Elders and wise
Tae be honest (heh, a Bad Habit(tm) I'm tryin' tae break (blush)), I dinnae ken if this hae enough o' the actual Tab A intae Slot B for GWA. But my fingers itched, and there's really only one thing tae do wi' a scratch, sae there is. Sae if it offends, my apologies, an' I'll take nae ill if the Mod Gods cast it aside. But for now, here's FIRST TIME - over to y'all...
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FIRST TIME
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I wasn’t quite fifteen.
No, before you go all postal, this isn’t about how I did 'it' for the first time, or how some guy pulled me down a dark alley and did the dirty. God knows, everyone—well, all the girls anyway—knew someone who had. 'Done it', I mean. But no, it wasn’t that. Or maybe it was—losing my virginity, I mean. Like, it didn’t involve any guy’s cock, or some girl’s tongue. But maybe it was. Maybe I did.
Like I said. I wasn’t quite fifteen.
We were doing Oliver that year. You know, the musical thing. Like, I wasn’t one of the chicks running round a field or a court in a short skirt, jumping up so they could pretend to get pissed if some guy tried to look under their skirts. Yeah, and only really get pissed if he didn’t. And I wasn’t Cheer, and I wasn’t Band either. Fuck, I wasn’t anything much at all. But Stage? Stage was cool. Stage, people seemed to get more real, more their real selves, while they were busy faking being someone else. So every year since I was old enough I got in. Like, not top bill or anything. I’d gopher for the lighting crew, run supply in the slap room, stuff like that. But this year? This year we were doing Oliver. And they wanted some, like, dancers. It wasn’t anything big, at least it didn’t seem that way. But I was old enough, and not bat-shit ugly. So I thought, like, what the fuck? Why not? So I got one of the lighting crew who’d been my first kiss behind the flats when I was fourteen to drop my name, and I was in. So we got to costume. Well, ‘costume’, that might be going overboard. Jennie Slate, she was Nancy, she got costume galore. The dancers? Not so much. We got black leotards, and long skirts. Bot those skirts? They had slits from mid-calf to bejasus. Because we got something else. We got, like stockings. We did some dancing, but most of the time we were side stage, with our legs showing through the slits in the skirts. Rehearsals, it didn’t really do much. We weren’t in costume, just jeans and shit. But after we opened, that was it. Like, when it happened. Because I’m standing there, side stage with my leg forward through the slit, and I see them. Like, yeah, guys. Cast guys, stage guys, guys I knew. Looking. But not just them. I see guys in the audience, and they’re, like, looking as well. But not at me, not at me as a girl anyway, not even some girl they knew because their kids knew her. No, they were just looking. At my leg, at a stocking top—looking. And not just guys. I see a girl or two on stage, and they’re looking too. I mean, sure. Everyone, well, everyone not a guy, knew there were girls who played that side of the street. But these weren’t just those girls. And not just girls. I saw Mrs Wilberforce, and she was like a zillion years old, and she’s not looking at a damn thing on stage unless it’s some girl legs, or girl stocking tops. And you know what? It was so fucking cool. Like, I wasn’t thinking some guy, or even some chick, was going to look at my legs and want to date me, go steady. It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t me being looked at. Right then, I was a leg. Or a stocking top. I was a leg, a stocking top, and it was so fucking cool to be just that, and feel the eyes on me and know I was being just what they wanted me to be, whatever the fuck it was, there in their heads. I think that was it. Then. When I lost it. My virginity. Like, the real kind.
So after the last show, Ricky Blake finds me. And he’s giving me the whole deal, all mouth and god’s gift, and I haven’t got changed yet, and he’s giving me his come-on. Like, Ricky Blake, king of the football field, and every girl’s wet dream. And he’s asking me if maybe we can do something some time, like a movie or some shit. And I can see his hand, and it keeps itching to the slit in my skirt, and I’m waiting for him to try to grab my thigh. And I’ve no idea what I’d have done if he did, because he doesn’t. Just his hand keeps itching, and he asks me if I want to go parking at The Head some night. And I see Penny Spencer over his shoulder, and she runs with the Bitch Queens, like Ricky’s girlfriend Jennie does. So I do it. I brush my hair back over my left ear, and tug my earlobe. See, it's this thing the Bitches do if they're in some hole and need a sister to help. Kelly Sharpe's sister, who was, like, college and shit, told Kelly it was a thing her Sorority had, like, a secret signal. And she told the B, and they started using it too. And Penny sees it, and she knows I’m not in with the Bitches, but she sees Ricky, and she nods. A minute later, Jennie comes by, and she’s ‘accidentally’ not quite finished changing out of Nancy’s dress, and she says how the zip is stuck, and, like, can Ricky help? So it turns out he can, and he’s kind of keen to get helping. But as Penny turns away with him, she winks at me. So I figure it’s OK, and I’m not going to get my ass handed to me in the girl’s washroom, not even the way Val Bentley likes Bev Garner to hand her ass, because she doesn’t think I was trying to steal Ricky. And for the rest of high school I never have any trouble with the Bitches, which is kind of cool.
