Girlfriends (Patrick Sanchez) by Patrick Sanchez Read Free Book Online Page A

several years had gone by since they stopped speaking to each other, Cheryl accepted the fact that her friendship with Gina was history. And what made matters even worse, Cheryl lost Linda’s friendship as well. Cheryl and Linda were never terribly close. In fact, Cheryl couldn’t think of when she and Linda ever really hung out by themselves, but they did spend a lot of time together because of Gina. It was no real surprise that when Gina and Cheryl had their rift, Linda dropped out of Cheryl’s life as well. Gina and Linda were close, worked together, and had a long history between them.
    Thank God for Nick at Nite, she thought as she clicked on a late night episode of The Facts of Life and riffled through a couple of cooking magazines strewn on the coffee table. After skimming through last month’s edition of Bon Appétit, she picked up a copy of the Washington City Paper that was lying on the floor next to the sofa. Cheryl had never been known for neatness. She wasn’t a complete slob, but most of the time her apartment was pretty much in a state of disarray, and she constantly had trouble finding things. Her place wasn’t dirty or anything, just terribly disorganized.
    As she started to flip through the paper, she remembered how she used to comb through it every week to see where the latest hot spots were—which bars were offering specials or had themed evenings. In her early twenties it wasn’t uncommon for her to hit the clubs three or four nights a week. She remembered getting trashed at the Insect Club or Planet Fred, two D.C. clubs that had long since closed. Before she and Gina had their falling out, the two of them were almost a staple at 15 Minutes. The doorman knew them on sight and never made them pay the cover charge. He told them they were both so young and beautiful that their presence alone would draw a crowd. They would spend the night drinking and dancing, rarely being troubled to actually pay for a drink. Cheryl remembered all the ridiculous one-liners she would get from guys at the bars—guys who eventually wanted to know if she wanted them to take her home. In her early days it didn’t quite click with her why the guys rarely offered to take her to their own place, but she soon realized if the guys came home with her, they didn’t have to worry about kicking her out as soon as the sex was over. They could just say they had to get home to let their dog out or something and be on their way. Besides, who wanted some one-night stand from a bar knowing where he lived?
    Despite all the free drinks and offers to take them home, Cheryl and Gina usually ended up leaving the bars together. Not because they were morally above no-strings-attached sex. There were definitely times when Cheryl or Gina would leave a club in the company of a young man, but these instances were uncommon. It was just rare that either one of them found a guy who excited them enough to be bothered. Sometimes they were sluts, but at least they were picky sluts.
    When she did actually have one-night stands, Cheryl remembered those awkward moments after the sex was over—how awful it was when she didn’t get an invitation to stay the night and had to get out of bed and pick her clothes up off the floor. It was so humiliating, kneeling on the floor, trying to separate her clothes from the guy’s she’d gone home with. She was never a smoker, but after a night at a bar her clothes would reek of cigarette smoke and pulling her shirt over her head would almost make her gag. Just thinking about it all gave Cheryl goose bumps.
    Cheryl perused the ads in the City Paper for the newest dance clubs, most of which she hadn’t been to. Now that she was pushing thirty, she started to feel a little out of place in many of the local clubs, particularly the ones that attracted the college crowd. Being surrounded by drunk eighteen-year-olds with fake IDs, who were about an hour away from puking their guts up in the bathroom was no longer