fighting to catch my breath. Whenever one of these surprise maneuvers caused me to stumble or flinch, her laughter would chime out over me.

Finally her fingers loosened around me, letting me have a break.

“ALRIGHT, I’M GOING TO CHANGE,” she said. The pad of her extended index finger stretched in front of my face and rubbed a circle against my chest. “DON’T GO ANYWHERE, YOU,” she said with a coquettish lilt. “I’VE GOT A SURPRISE.”

She stood up; her height unfolding grandly over my head, and stepped over the carpet and out of the room.