Chapter 55

“Look at her chest, they’re mountains!”

“Trust me, I’ve been looking.”

If that had been all they’d said I would have ignored them but the earlier commentary had been worse. I encountered them while I was trying to keep my legs stretched before boarding the flight to Georgia. I tossed what was left of the burrito in a trash can. The airport stall claimed to have macaroni and cheese burritos with bacon. I really should know to never eat in an airport. It tasted like the loss of hope from the world. What’s worse were these two twenty-somethings in pastel shirts and cheap suits commenting on my girls in the waiting area.

“Give me that yellow bitch, you know they get on their knees for white dick.” They fist-bumped.

“Too bad we’d have to run the gauntlet. Pretty sure they’re all together and you know they look out for each other.” The girls were huddled around Melissa and her phone, passing earbuds around.

One grinned. “So, we pull two each, flip a coin on the brown cunt?”

They both laughed. “Plus side,” one said, “those blondes, you could bounce a quarter off their asses and they’d give you change.”

I saw Lavi tense from here. My phone was on with the microphone streaming to them. I had turned off the filter out background noise option for this. I pressed end on the call. I was about to head back when Lavi and Jiang came my way. I decided to watch the show.

Lavi swayed her hips and Ji was giggling. They touched each other on the arm. I pretended to be fiddling with my phone. They walked by the boys and made eye contact. One of the guys turned to watch and caught Ji looking back at him. She waved and giggled at Lavi again. This was going to be better than the K-Dramas I’d started watching with Zahra.

The girls went into a shop, picking up water, snacks, a travel pillow, and other sundries. Lavi yelled “Cindy!” and threw a huge bag of chocolate-covered raisins at her. The guys had not only turned around but entered the shop and queued up behind the girls at checkout after picking up drinks.

Ji, or Cindy, went for a wallet and found nothing. She laughed at herself, “London, I’m such a ditz! Can you get it?”

Lavi, or London, went through the same farce. They apologized to the cashier, said they’d have to go back to their seats where they must have left them. That’s when the guys offered to pay. By the time they were near me again, they were rubbing the men’s hands.

“Oh, it’s such a shame,” Lavi said. “We won’t be back from skiing for a week.”

“We have to go to a work seminar but will be back Monday,” one said grinning at her.

Lavi jumped up and bounced. “I have a great idea! Cindy give me your phone!”

Ji whined, “It’s with my wallet!”

A boarding call was made and the two guys involuntarily looked to their gate.

“Mine too,” Lavi/London said. “Fine, give me your phone.” She looked at suit #2. He hesitated. She gave him a good stare and shifted so her cleavage formed a valley you could get lost in. “You want my Snap and digits or not?” He handed it over as if free will did not exist anymore.

Ji giggled again at the other one. “Give me yours.”

Lavi stepped close so her tits were directly under his face. She could have stabbed him and his eyes wouldn’t have left her chest at that moment. She took a few photos and then looked at the phone. “You have Snap? Cool. So let me snap this to me and you’ll have my info and you mine. Whoops!”

Meanwhile, Ji pressed up against her victim and his eyes nearly bugged out when he realized she had rings in her nipples. The process took much longer than my description with copious giggling, arm touches, and references to wanting to party. By the time they finally gave the phones back the men were in a panic to reach their plane. Lavi ‘accidentally’ shut down the phone she was handling. Ji failed to log in multiple times after she was done and giggled, again. “I’m such an airhead, I forgot it’s not mine!” He was now locked out for 15 minutes. Neither had time to mess with it as their plane was boarding. They raced and the girls kept eye contact until the guys were gone at which point they flanked me and took an arm each.

“I have to ask, what did you two do to those poor bastards?”

Ji bumped me gently with her hip. “He had dick pics on his phone, I sent them to a bunch of his contacts including the ones listed as Mom and Boss.”

Lavi reached over for a fist bump. “Respect, that was evil. No dick pics on mine but he has a girlfriend in chat and an active Tinder profile. I made sure to send her his pic with me and changed his profile to mention he is a pan power bottom.”

Ji, “You get cool points on that.”

“Thanks!”

“What would you two have done if their flight hadn’t been boarding?”

