Amy 30: Crouching Tamara, Hidden Amy free porn video

Amy 30: Crouching Tamara, Hidden Amy Copyright 2015 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) 2015 Amy Komori. All rights reserved. Chapter One: I Can't Say I'm Good at Cleaning It, Baby So the result of losing my virginity was I came down with the flu and felt like total shit for about a week. Well, not total shit. I mean, the first person I was ever with as a girl was Tamara and I was head over inline skates. So in a way the flu inside me was her gift to me and my resulting fever the burning of my intense love for her. It was therefore like partial shit. Maybe 80% shit and the 20% of bubbling, fizzy love bubbles like I was a human glass of Coke. Anyways, the flu. I missed some school and Sarah came through for me by delivering my homework assignments which I did diligently in bed wearing my pajamas with tissue stuck up my nose to keep the snot from dripping on my notebooks and textbooks and down the front of shirt. Tam and I talked on the phone a lot, too. She was still a little shaky from her own bout with the flu. Not long after I recovered, we found time to do it again, only this time both of us were mostly healthy. I was kind of shaky and weak but she supplied enough energy for both of us and by the end of it I was shakier than before and felt like a plate of spaghetti, all warm and wet and loose. By Christmas we hadn't done it a whole lot of times. It was difficult finding private places where no one would suspect what we were up to. Mostly no one mean Tam's parents. Her dad was this huge ex-Marine and her mom was this tiny adorably cute person who always wanted me to eat things she'd made whenever I visited. "You're too skinny," she'd tell me. She'd force me to sit at their dining table and she'd stuff me with food and make me laugh by telling me stories about her day and then I'd have to go home and tell Mom I was good and didn't need dinner that night. But as nice as Tam's parents both were (although her super-loud and very demonstrative dad scared the bejeezus out of me to be perfectly honest), Tam didn't think they were ready for her to be sexually active. And especially not with another girl. Which was similar to the reason I also didn't tell my mom. I didn't think she would care so much about my being with another girl- she was totally unbigoted about that stuff and knew I was in a relationship-- but I also didn't think it was information she strictly needed to function in her everyday life. I could be pretty open with her about a lot of stuff but it also felt right to keep certain secrets from her. On the other hand, Emily figured it out faster than anyone and her only response was a mild "Oh. Well, don't get hurt, okay?" before we got onto other, safer topics. "You're not going to tease me?" "No. Why would I?" "Because you're a mean bitch?" "Not today. You're in luck. I'm happy for you." "And you don't want details?" "Fuck no. I don't tell you about everything I do." That was a huge relief. Usually whenever I did things in my life I had to swim through a stormy ocean of her snarky remarks. The thing was, she was really perceptive about so much and if she realized something she said really popped my balloon she'd back off. I mean, as mean and cruel as she was- and she'd taught me to be that way, too- she wasn't actually mean or cruel at all. Plus, she'd kind of matured on that front. She was still wicked funny and made fun of me as her little sister but now I had to admit it was softer and there were a lot more sincerely encouraging things she'd say. Well, she'd always really been encouraging in her way, but it was usually after the mockery. I, on the other hand, having been reset and changed and all that was still sharp tongued and kind of nasty at times. Maybe I would grow out of it, too. Or maybe someone would murder me. Only time would tell! Anyways, it probably boiled down to our being sisters. We wanted to make sure we were up to date and everyone was treating us the right way, but we didn't have to go all out, either. There were things we had to section off from each other. And Sarah. Super-smart Sarah knew pretty quickly because she was almost as insightful as Emily that way, but while her first inclination was to throw a spaz fit (she also blew a big snot bubble out of her nose because she'd come down with the flu probably from being around me, too), she also immediately swore herself to secrecy. It wasn't that I had to hide that I was gay, gay, gay for girls. It was just it was private business and we didn't sit around talking about that stuff all the time. I did find out pretty quickly I was the first person among my friends to take a relationship to this level. I finally felt more advanced than everyone. Being a year younger stunk but now I had this more mature life experience. As far as the topic at hand itself went, it was great. At least I thought it was. The first time was kind of awkward with Tam being sick and all, we've discussed the second time and the third time was even better than the others as we kind of figured out what worked for us. It also turned out Tam wasn't super experienced herself. I wouldn't have cared if she'd been with a million people, but that kind of surprised me nevertheless. She'd been to Europe and all that. Now that we were doing this, we kind of filled each other in on our sexual histories. Mine had mostly to do with various pillows and blankets, the arm of our sofa, a shower head and my hand and fingers. I had been around the house, as it were. Tam had been with exactly one guy and one girl before me. She told me she thought the guy was actually better in some ways than the girl, but that being