As my gift to the bride and groom, I was designing and producing the wedding invitations. They were on a pink mottled paper with a super smooth finish. The front was a graphic of a fairytale castle embossed with sparkles - It fit the bride's girly personality perfectly.

The invitations done, and the date closing in, we ladies gathered together for the "Bachelorette Party." We pulled out all the stops. We were going to be celebrating marriage, the union of two people sanctioned by the Big Guy himself. We were going to be celebrating "a most joyous occasion," with priests, bibles, hypocrisy, holy water, candles, pedophiles, the brass accouterments and fake bread wafers.

We bachelorettes decided to celebrate this momentous shit by ordering a stripper and doing lots of drugs.

Ally was the one who put it all together. She was on her second marriage, and thus jaded, but Ally was always interested in getting dressed up in couture and doing drugs. She had been a model at some point in her life, but that was before she became addicted to crystal meth. An Eva Longoria clone, the woman was stupendously beautiful, and aside from her beauty, stupendously worthless. She was a minority, Puerto Rican, yet openly racist. She was raised poor, yet she mocked the unfortunate. She was so unfit a mother that she lost custody of her children, yet she criticized other mothers for the way they tended to their kids.

Her second husband, Ken, was a financial wizard of some sort. His eyes never left Ally, no matter who he was talking to. They were pretty eyes, but they always had an empty quality to them. They were attached to his wife as if she had secretly stolen his sack, and he was pretty sure she had it on her person, but he didn't have the nuts to fucking search the bitch. He would publicly berate her for being herself, the hardcore bitch he knew full well before marrying.
Ken: [Nutlessly. Sarcastically, within hearing distance] "I should divorce that bitch."
Ally: [Smiling. Chirping almost] "It's cheaper to keep me."

Ally and Ken were a four-carat cautionary tale. They were always searching Saks Fifth Avenue for the meaning of life. Always unhappy, no matter how much they spent. They were a fascinating display of just how far off the tracks the American Dream can go when the money cow derails the train.

Katie and Brandon were different. They had a shot at happiness, and we all knew it. That's probably why everyone was so pleased to be a part of the wedding; it was something real. They were together for the right reasons, however sloppy a couple they were. They would fight, punch each other, get ruthlessly drunk, but the difference here was that they were doing it together. They were two violent, passionate, drunks who had each other's backs. It was a remarkable thing to find in Tampa, the place where the valuable, melt-in-your-mouth essence of the human being holds no currency. In Tampa, only the candy shell matters. "Well hot damn! She's got an ass you can bounce a quarter off, I'm buyin' a ring!"

The Bachelorette festivities took place on a Friday night. My sister, our friend Sally and I drove to Katie's house to pick her up. We then went on to Ally's house, a mini mansion in a secured neighborhood; it was where everyone was meeting. After we had the full guest list together, the plan was to go to a hotel on Clearwater Beach where the stripper (a Mons Venus girl no less) was going to come to our room. After the show, we would board a party bus which would take us to several bars in south Tampa, then safely back to our room.

Ally's house was huge and unfurnished. The outside said "We're richer than you are," the inside said, "We blew all our money on the outside." We cracked open some beers and checked out Ally's considerable wardrobe while the women in the Bachelorette party arrived. Ally tossed two pretty blouses on her bed. They still had tags attached to their sleeves with dollar amounts like "250.00" and "300.00." We told her to wear the purple and black gauzy one, and she agreed it was the best choice because, "The other one's perfect for a wedding I'm going to, and I don't wear anything twice."

Ever observant, Sally replied "Isn't that smart."

Downstairs, we heard the door open, and then a lilting southern purr, "Plug in the hot rollers, Ladies. The paaaaarty has arrived." It was Four-finger Barbie. We called her this because she looked like a Barbie doll and had recently chopped her pinky finger off in the door of her Lexus. She was short and beautiful, with fake tits and over-processed hair the plastic texture of a doll's. Though all the girls had acrylic nails, Four-Finger's nails were shinier than any other nails I had seen. There was a dead orangey thing hanging around her neck.

