Chapter 18

As the school year ended and summer began, I tried to pretend that I was an adult and had total control over my own life. A big part of this was finding a couple of part-time jobs and looking into going to college. Didn’t want any academic degree with more useless schooling, but there were some focused programs in automotive mechanics that looked good to me. But that was for the far future. Right then, having finally left the prison that high school had felt like, I just wanted to work and make some money and enjoy life.

Yet for all my outward achievements, a big gap remained in my life that kept me waking up in the middle of the summer nights. That gap was the lack of a girlfriend or even a real relationship with a girl. Others in my group had been with the same person for years and were even planning marriage. Yet for all the great sex I’d had with Lucy and other girls, I was left looking alone and clueless.

Sure, I’d just met Minday a couple of months before and had started up what looked like a serious thing. My loneliness pushed me to start thinking of Mindy as my best chance at love and everything that really mattered in a relationship. At least that’s what I’d say while sharing lunch with a friend or co-worker. I even half-believed the words leaving my mouth, but that little head between my legs kept reminding me what life was really about for young men like me.

While Mindy had indeed touched my heart, I’ll have to admit that much of the emptiness in my chest came from Lucy having disappeared from my life. I really did find myself missing her, and not just for the sex. She was a true friend and the hole in my gut never recovered. This was all made worse when Joyce really did leave with her family to spend some time at her uncle’s. Damn. The most fuckable girl in town and I didn’t discover her until a few weeks before graduation. So there I was, stuck with Mindy, a wonderful girl whom I didn’t deserve but who also didn’t seem to feel any need to meet my own sexual needs. I felt like life was laughing at me.

Yeah, had lots of regrets and unfulfilled wishes going through my head at three in the morning but life really wasn’t that bad. Met friends, played World of Warcraft, saved for a car, and looked to the far future. No different from anybody else. What absolutely does need to get mentioned is a group of friends I’d fallen in with over my school years, especially that last year when I was a senior. Older friends, mentors, or perhaps poor examples of behavior my father could never approve of. But to me they were everything I wanted to be.

This was a parallel universe I existed in. Apart from Mindy or Lucy or my parents. The two main characters were named Don and Lonnie. Both Don and Lonnie were older than me by some years. Both were also big men, maybe a couple of inches above my six feet, but Lonnie had a naturally thin frame while Don was muscular, physically imposing even when he was smiling.

I’d met Don a couple years before, back when Rick and I were still friends, before he’d stolen his sister away from me. Don was older, way older than Rick, maybe by five or six years. He was living on his own with a real job and car and everything else a young all-American male wanted. Rick and I had visited Don a couple of times, mostly having to do with repairing Rick’s motorcycle, but now that motorcycle was mine and when I came across something I couldn’t understand, I found myself banging on Don’s door.

He was nice enough to help whenever a younger me bothered him. As a kind of payment and thanks for his helping me out, I occasionally volunteered to cut the guy’s lawn. Always overgrown, but my dad had bought a monster of a mower and it only took me an hour to cut and trim both front and back. When I was just fifteen or sixteen Don would offer me a coke and smile and wave, or maybe I’d stick around and talk and soak up the good life he was living.

When I hit 17 and was a senior, Don started taking me a little more seriously. I’d hang with him and other guys, Lonnie being a regular I could find at Don’s, talking and giving opinions and learning how to drink beer without making a face or belching too much. Good times.

On one particular spring day, maybe about the time Lucy stopped talking to me, Don and Lonnie, had come outside to watch me in the back, then invited me to sit down and enjoy a beer with them.

Didn’t matter that I was only 17. I loved pretending to be a member of the crew, and since I’d been sipping the occasional beer whenever I could, I was even able to chug the first cold brew down before asking for another. Didn’t matter that my stomach felt queasy with the sour piss. It was worth the indigestion to be considered an equal to guys many years beyond my high school self. For the next hour I was happy to hang out with these older young men, alive and free and beyond the powers of parents or teachers. I felt like I belonged.

