Twin Daddies for my Twin Babies

Chapter 11

No-one can see the dance floor, it's wall to wall people dancing to the club music. There's no room for any more but somehow when Pearl and I hit it the space magically comes. The music is all nineteen nineties but we're dancing like it's jive, twisting, turning, holding hands as we change sides. We're all grins, we look like idiots and we don't care. Inside we're just happy, happy and more alive than we can ever be in life again. I feel the part of me that's really me come out to play, to feel the vibe of the music and let my body go free. One moment, one brilliant feeling of togetherness suspended in time. In ten years I'll still remember tonight, I love the quiet life but I relish the crazy fun times. Music, friends, good times, dance. Then I can focus in work, learn the facts, be the good girl. Can I help it of my soul loves a kickin' beat?

I'm clubbing like this is my last night on Earth, but I think that's just the way my mind avoids thinking about the hangover to come. The music moves me like I'm a puppet on strings, my head mashing so hard my brain is in shut down mode. There's so much sweat on my skin and not all of it's mine. The strobe masks so many of my movements, every clap of my hands like it's on pause at different moments. Tomorrow they'll be hell to pay but tonight the alcohol keeps on flowing in like it's on IV drip.

You know the pubs are out when the streets are full of folks who walk as if the ground is the deck of a storm-tossed boat. Each foot comes to the sidewalk as if the collision of shoe and concrete wasn't entirely anticipated and the person lurches, stumbles. The sober ones stride like the only adults in a party of infants, shepherding them to a car ride home.

The club is electric tonight, everyone feeding off of the smiles and fast dancing. I could go like this all night long, feet moving to the crazy beat like they belong to the music. I move in my dress like my hips were made to sway, the sequins catching the disco ball light that twirls above - launching an every shade of the rainbow into the darkness.

The harsh scent of drink can be smelt of my person. I know it, and so does everyone one else. They can see me struggling to keep my balance, and I know I’m struggling to keep it. It’s like some sort of outer body experience. My legs don’t work as I tell them. Neither do my hands. Or my fingers. Somewhere, deep inside I know my brain is sending signals telling me what to do. Whether or not my body is listening is a different story. I can feel it moving. It can feel it doing what it wants. Can I stop it? We all know the answer to that. It’s doing as it pleases.

I try to walk down the street, but my legs are telling me otherwise. They are swaying – left and right. No matter how many steps I take, I’m no closer to where I want to be. Then all goes dark. Suddenly, I’m home. I’ve no idea how I got there, but somehow I’m there.

Pearl is looking at me with wary eyes and I look at her,” What time is it?”

“Well it is about three in the morning…we did a lot of drinking sweetheart. How are feeling?” she asked me and she knew exactly how I was feeling. Like I had been rammed over by a truck and my body was not mine any longer and I felt sick to the core.

“Please tell me that I am insane the next time I am thinking of doing something like this,” I groaned and Pearl laughed out loud. Even her laughter sounded too much to me. My head was throbbing but strangely I did not have the urge to throw up. Maybe all that dancing had taken off the edge of alcohol.

“Well the night is not over yet and since you promised me that you would indulge me and do whatever I ask you to do tonight,” said Pearl and I looked at her squinting my eyes.

“We have been moving like idiots all over town, catcalling construction workers, and that too when I was sober. You forced me to wear a dress which I would never wear in normal sense that too silver and with sequins and now you are telling me that there is more left? After drinking like a sailor?” I asked her. I mean, despite everything that I had done today I knew that I was going to regret this later on…

“Yes….the night is young and the worst part is, you are hung-over and I am sober, that never happens…” said Pearl with an odd expression.

“So what do you want to do now? Go out again and then get drunk? Call a cab, then…I am not in a state to take you…anywhere,” I said and even though I knew that my words were nor slurred my head was swimming and my vision would also swim the moment I tried getting up.

“I am not getting drunk. I promised that I am going to stay sober and I am but that does not mean that we can stop doing fun things…and I have a plan…you might not wanna roll with it but that gives me free rein to do anything at all,” said Pearl with a mischievous smile on her face and then shot up like a cannon and then went to the drawing room. And she came back with my laptop.

“Please tell me that you are not going to do something which I might regret later on,” I pleaded with her in the best voice I could because exhaustion and sleep was overtaking me. I did not know if I could keep my eyes open any longer.

I had not gone to dancing or clubbing or drank this much whiskey and vodka at the same time. My legs and all the muscles were protesting madly but this was only the beginning. I knew for sure that I was gonna regret this entire day tomorrow.

“What are you exactly doing?” I slurred as I was almost asleep.

“You don’t need to worry about that…sleep now, sweetie,” said Pearl as she gave me one of her sweetest smiles. I smiled back and then started snoring. And by that I mean literally I could hear myself snoring. I knew that she was doing something that I might absolutely regret but at that moment I did not have the energy to tell her anything at all.

All day long I've been sitting at this desk, paper work piling higher and higher. Save the trees, huh? I don't think the managers here have ever heard of that. The clock ticks on the wall and I swear it's slowing down. Sitting here alone makes me flatter than a week old glass of coke. Every time I don't have to think about the task at hand I'm already dancing, dancing in the club to music so loud it makes me deaf. I won't be alone either, the whole gang is coming. With that music, that beat, those crazy, crazy lights I know I'm alive, I'm real, and reality is awesome. By the end of the night I'm quite drunk, I should cut back but who's counting? We leave arm in arm, wobbling down the lamp-lit alley to hail a cab. The next day I check out the photos and laugh my ass off. Those girls are so precious. They get me through. I love'em.

But wait….I was at my wedding…only when I was walking down the aisle in my own dress, the beautiful one with sweetheart neckline and which hugged my curves perfectly and making me feel like a princess, I did not hear the Wedding March play and everyone in the aisle looked at me like I was an interloper…what was happening…was I crashing at my own wedding?

I looked ahead and I knew that Dave would be standing there all handsome in his grey tuxedo with a white rose pinned to his lapel. He loved the dove grey colour and it looked perfect on him but he was not looking at me…he was looking at someone else in a veil. The priest was already reciting the vows and I could not even ask them to stop. This was my marriage…what is happening…and then he declared that he could kiss the bride and she took of the veil.

Before looking at Dave, the woman looked at me and smirked. Her lips were painted ruby red and her eyes were glowing with a viciousness which I had seen the day she had come in my house and had claimed my bedroom as hers.

It was Caroline.

I screamed at the sight before me.