“Owen, you better have that out of here before Mom gets home or you’ll be in big trouble.” Roach fired the warning as we stood behind the couch and observed Owen’s progress on the screen.
He glanced from the controller. “Kyle let me borrow his PS3 for the night. I’m getting in as much gaming time as I can. As soon as I hear the garage door open, I’ll hide the evidence, have no fear.” His eyes slide to me. “Why’s she always around anyway? We’re not a refugee camp.”
“Like I’d seek refuge here if the world was overrun with zombies or Wal-Mart greeters.” The little puke. And I’d been feeling sorry for him – a little boy denied his intrinsic right to play videogames and blow shit up. “You’re buddies with Jesus - you guys turn the other cheek, remember?” I grinned. “This place would be the first to go. Don’t forget, pollywog, I know all your gaming secrets.”
“Infernal woman.” Owen sputtered, blasting the enemy away in a series of rapid rounds from his virtual AK-47.
“Come on. Leave the kid to his carnage.” I pushed Roach toward the stairs. “I need more help with our deflowering project.” We headed for the stairs. Somewhere between the first and third step my thoughts returned to where they’d continually been hanging out for the last twenty-four hours.
Him.
It was official. I was a fallen woman—a floozy, a bimbo Jezebel who enjoyed forcing guys to feel her up in public. A flush of embarrassment worked its way up my neck, making my skin itch under my shoulder-length hair. I swept a swath off my nape for a second, and then let the weight of it drop with a defeated sigh. I had no business obsessing over Mr. Hot and Urgent. How many times could I relive it? The guilty pleasure that tightened his lips, the concern in his eyes when I took off.
Who was he?
Who was I in that half-baked moment when I slid his hand to my breast and knew it was right? But it was wrong, wrong, wrong. Really wrong. Without a doubt the most dastardly, stupid, lame-assed, WRONG thing I’d ever done.
So why couldn’t I stop thinking about him? Feeling his body against mine? He’d been right there with me, as pulled into me as I had been into him.
Fuck it. I couldn’t lie. The guy was the innocent party in this mess. I had no one to rag on but my naughty, wanton self. I buried my face in my hands, letting out a low moan of self-loathing. Couldn’t wait to tell Roach about this one.
No.
No telling Roach.
Not this time.
“Are you just going to stand there all day?” Roach’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I shouldered through her doorway.
“Damn, girl,” I gasped. “What have you been smoking in here?” I crossed the room and flopped onto Roach’s bed, burring my face in a pillow. “Whew, it reeks!” The putrid stench I couldn’t quite identify seeped through my makeshift barrier.
“You know that new flat iron I got for my birthday?”
Something in Roach’s voice made me start to laugh even before I heard the story.
“The one my mom got from a friend of a friend who works at a salon? The one that gets so hot it blows a fuse if you try plugging it in with the lights on? I had to take an online safety course before I could use it.”
The pillow muffled my snort.
“My mom picked my lock, which in itself is amazing if you think about it, and then she snuck into my room and borrowed it. She thought it was like a regular curling iron, only with more oomph. Half her hair fell out this morning. She fried it off.”
I chucked the pillow across the room. “She didn’t!”
“She did. That’s the smell. Fried hair. Dad bought a wig for her to wear at work today, a bob, like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.” Roach was clearly impressed. “It’s the best style she’s ever had.”
The Church Lady in a hooker bob. Life was good.
“Get your laptop. We need to reevaluate,” I said, my spirits lifted, faith restored.
“Bugger. Not again.” Roach brought her laptop over and sat cross-legged beside me with it balanced on her thighs. “Didn’t the Tyler Gribbons experience teach you anything?”
“Look, unless you want me to let loose on the unsuspecting male population, humping guys in elevators…”
Roach shook her head. “An elevator hump? Where do you dream up this stuff?”
If only she knew. My life and the implausible were one and the same. Like how I couldn’t stop thinking about the elevator and my descent into glassed-in lechery.
“I’m not judging you.” Roach held up a hand. “I’m not. And I know you don’t care what anyone else thinks, but I still don’t get why you’re stuck on sucking the heart out of it. That’s what it’s supposed to be about, you know. Love.”
