“You want me to strip for all your friends?”
I nodded. “Will you do it or not?”
“I totally would, but could you imagine if a video of that leaked? My presidential bid would be finished before it even began. And anyway…I don’t think your roommate could handle all this.” He grabbed my hand and pushed it against his abs as he busted a move.
I wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not. But if he was being serious…woof. His stripper moves needed some serious work. “So that’s a no to the stripping then?”
“Yeah. Not happening.”
“Then I guess you can’t come. Rule #15: No inviting guys to girls’ night…unless they’re strippers.”
Chad laughed and shook his head. “That can’t seriously be one of the rules. But I appreciate the creativity.” Then he got a serious look on his face. “Wait. You aren’t gonna have strippers at girls’ night, right?”
“I mean…this is my very first girls’ night. And Rule #10 says that all celebrations of important life events must involve strippers. You do the math.”
“Wow, these rules really focus on strippers a lot. Any other ones I should know?”
“Hmm…well, those are the only two that mention strippers explicitly. But quite a few could be talking about strippers. Like Rule #41: Any girl who doesn’t suck a cock at the bachelorette party is uninvited to the wedding. This includes the bride. No exceptions.”
“Oh, of course. Why does that even need to be a rule? Shouldn’t that just go without saying?”
I could tell he was being sarcastic. But the joke was on him. Because tonight was my practice bachelorette party, and I intended to follow that rule to a T. “There’s also Rule #8: If a man has 8 abs and 8 inches, he may not be refused. And let’s be honest…any strippers worth hiring would fit that description.”
“Oh, I like Rule #8.”
“You do?” Kinky! I had no idea Chad liked the idea of me getting dominated by some rando with a huge cock.
“I do. Because according to that rule, girls’ night is canceled and you’re spending the night with me.” He made a show of looking down at his package.
I burst out laughing. “What kind of math are they teaching you at Harvard? Because last time I checked, five inches is smaller than eight.”
“Yeah, but no one is actually eight inches.”
“Sure they are.”
“Chastity, I’ve been in tons of locker rooms. And let me tell you. This right here is as big as it gets.” He looked so confident.
Poor, sweet Chad. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he must be looking in all the wrong locker rooms. The Harvard badminton team wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of manliness. “And I’m a very lucky girl.” I held up my hand and wiggled my promise ring. “But unless you suddenly grew three inches, then you can’t invoke Rule #8. Smooches!” I blew him a kiss, turned, and walked out of Grottos.
***
I walked into my dorm room and froze. Holy bananas!
“Surprise!” yelled Ash.
I just blinked. There were bananas everywhere. Literally everywhere. Strands of bright yellow banana lights hung between the windows and our bed posts. I was pretty sure she’d stolen them from a monkey’s luau party or something. There were yellow streamers with bananas printed on them too. Several loaves of what appeared to be banana bread were scattered about, presumably to ensure that one would always be within reach. There were banana pillows. And actual bananas were just thrown about randomly. She’d even changed my satin sheets to what looked like 100 thread count banana sheets. Yes, I could tell from here. Oh no. That would not do. I couldn’t sleep on anything under than 1,000 thread count. I wasn’t a cavewoman.
And most crazy of all was what she was wearing. Flannel. Banana. Pajamas. Flannel! One of the bananas on the bed shifted and I screamed.
But it was just Slavanka in a matching set of nightmarish flannel jammies.
“Oh, you invited Slavanka!” I said. That was the only fun thing happening in this room right now.
“Yes. It is me. Slavanka.”
I laughed. That was what I’d just said. She was so funny. I plopped myself down on my bed, ignoring the way the sheets scratched my skin. “Um…what is all this stuff, Ash?” I asked and pushed a plate of banana bread away from me.
“A Banana Party,” said Ash. “I wanted to surprise you.”
Poor, sweet, Ash. This is not a Banana Party. Not even in the slightest. There weren’t even any monkeys. “So…this is your idea of a girls’ night, huh?” Wow, had I misjudged this? This couldn’t possibly be what a girls’ night was. It was so…simple. The night I was planning was basically the exact opposite of this. And there would be significantly more naked men.
“Of course,” Ash said. “A girls’ night is eating junk food and gossiping about hot boys. Oh! And I have party games. Want to play grab-a-nana?” She pointed to a circle of rubber bananas on the floor.
Was that like grab-a-dick but with bananas? “Um…”
“Or Bananagrams?” She pulled the game out from behind her back.
I felt like a game involving spelling would be very unfair to Slavanka. What was Ash thinking?
“Or we can listen to Bananaphone!”
I just shook my head. “Banana what? I don’t know what that is.”
“For bananas being your favorite fruit, you sure don’t know much about them.” Ash turned to her computer and a horrible song started blaring. About bananaphones. I was pretty sure it was for kids. Or…pediatrists.
I shook my head because I had no idea what the fuck was happening. Had Ash and Slavanka really never heard of a legit Banana Party before? I wasn’t sure why I was even asking myself that question. Because the answer was very clearly no.
“Oh, I almost forgot!” Ash said. “I got you a pair of pajamas so that all three of us could match!” She tossed me a pair of pajamas that unfortunately were identical to the ones she and Slavanka were wearing.
I dodged them and my elbow squished into a loaf of banana bread. Ew. “Ash…this is all great…” No. No it was not. It was horrifying. I stood up and somehow got tangled up in one of the banana streamers. “Where did you even find all this stuff?”
“At the Five and Dime on Main Street.”
Was that a poor person store? I’d heard of a dime before but only when referring to a total dime of a man. I tried to remember my schooling as a youth. Dime, dime, dime. Wait! Did that mean 10 cents? Was all this stuff less than a dollar?
“And before you say anything, it was all heavily discounted,” Ash said. “I know you love paying for stuff, but I wanted to surprise you with this. Can you even believe it? They were practically giving it away. It was my lucky day.”
Yes. I could definitely believe it. “Wow.”
“There’s also frozen chocolate bananas in the mini-fridge. But we should eat them soon because the freezer portion of that fridge is not so great.”
I was not going to eat warm bananas tonight. Unless she was using bananas as a sexy euphemism. And I was pretty sure she wasn’t. But…Ash looked so freaking happy. I watched her as she pulled a banana pillow into her arms and squeezed it.