Take That Tori

I have a lot to say and I'm trying to sort out in my mind how much of it is necessary to write in this post. If I skip over things that don't seem important, then I'm sure I'll get a lot of questions asking me to clarify... and I'm too lazy to actually respond to every single comment that contains a question mark so it might be better if I just did my best to put it all out there right now.

Jake alluded to a few things, so I should probably fill in a few of the gaps. Marie was out of town this last weekend. Something about her cousins in Ogden. I was relieved when she told me she wouldn't be around. I mean... who wants to take a date to a New Year's Party, right (besides Jake)? Well, Tori called me on Wednesday. (When I call my dad at work, our conversations have been brief and cordial so I was caught off guard when she called my cell.) She jumped right into her reason for calling... I assume to prevent me from trying to guess her reason. She said she was going to a New Year's party on Thursday night and thought my roommate, Nick, might get along with her friend, Jennifer. I agreed to go, but secretly felt like we probably just wouldn't show.

However, at about 10pm on Thursday night, after driving around for way too long looking for something to do, we decided to just go to Bountiful to see what Tori's party was like. Jake was with Lisa and then it was Aaron, Nick and me. When we got there, I was shocked to see there were very few people in attendance. I assumed Tori would never dare to show her face anywhere where she wasn't the center of attention around at least 30 guys. But there she was, looking stupid and embarrassed to be at a party with such weak attendance. Her eyes lit up when she saw me, Nick, Aaron and Jake walk in. We doubled the number of guys in this house. Tori immediately came over to us and gave me a huge hug. She then called over her friend Jennifer and introduced her to Nick. Tori then started to introduce the rest of us to the other guests... most of which were female... and several of which were pretty hot.

Usually, I have hard time being outgoing when I'm outside of my comfort zone. But this party was so lame, I really had very little choice. I pretty much just followed Aaron's lead. Jake was distracted with Lisa and Nick was sitting down by the fireplace trying to get to know Jennifer, I assumed. Aaron was on fire... and since I was right next to him, I was also ablaze. All of the girls were looking at Aaron since he was the eye candy, but they had no choice but pay attention to me when they witnessed my outstanding personality and dimpleless smile (have I mentioned that I wish I had dimples?).

I kept seeing Tori staring at me in my above-average and finely tuned peripheral vision. Seriously, my peripheral vision is so amazing, I can read peoples lips from 200 yards away using just my peripheral vision. I got the feeling that she was following me around for most of the night, but I refused to acknowledge her. I knew it was probably rude, but I also knew if I started talking to her then I'd miss any other opportunity to snog anyone else at midnight. After about an hour, Tori got the hint and started focusing on Aaron... which kind of pissed me off.

At about 11:15pm I noticed Aaron and Tori sitting and talking on the couch. I wandered over to the bookcase and noticed a whole shelf dedicated to film-making and movie scripts and stuff. One book caught my eye called Improvisation Starters. I started flipping through it and eventually took it over to Jake to show it to him. Even though it wasn't our party, we decided to try to liven things up a little bit. I asked Jennifer who the host of the party was. She gestured to a plump woman in her mid 20's standing alone by the kitchen table.

I walked over to her and introduced myself. She told me her name, but I don't remember what it was. I asked if she'd mind if we started to act out some scenes for entertainment. Before she could answer, another girl interrupted and said to the host, "Hey, where's Jeremy?" The lady said, "He's passed out upstairs on the bed. He wasn't excited about being the only one drinking at this party." She then looked back at me and said she had no problem with my suggestion. I don't why, exactly, but I assumed Jeremy must be her boyfriend or something. She seemed like the owner of the house and this Jeremy character (in my mind) was her alcoholic, loser of a boyfriend.

Jake asked everyone to sit in the living room so we could start doing some of the scenes out of the book. Jake and I volunteered to go first just to get the ball rolling. We both stood up in front of all of the hot girls and a couple of wienerish dudes and flipped to a random page in the middle of the book. This is how it was set up:

The Scene: A photographer is snapping pictures of a model.
Models Objective: You don't like the photographer and you refuse to smile.
Photographers Objective: Threaten to fire her if she doesn't cooperate with you.

Jake was the photographer and I was the model. It started out simple enough and we started arguing with each other. It seemed like we were being entertaining enough, but because we were the one's running the show, there wasn't anyone to tell us to stop when we accomplished our goal. So we just kept going. Jake started to escalate it by telling me, the model, that if I wanted to keep my job that I would need to take off my shirt. It was awesome. I had about 20 girls laughing at our "scene" and I was about ready to take off my shirt. I pretended to feel violated and embarrassed as I slowly started taking off my shirt. I was kind of waiting for Jake to call "scene", but he didn't. It ended up working pretty well cause I was taking off my shirt so slowly... waiting for someone to tell me to stop. Nobody did. Once I dropped my shirt on the floor, I covered my right breast with my left hand and made sure my left arm was covering my other breast... kind of like the girls do in the movies. Everyone was laughing pretty hard and Jake was pretending he had a camera and was snapping a bunch of photos. Then Jake says, "Undo your pants for me, sweetheart." The girls were going pretty crazy at this point, so I decided to just see how far I could go before someone stopped me. I turned my back to everyone and started to undo my belt. Out of nowhere, one of the hotter girls at the party ran up to the front of the room yelled at Jake, "How dare you take advantage of this sweet young woman!" She picked my shirt off the floor and draped it around my naked shoulders, put her arm around me and we walked out of the room. It was pretty awesome.

