Act V

Sara Temptation had never been with a guy before; she’d told me as much.  She’d never kissed a guy, never been on a date with a guy, never had a boyfriend, nothing.  So she was about as experienced with the opposite sex as I was.

Of course in her case, it made sense.  Guys weren’t her thing, so I didn’t think anything of it; otherwise I’d have had to call shenanigans.  A straight girl like her?  Single?  Yeah right.

But then she also got a kick out of arousing me, which unto itself was pretty arousing.  So, I played along and let it all hang out with her.  And I don’t know if you’ve ever had a friend like that, but you’re missing out if you haven’t.  One morning she texted me to find out what’s the sexiest thing I could imagine her wearing.  I told her ‘nothing at all.’  She responded that she meant for school; the question aroused me.  Did this mean I was getting a chance to dress up the hottest female in the universe?

Do you have a miniskirt?

Yes. Tight or flowing?

Whichever one is shorter.

I got hard just thinking about it; those legs should have been illegal; though if you outlaw legs like that, only outlaws would have them.  After her face that was her strongest feature.  And her hips.  And her belly.  And her boobs.  And her back.

I’ll stop.

When I saw her standing in the dim, purple morning light with her knees together from the cold, looking at me with a bright smile, I obliged the flowy little skirt she’d found and took a moment to bathe my sight in her.  It felt good to be able to just look at her and appreciate her astounding beauty without having to beat myself up over it.  I walked up to her.

“Good morning,” she said, then wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me tight.  I returned the favor and lifted her up, spun her around as she cried a delighted terror and set her back down.  And yes, it felt good when she wove her fingers around my shoulder, across my chest, around my waist and down my back, to where her hand finally wrapped over my butt and rested.  I really liked her hand there and I especially liked the way her whole face glowed when she looked up at me with those rich, brown eyes.  From there we walked, her arm around my waist and mine around hers, to our usual spot and spent the morning just talking while, to my own surprise, I offered my jacket to cover her legs with when I saw her shivering.  What was happening to me?  I’d just given up the most incredible view in favor of her comfort, and it felt good.  Then, she saw me with my arms pressed close to my body and snuggled up close to me.

For warmth.

Now there’s this thing about knowing what’s the right thing to do and doing the right thing, and these things are not always in concert.  I knew I should have kept my hands to myself.  I knew that if I’d put my hands on her that would have annoyed her to no end, probably given her pause to reconsider how close she wanted to be with me.  It was wrong.  No matter, underneath the jacket I slid my hand between her legs and wrapped it around her thigh, bringing it to rest on the underside of her leg just above the knee where I sated myself on her soft skin and the curvature of her delicate muscles.

Did she act annoyed?

No, she did not.  And that’s why this sort of thing was so dangerous; because I didn’t ask if I could do that and she surely was annoyed.  But instead of expressing that to me, she snuggled up close and rested her head against me, wrapping her hands around me and stroking my upper arm.

I took in the fruity scent of her hair as she rested her head on my shoulder, and the bell rang.  Don’t worry, that was the warning bell; the late bell would come six minutes and three seconds later.  Then, as we walked arm in arm to her class, I delighted that every time I turned to face her, behind her was some guy craning his neck around to get a good look at the girl I was with.  Ahead of us, girls would glance at her and then look me up and down.  Some would even follow me with their eyes as we walked past, and I can’t even describe how that felt.  Girls had never looked at me like that before.

Not ever.

I dropped Sara Temptation off at first period, and then lost contact.  Throughout the day I texted her several times to no avail.  I even called between classes; her phone didn’t ring, but rather went straight to voicemail.  I figured she must have run out of battery.  But then I didn’t see her at lunch, either, so I knew something was awry.

At fifth period, we had a visitor.  Two ladies were brought in because they had something to say.  One of them was Dr. D’Avino; she worked in the school office or something like that I think.  The other was Ms. Tisdale.  She was new to the school and she also did something in the office.

“I’m here to talk about sexual misconduct,” the new lady began.  She started by going around the room and asking each of the students what they thought sexual misconduct was.

Luke had the clowniest answer to that, “it’s when you misconduct yourself sexually.”

He got some laughs.

“Very funny,” she didn’t quite laugh, but I could tell she was mildly amused.  For the most part, though, she was able to piece together a definition she was happy with, then she went on a big, long presentation that included firsthand stories of women who’d been subjected to some horrible treatment by powerful men, before landing on a few basic rules we should all follow.