Lavi shrugged. “Melissa watched them watching the board sign so we were pretty sure that was it.”

“And if you’d been wrong?”

She gave a sly smile. “I hear airport security is willing to come to the defense of a young maiden’s honor.”

I had thoughts but suspected it would all be wasted air so I just amused myself instead by finding the bottoms of both girls and pinching them. Ji hummed happily and Lavi pinched mine back. I found myself wondering how much time Ji was going to spend in her room versus ours on the trip.

We regrouped and stories were shared. Mrs. Blackman practiced some kind of chaperone ninja art of non-presence and faded into the background while doing ridiculously large sudoku puzzles. I looked around, glad to still not see any additional familiar faces.

Zahra waved her hand in front of my face. “Robert, Earth to Robert.”

“Sorry, what?”

“So, this is your patch we’re headed to, right?”

“I wouldn’t say that. I grew up near there when I was in high school. It was the cool place to hang out.”

Mellie grinned, “Was high school Robert hooking up with older college girls?”

“I was so awkward, the current me is a smooth operator in comparison.”

Melissa leaned over and kissed me. “I think you’re pretty smooth.”

Zahra chimed in, “I want to see the Botanical Garden while we’re there. It’s huge, like 300 acres.”

Melissa nodded in agreement, “That’d be cool but we’re not going to have a lot of time outside the competition.”

“But we do have some,” added Grace. “We need to be relaxed going into this, not wound up.”

Lavi grinned. “Oh, I intend to be very relaxed.”

Grace gave her the side-eye. “I was thinking tea, massages, deep breathing, and centering.”

“I’m very concerned about my center getting massaged,” Lavi said. I actually saw Mrs. Blackman grin at that one but she returned to careful neutrality almost instantly

“Well,” I piped up, “I volunteer to provide massages, of any kind you ladies wish.”

Grace said, “I might take you up on that.” Melissa seemed to really like that idea so Grace qualified, “A massage-massage Mellie. You said he has really good hands.”

“Best sunscreen I’ve ever had rubbed into me,” offered Ji.

“Then it’s a deal. I trust you, Robert, to be appropriate.”

“Of course,” I said. Zahra let out a humming sound. “Would you like one?” I asked.

She frowned. “Yeah, but, look you’re a good guy Robert and Pops trusts you but naked, touching? Yeah, right.”

“If we did it, you should definitely keep shorts on and something like a sports bra.” I shrugged. “I get it if you don’t want to though.”

Melissa was looking at her phone but discreetly slid her foot over mine and applied pressure. Lavi had said once that I should pay attention to why people said things as much as what they said. Comprehension struck. Of course, Zahra didn’t want to be left out.

“Hey,” I continued, “whatever you want but there’s not an actual rule for you, right? Not like for Muslims.”

“Unwritten rules are still rules,” Zhara replied. “In fact, they’re usually the most important because no one has to write them down.” Definitely channeling her dad there.

Grace helped out, “They’re also the most in need of interpretation, right? I mean this is for school, and it’s a medical thing and you can have witnesses present.”

She seemed to think it over. “I guess.”

Melissa took Zahra’s hand, “We will make sure your honor is preserved.” Zahra smiled at that.

Everyone looked around as if someone had a different point to make so Lavi took up the discussion. “So, it’s settled; the botanical garden and massages. Perv level is up to each of us. Slumber night rules apply. I want to toss in a vote for the art museum too.”

Slumber night rules seemed to be more of a vague guideline based on my experiences so far but I had no doubt that Yussef would never learn of this.

“You gotta take some time to just wander around downtown too,” I said. “There are clubs. I wonder if any of the old ones are still there.”

“Music?” Mellie asked.

“So long as you like enthusiasm more than talent, yeah.”

“I’m down,” she said.

A voice came out of the public address system. We would begin boarding in ten minutes. I relaxed a bit. At least some of them would be here by now if they were taking this flight. I really wish Jiang had known which flight her sister was taking.

The flight was dull and I found myself missing my one-time experience flying first class just for the legroom. Melissa and Lavi didn’t find any stewardesses to flirt with and we landed in Atlanta, navigated the airport and I rented an SUV large enough to fit all of us.

