Time: Friday Night
Place: Work Conference Welcoming Cocktail Party
Caravaning in three cars, we manage to get ourselves and all of our transportation-challenged colleagues out to the party venue with some room to spare. Mr. Boink Buddy rode with our boss, whether out of fear that I'd rip him a new asshole if he came within 2 feet of me or what, who knows.
As the Best Girlfriend & I have a reputation to maintain at these conferences, I was sporting the white pleather pants, studded belt, 4 inch stilettos, and enough cleavage in which I could feasibly lose at least a few dessert spoons.
Fine, a dessert spoon. It was enough.
A couple of female colleagues who were privvy to the potential drama would sidle up to me, asking who was who. Alas, Shithead was a no-show and Mr.BB left early, once again riding with our boss.
We eventually went back to the center (6 in the car and guess who got to sit on top of everybody and duck whenever we saw a cop?). At 1am Shithead sends me a weird text message saying he wasn't able to go to the party because certain things had happened that day. Things he had been waiting for for a long time. And he was sorry he didn't tell me he wasn't going to the party. And would I get pissed off if he said that he missed me.
I called him up and asked if he was stoned. He said he wasn't.
Time: Saturday Morning
Place: Work Conference
Once again wearing stilettos, tight jeans and make-up (if only to mask the fact that the past two nights were plagued by insomnia), we made our way to the conference. In a complete reversal of the previous evening, Shithead was there and Mr. BB was the no-show. I exchanged perfunctory greetings with Shithead and more effuse greetings with everyone else.
Buongiorno dah-ling. *smooch, smooch*
We sat in the front row and Shithead & his boss sat diagonally across the back from us. Or at least that's how we ended up, as originally we were sitting on the same side of the room as them. I'm rather surprised that my shirt doesn't have holes from where his eyes were boring into my back.
The lunch break finally rolls around and the entire conference gets down to the main task of the weekend: getting soused. Wine was being consumed hand over fist, much to my amusement. I refrained (for once), knowing that the night's final party would be a doozy and, with a severe lack of sleep in the past 48 hours, I'd probably pass out right then and there if I began imbibing at 2 in the afternoon.
(Despite all appearances to the contrary on this blog, my friends' & I's forays into alcoholism only begin after dark falls)
And blah blah blah network network network over lunch. As per usual I was mistaken at least three times for an Italian by the few people who didn't already know me, which always tickles me.
"You're American?! But you speak/look Italian!"
Apparently we Americans are not known for our outstanding secondary language skills, nor for snappy dressing.Heh.
Anyways, during the break you might say Shithead & I were warily circling each other. Or more appropriately put, Shithead was hovering; I was ignoring him. I eventually deigned to speak with him (Ok, ok: he cornered me.), which is where the afternoon's events took a distinct detour into the twilight Zone.
It started out innocuously enough, with petty banter about the conference and the people at said conference. Shithead made the universal gesture of "I need to whisper something in your ear" and I, thinking it was something about a fellow conference attendee, leaned in towards him.
Guardami.
Being thrown completely off balance, I did.
Pensi che può essere un futuro fra noi?
What the fuck? If I was off balance before, now I was in free fall. I believe the thought process went something like this:
Whaaaaa....?
When did the conversation go from 'trivial' to 'mindfuck'?
Good god, can we say 'sexual tension'? Anybody looking at us right would think that we're about to kiss.
That would be really bad.
The kiss wouldn't be bad, just the figura del cazzo that it looks like we're about to kiss.
He so wants to kiss me.
Holy fuck stop think about kissing.
Why?
Your boss, your ex-boss, his boss and various other Roma busybodies are wandering around.
Right. Kiss bad. Kiss bad. Kiss bad.
Chest a bit achy.
How long have I been holding my breath now?
EXHALE DAMMNIT!
Did he really just ask me that?
Ohmigod. Fairytale. Romance. Picket Fence. 2.5 babies. Half a cat.
*mental bitchslap*
*another one for good measure*
Hel-lo?! This is Enemy, Destroyer of Queens, Angel of Broken Hearts, Great Beast that is called Weasel, Prince of Thieving Bastards, Father of Liars, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Mindgames aka Shithead we're talking to right now.
Right.
...
He's got cute lips.
Fuck.
I grasped for some semi-coherent response. I think it was along the lines of "You're asking me this now, at a work conference?" but to be honest I was more concentrated on manoeuvring myself out of the sexually-tenser-than-a-tripwire tête-a-tête. I somehow managed to steer the conversation back to the previous evening's text messages (insert various other Side Issues Which I Will Not Be Going Into here) and when asked again, managed to put him off with a highly witty and verbally scathing
Vedremo.
*smacks self in forehead*
*repeatedly*
I sit down as we're approaching damn well near 8 cumulative hours in stilettos and he, predictably, follows me. And then proceeds to espouse on the future and how every time he thinks of the future, he thinks of me blah blah blah. I'm halfway listening to him, half shrugging him off when he tells me he loves me.