On this particular day, Don had to get back to some kind of work on his computer, so I wound up following Lonnie around. Don normally lived on his own, sometimes with a woman sharing his bedroom or pretending to be living in his second bedroom, but just then Loonie had moved in. Temporarily, according to Don, but Lonnie had been there since the beginning of the year and he hadn’t shown any indications of wanting to leave. Cheap rent and good dope. Why leave?

At the time, Lonnie was wearing what seemed to be his uniform, a pair of baggy jeans and a white tank-top with a hoodie tied around his waist. And only half shaven, though I have to admit his face looked good enough for the movies, rugged and with a self-satisfied grin. I felt pleased to be able to hang out with him. We talked about his work for a local construction company, then about girls and how he had almost gotten married before the girl had chickened out.

I was commiserating with him when he suddenly stood and said, “Gotta hit the store and grab some potatoes for a salad I’m making for tomorrow.” It seemed natural to tag along. He didn’t ask, but he didn’t say no when I jumped into the passenger side of his two-door Pontiac and rode shotgun.

Being a friend of Don’s, riding along with my new pal Lonnie, I felt years older than my high school self. Window rolled down, enjoying the music and the warm spring air in my face, I was a totally new man. I didn’t even bother with the seat-belt. Life was good.

That’s why when I saw a girl from school walking along the sidewalk, I yelled out a greeting. Lonnie misunderstood, thinking I wanted to talk with her, so he pulled over and stopped. By mere chance she had indeed needed a ride.

“Louis. What are you doing here? Can you give me a ride? I have to meet a friend and my mother told me to do the dishes or walk, so I’m walking.”

I scooted over, giving the girl room to sit in front and off we went. The girl’s name was Kendra. I only had her in one of my classes and barely knew her, but it was easy to talk to her, at least when Lonnie let me have a say. He seemed as taken with the girl as I was, which worried me, knowing I looked more like a boy than ever compared to Lonnie’s good looks and overwhelming self confidence.

“What’s up there girl? You a friend of my man Louis? Where to?”

“Oh, hi, um...”

“Lonnie,” I threw out. “Where you headed to Kendra?”

“Going to Zoe’s house? You remember her. Did the report on Afghanistan.”

“Oh, right.”

“Where is this Zoe girl? Where’s she live? Sure you wouldn’t rather come back and party with me and Louis here? Bring Zoe and we’ll make a night of it.”

I was embarrassed and more than a little ticked off at Lonnie for trying to pick up my high school friend, but she took it well, as though it happened every day, which it probably did. She was pretty nice looking, with beautiful light brown skin and laughing eyes, and she laughed Lonnie off.

“Go out with you guys? You kidding? Didn’t know you hung out with these kinds of players, Louis.”

Lonnie laughed, throwing out a line about how fine Kendra looked, but she was nice enough to ignore him and focused on me, bringing up a report due at the end of the following week in our class. I remembered to ask about her brother who had just returned from doing something with the Army and in the middle of her answer I found myself touching her hand. I was completely aware, almost blushing with the realization that our knees were touching and hands overlapping. Magic may have happened, or maybe not, but Kendra suddenly yelled out for Lonnie to turn at the next stop sign, and that’s where she got off. With a quick wave and promise to see each other at school, she walked up the driveway of the house we were in front of.

Back on the main road, Lonnie began lecturing me on how I needed to up my game with girls. He was full of information and tips on girls and women and what every young man needed to know on picking up and eventually gaining access to a girl’s most valuable assets. He knew I was dating and that I had some experience in getting a girl into bed, but he thought my conversation with Kendra a poor sampling of my pick-up skills.

No way I can get into all of his viewpoints and tips here. All the way to the store, while walking through the aisles and in line to pay, he was explaining how a man needed to be preparing a girl priming her with the expectation of bedding her. In the store he pointed to girls and women, talking about who he thought good looking and how he’d talk with them and lines he’d use to pick them up.

To my embarrassment, and then amazement, he even gave me a working example. With potatoes in hand, he walked up to a woman in the aisle that sold jars of pickles. Lonnie pointed her out, noting that she didn’t have a wedding ring and that her slacks were just tight enough to show off her ass and even a bit of a camel-toe.

