Dylan wasn’t entirely up to speed on what rainbow parties were, but he had five faces eagerly after information on whether he could substantiate or deny these rumors.
He was a little put out that they should assume a normal guy would know what one of these ‘rainbow parties’ was. Was he so sheltered? Did normal guys know all about this?
He assumed it was some kind of drug thing. Psychedelic drug-taking, perhaps. People seeing rainbows as they hallucinate. Or maybe it was a gay thing – wasn’t a rainbow flag a symbol for the gay community?
“Sure, I’ve heard they happen,” he said dismissively. “It’s not really for me.”
“Not for you? You ever been invited?” Chrissy pushed him.
“Sure.”
“So what, you said ‘no’?”
“It’s not really for me.”
There were a few eyebrows at that. Noelle gave him a funny look, and he couldn’t quite work out whether she was somehow impressed at him – no doubt for keeping his nose out of drugs – or baffled as to why he should pass up such an opportunity.
Or maybe she could tell he’d told a white lie hoping they’d just drop the subject.
She said: “I thought you said guys from St Josephs were above all that demeaning stuff.”
He was a little confused himself. Maybe he’d got the meaning of the term ‘rainbow party’ wrong. He said: “I didn’t say all of us, did I?”
She said, with a skeptical note: “And you’re seriously telling us you turned down a whole night of free blow jobs?”
His ears burned. A whole evening of what-what? Now he suddenly found himself wanting a quiet corner where he could consult Google via his iPhone.
“I don’t know, sounds like a weird thing to me,” he said.
She said: “Doesn’t it?”
He felt a sudden drop in tension in the air – he did not like lying to this girl. It really was not worth it. Ellie said: “Robbie Fallon and Archie Settler have been trying to talk girls in our school to throw one for ages.”
“It’s an urban myth,” Sasha said. “Nobody really does that.”
“But they do at St Josephs?”
“Well, I’ve never actually seen one,” Dylan said, feeling himself hot under the collar, really wanting them to drop this subject.
“I bet you have,” Ellie said. Were they taking the wrong interpretation of his blushing?
Noelle looked at him and gasped, putting her hands to her mouth – was she kidding around again? She said: “You have, haven’t you?”
“No, I – ”
She said: “I thought you said you were all read up on, you know, how to please a girl in bed. You’re all in tune with how to make them… you know. And you’ve been to a rainbow party?”
Dylan felt sick. Maybe he had been wrong to think Noelle had ever really liked him, and that this group of girls was simply setting him up for a fall. Toying with him. He was disappointed in the revelation that he was an idiot, though.
He said, pointlessly, “Maybe some of those girls like it.”
Jesus, he was defending an urban myth now.
“Like it? A whole evening of giving guys blow jobs? And what do they get for their trouble other than a face full of jizz?” Noelle huffed again. She said: “That’s the thing, isn’t it? Girls will do that sort of thing to make guys happy, but guys won’t do it for girls.”