Men are from Mars

This is not a quiet party Aaron, Kate thought to herself, not for the first time that evening. The music pounded like a headache. She could barely hear herself think over the thud of the bassline. The noise was not helped by the footfalls of the guest lumbering towards her.

The guest was a large, reasonably handsome man and Kate had seen him eyeing her from across the drinks table earlier. This encounter had only been a matter of time.

 Kate didn't bother trying to make harald heard over the music. Instead, she raised her cocktail glass slowly and took a long sip without breaking eye contact. The glare she gave him was strong enough to scald and he staggered off in the opposite direction almost immediately. Kate could imagine the steam running off the man's skin as if she had actually burned him. She allowed herself a small, grim smile and checked her watch. Midnight could not come soon enough. 

Kate raised the cocktail glass to her lips again and paused to stare disapprovingly at the dwindling liquid. She gave it a gentle swirl, admiring how it caught the light, and let out a long suffering sigh. She really wasn't drunk enough for this, but it had taken time to carve out the small corner of room for herself. It remained relatively untouched by the raucous mess that was everyone else, and leaving her territory for something as minor as a refill would mean acceding defeat to the party gods. No, drink be damned, this was her space now and it would remain so for the rest of the evening. 

A new person wobbled towards her and Kate put the cocktail down. The woman was wearing a very short, very glittery dress. Its colour was almost blinding, even in the dim lighting of Aaron's cramped apartment. Kate tried her "don't fuck with me" look again but had a nasty feeling that it came out as more of a squint. The woman took no notice of it, either way. 

Kate had time to recognise the queasy look on the woman's face, but not enough of it to dodge the projectile vomit that followed. She closed her eyes and groaned. This was exactly what she'd expected from a New Year's Eve party, and it was exactly why she hadn't wanted to come. 

She stood up and tried not to breathe in the stench. She could feel the sick dripping down her Christmas jumper. It was her favourite fucking jumper, so of course it had taken the brunt of it.

 Kate stormed towards Aaron's tiny bathroom, ignoring the woman's slurred apologies and the accompanying mix of giggles and groans from the crowd in amongst the music. There was a loo queue, of course, but it parted like a curtain when people saw the look on her face. 

 She slammed the door behind her and revelled in the slight respite from the noise of the party. Her relief was so great that it took her a moment to remember why she had entered the bathroom in the first place. However, a drop of sick on her shoes promptly reminded her.

Kate stripped off the jumper, searching for something to scrub it down with. There was no loo roll, so she dumped the jumper in the bath and tried to rinse off the worst of the vomit with the shower head. 

She gave up after ten minutes, doubting that her jumper would ever smell the same way again. She hung it up on the shower curtain railing, rinsed her face in the sink and exited the bathroom with a certain sense of weariness. Her jumper was gone and so was her goddamn corner. 

Kate elbowed her way to the drinks table in the centre of the room and grabbed the nearest bottle of vodka. She took a hefty swig, grimaced at the familiar burn of alcohol sliding down her throat, and forced her way back out of the crowd to appraise her options. 

Aaron's apartment didn't have many corners (not that he'd notice). The first corner Kate had tried was difficult to sit comfortably in, which was not ideal when she planned to be sitting for several hours; the second corner had been taken over by Aaron's sports friends, who were pleasant enough but talked too much in a language that Kate had never understood; and her old corner was out of the question. That left only one option: the corner by the window. It would be drafty and she would have to share the space with the grouchy looking weirdo in a My Little Pony hoodie, but at least it was further away from the speakers than her previous corner. It was better than nothing. 

She moved purposefully towards the corner, her steps unsteady but sure, until she was staring down at the stranger. 

"Budge up."

"No."

She couldn't make out the stranger's eyes from this angle but she was certain that he was glaring at her. An empty pint glass sat in the minimal space beside him. 

She waved the vodka bottle in his face. 

"I have vodka." 

The effect on the man was instantaneous in a way that reminded her a little of Aaron. The stranger swept the pint glass onto his lap and Kate squeezed into the space beside him. It was cramped, but so was everywhere else. At least this way she only had to deal with one person.

 The stranger held out his pint glass and she filled it before taking another swig from the bottle. They sat in companionable silence (well, as silent as they could be at a bloody new year's eve event), watching the party unfold before them. She couldn't see Aaron but she knew that he was living it up somewhere amongst the throng of drunken guests. 

Kate's gaze perused the crowd in search of him but first person she laid eyes on was the woman from earlier throwing up into a wastepaper basket. She looked away with a grimace, not noticing the same movement beside her until she was staring directly into her companion's eyes. 

