Pajama
Party
Armed and Ready.
That was the name of the nail polish Casey
was using to paint my toenails. It was a ghastly color, a brownish army green with
a pearlescent tint. But I consoled myself that it was better than the black
licorice she’d painted her own toenails with. I was more into pretty pink
polish with names like Lovey Dovey and Jamaica Me Crazy , but
Casey’s truth or dare question had hit far too close to home for my liking and
I’d taken the dare instead. So I was letting her paint my toenails
Baby-Shit-Brown—er, Armed and Ready . Anyway, it wasn’t like nail polish
remover hadn’t been invented yet.
“So, truth or dare?” I slurped Peanut
Butter Capt’n Crunch from my spoon, crunching happily. I’d won our
cereal-eating contest—Casey had barely made it through her second bowl—and this
was my prize. The entire box of Peanut Butter Capt’n Crunch was mine—all mine!
I hadn’t really eaten the stuff since we were thirteen or so, back when we used
to do sleepovers like this on a weekly basis, but so far I wasn’t disappointed
with my re-acquaintance with it. Unlike the Spaghetti-O’s we’d microwaved for
dinner. I shuddered just thinking about it. We’d fed those to the dog.
Casey kept teasing me that I was going to
regret all this in the morning when I was puking up Capt’n Crunch along with
all the wine we were drinking. Granted, the wine was definitely a new addition
to our last sleepover of the summer—maybe our last sleepover ever. That thought
made me sad and I gulped down the rest of my glass of wine, shuddering at the
bitter taste it left in my mouth and following it quickly with another spoonful
of cereal. Quite the combination!
“Truth.” Casey lean forward, holding her
long blonde hair out of the way so she could blow on my toes to dry the polish.
The sensation gave me chills.
I grinned at her response. We always said
“truth” first. Of course, if the question was too difficult to answer, we
switched to dare in an instant. It was technically against the rules, but we’d
played that way forever.
“How big is Lance’s dick?” I knew I’d
surprised her with the question, but I couldn’t help myself. I really, really
wanted to know.
“April,” she warned, putting the brush back
into the bottle and twisting it closed, tossing it into the plethora of bottles
jutting up haphazardly on the bedspread in a myriad of colors.
“Come on.” I leaned forward,
conspiratorial. “You used to tell me everything. So spill. Does Lance have a
nice, big… lance ?” I waggled my eyebrows at her for effect.
She cleared her throat and shrugged. “It’s…
sufficient.”
“Sufficient?” I gaped at her, appalled. “You
poor, poor girl!”
“Oh shut up.” She grabbed the little
plastic tub off my night table and started putting the nail polish bottles
away. “Look who’s talking. You haven’t had a cock in over a year!”
“So let me live vicariously.” I grinned. “And
you know that’s not a real answer. I want a measurement.”
Casey sniffed, setting the full tub aside. “I’ve
never measured.”
“I bet he has. Every guy does.” I
wiggled my toes, testing the polish, making sure it was dry before hopping off
the bed. “I have an idea.”
“Where are you—?”
I ignored Casey’s question, running to my
mother’s room. No one was home. My mom and stepdad had gone to her high school
reunion thing three hours away and were staying there overnight. They trusted
me, and why wouldn’t they? I’d never given them any reason not to. They’d left
us alone during sleepovers for years, and the only trouble we’d gotten into was
eating too much pizza and watching movies until three in the morning. Besides,
I knew they’d rather have us at our house alone than at Casey’s house with her
drunken stepfather. He was always home—always out of work—while Casey’s mother
worked two jobs, one cleaning floors during the day at Target, the other at
night
M. R. James, Darryl Jones