The 'man date' started, as many of those hot Thai nights did, or seemed to, with drinks around the pool. The pool seemed to be the staging area of most hostels for those who had their sights set on cutting loose, and the boys and Charlie rarely failed to make an appearance at their one. It wasn't long before cocktails and backflips evolved into stupid, mindless drinking games, followed by many pointless and disgusting dares.
In the midst of all the drunken, testosterone-fuelled carnage, Kamilla appeared. From whence Charlie knew not. How she found out what hostel they were staying at was a mystery. All Charlie knew was that before he had a chance to prepare himself mentally––to erect some sort of Lily-centred defence against Kamilla's (now) undesirable wanton advances––she was in the group's midst and, what was more, up to the eyebrows with tequila.
She was wearing an outfit mostly comprised of paint. There may have been a few scraps of cloth hiding her more private bits and pieces, but Charlie was pretty bent––verging on crooked––and he wouldn't want to swear to it. He was made aware of her presence only when, as he was standing on a large boulder and regaling a few of the lads with a particularly droll and witty anecdote about something or other, Kamilla slipped a hand straight up his shorts and slathered his cock in paint, turning it into a luminous sea cucumber.
Charlie jumped down from the boulder like a startled mountain goat, to the accompaniment of hoots from the onlookers.
Kamilla gave him a sly look, which suddenly seemed more like a smirk than anything else. This puzzled Charlie. There was a moment of disorientation as his clouded mind formed a picture comprised of the sound of the ocean and the smell of sunscreen and salt, sunlight glinting off honey-coloured hair and the touch of skin on skin. It was a wholesome image, in stark juxtaposition to the sexy Nordic entity standing before him like some sort of fluorescent siren. Kamilla presented such a seductive image he could practically smell the sex radiating from her crotch.
Holding Lily in his mind like a mental crucifix against the darkness, Charlie slipped from Kamilla's warm grasp and went in search of another drink and maybe a cheeky line of something or other. He found Dang and Will in their room, bending over a small bathroom mirror they had laid out on one of the beds.
"'Ello, 'ello, 'ello!" Charlie said, giving them the traditional copper's greeting. "What 'ave we 'ere?"
Will looked up. What with the unforgiving lighting supplied by the naked, hanging bulbs, coupled with the fact that they were all rather dishevelled these days, Will looked more like something that'd been buried for a month and then dug up than his usual self. Charlie suspected it had something to do with the waxy, yellow-white rails of powder that were laid out on the mirror's surface.
"Charlie!" the American said.
"Hello!" he replied.
"Charlie Green!"
"The man himself," Charlie agreed.
"Come and have a line of this," Dang suggested.
"What is it?"
"Well, we're not entirely sure, bro," said Dang. "It could be––nah––there's no point in speculating. It's either something, or something else."
Charlie conceded that his logic was irrefutable.
"Keen, Charlie, man?" Will leered.
Charlie trifled with the idea that if he got too messed up he ran the risk of doing something stupid, something that'd snuff out the memory of Lily that he'd been carrying around like a little glowing lantern inside of his chest since that afternoon.
YOU ARE READING
Sex, Drugs & No Idea
ChickLitUnexpected threesomes. Fighting midgets. Wrecking bathrooms. It isn't our grief that sets us apart, it is the manner in which we deal with it. Charlie Green is a mess. After surviving an accident that claimed the life of his partner and being sacked...
