Amy 27: Amy In "Game Of Death" free porn video

Amy 27: Amy in "Game of Death" Copyright 2014 by Amy Komori The original characters and plot of this story are the property of the author. No infringement of pre-existing copyright is intended. This story is copyright (c) 2014 Amy Komori. All rights reserved. Chapter One: We Were Rich Once The next few days were pretty shitty. I mean, like really majorly shitty. If you already had this big pile of shit and then you pooped on it and then an elephant pooped on it, too, you'd have a lot less shit than what I dealt with thanks to Dallas. I was totally furious with her. After word of Dally-Dall's nude portrait of me (which was probably the best painting I'd ever seen from her but which I had never fucking posed for), I couldn't walk down the hall without people staring at me. Guys, girls; they all did it. I felt as completely naked as I was in Dall's painting. I wished the weather was colder so I could put on about sixteen layers of clothes. But even then, I'd probably feel just as exposed. I needed to talk to Dallas and find out why she did this to me. Desire? Revenge? Or just to bite her head off. Unfortunately, since dropping the art bomb on us, she'd blown off school completely. She'd always suffered from migraines and deep depressions so she really racked up absences even in the best of times. If she wasn't so wicked smart, I'm sure she would've been held back a time or two. Not being able to find Dallas meant I just had to put up with being some kind of half-assed celebrity, or whatever. I didn't even want to speculate what people thought of me, but I sure got a lot of shit-eating grins from the dudes. I said "Fuck off" so many times to them, I almost started answering roll in homeroom that way. Everyone knew I was into girls by now and I heard bits and pieces of antics by some Amy who apparently occupied my space in the world but I'd never met. No one had. She existed only in these stupid little rumors floating around like so much volcanic ash miles from the real eruption, and landing softly on my shoulders. Even Willis Wallace went bizarre on me. Willis held down the job of being the school's only black geek, and even though we rarely talked, it was cool just knowing he existed. He was one of my acquaintances-- if not a close friend-- who I really liked. One reason was I knew Willis had a major crush on me, but he wouldn't act on it so it was kind of pleasant instead of annoying. Or maybe it wasn't a crush. Whatever it was, it was semi-related to what I just kind of assumed was this sexual desire for this comic book character he thought I vaguely resembled. Anyways, I went to my locker to get my Japanese textbook (which I'd conveniently forgotten, hoping for a Tamara-encounter because I'd missed her that morning) and heard someone breathing from his or her nose beside me. I knew right away who it was. Only Willis the Thrillis would stand there and not say anything until I did. "Yo, Wills," I said. "What's up?" "Amy," he said, his voice strained. He'd gotten more comfortable with social interaction lately, so this was kind of a regression for the guy. Disturbing. Willis looked a little out of it, kind of preoccupied. Plus he was kind of sweating and trembling. His glasses kept slipping down his nose. He sort of reminded me of that politician guy Ross Perot; they were both short, and both had giant ears. "Speak to me," I told him. It was easy to be Cool Amy with him. "I've gotta get back to class." "About that portrait." It seemed to take forever for him to speak and come to the stupid point. Shit, I thought, he's wigging. Growing nervous, I said, "Yeah?" Then, all in a rush: "I'd really rather you not pose nude." What the fuck? I immediately boiled over. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have because along with all that other stuff, Willis had this really awesome imagination. Once, he showed me this completely amazing Flash animation he'd made where he was a superhero, but he was so afraid of real human contact, he'd isolated himself, cut himself off from reality. His confusion of me with that comic character, for example. But what I didn't need was for him to pull some "I'm your boyfriend" bullshit; I thought we'd fixed that problem. "Willis," I told him, as gently as I could, even though I probably still sounded like I wanted to pop him one. "I didn't pose nude. Dallas is just that good an artist. And, anyways, even if I was going to pose nude, I'd fucking do it no matter what you said because it's not really any of your business." "It's just that-" "It's just that nothing. What you're saying is just... just super rude, okay?" His shoulders slumped. But at least his trembling stopped. God, the effort it must've taken the little guy even to talk to me. It made me feel kind of powerful, in a girly way. I felt like fucking Madonna from her Sex book period. Willis took one last deep breath through his nose, and nodded. Then he asked me if the painting was still up in the art room. Dammit! Little fucking pervert! I was pissed enough to say something mean to him, something hurtful. Instead, though, I just lied and said Dallas had taken it home. The painting was actually still up there in the art room, wrapped up and certainly not on display, although a couple of kids had already gotten detention for sneaking in there between classes with a digital camera. Disappointed, but steadier, Willis nodded and left, probably to find out on his own. Total weirdness. I stood there for a little bit clenching and unclenching my fists. Then I put my forehead against the cool metal of my locker and that soothed me. Chapter Two: Hair's on Fire Fortunately, things had unweirded themselves with my friends Gina and Lena. And now, we had Tamara, who was easily the coolest girl I had ever met. I didn't fall in love with just anyone. I mean, I liked girls and everything, but it's not as if I was into every single girl. But how could someone who liked girls not be into Tamara? Tamara. She was tall, thin, had this amazing black cloud of hair, hot chocolate skin, bold eyes, sharp cheekbones and a huge, toothy smile. Everywhere she went, Tamara made a scene; I mean, the reaction the new, sexy Amy got didn't compare, not even close. For Tamara, guys walked into open lockers, teachers forgot their lessons, and would-be ice cube me simply melted. Around her, I dribbled right down the sink as a liquid. I didn't think I'd ever felt this way, even when I was a guy and fell in love with Emily. Beyond attraction what made me fall so quickly in love with Tamara was her oh-so-laid back personality. She took things completely in stride. I mean, the first time I met her, she compared me to Jenny Shimizu and totally knocked me out of the box. Effortlessly. Since then, even with all this other crazy shit happening, Tamara remained foremost in my thoughts. In fact, I probably only had one non- Tamara thought every twenty Tamara thoughts. Being around her was like my drug. I found out what drug exactly at our next Silly Monkey practice, which I'd invited her to because I wanted her there. We were practicing like crazy for a show we had, so Lena was mega- serious about everything, but thanks to the Nekkid Me Controversy, I'd been too distracted to tell Sarah about it like I was supposed to. So three of us were practicing under the mandate we had to be ready in time and one of us (poor, trusting Sarah) was still just having fun. After a couple of practices where Sarah acted pretty much like her usual self, meaning she wasn't freaked by the possibility of singing in front of a crowd again, Lena got the idea I was slacking off in my Sarah-bossing capacity and decided she had to act in her Amy-bossing capacity. As soon as I showed up with Tam in tow on the day in question, Lena grabbed my shirt and pulled me back out of the