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Show Me © February 2012 by Darcy Sweet
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First Edition February 2012
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Show Me
By Darcy Sweet
Chapter One
Now…
It was one of those So Cal summer days when the heat seemed to come as much from the ground as it did from the sun. I slid a hand across my sweaty face, up over my hair, pulling it into a hasty knot. It was too hot to have it stick to my neck.
Stuck subbing for my daughter’s soccer team, I had nowhere to hide from the heat. Where was Greg? He was supposed to take over from me half an hour ago. Taking the clipboard from under my arm I raised it up to shade my eyes and searched for him cross field. Lacey saw me looking, shimmied her hips and sent a little wave. Lacey didn’t need any distractions, so I didn’t wave back or smile the way I wanted to, instead I pointedly nodded down-field mouthing, “Watch the game!” My daughter nodded back with a world weary attitude far beyond her eight years. Shoulders slumped she turned back towards the game in progress. A stab of guilt hit my heart.
I hated the goalie position just as much as she did. She got bored so easily and tended to daydream—startled into fully fledged panic when the ball finally came her way. It wasn’t as if we were league champions or anything, it was more social than competitive but she got so upset when she let in a goal. I hated how she beat herself up so I always made sure to stick close to goal and be an extra set of eyes—exactly why Greg was supposed to take over from me in my role subbing on players.
Where was he?
I shaded my eyes once more and looked out over the field. As I stared intently watching for Greg’s familiar gait, for one brief electric moment I thought I saw her. My heart started, a feeling I’d long since lost—one that she and only she had ever caused.
A heart stutter, I used to call it. As if my very heart became too stunned to keep the beat in her presence. I brought a palm to my chest, pushing the heel of my hand on the source of the flutter—as if the pressure could make it stop. I’d done the same thing the night I’d first told her about it. I’d had my hand on my chest, pushing against the erratic beat of my heart. She’d been lying above me on the top bunk. Beneath her, blanketed in the darkness I’d found the courage to blurt out the truth. She’d laughed that soft throaty laugh of hers, her hair falling in a curtain as she leaned over the side of the bunk to look down at me.
Dannielle Wright.
Was it her?
I looked again. At this distance I couldn’t be sure. I wanted to be sure—sure that it wasn’t.
It was the walk I’d noticed first. The strut. The I own the world, even your soul swagger that she projected with every roll of her hips. I dragged a hand across my face remembering the first time I’d seen it, that summer, so long ago.
I was a newly minted eighteen year old, fresh out of my senior year, champing at the bit to get to college and expand my mental horizons—I had big academic ambitions and iron clad plans. Before embarking on my academic career I’d planned a summer vacation of purposeful reading. Even though I explained the importance of my intent to re-read the Austen books in order of publication, my parents had different plans. Bizarrely they pushed me and my two left feet into a Summer Soccer Program—in California. No Austen and a strict one suitcase policy severely limiting any reading material.
That’s where I’d met her. I’d been dropped off, still fuming at the injustice. I sent my parents away with barely a wave. I was waiting for the bus, sitting on the curb beside my one suitcase when she appeared. I saw that strut first and just knew she was trouble, even before my eyes shifted up to that ‘up to no good’ smile. I sat watching her come towards me, sending up a fervent prayer she wouldn’t be assigned to sit with me. She looked too worldly, too much to be bothered with a square like me. We were to be paired off in teams and I knew if I was put with her I was up for either relentless teasing or the cold bitch routine. The idea of either one filled me with dread. Of course, in the end my prayers amounted to nothing, she did end up with me.
Option one was the result. Relentless teasing—just not in the way I’d suspected or could ever have imagined.
That summer. That summer. Man, I hadn’t thought of it in so long.
I looked out back over the field again, my heart in my throat. It couldn’t be her. How long ago was that? I did some hasty arithmetic and came up with three different numbers, all of them over fifteen years.
Fifteen years? How did time pass so fast?
Why would she be here of all places? The last I heard she was Seattle bound. She’d always had that cool alternative vibe; I could see her in Seattle with the cutting edge crowd. Never here. Never in suburban California.
I was so lost in my thoughts that when Greg touched my arm I jumped. “Hey. Sorry I’m late. I lost track of time. How’s our girl doing?”