“You should never comment on her appearance, not on any body part or anything like that.  I know it’s tempting, you see her and you like the way she looks, it’s tempting to make some kind of comment, like ‘hey baby you sure got a fat ass,’ or ‘hey, nice tits!’ but you have to remember: women don’t exist for your personal enjoyment; we’re people.”

I looked around the room wondering what the girls thought of all this information, but they were silent.

“Yeah,” interrupted Kyle, “but how am I supposed to tell a girl she’s sexy?”

“You don’t.  You treat her like a human being and not some object.”  That was me, wasn’t it, though?  I didn’t treat the girls around me as independent human beings with wants, needs, desires, and ambitions.  I treated them as objects.  I looked at their bodies and silently judged how pretty they were.  And Sara.  She was something, wasn’t she?

“But what about if she’s like, really, really sexy?”

The woman laughed some under her breath.  “I understand.  In today’s pop culture and the media we are bombarded with images and videos of exactly that: a man says to a woman, ‘hey you look so hot!’ and then we’re shown her acting as though she likes it, aren’t we?”

There were nods around the room.  I checked, because I was one of them.

“Well here’s the thing about that.  It’s flattering to a degree.  And I’m sure most of the guys in here, if some girl walks up to you and says to you, ‘wow you’re hot,’ you’d feel a sense of pride, wouldn’t you?”

I couldn’t speak from experience, but I imagine I’d want to know her number, her sign, how many kids she wanted, the status of her green card, and whether or not her design for the next generation starship had sufficient positron capacitors to power life support without sacrificing the integrity of the drive core.

“It’s flattering.  It’s nice to think of yourself as desirable,  but there are problems with that.  First off, when we preface a relationship with a judgment about sex appeal, it taints the whole relationship moving forward.  If I were to go around and ask you all what you look for in a partner, how many of you would name being physically attracted to your partner as important?”

We all raised our hands.

She continued.  “Naturally.  But how many of you would name that as the only thing?  As in, nothing, literally nothing else matters?”

No one raised a hand.

“Exactly.  But sex drive is so strong and so powerful that the tendency is to focus on that above all to the point where we often don’t even pay attention to anything else.  You could be walking up to the next mass shooter or something, and because your thoughts are fixated elsewhere, you’d miss all the signs.  Or why do you think people cheat?  Why do you think so many relationships don’t work out even if there isn’t cheating?  Why do think we get into relationships that aren’t good for us and stay longer than we should?”

Still no one.  She did have everyone’s attention, though.

“No one?”

Nope.  Certainly not me or anyone else in that classroom.  In fact, I was beginning to see why my lust was such a terrible sin.

“The simple answer is the same for men as it is for women: sexual chemistry.  You’re with someone you’re attracted to and you’ve allowed that to take precedence over everything else.  So guys, the next time you focus all your attention on how good a girl looks, or even if you say something and she responds positively, think about this: what kind of relationship are you setting yourself up for?  Do you really know this person?”

I didn’t feel so good about her anymore.  I think you know why I wanted so badly to dance with her.  Geez, I felt low.

“But it doesn’t even have to get that far,” she continued, “if you’re not in an established relationship there’s no reason to be making those kinds of comments.  There’s no context.  It’s demeaning and disrespectful.”

“What if she likes it, though?” Kyle asked.

“That’s a sign of someone who is more focused on getting attention than building a healthy kind of intimacy.  Is that the kind of person you want to be intimate with?”

Well I struggled with my eyes and to a lesser degree with my hands, though lately with Sara I was beginning to realize how difficult that was.  Did I have such a problem with my mouth and wasn’t even listening to the things I said?  Geez, was Sara trying to tell me something and I was just too daft to hear it?

“Bottom line,” Ms. Tisdale said, “if you can’t control yourself around a girl you’re attracted to without acting like an animal, that’s a problem.  If you can’t look at a female and see her as just another human being, if you can’t look at her without reducing her in your mind to someone you either do or don’t want to get with, that’s a problem.  If you can’t recognize her for who she is as a person instead of making a judgment call on the shape of her butt, that’s a problem…”

I looked around the room.  The girls were silent, but there were nods.  Lots of nods.  Nods, and checking one another for agreement.

“Have you heard of The Rock test?”

Kyle shook his head.

“It’s simple: before you say anything to a female, imagine saying the same thing to Dwayne The Rock Johnson.  If you can picture that, it’s safe.  If you wouldn’t say it to The Rock, keep your mouth shut.”