garage. "You haven't told her," Lena whispered. "I'm going to, dude," I whispered back. "When? Tonight? After practice?" "Yeah, yeah." Lena let go of my shirt and we went back into the garage. Everyone was looking at us with these amused expressions. I tried to smooth out my top from where Lena's hand had crinkled it but good, and it was no use. I had to practice as the Marked Woman. We tuned and ran through our songs and Sarah was having a great time, smiling and making eyes at me, just playing around. All I could think was, You poor kid, you. We'd just finished a long stretch of nonstop songs with hardly any mistakes (and yours truly made what few there were), when Tamara piped up. Pretty fucking close to literally, as it turned out. "Anybody want to smoke?" she asked, and of course, we all did. Only she didn't mean clove or regular cigarettes. One thing she'd forgotten to tell us was that when she and her friends spent a summer in France, they'd also managed to scoot up to Holland and into Amsterdam, where Tamara smoked the hell out of the legal weed there. She pulled out a plastic bag. Gina and I had tried weed a few times (with no effect). We were beginning to think we had something physically wrong with us, like we were immune. That didn't stop us from both going all squirrel-girl and happy about the possibility of giving it one more try. But Sarah almost freaking hyperventilated. "I just don't think it's such a good idea," Sarah said. She looked really worried. I felt bad for her. "Don't be a pussy," Gina laughed. "It's not like you haven't seen weed before." "You sound like Chuckie from 'Rugrats,'" I told Sarah. She looked a little hurt, so I told her not to worry. If she didn't want to, that was cool, but Gina, Lena and I were going to burn some with Tamara. Tamara had forgotten her little pipe, and none of the rest of us had one. We were all a lot more innocent than we acted. So Tamara took a Coke can, dented it and poked it a bunch of times with a needle Gina took from her mom's sewing kit. So two-thirds of Silly Monkey were about to smoke pot on an improvised crack pipe, just like the ones we'd seen under the railroad trestle near downtown where all the homeless junkies congregated. That pretty much ended practice. We spent the rest of the afternoon sucking in the harsh smoke from Tamara's herbal gift and planning our Halloween costumes. While our pre-Halloween show was still a secret from Sarah, we'd all decided to go downtown on the actual holiday because there were always thousands of people down there wearing costumes. Our fake ID plan hadn't gotten past the "I know a guy who can make them" stage, so we probably wouldn't be able to get in anywhere unless Michelle came with us (she rocked at talking herself and the rest of us into places), but we could at least walk around in costumes and check out the rest. Some of them would be pretty impressive. Anyways, that's what we were all chattering about. I didn't even know I was high until Lena handed me the can, and I asked her to light it for me, since she was holding the lighter. "If you can operate that primitive device," I added. Then I completely lost it. I laughed so hard, my ribs actually fucking hurt, and tears ran down my cheeks. I thought my lungs were going to explode, or my throat. I couldn't talk, I could only make little squealing noises, and that got everyone else giggling, except Sarah, who hadn't indulged. And that was the first time I actually got stoned. Then we got down to serious Silly Monkey business: our Halloween gig costumes. Sarah told us she was going to be a fairy. She then said she wished she could talk to Dallas about helping her make fairy wings. Lena was going as Scully from "The X-Files." Gina decided to be Mulder; her dad had a dark suit she could wear. We all thought that was pretty bold. But that left Tamara and me without costumes. Gina suggested: "Hey, why don't you go as Jenny Shimizu, Amy? You can shave your head again and be that drug addict character she played in 'Foxfire.' I mean, since you're so obsessed with her." "I am not obsessed with her," I replied. "Someone just happened to tell me I look a little like her is all." I glanced at Tamara. "You know what would be cute?" Sarah asked, in her airy, breathy way. "You could go as Buttercup. Oh, if you did that, I could be Blossom. Wouldn't that be fun?" "No fucking way," I said. "I mean, you should go as Blossom, but I'm not going as Buttercup." My brain ran down the list of the Thousand Names of Amy: Buttercup, Ayumi, Spinelli, Claudia, Mulan, Komugly, That Little J-Pop Bitch. Tamara also had a suggestion for me: "Hey, Amy, why don't you go as Mia Wallace from 'Pulp Fiction?'" "Yeah!" Sarah enthused. "'Pulp Fiction' rocks!" "Mia Wallace?" I asked. "No way. Uma Thurman's like seven feet tall. I'm just a midget." "You are not. Anyways, you can get a wig. They're easy to find." Me, as Mia Wallace for Halloween? Yeah, I thought, it'd be an easy costume. Tam was right and I knew just the place downtown for a wig, and if that was too expensive, I was pretty sure I could find a low-cost alternative at Target. All I'd need besides that was a black jacket, white shirt, dark pants, painted fingernails. Maybe drip some blood coming from my nose. It just seemed kind of weird to me; I loved "Pulp Fiction," but when I had a dick, I'd always sort of identified more with Samuel L. Jackson's character (not that I was anything like him), and now my friends were suggesting I dress up as the big-time female cultural icon from that movie. "I'll... think about," I said. But I'd already decided to do it, because it was Tamara's suggestion. And I'd pretty much do anything she wanted me to at that point. "Why don't we dress up for our show, too?" Gina asked, sounding dreamily spacey. Sarah immediately went, "What show?" "A TV show," I said, trying simultaneously to be funny and to trick Sarah and save Gina's bacon. "We've all decided to watch a TV show together. And dress like the characters." Sarah kind of frowned at me. She knew I was being obtuse on purpose and it only made things worse. "We have a show... a-and no one told me? Or even asked me?" "Oh," Lena said, "Nice job, guys." "Guys?" I said, kind of outraged. "You mean, 'Nice job, just Gina.'" "What show?" Sarah persisted. Now Lena gave me this look that told me I needed to fix things, that it was all my responsibility. I took a deep breath and did my best. "It's the Sunday before Halloween," I said as gently as I could. I hoped I wasn't being too much the condescending bitch. "W-why didn't anyone ask me if I wanted to or not?" "That I don't know," I told her honestly, giving Lena and Gina both my patented narrow-eyed look of death. "Some people thought you might not want to, I think." "I don't want to. I mean, I don't understand..." "Look, it's just like this afternoon thing. Like all-ages. It's not a big deal or anything," I said. It was hard trying to be pushy and not pushy at the same time. Also, being high didn't really help. I had cotton mouth really bad. "How can other people make other people's decisions for them" Sarah wanted to know. "That's a really good question," I said. I looked at Lena again. "That's my fault," Lena said. "I'm sorry, Sarah. I was just... I just want our band to have a show." Sarah's green eyes were big and wet. "Oh." "Please say you'll do it," I said, just short of begging. A big shiny tear went down Sarah's freckled cheek. I wanted to throw myself into Gina's pool and die a watery death. "Pretty please?" I said, this time just begging outright. I knew no shame at that point. Sarah wiped her face and gave me a little smile, then nodded. "Okay." "You had fun last time, right?" I asked, smiling now myself, feeling at least a trace of hope and positivity return. Sarah had agreed, but I had to make her feel good about agreeing. It was the