Girls Night Out

Staking out Eddie's apartment wasn't what I had in mind when Carla called and informed me that we were going out. Somehow I had pictured myself sipping a Midori Sour while chatting with the hottest guy in the room. It hadn't included sitting outside in the cold, watching a run down building for Carla's erstwhile boyfriend of six months.

"I don't believe this," Carla said as she put down her binoculars. "He's having a bloody party. I can see the lights and people in his apartment. The wanker."

Carla's been watching EastEnders a lot lately.

I reached into the Seven-Eleven bag and took out the Doritos. "Tell me again why we're sitting outside of your boyfriend's apartment in your mother's car?"

Carla sent me an impatient look. "He said he was working late again. Liar. He's cheating on me, I just know it."

"The binoculars are a nice touch," I offered and bit into a chip. "How long are we going to sit here and spy?"

"You got a hot date or something?"

"No. But I got a lot of hope."

We sat for another hour, eating chips and drinking those new fruity iced vodkas that came in a six-pack. I drank most of them, mainly because I was bored and Carla wouldn't give me the binoculars. Carla didn't say much after she slapped my hand off the radio dial and I was working up the courage to suggest a refill trip to Seven-Eleven. I was craving a bean burrito.

"There he is," Carla suddenly said.

Eddie's silver Honda slid into a space just a few doors down from the apartment building. Slimeball or not, he had great parking karma.

"Guess he really was working late," I said as he climbed out of the driver's side and reached over the seat for a briefcase.

Carla still had the binoculars trained on him and gave an odd little hiccup as the passenger door opened and someone stepped out.

"Oh my God," she said and handed me the binoculars. "Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod."

Trying to focus my eyes after four iced vodkas, I peered across the street through the binoculars. Most of what I saw was my own eyelashes, which stuck straight into the lenses in full mascara glory. The person with Eddie was most certainly a woman, judging from the way her breasts hung over the impossibly tiny metal and mesh bikini. Why anyone would wear that in the middle of winter was beyond me. And she was green from head to toe. I blinked several times to clear my vision, thinking it was just a trick of the streetlights. But she remained green.

Eddie, on the other hand, was wearing a vaguely familiar yellow and black outfit that hugged his slope shouldered body in the weirdest places.

"What the heck is Eddie wearing?" I asked Carla, who had pulled a wad of napkins out of the plastic bag and was blowing her nose.

"He's Captain bloody Kirk," she sniffed. "It's his favorite outfit. But he promised he only wears it for me!"

I delicately decided not to ask more questions.

"I can't believe him. Cheating on me with that fat, green chick."

Aha. At least I knew she really was green.

"Do you think she's pretty?" Carla asked and unwound another napkin from the wad. "Prettier than me?"

"I think she's green. How could a green chick be prettier than you?"

"Yeah," she said with another sniff. "Fat and green. I look so much better in that outfit."

Someone in heaven better be giving me brownie points for not asking questions.

Eddie and the green chick in the metal bikini were in the building by now and when we rolled down the windows, you could hear the faint thump of music from inside the apartment.

"Right," Carla said, taking the keys from the ignition and pulling her stun gun from her purse. "We're going in."

"I'm not sure this is a good idea," I said.

"Fine. Stay here and wait. If you hear any screaming, that's because of the stun gun."

I climbed out of the car after her. The thump of speakers grew as we pushed open the glass door to the building. There was one old lady standing on the second floor landing, grumbling angrily at the ceiling. She took a look at us and shook her fist, then slammed into her apartment.