What was that thing I’d said to Sara the day before?  I want to have what with her, now?

“OK,” the lady continued.  “Is it ever appropriate to touch a woman?”

I looked around the room; it was quiet.  Too quiet.

“No,” she answered herself.  “It is never appropriate to touch a woman.”

“Never?” Luke quizzed her.  “As in, like, never ever ever?”

“Look,” the woman took his attention.  “This may sound like a shock to some of you, but women don’t like being touched by some random man.  No woman wants that.”

“What if she wants me to?”

“That’s the excuse we hear, isn’t it: she’s asking for it.  Or, she likes the attention.  Or, she’s just being coy or playing hard to get.  And the thing is, a lot of times she won’t say anything or she may even act like she’s having fun just to go along with it.  She’s afraid of rocking the boat.  But in reality, she doesn’t want it.  When a man touches a woman, that’s sexual assault.”

“What if she says she wants me to?”

“You’re not understanding…”

Luke’s eyes popped as the lady continued to expound upon the lesson.

“… No woman wants to be touched by a man.  Period.  She might not tell you, but you have got to remember: silence is NOT consent.”

Because she’ll get annoyed and gossip about you to her friends.  Or she’ll stop answering your texts.  Geez, I was horrible.

“But what about if I’m with her and…”

“Look.  Don’t ever touch a female.  Ever.  Not for any reason.  She doesn’t like it.  Got it?  The Rock test works for touching as well.”

Luke shrugged, and I could tell Ms. Tisdale was getting annoyed.  No less, she tried to explain further.

“Part of the problem, and ladies this is for you, is that women have allowed ourselves to be conditioned to keep quiet when someone treats us inappropriately — touches us in the wrong way or says something out of line.  And to be honest a lot of men have been conditioned to take silence as consent, but silence is not consent.  Ladies, it really is up to us to police these things.  I can give a hundred presentations just like this one and talk to a thousand men, but if they experience something different out there in the real world, it’s going to be a waste of time.  You have to speak up.  If a man learns from experience that he can’t get away with inappropriate behavior, he’s less likely to continue.”

Oh boy.  I started to mentally prepare myself to hear from Sara what this lady was talking about, even if she didn’t say anything.  The truth was that I did treat her inappropriately.  I didn’t see her as a person independent of her sex appeal, and I often touched her without an invitation.  I looked at girls all the time; I looked and looked and looked.  It’s what I did.  There weren’t a lot of times in my life that I felt so low.  I wanted to quit dance for good and never go back.  I wanted to castrate myself hoping this might help curb my ravenous desire.  I was not normal.

You know something was off when I had to ask myself if I’d feel up The Rock on the inside of his legs or silently enjoy the small of his back and that’s a weird image to get stuck in your head.

“…When you treat a woman inappropriately,” she continued, “odds are you won’t notice any consequences.  You may even think you’ve gotten away with it.  But what do you think happens when someone is uncomfortable being around you?”

They don’t answer your calls and don’t respond to your texts.

“She won’t want to be around you?” Luke suggested.

“Exactly.  And like I said, you probably won’t even notice.  But what will happen is you will silently, covertly, lose out on opportunities that you may never understand.  It’s like passing up oysters for years and later on wondering why you don’t have any pearls.  Life will be an unhappy cesspool of misery and loneliness.”

He nodded silently.  He understood.  I understood.  I felt lonely most of the time.  Now I understood why: because of how I looked at girls.  The only times when I didn’t feel lonely were the times I spent with Sara, and I was sure these would come to an end if I didn’t find her and let her know I was ready to start treating her differently.  No wonder why she wasn’t answering me: she’d lost patience and was ready for things to be over between us.  It was the end already.

I had to shut down my behavior with her.  With all the girls at dance.  I wished I could have quit.  I’d have texted my dad in that moment and told him as much when I heard his voice in my head all over again.  He needed me to learn the same thing this lady was trying to teach, that I should have been able to be around girls I was attracted to without noticing and without thinking anything sexual and certainly without saying anything or touching them in any kind of way.

Oh, how my mind swirled of guilt and shame.  I had no idea my behavior was so terrible.  No wonder they kicked me out of that first studio; I’d have kicked me out, too.  I was surprised they hadn’t kicked me out of the one I was still taking lessons at.