least I could do. Sarah nodded. "It's the same thing, only there should be a lot less pressure or whatever. It's just gonna be like a bunch of high school or junior high kids or something." "Yeah," Lena said. "No pressure. It's the best way for us to start doing this. And you were really great last time, too." Sarah nodded again. "Okay, I said I'll do it." I grinned. I glanced at Tam. She winked. "But you have to do something for me," Sarah said, giving me this un- Sarah look. Very intense. I snapped to attention. "Anything for Princess Praline," I promised. "You have to fix things with Dallas." A white flash of hopelessness. I wanted to tell her no way, no fucking way, but instead, I agreed. Sneaky Sarah. Then we split up for the night. The walk home with Tamara was kind of dreamy, and we talked mostly just high person talk, like making non sequitors and misunderstanding commonplace things. Laughing a lot. Falling leaves especially amused us, and there were plenty of those. Then I was finally alone inside my house, with Tamara thoughts blossoming inside my brain like gorgeous flowers in spring. I spent a long time in the bathroom, too, being sneaky. I got the red out with Visine and showered away the pot smell. I took my smoky clothes back to my bedroom and hid them so I could slip them into the laundry some other time. As far as I knew, my mom never suspected a thing; if she did, she didn't mention it. Not even when I ate an entire package of Keebler Fudge Stripe cookies. Chapter Three: Head Exploded I went to school the next day with Sarah's mission as my main goal, no matter what else happened. If Dallas didn't show, I'd pass word to her via Michelle Cho, who would probably give me a hard time about it but do it to get out from between this mess. Luckily, Dallas showed up for second period art that day. Her giant nude of me still sat in the corner, wrapped in brown paper. Dallas slipped in, sort of a shadowy figure in black, and tried to get to her table unmolested. But I wasn't having it. "Hi, Dall," I told her. Then I sat my little Japanese ass down with her for the first time since the previous spring, and started setting up this crappy still life (plastic pineapples and grapes). That's what Mr. Tanner had us doing, no longer trusting us to our own subject matter. Crappy still lifes. "You're going to sit with me, huh?" Dall said, not bothering to look at me. She was sharpening a pencil with a little plastic sharpener, the wood making these skritchy sounds as the sharp blades shaved it away. "Yeah, you must be a detective," I said. I opened my plastic art supply case and got out my own pencil and sharpener and went to work. "And since you're so deductive today, I don't have to tell you this is what we're drawing." "Well, it sucks." "Good." Side by side, we drew in silence until I couldn't stand it anymore. "Look, Dal, I'm not mad at you for painting me naked," I told her, my voice low as we drew. A total lie, because I ached to slap her face backwards. "I just wanna know why." "I don't know why," Dallas whispered. "I just... I had to, you know?" "No," I said. "I don't know. It really sucks. Everybody has the wrong idea about me now." "That you like girls." "Okay, so they have the right idea about me. But it's in the wrong way. And it's your fault. So I wanna know why you deliberately set out to destroy my life. I thought we were friends." At that point, I realized I had Dallas on trial. "I didn't... I didn't set out to destroy you or anything. I just... I just had this compulsion, I guess." "Compulsion to make me naked in front of everyone." "Yeah. Mostly for me. But I guess I wanted to hurt you, too." "Because I hurt you." "You did." Now that we were talking about it, Dallas explained about how she'd been into me for a while. That was really difficult for her to say. Her voice sounded very distant, as if she was speaking to me from some other location deep inside herself where she felt safe. Watching me go through the Patrick thing and knowing why I was doing it but not being able to stop it was like torture for her and she decided at some point she'd have to act on her feelings before I did something really stupid (or stupider than that, I guessed she really meant) and somehow ended up beyond her grasp. I understood all that. When I tried to get her to explain why she'd said "no strings attached" and how bad that made me feel, she just waved her hand around, blowing away that part of the discussion. So I let her talk for a bit longer, witness for her own defense. She said in some ways I was some kind of symbol for her, this better self. She felt the same way about Michelle, but since they were close friends she didn't feel comfortable having anything more than platonic feelings for her. I, on the other hand, was fair game. She also went on for a while about Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Sharer," which we'd read the year before, and even managed to work in Elvis' unborn twin brother, Aron. Dallas never did anything without a subtext. "But I'm a friend, not a symbol," I told her. "And if this is about getting back at me for hurting you, I really don't know what to tell you." "I know. It... it's easier for me to deal with my emotions if I turn them into art. That painting is how... it's my feelings about you, for good and for bad. It's everything." "Okay," I said, only halfway understanding her. At least we were talking again. Surprisingly to me considering how angry I'd been just a few minutes before, I let Dallas off with a suspended sentence. I told her, "But next time, deal with your feelings by not painting me into a masturbation fantasy." With that very much on my mind, I glanced over at our ol' pal, Bradley. And busted him staring at us. He quickly looked away, so I knew for certain he'd really had been all over us with his sleazy eyes, thinking who knows what. Okay, you didn't need to have a dick to guess. Bradley was one of those guys you could smell it on just about every day. "Sorry," she said. She gave me a little smile and went back to drawing the still life I'd set up. Dallas and I didn't suddenly turn best friends. I'd hurt her pretty badly, after all. But we entered this probationary phase, and we sat together in art class again after that, and things felt right again. The fallout from the nude painting continued for both of us. Mr. Tanner wouldn't enter it in the citywide art competition, so Bradley's painting of an old man sitting on the porch of a shotgun shack went instead. He won honorable mention, but insisted if he'd been allowed to enter his watercolor of Spawn ripping out this guy's heart, he'd have won. Oh, and Dallas came within a whisker of getting suspended. But I hadn't complained, and Mr. Tanner and Ms. Green talked circles around the principal, so there was really nothing anyone could do. As for me, I still had to put up with people thinking about me in a whole new way, or even just thinking about me at all. Most of them now knew what team I played for, and that made me an enigma, and therefore, more interesting. I mean, if a few people had opinions about me before, that was nothing compared to how it was for the rest of my high school career. I was known now. I didn't just shoot up the charts and then settle back in obscurity this time like a one-hit wonder. Other kids were following my career with interest. But I felt a lot better about things. I'd never meant to lose Dallas as a friend; mostly, I'd just meant to make her stop slobbering all over me. A girl can only take so much saliva. Chapter Four: Heads Fly Over Anyways, there wasn't much time to think about the all-new, super-open gay me, because I needed a Mia Wallace wig and our pre-Halloween show kept getting nearer. The latter thing, much more important, meant longer practices, even as the days got shorter. And more hanging with