“Don’t ever believe for a moment a woman isn’t aware of what she’s showing off,” he insisted. “They know what’s going on. Some girls try to hide it, others like to flaunt it, but it’s all done consciously and with intent.”

When Lonnie approached the woman, he dropped his over-the-top self confidence and took on a more approachable personality of a friendly guy from next door. He picked up a jar of pickles, asked the woman if she ever used anything other than dill pickles in her potato salad, and when she mentioned that she hadn’t made potato salad in years, he brought up how great it was to have some on a hot afternoon after a long day of work.

Two minutes later and I was expecting Lonnie to walk away with the woman’s phone number. Instead he broke their conversation off, leaving me to follow him to the cashier’s and then out into the late afternoon sun. I was impressed, but of course Lonnie’s ego expected nothing less from me.

“Yeah, well, another five minutes and I could have been driving the woman home, but she noticed you. Besides, I’m busy enough with the girls I’ve got. No need for another needy woman to be texting me. The point is, you should always have one main girl, always have a girl on the side you’re not too serious with, and then maybe a couple you could always develop relationships with if you wanted to.”

I nodded, mentioned that I had a couple of girls in mind (without mentioning any names, like Lucy) but Lonnie wasn’t letting up on me.

“No, man. That Kendra, she was hot. You weren’t going anywhere with her. You could have been her brother. You always have to show you have some control, which is where us giving her a ride comes in. For that school stuff you were talking about, mention that you’ve got something she might be able to use. Then find a way to see her alone, like at her house. You know where she lives? No? Big mistake. Always have something planned for the future, like a study date or fixing her car or something. Like windshield wipers. Bet her parent’s car has worn wiper blades. Accidentally but on purpose notice them, then show up with new blades and put them on, say you had extra laying around. Whatever, man. That’d be worth second base right there.

“And always mention how hot a chick looks. That Kendra was fine. Every boy at school probably watches her walk down the hall, right? No need to come off creepy. Just say something about her hair or how the color of her top looks good on her. That kind of shit. The way you talked with her was too generic, too forgettable. You gotta make sure that she always has a reason to remember you. Maybe not enough to moisten her panties, but at least with her able to smile with the mention of your name. You get me?”

It was a lot to take in and I was happy to see that Don was home as we pulled into his driveway. I wasn’t disagreeing at all with everything Lonnie had to say about getting a girlfriend or even having one on the side, but he made it seem far easier than I’d found it to be. I was hoping for a break in the conversation now that we were back at Don’s, but Don was more than happy to give his views on the subject.

“Hey. Lonnie’s great at the bullshit. Makes it smell sweet. No lie there, but no way you’re in Lonnie’s league. There’s a reason he doesn’t have a girlfriend right now. Man keeps stepping off to the side to pick some finer looking flower in somebody else’s garden. I’m surprised he hasn’t been shot by somebody’s husband or last week’s bedmate.”

Lonnie laughed but didn’t disagree, actually throwing out the name of a woman who had walked into his work and screamed at him. Lonnie seemed proud at how he played around, but Don said there were better ways of keeping a man happy.

“Lonnie’s going to get burned. Happened before, gonna happen again. Me, I’m not tied down, but I have a special girl I stay true to. Most of the time, anyways. Nothing formal, but she always has room in her bed for me. There’s a woman at work who’s given me the eye, but no reason to ruin what I have.”

This is where Don stopped what he was doing on his laptop and looked into my adolescent eyes. “It always comes down to one basic reality, Louis. You’re old enough to understand this, so pay attention. Plenty of girls out there, and its up to you to make their day. Forget all the bullshit about women and men being equal. It’s up to the man to get to know a girl, ask her out, give her a reason to say yes and spend the night with him. Biggest regret you’ll ever have in life is not taking a girl to bed. Always give the girl a chance to back off, but no way she’ll ever have a good thing to say about you if you don’t give her a chance to say no, and preferably no twice or more. She wants you to be interested, to want her, and it does a woman good to be able to push back, laugh you off, say no, and then agree to maybe another date next week. Always have a girl in mind. Always have a date for the weekend.”

Don went back to what he was doing on his computer but finished by showing his disappointment in me.