Zahra was helping Mrs. Blackman with her bag and taking the opportunity to whine. “Doesn’t Athens have an airport? I checked and it’s going to be like three hours.”

“Chill,” I said. “Only because of traffic. We can grab dinner downtown and hit the road when the after-work traffic dies down.”

Lavi piped up from inside the SUV, “Where are we going?”

“Flip Burger.”

Grace moaned. “I don’t want burgers.”

I turned to everyone. “Okay, this is how it is. I’m not going to try to figure out what seven people want to eat. I’m going to Flip Burger, having a burger with a red wine jam, pickled shallots, and soy truffle vinaigrette along with a Krispy Kreme milkshake made tableside with liquid nitrogen. You can use the SUV to grab food elsewhere if you want.”

Zahra was on her phone. “They have a lamb burger, I’m in. And milkshake, that sounds bomb.”

Lavi, “Okay bitches, get in, and let’s go eat.”

Ji put her hand on Grace’s shoulder interrupting a masterful pout. “I’m sure they have salads.” She ended up having fish tacos. Lavi only made one joke about eating fish tacos during the dinner which I thought showed remarkable restraint for her. Partway up the interstate I pulled off and grabbed some other supplies. I waited until Mrs. Blackman was asleep as I suspected the school would disapprove of me buying a lot of tequila and a moderate amount of grenadine. I was almost at check out when I went back for an orange liqueur, triple sec, and blue curacao. Then we hit a grocery store for snacks. Melissa, I noted, checked out with lube. As we were loading things up Melissa looked in the bags.

“Lime juice, orange juice, agave nectar, pineapple juice, and mango juice, really?” She gave me a look. “Plus the tequila. I’m seeing a pattern.”

“I’m having a craving.”

“If I didn’t know better I’d think you want to get teenage girls drunk.”

“Nah. I was just thinking this morning it’d be nice to have nightcaps and then I thought about a nice mango margarita and then I thought about making other things with tequila and my thoughts kind of ran from there.”

“So, since you can’t cook for a few days you’re going to play bartender?”

“I need more experience at doing pairings.”

She poked me in the chest. “You are impossible. Good thing you are sexy anyway. Still, it might be useful.” She smiled and climbed into the SUV. Later I realized I should have followed up on that.

The actual road time ended up being well under two hours. We checked in and were doing the ritual of collapsing onto hotel beds to test them. Grace helped Mrs. Blackman to her room on the other side of the hotel and then joined us. We had gotten two rooms with an interior door connecting them that was immediately unlocked and left open. The hotel was a part of a complex which included the convention center where the competitions were held. I went to get ice and was checking out two very nice asses ahead of me at the ice machine, one a tall black girl, and one white with dangly earrings when the Amazon turned around and we both had instant recognition.

“Hello, Amber.”

“Robert! It’s so nice to see you.” Her eyes narrowed and her smile was predatory. I had to admit I liked it. “Maybe you can help me. I have a problem.”

I decided to play along. “What is that?”

“It’s my room,” she shifted around on a foot like a little girl, “whoever was in there last cranked the air conditioning way up. I may get cold. Any idea what I can do to get warm?”

I stepped up to her and leaned in so that her friend with the dangly earrings couldn’t hear me. “You climb into bed and send me a text and I’ll make sure you’re all tucked in like a bug in a rug, how’s that?”

She put her arm around my shoulder and whispered back, “How about a kiss good night?”

“Maybe. We’ll see if you’re a good girl.”

She stepped back. “Hmmm a good girl for a bad man,” she said at a normal volume and I saw her glance at her friend for a reaction but the friend was behind me so I didn’t see it.

However, I did hear her companion say “Come on Amber, we got the ice.”

They headed down the hallway. I noticed that Amber walked slowly. I’d need a GPS to map those legs, damn. I shook my head and filled up the plastic bucket with ice. It seemed like I had sex on the brain a lot these days, and I had to admit it felt good. When I got back to the room Lavi was throwing chocolate-covered raisins into Zahra’s mouth from five feet away, Grace was on her phone and I heard the shower running. Lavi had been rinsing off when I left and her hair was wet as was Grace’s who probably used the other bathroom.