"Ah got the Chinchilla out of storage for the occasion, ladies!"

We gave her hugs, and unlike the rest of the girls who hugged me back with full force, she acted put out by my hug. I actually admired her for her honesty. I was weird to these women. I ate food, not soy smoothies and fruit fusions. I hated fashion and shopping, and had no desire to discuss rings and jewelry. When we went shopping for antiques I said things like "George Washington was abnormally tall for his time." I used strange words in their presence, words like "vapid," "trite," and "placating." What was I talking about?

She pulled a little baggy of coke out of her bag. "Who wants some?"
Bachelorettes: "Oh I do, I do!"
Then everyone bounced and giggled into Ally's bathroom, which had five sinks and a fifteen foot long mirror in it. There were happy snorting sounds.

Aside from BunnySis, Ally, Katie, and Sally, I knew the Bachelorettes only casually. The rest of the girls in the party were friends of Katie's through work. I had met most of them at radio station sponsored concerts an d happy hours, and knew only their candy shells.

Daphne was a nice girl who worked in the corporate accounts department. She was tall and lithe with red hair and pretty brown eyes, and I knew that she and her artsy, pot-smoking husband were swingers. She was never in a bad mood.

Her friend Kat was an older black woman with an incredible body. Her skin was an anomaly, smooth and young; she was in her forties and looked no older than thirty. She had a face like an aardvark, eyes pushed together, teeth protruding, nose bent to the left. She was capable of saying dangerously honest things at any time, which was why I liked being around her.

We consolidated vehicles. It was much smarter to only take a few cars out to Clearwater. On the way, we stopped for liquor and mixers at an Albertsons where Kat and Four Finger spent a great deal of time arguing over the vodka. Katie finally interjected, "I don't fucking care." As it was her bachelorette party, this settled the vodka argument.

The hotel room was nice. It was soothing inside, a sage green color with soft bathrobes and a patio overlooking the ocean. We set up a cooler full of ice and mixed beverages. I went around with Ally's expensive makeup and made everyone's eyes look slutty at their request. We were plenty buzzed when the stripper arrived.

Her name was Misty. She came on recommendation of a male friend of Katie's, and was clearly what a male would find attractive, and what a female would find disgusting. Misty looked like an Anglerfish in a Pocahontas shirt. Kat's aardvark face was prettier, as too was her body. Kat decided to tell Misty this, and Misty, startled by Kat's dangerous honesty, immediately backed down. She picked up her portable CD player and left, but not before she yelled in retaliation "I work for MONS!"
Kat: "Yeah, and I bet they turn the fucking lights off when you get up on stage, bitch."
Misty: [Frightened, backing down the hallway] "You're not much..."
Kat: "WHAT? I'M NOT MUCH WHAT, BITCH!?"

With that, Misty's jaw slammed shut. She jabbed the down button of the elevator a few times, and when Kat kept yelling, she decided it was better to take six flights of stairs in platforms than to face down Kat. It was a shame. Account Rep Aardvark versus Stripper Anglerfish would have been an entertaining scrap. I had my money on Kat.

The stripper portion of the night clearly a downer, we girls decided to not let the Anglerfish ruin our evening. We drank some more. The Bachelorettes did more coke. When the party bus arrived, we were notified via Katie's cell phone. She handed out the Ecstasy. It was sure to be strong, as it was purchased from my ex-boyfriend, who I had recently dumped after learning he dealt drugs. Tampa criminals were very attracted to me.

It must be noted that I had no moral issue with drugs. For personal reasons, I had sworn off coke that summer and never did Ecstasy. I had tried and adored the drug a year earlier, but not the six months of depression that followed. The high wasn't worth it. Also, after witnessing whorish anti-popstar Willa Ford "rolling" in a club in Ybor City that summer, I had decided that Ecstasy made you look like a fucking retard with glandular problems.

We boarded the bus. It was one of those party busses with velvety seats, a booming stereo, a bar and two "stripper poles," which were frighteningly greasy. I sat at the back of the bus, eyes closed, fingers crossed, wishing hard as I usually did right before socializing in Tampa. Wishing I could find a guy who knew what "vapid," "trite," and "placating" meant.