Eddie's apartment was on the third floor toward the back. There was a lot of laughter and the sound of beer bottles clinking together. About a dozen people were standing outside of the apartment door, in intense discussions about things like wormholes and propulsion. We made our way into the apartment, unnoticed for the most part by the 20 or so people gathered in small clumps around the room. Most of them were dressed the same way, in those odd body hugging, shiny imitation rayon jumpsuits, except some were yellow and black, or red and black, or black and blue. A couple had metal slashes across their chests. A few others had a variety of ridges and bumps on their foreheads and noses. One wore a chain from her nose to her ear. There was a skinny guy with wild hair, a bumpy forehead, and platform boots waiving a plastic club and sometimes yelling, "Krahk, plahk, bagahgk!" The people around him hooted and cheered every time he did it.

We were approached by a woman dressed opulently in gold and cream robes. She welcomed us in the name of the Prophets and gestured serenely toward the table full of cheese doodles and crab cakes. Her serenity was punctured as a large animal bounded up to her and stuck its nose into her rear.

"Get off, Bob!" she said and swatted the creature. It was either a large dog or a small horse but it was hard to tell because it too was wearing one of those shiny suits.

Carla and I drifted toward the buffet table and I grabbed a beer. Carla was craning her neck and peering through the crowd, presumably searching for Eddie in the sea of shiny yellow suits. There was obviously more than one Captain Kirk in this party.

I picked up a crab cake and gave it a suspicious sniff.

"Those are really good," a voice beside me said.

I turned to look at a short guy wearing a blue gown of some sort. His face and hands were painted the same shade of blue, as was his hair and the headband on his head that sported two jiggling blue antennae. There was another creature beside him of indeterminate sex. It had a metal helmet with a mesh opening at the center, presumably for breathing, and stiff shoulder pads that stuck out about three feet on either side. Whoever was in that outfit couldn't seem to move its neck much because it kept turning its entire body left and right to avoid being jostled by the other party goers.

"I'm Richie the Andorrian," The blue guy said. "This is Frank."

"What is Frank supposed to be?"

"He's from Babylon Five, even though we told him Star Trek only. But he's been working on this costume for months so I guess he just had to show it off."

"Raaaa wheee noough ahhhhh..." Frank said through the mask.

Carla was giving Frank the once over. "You've got to be boiling in that suit."

"Raaa ahhhh weee," Frank agreed.

Carla shrugged and turned back to searching for Eddie.

"So," Richie the Andorrian said, sidling closer to me and giving my black leather pants and high heels the once over. "You're out of theme too...are you Witchblade or Anime?"

Carla cast a glance over her shoulder as I struggled for a sensible response. "I am Domi Natrix of the Planet Dairy Queen. She's just called The Whip."

My heart sank as a gleam of interest shone in short blue guy's eyes. "The Whip, eh? Very sexy. Want to tell me the story behind that?"

"Not really."

"There he is," Carla said, tugging on my sleeve and pointing into the crowd. "That slime ball is dirty dancing with fat, green chick."

Richie followed our line of vision and began to look suspicious. "Eddie's throwing the party. That's his girlfriend."

"I'm his girlfriend," Carla snarled and unhooked her stun gun from her belt. "Move over."

"Where are you going?" Richie asked.

"I'm going to kill Captain Kirk."

Unfortunately she said it loud enough to alert some of the partygoers close to the table. A general cry of "RED ALERT! RED ALERT!" sounded throughout the immediate vicinity and a couple of enterprising young men tried to get in Carla's way, but she was determined and quicker then they were. Eddie had gotten a glimpse of Carla and her stun gun and jumped about a mile away from fat, green chick and began backing up toward his bedroom.

Enraged, Carla jumped up on the couch's arm rest and began running toward Eddie at full speed, alternating her steps between the back of the couch and the napes of the unfortunate people who were sitting on the couch. She had used Frank as leverage to get on the couch and with a mighty thud, Frank toppled backward onto the floor.

I was still holding the crab cake and my mouth was hanging open in shock when Richie got that leery look on his face and with what he presumed was a great pick-up voice said, "Wanna wrestle?" And then jumped on me.

