FICTION

The Virgin Drink: A Polyamorous Romance (Chapter 3)

The officer’s fist knocking on my car door window sent me back to my childhood.

Just found this story? You can start reading here or read the first two chapters to find out more about Sol and Celeste!

CW: police, trauma, misgendering/deadnaming indirectly referenced, mental health

A clear plastic hair curler hit the bathroom floor, as a someone screamed at a child I was watching from somewhere above.

I was the one screaming.

You were yelling in pain from how hard I had squeezed your hand through the force of my memory. The cop was shouting because you’re supposed to be real quiet when the police wake you up. The sun was searing through the window.

How long had we been asleep?

The officer shouted that word again. The word for the sort of person she thought I was. The condescending word made a baby blue hair curler hit the floor of my history.

I tried to make sense of what was happening across two simultaneous timelines. I told myself to ignore the pink hair curler that hit the vinyl next. Was it really vinyl or tile? It was the cop’s hand that I needed to watch. That was what was happening in the important timeline. The fist was telling me to roll down the window, but I kept hearing that word. That word wasn’t me.

The cop tried another word that meant the same thing, but for an older version of someone that wasn’t me. It sent me down another timeline.

The person who found me kept saying that word, shaking me, trying to see if I was still alive. I had my long dark hair in a ponytail, like my legal namesake from that movie. It was the wrong name. It wasn’t mine.

“Wrong timeline,” I thought. I forced myself to pay attention to the cop’s fist, but struggled to remember which set of images was the present.

You were shaking my shoulder, frantically whispering “I mean this in the best possible way, but I really need you to pull your f****** s*** together right now and roll down the g****** window. Please, Sol. Stay with me. F******...”

I watched my hands raise in the air slowly and my mouth say loudly, “I’m going to get my keys, turn on the car, and roll down the window, officer!”

Finally, silence, as my body accomplished this in slow motion. I managed to roll the window down in time to catch the cop’s words.

“I thought you were about to run! What the h*** did you think you were doing? Are y’all drunk or smoking marijuana? Were you engaging in illicit sexual behavior? You’re not allowed to just sleep here! How much have y’all been drinking?”

When we could get a word in edgewise, we both insisted we hadn’t had a single drink. Just virgin drinks. We were both too tired. We didn’t mean to fall asleep.

“I need to see a license for both of you and a registration for this car. Is this your car?”

I was shocked. Why did she need to see your license? “Um, I’m sure you meant you only needed to see my license.”

“I know what I meant…”

That word again. A bright teal hair curler hit the bathroom floor about 20 years ago. I begged my brain to focus for just two more minutes.

“It’s okay,” you were saying, glaring at me as you handed her your license. I reached slowly for my wallet and followed suit. Then, I reached over to open the glove compartment.

“Wait. Do you have any weapons in there?”

“No.” What was happening?

“Open it very slowly for me.”

I grabbed the registration carefully and handed it to her. You were trying to hide it, but you were hyperventilating, too.

“Neither of you look like your pictures. Are these fake IDs? What are your names and addresses?”

Of course we didn’t look like our pictures. Hormones had rendered both of us unrecognizably different. We both said names that we would never have wanted each other to know. We each recited our addresses twice and answered what color our eyes were listed as, before getting our licenses back.

As I said each word, I pushed my feet hard into the ground, trying to force myself back into my body so I could function and remember where I lived in the present tense. Now wasn’t a good time to disassociate to escape the flashback. I curled and straightened my toes, counting to 7, trying to keep up with each number in my head, while listening to voices in the past and present that seemed to agree that I’d f***** something important up.

“I’m going to write you a parking ticket. You’re lucky I don’t make you both take a drug test, sleeping in the car like that. Go to a homeless shelter next time or get a room. I don’t have time for this s***.”

We sat in silence for a minute after the cop left.

Then, you turned to me and said, “Well, that went surprisingly well, thanks to you being the whitest m*****f***** I’ve ever met. What the h*** were you doing? Were you trying to get me killed?”

“Wait. You thought that went well?” I knew as soon as I said it that I had said the wrong thing. Your eyes had a very long talk with me. They showed me what would have happened if my white a** hadn’t been there, as incompetent as I was during the flashback. I could hear your voice in that glare. “Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry, Celeste.”

You rested your head against the seat and closed your eyes. You were still breathing hard. “Well, otherwise it was an amazing night. I guess I’ll still give you my number. Just don’t ever f****** scare me like that again.”

As I pulled over to decompress after dropping you off, I felt the buzzing in my coat. Ohh, f***. My fiancé was going to kill me.

I pulled over and checked my phone.

79 messages.

Whew! Just a group chat. Rose wasn’t home yet either. She had been telling select members of the polycule, along with a few friends, about her hot date. I would read this later, slowly, if the new messages stopped coming for long enough for me to see the beginning.

As I tried to check the private message from my fiancé, another message popped onto my phone screen:

Jay: Rose, you get laid more often than I do, and I’m a porn star! This isn’t fair!

Rose: Just because you sell your body doesn’t mean you’re going to get laid. Marketing is 90% of that job! You know that.

Finally, I saw the private message.

Rose: Can I get you some coffee on my way home? Mike’s place is on the way!

I texted back, “Yes please!”

Coffee would be a good precursor to telling my fiancé about the beautiful enby I had just accidentally slept with, having agreed to never to have sex.

I also wanted to hear all about her hot date. What I was catching from the continuous texts lighting up my screen suggested that her night had been at least as exciting as mine.

Another message popped up.

Celeste: Last night was fun. Want to hang out next weekend? Let’s try harder not to get arrested.

I grinned as I responded. Neither of us could have known that would be impossible for a very long time.

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