The roof
I've been thinking a lot about my roommate Laura lately. She represents such an insane time in my life. So, I figure, rather than let these things stew in my head, causing me to eventually break down and cry, I'm just going to tell the stories here.
So, in the summer of 1991, I was 19 years old, Laura was 21, and we subletted a 4 bedroom apartment in Allston. It was cheap and huge, and our two other roommates, sisters at Emerson grad school, were cool and creative and fun - and pretty much not there for the season. We were dirt poor - although our rent was $300 per month, our crappy jobs barely covered that. As a result, we got creative when we needed to get wasted.
One of the things we did was invite people over for a party - and ask them to bring booze for us. We would usually have weed from our downstairs neighbors, plenty of tunes, board games or other entertainments, and the unspoken promise of at least one but maybe both of us putting out, maybe. On this occasion, we had a few folks over, and were playing Truth or Dare. Laura and I always picked Dare, because it was far more fun than telling the stupid truth. I was dared to switch clothes with a young gentleman who, on the surface, was a complete Hottie. Dirty blond, blue-eyed, square-jawed, tall and broad, friendly and helpful, and generally a Nice Guy. Not spectactular, but all in all OK. If you saw him in a coffee shop, your gaze would linger.
Unfortunately, to his discredit, we had learned from other friends of ours how looks can be completely deceiving - 1) he was a horrendous kisser, 2) he was kind of a misogynistic butthead, and 3) he was the worst lay ever.
So, he and I went into the bathroom together to changes clothes. For good reason, I kept him out of mine or anyone elses' bedrooms. And there was where second-hand became first hand knowledge, a bit. Of course, after we had switched underwear and pants, he kissed me. Badly. I shoved him off of me and before I could officially protest, he grabbed me from behind, pinning my arms to my side. Not violently, not maliciously, but...persistently. His erection was pressing into the back of my underwear, and he was pressing me towards the bathroom mirror over the sink.
And, here's where things get weird. As if they weren't weird already.
He told me to look at myself in the mirror and he told me that I was beautiful, and that I needed to believe it, because I was scarring myself by being so negative all the time. I am drunk, assuredly high, half-naked - the clothed half belonging to the gentleman - being forced to believe I'm pretty. So, yeah. you could say I wasn't fucking having it.
I yelled at him to let me go - loud enough so that the rest of the party heard me. I put on his T shirt and walked out in his clothes, showed the party, and then got changed in my own bedroom into a fresh set of clothes. I threw his clothes back at him and told him to stay on the other side of the room.
Laura threw him the fuck out. And, with the whole room lifted from the bad seed leaving, we continued to party with everybody else. More truths, many more dares, and much more dancing.
At the end of the night, it was just Laura and me hanging out in the living room. It started raining lightly, breaking the humidity just enough that it was no longer sweltering. We were thoroughly intoxicated, and Laura decides it was time for a mood change.
"We need to get onto the roof". Up until that moment, we didn't even know if we had an accessible roof. Of course I agreed. We did, indeed, have an accesible roof. Except, it was steel doored and iron padlocked shut. But we were two fat girls and we had the strength of a thousand drunk skinny girls. Laura busted the door down, fucking up her shoulder in the process. But we grabbed our drinks and stepped out onto the roof. We were singing and dancing smoking and drinking at the top of a triple decker, with zero safety measures in place. Perfect.
After a little while we look over to the triple decker directly next to us. Three bedroom windows, stacked one on top of each other, in the exact location of my bedroom in my building, were lit up. It was a show.
On floor #1: a young gentleman was masturbating to a dirty magazine (oh, what we did before the internet!)
On floor #3: a young couple was having sex.
But, on floor #2: a similar young couple was trying desperately to have sex, and they were FAILING. We could see the frustration in the young girl's eyes, the sheer willful ignorance in his. We were struck dumb by the imminent destruction of not only this couple's evening, but perhaps their relationship due to their sexual incompatibility. We had to do something.
So we started coaching Couple #2 by shouting from the rooftop into their open bedroom window.
"MOVE HER LEG TO THE RIGHT!"
"WOULD IT KILL YOU TO BLOW HIM A LITTLE?"
"JESUS CHRIST WHY ARE YOU KISSING LIKE YOU'RE IN CHURCH! GET DIRTY!"
"FLIP HER OVER! YOU'LL SEE IT CLEARER FROM THAT ANGLE!"
"DON'T JUST LAY THERE, LADY! CIRCLES!"
Now, it being a summer evening, all three bedroom windows were open, scaring the crap out of all five occupants, three of whom we'd forgotten for the hapless couple center square. They didn't know where the advice was coming from, but lighning quick - three bedroom windows shut, three sets of curtains closed, three bedroom lights turned off.
Laura and I fell down laughing on that sketchy rooftop, In the weeks afterward we saw our sex building neighbors in passing on the street, and it took just about everything we had not to give them a sex tip or two. But we couldn't reveal our identities as the pervs who were drunkenly cheering on their sex shows.