Tamara in Gina's garage. "Oh my god!" Sarah squealed when I told her about the conversation I had with Dallas. Gina and Lena jokingly covered their ears. "This is total coolness!" I shrugged. "Kinda coolness. I mean, it's not like we're completely cool with each other again." "Yeah, but you tried." I had to love Sarah. She always thought the best of everyone, and wanted us all to get along. She would have given any of us the last lick of her ice cream cone. "So, Tamara," Gina said from behind her drum kit. "Thought about your Halloween costume, yet?" "Yeah, but I'm still trying to decide," Tamara replied, all casually sexy and long and lean, on her stool. Her bare feet with curly toes hooked the bottom slat. "Amy, are you going to do Mia Wallace?" "Yeah," I said, all Casual Girl. I'd gotten better at hiding my pounding heart whenever Tamara spoke to me. I'd even pretty much stopped blushing. The feeling in my tummy remained constant. Now that I'd committed, I wasn't about to disappoint Tamara and ruin even the very slight chance at being with her that I hoped I had. As soon as I got home, I pleaded with Mom to drive me on a quest for a wig. She agreed, but not until after dinner. The two of us hit K-Mart, Target and even my most hated place of all, the Wal-Mart Super Center out on the highway near the mall. No luck. There were long blonde wigs and red wigs and metallic wigs and braided Pocahontas wigs, but nothing resembling Mia's hair. We were both getting headachey and grumpy but on our way home, we decided on a whim to give Walgreen's a try and they happened to have a wig that was just about perfect. All I would have to do is trim it a little and rip out the mesh liner. I bought my first fingernail polish ever to complete the look. I was Mia Wallace. The week before the show, when our group convened for lunch, Sarah asked Dallas to design some flyers for us. Gina ruffled my hair really hard and joked that we ought to use the nude Amy painting on one of them, but I told everyone she was wearing her boy's underwear. "Okay, score one for Pikachu," Gina snapped. "Don't fucking call me Pikachu," I said. "Not even when we're alone." "Sure thing," Gina said, as she grinned and ruffled my hair. "I'll call you Yellow Ranger." I couldn't help but laugh, but first, I put on this fake angry face. Which caused Gina to ruffle my hair again as people were always fucking doing to me. God, sometimes I hated being short. I mean, I said I hated it all the time, but sometimes, I seriously hated it. It made people do these doofy, belittling things to me... like pinch my cheeks and ruffle my hair. Even my friends. And I sure as hell didn't need another nickname, especially not Pikachu or Yellow Ranger. Of course, we practiced after school and by the time I got home I feeling tired and happy, if a little annoyed with Gina. Then as if a trap door had opened and my heart dropped through it, I abruptly got very depressed. It hit me right as I was about to fall asleep. Dark thoughts. I'd completely fucked up with Patrick and Dallas, couldn't get any traction with Gina, and now I was stuck on Tamara. I had no idea if that would go anywhere. I didn't want to spend the next couple of years pining for people I couldn't have, wanting to love and be loved and not having it happen for me. People I didn't like, never had a chance of liking, tended to like me instead of the people I actually liked. The last person who'd been into me where I could reciprocate was now holding down the position of my big sister. Nursing my tender heart, kind of jealously guarding it as if it had real value, I curled up under the covers. I'm just glad I didn't cry. That would've seriously sucked. By the next day, I felt a whole bunch better. In second period art, I got to watch as Dallas created our cool flyers. One had us all as the Universal monsters, and another was this splotchy, scratchy one where we looked truly disgusting. Dallas said that was her tribute to some guy named Ralph Steadman. I was like, "Who is that?" Dallas snickered. "Never you mind, little girl," was all she said. That afternoon we didn't practice. Instead, we all went to Kinkos and ran off a few hundred copies of Dall's flyers and split into teams to canvas the town. I went with Sarah, Tamara and Michelle, which was how I wanted it. For some reason, though, by the afternoon that strange dark mood came wafting back like smoke, cloaking my thoughts again and making me kind of go inside myself. It also had the amazingly fucked up effect of making me feel tiny as long as I was around Tamara. Like I'd shrunk overnight. I couldn't help feeling like everyone was so much taller than I was, even though Michelle was obviously shorter. Having all these weird sensations made me keep kind of quiet, thinking these thoughts endlessly and dreaming of a whole lifetime of a relationship with Tamara. Like even marriage and dying together and being buried in coffins covered with roses. But first, I wanted her to sweep me off my feet. I wanted to feel like a princess. It made my stomach jittery. "What's wrong?" Michelle asked me while we stood outside a Starbucks waiting for Tamara to pee. I raised my dark eyebrows and looked at her as if I didn't have a clue what she was talking about. Michelle frowned. "Don't tell me, then." I shrugged. "I'd tell you if something was wrong." "Something is wrong. Those are the most words you've said since Kinkos." "Kinkos makes me feel like not talking." "Oh? Is that it?" "It is." We both turned as Tam came back outside. "You didn't get us anything?" Michelle asked. Tam gave her this look as if she wasn't sure Michelle was joking or not. Obviously Michelle would take some getting used to. Then some muscled frat boys in three-button polos made an appearance, and they just made me feel even shorter. They had these smirky, self-satisfied expressions and I could almost hear their thoughts. Like Michelle and I were just skinny boy-looking nobodies, weird dumb little kids. I had no way of knowing that's what they were thinking. For all I knew, their brains were all about puppies and helping old ladies poop or something. But I self-confidently felt I had them pretty well figured out. Also, they were orange. Not neon orange. Their skin was this even tanning bed orange all over, which was orange enough. "Nice carrot tans," I said in a low voice, halfway between don't let them hear me and fuck you. But honestly, I only wanted Michelle to hear it. Sound travels, as they say. "What'd you say, Toyota?" one of the frat guys said, turning around and taking a few steps towards us, a giant with that fucked up overly-styled hair. He was impeccably groomed, I had to say that for him. His thick neck had a puka shell necklace around it, just like my own. "I-I was just admiring your golden glow," I told him from over my shoulder. I meant for it to sound flippant. It didn't. Actually, although no one knew, I was just about ready to either shit in my pants or take off running. I couldn't be too sure my being a girl and all would protect me if this guy turned out to be a complete psychopath. I gave a quick glance at Michelle, who was looking like she couldn't believe someone had called me "Toyota." The frat guys were following us now. "You were making some kind of funny crack," the frat guy said, his lower lip out. "You think you're pretty fuckin' funny with your dyke haircut and shit, don't you?" "Is he fucking with us or is he really pissed?" Michelle asked. No one answered. "Fuckin' slanty-eyed lesbo-lookin' fuck, you fuckin' look at me when I'm talking to you," he said and that settled things. Real anger. Real racism. I shook all over and took this deep breath, ready to unload even though I was terrified. Things seemed to have gotten beyond my control. "Keep moving," Tamara said to me. "You're going to get your ass killed over a