Mastered 2: Ten Tales of Sensual Surrender (85 page)

“What. The. Flip. Ever.” Vive rolled her heavily mascara-ed eyes. “And what have I told you about calling my Hedda a
dog
? She’s much more than that and you know it!”

Once we’d been released from juvie, we’d all pitched in and got Vive the dog. She had such a big hole in her heart after having to give her baby for adoption. Vive loved Hedda and had become all she lived for. They were inseparable.

“No fights tonight, okay, ladies?” Taddy said, trying to keep the peace. Lex and Vive were always going at it. “Cheers!” She raised her glass.

We clanged them together and replied, “
Salud
.”

I took a much bigger gulp. I’d only had a white wine spritzer one time before this. The night we’d got released from juvie, Vive’s parents had hosted a ‘welcome home’ party for us but that was different. It was private. We were on the Farnworth estate.

Tonight, though
…well…it felt odd to drink alcohol openly in public as such. Technically speaking, we were breaking the law. (Officer Ford would have a shit-fit, NYPD style.) However, it was only wine. Not like we were doing shots of Absinthe or snorting cocaine. Although, the more I downed my drink, the more my fingers became numb, and I started to feel a hallucinogenic episode coming on. Like an acid flashback from our days at Avon Porter.

I must be what they call a lightweight.

Regardless, I kept sipping. Everyone else drank, too. I didn’t want to stand out as an oddball and not drink. Call me a follower, I don’t care. Having fun at the club was my main goal. That and being desired by Diego.

The thrill of Diego, someone new, the promise of so much hot sex between us if we were to hook-up… I wanted to be wanted by him, to be craved. Like how Lex has to have her can of Yoo-hoo and get that chocolate fix in the middle of the afternoon. That feeling. That need. I wanted to be
that
for him. So instead of calling me a follower, just call me Mr. Yoo-hoo.

But was I man enough for him?

To most, I’m a few years older than a child, but not quite old enough to be a man. Being an insider in this clique makes it hard to explain
us
, to truly get
us
. For classmates like Diego and Miguel who are on the outside looking in, they’ll never understand. They just won’t. I know that. I’ve always known that. Ever since we made a pact at Avon Porter to be each other’s ‘family’ I’d realized we were different.

Words often used to describe us in the tabloids over the years have been ‘spoiled’, ‘troubled’, ‘abandoned’, and ‘outcasts’.

The term I believe in my heart-of-heart which summed us up the most—the one
The Manhattanite Times
had used in an article right after our trial when we went to juvie a few years back for an accidental murder, —which totally wasn’t our fault—was ‘bonded like blood relatives’. See, my besties had been protecting me that night. They’d saved my life. We would do anything for each other.

Anything!

Think ‘brat pack’ only cuter. Waaay cuter.
That’s us. We’re the Manhattanites.
But it was easy to see why I just wanted to fit in, for once in my life. So I drank.

“Holy hell! Does it feel warm in here or what?” I asked my besties who were practicing their stand-pose-suck-your-cheeks-in stance for the onlookers in the room. Everyone always stared at them. After all, they were the tabloid girls.

“Take your shirt off.” Taddy pushed her chest out with pride. She had on only her bra. And not just any bra, but a Madonna-inspired bedazzled thingy that was appropriate for Glamorama.

Hugh Heffner had sent it to her as a gift, for agreeing to do
Playboy
Magazine in a few weeks. That gig would hopefully pay for the rest of her years at our school. That and a nice steak dinner.

“Have your tah-tah’s gotten bigger?” I asked, gaping at her.

They appeared swollen. I couldn’t help but stare at them. I wasn’t a tit man, clearly. Nevertheless, I could see how some men would be.

Perky as two diamond drops rising up from her chest, Taddy’s cleavage was stunning. They went along well with her narrow face, sharp jawline, long legs and arms that would serve her well if she were ever to take up women’s college basketball.

“A little…” Taddy glanced down at her cleavage and said, “I haven’t gotten my period in a while, but they sure are swelling up as if I’m about to.”

