Find Mary

You brought Mary here. You can’t strand her here without a ride. And… there are college students at this party. The beer is flowing. Mary seems nice and sweet, but not a perfect fit for this crowd. You should also make sure that she’s safe.

“I have to make sure my friend gets home safe,” you tell Lily. You expect her to say something like it’s your loss, but she nods.

“I respect that,” she says, just a little dryly.

“Enough to give me your phone number?” you ask her bluntly.

She laughs, but you get that number. You’re already thinking about being inside her again and struggling not to get hard as you put your clothes on. You weren’t a virgin before, but you’ve never been with anyone like her.

You’re still buzzing with satisfaction, good vibes, horniness, and a sense of triumph as you make your way downstairs. You grab a cup of water, not beer. You have to drive, but all that exertion has left you parched. You smell like sweat and sex, but you’re too high on life to be self-conscious about it.

You spot Lily heading out. She sees you, gives you the tiniest smirk, and leaves the party. All you can do is hope that one day you will be as awesome as her.

Mary is in the kitchen, talking to a guy. He’s tall and lean, with dark hair. A soccer player, judging by his physique. You don’t recognize him, but he looks high school-aged. It may be that he’s from another school. The next town over has one, and you’ve learned that the kids mingle a lot.

She looks like she’s having fun. You politely wait, sipping your water and snacking on nachos, basking in the afterglow of what happened upstairs. Mary notices you and detaches herself. That guy was leaning in pretty close to her.

She comes over to you.

“What’s up?” she asks.

“Just making sure you’re OK,” you tell her.

“Are we leaving?” she asks.

You shrug. “If you want to.”

She hesitates, biting her lip. You wait with a smile on your face.

“If you want to go home with him, it won’t hurt my feelings,” you tell her, touching her waist. For a second there’s a light in her eyes, and you know that that is: pure horniness. But then there’s good sense and propriety. She blushes and rolls her eyes, then looks at her watch. She takes a deep breath.

“I’ll give him my number,” she says. “Then we can go. You want to meet up out front in ten?”

“Perfect,” you say with a smile. Ten minutes to give a number? One minute to give the number, one minute to suck face and feel his strong, soccer-player hands squeezing her butt, more like. You can’t blame her. He’s pretty hot and he’s wearing a Red Hot Chili Peppers shirt, so he has good taste in music.

Mary returns to him, and you head outside to get away from the noise. Normally you’d want to mingle, but you feel like you got what you came for. Besides, if you trying to introduce yourself to new girls like this, they’ll smell you and that won’t help. You sit down on the front steps, wishing you had some cigarettes. You wonder if Mary even would’ve noticed if you’d run off with Lily for the night. It seems likely that guy wouldn’t have minded driving her home, although you don’t want her alone in a car with a guy that she’s known for an hour.

Of course, you were about to get into a car with a sorority girl that you’ve known for an hour, so maybe that’s a double standard.

Eventually, Mary comes out looking embarrassed but happy. Once you’re in the car, there’s no avoiding it: she can smell you, but she just looks a bit surprised for a moment and that’s all. She doesn’t say anything.

“That was a good party,” you tell her once you’re on the road.

“It was,” she replies, a hint of shyness there. “I’m glad we went.”

“We should go to more parties,” you tell her, giving her a direct look.

She smiles at you. “Yeah,” she says.

At home, she goes into your house and you go into yours. You go straight to the shower; you don’t anyone smelling you. Clean and wrapped in your towel, you head back to your room where you check the window. Mary’s curtains are closed. You know what she’s doing though, and you feel the same way.

You turn off your lights, close your curtains, drop your towel, and lie naked on your bed, jerking it like no tomorrow. Mary and Lily are both on your mind, but it’s Lily’s smooth, shiny, sexy brown body that you’re seeing when your toes curl, you grit your teeth, and feel hot droplets spattering your stomach and bare breasts.

You go limp, breathing hoarsely. You just showered, too.

( GB1996 )

You get good news at school: Kris is out for the day, so you won’t have to do tutoring. It’s not that you don’t like her, but you are happy to have a break. So there’s a smile on your face in class.

But Ellen sits beside you, and she’s not smiling. You also notice the skateboard propped against her backpack beside her desk. What’s she so salty about? Her board is a little worn, but it looks good to you. Yours got lost in the move. One more thing to find the money to replace, but you haven’t skated in months. Too busy thinking about girls, kind of like you’re doing now. But you better not think too hard; you can’t be popping a woody in the middle of class.

“You OK?” you mutter to Ellen, who looks startled. “You look pissed.”

“It’s nothing,” she mutters back.

You give her a skeptical look. You’re bored by class anyway. Why not chat a little?

“I don’t have a ride today,” she admits grumpily.

“You were gonna go skate? Where?”

“There’s a place in the next town.”

You understand. You can almost walk to almost anything in Gurlberg, but if it’s another town… she does need a ride. And you have no plans. You were running late today, so you had to bring the car.

“I can take you,” you tell her. “If you let me use your board. Just a little.”

She nods. “Sure,” she says.

OK. You have plans. Anything beats going home, and you can’t just go and call Lily. You have to act at least a bit cool and not let her know how into her you are.

It’s a warm day and the sun’s shining when school lets out. Stef finds you in the chaos of boarding buses and heading to cars.

“What are you doing out here?” she asks. “Shouldn’t you be studying?”

“I got the day off. I’m taking some girl to go skate.”

“What girl?”

“Ellen. Do you know her?”

Stef shakes her head. “We were classmates in middle school, but it’s been a while. She’s kind of quiet.”

You nod. “I said I’d go. You want to come?”

“I have nothing else to do.”

Ellen doesn’t seem bothered to have Stef along, but having Stef there cuts through the awkwardness. This way you don’t have to try to make conversation with Ellen. She gives directions and you drive. The awkward thing is not telling Stef about last night. You can’t talk about it in front of Ellen.

It’s almost a thirty-minute drive to the pitiful, dilapidated skate park outside the next town. It’s the driest swamp you’ve ever seen, and old newspapers blow across the cracked concrete. You have the place to yourselves, and you can see why: it’s horrible.

“Don’t you usually skate with Oliver Stark?” Stef asks Ellen as you all get out of the car. Birds caw in the trees, and the wind moans through the busted-out windows of a nearby shack with no roof.

“He had to take his kid sister to dance today,” Ellen replies.

“Boyfriend?” you ask and Ellen snorts.

“No,” she says, throwing down her board and stepping on.

She’s pretty good. You should’ve brought a boombox or something. You need some music out here; it’s too quiet and eerie. Before you get a turn, you hear a car engine. You and Stef turn and Ellen halts, snapping her board up to her hand as a red pickup truck rattles into the gravel parking lot.

Three boys get out.

“Oh, shit,” Ellen says, cringing as they approach.

One of them has a bandage on his nose. They all carry boards, but they don’t look glad to see her. Ellen clutches her board worriedly. The leader of the boys points at it.

“I didn’t expect you to bring it back,” he says.

“I didn’t think they’d be here today,” Ellen mutters to you. You’re confused. What’s happening here?

“Shut up, Todd. It’s mine,” Ellen says, trying to brush it off.

“Just give it back, you little slut,” Todd says. He has wild, brown hair and an earring. He looks at Ellen with loathing.

But you and Stef bristle at the way that he’s talking to her. You both instinctively step in on either side of her. It looks like these guys want Ellen’s board or something. You don’t know what’s going on, but these guys are dicks and it’s three guys against one girl. You have **** but to back Ellen.

And these guys seem really mad.

Brawl?

Or run?