Seattle Girl

by Lucy Kevin

  Much like Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune, Diane walked through the lingerie store, gracefully showing me various tables with little string panties in pretty patterns and underwire bras with lace. Pointing out, here and there, styles that would complement my figure, patterns that would look good against my skin.

  I had no idea that there was so much going on in the world of underwear. It had passed right by my little sheltered geek world unnoticed.

  Which didn’t mean that I wasn’t perfectly happy to continue to let thongs keep on passing me by.

  “You can have it back after tonight,” I said, ripping off the tag with my teeth.

  “Yuck,” she said, sticking her tongue out at me. “I’m not going to wear it after you wear it.”

  “I’m gonna wash it first,” I said, thinking she must have misunderstood me.

  “Gross.”

  “But you wanted me to wear yours!” I exclaimed.

  As if her logic made perfect sense, she said, “Yeah, but I wasn’t going to wear it again after you used it. I was giving the thong to you forever.”

  I growled in frustration, but before I could point out her ridiculously circular logic, she pulled out some really big band-aid looking things and waved them at me.

  “These are for you too,” she said, holding them up to my breasts.

  I wasn’t following. “Huh?”

  “They’re those stick-on bra things.”

  I looked at her blankly and she shook her head with continued dismay at my ignorance. “They sell them in lingerie stores to be worn with backless dresses.”

  Finally getting her drift, I held up my hands. “I’m not going to wear them, Diane.”

  “Why not?” she said, a wicked gleam in her eyes.

  Sputtering with righteous indignation at actually being asked for a reason to stop her insanity, the best I could come up with was, “Because!”

  Ignoring me, Diane cut a couple to size and then wrestled me to the ground to stick them on me.

  “Ow!”

  “Hold still!”

  “Ow!”

  “There,” she said, rolling off me. “Go look in the mirror. You look just like a mermaid.”

  I wanted to be mad at her for being so bossy, but now she had me curious. Still, as I struggled to get up I said, “A really slutty mermaid who forgot to put her bikini top on.”

  She laughed. “You can be such a moron sometimes. Do you think we’re going to the party with you looking like that? We’ll be arrested!”

  She reached out a hand to help me up. “So why’d you force me to put these on, then?”

  “You’ll see,” she said as she split my hair in the middle of my back and pulled each side around to cover each of my breasts so that I looked just like Brooke Shields in Blue Lagoon.

  With far less bushy eyebrows, that is.

  I sucked in my breath, hardly able to believe that Diane had been right about the outfit. I looked good. Really good. Kind of sexy and daring, yet innocent all at the same time.

  “There. Now you’re perfectly decent.”

  Even though I was pretty pleased with the outcome, it’s never a good idea to let Diane think she’s won so easily. She gets all power trippy. So, with just the right amount of disdain, I said. “I guess your version of decent and my version of decent are somewhat different, aren’t they?”

  “You’re just a big prude, is all,” she said, deftly getting in the last word.

  I had to laugh and agree. “With a capital P.”

  “The Prude Pottymouth,” she said, giggling. “You know, that would make a really good title for a romance novel.” I shook my head in wonder at the incredibly odd workings of her mind. “Let me pop into something latex and we’ll go.”

  While Diane’s tactics left something to be desired, I was pretty sure this outfit would get me noticed by Mr. Fire-Eyes. And really, as long as I didn’t move much at the party and just stood in a corner with a drink I was going to be fine. Probably no one would even notice what I wasn’t wearing.

  *

  Ducking out of the rain, right when we walked into the party, Diane said, “Let’s go dance in the animal cages.”

  “The what?”

  “Over there,” she said, pointing at a group of raised stages that were surrounded by bars. All but one were full of writhing, nearly naked students.

  “No fucking way,” I said, getting ready to head for the exit, but as you well know by now, Diane can be very persuasive. For that matter, I suppose the couple of shots we did before we walked across the lawn for the party didn’t hurt.

  Once I got over my initial self-consciousness about my outfit, I danced up a storm to rival the one taking place outside, always keeping one eye on the placement of my hair in front of my naked breasts, of course. I even temporarily forgot all about our official “reason” for coming to the party.

  Diane, however, hadn’t.

  She had been keeping the man of the hour on her radar screen all night and, I suppose, was pleased with the results of her handiwork. Suffice it to say, Mr. Fire-Eyes wasn’t the only one who noticed me.

  Me and my costume were a big hit. Every five minutes or so I had to peel a hand off of my ass. Or smack some pervert who was trying to see if I really did have bare boobs underneath my hair. Thankfully, about an hour into the party, a girl walked in wearing nothing but saran wrap, and all of this unwanted male attention was diverted straight to her. Bless the skank’s heart.

  Suddenly Diane grabbed my arm and pulled me down from the cage. “Let’s go.” She dragged me across the crowded dance floor.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To his room, of course.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks. “No way. I don’t think so.” And then to really make my point clear I said, “Not in this lifetime.”

  “Look,” she said impatiently as she dragged me up the stairs. “He’s been watching you all night and I’m pretty sure he’s been getting jealous at all of the attention you’ve been receiving. Which is good, by the way,” she added at my incredulous look. “Anyway, I found out that his name is Kyle and he has a single room. If the door’s unlocked, you’re going in.”

