Slutty Witch
After Zac spent the night, nothing at all changed between us.
I expected it to, or at least hoped for it to, and maybe it would have if I had been brave enough to ask him what it all meant. There were so many questions I had for him, and none I was brave enough to ask.
Why had he suddenly shown interest in me, if he swore it had nothing to do with my tight dress and heavy makeup? It had surely been the reason he noticed me and thought of me sexually, even if he did seemingly still want me when I wasn’t dressed like a Bella clone.
Were we dating? I didn’t think we were dating; surely Zac would have felt the need to mention that or at least act differently around me. But he didn’t. Nothing changed. This was a bigger deal than losing my virginity to Taylor, and yet Zac acted like nothing at all had even happened.
Were we fuck buddies now, like Taylor and I had been? Had Taylor and I even stopped? Sure, we hadn’t had sex again since what happened with Zac, but there had been no official breakup or anything. I still hadn’t even confirmed his suspicions about myself and Zac—mostly because I didn’t even understand what happened.
It all just left my head spinning and I had no idea how to begin to sort it all out.
Halloween came so quickly that I didn’t have time to buy a better costume than the one I’d bought as part of my stupid plan to seduce Zac. Okay, so I made a pretty good “slutty witch,” but it wasn’t how I wanted to be seen. Even if my makeover for his birthday had worked, it made me feel horrible. Zac could assure me constantly that he hadn’t just wanted me because I looked like a total whore, but I didn’t quite buy it.
Yet here I was, walking into the Halloween party at Taylor’s apartment, wearing the shortest, tightest Hogwarts uniform known to man.
I tugged, rather pointlessly, on my tiny skirt as I walked around the party, trying to spot someone, anyone I knew. At the same time, I kind of hoped I didn’t see any of my friends when I was dressed like this. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to see Zac, and I definitely had no desire to cross paths with Taylor—something which was pretty much given considering that he was hosting the party.
Whatever the night brought, I was sure it required alcohol, and so I squeezed through the crowd toward the kitchen, finally making my way to the makeshift bar on the island. Standing in front of it was a figure I almost didn’t recognize at first. Finally, I realized it was one of my roommates. Peyton had fluffed up her hair to a curly, frizzy height I’d never seen before; a long scarf tied in it matched the general haphazard hippie look of the rest of her costume.
“When you said Harry Potter, that was not what I had in mind,” she said, eyeing my outfit critically. It dawned on me that she was supposed to be Professor Trelawney; it was actually a pretty good costume and definitely more faithful to the books than mine.
I tugged on the skirt again, trying to will it into a more modest length that my feminist roommate would stop snarling at. I was utterly unsuccessful. “Yeah, well, it isn’t exactly my dream costume, either.”
She crossed her arms, snarl still firmly planted on her face. “Yet you’re wearing it.”
“And I’m already regretting it, trust me,” I replied, then grabbed a bottle of vodka and poured myself a very strong drink. Before taking a big swig, I added, “I need to be far less sober to be okay with this costume. It was a mistake to buy it, and getting drunk in it is probably going to be another mistake, but since I’ve made it this far… why not go all out?”
Peyton just shook her head. “I don’t get you. I really just don’t get you.”
“I don’t get me anymore either,” I mumbled into my cup.
If I had actually told Peyton what happened with Zac, maybe I would have been able to explain the slutty costume thing. But I hadn’t told anyone about what happened with Zac—not what happened on his birthday or what happened a few days later. Why I felt like that needed to stay a secret when it was arguably far less embarrassing than what I’d done with Taylor… well, I really couldn’t explain it. I just knew that I didn’t want anyone to know, at least not yet. Not until I knew what the hell was going on. It was bad enough that Taylor already suspected, but until I knew what the hell was going on with Zac and I, then our sexual encounters needed to be a secret.
It wasn’t that I was embarrassed, really. But I felt like an idiot. For all I knew, Zac had used me for sex even more than Taylor had… or more than I had used Taylor. To be honest, I didn’t know how either of them felt about me or why either of them wanted me, but somehow Zac’s intentions seemed worse than Taylor’s, if only because he hadn’t made any attempt to explain them to me. Taylor may not have seemed sincere—ever—but at least he was able to talk to me about what we had done and not act like it meant any more or any less than it really did.
