by Maggie Voysest

Gigi and Helen’s Night Out

Now Gigi has told you all about her best friends Kelly and Susan, and you’ve read some mentions of Mary. She has not yet told you about her newest friend, Helen. Gigi has only known Helen for a little over a year. At first they were merely colleagues, but they soon became extremely close friends, especially when they began to discover that they had one thing in common: their crappy luck in dating. They joked about writing a book together on their experiences, but it wasn’t until more than a year later, one sunny day in June that Gigi began to write her memoirs. It didn’t take Helen more than a few weeks to feel the need to do the same. She called Gigi up late one night, and sent her the stories she had just written. Gigi was in tears of laughter, and at the same time so impressed at the way Helen wrote, so similar to her own tongue-in-cheek, laugh-at-yourself style, that she knew a book was in their future, a book written together about their dating life, or lack of it.

That whole first summer was spent writing and sharing their stories. Gigi was writing a story a week for the website, and Helen would write whenever she had a spare moment. They spent a few nights that summer putting their first chapters together, but it wasn’t until September that they got serious about their writing. It was mainly because Helen had a young son she adored, and with whom she spent most of her time. When his father began to want to see him again, Helen realized that she’d have two weekends a month all alone, and she resolved to spend this time with Gigi. Having fun, spending lots of girl time together, and writing. Writing away to their hearts’ content, and of course, going out at night to get lots more material for their book.

Writing was originally the main reason to get together, but I must confess that with all the girl time spent on shopping, getting facials and pedicures, tanning, eating out, and partying at night, not much writing was done in the end. But that actually suited them just fine. It was something that both of them had desperately needed. Helen had needed some fun and time away, time for herself, to get over the recent sadness of her second divorce. Gigi needed time to rediscover herself, to get away from that constant search for the perfect man, that was always just out of her reach.

Helen and Gigi were so good for each other. Helen calmed Gigi down and because of this new friendship, Gigi didn’t chase after men, at least not as much, or at least not to the point of consummation, which would just result in yet one more one-night stand. In turn, Gigi was good for Helen, allowing her to let loose and flirt away. Helen was much better in the flirting department than Gigi was, because she stopped at flirting, and so her heart and emotions were much safer. Thanks to Helen, Gigi was saved from quite a few certain mistakes. Thanks to Gigi, Helen felt vital and attractive and alive for the first time in years.

When they realized that these weekends together were not being spent on writing, they began to spend at least one or two other Saturdays a month together, writing while Helen’s son Gideon was asleep, writing until 2 or 3 in the morning, writing and laughing and sharing their hilarious stories, having more fun together writing the stories than they ever had on the actual dates they were writing about. Writing was saving them from so much sadness and depression, as they were able to laugh away all past sorrows and disappointments.

Now their first weekend together was something else. Gigi is taking the reins in this chapter about them. Later on you will read Helen‘s take on their first wild weekend, but for now it is Gigi’s turn. Besides, that next morning after a night of debauchery and drinking, (or maybe just drinking and no debauchery), Helen was lying on the bed, moaning, with a pillow covering her face, quietly complaining about her hangover headache and the brightness of the room. You’ll find out why in a moment, so read on, my friends. How did it come about that Gigi and Helen ended up in bed together, without the hot 30 year old guys they met last night, complaining about the bright lights and headaches? And whatever happened to the two guys? Ready for yet another hysterical night in Gigi’s life? Well, here goes…

Gigi had been bugging Helen for weeks now about writing their story together. But Helen’s life was filled with duty and responsibility. Gigi was lucky in that her sons were teenagers, and she shared custody with a great ex-husband and father. Helen was a single mom with a two year old, and he always came first in her life; even if that meant depriving herself of fun, love, and anything fulfilling… sex does enter that equation, but she hadn’t had any in over a month. “A month?” thought Gigi in horror. How could anyone go a whole month without sex? Her friend Mary would have laughed hysterically at that. She had once gone 7 years without sex, and that was while she was married!! Helen had had amazing sex until just recently, and was now practically climbing the walls by the time her son left with his father, who had decided to be a dad that weekend. Her ex-husband barely ever saw his son, considered his weekends with him as an obligation, and would always drop him off with his parents. It broke Helen‘s heart every time she had to let him go, especially since her two year old toddler didn’t want to leave.

