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I woke up with a ring on my finger in unfamiliar surroundings... |
| [Introduction]
Here's the prompt I found: Write a story about waking up after a night of drinking in a city that's 250 miles away from your own and a wedding ring on your finger. Let's make it interesting 
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| My head ached. From the depths of a hangover I sat up from my pillow and squeezed my eyelids against the glow coming in the window. My brow furrowed. My room didn’t have a window that faced east. I rubbed the wrinkles from my forehead and tried to open my eyes. What I saw made my heart beat escalate. I was in a hotel room. Thankfully I was fully clothed, lying on top of the bedclothes, but my heart felt betrayed. Pushing my hair back from my forehead, something glittered and caught my attention. Yanking the hand from my hair to hover in front of my blurry eyes, I felt my heart stop beating. My left hand bore a ring – one I had not remembered receiving or putting on. It looked suspiciously like a wedding band. I pulled the ring off and stared at it, my jaw slack. On the inside of the ring was an inscription, M & P Forever. I read the inscription several times then sat there blinking to remove the image from my mind. There is no way I got married last night! Without knowing what else to do with the ring other than fling it against the far wall to enjoy the ping-clink of it as it would hit the gaudy picture and then the bolted-down television, I brainlessly pushed the ring back onto my finger. Standing from the bed, I pulled some wrinkles out of my plaid button up shirt and went to the bathroom. My purse was no where to be found and had my head not been hurting so bad it may have bothered me. Washing my face, I noticed a heart shaped hicky on the side of my neck. Aghast, I fingered it wondering who I had been so friendly with. I ran through all the male names beginning with ‘M’ I could put a face with, but I hadn’t seen any of them since high school ten years before. I leaned forward to let my forehead rest on the cool faucet. I wasn’t the kind of person who drank often either. Not only that, it had been years since I’d had any alcohol. I wondered why I’d indulged in so much drink the night before. Had I gotten fired? I couldn’t even remember what day it was. With a sigh I redid my hair and dried my face before leaving the room to step out into the sun. What a run down motel. In front of me was my little used car. I wondered at it being there. I couldn’t have driven anywhere in my condition… or did I? Who did I run off the road? Walking to the door, I peered into the window. On the driver’s side seat lay my keys and purse. I tried the handle and to my surprise it opened. |
Cautiously sitting behind the wheel, one hand pushing against the throbbing of my head, I grabbed my purse. Everything seemed to be intact, including the little bit of cash I always tried to carry. Well, whoever I'd been with wasn't after me for my money! The thought made me chuckle, despite my head and loss of all common sense. "Urrrgghh." I jumped. Something was in the seat behind me. Or someone, but it didn't sound quite human. Pushing my way out the door, I stepped backwards, moving further away from the car, and the intruder. Curiousity stopped me, though. I had to go back and look. Maybe it would answer one or two of the questions buzzing through my brain. |
| Warily, I walked back to the side of the car and peered in the backseat window. Lying there was a man I’d never seen before, and by the looks of him, not the kind of person I usually associated with. His hair was a mess, sticking up in all directions. He had a nose ring in each nostril. In addition to the drool coming out of his mouth, there was a lip ring with a chain leading to yet another ring attached to his right ear. I didn’t want to know the locations of any other items of jewelry. His unbuttoned shirt revealed a chest so hairy, it looked like the shag carpet of the motel room. He was also sweating up a storm in his leather pants. One socked foot was pressed against the window. My eyes found his left hand. With a groan and wave of nausea, I saw the shiny glint of a gold wedding band. |
| So, this was my charming Mr. Right. I cringed and pulled my hand away from the door handle. Turning from the snoozing image, I leaned against the car for support. The wind blew hair into my eyes and as I pushed it away the gold band caught my attention again. Holding it away from my face, I examined it for the second time that morning through the haze of a coming migraine. This can't be happening to me. Just as I was about to go to the motel lobby and call my best friend to come pick me up I heard my name from inside the car. |