tan." That gave me an out, the second time since I'd known her Tamara had saved my life. We just kept walking. The frat guys kind of trailed us to the corner and when we turned, they must have given up. I kept checking behind us but I never saw them. "Welcome to our little town," I told Tam. Yeah, most people were cool but you had to deal with frat boys from time to time. Or their junior wannabes at our school. Michelle talked of murder, but I felt a little embarrassed for letting all that happen in front of Tamara. I hadn't exactly come across as cool as I might have liked. While we put up more flyers, I kept an eye out for the frat guys, scared we'd bump into them again or they'd ambush us, jumping at us from behind an ATM at the bank or out of a restaurant or something. My mouth was going to get me killed one day, I was convinced. But our show came first. Chapter Five: If You're So Special... When the Sunday of the show came, I was too busy with prepping everything to mope about unrequited love, being a naked superstar at school and dickhead college guys. We had to haul all our equipment, our amps and instruments and stuff over to the venue, which was this new art center called Audi's Room, named after this guy who'd died in a car crash the previous winter. Most people around town knew the Audi story. His parents had a shit-ton of money and he'd been really popular in the school's art department and on the music scene. If he'd lived, he probably would have moved into doing things like producing music or putting on shows. Maybe founding his own baby music label. Michelle kind of knew him, Emily had him in a class once, I'd probably seen him at shows even though I couldn't have picked him out in a line-up if you spotted me half the people in it. The entertainment section of the Sunday paper that morning (which featured a mention of Silly Monkey that made me scream and my mom almost jump onto our ceiling like a cartoon cat) had a photo of him. He just looked like a nice guy. Anyways, this particular nice guy was dead and his parents had used some of their resources to build this space for artists and musicians and now we were helping open it to the public. Audi's Room was a low, flat-looking building with porches and really huge wheelchair access for some reason. An outside deck, and inside a large open performance space and practice rooms and an art studio off the back hallway. It looked really clean and had this fresh concrete and paint smell. But it had this elementary school vibe for some reason, maybe from how right-angled everything was. Lena handled all the sign-in stuff (she didn't sign anything, actually) and we just waited out by her mom's car until she motioned us to start lugging everything in. Michelle's brother Tony drove up with Michelle and Gina and Gina's drums in his car. Michelle had to sit in Gina's lap because of all the gear. This woman who turned out to be Audi's mom was in charge of the show. She was super nice and nervous as she showed us to this room where we could hang out and wait our turn. "You'll be playing third," she said. She meant third out of five bands. We kind of looked at each other in amazement. Why were we playing third? That meant there were two bands that were more than likely shittier or less experienced than ourselves. I don't think I was the only girl in our band thinking there was no way that was even possible. Then we had to go do sound check, the part I hated because it felt the most like work. Okay, my experience of doing it consisted of our one previous show, but that was enough to convince me I was not a fan. And that's when we started meeting the other bands. All dudes and a couple of girls. One girl was a drummer and she and Gina talked for a bit and the other girl was a bassist, but she was kind of stand-offish and so was I, so we didn't talk. She was tall and blonde with long hair and black-framed glasses. She looked like she should be hanging out with Kim and Kelley Deal, not playing with some junior nobodies in a college town. I wanted to chew my arm off when I saw her bass. It was a Sting Ray. "Oh fuck, look at that," I whispered in awe to Sarah. "Yeah, she's so tall!" Sarah marveled. "Like Emily." "No, her bass." "Oh. It's pretty." "It's more than pretty. Oh my god, I want to fuck it." "Gross." By start time there were about fifty or sixty people there and they were politely enthused about each band in turn. And just as we thought, the opening bands were actively horrible. The first one was the absolute worst. They played all covers, just six songs they ran through twice. They did a barely recognizable version of "Here Comes Your Man" that would have made Frank Black stab himself in the ears with knitting needles. We drank free Cokes from plastic bottles out of a Styrofoam cooler courtesy of Audi's parents. Audi's mom and his sister made small talk with us, everything really pleasant and friendly. The second band wasn't as bad as the first, not that they approached anything like being good. They played all originals, ten songs. It's not that they were so inept musically, but not a person in the band could sing or carry a tune. But they had this small contingent of really close friends who screamed and whistled like they were watching the second coming of Pavement. Which, come to think of it, that band was a complete rip off of. Then it was our turn and we changed places with the band. I kept burping at first from the soda carbonation, but soon my stomach settled. Lena had to help me tune, much to my embarrassment. It made me feel like an amateur. Which I was. I just didn't want to feel like one. At least the openers meant didn't have to overcome anyone's expectations. And it didn't take us long to exceed whatever modest ones anyone had. Sarah made quite the impression, all faeried up and singing her heart out. Lena turned up loud on lead guitar and Gina, no doubt wearing boy's undies under her dark jeans, took out her aggressions on her drums. Even I didn't make too many mistakes on bass. Halfway through our, Emily and some of her friends showed among a general flow of people who were there to see the last two bands. Emily mouthed "I'm sorry" as they found places to stand just in front of the stage monitors. I just smiled at her, then climbed on my amp and jumped off, arms flailing. Stupid little showoff. Everyone laughed and clapped except for Lena, who gave me a really nasty look which caused me to stick out my tongue at her. Emily made the devil horn sign. That was about the highlight of my afternoon so far. Afterwards, we lugged our stuff off stage and made way for the real musicians. Generally, the only thing that took us very long was Gina's drum set, and with Emily and her friends helping, it only took a few minutes to clear out. I sneaked off to recover and do a little post-show adrenaline moping over the whole Tamara thing. "Hey," someone called. I turned and it was Emily and a couple of girls I didn't know. Emily introduced them as Anna and Myung. Anna was kind of dark, Myung was short and kind of curvy. They were in the art program with her. "So you're Amy," Anna said. "Great show." "Thanks." "You guys didn't dress up as anything," Emily said. "I'm disappointed." "We're gonna for Halloween," I said, as if that explained our lack of costumes today. "Oh? Who are you going as?" "I don't know. Maybe Mia from 'Pulp Fiction.' But I don't have a jacket. You know like she wears in the movie?" Emily nodded. "Cool idea. You need like a wig or something." "Well, I don't know if I will or not." "I can get you a jacket, I think. One of my coworkers has one that's kind of like the movie. I'll ask. You want me to?" "Oh, yeah, rad. Please." Myung finally spoke up. "Great show, really." She had a cartoony voice. It was cute. She grinned. "Thanks," I said, smiling mostly because of her voice. I