“Melissa and Ji both in there?”

Lavi, “Yeppers. They tried talking Zahra in too but she said she already had a bite of Grace’s fish taco.”

Grace glared at Lavi. “I’m never eating fish around you people again.”

That just encouraged Lavi who very cheerfully responded, “How about under me?”

“You wish.”

She shrugged, “I do. I’d let Owen watch.”

Grace rolled her eyes. “God, don’t tell him that.” She never looked up from her phone.

“So,” I said, “the cheer team is on this floor too, it looks like.”

“Just a few of them,” Lavi said. “Amber texted me like two hot seconds ago.”

“Did she tell you she sexually harrassed me?”

Lavi snorted, missed her aim with the raisin, resulting in it flying into the other room. Zahra was still waiting so Lavi tried again. “Didn’t sound like harassment from what she said, that has to be unwelcome and unreciprocated.”

“It wasn’t like that.” Three women stopped what they were doing to look at me. I didn’t need my recent experience with them to read that shared expression.

Zhara stood up and stretched. “I definitely want to hear that explanation later but right now I’m going to wash up in the other bathroom. I can still smell the perfume of that woman sitting behind me on the plane.”

“I’m going to rinse off too,” I said and headed to the other bathroom.

Inside the curtain was drawn around the bathtub. Getting naked I stepped in and found myself facing Melissa. She went from surprised to smiling broadly and kissed me.

“Nice to see you again,” she said.

“It’s only been like five minutes.”

“Still, I missed you.”

Suddenly a sound of hand slapping ass rung out. Ji’s voice carried, “Okay Robert’s slut, your back is soaped. Save the face sucking for later, if we try something in this shower we’re going to end up injured before the competition.” She was right. I missed my shower.

“You’re saying you two haven’t been doing anything?”

“Well ... maybe groping.” Melissa started.

“Define groping,” Ji said.

“The prosecution rests,” I said.

Ji laughed, “I just had a vision of you in, like, one of those British prosecutor outfits like you see in some movies with the wig and everything and fucking me in front of a court.”

Melissa processed that as she moved under the shower to rinse her hair. “A court?”

Ji sounded defensive. “I like public things.”

Melissa gave her a deadpan look. “You just called me a slut and you come out with that?”

“You are one.”

This went on for a while. They had already used the little bottles of shampoo so I used soap. I should have bought shampoo and conditioner at the grocery store too. Despite their chatter, they managed to get out ahead of me. Standing there naked I suffered a realization. In my haste to catch two girls in the shower, I hadn’t actually brought in a change of clothes.

So, I knocked on the door. “Hey!” Nothing. I cracked open the door. “Hello?” Nothing. The bathroom just faced a closet so I couldn’t see the room. So, plan, use a towel and then get underwear and come back to the bathroom. Uh, didn’t they usually give you like six or eight towels? There were none. And the girls had conveniently been thoughtful and taken my dirty clothes with them. Very thoughtful. I was pretty sure this was Ji’s idea. Fuck it. I opened the door and walked out.

You could have heard a pin drop. Grace started giggling. Zahra went so red you would have thought her face was painted. “Oh my.” She looked at Ji who was smiling as if she was a vision of innocence.

I stood, legs slightly spread, and looked at Melissa. “Grab me a change of underwear?”

She smiled. “Yes, love.”

So I just stood there and stretched. My little man started to respond to the attention, especially Grace and Zahra watching him. Zahra coughed into her hand. “Uh, this isn’t technically your house or anything and, uh, yeah.”

“It’s my room and your team mates there stole my clothes. This is their responsibility.”

She nodded gravely. “You’re right, clearly it’s their fault. Uh ... does it always get thicker like that just from standing around? OH MY GOD! I didn’t mean to ask that, I’m so sorry!” She put her face in her hands.

I replied with a question. “Who wants a drink?”

“Yes.” “Yes.” “Sure.” “Absolutely.” “Please.” Came the replies.

Zahra, “Can someone tell me when it’s gone?”

Melissa had gotten me a pair of boxers and a tee shirt. I put both on and then dressed myself the rest of the way. “I’m decent, Zahra.” She opened her eyes.