with me was better than either. I wasn't sure I believed her on that score. I mean, really, that was exactly the kind of thing you'd expect someone to tell you when you were in a relationship anyways and also when it came right down to it, I didn't know what I was doing and Tam wasn't a huge help. It was all so experimental, trial and error, hit and miss. Press one button, go POP! Press another and kind of go, Well that wasn't as good as I'd hoped. But it was heady! Oh my fucking god, how heady it was! I was doing it, I was in love, I was now feeling experienced in the ways of the world. It was getting better each time as we zeroed in on what our bodies enjoyed most. And afterwards, I loved snuggling against her and falling asleep with Tam wrapped around me warmer and softer than any blanket could possible hope to be. Oh, and school, which was more and more becoming a nuisance to be avoided in favor of going to other places in our minds. Which I did. Definitely. Where I usually went was wherever Tamara was. We had side-by-side lockers, but it wasn't enough to see her in the mornings, and then pine for her all day until we met again at Gina's. I wanted to be with her all day long, and all night long. Sometimes, I even wanted to be her, so badly I ached. Tamara, tall, amazing Tamara. Long, lean, caramel Tamara who slid along with rocking hips and a mysterious smile, who filled me with dazzled, unfocused energy that made me squirm at my desk and doodle instead of taking notes. The teachers started giving me a lot of grief for being a "distraction," or a "disruption." Hey, if I wasn't going to learn anything, why should everyone else? "Amy Komori!" the teachers would snap, lessons momentarily forgotten. "Would you please stop... wiggling?" So that's how everything was when the cast came off my broken wrist, and we all stared at my sickly, pale little arm in the garage where we'd gathered to practice one afternoon. "Disgustomatic," I said as I held it up. "You should get some of that self-tanning stuff," Gina said, all sarcastic. "Fuck that," I replied. "I'm going to skate my ass off until it's back to normal." So now that I had two functioning hands or wrists again, Christmas came almost like cutting off the cast magically caused it. And the main thing about that was I got a bass. Finally! My mom and Emily pitched in together and ordered it online. It wasn't some expensive top of the line model. It was simply this Fender-licensed Squier P-Bass in green. It had a dark rosewood fingerboard and a white pickguard. I got it a couple of days before Christmas, actually. It came in this big cardboard box and there was no hiding it so Mom asked me if I wanted to open it then or wait until Christmas morning. "NOW!" I squeaked, trembling all over. I couldn't stop smiling as I tore into the big-ass staples and Mom was all-over smiles, too. Double smilers. I swear I was so excited I came super close to peeing in my pants. Once I got it open I practically fucking cried it was so beautiful. I must have said, "Thank you!" a million times and I spent the rest of the evening in my room plunking away on it even though it wasn't in tune at all and I couldn't tune it. I tried. I really did. So I settled for sitting on my bed pretending I sounded just like Kim Deal. On Christmas morning, I found big bass picks, an electronic tuner and a strap in my stocking. I was stoked. Mom cried. Lena was very happy with my bass, and that meant I could be even more pleased with it as well. She didn't care that it wasn't some expensive model. To her it meant I was committed to the idea of our band and it also meant I wouldn't knock chunks out of her own bass. "It's actually got a pretty decent tone," Lena said as she played it after tuning it for me at the first practice in which I used it. It wasn't too long after New Year's and our winter vacation was over. Things were kind of cold off and on. That day was kind of a pleasantly cool and brightly sunny day, just right for playing in the garage. I blew my bangs out of my eyes. I hadn't had my hair cut since having it almost all buzzed off a while back and now as the year ended it was longer, heavier and messier on a day-by-day basis. Not that I ever really had, but I really didn't resemble Jenny Shimizu at all, which was a little bit of a downer. On the other hand, I also no longer looked at all like Buttercup from the Powerpuff Girl anymore, either. For about a month I was Buttercup more than I was Amy but hardly anyone called me that anymore with the big black blob on my head now. I still had a bunch of other nicknames to take up the slack, though. Anyways, I had to deal with hair in my eyes so it was sort of like being in 8th grade again. I was always blowing on them. Lena handed me the bass and I slipped the strap over my shoulder. It had been weeks but it still felt great being two-handed. It really did. "You guys ready?" Gina asked from behind the drums. "Fire away," I told her. She clicked her sticks in time and we started in on one of our songs. Wow, I was totally playing my own bass! I'm pretty sure I was biting the shit out of my tongue from concentration and it wasn't helping me stay on the beat or one the right strings with my fingers, but I didn't care. Just having fingers back and a bass to call my own were enough to make me positively giddy. We finished and Gina was like, "Green Destiny." "Green whatnow?" Sarah asked. "That 'Crouching Dragon' thing," Lena said. She asked Gina if it was good or not. Gina shrugged. She hadn't seen it. None of us had. But Gina insisted I name my bass Green Destiny all the same, so I did, wondering along with Sarah what a green destiny actually was. What we were