I shook my head to clear it of any residual thoughts of her and looked up at my husband. “No goals yet.”
He grinned. “It’s all good then. You’d better get out there.”
I nodded and just as I was about to go he grabbed my arm and pulled me back to his chest. “Hey Helena, honey, are you OK?” Big brown eyes met mine with a heartfelt concern that never failed to make me feel slightly unworthy of his adoration.
“I’m OK babe, it’s just the heat.” And ghosts of summers past.
He pulled me back for a brief kiss and then gave me a playful swat on the back. “Get out there tiger.”
I shook my head and jogged out into the heat to stand behind Lacey’s goal.
“Hey Mom,” Lacey called out as I took my place behind her.
“Hey baby. Doin’ good.”
She snorted at the praise and I sighed. My daughter was not athletic. But then again I hadn’t been so great either. Hence the reason I’d been so resentful of being sent to that stupid Soccer School. My parents had only sent me away to nut out the details of their separation. I knew it at the time. They did too, but they liked the pretending. I think they wanted just one more summer where we were a family—at least on paper. They treated me like a baby. I was a responsible teenager—never in any trouble—the girl most likely to be labeled mature. In truth I’d been cloistered. I was young for my age, so inexperienced, so naïve…but not after that summer…that summer changed everything.
I shook my head once more. Concentrating on Lacey I pushed the thought of that summer from my head.
The game ended with one goal let in and one other attempt deflected. Despite a strong first half we ended up losing, but all in all it’d been a pretty good game. The girls had fun; they left the field pretty happy. Lacey of course wasn’t too happy but before she could immerse herself in full self-flagellation mode I patted her on the back and told her no one could have stopped the cannon shot that the giant from the Strathfield Roosters fired off her way. We joked about it as she left the net. That kid looked like she was on steroids. Did they check birth certificates in this league? No way was that kid under ten.
Lacey was laughing by the time we made it off field and back to the shade of the eucalyptus. Greg was handing out the after game snacks and as it was our turn to wash the jerseys I started the annoying weekly herding of the players. As usual I had to run around to catch the whole team. Every week they had to hand over their jersey. It never changed and yet every damned week a good 60% of them forgot and took off home. I had a handful of sweaty girl shirts and a scowl on my face when I turned around to see her.
With Greg.
Danni.
I couldn’t see her face. Her back was to me, but I just knew. I knew from the cock of her hip, from the jaunty hand placed just above the back pocket of her jeans.
I dropped the jerseys at my feet.
Dannielle Wright. My past. A past I tried not to remember—a past I’d worked hard to forget. And it was here. She was here. Right in front of me talking to my husband.
Greg smiled over the top of her auburn curly head. “Hey! There she is. Sweetheart, come and meet our newest player and her mom.”
Danni turned around and held out her hand in polite greeting, she hadn’t yet really seen me—certainly hadn’t recognized me anyway. “Hi I’m Dannielle Wright and this is my daughter Jamie.” She pointed to a slight red head who’d joined up with my daughter to raid the after game snacks cooler.
Her eyes met mine. A flash of shocked recognition spiked dark green eyes and then followed the wicked mirth I’d known so well. “Sandy,” she laughed. “Oh, my God! Sandra-Dee?”
Greg came to my side; he looked at down at me frowned and parroted, “Sandy?” as the words sang in my head, look at me I’m Sandra Dee, lousy with virginity.
“Sorry.” Danni laughed again. “It’s an old joke. Helena. Helena Fairley. I can’t believe it! How the hell are you?”
She’d used my maiden name. Greg looked gob smacked.
“You know each other?” Greg asked looking back and forth between us. If he’d been less shocked he would have been better at hiding his WTF? expression. He wasn’t ordinarily so rude, or so obvious.
I understood his shock. I looked like the quintessential soccer mom. Three quarter jeans, sneakers and a slim cut sweetheart Gap t-shirt was the extent of my weekend fashion. Danni on the other hand looked like a rock star. She always had, even at eighteen.