| Well, apparently I'd talked to this guy long enough to give him my name. I supposed that was a good sign, though at this point, I couldn't let myself believe in signs. Where were they last night when I was getting myself into this mess? Shouldn't the holes throughout this guy's head have told me something? I looked back at the second groan of my name. He was beginning to stir, pushing against the car seat to try to lift his body off the floor. My brain whirred in so many directions, it stopped my movement. He scared me. Our matching rings scared me even more. But something must have attracted me to him, right? |
| I backed away from the car as the back door opened and my "husband" stumbled onto the pavement. "Patricia," he said with a groan. "Who are you, and why how do you know my name?" "It's me - Michael. Don't you remember me?" "No. What happened last night? Why are we married?" I asked frantically. |
| "Patricia, baby, are you okay?" he asked with obvious confusion in his voice. "No. To be perfectly honest, I am NOT okay. For the second time, what the hell happened?" I threw the words at him like darts. With all the holes he already had, I didn't think any more would matter. As this thought flashed through my groggy brain, I allowed myself a grim smile. "Trisha, don't you remember last night? It was one of the most amazing nights of my life. You were amazing!" "Amazing?" I asked suspiciously. "What do you mean? What did we do?" He leered at me (an expression I thought only existed in smarmy books or bad movies) and purred, "A more accurate question would be, what didn't we do?" |
| I shivered in a combination of disgust and pain before straightening to my full height and putting out a forceful arm to keep him at its length. "Back it up, mister. Don’t even think about it." Raising his hands in surrender, the holy fellow backed up against the car and a lazy, almost charming smile stretched across his perfect teeth. I stared... "Let's start at the beginning - who are you?" "Don't you know your own husband?" He smiled again, lifted a hand to scratch at his decorated ear, and then spoke around his tongue ring, "Oh, alright. I'm Tim or Peter. It depends on which state we're in." "You mean, which state of mind?" I rubbed my forehead. The ache there made it real hard to think logically. He laughed - a strange almost metallic sound. |
| "I just love your sense of humor, Doll. That's what attracted me most to you." Humor? Did he really think I was in the mood for humor? Pressing a hand hard against the ache, I closed my eyes, only for a moment. The scuffing of his torn-up shoes getting closer changed my mind about letting him out of my sight. I stepped back. "Look, my brain is about to throb out of my skull and I don't have any idea who you are or why this ring is on my finger. So give me a break, would you?" "Wow, really? You're serious?" I threw a look that could not possibly be considered anywhere near humorous. He stared. "That bump you got last night must have been worse than we all thought." |
| My hand went to the side of my head where I felt an egg just above my left temple. “Where did I get this from?” “I think from playing ‘Twister’. Man, that was fun. I never saw anybody bend like you did. You won, you know.” “What did you say your name was?” I asked with an exasperated sigh. “What state are we in?” he asked with a grin. “It looks like Louisiana. What difference does it make?” “Then Michael.” “Will you PLEASE tell me how I got here with you?” |
| "Oh Doll, don't tell me you don't remember?" he asked, smiling. It felt almost eery when he looked at me like that. I couldn't help but wonder what kind of a drink I had last night. "And what's this thing with all the different names?" "Shh...," he said and giggled like a school boy. Something in his eyes made my brain fuzz again. "Ugh!" I backed from the car and made for the house. "Come on, my love. Don't tell me that you don't remember anything that happened," he said gently, putting his hand on my shoulder. At least he seemed nice. "No...," I looked at him with a blank stare on my face. "No.. I remember nothing. What happened?" |
| "What do you want to know?" Michael asked. "For starters, how we know each other. The only Michaels I know are from high school, but that was years ago. And secondly, WHY ARE WE MARRIED??" "I can't believe you don't remember me. That hurts, babe." "I don't care. I don't know you," I screamed, beating my fists on the ugly motel room bedspread. "Okay. See if this helps. Think back to when you got off work last night. What do you remember?" I stared at my husband with a blank look as I started to retrace my steps starting at 5:00 the night before. |
