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”Alright, Loki. Your turn. Truth or dare.”
”Truth.”
”Aw, man. I had such a good dare lined up for you.”
”All the more reason to pick truth.”
”But you hate telling the truth. And you love a good dare.”
”No reason for me to be getting predictable. Are you going to ask me a question or not?”
”Alright, alright, just let me think of something real quick. You threw me for a loop.”
”Mission accomplished, then.”
”Yeah, yeah. I get it, I married a dick. Right, how ’bout this. The weirdest time you’ve ever been hit on.”
”You.”
”Cute. Real cute. Complete with that adorable look you get when you’re being a little shit. What’s the real answer?”
”Hmmm. The real answer… The real… answer...”
”Take your time. It’s only me. Waiting.”
”I am, and I know.”
”Have you really been hit on in that many weird ways? Actually, no, you know what, it’s you, of course something weird’s happened at least 6000 times to you in the name of romance. Per year of your life. Minimum.”
”I can’t tell if I should be offended or not.”
”It’s a compliment. Probably. And before you kill me for saying that, could you come up with an answer? We don’t have to go into extremes of most and least. Just pick one that stands out to you. Three, two, one, what immediately pops into your mind.”
”Well… One time Jesus hit on me.”
”PFT!”
”Oh, dear. That sip of water really just went everywhere, didn’t it?”
”Christ, Loki, you can’t say that when I’m about to drink.”
”You asked for a weird answer, and you got one.”
”Completely fair assessment. I still blame you. Keep talking.”
”When I was 16, I was on a school trip, a couple of weeks to Miami. And one evening, one of the teachers offered to take us to a salsa club, where they were hosting dance lessons for the evening. Anyone who felt up to going could come.”
”I’m just going to have to interject and ask you what happened in your life that changed you this much, because I’m having a hard time picturing you as interested in salsa dancing.”
”I love dancing.”
”Yeah, but salsa? You? Are you really, really sure you aren’t just making this up for shits and giggles? Don’t you shrug at me, you would absolutely tell me a fib about this, just for the funsies.”
”I like the hip movement.”
”…yeah, okay, please continue, or I’m going to hyperfixate on that mental image, and then my brain will short circuit and fry, and I’ll probably die from thinking too much about your hips.”
”Ha! Alright, fine. So maybe ten of us or so went with the teacher to the salsa bar for dance lessons. But we arrived early, so the lesson hadn’t started yet. People were just dancing and having fun. And because we were a bunch of 16-year-olds out on the town with our teacher, we just huddled up in the corner, awkward as all hell.”
”Naturally.”
”And out of the blue, some man comes up to me – not us as a group, but me specifically – and asks me to dance.”
”What did he look like?”
”What you’d expect, I think. It’s been a while. Long, dark hair. Tall. Beard.”
”You don’t remember what Jesus looked like?”
”Believe it or not, I haven’t retained the exact details of his visage throughout all these many years.”
”Alright, alright. Guess I’ll just be grateful Jesus didn’t make enough of an impression on you that you’re still fantasizing about him now. Don’t make that face at me, I heard what I said, and I stand by it. Continue your story.”
”I don’t know that there’s that much of a story to it. He asked me to dance, and don’t interrupt me, I know I already said that.”
”Wasn’t going to.”
”Of course you were. So he asked me to dance, yes this is the third time I’m saying it, and I’ll repeat it again a fourth, just for good measure, and just because I want you to make that face again. Jesus asked me to dance. And I was 16 and out in a salsa club with my teacher and several of my classmates. But I was the only one who was asked for a dance.”
”Must’ve made you feel like a real big shot.”
”It did. Although I’m not sure any one of us knew how to feel about the whole experience. Before he whisked me away, he introduced himself to my teacher and all of my classmates. Shook their hands and everything. It was so out of left field for all of us, none of us knew what to think of it.”
”I bet. I can’t decide if I think that was a baller move or if that docks his cool points by at least fifty percent.”
”I do seem to remember he was big and muscly and conventionally attractive enough that he could pull it off. That’s probably part of why we were so confused. Good looks generally tend to have an obfuscating effect on creepy behaviour.”