Kat put in a Ludacris CD, and she and Daphne began dancing feverishly.

MOVE BITCH! GET OUT THE WAY!

They had great bodies, and were confident of this, so much so that dancing was easy. I wondered if they hadn't been strippers at some point. Kat certainly danced like one. She had fake breasts, too. That was a reality of Tampa, you were never quite sure if you were with ex-strippers or not.

GET OUT THE WAY BITCH, GET OUT THE WAY!

Sally sat next to me as I vocalized my hopes and dreams for the evening. I figured that saying them out loud might manifest them into reality:
"He doesn't have to be a genius. Really, he doesn't. I'm just looking for someone that's read a book. It doesn't have to be Joseph Conrad. It can be an easy book. A Michael Crichton book is not too much to ask for, I think. Even "Congo" will do. That's not asking too much, is it? That book is all monkeys and diamonds. It's a Tampa book."
Sally: "Honey. I feel for you." She really did too. Sally is intelligent, and values that in men, which is why she is usually single.

Next to us on a velvet seat was Four Finger and a girl in gold mirrored glasses. Four Finger was hot from the Ecstasy. She had taken the Chinchilla off, and placed it on her lap. As she spoke, she was tenderly petting the thing.
Glasses: "You look like you've lost weight." Four Finger smoothed her satin tank over her jeans and flicked a shiny hand.
Four Finger: "Oh ah have. Ah have. All those client lunches, and ya know you have to eat at those thangs, and ya can't drink cocktails... well I put on weight. But I went to the doctor and got pills for it."
Glasses: "What kind of pills."
Four Finger: "Oh ah got speed pills, sugar."
Glasses: "Then how did you get to sleep at night?"
Four Finger: "Xanax, sweetie. It's a miracle."
Glasses: "Who's your doctor?"
Four Finger: "See, sweetie. Ah have four of em. That's how you get the good pills."

YOU'S A HOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!
YOU'S A HOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

The first bar we stopped at was a martini bar in the courtyard of the International Plaza, a fancy mall Ally called "home." It was a big hipster spot, a place where ignorance and frivolity were as prevalent as flavored vodkas, and the bathroom was a two hour wait. It was the Tampa headquarters for reality show auditions, for christ's sake.

Kat and I went to the bar and ordered a round of shots. The two girls next to us weren't a part of our party, and when they began talking about having Botox shot into their underarms to keep them from sweating, Kat's eyes got wide.

"You're a fucking idiot."
Botox Pits: "Excuse me?"
Kat: "You heard me. You're a fucking idiot. You want poison shot into your pits so you don't sweat, that's fuckin' retarded!"

Botox Pits and her friend left as our round of shots came up. I went to look for our Bachelorettes. I found them by the bathrooms. Being Southern, and therefore entitled to special treatment, Four Finger was appalled by the "negro" manager's refusal to let her and her friends skip the bathroom line. "Well, ah never! As a Southern woman, ah won't say the nasty thang ah'm thinking. But you, Sir, are a horrible man." The manager had a good laugh at that.

Later I asked her, "What was the nasty thing you were thinking but couldn't say?"
Four Finger: "Oh sweetie, ah'm from Memphrica (what racist bitches call Memphis, Tennessee). We got a name for them people where I come from." I wished we were in earshot of Kat, but my wish went unfulfilled.

We quickly did our shot, something called a "surfer on acid," and then reboarded the bus. The next bar we went to was an outdoor spot in south Tampa called "Hyde Park Café," an inappropriate name because it is not a café. On the way there, shit hit the fan. The Ecstasy likely kicked in, or more was taken. The girls were literally hanging from brass poles that ran along the top of the bus, laughing and flipping like monkeys with their G-strings popping out the backs of their low rise pants.

Glasses: "Oh I love you all."
Bachelorettes: "Wheeeeeeee!"

