Miss XXX-pendable♡

Ch. 3: White Shorts

When you were younger, you expected everything in this world and more. We naively assume that the road of life is a one-way track to success, a straight path with hardly any twists, turns, pavement crevices, or vagabond rapists waiting like Swiper the Fox to jump out and scare you. It rarely is, though. I'm too young to know very well what life has yet in store for people like me. But so far, it looks like college students might as well bend over a table and expose their bare ass holes to the hardy penetrations of the cold, cruel world. 

And you never know when that could take a very inexorable and literal meaning. Until I tried to get a job. 

"These campus work-studies pay almost nothing," I wailed in complaint as I scrolled down my laptop for openings. "$9 an hour to wash dishes at the cafeteria? $8.54 to clean the science building? That's nothing!" I was talking more so to myself than to anyone else. 

"Doesn't Howard have an opening in his lab?" Elizabeth suggested. She was trying on a lace up black dress that clashed well with her pale skin and blond hair. Then she examined herself in front of her mirror. "Does this look good? I want Jason to see me at the party tonight." 

"It's fine," I replied blankly from my desk littered with papers, notebooks, and my chemistry book flipped open to the chapter on equilibrium. I exhaled deeply and returned to my scrolling. Elizabeth noticed my inattentiveness and turned around. 

"Hey, listen. I think you should take a break tonight. You've been hell-bent on looking for a job since Monday and no luck yet on call-backs. Stace, it's Friday night. You have to go out. Come on, give it up for now." 

I rested my chin atop my knuckles and sighed. She was right. Melissa came out of her closet that she changes in wearing her tight bell-bottom jeans she bought at a thrift store, her black converse, and a sexy crop top that showcased her tiny waist. She was small and petite like me, and had pale white skin and hair dark and wild as night. 

"Stacey, take a fuckin' break dude, you've been at it for days. One night of fun won't hurt you," she said while applying eye liner. "Do I look good because I wanna get to Jason before Elizabeth does." 

"Fuck off, ho," Elizabeth laughed. "He's mine! I called dibs on him at the last Sigma Chi party. Don't you have a boyfriend anyway?"

"Shut up you hypocrite, you do too!" Melissa smirked and finished her cat eye. "Seriously, Stace, you need to go out." 

"But not in that," Elizabeth eyed my oversized T-shirt clad body and messy hair from head to toe. Again, she had a point, so I walked towards my closet and rummaged through my drawers for something tight, short, and slutty. My excavation was successful: I came across my tight, velvet black corset I totally forgot I had packed. It still fit me nicely, exaggerating my waist and (not so ample, B-cup) breasts. I paired it with my signature white shorts I always wear to parties and hook ups because you know what they say about girls in white shorts- they're down to take it up the butt, which is culturally and economically convenient for the guy especially since he won't have to worry about getting the girl pregnant or paying for condoms and Plan B's (which can cost a whopping $50 at the drugstore by the way). 

That's a real thing about white shorts. Urban Dictionary it, it's real. At least in Lakewood, CA it is, and it's alive and well in San Diego too. Just not so sure about the other more obscure parts of the world like the Gobi Desert or Arkansas. But it's real. And anal is the name of the game. 

And so I wore it to the Sig Chi party. Elizabeth and Melissa called an Uber after admiring me like two proud parents and we were down at the beach house in no time. The streets were crawling with students looking for a way to get in to the impacted party. I lost Elizabeth and Melissa in the throngs of people but I was able to get into the party and slip by unnoticed by the buff frat boy at the door. 

Walking in was an absolute jungle- it was hot and the air was heavy with moisture from the sweaty half-naked bodies grinding up and down each other to the unregulated Skrillex, like a scene right out of Spring Breakers. Drinks were flowing and everyone seemed happy with their red Solo cups. I went to pour myself a drink in the kitchen, but to my dismay, the bottles of Vodka and jugs of Hawaiian punch and Minute Maid were all empty. I searched the sticky counter in annoyance for anything, even a beer, that would contribute to altering my BAC. But nothing. 

"Any luck?" I heard a guy's voice while I was kneeling on the ground with my head in the bottom cupboard. I accidentally hit my neck on the top wood when I tried to look up the first time before I removed my upper extremities from the cupboard and found myself gazing up at the hottest guy I have ever seen in person in my entire life. He held out one hand for me to grab onto and grasped a handle of Vodka in the other. Hesitating slightly, I took it and hoisted myself up. 

"Thanks," I mumbled. "And no, there's nothing. It's as bad as this California drought." 

The hot guy laughed (even his voice must've been tuned by the very angels that invented music) and handed me his unopened bottle of Vodka. I looked up at him in surprise and he poured me a generous amount. 

"Chaser?" he asked me, holding out what looked like a carton of mango juice. I shook my head and drank. 

"Ah," he said. "you're one of those girls." Before I could object or ask him exactly who he thought I was, he continued, "we can go where it's less crowded, if that's okay with you of course." 

I could barely hear what he was saying over the escalating base line so I just nodded and took his hand. We snaked through crowds of dancing entities, and I use that word because the thrashing dark shadows that were only a moment ago half-naked bodies have morphed into something almost ethereal and inhuman.  He led me down the stairs to a spare room and closed the door behind us. I sat on the bed and he stood before me in all his beauty. He had to be over 6 feet, with brown hair, sun-kissed skin, and rosy cheeks that tinted his perfectly sculpted face. 

"Is this your house?" I asked. He sat down beside me and shook his head, refusing to break eye contact. Then he took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. He took a draft and blew out. Then he let it hang lazily from the corner of his lips and smirked at me. "D'you smoke?" 

"Yeah," I replied. The guy reached for my face and kissed me. I tasted the tobacco and something sweet that I couldn't put a finger on, and before I knew it, I had his cigarette hanging from the edges of my own mouth. He lit it for me, and I took a draft and blew out. 

"Suits you," he said softly while brushing a few loose strands of hair out of my face. He had some kind of New York accent going on. "I'm Joey."

I suppressed a laugh, and he obviously noticed. He leaned closer to me, and the space around us suddenly seemed a lot more intimate then intended. "Somethin' wrong with my name?" 

I took a draft and shook my head. "No, no... it's just, before you said Joey, when you were sounding out the "J", I could've sworn you were going to say 'James'. Like 'James Dean.' It's nothing, forget it." 

Joey didn't say anything, but just watched me. He reminded me of a better looking version of James Dean, more iconic and badder than Leonardo DiCaprio, something straight out of a girl's teenage fantasy. I took out the cigarette from between my lips and gave it to him, feeling self-conscious.

"Stacey Lange," I cleared my throat and looked at the ground. Fetty Wap was blasting upstairs and I felt so awkward and out of place with this god sitting beside me. 

"You're cute," he sniffed after what seemed to be a long minute of silence and blew out. "Freshman?" I nodded. Then I remembered what he said to me before taking me down here. 

"Wait, what did you mean when I said I was one of those girls?" It never left my head. "Do you think I'm like, a ho or something?" 

Joey smirked, "No. You're the girl who doesn't need a chaser. The girl who," he paused for a moment and took another draft, "wears white shorts. The girl who followed me down here to smoke a cigarette." 

I had nothing to say and looked at the ground like an idiot. I felt Joey move closer to me, so close that he was only inches from my face. "As I said earlier, you're cute. If you wanna leave," he softly brushed his nose on mine and I smelled that sweet scent once more, "then I'm sorry for wasting your time. You can leave.. if you want." 

And something like a caged bird about to be set free fluttered in my chest; something told me to run as fast as my legs can take back upstairs at that very moment while I breathed, "How can I?"