At any rate, I did finally meet up with Sara after school.  Rather, it was at the end of seventh period and I started to walk out of my classroom slowly.  A zombie.  I didn’t know what else to do, so I was about to admit failure with her and take the bus home like I used to do before I started fooling myself.  And I even had an erection around her!  Ugh, how she must have felt over that unwanted expression.

Then her voice came over the mass of heads that had crowded the walkway.

“Answer your phone, weirdo!”  She’d called me about three times in the past five minutes; she finally got her phone back after having spent the whole day in IS for violating dress code.

Jeebus Creepus.  Really?  Seriously?

Whatever.

“Yeah, you’re not dressing me up ever again.”

“Fine.”

We went to our usual place and did our routine.  I did my best to behave myself and not admire her sultry legs, still on full display in that flowy miniskirt I’d put her in.

I tried.  Believe me I tried.  That was hard; I could have blown glass on her.  She was frustrated, I could tell.  It’s funny how you notice things for the first time once you know what to look for, and I noticed every single time some body part of mine made contact with her and felt ashamed.  Ashamed to look, and I did look, ashamed to touch, and I did touch, ashamed just for seeing her that way.  I shouldn’t have thought anything anyway seeing as how she wasn’t even into guys in the first place.

“What’s up?”  She cut the music off and stopped our practice short.  I’d have understood if she’d told me she was uncomfortable and didn’t want to work with me anymore.

I swallowed my breath and tried to mitigate the situation.  “I’m sorry.  I’m not doing this right.”

“I’ll say, you won’t even touch me, you barely look at me.  You were fine this morning; did something happen?  Is everything alright?”

“I’m trying not to.”

“Why?”

Geez, how to explain.  I took a deep breath and grasped for the words so she’d understand.  “I, uh… I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“Why would I be uncomfortable?  Have I ever said to you that I was?”

“No, but I don’t want you to feel like you can’t tell me if you are, and I don’t want to…”

“I do feel comfortable around you.  That’s why I like you; I can tell you how I feel and you don’t make an issue out of it.  You’re also cute.  And you’re weird, and I like weirdos.”

That made me smile.  It was the first time I smiled since I last saw her that morning.

“You look at me all the time and I like that.  You’re affectionate with me and I like that.  Are you going to tell me now why you suddenly felt ashamed?”

“Well they had this lady come in today to talk about sexual misconduct.  She said some things that got me thinking.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like a guy shouldn’t make comments about a woman’s body parts.”

“Oh, like my legs that you like so much?”

I blushed.  “Yeah.”

“I don’t want random guys to come up and make comments, but you’re not a random guy.  Some of the things you say can be a little random… but you’re not completely random.  Anyway, I like that you like my legs, that’s why I wanted to show them to you.  What else did she say?”

“That it’s wrong to reduce a woman to her sexual attractiveness, that you should see her for who she is and stuff.  Recognize her as a human being.”

“I agree with that, but I think humans are sexual beings.  If you want to see me as fully human, don’t take that part of me away and pretend it doesn’t exist.  What else?”

“Well…” my eyes did start to wake up to the legs on display before me, wondering what other of her parts I ought to mention that she might show to me.  Ugh.  Stupid brain, why did it have to go on like that?  “I shouldn’t look too hard.”

“Not at other girls, of course.  You look too hard at another girl I’ll take a finger.  But you can look at me any way you like and for as long and as hard as you wish.  You go ahead and look at me long and hard.  The longer, the harder, the better.  You make me feel sexy.  What else did she say?”

In case you’re wondering, yes Sara spoke certain things into existence.  What’s more, I made her feel sexy.  That was good, right?  “Um… she said no woman ever wants to be touched by a man, ever.”

For that one, she blinked her eyes a few times before coming back with her reply.  “Never?”

“That’s what she said.”

“That’s true.”

Oh how my heart sank.  “It’s true?  So then all the times I put my hands on you…”

“I’m only sixteen; I’m technically not a woman yet.”

