The Basement

That sentence set off a 40 minute conversation among those that were on. And because Discord has a phone app that was everyone except Sarah and Big Davey who just weren’t as connected as they should be. I hedged on the alien thing for a little bit. Yes I really did know an alien, would you all like to meet it because it can happen. No, I didn’t have any proof of the alien. No I was pretty sure he wasn’t running the government. No it wasn’t Q, whoever that was.

This sparked a discussion on Q, who hadn’t been kicked off of 4chan and onto 8chan yet. So he was still posting on the better of the two chans, which is like saying that you have the better kind of necrotizing fasciitis. I learned a lot of nothing, except that I’d be hearing about this one for months on facebook from my crazy uncle Ronnie, and then from my grandpa. Grandpa had a way of listening to crazy uncle Ronnie, taking the craziest thing he’d said, and running with it.

We got back on track when I asked if anyone wanted to meet my father and play video games on kind of a two for one outing. And all of this because I really didn’t want to walk over to the library. And also I didn’t want to meet Mr. Glome alone.

Or I did. I had been alone all the times before, and this time offered some very embarrassing examination. I wasn’t eager for an audience for that. It just felt like a little too much to be keeping all of this secret right now.

Finally I posted, “So does anyone want to do it?”

I got a chorus of “ins” and that seemed to be that.

Only it was not nearly enough.

I sent a PM to Regular Dave, “I have a big thing I have to share with the group.”

“Like a gender reveal party?”

Oh that hits close to home. “No, like a … [delete][delete][delete][delete][delete] Yeah, like one of those. Can we all meet some where kinda last minute?”

Regular Dave posted in the group, “Who wants to play the new assassin’s creed over in the basement?”

“Do we have to deal with your pest brother?” Bree asked.

“Nope. He’s doing the dress rehearsal. Show opens Friday. They leave at 5 you’re all welcome after that. I’ll get a couple pizzas.”

Then he PMed me. “Hope that works for you. I’ll be there in 30 minutes with traffic. You’re buying the pizza.”

Which gave me lots of time to ask for permission and decide what to wear. Did I wear the same thing to a tail reveal party? Yeah. If everyone saw that I changed clothes they’d know I’d changed and that wouldn’t be cool. Unless it was cool. Only it wasn’t. But it might be. I’d change my hair. That was it.

I didn’t have anywhere good to do my hair. I needed a vanity for this. No, just something simple.

Seven youtube videos later I had my hair up in something called a “flower braid”. Which meant that I had taught myself to braid hair too. And it was only 45 minutes later and the doorbell was ringing.

I met Regular Dave at the door with a quick kiss and only one boot on. Got the other boot on while I apologized and he looked around my house. I grabbed my wallet from my backpack, and realized I had no where to put it.

I excused myself again, and ran up to my mother’s closet. I didn’t even think twice about grabbing one of her old purses—couldn’t think twice because I was late for my own party—throwing the wallet, some tampons, a brush, some hair ties, my phone, a spare pair of socks, my lipstick, my keys…

Oops. Purse full, time to leave.

Regular Dave had drifted out onto the porch when I got there and I grabbed his hand as we dashed back to his truck.

Regular Dave lived in a regular ranch-style on Ivy, where he parked his regular truck on the regular curb. Rachel’s tiny metro was already there and he tapped on the window and made her jump, before he lead us all inside.

“What kind of pizza does everyone want?”

“Cheese,” Rachel said, and looked almost pained.

I ordered one cheese, one pepperoni, one sausage, and one mushroom. I got them all large because I had seen these motherfuckers eat. Even Rachel could finish off a large cheese on her own if she was feeling impolite. She knew it and I knew it.

We sat at the kitchen table, surrounded by sub-urban kitch and Regular Dave’s step-father’s brewing experiments. Of which there were a lot.

“It’s not illegal to brew your own booze, it’s just illegal to sell it.” He was explaining to me. “Tomato wine,” he pointed to a barrel with a weird top thing coming out of it, “ginger beer,” he pointed to a different barrel on the counter, “mead,” he pointed again. “I don’t have any idea what that is. And this is just the stuff he has in the kitchen. Downstairs he’s working on scrumble and absinthe.”

“You got the booze hookups for the next party?”

“Sure, if you want to go blind. He’s hasn’t made anything poisonous in about two years, but you would not believe what some of this tastes like. Tomato wine? Imagine you let ketchup sit in a hot car for three months and then drank that.”

“It doesn’t sound great.”

“It would probably be okay, if you added enough salt,” Rachel said, not looking up from her phone. “You know everyone’s on the rag, Dave, right?”

“Aisling had a thing she had to get off her chest.”

Rachel looked at me with huge eyes, and I hastened to assure her, “It’s nothing bad. I was really serious about the alien, and this is kin—hey, nothing on your phone is cuter than me!”

She made eye contact again, “Sorry you got on this history channel bullshit and I had to focus on something so I wouldn’t fall asleep.”

“Okay,” I drew into myself a little bit, “I’ll count you among the skeptics.”

And from there on out we tried to keep the conversation light as the others came in. Autumn and Wee David knocked, Bree opened the door and walked in. Sarah and Big Davey arrived together as she didn’t so much have a car and someone had to go up from the basement to get them.