  I really didn’t like the sound of that. “What if he’s some sort of psycho killer or something?”

  “I’m sure he’s not,” said the all-knowing Diane. “He’ll probably be coming back inside any minute. Knock ‘em dead, gorgeous!”

  With that she shoved me into his room, blew me a kiss, shut the door and skipped all the way back to the dance floor, pleased as punch with her handy-work.

  *

  I had barely taken off my itchy boob holder stick-ons—actually painfully ripped them off is more accurate description of what happened—when Kyle walked into the room. I hardly even had time to get nervous.

  I swear he didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see me. Which, I have to say, really shocked the hell out of me. Lord knows if I came home and found some girl I had never even talked to lying in my bed during a party, I would have been kind of taken aback by it.

  Not him. He sat down on the sofa chair in the corner of his room and lit a cigarette.

  I sat there on his bed with no top on, completely speechless.

  Here’s the thing, each time I find myself speechless, I’m truly surprised. I’m never prepared for how often I can’t find the words for how I’m feeling or what I’m thinking. Can you believe it? Here I make my living via witty and incisive banter and yet so often, way too often actually, especially during the really important moments, I draw a total blank.

  Anyway, back to the mystery man. Kyle, I thought, as I rolled his name around silently on my tongue. The name fit, somehow.

  And then he reached over to the table next to his chair, picked up a bunch of papers, and started to read aloud to me.

  If I hadn’t already been completely at a loss before, now I was. It was the most incredibly random thing I had ever seen. But frankly, it was an impressive display. Of what exactly, I�
�m not sure, but impressive nonetheless.

  The story he read me was about a man dying of AIDS. It was sort of depressing and not really all that riveting, but since I still couldn’t believe I was sitting practically naked on his bed while he read to me, he held my focus.

  I was getting uncomfortable, though. When he came in, I had scrunched up into a little ball to hide my naked breasts and my back was getting stiff. After he’d been reading to me for a few minutes and I realized it was going to be a while before I needed to move, I grabbed one of his pillows and held it against my chest and lay back on his bed on my side, facing him with my knees curled up.

  The smoke from his cigarette, the sound of his voice, and the incredibly boring story all conspired to lull me to sleep, and by the time I woke up the band had stopped playing, presumably because the party was over.

  I tried to shake myself awake. “Sorry. I think I fell asleep during your story.”

  He smiled, really the first smile I had ever seen on him and said, “I was watching you sleep.”

  Suddenly self-conscious and aware of what bad idea this had been I blurted out, “This was my friend’s idea. I feel really bad about crashing your room.” He didn’t say anything so I kept talking. “Um, if I could borrow a shirt for the night, I’ll get out of here.”

  He lit another cigarette. “I like having you here.” Then he took off his shirt and held it out to me.

  Here’s the thing: It was pretty clear to me that if I wanted the shirt I had to go across the room and get it. But since this was my stupid idea in the first place–well actually it was Diane’s stupid idea and I was going to kill her when I got back to our apartment-I couldn’t really blame him for testing me.

  So after a very short while of deliberation, I got up out of his bed as proudly as I could and walked across the room to him. The crazy thing was that by the time I made it across the room to him I no longer wanted to just grab his shirt and leave with my tail between my legs. Whatever this strange game he was playing with me was, I was ready to give some back.

  I took the half-burned cigarette out from between his fingers and put it out in the ashtray. Then I did something that even surprised me: I got down on the seat with him and straddled his legs. Flinging my hair back from my chest, I put my arms around his neck and leaned in close to his face. But I didn’t kiss him.

  I was prepared to do something bold and crazy, but that didn’t extend to kissing someone who didn’t want me to kiss him. He needed to make the next move and I was prepared to wait if I had to.

  I didn’t have to wait long. He buried his face in my neck, and breathed in my hair while running his hands up and down on my back.

  I was totally turned on. It was the oddest foreplay, but very powerful. He may not have been the most normal guy in the world, but he knew what he was doing. No wonder every girl on campus had the hots for him.

  If they only knew.

  Then he threaded his hands through my hair, pulled my face down to his and licked my lips.

  “You have amazing lips,” he said right before I leaned in to kiss him.

  He was doing the most wonderful things with his teeth and hands when rather abruptly he stopped and whispered in my ear, “It’s time for you to go home now.”

  I’m telling you, this guy knew how to stun the crap out of me. As stunned as I was, however, I didn’t need to be told twice. I grabbed his discarded shirt from the floor, threw it on and was outside walking across the wet grass to my empty bed before my head or heart could even register just how unceremoniously and rudely I’d been kicked out.

  Which, of course, only served to fuel my fire.

  Suddenly I wanted nothing more than to convince him that he had made a huge mistake.

  *

  The next morning Diane was sitting on my bed, reading a romance novel, waiting for me to wake up and tell her everything.

  She saw me crack open an eye and lay down next to me on my pillow. “So, what happened? I’m dying to know.”

  I pulled the covers up over my face as far as they would go. “It was the most awful, mortifying experience of my entire life. And I’m mad at you.”