She wore skin tight black jeans and boots. Her obviously designer blouse was this floaty thing of all different colors. The kind of thing I’d look at on the boutique hanger and think how the hell does that go on? It was loose and transparent. Underneath she wore a black tank that hugged her curves. Her hair looked messy in that $300 haircut kind of way. It was curly and deliberately out of control. On one arm she wore about a dozen different silver bangles and on the other she had a full sleeve of tattoos. A gothic fairy tale design, as I shook her hand I could see little red riding hood and a wolf.
We were style polar opposites.
She still held my hand. I could’ve pulled away, but I didn’t. She slipped her thumb across the pulse of my wrist in a light circle. “So good to see you. It’s been what? Eighteen years. Can you believe that?”
Eighteen years.
My fifteen year arithmetic was obviously lacking. Eighteen years since I was eighteen? Of course it was. I didn’t want it to be so long ago but she was right. Eighteen years ago Dannielle Wright first touched me and it still held the same shock.
My heart thumped out a staccato beat. My mouth went dry and no response would come as the heat in her startling green eyes met mine.
“How do you know each other?” Greg asked, breaking the spell, Danni releasing my hand.
She looked up at Greg and laughed. He was dazzled. That smile did it every time. Men dissolved under the heat. It wasn’t as if she was beautiful or even ‘hot’ really. If you saw a photo of her you’d say she was attractive enough, but in the flesh it was a different story. It was the sheer force of her personality that caught men—and women. Her charisma was sexual. Even as a raw teenager she’d been that way. Now a good eighteen years later it had obviously intensified. Greg rocked back on his heels, mouth agape.
“Honey,” I said, poking him in the side to break the hold. I wasn’t angry, or even slightly peeved, more bemused at how quickly my normally steadfast husband had been rocked by the power of Danni.
Just like me.
He was blushing when he finally looked down at me. Caught and he knew it. I chuckled and he visibly relaxed. “We’d better head off,” I said pointing to the pile of sweaty jerseys at my feet.
“Oh, yeah right.” He bent down and picked them up, dutiful husband that he was. Danni checked out his butt and silently mouthed the word ‘nice’ at me, giving him two thumbs up.
I laughed. Greg stood up and looked between us. “What?”
“Nothing honey,” I said taking a generous squeeze of the butt Danni had just ogled. He started, staring at me as if he thought I might’ve been alien abducted. I never did that sort of thing, certainly not in public. He looked between us again, as if clueing that my action had something to do with Danni. Of course it did. Five minutes in her presence was all it took for me to change. To degenerate. I must have looked as shocked as he did. For a moment it seemed as if he might ask another question but after looking staring at me for a moment, he looked away.
“So,” Danni said, clearly taking in the play of emotions between Greg and me, “I’ll see you both at training on Thursday?”
Greg looked at me, waiting for me to answer. I was going to, but the words got stuck. I looked at her while my voice refused to cooperate
“Yes. You will,” Greg answered her, still looking at me.
Danni left us but didn’t go far, her daughter was in a circle of girls from the team. She waited on the sideline, watching her with the obvious pride of a mother. While it was strange to see her in that role—oddly it fit, something I’d never have expected.
Greg was silent as I helped him pack jerseys into the team duffel bag. Lacey was still clowning around with her friends, running up and down the field with a fervor she never showed in game. One of the other Moms grabbed me to complain about the giant on the other team, dragging me away under another tree, away from the kids.
I nodded my head in the brief pauses in her monologue, keeping an eye on Greg. He didn’t see me watching him and he certainly didn’t know that I saw him watching Danni. On his face played out a mix of curiosity—which I understood—and something else. Attraction maybe? I wondered.
We weren’t in a great place Greg and I—not at the point of my parents—nowhere near separation. It wasn’t ugly, it was just…ordinary.
Stale.
I thought maybe it was just me who felt that way, but looking at Greg watching Danni I wondered if he felt it too. I knew he loved me, how could I not? Ever considerate and attentive, he told me each day before leaving for work and each evening upon return. I could set my clock by his love. I didn’t doubt him or his words. Greg didn’t speak what he didn’t mean. I answered him each day, parroting the words in return. Not that I didn’t meant them either, I loved him. I’d have been a fool not to, he was as close to the perfect husband as any woman could want—kind, loving, good with Lacey, sharing household duties without issue—I had nothing to complain about...and yet.