”Was it really creepy, though? He acknowledged your group. Introduced himself. Surely that’s more boy scout than serial killer.”
”Ted Bundy used to work at a suicide hotline, and he’d walk his female colleague to her car, so he could make sure she’d be safe.”
”I hate it when you’re right.”
”Which makes it all the sweeter for me. But I don’t think you’re entirely wrong either. He wasn’t doing anything nefarious or coming onto me just yet. We were just dancing, within view of the others. And I somehow doubt he magically knew that we were a group of school kids out on the town with our teacher. Why would he? He probably just felt like dancing, nothing more.”
”Alright, buddy, can we go back to the part where you said Jesus wasn’t doing anything nefarious or coming onto you yet?”
”Surely you don’t think the tale ends there? How’s being asked to dance in any way going to qualify as the strangest time I’ve ever been hit on?”
”It was Jesus, and he did it in front of your teacher.”
”Please. That wouldn’t cut it.”
”Oh no, does he get really disgusting?”
”Not disgusting, no. I just don’t think he realized he was talking to a 16-year-old. And I will admit that if I was out in a dimly lit salsa bar on a Thursday night, I wouldn’t immediately assume a group of teenagers would be present with their teacher on a school sanctioned outing either.”
”European boarding schools are weird.”
”Stop giving me that look. What, you think I’m going to argue? I know European boarding schools are weird---
”They so are.”
”---to you.”
”You know what, that is an argument we are absolutely going to have, and I am absolutely going to win it. But for now, I want to know what Jesus did to you in the salsa bar.”
”He didn’t exactly do anything. It’s more what he said.”
”What, no groping?”
”No, Jesus was very respectful. No creepy touching. Just normal touching. I didn’t know what I was meant to be doing since the class hadn’t even started yet, so Jesus taught me the basics.”
”I can’t believe Jesus taught you to dance salsa.”
”Barely.”
”Still. That’s such a killer tag line for your boarding school experience, why the fuck do you never tell this story?”
”Who would I tell it to?”
”Me!”
”I’m telling you now.”
”I’m just saying, I’ve known you for over ten years, and you’re only telling me this now.”
”If you don’t stop complaining, I can’t tell you the rest.”
”I’m zipping it.”
”….no, there’s not that much left. It’s going to be disappointing and anti-climactic now.”
”So help me, Lokes, if you don’t tell me right fucking now---”
”Alright, alright. But he really was a perfectly polite dancer, even for salsa. It’s more what he said.”
”What did he say?”
”He asked me if it was getting hot in there.”
”Ha! What a cliché!”
”Right? Even at 16, I knew that was laying it on thick. And he didn’t just ask once. Or keep it to that. The way he spoke was very…. Let’s call it ’friendly.’”
”So Jesus was a pervert.”
”Honestly? To this day, I still can’t tell if he was seriously trying to flirt, or if that was his genuine attempt to be nice.”
”Nobody is being nice if they ask you if you’re hot in a salsa bar.”
”You weren’t there.”
”I don’t have to be to know that Jesus was gunning for you to shed a layer.”
”It does sound terribly like that on paper, but who shakes the hand of your 40-something teacher and ten other classmates, regardless of whether or not he knows your exact ages and relationship to each other, proceeds to dance with you with not a hint of inappropriate contact, yet still tries to make you drop your top?”
”Well. Ted Bundy was famously a very polite dancer until he murdered people.”
”Ha bloody ha.”
”Was that a murder pun?”
”I’m never telling you anything ever again.”
”The true origin story of why Loki Laufeyson became a liar. Jesus politely taught him to dance salsa, proceeded to hit on him, and the experience was so strange that if he told anyone, they’d think him a liar anyway. Why not lean into it?”
”All my boarding school stories sound like lies. It was an eventful year.”
”Drink up, then, I want at least three more boarding school stories by the end of the night.”
”Who says I’ll pick truth again?”
”Because now I expect you to not touch it with a ten foot pole, you don’t want to be predictable. And also, I know you love to tell stories that sound like lies when they aren’t.”
”….you know, the thing you said about hating it when I’m right? The feeling is quite mutual.”
”I love you too, babe.”