Boring Girls(76)

Inspired, I raised my middle finger again, made sure he could see it, and then shoved it into my mouth, as far as I could into the back of my throat. My stomach heaved a little. A scream went up from the crowd around us, but he was still confused. Not afraid.

I shoved my finger down my throat again, and this time I retched a little bit. My eyes started to water. The * finally realized what I was going to do and started kicking and flailing, trying to buck me off him. I slapped him again with my free hand, again shoving my finger down my throat.

Finally I vomited a stream of half-digested rice and cucumber sushi all over the guy’s face. Stupidly, he had opened his mouth to cry out, and as I retched, his mouth filled with it. It splattered into his eyes and poured down his cheeks, blinding him. He started to splutter and choke. Everyone around us was going absolutely wild, but again, I was only half-aware of it. Once I had finished puking, I reached to his face with both hands and started rubbing it in, grinding it into his eyes, poking my puke-covered fingers into his mouth to get more of it in. He was blubbering, crying beneath the deafening roar of the crowd and the band playing. I wiped my hands off on his shirt and stood up, leaving him a mess on the floor. I felt hands patting me on the back, and on the head, congratulating me. I climbed back onstage as the song finished. I was glad they’d kept playing.

The crowd went wild when the song was done. “Thanks, guys,” I said, smiling cutely and curtseying as if nothing had happened. I was happy the mike was back on again. It would have been very awkward if it hadn’t been. “We’re Colostomy Hag. Please, please don’t f*ck with us.”





TWENTY-NINE


“Holy shit, that was insane,” Jamie said. All the Torn Bowel guys crowded around me, patting my back and talking excitedly. “You f*cking puked on that guy, holy shit. That was nuts.”

“Fucking * deserved it.”

“Fuck that guy. Rachel, you’re f*cking amazing.”

I grinned and made my way towards the stairs. On the way I passed one of the club employees carrying a case of beer. He grinned and nodded at me. I had totally won respect, and all I had done was treat an * the way he deserved to be treated.

In the bathroom upstairs, I did truly look awful when I saw myself in the mirror. My eye makeup had streaked down my face in rivulets to my chin, and my lipstick had somehow smeared up my cheek to my forehead. But I loved it. I looked like a fighter, like a f*cking warrior.

Fern burst into the bathroom at a full run, her face beaming, and grabbed me, throwing her arms around me. “Rachel . . . that was amazing.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Are you okay? Do you feel all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I didn’t throw up because I was sick or anything.”

“I know, I know. Just wanted to make sure.” She looked me up and down. “God, you look tough right now.”

I laughed.

“Sorry I didn’t jump down there and help you. I didn’t really know what to do,” she said.

“It was fine. I was okay by myself. I’m glad you guys kept playing. It made it even more awesome, like it was no big deal. If you’d stopped playing, that totally would have ruined it.”

“Rachel, you’re crazy,” she grinned. “I love it.”

I rinsed my mouth and wiped my eyes, but I didn’t bother fixing my makeup. Fern and I went to join Edgar and Socks at the back of the club. The plan had been that once our gear was loaded off, we’d try to sell some of our CDs. We found Edgar and Socks sitting at a table with the box of CDs and a few people milling around. Torn Bowel had just gone on, and I couldn’t help but gaze a little bit at Jamie as we made our way over to the guys.

People were buying CDs, handing their money to Socks, and Edgar smiled at me as I sat down beside him.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“That was pretty gross,” he said. “I’m glad you did it though. For a second I wondered if I was going to have to jump down there and break it up.”

“Nah, it was fine.”

Socks turned to us. “We’ve sold a bunch of CDs,” he said. “I think everyone liked the show a lot. People asking about the band and stuff. And definitely asking about you,” he said to me.

As if to punctuate this, I looked up to see two girls standing by the table, smiling at me.

“Hi,” I said.

“You were awesome,” one of the girls said. “When’s your next show?”