She texted Gigi at 8 P.M. telling her to come over. “I’ll be right there,” said Gigi. A few minutes later, Gigi suddenly screamed out loud, scaring the bejesus out of her older son Timmy. “What’s wrong,” he asked. “Helen just texted me that someone wants to publish our book… OUR book!!” she yelled . As Gigi wrote about this part in their story, once again after their infamous night together, and said it very loudly, Helen begged, “Shhhh please” and got a second pillow to cover her ears, as well as her eyes. That previous night Gigi had been getting ready to pack to go to Helen’s house for the weekend when she got the text about the publisher. Yet after a text like that, who could think? Who could pack? Can you blame Gigi for not being able to be neat and organized? She flew out of the house, things trailing behind her, things shoved in pockets and purses and bags. Now Gigi wasn’t the neatest person at the best of times, but she did like to spend time on packing when going away to make sure she had everything she’d need. Gigi liked to coordinate her jewelry with her clothes and shoes, but this is one time that she left home without jewelry or make-up.

Now don’t get me wrong, Gigi was organized in some things. Her grade books, filled with over 400 students, were meticulous, with all test scores duly noted. Her report cards were precise and clear, informing parents exactly what each of those hundreds of students knew or didn’t know. Her lesson plan books were color-coded by grade, listing what she did each day. Her computer files were pristine: a labeled file for each item, each Gigi chapter carefully saved in special folders, with a word count for each chapter. Gigi loved to find out how many words she was up to (over 76,000 words to date). “Good God!” exclaimed her friend Susan one night at dinner. “You counted each word?” Gigi had burst out laughing at that. Oh Susan, yet another reason for blonde jokes.

Now Gigi’s house was another matter. Her clothes and shoes were spread throughout many of her rooms. Organizing and tidying up here were Gigi’s least favorite thing to do. When trying to find something, it was like a fun scavenger hunt. She might not find what she was looking for at that moment, but for sure she would find what she had been looking for the previous week! She had more clothes and shoes than she had room for, and no beautiful walk-in closet or dream shoe organizer like the huge one sold at Ikea, or the one built for Goldie Hawn in the the movie “Overboard.” Still Gigi always ended up finding what she wanted, at some point or another.

Now Helen was the exact opposite. Her house was immaculate and tidy. Everything had its place. Her closets were meticulously organized, with things in labeled boxes, neatly stacked, and Helen always knew where everything was. And yet her computer? “OMG,” thought Gigi one day, when she wanted to copy Helen’s stories onto her flash drive to print out and sort through. Helen had several copies of each chapter, and finding the current version was at times downright impossible. It took Gigi one whole night to go through them (and first she had to print out each copy). She organized each Helen and Gigi chapter, and put it back onto Helen’s laptop, threatening her with actual physical damage if it ever got to that kind of mess again. Once again, Gigi and Helen were good for each other, organized and messy in their own ways. Oh if only being a lesbian could have been an option for them…but no, sadly they loved men too much.

That first night together had been quite the night, ending in the wee hours of the morning, and they had been woken up the next day at the ungodly hour of noon by workers fixing some godforsaken thing on a Saturday morning. “They’re not even cute,” moaned Gigi, peeking out the window, hoping to at least see some hunky sweaty worker with abs glistening in the sun. Helen rolled her eyes and submerged her whole head under the covers. Helen wanted to run outside in her blue and white polka dots undies to yell, “Shut the f#*& up,” at the workers. Gigi couldn’t run outside. She had no undies on at all!

