“So, you are just roommates?”
“Well, roommates with benefits. Karan’s way too good of a lay to not be able to use him when I need him.”
Mirnda paused, not sure how to respond. Jade filled the conversational void for her.
“Which I’m guessing you probably already know all about.”
Mirnda blushed a deep shade of red and stood up. “I…uh…I should go…”
“No, no, it’s not a problem. Sit down. We’ve been living together for a while; it’s seriously not a big deal.” Jade grabbed Mirnda’s hand and pulled her back to the bar stool. Mirnda let herself be pulled back.
“Karan’s great, he’s a good roommate, he’s great in the sack, but there’s no jealousy issues here — you came over here to get laid, there’s no reason you can’t still do that.”
“I… don’t know.” Mirnda paused for a moment because she didn’t know what to say, and then blurted it out all at once. “I guess I just don’t want you to think I’m the kind of woman that makes booty calls on a regular basis. I just got out of a five-year marriag a few weeks ago, and I’ve been stressed out because of work, and last night my vibrator ran out of batteries at the worst possible moment, and I…”
She stopped suddenly; she was mortified at the amount of information she had just shared with Jade.
Jade laughed. It was a friendly laugh, not a mean one, and put Mirnda at ease. Jade leaned forward, put a hand on Mirnda’s leg, and said “Mirnda, honey, don’t worry about it. I’m a personal trainer and a bartender; I have people I barely know tell me the most personal of details all the time. I am very skilled in the arts of discretion.”
Mirnda gave a nervous laugh and took another big gulp of her drink.
Jade continued. “I do have one prying question, though, that I just have to get the answer to. Which “girl” are you?” When she said girl, she made the universally recognized symbol for air quotes.
Mirnda furrowed an eyebrow, and feigned ignorance. “What do you mean?”
Jade raised an eyebrow. “You know how Karan doesn’t like to use names when talking about his former flings, so he just describes them?”
“Oh yeah, kind of.” Mirnda was bluffing here, she had no idea what the other woman was talking about.
“You know how he slept with a woman who had a tattoo of a little faerie dragon on her shoulder?” Mirnda’s quizzical look didn’t stop Jade. “Anyway, we were talking about the sex they had one day, and he inadvertently ended up referring to her as “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” which apparently amused him so much that’s just how he refers to all his exes now. Not by their names, but by some phrase like that. There’s the Girl under the Bleachers, the Girl in the Holiday Inn Hot Tub, so forth.”
“Oh!” Mirnda exclaimed. “I know about the Holiday Inn hot tub. They barely knew each other, but were drunk and touchy-feely, and ended up stroking each other off in a hot tub full of people, but nobody noticed because it was so bubbly.”
“That’s the one.” Jade paused dramatically. “Was that you?”
“No, no. But I kind of wish it was.”
“I know, right! I’d love to do it myself some time, but it doesn’t seem quite nearly so hot if it’s not spontaneous.”
“I agree 100%. It just feels a little strange to be getting into a hotel hot tub full of people with that in mind.”
Mirnda took another big drink of her frozen Alabama Slammer.
“Fair enough. So, Mirnda,” Jade said teasingly, “if you’re not the Girl in the Holiday Inn Hot Tub, are you the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?”