“I get it. You’re still in school, but some of the best and easiest pussy I ever bagged was in high school. Nothing totally serious back then and all of life seeming to be free and open. Girls at that age are open to all sorts of possibilities, so no excuses. Lonnie’s right. If you don’t have a date for the weekend, some girl you’re trying to groom or maybe even score with, then its your own damn fault. Nothing sadder than a guy like you wasting his energies in the shower.”

Lonnie jumped in, bringing up how to keep a woman happy in bed and always wanting him back, which got into a detailed conversation on how to hold back on reaching a climax too fast and how to find and make use of a woman’s clitoris or tit-sucking techniques. I tried to bring up my own experience, of the differences between Ronnie and Lucy, trying my best to impress my two male compatriots in my own knowledge of what a girl wants. Guy talk of the best sort.

Both men had plans for the evening and, feeling like the immature high school kid that I was, I finally headed for the door. That’s when Lonnie pulled me back and presented me with a quickly organized box of materials he thought every guy in need should have with him. Condoms, a tiny tube of lube, an even tinier vial with some liquid in it, and a small plastic baggie of marijuana. Don wasn’t impressed, saying that if a bottle of wine couldn’t get me into a girl’s panties, then I had no reason for being there. Lonnie pushed back, explaining that half the girls he’d ever been with didn’t know what they wanted.

Don picked up the vial of liquid, saying, “You ever use this, you better have one fuck of a good excuse. That’s just pitiful, Lonnie.”

I was clueless and Lonnie explained. “Pour this shit into a girl’s drink and she’s yours for the night. Won’t remember a thing, not even the sex, if you go that far. Up to you. You know the phrase: great power, great responsibility, so be careful. You get dragged off to jail for date rape or into a shotgun wedding, not my problem. Maybe just a few drops, just to make the girl light-headed. Good looking young man like you is just what girls want on a long boring night.”

After shoving the package of materials into my hands, I was left alone on the street with only my mother texting and asking where I was. I thought about calling Kendra, but then remembered that I was supposed to be developing a relationship with Mindy. At home I gave Mindy a call, doing my best to make Lonnie proud by asking what she was wearing, telling her how much I loved the sound of her voice, then assuring her that I’d be at her place on Sunday to help with some project she was doing. I knew I wouldn’t get anything out of it other than a soft kiss and long hug, Mindy’s mother keeping a close watch on the two of us, but that was better than nothing.

The most important thing I got from my visit to Don’s was that all my beliefs about girls and sex had been validated by two grown men I looked up to and respected. Following their example, I felt that it wasn’t so wrong for me to expect that Mindy would soon be sharing my bed every day after school. Just the previous week Mindy had allowed me to suck on her bare tits for all of two minutes before pushing me off, so unloading my balls into her by the end of the summer didn’t seem so farfetched. I’d really wanted to try out a titty-fuck on the girl, but she seemed totally grossed out by the idea. Yeah, glacier slow, but it was still better than what I’d had to go through with Denise.

Most of what I’d done with and inside of a girl at that time remained a huge secret. I didn’t even want to talk about it all with Don and Lonnie, not to mention any of the other guys I was around at school. With everything I’d done with Ronnie and Alyssa and Lucy, and especially with Julie and Helena, I was pretty sure I was the most sexually sated teenage boy in town. And whenever somebody bothered to look into my love life, all the gossip mongers could bring up was Denise (so nasty) and Mindy (whom I’d just met). It was like I was living and fucking in two separate universes.

I’ve got to wonder how many other guys, and especially girls, had secrets like I had. All those Helenas and Alices, their twats filled every other night with some lusty man’s cum, a dozen lusty stories never to be told to their future husbands. I knew myself to be lucky, but more than one friend had pointed out that I’d never had a real girlfriend. All those years of sex, from my aunt to Helena to Lucy to Joyce, I’d fucked a lot of pussy and sucked on a lot of clits, but I’d never had a girlfriend. A serious girlfriend who’d sit on my lap at a party and wrap her arm around my waist while walking around school or the mall.