It was difficult to make the man out underneath the darkness of his hood. The reflection of the lights in his eyes reminded her of cat eyes, unblinking and strangely bright. She was fairly certain that he was a man but, for a moment, she wondered if he was even human. 

"What time is it?" he asked, his tone carefully polite and oddly blank. 

Kate looked down at her watch quickly. She'd grown accustomed to reading it in the dim lighting, but she allowed herself a moment longer to pull herself together. She needed to slow down with the vodka. 

"Nearly eleven," she replied. 

The man hummed in acknowledgement. She wouldn't have called the noise a groan per se, but it was definitely not a happy sound. 

"Yeah, we've got at least another hour of this." 

Kate gestured in the direction of the woman in the glittering dress. She had moved from the wastepaper basket to the table football, much to the dismay of everyone around it. The table was still clean and only slightly alcohol soaked, but Kate doubted that would last long. It looked like Aaron's sports friends agreed with her assessment, based on their wary expressions. 

Kate turned back to her companion. He was facing the room and she was almost disappointed not to get another glimpse of his strange eyes. 

If she ignored the hoodie, the stranger was wearing the right colours for Aaron's favourite rugby team. The My Little Pony decoration however ensured that he didn't look like one of Aaron's sports friends. She might have categorised him as one of Aaron's old university friends if she hadn't already met them all. Kate had liked Aaron's university friends. They might've made tonight more bearable. 

"How do you know Aaron?" she asked. 

"I don't."

"Oh. Friend of a friend then?" 

"Sort of."

The stranger held out his pint glass without looking at her and Kate refilled it. She waited for him to elaborate but no further explanation came. It irked her. She'd hoped to know most of the people in Aaron's life by this point. 

"I'm Kate."

She waited for some sign of recognition but none came. 

"Aaron's girlfriend?" she said, unable to help the irritation seeping into her voice. 

Finally, the stranger turned to look at her. 

"That's nice."

He spoke in exactly the same blank tone as before. Kate would have thought that he was taking the piss if she hadn't been able to see his strange, serious eyes. 

"Yes," she replied uncertainly. 

 Kate tore her eyes away from the man's gaze and shifted uncomfortably in the small space. She craned her neck until she could clearly see through the window behind them. 

"The one thing I do like about this apartment," she said. "Is the view."

She could feel the stranger's eyes on her but the view mostly distracted from the sensation. The city was spread out below them like a cascade of fairy lights. Occasionally light would stream into the air as another excited local set off their fireworks early, but the most impressive display would take place in the distant horizon over Bunin bridge. 

"I agree," the stranger replied. 

His voice sounded less empty this time but Kate didn't quite dare to turn back and look at him. She pressed herself closer to the window. It wasn't as drafty as she'd predicted and the coldness of the glass was soothing against her flushed skin.

 "We do not have cities like this where I come from."

"You don't?" Kate breathed, her words fogging up the glass. 

"No."

"Where do you come from then?" 

"If Aaron has not told you then I will not either."

Kate looked sharply over her shoulder at the stranger and the room spun in response to her sudden movement. She winced. 

"What's that supposed to mean? You said you didn't know him." 

"I do not. But we are from the same - homeland. I am supposed to watch him on days like this. New year is - special, for our people. It marks a time where the veil is thin. " 

The stranger's eyes were black now. Impossibly black. Kate blinked and his eyes were back to their strange cat-like reflectiveness. She let out a nervous laugh. It was just dodgy lighting and a little too much vodka. It had to be. She took a deep breath and put down the vodka bottle. 

"You country folk talk strange, you know. Aaron doesn't do it so much anymore but every now and then he'll say something and I just - I'll have no idea what he's on about."

The stranger nodded knowingly. 

"I am sure that is frustrating."

Kate turned properly to face the stranger, all eye colour weirdness promptly forgotten. 

"Yes! And he won't even explain it! I always thought the whole men from Mars, women from Venus thing was bullshit, but he used to go off on one about how we're from different worlds! I'd always be like 'you're a bumpkin and I'm a townie - it's no big deal' but he'd launch into a whole bunch of slang that sounded like gibberish to me about what life's like back home and I'd just be standing there like - like -" she trailed off. 

"Vodka?" the stranger suggested. 

"Fuck it, go on," Kate replied. 

The stranger picked up the bottle and passed it to her. She took a long sip before putting it down this time.

"I mean, it's not just weird stuff like that. If we're gonna talk frustrating I should start with this goddamn party."

The stranger's head tilted slightly to one side. She could no longer see his eyes under the hood but his posture reminded her of a cat now more than ever.  

"I don't want to be here," Kate continued. "I told him, I don't do parties. Parties are not my thing. Not since - ugh it's embarrassing and I'm not going to get into it, but I don't do parties right?" 

