Just Like Old Times...(Plus Madison) (2) “What the hell?!” Bobby freaked out when he saw the flash. Now it was Randy’s turn to laugh. “Rora, you are so gonna kick his ass when you see this picture.” He said. He was grinning from ear to ear, and I was laughing too. You had to be there, you really did. It was just like old times. Well, old times plus Madison. Tom came back into the condo then from outside, fully clothed, like me. Neither one of us liked wearing shorts, so we always wore pants, and even though we had our swim gear on under them, it seemed like we were dressed casually. “You guys ready?” he asked. “Yeah,” Aurora said. Bobby and Randy were fighting for the camera that held the incriminating evidence, when Aurora gave them a look. They stopped. Randy put the camera in a pocket and grinned at Bobby, who gave him the finger. We left the house at about two, having a date with the beach. But I don’t wanna talk about that. I mean c’mon, everyone has been or will go to the beach at some point in their life; and Ocean City, Maryland is not really that different from Virginia Beach or any real beach/boardwalk place on the eastern shore (maybe a little less cleaner and there’s a Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum on 10th street). There is one main street, Ocean Way, and the street numbers go up into the hundreds. The higher up (or farther up) in number you go, the less crowded and more expensive the territory. The Morgan family once stayed at the Holiday Inn (ocean side) on some odd street in the hundreds. Very nice, but very expensive, and for some strange reason, the entire building was pink. Full on, girly pink. But you could wake up early and see the rising sun sparkling off the tide. Anyway... The Sandy Beach Motel was on 25th street, and we were meeting Tom’s pals on 11th or 12th so we pilled into Bobby’s car cause it was the newest, (a silver 2001 Honda Civic) and therefore cleanest and headed for 11th street, ocean side. Randy complained about Bobby having the car since April and only having about 1000 miles on the car, 200 of them being from the drive down to Ocean City. Bobby told Randy to shut up (I told Randy to shut up), yelling about his family situation, and nearly collided into the back of a Subaru Outback, and so Aurora imposed a ‘no arguing’ rule while Bobby was driving. Tom’s friends are ok. Semi-anarchy kids, many of whom were the other half of the school’s newspaper staff. The freedom fighters; the ones who wrote the editorial articles critiquing school policies and dress codes, reviewed the latest Rage Against the Machine albums and artsy foreign films and reported on Mumia Abu-Jamal rallies and protests. You had to respect their convictions and political aspirations and bla bla bla. Ah, the hell with it. It was still just something to put on a college application. Their names aren’t important, and there were just too many to go into now. Except one guy, my favorite of the freedom fighters, whom I will only refer to as JT. He was the coolest of Tom’s pals, being THE avid political juggernaut on the school paper (who knew what he was talking about) as well as in the bed room, I’m told. The official line was JT was “hung like a rhino”(and that’s an official quote; one that I have heard many times this week) but I liked him because he was always giving me the names of cool local bands to listen to. The guy had great taste in music. Like Tom, he was one of my personal heroes, being political and down-to-earth. It’s very rare, but JT pulled it off. It was the other people I could have dealt without. I mean suddenly we were a party of 12 or 13, hanging out and enjoying life at the beach. Tom chatted political (with JT) while Aurora frolicked off into the surf, determined to have fun. Randy followed after Aurora, and Bobby after him, so I stayed behind with Tom, changing the subject to movies so I could keep up with the flow of conversation. Inevitably, Aurora came back to collect Tom (as he was on borrowed time anyway) and Randy came back to collect me. At first I ignored his pleas to join him in crisp cold water so I could keep chatting with JT, but when I saw a very wet Madison coming toward me out of the water (wearing the shark’s grin), I practically ran into the waves as a possible means of escape. I figured JT would understand. Splish splash, my trunks are riding my ass. Not to say I wasn’t having fun, I mean the beach is great. Where else do you get to splash and play around like children with good looking anarchy/emo girls you’ve known since 3rd grade? Splashing, dunking, wrestling, hands roving into places they shouldn’t, what’s not to love? Then it comes to an end. And with any group activity, there is also a group picture. Only problem is, with this being Senior Week, everyone is looking to ‘capture the memory’ on film. One group; 13 cameras. Everyone wants a picture. “Who’s gonna take the pictures?” It doesn’t matter who asked the question (it was me), what matters is the arguing, bickering, bartering, laughing, and compromising that took place in order to get someone to take