Beer breath is usually intolerable. As a guy who grew up drinking vodka and gin, beer is the battery acid of the mind-altering-substances spectrum. Beer breath reminds me of the frat boy who was* just* cute enough to fuck in a boozy, desperately horny fog.
There was another taste on baseball player's breath, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It wasn't puke, though that would hardly be surprising, and it wasn't liquor. Red Bull, maybe?
Cigarettes. Duh.
I should have known. I didn't know he smoked, but that hardly mattered now. He was trying to remove my tonsils with his tongue, so I was beyond caring about the various flavors I was encountering in the baseball player's facial orifice.
"Take off your pants, sexy," he slurred at me.
Really? Take off your pants' would have been one thing, it could have been construed as an almost-hot command. The sexy' killed it. It said "I wouldn't know my way around a guy if someone gave me the owners' manual, so I'm being patronizing and cute to make up for it." I am so out of here.
"I gotta puke, I'll be right back." I say as I wrench myself from his sloppy, cross-eyed embrace, hoping the prospect of a puke-breathed-lay will disinterest him.
"Ok, hurry back baby, I'm horny," he says as he flops down on the bed, his half-undone cargo shorts exposing his oversized plaid boxers.
"Straight" boys.
I wrench the door open, doors never work properly in house-party-houses for some reason, and make my way down the hall. I don't actually have to puke, but I should pee before I walk home, so I join the bathroom line. Why, also, do people throw raging house-parties in houses with 32 bedrooms, but only one toilet?
After standing watching the couple in front of me grope each other it dawns on me that they probably intend to fuck in the bathroom. While, by the looks of the guy, it'll probably only take a couple of minutes, I decide it's not worth the wait. God gave me an external pissing device for a reason, so I'll avail myself of it in the bushes out back.
I make my way downstairs, pass the room that would in any normal house be a dining room, but in this one is in fact a room with a hookah and a pile of people giggling. From the back door I can see a few knots of people smoking in the yard. I find a spot near the tree line devoid of smokers or other gentleman like me who have decided to fertilize the undergrowth. Not that I really care who sees what, I'm just in the mood to piss and go home.
I get to the bushes, unzip and let fly. I'm glad I went commando. I'm not hammered, but I'm drunk enough that having to fight with the fly of a pair of boxer briefs could make it appear to the casual observer that I was masturbating violently in the bushes – a perception I am eager to avoid.
After a thoroughly satisfying pee, I zip back up and head for the house. Lo and behold, baseball player is hunched over the recycling bin puking. My timing is impeccable.
Heading up the back steps to make my exit, I hear
"Hey."
I'm ALMOST out the door. He better be really cute and/or bleeding badly enough to warrant asking for my help.
I turn. Ok, he's cute.
"I'm Declan," he says sticking out his hand. He's a gentleman, two points. I shake.
"Jim. Nice to meet."
"Ditto," he says, pulling out a pack of Camels. Good stuff, five more points. "You want," he says, holding the pack out in my direction. Ten points.
"Thanks," I take one with my best sideways grin.
He pulls out a zippo, five more points, lights his and then leans forward to light mine. Major points. His blue eyes catch my attention. I'm definitely interested.
"So what are you doin here," he asks, "this doesn't seem like your scene."
You can tell that from the way I smoke a cigarette, I want to ask, but he's handsome, so I'll play it nice.
"What can I say, I'm bored on a Monday night, and the wildlife here is so entertaining," I say waving my hand at the puking baseball player and the straight couple fucking in the bed of a pickup truck.
"Yea it's a real tour du force," he says. I catch him checking me out when my eyes pan back from the people procreating in the aptly named Dodge Ram. I give him my sideways grin again and move the conversation along.
"So what are YOU doing here? Camels, Zippo, you're much too classy for such an establishment."
"This is the hockey house, a bunch of my buddies live here." Now I'm VERY interested.
"You play hockey? What position?" I ask, putting emphasis on the word `position.'
I'm so sly.
"Missionary." Dead pan. I give him a courtesy laugh. "Seriously," he goes on, "Center. Offensive center."
"So you're the man in charge?" I ask, again with the sideways smile. His eyes flash, he smiles.
"You know about hockey?"
"What can I say, watching 60 minutes of barbarian violence is worth it for the shirtless locker-room interviews afterward." I out myself, let's see if he flees, or if he IS actually flirting.
"Why do you think I started playing in the first place?"
Score. No pun intended.
"I see," I say, again giving him my `wanna go back to my place' grin. "So you don't live here?"
"No," he says, gesturing towards an apartment tower, "I have an apartment a couple blocks over. My roommate is home visiting family."
Score. Pun intended.
"You wanna get outta here? It's only a matter of time before one of us gets puked on..." I say, snuffing my cig out on the porch rail and pitching it toward baseball player, who is now sitting on the ground next to the trash can looking confused.
"Absolutely."