Here, fair readers, picture a stunned mullet.
My jaw was scraping the floor. Jesus Harold Christ on a fucking pogo stick, why not just ask me (again) to marry you while the whole conference looks on?
(Come to think of it, if I had said that out loud, I bet he would have done it.)
Thankfully, someone came up and interrupted us eventually and I scurried off for the second half of the conference day. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful except for one tiny little detail, courtesy of the Best Girlfriend.
As we had mistakenly thought the evening's party was in the center, she had loaned out her car for the evening, leaving us two and a passle of other colleagues shit out of luck for transportation to the party that night. Shithead came up to us to say is goodbyes and mentioned the party. BG, diavolessa that she is, mentions our transportation problems and says "Why don't you catch a ride with Shithead?"
I didn't know whether to smack her or smooch her.
Time: Saturday Night
Place: Work Conference Ending Party
Having not been impressed by the previous evening's noshing material, I agree to grab a bite to eat with Shithead before leaving for the party. It's a pleasant enough dinner, overall fairly innocent excepting a few times where he makes me blush by saying some bloody romantic turn of phrase out of the clear blue.
(If any of you know the secret of Not. Fucking. Blushing. please email me. Please.)
Upon leaving the restaurant, we discover a slight kink has entered our plans. Not that kind of kink, pervs; it was raining. Luckily I was wearing pleather pants again (the black ones, for that punk rock chic look). Cobblestones, rain and motorcycle is not a good combination. Ultimately we catch the metro across the city and pick up a taxi from there.
Slightly wet (from the rain, idjits) we arrive at the party, where the BG has saved us two seats at the table she's at (on the other end of the table she's at to be precise. I would happily kill her latest boyfriend and she's none too fond to Shithead either.) She catches my eye across the table and motions over her shoulder. I don't understand the pantomiming until she mouths the words "Mr. Boink Buddy is over there."
Oh dear. This is going to be fun.
As Shithead's fluent in four different languages, he's been verbally cornered by the Crazy Right Wing Lesbian French Butch Bitch to his right. I start talking with a colleague from Napoli on my left and mention that I had insomnia the past few nights.
"Oh, you must be in love."
GAH! Cue the fucking blushing a-fucking-gain.
"Erm, no, just work stress rather."
"Well, maybe work is stressing you because you don't have a boyfriend to distract you after work hours"
The rest of the conversation was even worse:
"What do you think of Italian boys?"(Where to start...?)
"Ever had an Italian boyfriend?" (Err, yes.)
"What happened to him?" (Long story. Really, really long story)
"Are you a good cook? (Ask Shithead).
And other sundry discussions on love, relationships, and jealousy (Just knew Shithead wanted to say something on that; thankfully Crazy Right Wing French Butch Bitch kept up the verbal diarrhoea.)
My friend Curly texts me wanting to know what's up for the evening. I call him to tell him we're at the conference shindig; he says we need to talk tomorrow. I ask him if it's related to Mr. BB and, after he affirms this, demand that he tell all right now.
Apparently Mr. BB approached Curly. Mr. BB's side of the story is that he didn't see me there until after he'd been playing tonsil hockey with that chick (which is complete bullshit). Mr. BB then asked Curly for advice on how to make things right again.
"Don't talk to her for at least 48 hours. At least."
I love my friends.
So Curly wanted the scoop on if Mr. BB had a chance of getting back in my pants. I told him that eventually we'd be friends again once I calmed down a bit, but shagging was definitely out of the question. This was getting to be So. High School. But it at least explained why Mr. BB had maintained his distance.
Eventually the party moved inside to the bar and I lost sight of Shithead for a bit. The guys from Napoli were heading towards the pool tables and I joined them. I've become a bit of a billiards junkie lately with Curly. I'm actually not too bad, now that we've been playing fairly regularly.
Besides, can you think of any better way to give a raging boner to every male in the room than bending over a pool table in pleather pants, stilettos and a transparent top?
Neither can I.
We ended up ignoring the music and just played pool the entire night. Out of three pool tables, ours was the most popular obviously. Amsterdam Guy & I managed to win 3 games out of 4, though the Older Napolitano & I lost every game earlier (all power, no finesse).
Shithead slunk up not too long after we started playing and remained planted by my side the entire night, upping the sexual tension factor to Warp 10; Mr. BB sipped his beers and stared at me across the bar all night long. Then again so did every other male in the room. One guy that I swore was gay started telling me "You are verry verry shex-say"; if I had been a little less drunk I would have been absolutely floored that Spanish Poufter was not actually a Poufter.
It was loads of fun. Good party. Good People. And I got to play Femme Fatale for the night.
Then I went home with Shithead and fucked his brains out. But you saw that coming a mile away, no?
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