the pictures of the group of us. We eventually decided Randy would take the majority of them, and someone else would take the picture of the group (with Randy in that picture) for his camera. It would have been too much to ask a stranger to take the same picture 13 times with 13 different cameras. Ugh. As it was, with all the re-arranging and re-posing between camera shots (“I want to be here for my picture, you stand there!”) it looked like a cross between a really bad game of musical chairs and a Chinese fire drill. Finally it was all over, cell phone numbers were exchanged, and dinner plans were made for another day. I put my pants on and discovered that the sand fairy had visited every nook and cranny inside and outside my jeans to give me that extra special feeling of raw sandpaper on my bare skin. Man, I had fun. “We should go to a club!” Madison was gushing when we were driving back to the room. “(Name omitted) was telling me about this one called H2O on second street.” “Is it 18 and under?” Aurora asked, her eyes lighting up. “Yeah.” EXCUSE ME?! “Since when do you want to go to a club?” I asked Aurora. “Since always,” Aurora was matching my look, peering over her glasses at me (oh yeah, Aurora wears glasses), and I looked over my sunglasses at her. “I used to dance, remember?” “I remember, I just didn’t figure you for a club kid.” “Where else are you supposed to dance?” “In the safety of your own home, where no one can see you.” Aurora laughed. “I’m a good dancer Mackenzie, and you’re not so terrible.” She spoke the truth. “What about dinner?” Randy asked. “Yeah,” Tom chimed in, “I’m hungry.” “Hells yeah! Food!” Bobby was Bobby. “Let’s get a consensus of what everyone wants when we get back to the room.” Aurora said. We all agreed. Back in the room, it was decided that everyone was in the mood for seafood, or as the French say, Les fruit de mer (the fruit of the sea). But being high school students, we didn’t have the money to go to a really good seafood restaurant, so we looked up the local seafood buffets, within walking distance of course. Aurora managed to find three to her credit. So, after a bit of clothes changing, and arguing, and fighting (the actual decision making process taking the good part of an hour) we set off in search of the perfect seafood buffet. We made the following discoveries: 1. You should never walk to find a restaurant (using up more energy) when you are already starving. 2. The first restaurant was too expensive and crowded. 3. Second restaurant was just too expensive. 4. There are no inexpensive seafood buffets. At least not in Ocean City. So we settled at our third choice. At least it was clean. Bobby and Randy behaved themselves. Madison made a weird lemonade-type thing by having the waitress bring her tons of (free) lemons to use in her ice water. Tom and Aurora played the cute couple and fed crab meat to each other (Tom had never eaten crab before), and I soaked in the atmosphere, consumed in my own private thoughts and internal ramblings as usual. With one minor difference: There was no stress. Even with the $23 dollars I spent for dinner leaving me with $155 and some odd cents for the rest of the week, I didn’t care, I mean I cared, but who really cared? Y’know what I mean? (And if you don’t, then it truly is a shame, not to have known a stress free existence.) Back to the room. According to Madison, you didn’t get the full club experience if you showed up early at 9 when the club opened, you had to wait till about 10 or even better, 11 to do yourself justice. That left us with three hours to kill. We were stretched out on the open sofa bed, the group of us, watching one of the slacker movies of the late 90’s on TV (Half Baked). I was going through a coupon booklet, trying to think up ways to save money when I saw an add for free paintball games on Wednesday nights from 11pm-1am during the month of June. I showed it to Tom, and we agreed that it seemed like a good activity for tomorrow night. Ditto for Randy, Bobby, and Madison. Aurora came into the room and laid on the sofa bed between Randy and I. (Tom was sitting in a chair in the corner playing Gameboy) I showed her the ad. “What do you think AJ? Everybody’s in. Do you think you’d come with Tom tomorrow night?” Aurora suddenly gave me a wicked look, or what passed for wicked with Aurora, (compared to Madison it was merely mischievous) and said, “Actually Mackenzie, I’m not…” and then she left out the last few words and just looked at me with the wicked (mischievous) grin on her face. Actually Mackenzie, I’m not…coming (or in this case cumming) with Tom, is what she meant. It actually took me a few seconds for the synapses to connect and finish her very lewd sentence. “OH MY GOD!” I jumped up like I’d been struck. Aurora was laughing as if she’d told the ‘Joke of the Year’. “You’re in front of the TV!” Randy scolded. “DID YOU HEAR WHAT SHE JUST SAID?!” I asked him. Then Randy had to hear it. He laughed, Bobby fell off his chair. Madison barely batted an eye. “IT’S NOT FUCKING FUNNY!” I freaked out at them. “Oh. C’mon Mackenzie, it