Grace stood up, clearly deciding an adult had to be present. “Okay, now that Gojira-tan there is put up, can we go find the registration desk?”

“Gojira-tan?” I had to ask.

Ji looked upwards as if thinking how to explain it and then said. “Little Gojira.”

I shrugged. Naming my dick after Godzilla had been done jokingly before but this sounded like a formal nickname they had solidified amongst themselves without my knowledge. I figured I was coming out ahead and decided to accept it.

I made a series of dulce de tequilas with barrel-aged tequila, cognac, agave, orange liqueur, and some lime juice. I didn’t have anything proper so cheap hotel plastic cups were used. Everyone enjoyed them. The girls dried their hair and we slowly got ready for checking out the competition area. The drinks were small but everyone was relaxed by the time we reached the elevators.

At the elevators, I realized I’d forgotten my phone so I agreed to meet everyone in the lobby, ran back to the room, grabbed it, and returned for my trip down. That’s when I noticed the elevator was empty except for a black girl who was looking at her phone. Normally I think staring at phones in public is rude but it was T’wana so I was grateful for it. I considered waiting for the elevator door to close and giving it thirty seconds before hitting the button again. But, for not the first time since June, I reminded myself that I was a grown-ass man and she was a teenage girl. I stepped into the elevator, the door closed, and I immediately regretted being a grown-ass man.

When she looked at me the glare projected radiation with it that I think was trying to sterilize me.

“Hi, T’wana right? We’ve met but I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced?”

The glare continued. To her credit, it was an excellent glare. I extended my hand. When she didn’t take it I felt awkward so I turned it into a wave.

“I can see you,” she said to my wave. A demonic Linda Blair had nothing on this chick and the angrier she got the easier it was for me to be chipper.

“Hey, you can talk, great!”

“Why are you talking to me?”

“I’m trying to be nice. I get that you think I’ve done bad things, but you might want to hear another side of it.”

“I don’t need to hear anything from you.”

I was about to reply when the elevator dinged and a couple came in with two children and a baby stroller. They took up most of the space so T’wana tried to make sure she was separated from me but one of the kids sneezed, a projectile that created a spray that started at his nose and covered three square feet of elevator wall with shiny nasal effluvium. She jumped back and we were standing like best friends.

I decided to try out a conversation topic. “So, what do you think about spatchcocking?”

Her eyes went wide and the husband turned, “Excuse me?”

I rolled my head to the side and raised my shoulders in a sort of casual apology gesture, “Yeah, it’s a funny word. It’s like butterflying. You take like a whole turkey or chicken and open it up rather than cook it how you got it. It’s supposed to be a lot easier and it makes sense. I’m starting to think about Thanksgiving and it seems weird but if the house is busy it might make sense.”

The wife put her finger to her lip. “I don’t know, I like to do stuffing but I could do dressing. I can see the advantage though it’s not the same, you know, visually.” She looked to her husband but he seemed uninterested.

I turned to T’wana. “What do you think?”

“My mom makes the turkey.”

“Surely you help.”

“Well, duh.” The duh was so nasty the wife raised an eyebrow. T’wana seemed to sense she was becoming the bad guy here and pulled up her phone. When we reached the lobby I said goodbye to the family and T’wana stomped out behind me. The cheerleaders and dance team were adjacent in the huge lobby. Amber was talking to Grace while the redhead Haley and bespectacled Coraline were talking to Melissa. Coraline was trying to be cool about things but I could pick up what Lavi called ‘simping vibes’ from here. Ji was talking to her little sister Xinyi among the cheerleaders. Xi jumped as T’wana went past her and barked something.

Xi hugged Ji and they separated, Xi following T’wana as they headed down a long hallway. Coraline ran after them but Haley and Amber did not. T’wana turned around and yelled, “NOW!”

Amber seemed unimpressed and held up a finger to indicate ‘one second’ without looking. Haley just ignored her. T’wana decided to push the issue. She stomped up like an elephant annoyed with the earth under its feet.

She got right up to the side of Haley. “We’re leaving.”

The redhead was shorter than her but Melissa was not. “Chill the attitude and back off, T’wana.”