I’d been straddled.

For a moderate-sized girl there should have been less weight crushing down on me but for some reason she felt heavy. I couldn’t blame it on something secondary like excess clothing, because there wasn’t much she was wearing at the moment. She swayed from side to side while trying to keep her balance, using her thighs to anchor herself to my body. She’d been drinking the wine with more speed and efficiency than I and was feeling the effects whenever she swayed. I cupped my hands around her waist and ran my fingers across her silky skin while trying to help her with her balance issues.

“Nuh uh, no touching. That’s part of the rules,” she said as she slapped the backside of my hands away from her body. I retreated, all in the name of fun and games, and she continued to rhythmically grind her pelvis into various parts of my body while she groped my chest and ran a hand through her hair with her free hand. This went on for another few minutes until whatever Keith Sweat album she had playing in the CD player came to an end.

Normally this would be some sort of a seduction, a great lead-in to sex on the couch, the kitchen table, the counter, and any other relatively clutter-free surface, but that had already taken place on our last date. Still, for some reason she thought it was still part of the routine this early into whatever type of relationship you wanted to term this thing.

[…]

Remember what I said previously about how being a best man was a thankless take-one-for-the-team act of charity? I was wrong, very wrong. It might be one of the best things a guy can do for his fellow chum. And the perks…I’m getting ahead of mysef. Let me explain.

The phone rang far too early, during the fleeting moments when the body knows it will soon be roused and yet manages somehow to get its best sleep. Those moments when REM cycles flash at a feverish pitch and the mind concocts visions both real and make believe. It was early enough that it was still dark outside, but presumably late enough for my phone to be ringing. I let it go a few times before reaching an arm out from under the covers to retrieve it.

“Mmm mmm,” I mumbled.

“We have a problem,” said a nervous voice on the other end. It was Vanessa, the bride-to-be who was getting married in only a matter of hours.

I shot up in my bed half expecting to find lying next to me one of Vanessa’s bridesmaids or a visiting relative from Australia who I’d scurried off to my room during the alcohol-filed haze of the previous night. Seeing nobody, I felt around the blankets and bedspreads to confirm the visual before responding. […]

It’s hard to say who saw the other first. Amidst the partially cloudy room crowded with pockets of people talking in loud and boisterous voices, it’s a wonder the connection was made at all. Some called her blondie because of her goldilocks-like cascading curls, but the pink cowboy hat atop those locks earned her the nickname by which she was referred for most of the evening: Cowgirl.

After sharing numerous glances from across the room, Cowgirl decided to make her move. Perhaps she wasn’t entirely grossed out by the way my eyes tirelessly poured over her body, sizing her up for the vixen I’d made her out to me in my mind. She calmly pushed a few in her path out of the way as she slinked towards my side of the room where I relaxed on a couch next to some random guy whose girl was perched on the couch’s arm as she balanced her weight delicately on his shoulder while whispering lewd comments in his ear, comments just loud enough for me to hear. Every so often she would pull back from the hand she had cupped over his ear and gauge me for a reaction. I smiled as fake a smile as I could muster. […]