wasn’t that bad.” “I’ve never heard you talk like that.” “You’re not with me all the time.” Aurora flashed the wicked (mischievous) grin at me again. Tom perked up at that comment and grinned too. Either Madison was a bad influence on Aurora, or the anticipation of the coming—impending club experience had whipped Aurora into some raw horny state. Or maybe both. Whatever it was, it scared the hell outta me, so I sat on the floor by myself. Those were the “longest” three hours of the day, where three hours passed and it felt like three hours had passed, during the last of which, there was another changing of clothes between the women. Then we again piled into Bobby’s car for a trip down to 2nd street, where our destination, Club H2O, lay awaiting us. The 20-minute saga that followed when we attempted to park down there is another entry in itself. And nothing I want to relive now. Ugh. Madison had been right though; when we arrived at H2O the club was already in full swing, as there were very few people loitering outside and the techno/club/top 40 (remixed) music was blasting though the walls. We all pulled out our wallets and paid the $10 cover charge to get in. $145 dollars and some odd cents left. “It’s glow stick night,” the burly young ex-Marine-type looking guy informed us as we stepped in. He handed us two glow sticks each and allowed our entry. Have you ever seen The Replacement Killers? Where (in arguably the best club scene ever filmed) Chow Yun-Fat walks through that huge club (obviously done in LA) where everyone is bumping and grinding to The Crystal Method’s “Keep Hope Alive” and he manages to move through the crowds because he’s the smoothest thing walking, even though the club is full of mad crazy good dancers? Yeah well, my experience was nothing like that. Club H2O was the typical under 21 dance club. (Mostly) Over privileged suburban white kids dancing very badly to the latest MTV hit from rapper Jay-Z (remixed), stacked wall-to-wall into the space of a building (using some sort of techno-pastel motif) that couldn’t house a 7-11 to save it’s lease. The only thing different about tonight was that everyone was sporting those damned glow sticks given out at the door and all the poseur kids were tying to do the glow stick dance, Raving (it’s called), that trance kids, like Tom, already knew how to do. He grimaced at the site of 200 hundred or so kids trying to spin the sticks around and create the nifty little light effect that you could get when a good Ravist/Raver (whatever) performed their magic. It was really pathetic to watch and Tom gave Aurora a “Do we have to come here?” look that was quickly matched with an “Hell yes we do!” look that settled any sort of confrontation. There were TV monitors all over the place (I guess they added to the club experience) that were playing bits and clips from Anime movies that fit the music’s beats at appropriate parts, and a less than impressive light show above shimmered, changed color and strobed periodically for the added headache affect. Ahead of us was the “bar” that only sold fruit juice, Gatorade, and water for dazzling amounts of money, and ahead of that, well that you had to see yourself to believe it. In every club there are what are like exhibition stands, or rises from the floor, to which poles are attached. And the sluttiest of the slutty (or the girls who are the biggest teases), get up and showcase their skills in…well, being slutty. Only girls are allowed to dance up there, and you usually find the same five girls occupying the spots up there all night. Their dancing is as sub-par as everyone else’s, but that doesn’t matter because they are committing such acts of lewdness and vulgarity up there that you don’t care as they flash as much skin as they dare and rub all over one another while dancing. The normal girls will roll their eyes (and pretend not to be jealous that they don’t have the courage to do it) and the guys will stare and drool. The E-Girls themselves will smile, sweat and continue on, knowing they have accomplished their task: getting the attention they so need and depend on. Bobby and Randy were momentarily transfixed at the current hoochies occupying the exhibition platforms with their silver micro-mini skirts, tube tops and glitter make-up that was running due to the sweat they were working up. I laughed, Aurora raised an eyebrow, Tom looked bored, and Madison looked jealous and narrowed her eyes. The music throbbed and my skull suddenly ached, though I felt my limbs start to involuntarily jerk to the beat. I immediately stopped myself and regained self control. Aurora wasted little time and immediately went out on the dance floor to get her boogie on, closely followed by Randy and Bobby who were too silly to be inhibited by their horrible dancing skills when she was involved. I stayed behind with Tom and Madison, who still had her eyes narrowed at the platforms. I followed her gaze to the one specific dancer she was eyeing. Ah. Now it made sense. She was killer. 