And yet… I wanted more. I felt selfish and foolish. How could I want more when I had so much already? I was a middle class cliché looking for some kind of indefinable change. Something different. Better.
That greener grass.
What was better than him?
I looked at my husband as he watched Danni walk away—he was so intent, so focused. His face a picture of something I didn’t know, a page I had not read. I thought I knew him best. Maybe I didn’t. Did he too want more? More than me? My heart ached at the thought. I brought my hand up to rub at the center of my chest.
“You OK Helena? Got some heartburn have you honey?” Regina’s words reminded me that I was supposedly in a conversation.
“A little,” I said turning my attention back to the most annoying mom in the team.
“I should let you go, but it’s good to hear that you agree with me.”
I did? I must have been nodding along to her rant. I only hoped whatever I’d agreed too wasn’t too time consuming or bigoted. With Regina it was usually one or the other.
Greg came over; lugging all the team equipment we had the responsibility for this week. I took the opportunity to get away, “I’d better help Greg.”
“Oh yes of course, we can finish this later.” She smiled and I only just held back a cringe. Sure, maybe on the twelfth of never?
Greg was all apologies when he caught up with me. “Sorry sweetheart, I should have seen you were stuck with Regina.”
“It’s OK.” I knew where his attention had been. For an emotion charged moment I wanted to point it out too—see his reaction, but I didn’t, the sanity of self-preservation stopped me. If I brought up Danni no doubt my husband would have some questions of his own. I wasn’t ready to answer those just yet, if ever.
Greg called out to Lacey and we three headed out to the parking lot. I trailed a little behind half listening to Greg and Lacey’s chatter. My head was definitely somewhere else.
Lacey looked back over her shoulder at me. “Don’t you Mom?”
“What’s that honey?” Reaching the SUV Greg had opened the back and was loading in the gear. I stepped around him to get to the passenger side door. It was a squeeze to get through because the car next to us had parked way over the line.
“Think that Jamie’s Mom looks like a rock star. Is she someone famous?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Who do you think she is then Mom?”
Greg had closed up the back and was looking at me, waiting for my answer. I was wedged in the small space between the cars, but that wasn’t what had me feeling so trapped. His eyes were locked on mine. Lacey had slipped into the car, still chattering, completely oblivious to the fact that no one was listening.
We stared at each other like some sort of gunslingers. It was bizarre, unlike any moment in our decade long marriage. His curiosity hung in the air thick and obvious. Palpable but unmentioned.
The rear passenger window slid open and Lacey stuck her head out. “You getting in? Geesh I’m hungry. Let’s go already!”
Nothing like an eight year old girl to bring you back to reality. I smiled at Greg and he returned the same, hooking up his mouth in the slight half smile that made me fall in love with him. What the lips didn’t show was all in his eyes. They sparkled with the laughter he didn’t release. People thought him so serious because he didn’t often smile, but I knew different. I loved that I knew. Only I knew.
I knew him.
“I love you,” I mouthed the words silently.
He inclined his head, a bemused frown creasing his forehead. “Lunch it is then Princess!” Greg said, giving the roof of the car a little tap before moving around to the driver’s side.
As I opened up my door I saw Danni. She was with her daughter heading in the other direction, her car parked in the lower lot. Her back was turned to me as she left and, as if on cue, a breeze kicked up to rustle her hair as she walked away.
Just like eighteen years ago.
* * * *
I was brushing my teeth the next time I thought of her, looking at my reflection in the harsh light of the bathroom fluorescent. Danni looked the same—slightly older of course— but still exactly the same. I rinsed my mouth and lay the toothbrush down on the marble vanity top. Bringing my fingers up to my face I ran the tips lightly across my cheeks. Still smooth, well smooth-ish. I scrunched up my eyes, searching for wrinkles. A few laugh lines, not much else. Not as much as other women I knew. I still looked pretty good. I felt older than I looked, but that had always been true. My Mom swore I’d been born an adult, that I’d been a sensible 40 at the age of four. And at eighteen I was the teenager you didn’t have to worry about. The sensible girl.
Naturally cautious.