  Diane joined me under the covers. “No way! And no you’re not.”

  “Way. And I am.” I made a miserable little sound before saying, “He kicked me out of his room.”

  She threw the covers back and sat up. “He kicked you out?”

  “Yeah.” I started to giggle a little at her reaction. “And I was sitting on his lap with my bare boobs pressed up against him when he did it.”

  Diane’s eyes got even bigger. “He didn’t strike me as gay, but he must be, because I’m not a lesbian or anything and I can see that you have really great tits.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest after her comment, but nonetheless I was glad for the compliment. “Thanks,” I muttered. “I’m glad you think so. And I guess I forgive you now.”

  “Who needs him anyway? Here, let me read to you what Lord Derrington is doing to Catherine in this scene. There’s no way Kyle could have competed with these moves.”

  And as she read the sex scene from her latest romance novel aloud to me, something good came out of my ultra-embarrassing night with Kyle.

  I was hit with a lightning bolt for exactly what the topic for my first show on KUW should be.

  *

  By 4:45 a.m. the sun was just starting to rise. I had walked through the dark streets of campus hoping it would burn off some of my nervous energy. But as I stood in front of the heavy door that led into the basement radio station, I was still more nervous than I had ever been my entire life.

  The coward in me wanted to turn and run back home, get under the covers, and just continue my life as it had always been.

  Boring, sane, and well, boring.

  I closed my eyes and tried to remember the feeling I got every time I was a guest on Bill’s show and put the headphones on. Every time I spoke into the mic and heard my own voice reverberating through my ears.

  I tried to think about how scared Baby must have been in Dirty Dancing, but she got up on stage and danced with Patrick Swayze anyway.

  And that’s what pushed me over the edge, because nobody puts baby in a corner, so I refused to stand, quivering, outside the front door for another moment. Taking a deep breath, I was about to reach for the handle, when a lanky guy with really long dread locks opened up the door.

  Grunting at me, he took a drag on his cigarette. “You new here?”

  I smiled and nodded. “Yeah. I’m on at 5 a.m..” I wasn’t sure why I decided to confide in him, but I said, “I’m kind of nervous actually.”

  He took another drag and looked at me through the clouds of smoke. “Whatever. This station is a piece of crap. You could fart continuously for three hours and no one would notice.”

  I laughed. He was definitely the right person to confide in. For the first time in weeks I felt secure again. “Right on,” I said and headed inside.

  I was pretty sure I could do better than that. And really, he was right. No matter how much of an ass I made of myself, there were probably about four people who would be half-listening as they drove to work, blurry eyed and yawning.

  I let myself into the control room and gingerly sat down. Looking around the small space, running my fingers over the control board, I felt pure happiness well up inside of me.

  Finally, I had found something good. And it was mine. As long as I didn’t screw it up too badly, that is.

  Laughing somewhat maniacally, I reached for the headphones just in time to hear the end of dreadlock-man’s song. It sounded like Bob Marley, but then again, any body who sings Rastafarian music sounds like Bob Marley to me.

  I cleared my throat before hitting the on-air button. Then, in my most professional I-am-on-the-radio-voice I said, “It’s 5 o’clock and I’d like to welcome you to the Georgia Fulton show, where you get to say what’s on your mind.”

  I had worked that up as my little tag and I was pretty please
d with how it sounded. Very professional indeed.

  “My topic on this very early morning is, of course, very near and dear to my heart. For all of the women who are listening, how many of you have pursued a man who you know isn’t worth it? How many of you have gone out of your way to change yourself, to be someone entirely different so that some guy would fall for you?”

  I stopped talking for a moment to try and collect and organize my thoughts. I knew that sometimes Bill had to talk continuously for fifteen minutes to fill dead air space before anyone called in on his show. I just hoped I had the stamina to babble and repeat myself long enough to wait out the first caller.

  Right as I was starting to say, “I’ve recently had my own experience with this,” the phone line lit up. After giving a quick thank you to whoever was in charge of the Universe, I picked up.

  “You’re on the air with Georgia Fulton. What’s your story?”

  “Hey Georgia,” a husky female voice said. “You wouldn’t believe how many jerks I’ve gone out with.”

  Ah, this sounded juicy. “Give me some examples.”

  “Let’s see,” she said, as if she were trying to figure out where to start. “One guy said he wasn’t married, but then he was and had, like, six kids. And of course, he was the one who wanted me to dress up like a little girl all the time.”

  “Pervert.”

  “Totally. And then there was the guy who said he was married, but he wasn’t, he just liked meeting in hotel rooms so that he could pretend he was married.”

  “Did he make you dress up in anything special?”

  My caller laughed. “He liked me to look like a prostitute, which may have had something to do with the whole hotel thing.” She stopped for a moment, as if she was finally putting two and two together.

  “And then there was the guy who liked things to be kind of nasty.”

  “How nasty?” I asked, almost afraid of what she was going to say.

  I wanted juicy, but I also wanted to make it past my first day on the air, so I kept my finger firmly poised over the ‘bleep’ button.

  “The usual. Whips and chains and lots of leather. Mostly he liked for me to hurt him.”