| It had been a terrible day at work. John had been his usual 'charming' self and blew up on me for something he had told me last week he would do but didn't get done. And instead of crying when I left work, I got angry - more so than usual. Every other driver was an idiot and I could feel my blood pressure rising with each heartbeat. |
| And then I had made the mistake of driving down Willow Street. I never usually go that way, but I figured taking a different route home might help calm me down. The traffic on that street was bumper to bumper; apparently, there had been a huge accident up front. So I was there in my car, crawling along on Willow Street, when I saw Blarney's Pub. Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not one to drink. Sure, I drank from time to time, but never really enough to get piss-eyed drunk. Seeing the pub, however, made me think of college. Blarney's Pub was the closest pub to where I used to go to college, and was therefore one of the most popular hangouts. Shelley, Deb and I had practically lived there on the weekends, drinking scotches on the front stoop even after the place had closed. Those had been back in the good days, back when... I sighed. The clock on the dashboard read 5:14PM. It was Friday night and, like all the other Friday nights that had come before this one, I had nothing to do. I parallel-parked between two cars in front of the pub. One drink, I thought as I opened the door and got out of the car. Just one drink. One drink turned into three, and three turned into six. Day turned to night, and pretty soon the college crowd started to come in. I watched them from the bar, thinking how strange it was to see this from a different perspective. Instead of being the college girl having fun, I was the lonely woman at the bar, watching as everything else unfolded. By my seventh drink, beads of sweat had started to form near my brow. I was aware that someone was now sitting beside me, and I looked up sharply. The room spun. When I had regained my focus, I saw that the person beside me was perhaps my age, maybe a little older. But by his dress, you would have thought he were one of the college crowd. His piercings shone in the dim glow of the lights up above. His hair was thick and stuck up all over the place, but was kind of flat on top, sort of as if he had been electrocuted and then had put a hat on. His face was scruffy; he looked and smelled as if he had just rolled out from under a rock. He had on tight leather pants as well as a leather jacket. Underneath the jacket was a red t-shirt on which the slogan "Henry Ravioli" was printed in bold white lettering. Now, in any ordinary circumstance, I would have been more than a tad freaked out. People like this guy still lived with their parents when they were forty and never got jobs. People like this guy led demonstrations about anti-dumping laws and made voodoo dolls. Usually, I would have run away. Right now, however, I was so out of it that the minute I looked at the guy, all I could think about was how unbelievably hot he was. |
| "Okay, so we met at Blarney's, right?" I looked up at the man through narrow slits between the hands I held in front of my face, protecting me from the knowledge returning that I didn't want to know. "You do remember me." He plopped on the bed beside me, grinning like an old friend I haven't seen in ages. "No. I remember your face. I don't remember you." My sarcasm cut through his smile. I didn't care. What right did this guy have to smile at me like that when he took advantage of my drunken state? "Do you even know more about me than my name? Did we at least talk that much?" "Sure doll. You don't think I'd be enough of a creep to marry you without knowing anything about you?" "Hmm...." I lowered my hands to the back of my neck, rubbing at the tense muscles. "So what did I tell you about myself exactly?" |
| He stood up and walked across the side of the room. "Well, I know for starters what you used to be like in high school. Oh, the tales you told me." He laughed. "You married me because of what I did in high school?" "No, of course not sweet heart. Just sit on the bed and listen to me," he said. "I'm not sitting anywhere you tell me to," I stated. He laughed again. His laughter drew no comfort to me. |