Perhaps not cautious enough. From the moment I first met Danni ….
Greg’s arms around my waist shocked the thought from me. “Searching for wrinkles sweetheart?” His mouth came to my shoulder; I felt the chuckle vibrate on my skin. He kissed along the slope of my shoulder up to the spaghetti strap of my pajama top.
I tilted my head to give his mouth room to roam. He worked his way up the curve of my neck and slowly up the tendon to my ear just the way I liked. “It’s easy for men—they get distinguished. Women just get old.”
Lifting his head up to meet my eyes in the mirror he said, “You’re not old. You’re perfect.”
Perfect? God, he meant it. Really meant it. Me—perfect? Hardly. He didn’t know.
He kissed the top of my head, looking at me as if I belonged on some sort of pedestal. Affectionate. Loving. Sweet. My adoring husband.
Why did that make me so angry? To be adored?
I hid the anger, looking away as if searching for my moisturizer. “You off to bed now?” He asked as he moved to the door.
“Uh huh.”
“I’m going to finish watching the movie we started yesterday. You didn’t want to join me?”
I shook my head. “I’m tired.”
“All right then. Good night honey.”
“Good night.”
I heard his soft pad of his feet on the wooden floors of the bedroom and then the click of the door closing. I looked back at my reflection. He was so damn sweet. Why did I feel this way?
I was such a bitch.
Slipping between the cool sheets I lay on my back staring up at the ceiling. Danni was a bitch. She told me that first time we met, the moment she slid in beside me on the bus. “I’m Danni the bitch.” She’d said it with a throaty chuckle.
I’d been shocked. In my sheltered world everyone I knew tried their hardest to be called anything but a bitch. I had no reply. None at all. I didn’t even introduce myself, just nodded slightly and went back to my book.
She’d laughed again. That chuckle.
My hand slipped down to the soft elastic edge of my pajama bottoms. I pushed my fingers beneath, not yet into my panties. Resting the tips of my fingers just above the soft cotton.
I’d hardly ever masturbated before I met her. I hadn’t been a virgin. Prom night I’d succumbed to the inevitable drunk first time. Sensibly of course, with my best friend at the time, Richard, I’d treated my virginity like another box to be ticked off before college—something that just had to be done.
So while I’d technically had sex, I was still a virgin of sorts. A pleasure virgin. The few times I’d attempted to masturbate had been research really, something I knew that teenagers were supposed to be doing—that’s why I’d done it. I’d had short, sharp, perfunctory orgasms that didn’t seem worth the trouble—and certainly not worth all the fuss everyone made about them
How wrong had I been?
Danni showed me.
I closed my eyes, slipped my fingers beneath the elastic of my panties and thought about that summer.
Chapter Two
Then…
My parents hadn’t put much thought into how to get rid of me for the summer. It was a last minute decision when the fault lines of their marriage became too wide to hide. It happened quickly. One day I was staying home for the summer and the next I was being shipped off to this Soccer School. After a particularly vicious whispered fight, the next day the flyer appeared. Apparently it had been stuck to the notice board at my Mom’s work—that’s how they’d chosen. A fluorescent yellow piece of paper. It caught her eye; it was as simple as that.
I’d objected, as strenuously as a good girl like me could. No yelling or tantrums, just a politely drafted list of reasons as to why I should be allowed to stay home, neatly penned. As focused as they were on their own wounds they paid me no heed. They hadn’t even read the list; it remained untouched on the kitchen counter. I saw it there on the day I left for the bus, still folded in the neat square as I’d left it. That’s how I ended up lodged with Dannielle Wright five hundred miles from home.
The Summer Soccer School had two sections, one for juniors who were looking to improve their skills and the other for seniors who wanted to learn how to coach and referee. I was neither; all I was looking for was to be left alone with my books. My Mom—in the brief argument she’d indulged me—had tried to convince me that some coaching experience would look good on my resume. Not one to brood, when it became obvious that I could not escape my fate, I’d decided to commit totally to the project. I would go, learn as much as I could and get an excellent reference from the Soccer School. This would not be a wasted opportunity.