“Need coffee,” groaned Helen, as she got up very, very slowly, holding her head in her hands. Gigi said, “Boy, your undies really are polka-dotted.” “Kmart special,” said Helen. Gigi sauntered off to get her clothes, still not wearing undies, as the workers outside Helen’s room gaped in amazement, their mouths falling open at seeing Gigi’s sashaying by, holding a laptop, with no undies on. And at Helen, staggering behind her in polka dotted underwear as bright as lights, holding her hands over her eyes at the blinding daylight…

Gigi soon ran outside, this time wearing a skirt (but still no undies), to get what she called her one night-stand bag that she always kept in her car. To be honest it was the first time that she had had to use it for a night spent with a woman… She took a quick second look at the workers building a new stoop outside the apartment next to Helen’s: one was older than dirt and the other one was younger than springtime… “Too young,” said Helen shaking her head at Gigi. “Ok, maybe so,” thought Gigi.

It was like a chapter of The Odd Couple: Oscar and Felix, female style. Gigi was just like messy Oscar, running around all discombobulated, with her belongings strewn around poor Helen’s neat apartment. Helen was like neat Felix wanting desperately to pick up after her. Gigi felt bad and looked in Helen’s kitchen closet, knowing she would find a tidy little stack of plastic baggies, and she grabbed two and threw in yesterday’s clothes. Thankfully Gigi always kept morning-after clothes in her car. She even found panties!

Gigi threw on her pink sunglasses that matched her pink sundress and pink shoes, as Helen walked around looking like Stevie Wonder in dark, black sunglasses. And then they were finally ready to go get coffee. Well, Helen got coffee and a bagel, which she daintily munched on, while hiding under an umbrella from the sun. Gigi scarfed on a roast beef baguette, and thirstily drank her first coke of the day, as she basked in the sun. Boy, they were so alike in some ways, but so different at times.

“How are you in such good condition? asked Helen. “I don’t understand. Poor Helen. She never drank. She hadn’t grown up in Mallorca like Gigi, who had learned how to drink and handle alcohol since she was a teenager. Gigi never threw up, whereas poor Helen still felt like throwing up. Helen had never thrown up from drinking, not even in college. She had ever drunk that much in her life. She’d had no chance last night: two October fest beers and six shots later, and she soon lost everything she’d eaten in the past few days!

All this goes to show some of the prime differences between the two women. Gigi would have taken that man home last night, but Helen wouldn’t let her. “You need to make them wait, Gigi.” “I don’t want to date him,” said Gigi. “I just wanna… him.” Helen took her pillow off her eyes to roll them yet again. But Gigi is digressing once again, since the story is so darn good, like a candy bar that you want to scarf down immediately, but know you have to savor it bite by bite.

Back to last night. By the time Gigi got to Helen’s house, Helen had already had two drinks. Having her son leave always tugged at her heart strings, as she felt part pleasure, part guilt… guilt at letting him go, pleasure at having some precious time to herself. She was dressed for the bar and raring to go. Whereas Gigi still had clothes and earrings in her hands that she had grabbed, as she ran out the house in a tizzy about their book being published… no perfume on and no make up.

She was forced to dig through Helen’s box of neutral makeup. “Don’t you have any bright pinks or reds?” she asked. “Oh no, I’d look like a harlot,” said Helen. So Gigi had to make do with the pastel colors. “So this is what pastels look like on me,” she wondered out loud, as she peered closely at the mirror to try and see if any color showed up on her tan face. “Here, this is pinkish,“ said Helen and she gave her a brown tan lipstick. Gigi didn’t even know they make lipstick in colors that matched Secretary of State walls. “Where is your jewelry?” she asked. Helen only had a few things, all too small and not dangly enough for Gigi, and in colors she’d never known existed and definitely nothing in the colors Gigi craved. At home Gigi had several jewelry trees with tons of earrings, color coded and matching most of what she wore. “Oh well,“ thought Gigi, “at least I have my tatas. Those can never be left at home, no matter what kind of a rush I’m in.“ They were finally ready to go out for the night, and looked pretty good.

Helen knew she was in for trouble that night, as they walked to a bar, and already began getting looks from men. One guy commented on their sweet smelling perfume. “Our perfume? What about the rest of us?’ asked Gigi. “We bought the perfume… We worked hard on our looks!” The maybe gay guy checked them out from head to toe, nodding appreciatively, and walking off. “Are you sure he’s gay?” said Gigi. “If you have to wonder don’t even go there,“ answered Helen, as she looked at the guy in his yellow tailored shirt, ironed jeans, and fashionable sandals. “That guy is prettier than me,” said Helen. “I have no doubt that he is gay.”