And was I supposed to somehow argue with that logic?  She confessed to me that she liked it when I touched her and she wanted me to do it more.  We went back to our little dance routine, and, well, I had fun.  She’d given me a blank check on her body, and I was going to cash it.  And I cashed it and I cashed it and I cashed it.  What move was this, and I was supposed to put my hand on the lower part of her hip.  I reached around and cupped her butt just as I’d always dreamed, and damn if that skirt wasn’t so short my pinky finger caught some skin just below the hem, too.  She was supposed to roll away but instead she stood still and let me feel up on her, smiling into my face the whole time.  Another time I was supposed to hold her leg up while she leaned into me.  So I did.  I held her leg, I stroked the whole thing, taking in every curve and crevasse with my fingers while her hands explored my chest.  We were supposed to be dancing, but the thing had turned into one, long, grope fest.  Inappropriate be damned, I was happy.  She backed into me, rubbing her butt left and right along the elongated bulge in my pants while I held her hips.  How far was this girl going to let me go?  I traced my hands up along the sides of her body, brought them forward, and right up onto her breasts.  She still did not pull away.  She freaking let me!  She twerked her behind back and forth across my hips as I probed around, grasping taut nipples between my fingers and my mind started racing for other possibilities.  As in, what if we went backstage, away from any random person who might otherwise walk into the place, and gone a little further?

Alas, she turned around and looked up at me smiling a big, broad smile, took my hand, and walked me into the audience chamber where we sat down.  We talked some more, but in truth I spent the better part of the next hour admiring her creamy thighs and paying close attention to the hem of her little skirt.

“Are you trying to see my underwear?”

“What, me?  Of course not!”

“I won’t be mad at you if you tell me the truth.”

“OK, maybe a little.”

She looked around; no one was there.  “Take a look.”

What?!?

With her lips cracked open in a sultry smile and her eyes glued to mine, she opened her legs some and invited me to see.  And I looked.  You know Goddamn well I looked.  There it was.  That delightful mound of softness with a faint crease down the middle.  Her snug, white cotton panties hugged that thing so sweet, and from the sides I could see ends of dark brown hair just peeking out to say ‘hello.’

“Wow!” I whispered, too weak to vocalize anything.  I stared.  She invited me, and so I stared and stared and stared.  Next thing I knew her hand had groped around my lap and she was busy fingering the outline of my solid erection beneath, grasping hold of it and squeezing down.

“Do you like what you see?” she said.

Was she kidding?  I liked the muscle tone in her legs leading right up to her sweetness, I liked the curve of the her butt just beneath this heavenly view, I liked the way her mound tapered off into a crease that grew more and more pronounced the further down it went.

I especially liked the way she passed her fingers along the length of my shaft, slow and hard, as I stared.  I turned back to her face, still her strongest feature.  I looked at her lips, plush and pink, and my desire had reached a tipping point.  My heart was racing, my breath was heavy, and there was nothing in the world I desired more in that moment than to take those lips into my own.  To taste her mouth and feel her face with my nose.  God how I wanted her.  All of her.

The door to the theater clanked opened with an obnoxious squeak, and Sara suddenly sat upright, took her hands off me, and closed her legs.  A moment later, one of the custodians walked in, wheeling one of those large, gray garbage cans.  He was an old guy who didn’t speak a word of English, but he nodded at both of us with a smile before conducting his important work.  Sara looked at me with fire in her eyes and I just about lost myself in her.

Just how far would that train have gone?

I had to wonder: was I wrong about her?  I mean, it was apparent to me by the way she would comment every time some really pretty girl would go by that she liked the same kind of girls I liked.  And she liked me, but I’m not a girl.  She almost seemed just too interested in my body for a girl who liked other girls.

Something didn’t add up.

Then I remembered that thing she’d said a while ago; she was using me for her own selfish, twisted ends, just as she’d said she would.  I was an ego boost.  I was boosting her ego.

Now don’t mistake me; I had no problem boosting her ego.  I liked boosting her.  If there was something I could have done to boost her ego further, I’d have done it with a great, big smile on my face.  But it meant there were limitations on how far our play could go.  That was a good thing.  It meant I could experiment on her, she could experiment on me, and we would both grow from the experience.  And we grew closer, and I liked being close with her no matter what the possibilities may have been.  So I boosted her ego, I got aroused with an exceptionally beautiful girl, and there was balance.

When her mom picked us up to take us to dance, we kept stealing glances at one another.  We’d shared something special.  Something intimate.  We had a dirty little secret that we held from the rest of the world, and that was fun.

The Rock would have been so jealous.

At dance, we showed off our routine, and the teacher loved it.  The other girls loved it.  It was funny, some of the moves we’d incorporated were borderline pornographic, but by then I’d grown used to dancing with her and we’d spent hours upon hours practicing that I could do the routine with her without losing my self control, rub my face in her leg, and love, love, love every blessed minute of it.  Well the other girls noticed, and I could see their faces turn green when they looked at Sara, who was beaming ear to ear.