My plan would have worked if the Soccer School hadn’t been such a scam. Not the Junior school that seemed to be really well organized, just the senior coaching part. It was like we were an afterthought, tacked on just to grab some extra funding and to be used as free slave labor. We weren’t even housed at the camp. We found out on the bus that we were to be boarded with local families, picked up each day and brought to the camp. The reason for this was supposedly so we could get ‘community skills’. I worked out pretty quickly it was a cost cutting measure. We were stuck with families so the Soccer School didn’t have to feed us; it was as simple as that.
Dannielle ‘the bitch’ Wright was my allocated partner. We were to be stuck under the same roof, most likely the same room for four whole weeks. We didn’t speak for the bus trip. When the bus stopped at our destination she stood and called out, “Come on Sandra-Dee. It’s time to go.” It was the first time she’d spoken since she’d introduced herself.
“That’s not my name.”
“I know,” she laughed as if I’d just told a joke. I didn’t see what was so darn funny.
The driver didn’t help us with our luggage. He just opened up the storage compartment, pointed and grunted. Due to the stupid one bag policy it wasn’t that difficult. The front door opened up as we were wheeling our luggage up the drive.
A smiling woman stood at the door, blonde and trim she was maybe in her mid-twenties. She had a little bowl of candy in one hand. When she got a good look at us her smile faded. Her shoulder length hair swayed as she slightly shook her head.
“What’s her problem?” Danni muttered out of the side of her mouth.
When we got to the door she said, “You’re the girls from the Soccer Camp? You’re Dannielle and Helena?” sounding really uncertain.
“Yes Ma’am,” I answered when Danni didn’t. She was not as quick to politely answer as she was to mutter.
“You’re sure?”
I looked over at Danni who sent me a ‘What the Hell’ look. “Yes Ma’am”
“Oh,” she said in a little puff of breath, “Well, you’d better come in then.”
She let us in and closed the door, placing the bowl of candy down on a side table near the entrance. “I’m Rachel Grace, welcome to my home. Mr. Grace…well, he’s still at work. He should be home very soon.”
Her greeting was weird. She seemed distracted, wringing her hands and frowning. I looked over at Danni once more who shrugged her shoulders at me.
“I’ll take you up to your room.”
Room. Not rooms. Great, we were sharing.
We followed her up some stairs, Mrs. Grace muttered under her breath pretty much the whole way up. I didn’t catch whole words but I sort of got the impression that we weren’t at all what she expected. She opened the door to a bedroom but didn’t follow us in, instead staying out in the hall wringing her hands again. “Right, well, girls there are towels on the end of the bed and the bathroom is that door there. I’ll leave you to freshen up I suppose. Dinner’s not far away. It’s umm…hotdogs. Well, then I’ll see you later. I’ll call you down when Marcus’ home.”
We both stood staring at the empty spot where she’d stood as she took off down the hall. “Well that was fucking weird,” Danni said climbing up to top bunk. “Dibs on the top.”
“What? Dibs? What does that even mean? You get the top bunk just because you said dibs?”
She chuckled and swung her legs over the edge of the bed kicking off her shoes. They landed on the carpeted floor with a thud close to my feet. She could have hit me. I looked up at her with a glare. She grinned back. I was pretty sure she’d done it deliberately.
“You’re an only child aren’t you?”
I didn’t answer, instead hefting my overloaded suitcase onto the bottom bunk. Her legs disappeared onto her bed with a thump. I sat down on the bed beside my case. The comforter was pink with a pony on it. The pillowslip was Barbie, as were the sheets I noticed when I pulled down the comforter to check. The towel on the end of the bed matched the sheets. It too was Barbie.
Weird.
I was pondering the oddity of it, had we somehow displaced the Grace’s children from their room? Mrs. Grace hadn’t mentioned anyone other than her husband, when I heard Danni’s chuckle.
“What?”
Her head swung over the edge of the bed, her hair falling like a curly black curtain. Her upside down head said, “They thought we were going to be kids.”
“What?”
“The sheets. The towels. The candy bowl. The hot dogs for dinner. They thought they were getting kids to board. That’s why the MILF’s so upset—she thought we were going to be little girls, not teenage hotties.”
Hotties? I wasn’t a hottie.
“I wonder if the husband is a perv. Maybe that’s why she’s freaking out.”
