Tats (13 page)

We share the lighter between us and both inhale deep, holding the smoke in our lungs for a long time like it’s not just tobacco.

“Charlie saw this car. We’re gonna have to dump it.” Vivian exhales. “Find us another. Preferably a Mercedes. Black. Blend in, you know.”

“You could always just get me a Harley. Like you promised. If I’m going to die, then I want to go out on a Harley.”

“Don’t get your panties in a wad. You’re not going to die and you’ll get your damn motorcycle.” She slows and turns on the right blinker.

“You remember Mark from high school?” Vivian asks.

“Which Mark?”

“Mark Thompson, the cute baseball player. I went to the prom with him.”

“What about him?”

“He is now the proud owner of a car dealership.”

Vivian swerves into a used car parking lot, and sure enough there’s a big gaudy sign looming over us that reads: Mark’s Pre-Owned Vehicles.

“Start picking out your next car, darlin’. Mark’s always had a thing for me ever since senior prom. He’ll give me whatever I want.”

“Nonononono, not here,” I say. “Let’s go somewhere else. Another lot.”

“I just have to flirt with him some. Saw him a few years back and he kept hinting for a blow job. This is going to be so easy. Our new Mercedes will give itself to us.” She turns off the engine and sticks the key back down her cleavage.

“Please,” I plead, “can’t we just go somewhere else?”

“Why? You know a better way to get a car?”

“Pay for it?”

“Why the hell would I pay good money for a car? I’ve never had to pay for a car in my life.” She adds under her breath, “Not with money anyway.”

“Go do what you have to do then. I’ll sit here. I don’t wanna see this guy.”

“Why? What’s between you and him?”

“Nothing.”

Vivian turns sideways in the seat and stabs me with her stare. “Spit it out. What’s the history?”

I shrug in what I consider to be a very innocent manner and stub out my cigarette in the ashtray. “No history. I just don’t want to see him at this particular moment in time is all.”

“You’re such a god-awful liar.” She pooches out her bottom lip and puts her hand on my knee. “You can tell me.”

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” I say, picking up her hand and dropping it back into her own lap.

“You’re not going to hurt my feelings. I promise. The past is the past is the past is the past. Tell me.”

Vivian’s like a dog with a bone, she’s not going to ever give it up. I swallow a deep breath and say, “...Senior prom...”

“Senior prom...?” she urges.

“He left in the middle of prom. I didn’t know he was there with you. And we snuck off together.”

Vivian’s jaw muscles tighten and flex. To the untrained observer, she’s not a bad actress, but I can see the storm brewing behind her purple eyes.

“And?” she asks with just a little too much casualness.

“And...” I just spit it out and hope for the best. “...We broke into the basement of the First Baptist Church. And didn’t come out till morning.”

Uh-oh. This is going to be bad. She’s way too quiet. Then the dam breaks. She pounds the steering wheel with her fists.  “You fucked my prom date?! In a church!?!”

“You said you wouldn’t get mad.”

“I said I wouldn’t get my feelings hurt! I didn’t say shit about mad!”

I am totally expecting her to whale on me, but at least she has the presence of mind to jump out of the car. She slams the door way too hard and the little Pinto rocks from the aftershock. She paces. Screams and paces and kicks the tires. “I can’t fucking believe this! I’m the cheerleader! I’m the one everybody’s supposed to want! Not you! They’re supposed to want
me
!” She hits the hood with her fist and stomps around toward my side of the car.

I roll up my window and lock the door.

“First you fuck Joey! Now you fuck my prom date?!” she screams through the glass.

I roll down my window a crack. “If it helps any...we didn’t... do
that
,” I offer.

Vivian stops cold, squints one eye at me and asks breathlessly, “What exactly did you do?”

“He went down on me.”

“Shit!” she screams, slapping her palms on my window. “You bitch!”

I roll the window back up just in time and cover my face in case she shatters the glass. I deserve that last one. That was definitely poking the snake, but I just can’t seem to stop from poking it again. I inch the window back down one more time.

“Um...Viv. Calm down. It’s not like it was very good anyway.”

Her eyes turn icy cold and she freezes.