Gigi and Helen walked into one of the most fashionable new hot spots of Royal Oak and immediately heads turned, and followed them. It was September and all the young girlies were wearing fall clothes. Gigi and Helen were both wearing beautiful sundresses, showing off their cleavage and summer tans. Gigi was all in pink and red, with her tatas practically falling out. Helen was in summer blue, with her push up bra showing off her pert breasts. Later Gigi was asked twice what size she was, (42DD she’d say proudly), and Helen was told that she had a perfect B/C pair. Gigi had this habit of sticking her Iphone in the side of her bra, which drove men crazy. One cute short Latino type told her he loved her phone rest, and said she should keep in right in the cleavage. Oh Gigi… She never does things the quiet demure way.

Gigi and Helen were hungry since neither had really had time to eat, what with all the excitement about the publisher. That deal would never come to fruition, as it was some online publisher scam deal. Yet despite that, it was the first request for their book, and had given them their first rush and high about their writing becoming a book someday. Gigi and Helen found a table and ordered some finger food. It was still quite early, but the place was already packed, with simply beautiful people. There was no one near the table where they were eating, so they were able to concentrate on food, and took the time to get used to being out and about. They were left alone for the most part, until that is, until bald, white artsy fartsy Mr. Clean plopped himself down right next to Gigi, practically in her lap, without asking if it was all right to join them.

He began to swear up a blue streak, about the crowded place, and the men trying to pick him up. “Do I look gay?” he asked the girls. Gigi choked on a fry, and Helen made polite noises. His eyes fell on Gigi’s tatas, and he exclaimed out loud about them. Gigi would have moved, but she was now penned in by Mr. Clean. She leaned as far back as she could, and caught the eye of a cute guy sitting at the next table. She continued to flirt with him, while doing her best to ignore the obnoxious man. Gigi had no patience for fools. If she was quiet near a man, and didn’t smile or chat him up, you’d know Gigi had no interest in him at all. Helen was way more polite and tried to engage him in conversation, but even she’d had enough when he began to help himself to their food. How rude! Gigi excused herself and ran away to the bathroom, but couldn’t leave Helen alone for long. Thankfully the man soon left, off to complain and swear at some new woman.

Gigi sighed with relief, and the guys next to her started laughing. They’d been watching it all in amusement, and they were soon all sitting together, exchanging names and information. Gigi had noticed the two guys when they had sat down. Especially Demian. Demian was young, hot, and yes, black. Joe was a cute white version. They were best friends, and it was their first time at the club. And so began one of the most fun nights ever. It was fun not because it ended up with wild times in bed. It was fun because it was pure flirting, and enjoyment, and an instant connection between four people. The four of them hit it off from the very beginning, and spent the rest of the night in each other’s company, None of them made the usual excuse of “I’ll be right back” and then disappear, never to be seen again. Nope. They spent every minute together, talking as though they’d known each other for years. They probably looked like two couples to everyone around, because no one hit on the girls for the rest of the night. And the girls didn’t flirt with anyone else.

Gigi had had her eye on Demian from the very beginning. But he was further away from her, so she couldn’t really hear him over the noise of the crowd, whereas Joe was right next to her and flirting away. Gigi decided it would be okay to go white again, for the first time in a while, yet all the time keeping an eye on Demian, who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying Helen’s smiles and flirty ways. Joe began to order drink after drink. Gigi hadn’t done so many shots in years. Helen had never done shots at all. Gigi and Joe made bets on who could drink more, him or her. Gigi simply smiled. So many men had underestimated her alcohol capacity. Helen? Well, poor Helen just accepted what was placed in front of her, tossing away shot after shot, not realizing that it would all too soon be too much alcohol for her to handle.

