Free Take Your Shirt Off and Cry: A Memoir of Near-Fame Experiences by Nancy Balbirer Page B

And! (And!) (And!) You put the load right on ME-ee-ee! ’ ”
    “Right. Anyway, we were on the couch, you sang a couple choruses, then stopped, turned to me, and said, ‘Now I’m going to
     make a pass at you,’ and stuffed your tongue in my mouth. Coming back to you now?”
    Ned thought for a minute, spaced-out, glassy-eyed.
    “You know, honestly, I don’t remember. I remember that we kissed once and it was fucking great. But, you know me and the details.”
     He laughed. “One of the drawbacks of pot, you know . . .”
    “Well, let me refresh your memory. You made a pass at me. You made a pass at me, and afterward I pretty much fled. And, by
     the way, whenever I told the Jazz Musician about what happened between you and me, he always pointed out that after you shoved
     your tongue in my mouth, I did, in fact, continue making out with you, as opposed to, say, biting it off or pushing you away
     or kneeing you in the nuts, so it’s not like I don’t recognize that I was there and culpable—sort of—since I did keep kissing you back for whatever it was, five minutes? But the point is that I was confused. I was young. You were my teacher
     and my friend, and I really looked up to you. You’d just directed me in that awesome play, which got me all kinds of attention,
     so, I dunno, maybe a part of me was intrigued. But a bigger part of me was freaked out, especially when you maneuvered us
     over to your brass bed under the dimmed track lights, where slung over the bedpost was Binky’s white silk negligee. And I
     asked; ‘What about Binky?’ And you said, ‘She’s in Philadelphia.’ Huh? What did that even mean ? That once she was across state lines, all bets were off?”
    “I don’t know . . . I don’t remember,” Ned sighed. “But I think we had a different arrangement back then.”
    “Really? ’Cause I seriously doubt that Binky would have been psyched to see what was going down—”
    “I don’t know about ‘psyched,’ but she’d be maybe—”
    “Pissed. Pissed is how she would have been, Ned. Let’s face it. And then I was, you know, all discombobulated, and you started
     telling me how you had always been attracted to me—”
    “Well, that’s true.”
    “And I felt all fucked up ’cause I thought you actually thought I was talented and thought I was a good actor —”
    “So? I did think that—”
    “But really, in the end, all you wanted to do was fuck me—”
    “Hey! Now that’s not fair. Wanting to fuck you doesn’t preclude my admiring your talent, you know. I think you’re damn good,
     your winsomeness notwithstanding.”
    “OK, but it made me feel terrible. And dirty and wrong. Especially when you told me you wanted to have a thing with me while you were still with Binky! Like a Mormon!”
    “What can I say—I dug you both.”
    “What in the fuck would make you think I’d be willing to go halvsies? That any chick would? Anyway, we made out a little more.
     You took my shirt off and then your own and flung back the covers. Which is when I saw—on the perfectly crisp, five-hundred-count,
     Egyptian-blah-blah, white cotton sheets—a teeny, tiny speck of blood. Binky’s blood. On the sheets, staring right up at me.”
    “I definitely don’t remember this part . . .”
    “And you go, ‘Oh, shit, Binky musta had her period or something. I’ll just get a new sheet,’ and I go—and I know it’s all
     very soap opera–y, but I was twenty—I go, ‘You can’t just throw Binky into the hamper, Ned. Binky is here .’ Then I got up, put my shirt on, and asked for cab money, and you said, ‘You’re really gonna split, huh?’ And I said, ‘Yeah,
     I really am. I don’t wanna be just another bloodstain on your sheets.’ Which really is a pretty good exit line for a kid.
     And then I left, and we didn’t speak again till I signed up for your class a few months ago.”
    “Wow. I’m just . . . floored.”
    “I know it all seems really melodramatic in