Yes I made the other girls envy her.  Boss, boss, boss, boss, boss.

I looked over at Isaiah and as my dad would say, “I’m the biggest boss that you’ve seen thus far.”

Damn right.

Boss.

Now, I neglected to mention, there was a new guy there.  His name was Meathead.

He walked in, and for a moment I almost believed what Sara had told me about the girls there, in that when he came through the door all big and tall with huge muscular shoulders and thick heavy tree trunk body and body-builder legs, they all wanted to have sex with him.  I think.  Maybe they didn’t, not literally anyway, but man did they drool.

Ms. Rousseau called him forward after scanning his muscular body up and down.  “Welcome!”

I looked around.  Rachel was entranced, Lauren feigned disinterest but not very well, Cassie was panting with her tongue hanging out and bobbing up and down, Corey covered the lower half of her chocolate face with one of those geisha fans and batted her eyelashes, and I looked at Sara.  She looked at me, then back at him with a subtle nod, then back at me, then back at him.

“Won’t you come in and introduce yourself,” Ms. Rousseau offered.  I hoped he’d come there to deliver a pizza.

He spoke with a thick, husky voice one might expect from one of those athletes they interview at the end of the game.  “My name’s Matthew, I’m a senior, and I’m straight, just so you know.”

The girls giggled.  He let everyone know right away that he wasn’t going to be some gay ballet dancer like me.  Lauren glanced over at me for a second and then turned back.  As for Rachel, her eyes had been replaced by a pair of spinning red and white spirals.

Damnit, Rachel!

I was so lost.  I wanted to lock antlers with the guy, but from his big giant muscles he probably would have whooped my ass easily.  Then his eyes started shopping and I couldn’t figure it out.

“What do you like about dance?” Cassie spoke up.  His eyes found her and clearly approved of the petite freshman with the light brown hair.

“Uh… Coach said I had to take ballet lessons to get better on my feet.”

“What position do you play?” Isaiah asked.

“Fullback.”

Lauren leaned forward with her arms close to her side and pressing in on her generous boobs.  Meathead noticed, took a long stare, and met her eyes and with a wry grimace creeping up the side of his mouth.  I glanced back at her, and she matched his expression.  And I was there thinking to myself, this guy just came in minutes ago and set about ogling these girls more overtly than I could ever dare, whereas I felt like a perv just for wanting to look?  My skin started to burn.  My foot started to shake.

I hoped he was an idiot.  I silently envisioned him as some random dumb jock who, given five years of the real world, would end up being a fat, graying shoe salesman forever recalling his glory days of scoring four touchdowns in a single game.

“Is that your Roche Vouceau GT convertible out front?” Kelly asked.

“Sure is,” he winked at her.  A college recruiter probably gave it to him.

It wasn’t fair.

Worse, that accursed teacher invited him to the recital saying that if he was willing to practice he could have pas de deux with one of the girls.  Or all of them at once.  Not sure if I heard that right.

“Sweet!” he said.  He probably didn’t need to practice.

Clearly not.  Because when she started auditioning the girls on him, and he made a show of it, he was able to hoist the girls up high in the air like they were pillows.  And they loved it.  I watched as this guy put his hands on Cassie’s hips, her waist, her places that would have gotten me arrested and she only gazed at him like she was about to return the favor had an audience not been there.

It was the most aggravating dance lesson, ever.  Side note: Lauren was paired off with Isaiah and Kelly was paired off with Meathead.  That meant she got his number and the two of them were supposed to spend the week together practicing.  There was just one more lesson before the recital, so they had to spend a lot of time together.  A lot of time.  Just the two of them.  All alone.  Dancing.  While I practiced with a girl who liked other girls.

Cassie spoke out loud some BS about how her mom wasn’t going to be able to make it to pick her up, and of course she didn’t know how else to get home.

“Oh, no!  What am I going to do?” she was a terrible actor.  Lauren pursed her lips at the audacity of the girl, but you know Meathead was more than happy to buy it.

“I’ll take you home!”

“You will?  Oh, thank you so much!”

Kelly shook her head on the way out to her car and you know, I was beside myself in disbelief.  Did I miss something?

Once they left, Sara looked at me with her hand over her heart and gave a speech.  “I’d like to thank my family for their continued support, I’d like to thank the director, I’d like to thank my fans, I love you all so much, I’d like to thank Jesus…”

Rachel erupted in laughter.  We all had a good laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Soon, everyone else had left and the doors were locked, and it was just Sara and me outside, sitting on the concrete bench.  We were waiting for her mom to come get us because I did not have a Roche Vouceau GT convertible.  She checked her phone again.  Nothing.  Then she called again.  I could see the stress on her face as the thing rang and rang.