5’5, with long blond hair, fair skin and legs up to her neck. All of her weight was in those legs I guarantee you. You could tell they were aerobically toned, from said classes at a health club or hours spent on a treadmill and/or an exercise bike. She was maybe 115 pounds soaking wet, with what I would guess were probably c-cup breasts that looked huge on her tiny frame, and little narrow hips upon which her black micro-mini clung to for dear life. Her face was cute, girlish. I bet she could almost out pixie Aurora and she could probably out naughty Madison, and Madison sensed it. Hell, she knew it, you could see the blatant jealousy on her face as she watched the girl dance on the platform. And boy could she dance! This girl was what you would call “an exception to the rule” in that there was no mistaking that she was an E-Girl like the other four chicks dancing beside her, but the there was one big difference separating her from her skanky counterparts. Rhythm. She had fucking rhythm. And skill, and poise, and attitude, and sensuality, Mother of Pearl, she could dance! She could pick and chose which body parts she wanted to move and when she wanted to move them, depending on the beat as well as her libido and exhibitionist nature. Her moments seemed timed and choreographed to the music as she moved and grinded against the pole, easily distinguishing herself from the others. So much so that one of the random spotlights in the club came down and put her on display. She was dancing as if possessed then, hair whipping around her head as if it were a group of a million little blond snakes caught up in her frenzied head movements. She had the momentary attention of pretty much every male in the room, including Tom and I, who stared mesmerized as she shook her groove thing. Suddenly, in a development that was the coup de grace, she cocked her leg high up into the air (flashing her thong and unmentionables to the audience in the brief white flashes of the strobe light) and swung around the pole on the same leg. She then dazzled her audience with a smile that was so ambiguous it could’ve been “oops did I do that?” or “who’s the sexiest bitch in the room?” without even trying. Madison was seething. Obviously pissed at how this girl, this Future Stripper of America had captured so much attention and hormones when she was just a SKINNY LITTLE BLOND BITCH! I’m not ad-libbing. It was written all over her face. Madison didn’t know the chick, but I figured she already considered the FSA to be her greatest nemesis or something. I knew what her plan was now; she was going to wait until one of the other E-girls abandoned their post (to get a drink or take a rest) and then get up there and show the FSA who was boss. I laughed again and realized that I could barely hear myself above the music, my skull continued to throb from the unforgiving bass. Tom and I walked around to the other side of the crowded club to get a better view of Aurora, Randy and Bobby who were dancing in a spot toward the middle. We took seats on a vacant couch and watched the three of them. Randy as he did his one dancing move, The Cabbage patch, and Bobby, well, I dunno what Bobby was actually doing but he was moving/shaking a lot and looked like he was having fun in the process. Aurora was great of course, moving to the beat, long blond hair dancing and swaying with her, and she attempted to try and move with Bobby, the closest to her, though you could see the bemusement on her face. Tom and I were laughing as we tried to make small talk, but the music was too loud and we soon gave up screaming at each other from six inches away. Then Aurora looked over at us and gave Tom a look, to which he profoundly shook his head no, so Aurora looked pleadingly at me. With a face like hers (oh so cute) how could I refuse? I went out on the dance floor to join them. Bobby slapped me five as I approached and Aurora smiled and kicked her dancing into high gear pulling me very close and we started dancing. Bobby and Randy took a step back just to watch. There is a very sexual side to Aurora that I like to pretend doesn’t exist sometimes. Mostly because once you start thinking of her in that way, it’s hard to stop. And even if I wasn’t attracted to her like Tom, Randy, and to a certain degree, Bobby was, it was still hard to maintain that level of “appropriate behavior” that is necessary for the survival of a boy/girl friendship. Especially during moments when you just want to grind your crotch into the ass of your dance partner like everyone else. Jesus Christ. Aurora and I danced pretty good together, meaning I was able to keep up with her formidable (and just downright sexy) dancing, matching her step for step, grabbing her around the waist, though keeping my distance, walking the fine line. I was really starting to enjoy myself when I got a tap on my shoulder. It was Tom. Understandably, he wanted to cut-in. Aurora gave me a secretive smile as she and Tom started in. That had been her plan all along, and I’d known it. Hell I didn’t mind, I just wanted her to be happy. The boys and I retreated back to the still unoccupied couch.
Copyright © 2002 MacKenzie Morgan |