| "What do you want to know next?" "Well, you could start with how we got from the bar to here, where ever 'here' is. How did you find this dump?" "The bar closed at 2, and then we met up with some mutual friends. Oh, Margie thought you made a lovely bride." I spun around to face him. "Margie? Who's Margie?" "You're Maid of Honor. Don't you remember her?" |
| "No." I closed my eyes and racked my brain, trying with all my might to scrounge up any recollections I might have, however small, of the night before. "And what do you mean, "mutual friends"? Who the Hell do we have in common?" Ignoring this, he strode towards me and put both his hands on my shoulders. "Come on, babe, don't you remember?" he said, looking at me seriously. It was the first time he had said something without some sort of sarcastic inflection. It was also the first time I noticed how very, very blue his eyes were. "Margie..." I said absently, still thinking. Dimly, I recalled stumbling down the sidewalk in front of the pub, laughing, arm in arm with this freak, and walking into a - "Diner," I said, shuddering at the recollecting. "Margie was the woman at the diner." Michael laughed and slapped me on the shoulder, hard, as if I had just accomplished a truly amazing feat. "See, you do remember. I told you!" Margie, I thought, thinking back to the woman behind the counter at the diner. Rolls of fat squeezed into a tight, bright emerald suit, David Bowie-style. Yards and yards of black hair with bright orange highlights secured on top of her head with a pink plastic hairclip, like it was Hallowe'en or something. She - "Wait," I said. "Yesterday was Hallowe'en, wasn't it? October 31st?" "Can't you tell?" he said, gesturing to his clothes. He took off the leather jacket and threw it in a corner, then began to unhook his piercings, which were all, I realized in astonishment, clip-ons. "Wait a minute," I said. "So you don't usually dress like this?" The guy looked at me as if I was nuts. "Are you crazy? It's way too much work. Imagine all the damn unkeep I'd have to do to keep my image! Of course," he said, giving me a sidelong glance, "I can start dressing like this all the time if it, like, turns you on or something." "No," I said. "Just... no." I closed my eyes and massaged my temple. My brain had been fired so much new information in such a short space of time that it felt as if it were about to implode. |
| It still didn't make any sense. Maybe I'd hit my head a little harder than I thought. I still couldnt wrap my head around the idea of having gotten married to the first guy I saw through my beer goggles. "Who did the ceremony?" I took the ring off again and stared at it. "And where did you find a ring, an inscribed ring, after we left the diner?" I cut my eyes at him through the hang-over haze. "Huh?" Michael or Tim or Pete or whoever he said he was, smiled big. "What?" "You know, even drunk you're a smart cookie." "What's that mean? And you didn't answer my questions." "Remember Patty? She had the rings. Just forty-five dollars and we had matching rings. They're nice, huh." I sighed. So, this was what'd become of me. I'd waited to get married for a long time, being careful of the guys I dated, but I go out one night, get plastered and wake up the next morning with a ring on my finger. It didn't make sense. Even drunk as Cooter Brown, I would never have agreed to such an arrangement. |
| "Hey, come on. Let me buy you breakfast and give your head a chance to clear." The husband ran a hand up and down my arm as though such an inane act could soothe out this mess. "I don't think so. I'm going home." "Not until I'm sure you're safe to drive. That bump looks nasty." The bump. I put my hand up to the spot on my head and grimaced at the pain shooting through my skull. "How did I get this?" Michael/Tim/Pete cocked his head and frowned. "I'll tell you what. Let's go eat and anything you still don't remember afterwards, I'll tell you. By then you'll either be okay to drive or you'll need a doctor. Either way, Mrs. Turner, I have to insist you let me buy you a meal. It's the least I can do." Mrs. Turner? I supposed that was the man's last name, at least in this state. Moving away, I was caught between agreeing and being scared to my last wits. Common sense ruled out. I'm big on common sense. Anyone I know will affirm that fact. "And you think I should trust going anywhere with you? What do you think I am, anyway?" He smiled, a large beautiful smile, and shrugged. "Hey, after you came with me to the hotel and spent the night, should you be worried about going to a public place to eat?" |
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