Excerpt of Goodnight Monsters by Suzanne Junered

From Chapter 7: A little Bump and Grind

Bachelorette Party

Amy shimmies by us, mouthing Help me as she’s backed around the dance floor by a barely five-foot student grinding her leg like the Energizer Bunny. But she is laughing, so Matt and I ignore her plea, and he steps in closer to me. His hand periodically brushes my thighs as the beat gets more intense and turns into an electronic blend of a country song and a Bruno Mars one. Hilariously enough, “Marry You.” Must be in honor of Sandy and our bachelorette crew. Matt and I move faster, sink a little lower, closer. I bet he thinks I’m fluttering inside, wondering if he’ll touch me again and hoping he thinks I’m pretty—and of course he’s wondering if I’m drunk enough to say yes.

He’s given me an opportunity.

I move my mouth to his ear and whisper, but really, I speak at normal volume because it’s hideously loud in here, “You got a few more minutes for me?” and before he answers, I grab his hand and drag him into the center of the dancing drones, all of us squeezed in so that we’re forced to rub up on each other.

He smiles and humors me with a few gentle pelvic thrusts, placing his hands low on my ass. I’ve lost track of the song, it’s so loud. All I hear is the bass. It penetrates my body, rattles my chest. No more talking. More grinding. He really is a good dancer.

I lift the bottom of his slim-fit H&M T-shirt and trace my fingers around his hips. I look at his face and say to him, not yelling, not whispering, “Trust me. I want you more than you want me.” Before he can say “What?” I pierce his gut with the brown bottle piece I confiscated at the bar, street-fighting style. He looks shocked and slightly drunk and not so sure if what is happening to him is real. Thinks I’m trying to go Fifty Shades of Grey on him, but with the amount of blood pouring from his abdomen, he won’t last long enough to get it up.

He falters and I stay close, holding him up so I can watch. Compounded into a single instant, I watch an array of emotions—confusion, self-doubt, resignation, I see it all. I watch his chest hyperventilate, up down up down up down, then slow to a halt. His last breath is a long, quiet, dramatic deflating of his lungs. His life ends with that last exhale, and it is beautiful. That life now dissipating through the air that I breathe.

He is gone. That’s it. Show’s over.

The body slouches over me and, in hindsight, it would have been more convenient to have danced near the empty chairs by the dark hallway to the bathrooms, but this will do too. I simply lay him down, his emptiness, on the middle of the dance floor and step away.

I turn to the zit-faced boy behind me and start grinding my way from lush to stoner to creepy old guy to boy again until I am free from the dance mob and walk out the club door, feeling rejuvenated.

Men are easy to fool because they always want to get close to you.

A few minutes later, the rest of the girls—after that field day we are definitely girls again—giggle their way out the door and we all breathe in the fresh air that is car fumes and cigarette smoke. Compared to the sweaty, filthy foam stench, it’s a relief.

“Let’s never do that again,” says one of us, any of us.

I take Celia’s hand, coaxing her away from the past, snapping her back into the reality that she still has to pump breast milk when she gets home.

“Oksana!” I hear behind me. “Oksana?” from a distance.

It takes three calls before I remember I’m Oksana. I turn back to see Matt the Bartender trotting behind me, a dirty rag still hanging from his back pocket. Glad I didn’t touch that germ-infested thing while we were dancing.

“Can I get your number?” he puffs. “Take you out sometime?”

I place Celia’s hand in Amy’s, closing her fingers around it before turning back toward him. “Matt, I’m already committed,” I say, reminding him that I’m married.

“Oh okay, I get it.” He slumps, and for some reason, I see the little boy in him, and I want to boost his confidence, help him find faith in himself. I step away from my friends.

“Someone like you can find a better woman to spend your time with. But try finding her somewhere else—like the library or a hiking trail.”