The soundtrack had been changed to something clubby. Instead of Ludacris and his sampled melody, which was tolerable, even appropriate at times, we now had something different. It was like being fucked in the ear with a lit curling iron. It was futuristic "wong wong wong's" with beat like a machine gun spray. Kat pulled her top down and let Daphne rub her nipples, which had been painted with some glittery gel. I wondered if Kat hadn't been a stripper at some point.

Kat: "I love you, you fuckin bitch!"
Daphne: "I love you too!"

As I was still on only beer and vodka, I didn't understand this higher level of love that had enveloped our bus. Everyone was wild with some sort of primal fever I wasn't a part of. I was an outsider. Four Finger was rubbing her crotch with the chinchilla.

Sally leaned in: "That must be Chinchilla Hell. He must've been a naughty Chinchilla."

When we arrived and parked in front of the Hyde Park Café, the driver turned down the "wong wong" music. Katie, now paranoid, put a manicured finger to her lips, where it stuck in gloss. "Shhhhhhh..." Everyone froze in their monkey dance position. The bus got very quiet, as if arriving at the next bar was some dangerous emergency. The girls stood still like Meerkats on a mound. Are the police coming? Did we crash the bus? Are we in trouble?

Sally took over: "Girls, everything is fine. Let's just go inside the bar now."

Kat pulled her top up and collected Daphne. One by one the worshippers navigated the bus steps and made their way into the bar.

The Hyde Park Café is a nice place. It's mostly outdoors. Well, any part of it worth going into is outside. The closed-in parts play ear-fucking music, so I don't go inside them. As there are plenty of bars and tables in the middle, I don't mind being relegated to this section. Plus, on nice nights in Tampa, there's no better place to drink. Yes, the clientele are so dumb they're life support for sex organs, but they are the clientele anywhere in Tampa. "The people are stupid" isn't a valid argument for not going to any particular place.

The table Ally had preordered had been taken by another party. Ally was not pleased. She began to shake her head around, wag fingers, then hands, then arms in a full blown display of annoyance. Four Finger stood next to her saying "She's Puerto Rican, honey. You better get her a table or it's goin' to git ugly." I had long heard of Ally's temper. One night when Ken was a few hours late coming home from a golf game, Ally fell into a rage and destroyed everything in their older, "small house" she could get her hands on. Ken begged Katie and Brandon to come over and calm her down. When they arrived, the whole house was covered in glass, and Ally was sitting in a defensive ball in the corner like a feral animal, hands clenched with rage. She would pounce on Ken every so often, and hover vertically in Brandon's arms trying with the might of ten women to rip Ken's head off. Instead of going to couple's counseling, they bought the new "big house." I guess they were thinking that a major purchase would fix everything.

Within minutes of Ally's tirade, three beefy men arrived with an extra table and chairs for everyone. I had to admit that, though she was an asshole, Ally got shit done.

The girls sitting down to the table was the signal, the chumming of the water so to speak. As soon as their gym-honed asses made impact with the seats, the sharks came out. The large metrosexuals always went straight for Four Finger, because she seemed like the easiest lay. Three or four would crowd around her, and then the men would fan off, look for their best chance at meaningless sex. Two went to Glasses, for her lack of self esteem, three went to Sally because they liked a challenge. The rest of the girls would converse with two apiece. The drug dealers, sons of organized crime kingpins and grenade jumpers would go right for me. A sweaty Nordic beast with bulging eyes, erect penis and lollipop asked me if I liked girls. I said "No."

We ordered more drinks, and as the girls were busy being feverish worshippers of each other, they weren't drinking much; I would swallow their drinks along with mine to kill the pain as quickly as possible.

Four Finger was flirting wildly with anyone who would give her attention. When she pulled out her cell and said, "Now what was your name, sugar? Tom? Oh ah have so many Toms in mah phone. Give me your last name..." I became enraged. Tom was the name of her boyfriend, a man I had a crush on after having a discussion about a real book without pictures he had read. He had no idea how many men his girlfriend was fucking.

Glasses: "I LOVE, EVERYONE!"