I continue, “I finally figured out he was just writing the alphabet with his tongue. I told him it’d work a lot better if he just stuck to ‘o’ or ‘l’.  I mean he must’ve been down there for half the night before—”

“You goddamn gloating bitch!” she screams.

I get the window back up and cover my face. I chance a peek through my fingers and see a man walking this way. Shit, that’s Mark. That’s cute little baseball champion Mark in a brown polyester three-piece suit and tie. He still walks like he’s bouncing on the balls of his feet. Except for a little bit of a paunch starting and some gray around the edges, he looks pretty much the same.

Vivian follows my gaze and when she sees Mark, she does an abrupt about-face. Miraculously, she’s all girlie and charming and dripping sex.

Mark starts in with his latest sales pitch, “Anything you’d like to drive today?” Then he recognizes Vivian and smiles even bigger. “Vivian! Long time no see. Damn girl, you look good!”

“You bet your sweet ass I look good,” Vivian oozes. “You’re looking pretty good yourself, Mark. You’re not still mad at me, are you?”

She slips right into his personal space and runs her fingers up and down his tie. Mark’s eyes stay glued to her bazooms.

“Not me,” he says directly to her tits. “I never hold grudges.”

“I was just telling Lee that you and I had a little unfinished business,” Vivian says while toying with his belt buckle.

“Lee?” he asks, and his eyes flicker to me inside the car.

I wiggle my fingers at him and offer up a half-smile that I hope looks genuine.

“Well, I’ll be damned. I haven’t seen her since prom,” he says.

Vivian yanks his tie like he’s a dog on a leash. “I was hoping maybe we could work out a deal. For a Mercedes, maybe?”

“Yeah, a deal, sure. Why isn’t she getting out of the car?” he asks.

“She’s shy,” Vivian says, tugging harder on his buckle.

“She’s not shy that I remember.”

Vivian gives up, puts her fists on her hips and says, “Christ... Lee, get out of the damn car.”

I crawl out of the Pinto and hook my thumbs into my belt loops. “Hey ya, Mark.”

“Whewww.” He whistles under his breath. “I like the look, Lee, I like the new look.”

“Well, you haven’t seen me since...for a long time, you know.”

“You still look good,” he drools.

I don’t get it. What it is with me and men? I do my damnedest to get them to go away. I wear their clothes, I’m a good head taller than most and I could kick the shit outta most, but that just seems to keep ’em coming.

“Not as good as Viv,” I say, deflecting his attention.

Mark moves up close to me, too close, maybe just a dick’s length away. “I heard a rumor about you,” he says. “They say you got sent up. Any truth to that?”

“Maybe.” I take a small step back.

Vivian interrupts, “Let’s talk deals, Mark.”

“Hold on a minute, Viv. Maybe Lee here wants to deal a little. What d’ya think? You wanna deal? For old times sake?”

I give him a little push in the chest with one finger, “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Mark.”

“Am I now? I heard other rumors, too. They must be true.”

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” I retort.

He looks at me. Then Vivian. Back and forth a couple of times. “Oh, I get it. I get it. Prison changed you, huh? You two are queer together.”

I start to tell him no, but I catch Vivian out of the corner of my eye, giving me the slashing the throat signal.

“That’s right, Mark. We’re together,” Vivian interjects, slinking up next to me and looping her arm around my waist. “Can you blame us?”

He rubs the palms of his hands together and says, excitedly, “Now, we’re getting somewhere. I think maybe I do have a deal for the two of you.”

Vivian’s fingers are now playing with
my
belt buckle. I start to panic just a little bit. What the hell is happening here?

Vivian purrs, “What’d you have in mind?”

Mark wiggles his eyebrows at us. “How ’bout a show, huh? Starring the two of you. I’ll just watch, I promise. Like a good boy.”

I’m going to faint or something. This can’t be happening.

“We love an audience,” Vivian says. “But we want a nice car. A
really
nice car.”

“Let’s go to my office.”

He leads the way, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Vivian starts to follow, but I grab her arm and yank her back. “What the hell are you doing?” I hiss.

“Giving him what he wants.”

“We are not, I repeat NOT, going to have sex while that man watches.”

Vivian laughs. “Not for real, silly. We’ll act.”

“How in the hell do you act like you’re having sex?”

“Good God, you’d think you’d never done this before.”