“Hahaha.” Lex, who stood to shed a few pounds but was learning to love her curves, chuckled at the suggestion and tried to change the subject. “I can’t believe they’re playing my mother’s music here. I never am able to escape it.”

Lex’s mother, Birdie Easton, was
the
90’s heavy metal pop star. Her latest single had gone platinum. The lyrics were about her life after rehab.

“Spare me,” Vive griped and pointed a manicured finger at Lex. “I hear your mother everywhere I flippin’ go. Yesterday at the dressing room at Bloom-freakin’-dales they played this damn
No More Drama, Mama
song. It totally ruined my mood to shop. Never mind the hypocrisy of her lyrics. I should sue that Birdie Easton for mental stress and trauma to my nervous system.”

Dressed in a baby powder-pink, ballerina-style tutu and lace-up stilettos, there was always a theme with Vive’s get-up. That night, it was either prima ballerina or a prima donna. I couldn’t tell which.

Nursing her drink a second longer, she then added for dramatic effect, “I can’t stand your mother’s voice, let alone
her
.”

She despised Birdie. I couldn’t blame her.

A few months before, the girls had gotten themselves arrested for arson. Birdie had told the cops it was all their doing. It wasn’t. Granted, the woman had been totally trashed at the time and had no concept of reality, but the girls were totally innocent. The charges were later dropped.

And that was how Lex had met her hawt as Hell lover, Ford Gotti. He’d been the one who’d arrested them. That was the silver lining to that week’s fiasco.

Just then, I took Taddy’s suggestion and pulled my dark blue polo shirt up over the back of my neck, exposing my chest, then took another sip of the bitter white wine spritzer. Quickly, I glanced around to see if Diego and Miguel had noticed that I was showing some skin.

They did.

I made a mental note to write the moment down in my gratitude journal later when I got back to the dorms. Elated, I did a happy dance in my head but tried to remain calm. So I also did what my besties were doing: stand-pose-suck-your-cheeks-in stance for the onlookers in the room.

Since the recent plane crash we’d encountered right before school started (where my face got banged up), I’d been working on my body in hopes that men would notice my physique and not the big scar on the left side of my cheek.
Thanks, Taddy, and your modeling assignment to Eden for busting up the only good feature I had going for me—my Jude Law-like profile.

“It is…getting rather warm…in here,” Vive agreed and knotted her bleach-blonde hair up into a bun. She fastened her locks with a red yoga, Buddha, string thingy she’d worn around her wrist.

We weren’t into the Kabbalah or anything, not like everyone else was in our school. They’d just been passing them out on campus.
They
being the trendy kids who’d come from other parts of the world in hopes of making their mark on The Big Apple. My Manhattanites and I were above that. Waaay above!

“I feel as if I just snorted a bump,” I declared, trying to seem older than I was in the sea of cool, beautiful people. However, the minute the words came out of my mouth, I knew I sounded like a total lame-tard.

We hadn’t done coke. We never did drugs. Hell, I was only eighteen. I just imagined the heat-inducing feeling was what one must experience whenever they’d shoved an eight-ball up their nose. I glared at my VBF for confirmation. Vive had done those kinds of things in the past. She’d recently quit, though. I was so proud of her.

“My heart is racing, too.” Vive confirmed, rubbing her palm over my damp chest. “So is yours.” She swigged back her cocktail, exchanging her empty glass with the handsome waiter who walked by for a refill while shifting Hedda from one arm to the next.

The dog never appeared phased.

Our server seemed to be hovering close to us. Waiters often did that. Vive had so much money that they assumed she’d give them a good tip. Sometimes she did. Sometimes she didn’t. It was all in her mood, and from the look of utter repulsion on her Reese Witherspoon-resembling face, the dude was so not gonna get a gratuity.

“Does this wine taste cheap to you?” Vive asked and handed her glass to Lex.

I took another sip from my glass.

Taddy did from hers, too.

Lex rolled her green eyes and chomped on bright yellow gum. Or was it candy? I could never keep up with the sugar that girl put in her mouth. With a VIP customer card from Dylan’s Candy Bar, she was always downing Gummy Bears and other confectionary treats like they were going out of style.