I drank so much in one ten minute period that my bladder went numb. I went to the bathroom, and on the way back I noticed that some guy was sitting in my chair. He was smaller than the Metrosexuals and the Nordic beast. He wore glasses and a white tee-shirt sans spandex. I repeat, his shirt had no spandex in it. In fact, it was a cotton shirt. I was intrigued by this strange man. Drunk, and thinking it would be hilarious, I knocked a fist into the back of his cotton shirt and asked "Read any good books lately?" As I slurred and rocked on my heels a little while I did it, the delivery wasn't sexy in the least.

I was surprised to find that he didn't merely detect my sarcasm. He absorbed my sarcasm. It traveled quickly to his brain where it was processed and responded to with laughter. He was cute, with red hair and a great smile.

Cotton Shirt: "Hi, I'm Cotton Shirt."
Bunny: "Hi Cotton Shirt. What do you do?" Which really meant, 'how the fuck did you get stranded down here?'
Cotton Shirt: "I'm a Nanotechnologist."
Bunny: "Fuck you."
Cotton Shirt: "No, really I am."
Bunny: "You're not a fucking Nanotechnologist. But I admire your line, dude. That's a good one."
Cotton Shirt: "You know what Nanotechnology is?"
Bunny: "Of course. Do you?"

He pulled a business card out of his wallet. It said:

Cotton Shirt, R&D, Nanophase Technology Corporation,

I was elated. I was stunned. This Cotton Shirt and I were meant to be. We were star crossed lovers caught in a cosmic embrace while the sea of vapidity churned around us, the spandex and supplex threatening our safety at every turn. We didn't even feel it, our new love was so strong. We were getting married in the Fall; I would wear white with orange and red flowers in my hair. My new future continued to flesh out until I read further down the card :

Romeoville, Illinois

FUCK. FUCK FUCK FUCK. FUCK FUCK FUCKITTY FUCK FUCK FUCK. FUCK.

So my fiancée would be catching a morning flight, heading back to this Illinois place. We still had fifteen hours to celebrate our love. We got to work in a corner of the Hyde Park Café, shamelessly sucking face, passionately speaking of such things as "Micro Fabrication," "Bioinformatics," and "Rapid Consolidation Nanopowders." It was hot.

Sucking of face...
Cotton Shirt: "It takes in depth-understanding of nature..."
Bunny: "Yes..."
Sucking of face...
Cotton Shirt: "the primitive forces of nature..."
Bunny: "Oh yes!..."
Sucking of face...
Cotton Shirt: "...but also creativity..." suck suck suck, "...in computational..."
Bunny: "Yes..."
Cotton Shirt: "...mechanical..."
Bunny: "Yes..."
Cotton Shirt: "...thermal..."
Bunny: "Yes!!!!!!"
Cotton Shirt: "...optical engineering and other non-nano disciplines..."
Bunny: "Take me!"
Cotton Shirt: "Okay!"

This is when Ally tapped me on the shoulder. I wanted Ally to die then.

Ally: "Bunny, we're leaving. Get back on the bus."
Bunny: "Okay, let's go."
Ally: "Uh, he can't come."
Bunny: "What?"
Ally: "No men allowed."

Ally should have died.

I hastily scrawled my number as well as those belonging to my sister, Katie and Sally. Cotton Shirt gave me thirty business cards and one last kiss; he vowed to call me every half hour and meet me later at the hotel where we would surely get a room and consummate our new life together. Later in the day I would pick out our china pattern.

As I had been lost in love for a good hour, I had not realized that the girls had taken even more Extasy. When they ran out of the lot they had purchased from my ex-boyfriend, the Nordic beast had opened a sweaty pocket and let them take their pick of pills, from little pink triangles to unassuming white rounds. The feverish worship had escalated into something fierce. The bus was now lit with alternating bouts of strobe and black light, and the stereo was loud with ear-fucking. I sat on a velvet seat with Sally and the Chinchilla. The scene became primal.