"Right." 

"And you know what he told me?" 

The stranger's head tilted a little further to the left. 

"No." 

"He told me that it was just going to be a small get-together between friends. Something quiet. This -" she waved her hand at the apartment, "- is not quiet. This is fucking loud, right?" 

His head shifted. The man's neck was almost at a direct right angle now and the position was starting to look uncomfortable. 

"Right."

"But I can be reasonable. I'm a reasonable person, so I told him that he could have his fun here and I'd go to Bunin bridge instead to watch the fireworks, but he didn't like that. Oh no he did not like that. Do you know what he said to me?"

The stranger began to move again in that slight way that told Kate, through her vodka haze, that he was going to answer another one of her rhetorical questions. She moved on quickly. 

"He said that he'd just have to find someone else to kiss when the clock strikes midnight. So here I am, waiting for midnight so I know that he won't -" she trailed off. "I'm pathetic aren't I." 

She didn't give the stranger a chance to respond. 

"I should've dumped him then and there, shouldn't I."

It was a statement, not a question, but the stranger answered anyway. 

"Yes."

He passed Kate the vodka bottle and she downed what little remained of its contents. She dumped the bottle on the floor with a loud thud, wiping tears from her eyes. 

"I don't believe I wasted my entire new year's eve feeling shitty and trying to polish - poli - stop my boyfriend from cheating on me."

She wiped her eyes again. 

"God what was I thinking?" 

"I do not know."

Kate laughed. The stranger was no longer in his curious cat's pose and she could see his eyes now that his head wasn't at an angle. They were black again, but she couldn't bring herself to care. His gaze no longer seemed so unsettling. 

TEN!

"God is it that time already?" Kate exclaimed. 

She glanced back at the crowd like she'd forgotten it existed. Someone had turned on the TV and the guests were huddled around it in one large mass. Aaron was probably right in the middle of it. 

NINE!

Kate turned back to the stranger with a sigh. 

"I guess time flies when you're ranting about your soon-to-be ex."

EIGHT!

She laughed but it was a bitter sound; half hiccup, half sob. The intent was clear but it barely resembled a laugh.

SEVEN! 

"He's not going to be looking for me right now is he?"  

SIX!

Kate couldn't tell if the stranger had replied or not over the yell of the countdown. 

"Well I'm not going to go looking for someone who doesn't want me," she continued. 

This time the stranger definitely said nothing. 

FIVE! 

"What's your name?" Kate asked suddenly. 

There was a long pause before he replied. 

FOUR!

"John."

Kate raised an eyebrow.

"That's not your real name is it. You don't look like a John."

John remained silent. 

THREE! 

"Well John, whoever you are, whatever you're here for, thank you for listening to me."

TWO! 

She still couldn't see John's expression but there was something off with his posture. He almost looked uncomfortable. Almost. Kate leaned closer towards him, trying to see what colour his eyes were now. She didn't have to move far to get a glimpse, and quickly confirmed that they were still charcoal black. John didn't move. 

"I am -" he began. 

ONE! 

Kate closed her eyes and pressed her lips to the space where she hoped John's mouth was. It felt a little like kissing air. She was sure that she was kissing something but John felt more like a shadow than a human. It wasn't an unpleasant sensation, but it was only the vodka taste that convinced her she wasn't hallucinating the whole damn thing. 

The room erupted into cheers but Kate only broke away from John when she heard the fireworks start. She turned to the window to admire the bursts of light across town. 

"I should make the most of this view," she said, suddenly feeling rather sad and annoyingly sober. 

"Kate," John tried again. "I am -" 

"You don't have to tell me."

"But -" 

"If it's to do with Aaron, I don't want to know."

John fell silent and they stared out of the window together. Lights swirled and arced through the sky as if they were alive. The spectacle was distant, but they had a magnificent view of it from the apartment. Part of Kate wished that the display would never end, that she would never have to leave this moment of awe-filled calm, but the last firework fell all too soon. She glanced at her watch. 

"It's 1 AM," she said, turning to look at John, but the man with the strange eyes was gone. 

She looked at the room but there was no sign of the My Little Pony hoodie in the slowly dissipating crowd of guests. Instead, she finally spotted Aaron. There was something on his mouth that looked suspiciously like lipstick. 

"Katie!" he cried. "You missed the countdown!" 

Her eyes narrowed. 

"We need to talk."

***

John was more shadow than man now. His bizarre outfit had faded away to reveal a mere outline of the space where a man might have been. He was supposed to go soon; he had ensured that Aaron's ankle monitor was secure, and there was not much time before the veil closed for the year, but he wanted to see this before he left. 

John watched from his place by the window, invisible to the human eye as Kate broke up with his charge.