A million particles of cosmic riffraff dance in the first rays of morning sunshine creeping their way through my bedroom blinds.  Even half asleep, seeing it makes me afraid to breathe in.  These thoughts and my deeply furrowed brow might brand me a philosopher in your eyes.  But no.  It’s just a hangover.  And it’s a bad one.

I curl up in the fetal position and press my thumb and middle finger to my throbbing temples.  I move my thick tongue around like a cow chewing cud.  It’s gotta be four times its normal size and tastes like I ate an entire sleeve of stale saltines and washed it down with 8 to 10 beers.  But that would be ridiculous.  I drink vodka.

Well, at least I had a good time last night.

I think.

The dog turns a few circles and then nestles in hard in the bend of my knees.

I hear a non-canine sound beside me.  A sleepy “mmmmm” then the creaks of a mattress undulating under a long, lazy stretch.

And then I remember.  The vodka, the dancing, the band, the guy…

We’ve only been seeing each other a little while, this drummer and me, and he’s not in town very often.

I slide out of bed without even lifting the covers and float across the bedroom floor like a ghost.  In the bathroom, my pee comes so hard and for so long I start to make coughing noises in case he’s listening, then I pop a couple of Excedrin and open my mouth directly under the running sink faucet.

I look up.  In the mirror, I see a woman I would not want to wake up to so I quickly run my hands through my hair, use my pinky to wipe off the half of the smudged eyeliner that screams “batshitcrazy” and brush my teeth.

In my bare feet, I sashay back to the bedroom with a smile on my face.

Gabe is sitting up in bed with a look of extreme consternation on his face.  The kind that says What the hell am I doing here, I have made a huge mistake. 

My heart does a clumsy backflip.

“What’s wrong?  Are you okay?  Is everything alright?”

“Ummmmm,” he says, leaning awkwardly on his left hip, his legs slung towards the edge of the bed.

He looks like he wants to leave.  Like yesterday.

“Listen, you can go if you want.  I mean, I can drive you back to the hotel now if you need to meet the rest of the band, no biggie.  You don’t have to hang out.  I have all kinds of things to do.”

Like cry.

“It’s not that,” he says, swiping the bottom of his boxers absentmindedly.  “I’d love to hang out all day if I could.  It’s just that … I don’t really know how to say this …”

He inclines his head dramatically at a spot mid-way down the bed, right about where his ass had been parked most of the night.

My eyes follow his to the large, yellow-tinged spot, its jagged edges marking the ebb of his flow.

“Oh. My. God.  You peed yourself.  In MY bed.”  I close both eyes and cover my gaping mouth with both hands.  “I do not even know what to say.  Oh my God.”  I drop down to a crouch, fall over onto the floor accidentally and stay there.

Gabe laughs out loud.

“How is it that YOU are laughing at ME right now?”

Gabe slides the rest of the way out of the bed and backs towards me, pointing at his ass.  His boxers are right in my face and I scramble away like a crab.

“Ewwww!  NO.  I do not want to feel your wet underpants.   Get away!  Are you crazy?”

He doubles over.  “No, they’re dry.  Seriously.  Touch them.”

Puzzled, I look at what is clearly a set of entirely dry man panties.

Standing up, I gesture towards the pee stain on the sheets.  “But what the hell is that?”

“Honestly, when I woke up. my first thought was OMG, I drank so much I peed her bed and now she’ll never ever speak to me again.  But then I felt my boxers and they were dry.  I think Brady peed on me.”

My head slowly swivels to the little black-and-champagne ball of fur curled up in the toasty spot occupied by me just a few minutes ago.  And then to the other side of the bed — his spot — where he’s left a smelly caution sign for my new bedmate.

“Brady,” I say sternly.  He lifts his head ever so slightly, meets my eyes then looks at Gabe as if to say “And that’s what I think of  you.”

And because I’ve had this dog long enough to put his every thought into human terms, I’m sure I hear an evil little chuckle.

“Your dog lifted his leg on me while I slept.”  Gabe shakes his head in amazement.

“It would appear that he’s not cool with your presence in my bed.  If you take being pissed on as a sign, I mean.”

“I find that is usually what it means.”  Gabe moves to the corner of the bed and starts taking the sheets off.  “What do we clean this mattress with?”

“I dunno.  The dog looks absorbent.”

For Brady. Always mean, always missed.