We glared at Lex to answer the question. She’d know better than me. If anyone knew what good or bad wine tasted like it was Lex. Her mom was a bona-fide drunk.

“I’m not taking a sip.” She handed the glass back to Vive. “It’s bad enough that I snuck in here with some girl’s ID that says my name is Sulma Salvadora, let alone drinking under age. No way, Jose.”

“I’ve never met a Sulma before. Have you?” I asked, trying to make a joke as everyone giggled. “My fake ID isn’t much better...”

“What’s the name on yours?” Taddy asked.

“Duane Elrod,” I replied, straightening my shoulders.

“Hey, now!” Vive hollered. “You three ninnies wanna get busted? Stop talkin’ about
that
. Now, dammit, someone answer me. Does this shit taste cheap to you?”

Birdie sang:
Don’t want no more hurt. Don’t want no more tears.

Letting the wine lap on my tongue, I debated on Vive’s question before swallowing then asked, “What does the different between expensive versus cheap wine tastes like?”

I might’ve grown up in Fairfield, Connecticut, but I surely wasn’t raised as affluently as Vive. No one was. Think Donald Trump meets Paris Hilton. That was our party girl, Vive.

“Honey, the good shit comes from France, Italy or California.” Rocking Hedda on her hip, she reached for another flute and took a big gulp. “Different glass. Same shit. This crap-on-a-dirty-dick tastes like it’s from Long Island.”

“Then stop drinking it,” Taddy snapped. She was over Vive’s entitlement. We all were.

“Fine.” Vive handed Taddy the glass and shouted, “Woo-hoo! Let’s dance! The song changed,
finally
. Buh-bye, Birdie Easton music.” She put Hedda on the nearby loveseat and ordered, “Stay here, my lil’ jellybean. Mama is gonna dance.”

The dog wagged her tail and stretched out his two front paws.

“Yay!” Lex grabbed for my arm, pulling me onto the dance floor.

Electronic music blasted through speakers, and undulating bodies pulsated toward the DJ booth.

Lights on the ceiling, spinning at 25 miles an hour, grabbed my attention. Glancing up, my eyes caught sight of the naked aerialists covered in glow-in-the-dark body paint. They swung from hanging hoops while midgets rode tricycles in the near corner.

Glamorama was major cray-cray.

Taddy downed the two drinks like shots then joined us a few minutes later on the dance floor, appearing a bit trashed.

Her eyes heavy, she wiped her lips and started to put her hands up in the air. “Sweet Jesus, that Long Island stuff was strong.”

As I moved my hips getting into the music, suddenly my mouth felt dry, as if I’d swallowed cotton.

Being all of eighteen, I knew I was too young for andropause.
You know, the male form of menopause.
I had like another thirty years or so before that would happen. Right? But what if it had come early? Ever since the recent plane crash, I’d been out of whack.

Then I realized why I was getting so warm and itchy.

I was nervous.

Nervous as hell.

Not one, but
two
Latin guys I’d been crushing on since the first day of college were staring at me.

Diego.

Miguel.

“Do you see what I see?” Lex started to sing it almost annoyingly in a capella as the boys came onto the dance floor.

Everything went still. My peripheral vision blurred. My tongue itched. Was it lust doing that to me? The four of us huddled together, trying to dance. It was a challenge. I couldn’t think. Lex spanked my ass, once then twice and shrieked, “Let’s have fun!”

Things started to feel as if they were moving in slow motion.

“Those guys are beautiful.” Taddy grabbed onto my shoulders. “Get over there. Talk to them.”

“I’m—too nervous. It’s two against one. No—I can’t.”

“March!” Vive spun me around, facing them.

Oh, God.

I deliberated for a minute.

Sure, Diego was a Latin hunk. The other one, Miguel, was tall and rather beautiful. They roomed together at the dorms over on Broadway. Thor and I were across the campus near Amsterdam Avenue. The only time I saw them was in English class. This was really my only chance to talk to them outside of school.