couldn't get over it. "The last time she played, she was drunk," Emily said with this big grin on her face. "Drunk?" Myung said with a gasp that was even more theatrically cartoonish. She looked at me and said, "But you're just a kid!" Wrong thing to say. It felt like she'd hit me in the face with a big wet towel. I went narrowed eyed and started bristling. "I'm sorry," Myung said. Obviously perceptive. "I hurt your feelings. How old are you anyway?" "I'm 15." Myung's dark eyes went wide. She put her hands over her mouth and blushed. "Oh my god." "What?" "I thought... I thought..." Emily was shaking her head. Then Myung blurted, "I thought you were like 11 or 12!" My entire body tensed. I looked at Emily like I was asking her where she found this freak. "No, no, I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Myung offered, her voice getting even higher. She looked like she was going to cry. Grudgingly, I muttered, "It's okay." "I really hurt your feelings," Myung said, and she put out her hand and rubbed my arm. "I'm so sorry. I'm such an airhead. I say stupid things." Now I felt bad for her instead of me. "It's fine. People say that to me all the time." "Okay, rock star," Emily told me. "We have to go." A little sting. Emily was always running off these days. I just nodded and she gave me a quick one-armed hug and off the three of them ran. She didn't even tell me what they were doing or where they were going. No explanation. I went back into Audi's Room and smiled and laughed and pretended I wasn't hurt that my sister Emily's friends thought I was a little kid and Tamara hadn't bothered to show. Chapter Six: ...Why Aren't You Dead? Tam was kind of scarce at school Monday, too. I saw her at our lockers and we spoke, but she seemed like she was brushing me off. Or maybe she wasn't and I was just letting my negativity get out of hand. But oh my fuck, I suffered that week. I kept thinking I'd back out of our Halloween plans and just watch whatever horror movie I could find on AMC or something. Pop some popcorn, hang out with Mom. Maybe ask for a bass for Christmas. But when I told Michelle I wasn't going downtown Halloween, she got super pissed at me and shamed me into agreeing to go. "You already bought that wig and everything," Michelle added after I told her I was going. "I should have bought a baseball bat so I could hit you with it," I groused. "There, there," Michelle said in this mock comforting tone. Emily showed up at our house Halloween afternoon. Which was totally cool, because I'd been kind of put out by her quick disappearance Sunday after the show. I mean, Mom and I rarely got to see her anymore. She, Snowboard Boy and a big group of their friends were all going to a show that night. The Pancakes, this local band, was performing as L7 at a pro-choice show and general Halloween party. There'd be an after-hours disco. None of this was stuff I was going to be able to do. I mean, I had the inclination to stay out all night, but it was also a school night and at some point I was going to ask Mom for help with that bass. It wouldn't do to fuck that up. But I wanted to. I wanted to run crazy so badly, it actually hurt. But I was so happy to see my big sis again so soon without her bitch ass friends. Twice in one week. I told her I felt blessed. "You are," Emily said. She'd also brought me the perfect black Mia Wallace jacket she'd borrowed off the girl from work. "You got it! Fucking awesome!" I shouted when she showed it to me. "No problem," Emily said. "You can have it for the night for the low, low cost of your immortal soul." "Oh, that," I said. "I already sold it. This guy gave me magical powers for it." "Magical beans, maybe." "Who are you going as?" I asked her. "Oh, shit. I don't even want to say." "That means you have to." Emily made this eye-rolling disgusted look as if she couldn't believe how stupid her costume idea was. And it was even stupider than the facial expression led me to believe. She and her friends were going as the Scooby gang. Snowboard Boy was going to be Shaggy and had even grown a goatee. Emily was going as Daphne and had rented the costume: red wig, purple dress. Myung was going to be Velma, in an orange sweater and brown pleated skirt. Thinking back to Sunday, I could picture her as Velma. And poor Anna, the tall blonde, was going to be Scooby, in a velour brown body suit with black spots. She painted her face with shiny brown paint and had on this headband with dog ears. They didn't have a Fred, because Myung's boyfriend was on some sort of field study thing for his anthropology major. Emily told me Myung called him "Fred in spirit" and made that face again. "Well, I fucking hate Myung," I said. "What?" Emily asked. "Why?" "That shit she said. She made me feel like a baby." "You are." I winced. "Okay, I'm sorry," Emily said quickly. "She didn't mean anything by it, Amy. She's just... she's kind of spacey." "Well, she sucks." "No, she doesn't. God, people are going to say stupid things to you. You can't let every little thing get to you." I breathed through my nose and nodded. She was right. "I know. It's just... Tam didn't come to the show and I've been really... really..." I couldn't finish it, but Emily knew what I was getting at. "Is she going with you guys tonight?" "I think so." "Okay, there's your solution. Tell her how you feel." "Oh, fuck. I can't do that!" "Why not?" "I... can't." "Fuck that, Amy. Did I raise you to be a pussy?" "No." "Damn skippy. I fucking raised you to be a man. So fucking tell that girl you want to have her babies already." "I don't wanna have her babies. I just want her to like me the way I like her." "Also don't be so literal minded." "See? I'm so inside-out now about her there's no way I can say anything. I'll say something stupid like, 'I want to be the mother of your children' or something." "Do you?" "No. I don't want to be anybody's mother of anybody's children. I just want her." My eyes started hurting and I was right on the point of making a big idiot of myself by crying in front of my big sister, but instead she told me she'd help me get ready and then she had to go. Most of what I wore, I already owned, and so with Emily as my tutor, I painted my nails a dark plum. "Will they dry in time?" I asked her. "We'll use the hair dryer to make sure," Emily said. And that's exactly what we did. I held my hands out and Emily ran air from the cool setting across them until my nails were dry. Then all I had to do was plop a wig on my head (if I'd still been dating Dallas and growing my hair out for her, I wouldn't have had to wear fake hair), and smear some Monster Blood under my nose, and I was all set. I totally ate up everyone's compliments, but I didn't feel very Uma-like. Emily dropped me off at Sarah's and swore to meet us later outside the Lava Lamp. Before she drove off, she gave me one last piece of semi-advice: "You know what you have to do." I swallowed and nodded. I had no plan to tell Tamara anything outside the ordinary, but my lying nod seemed to please Emily. "See ya," she told me. "Love ya." "I love you, Miss Hannigan," I said to her in childish sing-song. Then I went and rang the McAvoy's front doorbell. While I waited for someone to open it, I stared at the colorful witch decoration either Sarah or her mom had hung on their door. The paper witch had hinged shoulders and elbows. I deviously posed her picking her nose. Then I heard a lot of bumping inside and the door opened. Sarah. Oh my god, Sarah looked totally amazing. She was so beautiful: long, curly red hair, big brown eyes, dressed in this lacy, frilly long white dress that wasn't exactly a wedding gown. It was too gossamer for that. Plus, Dallas and Lena had made her these wings out of wire clothes hangers and tinsel and some gauzy paper and glitter. She looked every fucking inch the fairy queen. Or, as