A few other people took their turns acting out scenes, but they were all pretty lame. Then Jake asked Tori and Aaron if they'd take a turn. They both seemed pretty excited about it. Jake flipped through the book and then stopped on a random page. Jake just made up the scene for them, though.

Scene: You've just finished a first date.
Man's Objective: You're not leaving until you get a goodnight kiss.
Woman's Objective: You're a lesbian and are not attracted to men.

The scene starts out pretty normal. I'm pretty sure they both knew Jake had made it up, but they were playing along anyway. After arguing about the goodnight kiss for about 60 seconds, Tori looked away from Aaron and made eye contact with me. Then she says to Aaron, "You've got me all curious." Then she wrapped her arms around his neck and started making out with him right in front of everyone. Seriously... it was disgusting. Everyone was screaming and laughing like it was the greatest thing in the world, but it was really just gross.

Something snapped in my head. As I stared at Tori making out with one of my roommates just to spite me, I decided I was going to kiss as many girls as I could that night and I wanted Tori to see. It was already about 11:50 so I started trying really hard to find the best possible place to sit or stand when midnight came. The host turned on the TV so we could watch Carmen Electra embarrass herself on live television. I wandered over to where the hot girl was sitting who helped protect me from the perverted photographer. I said, "If you hadn't rescued me, I'd probably be in the fetal position right now, sucking my thumb and soiling myself in that guy's dirt basement." She laughed and we talked for a few minutes about who we knew at the party. I thought for a split second about saying something like, "So... you wanna kiss at midnight?" but then decided against it. I figured I could just look at her at midnight and see what happened.

Everyone started counting down from 10 and people started standing up. I stood up and mentally crossed my fingers. Then, in my peripheral vision I saw an average looking girl pushing her way through the other bodies and ended up standing right next to me. I thought, "Ah ha!" The countdown hit zero and I looked at Average Girl while everyone was screaming "Happy New Year" Neither one of us were screaming it, and she was looking at me... smiling. So I grabbed her and kissed her... hard. With tongue. After about 5 or 10 seconds, I pulled away and looked in the direction of Hottie on my other side. She was just pulling out of a kissless hug with some dude who was better looking than me. I thought, "I'll settle for a hug", but when she looked my direction, she went in for a wet, wet, wet smooch. It was awesome... and my eyes were open so I could see the look on the other guy's face. After about 10 seconds or so I came out of the embrace and glanced around the room. I saw the pudgy host standing against the wall about 5 feet away from me. I walked up to her and she stared at me like she was pretty nervous. I knew she had a boyfriend, but he chose to drink and pass out so I figured, what the hell. I put my hands on her arms, got really close to her and said, "Happy New Year." She looked at my lips and I figured that was a pretty good greenlight. I kissed her and she kissed me back... pretty freakin' hard. Like, her hands were all over my arms and back for at least 15 seconds. That's a long time, too. Count it out, right now, if you don't believe me.

Then I heard Aaron say from across the room, "Are you just kissing everyone, Calvin?" I yelled back, "If they'll let me." Everyone stood around talking for a few minutes, then the front door opened and a pretty attractive girl... maybe 19 or 20 years old came in the house. The host says to her, "I thought you were at Natalie's." The girls says, "I was, but I forgot my camera." She held up her camera. The host says to her, "Who did you kiss?" The girls says, "Nobody. I know, I'm dumb." Then the host says, "Calvin is kissing everyone if you're interested." She gestures to me. She smiled and said, "Really? Ok." She grabbed my hand, dragged me out the front door to the porch and kissed me for two full minutes. I thought it was longer, but Jake said he timed it.

When we were driving home the next morning, Aaron told me that he and Tori had made out for most of the night. Awesome, Aaron. Thanks for telling me that. Then he told me that Tori was pissed at me cause I made out with Carrie. I said, "Who's Carrie?" Aaron said, "The host of the party. The owner of the house. The lady whose husband was asleep upstairs while you were kissing her."

That was the first time the thought had even entered my head. I mean, I knew she wasn't single, necessarily, but I didn't know she had exchanged wedding vows with the guy. Why did she kiss me for so long if she was married? I mean... the guy was drunk, so I assume they weren't married in the temple... but I'm pretty sure a civil wedding still counts as being married. We were all laughing nervously about it. Even Lisa thought it was pretty funny... which makes me like her more than I already did.

Honestly, though... I've been thinking about it for the last couple of days. If I could go back... would I still kiss her knowing she was married? Probably not. But ONLY because I wouldn't want to get beat up by her husband. If he was in a wheelchair, though...

-Calvin