The Birthday Party

A finger of sweat traces the curve of my spine as I step out onto the balcony. Behind me, the kitchen hums with voices, raucous laughter, the low bass of music. Breathing in the night air, I shudder as a cool breeze reaches under the flimsy silk of my dress, and I wrap my arms across my chest. My housemate had insisted on the party. “That’s bullshit, you’re not too busy. There’s no way we’re not doing something. Dinner doesn’t count, we do that all the time anyway. Plus we can invite that hot guy from downstairs.” My joke about dinner being in our flat not counting either fell on deaf ears. So we (she) planned.

My reticence wasn’t for lack of enthusiasm. I love birthdays. I love parties. I love getting swallowed up by glittering groups of people, the champagne buzz and louche midnight conversations sat too close to each other in stairwells. I love the intimacy, the candour that comes in the corners of crowded rooms. Catching eyes across dancefloors, will we/won’t we. 

But lately something felt off. While we’d been living together for the best part of a year, I had started to feel a frisson of nervousness around her. You see, in the beginning, in the midst of the rush to find someone to take up the flat with me, the boxing and unboxing, drawing of refrigerator treaty lines and awkward settling together of strangers suddenly cohabiting I had failed to actually acknowledge the fact that I had a hot housemate. Of course, when we ran through the usual vetting of mutual hobbies, domestic habits and general compatibility I noticed her physical features. But, in the way it always does, attraction grew from sharing her space, catching her ‘her-ness’, attuning myself to the way she moved.

Like me, she was a young professional working in ‘media bollocks’ (her words, spoken like a confession as we shared a bottle of wine on our first night in the flat). Out of the corner of my eye I noted the wicked curve of her mouth when she smiled. She talked like she was letting you in on a secret and often wore red lipstick. She’d bare her teeth at me in the bathrooms of night clubs asking “am I good?” and I’d hold her chin, turning it this way and that, licking the pad of my thumb and swiping it over her teeth even though there was nothing there. 

When it came to lovers, we both liked everyone. We brought boys and girls home but, like ships in the night, never ended up crossing paths in an intimate capacity. I wondered about the things she did with other people. The thick hair she wore loose just past her shoulders, how would it look bunched in the hands of someone else? Where would she like to be touched, how hard, how soft?

Things escalated a couple of weeks prior to the party when she brought a guy home. Late that night I’d listened furtively to her through our shared wall. Their low voices petered out; I held my breath to hear a stifled moan, distinctly feminine. I thought guiltily about how I could elicit that noise from her, touching myself in the darkness long after the pair in the room next door had fallen silent. Hooking up with one of the guys from my office the following night I caught myself thinking of the blush on her cheeks that morning as she closed the front door after him, the slope of her shoulder disappearing under her baggy t-shirt. I imagined her mouth on me as I came against his.

So my party shyness? More housemate shyness. The idea of dressing up, champagne inebriation and the fact that there was no escape within our own four walls was at once overwhelmingly both foreboding and exciting. 

I turn back to the party with a sigh. Scanning the room, the loose-limbed bodies draped over sofas and leaning against counters, I don’t see her. Telling myself I should just check in to make sure everything is ok (we don’t need more drinks? No calls from the annoying couple next door?) I head down the corridor to her room. A glance into mine, empty apart from the pile of coats on the bed. Hers is empty too. Maybe I missed her in the kitchen? I start back but pause, a movement at the slightly ajar bathroom door catching my eye. 

Her shirt is open and I watch, held still, as he lifts her onto the edge of the sink. His hands slide from the back of her knees up her thighs and I see the soft prints he leaves in the flesh there. She grips him back, nails digging lightly into his neck as she pulls his mouth to hers, as their tongues slick over each other. She fumbles with her skirt while his mouth moves down her throat, hands girdling her hips now, moving down her sternum and I hear that familiar moan as he reaches a spot at the apex of her thigh. He looks up at her and grins, hearing it too, and she pushes his head playfully, bringing her finger to her lips in a sardonic ‘shhh’.

But it’s me that breaks the silence, my clumsy step backwards and whooshed exhale that draws their startled glances. Shocked to stillness for a moment, deer in the proverbial headlights. I start to apologise, reaching for the door handle until I see the soft ‘o’ of her mouth shift into a grin. She glances at him conspiratorially and doesn’t move to adjust her undone clothing. “What do you say we make this into a real party?” I’m caught between his appraising glance in my direction and the unexpected heat of her eyes on me. He laughs, stands, helps her from the counter with a flourish.

She takes his hand, leads him out of the bathroom and across the hall to her room, tugging me with them by the elbow. He closes the door, puts his hands on my hips from behind, slides them over the silk while she approaches me. Slowly, torturously slowly, she presses her lips against my shoulder. His hands are under my dress now, hitching the skirt up and I reach back to find him hard through his jeans. She’s shorter than me and I bend slightly to kiss her, pressing my ass against him, grinding my hips while I pull her hair gently, exposing her throat to my mouth. She tastes smoky and slightly salty, and I’m hungry for that taste. I want more. 

I back her onto the bed as she kicks off her skirt, grinning, and he follows. Heat coils in me; he’s been stroking me over my underwear and I can feel the wetness there already. I shudder as my tongue finds her, also wet. Her cunt is soft, slick, and I cradle her thighs with my arms on either side of my head. 

‘Fuck’ he mutters. I hear him unzip his jeans, see him grab a condom from the nightstand, lean down to kiss her deeply, palm brushing over her breast as she arches into him. He stands and she pulls him back to her, taking his cock in her mouth, groaning against him while I increase the pressure of my tongue on her clit. She takes the full length of him once, twice and then surfaces, deftly replacing her mouth with the condom. I have one hand on myself now and I feel my orgasm building. He moves behind me and I gasp as he licks me from behind. I feel the tip of his cock against me. He slides into me as her orgasm breaks, her hips bucking against me. I can’t get enough of the taste of her, the sound of her, but he feels so good inside me that I let go of her and focus on the way he’s pushing into me. She sits up, watching hungrily while he fucks me from behind. She kisses me, tasting herself, swiping her tongue across my lower lip.

This sends me over the edge and I cry out, coming hard, almost collapsing onto her. He thrusts, more erratically now, driving my orgasm further, sharpening the pleasure until he comes too. We’re all suspended for a moment, breathing heavily in the semi-darkness. “Woah. That was intense,” he says and the spell is broken. I crack up, falling onto the bed next to her and nuzzle into her neck. She laughs too, yanking him down next to us, our limbs sprawled together.

A hesitant knock and a voice through the door: “Uh, I’m really sorry to interrupt. But we’re kind of out of ice…”