Which is to gloss over my first experience with the large half-finished basement Regular Dave lead Rachel and Autumn and I down into, each carrying a pizza. It looked like a large half-finished basement, with a half-finished bathroom and three fully finished stills. Garage sale furniture and a nice TV, surrounded by throw rugs on the bare concrete. There was a PS4 and an Xbox whatever, and the consoles went back all the way to a NES and a Genisys.

That wasn’t at all interesting, nor did it make me almost drop my pizza. I didn’t almost drop my pizza at all because I had set it down when Regular Dave turned out the lights. Then turned on the black lights. They had black lights in tubes right next to the regular fluorescents, and with them up I could see that every available inch of the walls had been painted in neon blue and vivid orange. It was like standing in the black light poster room of a head shop, not that I would have any reason to know that. And I didn’t.

Everyone was acting like this was normal, and not super cool, so I decided that I would too. My traitorous penis decided to take that moment to tell everyone for me, and I quickly sat at the little table and crossed my legs to shut it up. I wasn’t really looking forward to a double reveal, but if the tail thing went okay, then maybe we could have another of these.

I checked, tail was still there. Nicely coiled like I had learned to do, and hidden outside this dimension. I took a piece of pizza, waited for my erection to go away, and tried to figure out how I would spring this on everyone.

Sarah and Big Davey were the last to show, and they came and got pizza downstairs and then everyone kind of looked around like, “what are we doing here.”

Sort of.

Looking back on it as an adult, I’m sure that is what it would have been like. I can’t imagine just hanging out with a big group of people and not having some sort of activity. But I know that in my memory, the fact that we were all together was enough. In two more days this kind of thing would be an orgy, and I’m not being metaphorical. In the meantime the air was charged, you could smell the sex, but it wasn’t happening.

We talked about stupid things we had seen on the Internet, Bree told a story about some stupid drama on tumblr, we laughed about what the president was doing. That in itself was chilling and we all felt it, but there was nothing we could do. When the conversation got to that point Sarah brought out her phone and shared an article on anxiety in the US, which was up all over the general population. And especially among teens.

Like I said, we felt it, but avoided it. We were scarred and angry and helpless.

And in the middle of this I kept wondering how I was going to do it.

First I would call everyone’s attention, and get someone to dim the (already off) lights. Then I would show my brilliant 50 slide powerpoint on hyperspace, aliens, hyper body parts, and what had happened to me. There would be graphs. And animated transitions.

When everyone was dumbstruck I would turn, hitch up my dress, and reveal my tail to rapturous applause

I would wait for a lull in the conversation and bring everyone close. I would put a flashlight under my face and tell them a nightmare tale. Of aliens, and white hospitals, and a pain that sends me into a cold sweat if I remember it too hard. Then someone—Rachel probably—would scoff and I would turn and hitch up my dress, and reveal my tail to stunned gasps and at least one scream.

Someone—probably Rachel—would ask how I designed my animatronic tail. I’d say, offhand, “Oh, it’s actually my real tail.” The conversation would lurch to a halt and everyone would look at me. I’d explain the accident, leaving out some parts, in an idle way. While I did my tail would come out and loop around someone’s wrist. “You see? It’s just me.” I would say, to stunned silence.

And then someone would share a meme about pandas or something.

I had each fantasy over the course of the next half hour. Regular Dave booted up the Xbox and we all saw the intro to Assassin’s Creed. But it was single player and one person can watch another person play a video game at one time. Add a third person, or 8 in this case, and it’s much less fun.

Instead he put on some Netflix and everyone talked over it.

I was sitting on the couch right in front of the TV and Regular Dave sat in the space next to me. Two weeks ago that would have sent my heart shuddering to a stop. Now it was intense, but manageable. He reached over and rubbed my back and the world melted.

Or I melted, leaning into the light back rub like it was a deep tissue massage. I ended up with my head on his lap, putting a hand out to scootch my dress down. I felt my tail there, doing something one it’s own. Some kind of auto-tail response to a back rub. It had straightened from it’s coil, and every time he rubbed down it straightened taught, then loosened up for the next rub.

Regular Dave noticed, and on one stroke the tail popped through the dress. He ran the stroke down my tail, and I shivered my whole body.

Sarah turned, then tapped Autumn, who brushed Bree. Wee David turned to follow their attention, and Rachel noticed him, and suddenly everyone was watching Regular Dave. His expression was frozen and I wanted to bury my head in his lap, while my tail had its little tip looped through the crook of his thumb.

Regular Dave kept his arm still while everyone watched his face. Then he casually put the tail down, and stroked my back again. In a tone that was casually alarmed he said, “Aisling. You have a tail, don’t you.”

I didn’t look at anyone. I ran with my first impulse and buried my head in his lap. While it was there I nodded and squeaked, “Yes!”

“And that’s why you wanted everyone to meet?”

“I didn’t want to tell them like this!” Head still in lap.

“Okay.” Regular Dave stroked my back to my tail again, “How did you want to tell everyone.”

“Wait a second while I figure that out!”

“Sure. We have tons of time.”