But all the time, I’m thinking. Remembering. Remembering eyes, and remembering me. Me being a leg, being a stocking top.
So High School’s over, but it turns out it isn’t really. Because it turns out College is just like High School was, even though it’s totally different. I got to go to clubs, not Prom, and I got to hang in bars, not malls. And yeah, I hang. I go the places the others go, and I do the things the others do. But all the time, I’m not trying to be them, not wanting to be them. Because I want to be a leg, to be a stocking top. And I may not be into men’s shirts much, but me and short skirts? Me and short skirts are like Bonnie and Clyde, like steak and eggs. And always, always I wear stockings. I wear stockings in the clubs and in the bars, and I wear stockings if I’m in jeans, and I’d wear stockings in the fucking gym if I could. But it never hits it, never gets to me like it did, like when I was a leg. But I get around, and you learn shit, even if it’s not shit anyone teaches you in college. That’s how I ended up with Tommy. Tommy wouldn’t have asked me if I wanted to go to a movie like Ricky did that night. He’d have had his hand in my skirt, on my thigh, and he wouldn’t have stopped there, and he wouldn’t have asked me if I I wanted it either. I thought that was what I wanted for a while, and even when it turned out Tommy couldn’t get it up without beating the crap out of me first, I took it for a while. Because I figured that was what I was, what I wanted. Fifty bruises too many, one night I got out of bed and looked in the mirror. I looked, and I didn’t see a leg, didn’t see a stocking top. I saw a stupid bitch with a black eye and a cut lip. So I went downstairs while Tommy was asleep, and I introduced the brake line on his wheels to a pumice stone from my makeup bag, because cops can spot things like knife cuts. Tommy went out to make a deal the next night, and he never came back. Me, I wait a few days for the cops who never come, like Tommy almost never did unless he hit me really hard, and for the bruises to go away. Then I get my best short skirt, and I go out to a bar.
And I’m sitting in the bar, and you come in. You come in, and as you’re walking past me sat at the bar, you lean in and you whisper to me. “Good girls don’t cross their legs.” And I look down, and I look at you, at the most piercing blue eyes I’ve ever seen, and I look down again, and I uncross my legs. And I look up at you, but you’re gone. And for a moment it’s there. The thing. For a moment, I’m a leg, a stocking top, and it’s so fucking cool. And I haunt that bar every night for a week, but you never show. But I’m there one night, and I see you coming in. I see you, and I look down, and my legs are crossed. So I look at you, as you come towards me, and I slowly uncross my legs. And I wait. And you come up to me, and you lean in. And you whisper, again. And you say “Knees.” And you put your hand down, and you take hold of one of my knees, so gently, and you pull. You pull, and it’s like it isn’t my knee at all, and you pull, and the knee starts to move, and my thighs start to spread. And you lean in again, and you whisper, and you say “Good girl.” And it’s like someone put a fucking cattle prod on both my nipples and my clit. And I open my mouth to say something, though what I’d have said, fucked if I know. But you’re gone. So I order another drink, and I drink it, and I order another, and I drink it, and I feel the smile on my face like it’s the Grand Canyon, and even though you’re gone I don’t close my legs, because I can feel it. The thing. I know what I am, and it’s a leg, but it’s more than that, and it’s a stocking top, but it’s more than that, and it’s so fucking much I don’t know if I can hold it in, but I know I want to try.
But that was then, and this is now. That was then, and it was before the night I went to the bar, and the girl behind it gave me the scrap of paper with the address on. That was then, and this is now, and I can see her, the girl behind the bar, where she’s spread on the bed, her wrists and ankles tied and her panties stuffed in her mouth and a smile as wide as mine on her face. That was then and this is now, and my hand’s under my skirt, like you told me to put it under, and my hand’s in my pants, like you told me to put it in, and I’m working my fingers in my cunt and on my clit, like you told me to work them, and I’m telling you, like you told me to tell you. And this is now, and this is me, and I’m a leg, and I’m a stocking top, but I’m so much more, and I’m telling you. About the time—my first time, the first time I knew what I was, even if I didn’t know a damn thing back then.
And you’re sat in the corner, watching me, and you’re smiling. You’re smiling, and your hand is between your legs too. You’re smiling, and your other hand is gently stroking the riding crop on the table next to you, the handcuffs and the blindfold. And maybe I should be scared, but I’m not. And maybe I should be smart and leave, but I know I’m not going to. I do what you told me, just because you told me to do it, and I tell you what you told me to tell you, just because you told me to tell you. And you smile, and you say it, but this time you don’t whisper. “Good girl.”
I wasn’t quite fifteen, the first time…