Nothing.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

She said nothing, then hung up and dialed again.  Still nothing.  Finally, she just sat there and stared at the pavement.  I wasn’t sure what to do.

“Should I call my dad to come get us?”

She said nothing.  She didn’t react to the question at all, but rather looked hypnotized, lost in the situation.

“Do you think she’s OK?” I asked.

Sara snapped out of it for a second and looked at me with a blank expression.  “Uh… yeah.  Can you call your dad?”

“Sure.”  Then, as I sifted through my contacts, she answered my other question.

“I’m sure she’s fine.  She’s probably just off snorting cocaine with her boyfriend again.”

I stared at her wide-eyed, as though waiting for the punchline.  “You’re joking.”

She looked me square in the face and shook her head.  “No.”

“You say that so casually.”

She shrugged and returned her gaze to the asphalt in the empty parking lot.  Then with a deep breath she added, “happens all the time.”

I quickly texted my dad to come get us and returned my attention to her.

“So,” she said.  “What was up with you in class earlier?”

“I think we should talk about this.”

“Talk about what?” she said.

“Your mother.”

“She’s so fat the city won’t let her sit down without a zoning permit!” she chuckled.

I didn’t laugh.  I didn’t think it was funny, and besides, her mother wasn’t even fat.

“Come on!” she slapped my knee.  “That was funny!”

It really wasn’t.  I sat still and looked at her; there was pain beneath her joy and I could tell it tore her up inside.  I wanted her to talk about it.  I needed her to open up to me.  So, I just calmly watched her face until she steadied herself.  It took a while, but she eventually sat still and looked back at me.  Then, with total sobriety, she commanded me with one word.

“Laugh.”

Now that, I actually did find funny.  I didn’t mean to laugh; it just came out of nowhere.  But as I tried to shake off the laughter, a tear fell from her eye.  I couldn’t help it; I put my arm around her and pulled her close.

“I told him if he ever hit her again I would call the cops,” she said.

“Told who?”

“My mom’s boyfriend.  That’s why he hates me.  He’s one of those bible-thumping, brown-people-hating rednecks who thinks gays ought to be exterminated and quotes scripture that doesn’t exist.  He can’t pay his rent but he always has money to buy another gun so he has to borrow money from my mom that’s why we can’t buy food.  So anyway, he doesn’t want to see me anymore so she goes over to his place, now.  Then she doesn’t come back for a  while.  It’s my fault…”

“What the hell?  That’s not your fault!”

“Well she loves him.  I got between that, and so… I don’t know.”

“That’s messed up.  I’m sorry, but that’s messed up.”

“You’re messed up!” she snapped.

“What are you talking about?”

“You show up one day, beautiful girls fawn all over you.  Instead of talking to any of us you act like some prude and then get jealous when another guy walks in who isn’t afraid of his sexuality.”

“They fawned over me?” I said.  “Why did I miss that?”

“You must have not been paying attention because they were all over you.  You see the way they were with Matthew today?  That.  And you should have heard the comments.”

“I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of being a #MeToo.  Afraid of coming off as a creepy perverted loser who can’t control himself.  Afraid of making everyone uncomfortable, afraid of messing up my chances.”

“Your chances?”

“You know.  What girl is ever going to want to be with me if I’m some perverted psycho always staring her down and stuff?”

“So… you… preserved your chances by taking yourself off the table completely and let everyone think you’re gay.”

“I know it doesn’t make sense.”

“It actually makes perfect sense.”

“How?” I asked her.

“You’re not an asshole.”

I chuckled.  “Well thanks for that, at least.”

“You’re a sweet guy who’s sensitive to how he comes across to people.  You’re nice.  I think that’s a good thing.”

“Nice guys don’t get any.”

“Lies.”

“It’s true!”

“Lies,” she cut me off.  “You’re cute.  Cute guys get some no matter if they’re nice or not, but you have to do the math.  An asshole gets it one time from ten different girls.  A nice guy gets it from just one girl, but he gets it a hundred times.  So you tell me who comes out on top?”

“So you just said come and then something about being on top in the same…”

She slapped me, then laughed her face red.  “You pervert!”

“Sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

“How do you even know?  Maybe I’d be the one on top.”  She winked at me.  Dude, did you see that?  That was a flirt!  She was flirting with me!  And for that I blushed.  I had to try and get that image out of my mind somehow.

“I know what your problem is,” she told me.  “You’re afraid to be alone.  I understand; my mom is afraid to be alone, that’s why she’s with that disgusting pig.  She’s afraid she can’t do any better than him.  Fear of being alone makes you do stupid things that don’t make any sense.”

“You mean like pretending to be gay around a girl you like?”

“I’m afraid, too, you know.  So we’re all messed up.”

That surprised me.  Sara didn’t strike me as being afraid of anything.  “You’re afraid?  But you’re so freaking hot!”

She lowered her eyes.  “I’m too skinny.”

“I like skinny,” I told her.  “Athletic skinny, not anorexic skinny.  And you’ve got the most perfect legs I’ve ever seen.  And I love your butt, I love the way it pops out from your back…”

She smiled.  “Does it feel good for you when you touch me?”

“Oh, hell yeah!”

She grinned,  then her eyes darted around my face for a bit.

“And your boobs…” I was on a roll.  It wasn’t every day a girl let me list out all the body parts I enjoyed.

“Now I know you’re full of it!  I have no tits.”

“Yes you do, they’re small.  That’s not a bad thing; I prefer it.  Besides, it’s about shape, not size, and you have a nice shape.”

“OK, I guess…”

“What do you mean?” I asked.  She was perfect.  So what could be wrong?

“Look at Lauren.  She’s got the best tits.  Everyone likes her tits.  And she’s got this big, round ass.  She’s gorgeous.  And I appreciate what you say.  I really do, but you’re just one person.  Everyone else, and I mean everyone, likes what she’s got, not me.  And, I’m afraid.  I find myself thinking about sex a lot.  Wondering what it feels like.  Wishing, and ultimately afraid that I’ll end up alone, and then I’m afraid that my fear is going to drive me into the arms of someone like my mom’s boyfriend.  I try to console myself.  Every time I think that I’m never going to get any, I try to remember: sex is hereditary.  My parents had it, my grandparents had it, and their parents before them.  It runs in the family.  So then what am I worried about?”

She lowered her eyes and continued.  “It doesn’t really work.  I don’t know.  I just don’t know if I believe in love anymore.”

But I loved her.  If only I were her… you know, her type.

“Sara…” I took a few breaths.  I needed to buy some time to assemble the words.  She looked deep into my soul, and I wished there were only some way I could plug my thoughts into hers, but alas, words would have to suffice.

Then at the head of the stoplight at the corner, I spied my dad’s truck.  Time, I did not have, and I didn’t want to have this conversation with her in the presence of anyone else.  “Two things, Sara, just two things.  First off, not everyone admires the same things in a partner.  Lauren has tits and ass, that’s true.  But you’ve got the most incredible physique.  What’s the difference?  Tits and ass are genetic.  She’s born with it.  But your physique, you have to work for that.  Hard.  Now what kind of partner do you want: one who admires natural gifts, or one who admires the work you’ve put in?”  I put my hand on her thigh and groped her curves.  I didn’t give a eff by that point, I just wanted to.  “Your legs, your whole body, to me, says a lot more about your character than any big boobs ever could.”

Damn she felt good.  I moved my fingers right up along her thighs and tickled her within inches of her sweet spot.  Just because.  Oh, how I liked that skirt.

“And two.  You even said to me that the difference between an asshole and a nice guy is tenfold because the nice guy gets it from the same girl a hundred times, right?”

She nodded.  She had to be aware of my hand placement.  She didn’t react, though.

“Well it only takes one, then.  So what if ten assholes pass you up because they think your junk isn’t big enough?  You’ll get it a hundred times… a thousand times from someone who appreciates you.”

I stood.  Being the creepy perv that I was, I made sure to turn my fingers inward so as to brush the tips along the soft cotton of her panties ever so fleetingly.  In that split second the soft flesh I felt was beyond words.  My heart jumped at the memory forever burned into my fingertips in that moment.  I didn’t ask, I didn’t think about whether it was OK, I just freaking did it.  And I’m glad I did.

My dad pulled up, and she followed me to her feet, not speaking a word and not once taking her eyes off me.

We stepped into the back of his truck and drove off.  I was content to sit in silence, but of course my dad had a billion questions for her.  Then, after he dropped her off, he looked at me in the most peculiar way.