“I haven’t!”

“Just follow my lead. And don’t forget... You want a Harley, then you’re going to do it
and
you’re going to like it,” she demands.

Like I’ve never heard that before.

Good God, I’m stuck in the middle of a porn movie set. This office is disgusting. Cobwebs, dust, clutter, dank and musty, and the smell of old testosterone.

Vivian works this scenario like the pro she is. She pushes Mark backward until he stumbles into a chair in the corner.

“Whoa there,” he mutters. “Take it easy on me.”

Vivian straddles his lap and rips his tie off with her teeth. She puts his hands behind the chair and ties them together with his own necktie. But he doesn’t seem to mind at all because this puts her tits right in his face.

I can’t believe I’m watching this. But it’s like when somebody says, ‘Ooh, this stinks. Smell it.’ You know it’s going to stink, but you always go ahead and smell it anyway. So, I just hold my breath and watch.

Vivian gets up and backs away from him. I can’t help but notice the obvious bulge in his pants. It’s like he’s pointing a loaded gun right at me.

Vivian struts up to me and grabs my belt. In my mind, I know she’s just acting, but my body doesn’t quite know the difference. Damn, my jeans feel way too tight. She takes both my hands in hers and leads me behind the desk. She slides down into the swivel desk chair and wraps her legs around me. She leans forward, pressing her tits into my belly, puts a hand on each of my shoulders and pushes me down between her legs.

“Why do I have to do all the work?” I ask.

Now I’m stuck down here under the desk with its modesty board separating me from Mark’s view and Vivian’s crotch hovering right in front of my face. My first thought is
Thank
God, she’s wearing panties
. I don’t know exactly what I’m supposed to do—I mean I know what I’m supposed to do in reality, but not what I’m supposed to do right now. So, I do the obvious— nothing.

And, that turns out to be the right thing to do, because Vivian’s got it all under control. She twitches and moans and rolls her head, mumbling oh God’s and right there like I like it, baby’s and all kinds of shit I’ve never heard before.

Her acting looks fake as all get out to me, but it must be working because I hear Mark’s pleasure moans joining in with hers. Vivian builds it a little and starts thumping on the desk with her fists and moving her hips. I feel a little intoxicated just from the vibe and kinda giggly, too.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had a cheerleader’s crotch right in my face. Jamie the Cheerleader used to tease me all the time our junior year. I sat near the back in English class. The jocks sat on the left side of the room and the cheerleaders (Vivian included) sat on the right side. All the pheromones they shot back and forth at each other made me gag.

Jamie would turn around backward and hike her legs up on Vivian’s desk, showing off her tiny blue cheerleading panties. She’d catch me looking at her and spread her knees even further apart so I’d get a really good shot of her panties.

God, I hated her. I hated her so much I couldn’t keep my eyes off her.

One night, I was walking down the dark street on my way to spend the night in Chopper’s shop when Jamie pulled her car over and asked if I needed a ride. I climbed in and she acted like we’re best friends and told me all about how she just let some jock feel her up but he can’t ever get her off. She pulled her car into a dark alley and threw it in park, but left the engine running. She turned the radio up, slid her skirt up all the way to her waist, hooked her thumbs into the elastic of her sheer pink panties and slid them down her long legs. With her panties dangling off her left ankle, she threw her right leg up onto the seat and dared, “I bet you can get me off good.” She licked two of her fingers, slipped them down her slit and massaged. She leaned back with her head against the driver’s windshield and twitched her narrow hips against her slow-moving fingers. She looked at me lazily and whispered, “It’s not going to lick itself.” I dropped down on my knees into the floorboard and grabbed her hips in my hands. I pulled her toward me and used my nose to push her fingers away. She moaned with each flick of my tongue. Emboldened, I spread her wider with my thumbs and used only my tongue to caress more moans out of her. I went down on Jamie the Cheerleader for not just one mighty orgasm but two little ones right after it. I knew right then and there that God had given me a natural talent to please women and it was my duty from there on out to use that gift often and wisely.

The whole cheerleaders-are-a-bitch part of the story? Jamie pointedly ignored me the rest of the school year except when we were alone in the girls’ room and she said, “Come on over tonight. I’ll let you eat me out again.”

Bitch.