she preferred to spell it "faerie." She had so many books on that stuff. Sarah completely blew my shitty costume away, but she gushed over me like I was really Uma fucking Thurman. "Oh my god, you look just like Mia Wallace! Turn around! That's so cool!" "Yeah, a Japanese Uma," I said. "You're going to totally freak everyone out," Sarah told me, one of her sweet lies. Yeah, sweet, but I wanted to tell her to shut the fuck up, because in her costume Sarah was going to be the Halloween Queen this year, but I let it slide because I was cool like that. And, anyways, Sarah had this way of bringing out my better self. So I gushed like a girly-girl about her, instead. We both got loud, shrill, and breathless; it felt fucking good. We rode downtown with Sarah's boyfriend, Guitar God. Cream Corn Superstar were in one of their periodic breakups due to "artistic differences". They'd probably be back together in a month. Guitar God was dressed like Cornelius, from "Planet of the Apes." He wasn't wearing his mask yet (and it wasn't too good a likeness), but his costume was pretty cool. He'd even made it himself; besides playing bass, he was involved in sci-fi fandom. He'd been a total geek in high school, but had pulled himself out of it in favor of rock and roll, like so many people in our town eventually do. He was bummed, though. A buddy of his was supposed to actually latex-cast some prosthetic ape appliances for him, but hadn't been able to talk his mom into letting him use the oven to bake them. We started our Halloween adventure in El Bandito's, site of our previous one. The restaurant was already crowded, but there weren't so many costumes as yet. The guy behind the counter was a mummy and the one girl working as a server was Waldo as in where's. She had a red knit cap and stripey sweater and glasses. She smiled a lot and Sarah and I told her how much we liked her costume. And then we ordered two tofu burritos and Pepsis to eat while we waited. Guitar God had this big beefy burrito and a beer. After he finished it, he and Sarah went to have a private talk. She came back alone. "Where's your boy?" I asked her. "Girl's night," Sarah said. "He went to girl's night? Where?" I asked. "Nooo," Sarah said in this drawn-out, exasperated way. She grinned. "What are you talking about?" "We're having a girl's Halloween," Sarah said. "We'll meet him at Lava Lamp when we go see your sister." "Ohhhh..." I gave her a little one-armed hug. "Bros before hos." My bro Sarah nodded and said, "Uh huh." She was happy. So was I. When stupid Gina showed up, we saw immediately she'd wimped out on us. She didn't dress as Mulder. In fact, she wasn't dressed at all. Lena, on the other hand, made a reasonable Scully. She had a red wig, a dark suit and a fake FBI badge clipped to her lapel and a fake cellphone she kept holding up to her ear. Some older people made her and server Waldo pose for photos together, which was cool. They didn't ask to include me, which was even cooler. Then, Tamara walked in, dressed like the Bride of Frankenstein. Lightning bolt streaks in her hair, and this tight, white mummified looking outfit. What a goddess. My heart went all pitter-pat, and it was pretty obvious every guy in the place wanted her, even Willis. She grinned that big, toothy smile of hers all night, and pretty much basked in the attention. She told me I looked really cool. I rolled my eyes and stuck out my tongue. Hardly anyone even knew who I was supposed to be. If I'd been white and as tall as Tamara, yeah, I would've rocked the house. As it was, Uma Amy got lost in the crowd. "Look at Sarah, though," I told her. "She looks fucking beautiful." Tamara had a wistful look on her face, lit by the garish aqua and red neon. "Yeah. Doesn't she?" College towns and Halloween just went together like peanut butter and chocolate; plus it was a Tuesday, but everyone had their various freaks on. It didn?t matter to the university students. They could blow off Wednesday classes or whatever. And the townies mostly worked restaurant jobs that started in the afternoons so they?d have their nights free for chasing the whole rock music dream thing. So what did they care about it being practically the middle of the week? The only people who would be sleepy in an educational environment would be my friends and me. So the night was filled with college-age robots and Han Solos, Playboy bunnies, guys in raggedy blonde wigs and fake tits. A chain of Smurfs with stupid, baggy Smurf hats and their faces painted blue. Bloody ER doctors, sexy nurses, ghouls, ghosts, goths, vampires. A guy wearing nothing but masking tape. I guess we kind of forgot ourselves as we walked through the costumed crowd (nuttier than the "Star Wars" cantina), because at one point, we wandered into Greek territory, a couple of bars in the middle of the next block where the frat guys and sorority girls hung out. I went from being surrounded by drunk Smurfs and Powerpuff Girls (Hey, Buttercup, my namesake!) to drowning in a sea of drunk guys with baseball caps and girls in black flares. Definitely like being a Shark on Jet turf. And the Jets found us. They weren't in costumes, unless you counted frat boy-wear as a costume, but it was the three orange-tanned boneheads from a few days before. They were stumbling around with these dazed, stupid looks on their faces, still smirking at times, muttering about faggots and stuff whenever someone in a costume drifted by. Then my friend frat boy and I made eye contact. I totally stumbled in mid-step but somehow managed to get that front foot down and keep walking only somewhat off-stride. My plan was to just brush past him as if the other day had never happened. I mean, what were the chances he'd recognize me in my wig and make-up? One hundred percent. Just as I got alongside him, his hand shot out and wrapped completely around my bicep and he jerked me back so hard I almost got whiplash. Like a puppetmaster, he kind of planted me right in front and started breathing his pukey breath in my face. I almost gagged as much from the smell as from the sudden surge of outright terror. "Oh, hey," he said, his voice kind of thick. "It's that fuckin' little lezbo with the mouth. Toyota, the funny girl." He was still holding my arm and it fucking hurt. I wasn't sure if I should try to pull away or if that would make things worse. So I just froze. One of the other dudes gave my chest a really strong poke with his fingers and I swore if he'd pushed harder he could have made a hole between my ribs. It was like being shot. "Think you're hot, huh, Toyota?" he said. "Ow, fucker," I gasped. He kept trying to poke me with that finger and I started slapping his hand away. The first guy let go of me and they were both pushing me. "You think you're fuckin' hot shit," the first guy said and his voice was shot through with pure hatred. It was so strong, I never thought anyone could feel that way about another human being. "Fuckin' slant eyed carpet-fuckin-munchin' faggot whore!" "That didn't even make any sense," I protested. Did he hate me because I'd been a smart ass? Did he hate me because I was a girl? Was it that I was Asian? Was it that I was a lesbian? A townie? Probably all of those things at once, and probably not even he knew the source of it. It was in him. It mattered why he hated me, it really did, but I didn't have time to parse the irrationality of it all. All that I knew was all that hate had violence backing it up. I was going to get killed for being any of those things, or all of them. Then there was this lightning flash blur and it turned out Tamara had shoved the guy from behind. He took this kind of faltering leaping jump forward and I swung both my arms at him, hands open, palms out. I landed maybe five or six (who was counting?) open-handed slaps before I suffered full-on vertigo as the world whirled