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They say that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The sun beams in on my closed eyes and I grimace. I pull the blankets to my face but quickly realize that what I’m holding are not blankets. I force myself to open my eyes and find myself holding my underwear in my face.

In the bleached afternoon sun I can barely make out the image of my naked self—naked save for my unbuttoned shirt—sprawled on my sofa. I have no idea how I got here.

My head is pounding. I want to die. I try to yawn but only end up coughing and gagging; it makes my head pound more.

I let out a loud cry and sit up. The sheer act of changing my orientation sends all kinds of dizzy to my brain. I am suddenly overcome by nausea and I rush haphazardly to the bathroom. Along the way I run through my kitchen and fall over my shoes and pants, which are lying directly in front of my kitchen sink.

Jumping back to my feet, I leap and bound for the bathroom and crash land in front of the toilet. No sooner do I collide with the porcelain bowl than I explode like an oatmeal water balloon. I puke and puke and puke and my headache gets worse.

Brief flashes of the night start to come back to me. I remember dancing with a girl. I remember making out with a girl. I remember drinking way too much. I remember stealing drinks and getting into a physical altercation with some kind of giant cartoonish mascot.

As I finish emptying my guts into my ceramic friend, I struggle to my feet, almost falling in the process. I wash off my face and rinse out my mouth. I look up into the mirror and see the shriveled shell of a man staring back. I look like I’ve been fighting. Fighting or falling on my face—two equally plausible alternatives given my night.

I smirk briefly at my oath to not overdo it last night. Guess I didn’t follow through.

I wander back into my loft in a daze. I try to drink some water and only barely keep it down.

My kitchen is filthy. I realize that the stove’s fan is on and is sucking up a steady but faint stream of black smoke from the oven. My oven is on at 190F. Inside is a tray of dehydrated bricks that were once chicken strips. I can only assume they’ve been baking all night.

As I explore my apartment, feeling a bit like a time traveler just recently arrived in the future, trying to piece together his past, I find my cell phone. Or rather, I step on my cell phone. I pick it up and bring it to life.
Thirteen unread text messages.

“Shit…” I mumble. “That’s not a good sign.”

Suddenly I hear the familiar bing of an incoming message in MSN messenger. My computer is buzzing away, screen littered so badly with MSN windows that I can’t even see the desktop.

JD to Cass: “Hey baby, where you at?”

JD to Erin: “I am so horny right now.”

JD to Mel: “You want to come hang out?”

JD to Carol: nudge… nudge… nudge, nudge… nudge, nudge, nudge… nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge-

Carol: “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?!”

The realization that I was sending out random requests for sex over MSN makes me pause momentarily at my unread text messages. Part of me doesn’t even want to know, but after a heavy sigh I click through anyway.

The first two are from panicked friends asking where I am. There are two from girls who are in my phone, but who I have no idea who they are—I must have added them last night. One says I’m cute, the other says I’m a jerk.

“Perfect…” I mumble.

The next one is from some number I don’t recognize; it says I’m a jerk too. The next three are from friends I haven’t talked to in years, asking if I’m OK. The next one is from a girl from work, telling me to stop texting her. And the next four are from Kaylee, the girl who I was setup with last night… sort of.

“You’re a good kisser.”

“You lost the bet… you owe me a beer :)”

“Where are you? We can’t find you?”

“You are a fucking asshole.”

“Fuck…” I mumble.

Kaylee is a friend of a friend. Kaylee is a cool and sexy friend that I was setup with last night. Or rather, I was introduced to… putting the moves on her was my job. From the sounds of the texts, I guess I did… for a while anyway.

The sun is so bright that I literally feel hot. I’ve been standing naked, except for my unbuttoned shirt, in front of the window for nearly five minutes before I realize. When I do realize however, I figure there’s no point in being bashful now.

On the sofa are my socks, my underwear, my jacket, my wallet, and of course, the object of my disaffection, the object of my pain and suffering, the cause of my blown chance with Kaylee. It is small a simple object. Simple, but dastardly. Resting on my underwear is a round, purple button that reads, “ASK FIRST. Sex needs consent.”

They say with absolute power comes absolute corruption. At a busy club like the one we were at last night, a button like can make you a god. And gods are as powerful as they get.

I start to feel like I’m going to puke again.

This is how I blew it with Kaylee…

Next | Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

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