Katie was lying on a velvet seat, and I could see the whites of her eyes flashing as they rolled around in her skull. Kat was naked on top of her. Her dress had vanished into thin air. On Kat's back was Daphne, who was licking Kat's shoulders and meowing. BunnySis and Ally were hanging upside down from the brass bars on the ceilings. Four Finger and Glasses were kneeling face to face grinding their hips to the ear-fuck music. Kat took Katie's legs and threw them on either shoulder. Daphne tumbled to the floor and convulsed to the music lifting her hips up and down in a humping motion. This is when the pile started. One by one the girls lay on top of each other so that they were a horny club sandwich of worship, kissing and licking, humping and grinding, posing like porn stars for each other while BunnySis and Ally hung upside down and maniacally laughed. It was Tampa on acid, or rather, Tampa on Ecstasy. It wasn't just fake. It was fake driven so far that it had crossed the county line and gone to surreal town, that happy place that lies on the outskirts of mental capacity and can only be visited with drugs or insanity.

It was something I didn't think possible; girl-on-girl gone wrong.

It was over as quickly as it had begun. Before I knew it we were in Clearwater, at the Hotel, saying goodbye to the bus driver. We went to our room and got towels. Then we went down to the beach, took our clothes off and swam in the ocean. Not just the ocean, but the highest concentration of sharks in the world ocean, at a time of night when they are all hungry and looking to eat, when a few of us had our periods.

Four Finger was on her cell at the water's edge. No one was paying attention to the conversation, but I could hear her. She was talking to her boyfriend Tom.

"Tom, these girls are just so baaaaad. Can you come get me? They've been doing drugs, Tom, drugs!"

We swam in the ocean till it occurred to us that it was dangerous. Then we got up and went into the pool. The girls were still coming down from the coke, Ecstasy and alcohol combination, and the water felt good on their skin. This is when Ally made a confession:

"You know how Ken and I have been having problems?"
Katie: "Yeah?"
Ally: "Well. I think I came up with a way to fix everything."
Katie: "And?"
And this is when Ally, coked up, X-ed up, trashed, and naked in a pool at 4am said, "I'm pregnant."

I was stunned. I was silent as the girls, trying to avoid anything uncomfortable, said things like "Congratulations," "Have you picked out names?," and "How far along are you?" I said nothing, just sat and envisioned a one-armed mess of a fetus popping out of the bitch with a hefty price tag still attached. Ally smiled as she spoke of the baby as if it were a piece of merchandise. And that is the last conversation involving Ally that I was ever a part of.

I caught an elevator up to our room with Kat and a few of the girls. Kat, suddenly modest, went into the bathroom to put her dress on. I could hear her say "These bitches is fake," as she left the hotel room to drive home. Later, I learned that Kat has two children she adores. I like Kat.

As I had no ride home and no car, I fell asleep in one of the beds. BunnySis fell asleep in the bed next to mine. We were both kept awake by Ally, Katie and Four Finger as they did more coke, jumped on the beds and pranced around in their bikinis. They made plans to go to the Saturday morning Stripper Fest at a bar down the street, take cap fulls of GHB and strut half naked with sparkly sun oil. "Plug in mah hot rollers! We're goin' to Stripper Fest."

A hot friend of Four Finger's named Les showed up, partied with the girls, then fell asleep next to me. I dated him for a few days until I found out he was Four Finger's drug dealer and called it off.

A few weeks later, Four Finger Barbie was caught maligning the rest of the girls at the office. Apparently, the magical love she had felt so strongly on the bus didn't cross over into every day life. The slander was so bad she was fired from her job. Later, her boyfriend Tom saw her nose spontaneously bleed and realized she, indeed, liked drugs. Tom dumped her for being a cheating, duplicitous whore. She is now a trophy wife to some ugly rich guy.

This night may be the best example of what Tampa is like. Reduced, quick, fake and easy, and all of it culminating into something totally unsatisfying. I was so stunned by Ally's confession at the pool that I never called my Nanotechnologist. He kept his promise to call me every half hour. I broke my promise to return his calls. If anyone happens to know a cute, red headed scientist who works for Nanophase Technology Corporation in Romeoville, Illinois, tell him I'm looking for him. Tell him I'll meet him at the altar. Wait, don't tell him that. I'm not desperate any more.