Hot After Midnight

Chapter One - Tomorrow Night

It was an adult nightclub. But my friend Alicia had connections and she'd scored us the best looking fake I.Ds money could buy--although, I don't think Alicia paid with money. The ID said my name was Kasey Whetherford. So that's the name I'm going to stick with.

Hi, I'm Kasey Whetherford. I got to practice so I can stay in the role. And Kasey is twenty-two not nineteen. And if anyone ask she's not a virgin and I'm not telling if thats unique to Kasey or not. A girl's gotta have some secrets, right?

But it started earlier. It'd all started a few days before Alicia and me went to The Preacox. And before I met Ryder Hart.

# # #

When I took the letter out of the mailbox I nearly fainted. It was from UCLA! Either I was in or they were writing to tell me 'sorry, not this lifetime'. Either of those were equally as frightening. I raced into the house. God, my heart was pounding so hard my chest ached and even though there was noone home at the time I was blurting out things to myself in labored breaths. Like, "Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! Please God! I swear God!"

Hell, i can't remember ever talking to any higher power with such feverish conviction. The franzied prayers kept catching in my throat. By the time I got the damn envelope torn open, delayed by trembling fingers, I'd given myself a serious case of the hiccups.

It wasn't the end of the world. Either way. Right?

Or it could be.

How sad and pathetic is it that our lives can boil down to these trivial moments? Moments where we're staring at silly envelope on the table with another piece of paper concealed within and that little piece of paper becomes the largest thing in our world. It could be a loaded gun -- would it be a victory shot to salute a brighter future -or-- would it be the mercy shot to end misery once and for all?

Was I accepted?

Or was I rejected?

The epic battle raged inside my mind for what seemed like eternity while I held the torn envelope in my shaky hands. Too chickenshit to pluck the letter from within.

Deep breath.

And . . .

Jump!

I yanked the letter out.

And read it.

And I nearly wet myself with ecastic joy!

# # #

But Alicia didn't like my good news. She wasn't leaving for any out-of-state college adventure. I was the "geek" and she was the "broad". And it wasn't an inaccurate assement either. She was tall and lanky with an excellent chest on display; whereas I was short, mousey and unless I was topless I had a ten year old boy's chest.

"Some guys dig it," Alicia had said while we were sitting in her royal blue sedan in the culvasac at the end of her neighborhood. Alicia was smoking cigarettes she'd swiped from her mom earlier that day.

"You think?" I asked.

"I know." She blew smoke out the driver's window. "Guys like girls. And they'll take a girl any way, any shape, any size--some guys even have a special hard spot for girls with small tits."

"Is that for real?" I said. I kept the passenger side window rolled down to help ventilate the car. I didn't smoke with Alicia. I'd tried it once or twice but it was never my thing. For one thing it stank and I hated the way it made my clothes smell and I had trouble doing it so that I wouldn't cough up a lung. But Alicia was my best friend and I put up with her bad habits. She probably put up with my bad habits as well.