“Fine.”
“Who invited Robbie?”
Clarisse grinned. “Jane is bringing Weston, and Weston invited Robbie. Jane and I set it up. We just have to make sure I’m sitting next to Robbie.”
“I’m sure we can manage that task.”
Clarisse’s groan was primal and spoke of endless yearning. “Ithasto be this year, Donnie.”
Adonis took her arm. “You know, it’s okay if he doesn’t like you.”
“Absolutely unacceptable.”
Adonis laughed and squeezed his best friend’s arm. “You’re hopeless.”
“You love me.”
“I do. Let’s hurry, or we’ll be late.”
In the 1980s, Weiss’s Drugstore on Main Street in New Liverpool, Massachusetts, closed. It sat vacant for fourteen years. Shingles fell in, and graffiti went up on the windows. In 2000, new owners bought it and turned it into a bar. They kept the name and the old tiled sign above the door. The pharmacy counter became the bar. Classic diner-style booths lined the walls. There was an old pinball machine in a corner and a jukebox with real records. It was cool, and everyone loved it, and twenty-five years later, it was still the same.
Adonis and Clarisse joined their friends at a booth in the corner after ordering their drinks. A glass of the house white for Clarisse and a gin and tonic for Adonis. He would switch to sparkling water after two G&Ts. That was his routine.
“You must help us solve a debate,” Jane said as soon as Adonis and Clarisse were situated. She was a junior on the figure skating team. She skated pairs with Hugo, who sat next to her now. They never seemed to get tired of each other.
“What’s the debate?” Clarisse asked.
“Is it weird to want to be choked during sex?” Jane said.
Adonis firehosed gin and tonic through his nostrils.
Jane slid him a napkin without blinking and kept talking. “I think it’s weird. Hugo says it’s fun.”
“I’m dying,” Adonis gasped. “My god. My nose.”
“You’re being so dramatic,” Jane said. “What do you think? Choking? Yes or no?”
“It burns,” Adonis wheezed. “Holy shit.”
“Try blowing your nose,” Hugo said.
“I’ve never been choked during sex,” Clarisse said. “So, no opinion. But I don’t think we should say it’s weird. Isn’t that kink-shaming?”
Adonis honked his nose into a napkin.
“I guess it could be,” Jane said, ignoring the tears streaming down Adonis’s face. She twirled a lock of red hair. “Donnie, have you been choked during sex?”
Adonis’s preferred level of submission was“pebble being thrown around on a trampoline,” but he could hardly articulate that with the burn in his sinuses.
“Breathe, honey,” Clarisse said.
Finally, Adonis managed to say, “Why do you think it’s weird?”
Jane pursed her lips. “It feels regressive. Like giving up agency, or like we’re backtracking on sexual equality.”
“All that tells me,” Adonis countered, “is that you’re not submissive.”
On a prefab stage, Ms. Jizzle, a local drag queen with a pink bouffant and a statement power suit, shuffled her cards for trivia and announced into her microphone that they were starting in five minutes, honeys.