Arguing with Peyton about my costume, when I knew I didn’t have a leg to stand on and truthfully didn’t even want to be defending it or even wearing it, only made me want to drink even more. If I was drunk, I wouldn’t care about how ridiculous I looked and how ridiculous I felt for thinking I needed to dress all slutty to make Zac like me. I was determined to ignore the fact that it had worked. He could say that wasn’t the reason he’d suddenly seen me as something sexual, but there was a part of me that didn’t quite believe him. What else had changed? And what did it say about me—or about Zac–that I had to pretend to be someone else to make him want me?
The more I thought about all of that, the more I drank. When my cup came close to running empty, I filled it right back up again, still doing my best to ignore Peyton’s judgmental stares. I almost succeeded at that, but I definitely succeeded at getting shitfaced.
Everything turned into a big blur as I wandered around the party, a drink constantly in my hand. With all that alcohol in my system, I didn’t feel so bad about my costume, nor did I mind that I hadn’t seen Zac at all that night. I could be friendly and happy and talk to whoever I ended up next to in the packed apartment, without a single worry on my mind.
Okay, that was a lie.
Zac was always at the back of my mind, my senses on high alert, even with the alcohol to dull them, in hopes of seeing his costume. It wasn’t a terribly creative one, but I knew me. The second he came into view, my eyes would be drawn to him.
By my fourth or fifth bathroom break of the night, I still hadn’t spotted him. Then, just as I stepped out of the bathroom, smoothing down my costume and trying to stay upright in my high heels—which was becoming more and more difficult with each drink—I saw him. The big, black shroud and melted-looking mask weren’t distinctive or unique, but the person wearing them paused on the spot and looked back at me. At least, I was pretty sure he did. It was, after all, hard to tell when I couldn’t really see his face.
Immediately forgetting the shame I’d felt for wearing this slutty costume, I put an extra sashay in my hips and walked straight toward him. If this was what I had to do to get him, then so be it. Right then, in my drunken state, I didn’t really care.
At least it worked, judging by the arm he extended as soon as I was within reach. His hand latched onto my waist and pulled me tightly against his chest. My heart was already pounding, and I wondered if he could hear it. With his other hand, he pulled his mask up just enough to reveal his lips. In my high heels, I barely even had to stand on my tiptoes to kiss him. His lips were ridiculously soft and tasted like rum, and I absolutely reveled in the taste and feel.
“Zac,” I said breathlessly as I reluctantly pulled away from the kiss. We were, after all, standing in the middle of a party in his brother’s apartment. “Are you sure this is exactly the right place for us to be doing this? I mean, not that I’m ashamed or anything, and not like we haven’t done anything worse…”
I trailed off, because I wasn’t sure what sort of argument I was making or why I was making it. He still wanted me! Shouldn’t I just be happy and enjoy that fact?
“Maybe we should at least… not do this right in the hallway?” I suggested, the words trailing off into a pathetic squeak.
Zac smirked, then cocked his head toward Taylor’s bedroom. That was a bad idea for different reasons, but it wouldn’t be the first time we’d done something we shouldn’t have done on Taylor’s bed. So why not? What was the point of fighting him or trying to act like I was too good to do things I’d already done? After a moment to consider, I gave him a shrug, then giggled as he took my hand and practically drug me into the bedroom.
The door had barely slammed behind us before I was slammed up against the door. This wasn’t like Zac at all, but he was clearly drunk, too. Alcohol clearly made him behave differently, if our last encounter in Taylor’s bed was anything to judge by. And did I really know what he was like in bed, anyway? Sure, we’d had sex twice, but both times were different from each other and different from this passionate version of him, too.
Not that I was complaining at all. Not even a little tiny bit.
I pouted when Zac pulled away from the kiss, but I quickly realized he had only done so to pull me back toward the bed. He practically tossed me onto it, and my head spun for a moment. Maybe I’d had too much to drink, I thought. That was certainly a possibility, but it was too late to worry about. All there was to think about right then was the boy climbing onto the bed on top of me.
His hands danced up and down my sides, bunching up my costume. I thought it was kind of funny that through all of this we were still both in costume. Especially Zac. There was something really surreal about making out with someone dressed as a fictional serial killer. The Scream movies were terrible! I couldn’t take his costume seriously at all, and that made it pretty hard to be turned on right then, even if I was with Zac, the guy I’d wanted approximately forever. I decided it was time to fix that, and so I reached up and shoved his mask the rest of the way off.
And discovered that I wasn’t in bed with Zac at all.