“Well, she has nothing to fear from me.”
“You crack me up Sandy.” She laughed again, disappeared for a moment and then jumped down to the floor beside me like a gymnast dismounting. She even did a little bow. Turning around she spotted the towel on the end of my bed. “Aaaaw you got the Barbie towel. I’ll swap you My Little Pony for it.”
I didn’t care so I nodded and she reached up over me to get the towel. Her t-shirt rode up and the pale skin of her stomach was an inch from my face. Her jeans were low riders, the kind that barely covered her hips. She leaned in closer, until there was barely a slither of air between her body and my face. The warm smell of cinnamon wafted with her, for a surreal moment I imagined tasting her skin. I jerked back just in time to avoid my lips making contact with her belly button.
“Here it is,” she said, throwing the kid sized purple towel at me.
“Do you think we’ve taken their kid's room?” I asked, clutching the towel to my stomach, low, at the spot the heat had settled.
Danni stalked the small room, looking in the cupboards and drawers. “Nah, it’s too clean to be a real kid’s room.”
Too clean? It looked lived in enough to me.
She looked at my face and laughed again. “Except of course you Sandra Dee. I bet your room is perfect.”
“That’s not my name. Why do you keep calling me that?”
She began to sing. “Look at me I’m Sandra Dee lousy with virginity. Won’t go to bed till I’m legally wed. I can’t I’m Sandra Dee—”
I cut in. “I’m not a virgin!”
She raised a brow and cocked out a hip. “Really?” I watched her trail a fingertip from her lips down her side, over the curve of her breast to her hip. She tapped it there as she said, “How interesting. Sandy is not a virgin.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
“I just explained. Seriously, you still don’t get it?”
I shook my head.
“You haven’t seen Grease?” She sounded like I’d committed a capital offense.
“No. Should I have?”
“Do you have a vagina?”
I blushed.
“Jesus, vagina makes you blush? You are soo Sandra Dee.”
I stood up and thrust an angry finger at her chest. “Fine! If I’m this Sandra Dee who does that make you then? What stupid name do you have?”
“I’m Danni.”
“What! How come you get to have the same name?”
She laughed again, wrapping her hand around my finger. “I’m Danny Zucko. The bad boy main character. The one that corrupts perfect little Sandra Dee.”
“You’re going to corrupt me?”
“Was that a request?” she asked, lifting up her t-shirt and pulling it over her head.
She was undressing? “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to have a shower before Daddy Grace gets home. I bet he’s loaded, he has to be to have paid for this house and the tits the trophy wife is sporting.”
“You think they’re fake?”
“Have to be. Nothing that perfect is real.”
She stood before me in a pink half cut bra. Its cups barely held the pale flesh that threatened to spill over the top. The fly of her low rider jeans only had three buttons. She flipped them open easily and peeled the black denim over her hips with a writhing shimmy. The movement made her breasts jiggle. I’d never seen anything like it before. I felt my face heat up and my stomach clench.
I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth and was chewing on it before I realized.
Danni’s impromptu strip show continued, her panties were boy cut pink lace, matching the bra. Mine were plain white cotton Jockey briefs—I didn’t want her to see them. Why was I even thinking about her looking at my underpants? She turned around so that her back was facing me, bending over to pick up her clothes. The pink lace rode up the curve of her butt until—even with her legs only slightly spread—I could clearly see the cleft of her sex.
“Can you hand me the towel?” she asked, pointing to the Barbie towel she’d dropped at the foot of the bed. I nodded and bent down quickly getting a head spin when I sat back up to hand her the towel. She was naked.
I’d seen naked girls before. We had communal showers for gym so of course I’d seen nude girls. Not this close though. The girls at school had been more modest, keeping a towel handy and only ducking in and out of the water to keep their naked time to a minimum.
Not Danni.
She stood like nudity was her preferred state. Relaxed. Casual.
“Are you going to shower?”
For a heart-seizing moment I thought she meant with her. It must have been obvious because she grinned and with obvious amusement clarified, “After me, Sandy. After me.”
I drowned in a flood of something. A hot flush of relief? Disappointment? Both? I surfaced long enough to manage one word, “Oh.”