I landed backwards on the buffet table, which groaned under our combined weight and crashed to the floor. People were now shrieking and running around in circles and I tried to grab some air and push stupid, blue guy off me. I could feel the crab cakes squishing into my hair and clothes. Blue guy was laughing and pretend fighting with me. So I did what any woman worth her salt does when a blue guy has just slammed her into a buffet table.

I got on top.

It wasn't easy to roll Richie over because he had about fifty pounds on me and was wily enough to know what I was trying to do. But a threatening knee distracted him long enough so I could give a mighty push and throw him onto his back. Richie was giving me a wink and a smirk, so I tucked my fingers into a fist the way my brothers taught me, drew my arm back over my head and threw my weight into a sucker punch right into his nose.

Richie's arms flew open like a ballerina as he passed out and I left him there, spread-eagle on the crab cakes. I grabbed a few napkins as I got up and swiped at the mess in my hair. It would cost a fortune to get my leather pants cleaned and at least twenty showers to get the gunk out of my hair. It took everything I had to not kick the unconscious Richie one more time. It's a good thing, too, because that's when the cops got there.

Frank was still flailing on the ground as various partygoers ran over him on their way out the door. Carla was tearing the hair out of fat, green chick and yelling at Eddie to intervene if he dared. The cops had this sort of glazed look to them as aliens and Starfleet officers ran past them in frenzy. I wasn't quite sure why they were screaming, because the cops weren't chasing them or trying to arrest them. Maybe it was part of the fun.

"We got a report about a noisy party," said the older, beefier cop. The younger one was struggling to pull Frank off the floor.

"This is it." I said and grabbed a couple more napkins. The younger cop was kind of cute now that he had joined the older one in staring at me.

"What happened to him?" Cute cop said and jerked a thumb at Richie.

"He tried to play Tarzan and Jane with me. I don't like that game."

"Cripes, Jim," The older cop said as he bent over Richie and turned him on his side. "She broke his nose."

Officer Jim grinned at me and I renewed my efforts to get the crab cakes out of my hair. "You're just getting it in deeper." He nodded as four more cops picked their way through the room and headed for Eddie and Carla.

"YOU LYING CHEATING SCUM BAG!" Carla screamed from across the room.

Fat, green chick was sitting on the dance floor, crying and holding her head. Carla was now holding onto Eddie's arm and shaking it. Eddie was slumped against the wall, drooling with his eyes rolled up. She must have hit him with the stun gun.

Officer Jim put a hand on my elbow and escorted me gently toward the fracas. "Someone want to tell us what's going on?"

Carla, in incensed italics that ricocheted around the room, informed the officers that Eddie was a cheating, lying wanker who had bad taste in green women. Most of the officers were trying not to smile as she proclaimed herself Domi Natrix of the Planet Dairy Queen and jumped when she pressed the stun gun on Eddie's arm and gave him another zap. Eddie barely moved.

"You can't keep doing that to him, ma'am," One officer said, pulling her arm away from Eddie.

"Fine!" Carla turned and zapped the green chick.

The officers wrestled the stun gun away and tried to revive Eddie. The green chick was given a coat and led outside to give a report to one of the officers. Officer Jim's partner was still dabbing a napkin on Richie's nose as he came around.

"No charges," Eddie said vaguely. "Don't arrest her. She's my girlfriend." To which Carla promptly burst into tears and threw her arms around him.

I caught Officer Jim's glance and rolled my eyes.

"So if she's the woman scorned, who are you?" He asked.

"She's The Whip," Richie said, looking even more impressed with me despite the blood dripping down his nose and the dazed expression in his eyes. "I think I love you. Will you marry me?"

I curled my lips in distaste and looked beseechingly at Officer Jim. "I need a police escort home."

Officer Jim's partner grinned and threw him the keys to the car. "Put a towel on the seat before you get on it, okay?"

As I grabbed a sheet out of a hallway closet and followed Officer Jim out the door, I wondered if it was against police protocol to invite him in for a drink.

The End

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