upside down when someone lifted me bodily off the ground and slammed me into the concrete. At first it had felt like flying, as if I'd taken wing. And then it felt like all my cells just colliding at once into some immoveable object. Which was the earth itself. All my oxygen expelled in mid- breath. I felt a bolt of pain all at once. People were both stepping on me and over me while I lay there unable to breath and I was vaguely aware of bicycles, like bicycles zooming in from every direction. I couldn't get up at the moment, but I heard someone asking me if I was all right. It was a man's voice. Someone was running away, I knew that much as my brain kind of started putting things together again. Function returning. Pain subsiding. A great gulp of much-needed oxygen The man, who turned out to be a bicycle cop in tight black shorts to go with his blue uniform shirt (it had the badge printed on it in gold and black ink) and his shiny black helmet reflecting all the street lights and red brake lights around us, asked me if I was okay. I think I nodded, but I wasn't sure about either the okay part or the nodding part. Sarah, her makeup running down her cheeks, her eyes even shinier than the cops helmet, was there wiping my nose. I looked down and there was quite a bit of red. I felt lightheaded. "She's gonna faint," the cop said and he caught me lightly with one arm and helped me down to the ground again. We heard a loud whoop and a cop car stopped in the traffic. Wow, things were really busy. As I sat there collecting myself and letting Sarah wipe my nose with a tissue that was quickly losing its effectiveness, I realized we were now in the center of a ring of people. The frat guys were on the curb with their hands behind them and cops leaning on them bodily, making sure they didn't run again. So many cops. An army of cops. I mean, there seemed to be cops everywhere, jabbering into the radios clipped to their shirts, talking to Tamara, Gina and Michelle. They were talking about me, too, the cops and the gawkers. "Doesn't weigh more than a buck oh nothing," "Fuckin' body slammed her ass, I mean BOOM and down!" and "Holy shit, that's a girl. I thought it was like a little queer dude or something" and "Holy shit, fuckin' asshole body slammed a girl" and "Fuckin' frat dudes!" Someone was yelling about how much he hated frat guys, some girl was jawing at them from the crowd, cops were telling everyone to get moving and not obstruct the right-of-way or something. Now I had presence of mind to wriggle my teeth. None were loose. I had visions of going to the same dentist who had given Patrick his nice, white fakes but it seemed I'd escaped toothlessness so I could risk my biters at the skate park again. Blood from my freely gushing nose got on my hand but what hurt worse were my left hip and my left shoulder where I'd landed on them. I'd been kind of lucky, though. Instead of coming down on the shoulder proper and snapping my collar bone, I'd somehow landed more on my left shoulder blade. I still felt crushed on that side, but I was pretty sure nothing was broken. Then, I noticed the Bride of Frankenstein beside me. "Way to go, Amy," Tamara said. "What is it with you?" I asked weakly. I really wanted to know. I laughed, from relief, from happiness, then kind of hitched because I was sore all over. "That's the third time you've saved my ass." "Two times." "No. Three." We didn't get to argue about it because it was time for some paramedics to check me out. No broken bones, not even my nose. They cleaned me up, made sure I didn't have a concussion. I gave my statement to the cops, and I felt really sleepy when they told us we could go. I wasn't sure what would happen to the frat guys who'd attacked me. Then I learned they hadn't just attacked me. Gina had gotten her shirt front crumpled but she'd managed to pull away, and Michelle had been jostled a bit. Obviously, I'd gotten the worst of it, but I was going to be fine minus a few days of soreness (the paramedics warned me). "We're supposed to meet your sister," Gina said, checking the boy's watch she wore. I told her I just wanted to go home now and they could all go meet her and tell her what happened, which everyone agreed was the best plan. "How are you guys getting home?" Gina wanted to know. That's when Tamara offered to split a cab home with me. Something distracted me before I could agree. It was Sarah spazzing out. She was biting her lip and kind of flipping her eyes over from me to Tam. Nodding. "What are you doing, you freak?" I asked her. She gave me this coy look and said, "Oh... nothing..." We all walked back to El Banditos together, and still managed to enjoy the scenes. Some guys dressed in gorilla suits beat bongos in front of a bank, and assorted creatures danced underneath the streetlights to the crazy, jungle beat. I felt like Tamara's girlfriend, and sort of imagined I was. At the very least, I was under her protection and it felt good. When we got back to the restaurant where we'd started the evening in what seemed like months ago now, everyone said their goodbyes. It was close to midnight, when the magical night of Halloween would turn into the essentially meaningless first day of November, and we'd accomplished about all we could downtown. "Hardcore Halloween, dude," Michelle said. "I wanna party with you every year, Mulan." "Party on this this," I told her and shot a bird. "Well, at least your costume looks more authentic now," was all she said in response. She went to hug me but I begged her not to. I was a little concerned I might break. They went in search of more fun, and that was the last I saw of my other friends that night. Elsewhere, bands played and people danced and got drunker still, but at El Bandito's, things were thinning out and the sidewalk was starting to empty of people as Tamara led me safely to a small minivan that belonged to City Cab. Nestled in our seats with a drunk college couple who were like two seconds away from orgasm much to the driver's dismay (he kept telling them to cool it), we rode back to my house. I felt strangely at peace. Kind of relaxed. Having the window down and cool fall air tickling my face helped keep me awake. With Tamara there in the darkness with me, headlights and streetlights moving across our faces, the driver checking the rearview mirror of his love machine, I wanted the ride to last forever. Blood drying on my shirt and borrowed jacket nothwithstanding. All too soon we reached my house and I let the driver know where to pull up. Next to our mailbox with Komori on it in metal stick-on letters Emily and I had done a while back. "Wait for a sec," Tamara told the driver, who, amazingly agreed. The lovebirds didn't seem to notice we'd even stopped. For a moment, we just stood there just off my yard, discarded candy wrappers blowing with the autumn leaves in the gutter and along the curb. "Thanks for finding us a ride," I told Tam. "And thanks for bailing me out downtown." "Hey, can I ask you something?" Tamara said. "Sure." "That nude painting of you that Dallas did? What's the story with that?" My mouth got gummy and my stomach ached suddenly. Kind of that "bad report card" feeling I remembered getting years before, before I became a Japanese teen, before I became Amy. I really wasn't in the mood for late night/early morning confessionals. I just said, "It's kinda... complex. I-I'll explain at school tomorrow. Maybe." "I know all about complexity," Tamara said. "But if you don't want to talk about it-" She interrupted herself, slid towards me and kissed me on the lips. I flinched, and felt terrible, because Tamara instantly shrank back as a result. I'd never seen her at a loss before; she'd always been so self- possessed and calm. "I'm sorry," Tamara said. "I was wrong. I just had to find out-" "Shut up," I told her, and I went for it.