Graduation over, Lucy gone, the taste of Joyce’s cum finally washed from my lips, I wasn’t sure what life held in store for me. More work, an upcoming college class or two, but mostly just an empty life with nothing to show for eighteen years of toil and turmoil. I had no plan, and it seemed that fate had no plans for me.

I was thinking of how empty my life after school had become when my phone beckoned.

My heart did a backflip when I saw it was Kendra. She was the girl Lonnie had lectured me about just a couple of months before. Following Don’s advice, I had indeed tried making headway with a number of girls. While Lucy remained secret, I’d tried dating girls like Mindy but also Kendra. Mindy had been receptive but Kendra had remained cool. Not mean or icy, just friendly and unwilling to take seriously my suggestions for a movie or trip to the river or weekend sleep-over. You might say we developed a friendship that was destined to never get beyond a friendly smile and hug.

Then the phone call. My heart leapt, all thoughts of my budding relationship with Mindy were banished from my mind, and then I was thrown into a river of icy water when Kendra’s first full sentence was a request for me to drive her to a friend’s. Nice guy that I was, I said yes, of course hoping that this would be a crack in our otherwise dry and barren friendship.

Drove my parent’s sedan over to Kendra’s and she jumped in, giving my arm a squeeze in thanks for my effort. On the way across town, she explained that friends she’d made at another school through her participation in the debate team were organizing a birthday party for one of the group. Kendra stayed vague on stuff, saying that some of the friendships endured past the end of debate season or the school year. Fine, but it wasn’t anything I really cared about. We talked about the summer, my work, her upcoming senior year, and some other stuff. All I wanted was to find an opening to take her out, but before I could get to that we pulled up in front of her friend’s place.

A pretty nice two story adobe home, with a separate garage and water fountain in the front. Real nice. Kendra gave my arm another squeeze and almost disappeared before I could ask about picking her up. To my disappointment she assured me she had a ride home. With a wave she bounded up the yard and straight into the cool shadows that stretched over the front gate and door.

I was feeling more than a little disappointment, maybe having some sense of being used as I did a one-eighty and headed back down the street. Before I’d even gotten up to speed a half-dressed woman ran onto the sidewalk and waved me down. I opened the window to see what she wanted and that made all the difference in the world.

“Hey. You just dropped that girl off. Where you going now?”

I was too flustered to think of saying anything but the sad truth.

“Um, home.”

“So, you’re not staying? Just going home? Great. Give me a ride. Just over near the ** Mall. Thanks.”

While speaking this at me in double time talk, the woman had opened the door and thrown herself into the front passenger seat. I could have been churlish or an asshole and told her to get lost, but I really did have nothing else to do. It was a weird situation but to be honest I’ve never minded when girls or women have forced themselves onto me. I gave an inward shrug and drove on, trying to make light of our meeting and hoping for a little context. I got way more than I was hoping for.

“Okay,” I asked, “You often do this, jumping into strange cars and asking for rides?”

“Hell no, but I wanted to get out before my parents got home. That girl you dropped off at Adrian’s place. You’re not her boyfriend, right? Shit. I’m betting she’s his new sex toy. Seen her twice so far. Wonder if Mike or Lesla is going o show? I’d like to stay and watch but...”

This is when my mind exploded, finally catching all the words coming out of the woman’s mouth and realizing what she’s saying.

First off, the woman. Not until she was in the car and we were on our way and she started talking did I have a real chance to look her up and sown and see that she wasn’t much older than me. At the most 20, maybe 16. It was hard to tell because, racist white guy that I was, the girl was obviously of Indian descent, as in India Indian, and it was hard for me to tell. Light brown skin, long black hair, high cheek bones, and incredibly beautiful in an exotic way that always makes white guys like me fall over backwards.

She was tall, maybe as tall as me, her black head of hair nearing the roof of the car and her long, bare legs being just a bit too long for the space afforded them in the passenger’s seat. Thing is, the girl’s top was long, hanging down low enough to cover the top of her very fine looking brown thighs, and of a very fine and beautiful fabric. Lots of patterns in gold surrounded the neck and followed the edges of the top, the long sleeved garment obviously meant to be worn with other matching slacks or a dress. Yet the only other thing the girl wore was some black thin short shorts, and the only way I knew that was from a glance at her thighs and ass as she got into the car. Yep. Girl, at best a young woman, and really fine looking. All of this was going through my head as the girl began talking, and just as I was wishing I could see what more her long top covered, she threw out this idea of Kendra being some guy’s sex toy. No way I could just let that go.

