Red Pumps

Pumps

It gets boring in Hannibal Missouri in the winter, so I joined the boy's swim team. And you know what? I loved it. But my real love is Monica. My first truly girlfriend. And this story is about her and me and the crazy things boys and girls do to each other.

I sat, still wearing my tank suit, shivering by the edge of the pool waiting in the dark. What Monica had asked me to do seemed too good to be true. I was to hide here after practice, when she showed up at seven, I was to let her in. Simple. At long last, maybe I'd lose my virginity. Up to now I'd never gotten past first base. What was wrong with this girl?

Now I was even more sorry I'd told the guys all those stories about Monica and me doing it. But they kept ragging me and I didn't know what else to do. I knew if Monica found out that would be the end of us. And that hurt me more than anything.

Monica showed up right on time carrying her back pack over her shoulder. I tried to kiss her hello, but she just shied away and said, "How could you tell all those lies about us? It's all over the school. You don't know what it's like when you're a girl. I thought you were different!"

Shit! I apologized. I pleaded. I begged. I promised anything -- everything. There must be something I could do to make it up to her.

She just smiled slyly, opened her bag, and slowly unpacked the clothes she had brought as she talked. "We learned about empathy in psychology class today. If you could understand how it feels to be a girl. I might believe you."

When she finished unpacking she looked up at me expectantly and said, "Put these on."

In hindsight I can only blame my poor judgment on too much testosterone and too little sex. Mixed with the belief that I'd never get caught and that I might still make up with Monica.

Monica helped me change.

I've always taken a lot of ribbing from the guy's for being a pretty boy. I guess I never really thought much about it. But as I dressed standing by the diving pool mirror I finally understood what they meant.

I slid girl's underwear over my swimsuit, while Monica snapped a padded bra on me from behind me. I then pulled on a pair of panty hose. I couldn't believe the way they made my legs look and feel. Monica helped me pull her favorite pink sweater over my head. I wiggled into one of her mini-skirts, but it kept threatening to hike up over my hips. Lastly, I stepped into the pair of high heel red pumps that Monica had swiped from her mom's closet.

As I dressed I began to feel feverish, my blood rushing hot and red, first to my throat, then my cheeks, and finally my ears. My peter began to stir trying to poke his way through the bathing suit, panties, and stockings to see what was going on. I kept trying to think of other things, but Monica didn't help much by running her hands all over my body pulling this and tightening that.

Monica then asked me to look at her and not move while she did my face. As she worked her brows and forehead knitted themselves in concentration. Even in all that weirdness, I could have looked into her face forever.

She explained everything as she did my lashes with mascara, my brows with crayon, my lids with shadow, my cheeks with blush and finally my lips with gloss and liner. I was a little disappointed we didn't do my nails. When she was done she stepped to the side, a look of triumph in her eyes.

Suddenly shy, I looked at the floor. Then — slowly — I lifted my eyes seeing the girl in the mirror a little at a time, cherishing the curve of her calves, loving the way her smooth legs snaked up into her mini-skirt and how her belly pushed out, just a bit, soft and inviting.

My breaths came quick and shallow. My eyes couldn't wait anymore and raced past her slim waist, over her tiny breasts, up the arch of her long neck, onto her pretty tom-boyish face and into her eyes. Eyes that had something wonderful to give but were waiting for someone wonderful to share it with.

There staring back at me in the mirror was a pretty girl. Except that she moved when I moved I would never have believed it was me. I was very confused. And frightened. Where had this other me been all my life?

I liked the way I looked. But that was wrong. I was a boy — not a girl. I couldn't let myself feel that way. What if someone saw me? What if my parents found out? I'd die. I had to think of something else.

So I thought about what Monica had said earlier, about empathy. About what it must be like to be a girl. So vulnerable to the foolish talk of others. Trying so hard to be a good girl in a world where it seemed everyone really wanted a bad girl. And, as these things ran through my head, I learned something that most guys never figure out. And I was better for it. But just as I turned to tell these things to Monica every light in the place came on at once.

It was those stupid red pumps that tripped me up. Otherwise I would have run and hid just like Monica did. Instead I just stood there with all those lights on, kind of wobbly, like a deer trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car.

And in walks The Coach. And I stared at him. And he stared at me. And we stared at each other. This might have continued on like that for some time, except Monica stepped out into the open.

The Coach eyed Monica and said "Don't you two girls know the pool closed."

Now some girls might have froze, others might have started balling, but not my Monica. What she did was she started in on the most outlandish yarn I've ever heard told. And as she spoke it grew in size and speed, like an avalanche roaring down a mountain, until even I almost believed myself.

She directed her first salvo at Coach. "This is my little sister Veronica. You don't know her because she's still in middle school. Anyway she has a crush on that boy — Lucas, so she came to see him. Only he's not here. And I told her not to come."

The Coach's eyes started out kind of suspicious, but as Monica raced onward they glazed over like he was being hypnotized.

Now we might have walked out together right then with our skins intact, only Monica still had it in her head that she had to teach me a lesson. So she let me dangle on the hook.

She fired her next fusillade at me "Young lady, I've a mind to give you a good tongue lashing when we get home. And don't think your balling all night is going to help. I don't care if you get down on your hands and your knees and pray. You have to watch how you dress or boys are going to get the wrong idea. You may not believe this but a boy will say anything to have his way. And there are lots of other things from boys you're going to find hard to swallow. Veronica, maybe you'd like to explain to the Coach exactly what kind of girl you are?"

All through this dressing down three things kept running through my head. The Coach must never, ever, know. I couldn't laugh, no matter what. And I had to conceal the woody I now had. All I could do was squirm and cross and uncross my legs like I had to go to bathroom or something.

Monica was in her glory and she laid her final broadside directly across the bow of the Coach. "Coach, I know she looks like a bad girl, but she's not really like that. If you knew her like I do you'd understand. That Lucas boy is all Veronica thinks about. And once my sister gets something inside her, she just can't stop herself. Believe me we'll both be up all night wrestling together on this one. And while her lips may say no, we know what she really needs. And if we're hard and firm, in the end, she'll thank us for it."

Now, while the Coach's brain may not have seen past the glittery surface of Monica's speech, other of his organs saw right to the bottom of it. And I didn't like the way his eyes were starting to undress me.

"Well, girls will be girls."

And on that final high-C Monica grabbed her little sister's arm and dragged me from the spot where I'd been frozen, trapped in a bubble of time, caught in the certainty that my misadventure would never end, yet each second fearful it might become a total disaster.

The longest walk in my young life was that mile from the high school to my house in those red pumps. I couldn't even think straight until I was home safe in my own room and out of Monica's stuff.

Since then it's been two weeks. I'm not really sure if I've forgiven Monica although I do admire her nerve and moxy even when misguided.

But, I learned two things that fateful night about boys and girls. First, I'm keeping Monica's things. After all, there's no way of telling when I might have to teach myself a lesson again.

But most importantly, a boy should never judge a girl until he's walked a mile in her mom's pumps.