“You think that’s the way guys see it?” I laughed. “You’re right, I don’t care about my reputation, or if people want to call me a slut, it’s not about love – it’s about having a choice. Having control over shit in your life.”
And the fact that I didn’t believe in love at first grope. The “L” word was purely a marketing scheme, guilting the masses into shops at every heart-tugging change of season. It was all puppies and unicorns, with fine details like adultery and deception, obscured by fancy pink hearts and gold glitter.
I scanned the document I thought I’d never have to reference again. Two months ago we’d compiled a list of potential devirginizers. I’d gone through more than half the names already. I never expected to seriously consider the ones this far down.
“THE DEVIRGINIZERS”
OUTTAKE #2: IT’S SNOT WORKING OUT
INTERIOR. WEITZ RESIDENCE. BASEMENT. DAY.
GRAHAM WEITZ, 17, lays, fully clothed, on his waterbed, stares up at the stained ceiling-tiles of his basement dwelling while CHARLIE presses her lips to the crotch of his jeans and blows.
GRAHAM
(voice thick and nasal)
Yeah, that’s hot. She makes a grab for his zipper.
GRAHAM
(bolting upright)
Wait, I have to sneeze again.
He barely gets the words out when he lets loose an explosion of phlegm and mucus.
CHARLIE
(wiping face with sleeve)
You know what? It’s snot working out.
Graham looks bleak, but it could just be his cold. Charlie tries to alleviate his disappointment.
CHARLIE
I have my period anyway, so, it’s probably for the best. Let’s just grab some of that chicken soup your mom’s making for lunch, okay?
END OF OUTTAKE
“What about Duncan?” Roach asked. “We should have added him from the start.”
“Drunken Duncan?” I made a face. “I don’t think I can do it. I saw his thing once in sixth grade. He flashed me underwater during swimming lessons.”
Roach made a face. “That’s horrifying. I never go into pools, ever. Even hotel showers make me nervous. You know how many penises have flopped around in those things?”
I laughed, and then looked away from the screen. “None of these will do, Ty was as low as I’m willing to stoop. My life is too fucked up.”
“Is that a hint?” Roach asked. “Should we talk about your mom now?”
“No.”
“Want me to hug you? I will if you really want me to, but you know how I like my personal space.”
I shook my head.
“Okay then, we need to think outside the box, look beyond lists, forget guys from our school.” Roach shut her laptop. She spread her arms out, palms up like she was listening to the word of God. “There must be someone in town who rocks your boat.” She closed her eyes. “I can feel it, you’re holding back. Every girl has a crush she won’t admit to. Fess up. Give me a name and I promise you, we’ll get your cherry well-and-truly popped.”
I thought of him, of course I did.
“And if he’s nameless?” I sighed. “A nameless, fantastically good looking guy I made an ass of myself in front of once, and can’t forget? What do we do then?”
Roach opened her eyes.
“We pray.”
“Not to be deliberately hurtful or insensitive, but…” I blew her a raspberry.
“Okay, I’ll pray, while you confess. Tell me child,” she intoned, “who is the one who wets your drawers?”
Five minutes later Roach was bashing my head with both pillows. I knew I should have kept my mouth shut.
“Are. You. Out. Of. Your. Mind?” Each word was punctuated with a wallop to my noggin. “He could have been a serial killer! Or worse, he could have had crabs!”
“Right,” I said when she paused for a breather, “having crabs is much worse than having Hannibal Lecter eat your liver. I never said we did it, or I saw his schlong or anything, so I don’t see how his crab infestation, or lack of one, comes into the equation.”
Exhausted, Roach slid to the floor, resting her back against the lopsided Ikea dresser we had assembled last year. We’d resorted to reverse engineering at one point and it showed. I still had the earrings we made with the leftover washers.
We were quiet for a while.
“Any fallout from Ty?” Roach asked.
“He’s too busy porking Jessica’s best friend to worry about little ol’ me. I’m yesterday’s blue-balls as far as he’s concerned.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I’m always right.” I joined her on the floor. “Usually.”