“Wait. What? Kendra’s my friend and she just went over to make some plans with somebody she met at school. What’s all this about sex?”

The girl turned toward me, no seatbelt fastened or anything, and as she did so the top portion of her blouse fell open and I could see half-way to heaven. Only halfway, just enough to see that the girl had a fine pair of tits and without a bra to guard from lecherous young guys like me.

“Kendra, huh? I’ve seen her there before, and it’s not like I spy on Adrian all the time, so I’m betting she’s become his new steady. If they’re planning a party, its got nothing to do with school. Adrian’s like 20, and I know for sure he’s only into girls for one reason. You’re not her boyfriend, are you? You never said. If you are, then good luck with that. I know for sure Mike and Lesla’s been there with her too and no way she can be happy with you if she’s going back for another weekend with them.”

The meaning behind the girl’s wild words was pretty clear, however clueless I was about the details behind what she was talking about. Kendra, my cute little innocent friend, was into some serious sex shit. The impact was enough to make my mind blank out and almost run a red light. I turned into a fast food place and drove to the back, parking in a deserted area and turning to face the girl who had just turned my world upside down.

Before we came to a full stop, the girl turned to me and asked me to get her a large fries, and before I could say anything to that she scrunched up her eyes and looked at me sideways and asked me my name before then thinking to give me hers. Jasmine. Not kidding. Could have guessed that one. My mind was still too blown to question her, so I took off to get a double order of fries and tried to understand what I’d gotten dragged into.

Coming back with the hot bag of salty carbs, I opened the door to the car only for a cloud of smoke to engulf my head and fill my nostrils.

“Hey,” I yelled, “No smoking dope, or anything else. My parents are going to kill me.”

“Oh, sorry,” said the disembodied voice. “Your parents’ car? Should’ve known. Well, munchies first. Hope they’re hot.”

Looking down and into the car, I saw where the girl was leaning toward me, chest hanging over the driver’s seat, head up and hand reaching out for the bag in my hand. I happily but only slowly gave up the bag, my eyes focused on the very fine pair of breasts her open top was presenting to me. Very fine, light brown flesh with dark nipples, and all my brain could think of just then was how much more of the girl I wanted to see. Surrendering the bag of fries, I followed and closed the door, and while the girl pulled out her snack, I tried to pull myself back together and remember why I’d even met her in the first place.

“Hey. Some of those are mine. Thanks. Yeah, my parent’s car, so no dope.”

“Oh. Yeah. How old are you?”

“Um, eighteen,” I said with a bit of arrogance, thinking myself a high school grad and adult.

“Hey! Me too. Well, in a couple months. Should have been starting university then but my dad wants me to go to a better school and that’s why...”

Again I had to cut into the girl’s talk. If we were out on a date I’d be hanging onto every word and memorizing her favorite color and breed of cat, but there was still a lot more I needed to know about what she’d said about Kendra.

“Wait. Jasmine. I’ve just got to ask you something first. You said you’d seen Kendra, my friend, that girl I dropped off, other times at your friend’s house. And what do you mean talking about her being a sex toy? How do you know all this?”

Jasmine, the Indian girl with the almost laughable stereotypical name, swallowed, mumbled something about wishing I’d gotten her something the drink, but then turned, leaned back against the door and gave it to me straight.

“Well, like I said, I don’t spy on Adrian, but we’re just across the street. I’ve only seen your friend there two other times. Once I know when Adrian picked her up himself. Can’t say why she needed you this time, but its obvious that she liked what she got before and she’s back for more. And how do I know? Because I was part of it until a few months ago. Mike was getting a little wild and then Lesla went a little too far. I told Adrian I was done with all that shit. He understood, and we’ve seen each other a couple of times since then, but no more group stuff, not like that.”