They moved from the tables to the dance floor, and soon began a dancing, flirting version of musical chairs. One minute Gigi would be dancing and flirting with Joe White. Next she’d be in the arms of Demian Black, and she’d have switched men with Helen. Now Helen didn’t normally go for black men, but she thought that Demian was to die for gorgeous, as was Joe. They continued drinking shots, and managed not to fall down or make too much of a spectacle of themselves. Joe even lifted Helen up, dipping her and flinging her around while she held a glass of water, and not a drop spilled. At that point, the lines were almost crossed, and the true pairing of the night was made. Demian told Gigi that he must be her consolation prize when they saw Helen in Joe’s arms. Gigi looked at him in disbelief. “Consolation prize?” Are you kidding me? I’ve had my eye on you from the beginning!” Demian claimed not to believe her, saying he was nothing special. Great line, and so not true.

All too soon it was 2 AM, and the bar closed. They’d briefly lost Helen, but soon found her outside. They were all starving as is the wont on nights like these. Joe and Helen were weaving. Gigi and Demian were still more than sober enough to walk in straight lines, and managed to kiss along the way. They kept losing Joe and Helen, and they thought they were making out in dark corners along the way. Gigi didn’t do dark corners… oh no, it was park benches and out in the public eye for her. They walked hand in hand on their way to the restaurant, Demian still claiming to be the consolation prize, Gigi still trying to convince him that she much preferred black men over white.

They got to the restaurant first, and found a seat, while wondering where the heck the other two had gotten to. Now all I will say is that they were not quite making out the way they’d thought. Oh no. Helen had made the close and personal acquaintance of several Royal Oak trashcans along the way, as she swore to herself that she’d never drink that much again. I’d go into more detail, but it will be so much funnier when you read Helen’s version. Helen was soon practically asleep in the booth, her head sweetly against Joe’s tanned and muscular arms. Demian and Gigi ate heartily, laughing at their lightweight friends who couldn’t handle drink. So much for Joe beating Gigi at drinking…

Now the night would have ended much differently if Gigi had not made plans to stay at Helen’s. She’d have taken Demian home and shown him a thing or two. Yet Gigi had brought Helen, and it was her responsibility to take her home. And Gigi knew that Helen was way better at keeping men at a distance. They walked back to their car and Helen and Joe sat in it for quite some time and talked. The last thing Helen felt like doing was making out, not after all the throwing up that she had just done. Gigi and Demian made out by the car, tormented and frustrated by their inner desire and wish to be alone. And yet Gigi almost liked this new feeling. This feeling of “No, I’m not going to just give it all away to you, for you to run away and forget I ever existed in your life.” She didn’t even ask him for his number, nor did she say they could hook up some other night. It was Demian who asked for her number, who said he wanted to see her again. “Wow!” thought Gigi. “So this is what it’s like to play hard to get?” She thought she could get used to this, and maybe even like being the one to torment someone.

Of course, Gigi and Demian never got together again. They texted and emailed for a while, flirting away, even getting quite explicit one day. But it turned out that Demian was seeing not one, but two other women, who supposedly knew about each other. Gigi just laughed at this, since she also had two men that she would see when she had her, let’s call them, needs… As it turned out, they never found the time to meet, and soon the new Gigi had deleted his phone number from her Iphone. Poor Demian had no free time to offer, and Gigi didn’t wait around for no man these days. As for Joe, well he had a fulltime girl friend, and although he said he liked Helen, he soon stopped texting her when he realized he’d get nowhere with her.

Now the next night, Gigi and Helen went out again, this time to an 80’s/disco dance club, and although they didn’t pick up men in the same way, they had a blast flirting with many different men, and even more fun dancing to tunes they’d grown up listening to. They had found their home. Boogie Fever, and determined to come back in two weeks, with… Helen’s twin sister. Yes. Helen had an identical twin sister who lived a few hours away. Now that weekend would be one to go down in the annals of history, and will soon be available for reading and laughing at. In the meantime, don’t feel sorry for the girls. They’d had a wonderful weekend together, had flirted and laughed and danced, and had even written a few parts of their stories to share with their readers and friends.

To read Helen’s version of this night, see Helen’s Horrors of Dating – Part II

To read Gigi Part XXI, see The Adventures of a Thoroughly Confused Gigi – Part XXI