actually trying to do was get our songs down pat enough to record that demo so we could get some shows a bit more regularly at the Mixer. Sorrel asked me to have us do it. Sorrel had me scared to even breathe the few times I'd been around her since my big night. I just planned to have Gina and Lena drop off the tape when we finished it and avoid the place as much as possible until we actually had shows there. We weren't really old enough for anything more than all-ages stuff, but during winter break, we'd finally gotten these pretty decent fake id's that claimed we were all 22. If Sorrel was cool enough to pretend she believed that when she obviously knew otherwise we were almost all set. "One more time," Lena said, blowing away our conversation like so much smoke. "We have important stuff to do." Gina counted us off again. When we finished, we kind of just stared at each other. It felt fucking fantastic to be together again. Sure, we'd botched it (Lena made a rare mistake, going into the bridge too early and forcing us to skip a chorus), but we'd effortlessly covered up, instead of grinding to an embarrassing stop. Even my occasional fumble-fingers didn't seem like much of a problem. "All right," Tamara said, clapping. She'd been perched on her customary stool. "Let's play 'Feel This Way,'" I ordered, because I didn't want to lose momentum. Once again, my girl Gina led the way. We had about 20 songs at the time. "Feel This Way" was a Lena song, with a little musical contribution from yours truly, and words by Sarah, who, timid as she was, had this thing about not wanting to sing words by other people (except for the Tori Amos, Liz Phair and Pretenders covers and whatnot we did). Anyways, "Feel This Way" was one of our newer songs, and we were still on our honeymoon with it. Plus, it was pretty easy to play, just 4 chords on the verses, then this minor chord (my suggestion, and it completely made the song) in the chorus, and Lena's guitar solo. "Guitar Genius needs to get that 4-track over here," I said to no one in particular. Not cool, because every time I criticized Guitar Genius, Sarah got a little defensive. "He will," Sarah reassured me, just the faintest strain in her voice. Creamed Corn Superstar and I definitely weren't getting along these days, including Guitar Genius, and we hadn't been for a year. No one gave a shit at first and they all thought it was cute whenever I said rude things about those guys, but now Sarah and Guitar Genius were a serious couple. So it was pulling Sarah apart. She hated Bob as much as I did but she wanted total harmony between the two people she loved most in the world besides her own mom. "He said he can get it for us this weekend." "Cool," I told her. I wanted to settle her down. I'm pretty sure she expected me to start mocking Guitar Genius and the others or launching into a rant I'd perfected about Bob and what he'd done to Michelle, and if Sarah hadn't been there, I would have. Instead, I yawned and stretched and closed my eyes, my body tingling from all the released tension and I said, "Aw yeah, feelin' good." Yeah, feelin' good. Busy as hell, and riding the love rollercoaster, but that pretty much summed up things to that point. By Friday, we knew Guitar Genius hadn't been bullshitting, and this guy he knew, Jordan Phelps, was actually coming by Gina's that Saturday to record us. Chapter Two: My Heart's Content That Friday after school we were all downtown watching these guys skateboard around the sidewalks and annoy people when we ran into Dana from the Leland Palmers and she remembered Sarah and Lena. She told us her band was playing that night at the Mixer and she would put us all on the guest list if we were interested. Well, I wanted to see the Leland Palmers again but I wasn't too interested in seeing Sorrel. I frowned or scowled and said nothing and let everyone else decide. Even though it kind of made my stomach hurt a little, told Dana we would be happy to celebrate Silly Monkey's coming of age on the local scene by catching her show at the Mixer and schmoozing with Sorrel. Really, I wasn't too pleased about the social aspect of this particular plan at all because it felt like returning to the scene of a crime. Everyone else had been back in the past few weeks except me. The reason being, Sorrel had seriously macked on my little ass right in front of Tamara. Flattering at first and then confusing and then scary for some reason. Anyways, we at burritos and hung out downtown like looking in record stores and jewelry stores and when it was time to hit the Mixer we got right in. Now that we were all buddies with Sorrel (and I was a potential fuck despite the fact her girlfriend, Frieda, worked the bar there), the fuckwad at the door let us in without even checking our ids. He just looked at us from under his greasy bangs and nodded without even a smile. Then he checked out our asses as we went in. I got a little pissed, but Tamara just shook her head, so I followed her lead and chilled. Unlike that one magical night the previous fall, I didn't wear a short little dress (even though Tamara sort of took charge of my style as part of my penance and really wanted me to). Nope. I had on my trusty black kanji tank and these red slacks, plus my old gray hoody with frayed cuffs on sleeves that were just a bit too long for me. And some ratty gray suede sneakers that still had Sarah's name written on them from over a year before. "Amy!" Sorrel cried, and swept from behind the bar to greet us. "I haven't seen you in a while. Where have you been hiding?" "I've been around," I said pleasantly. Little smile, a glance at a bemused Tamara. Sorrel gave us hugs, and didn't seem to put anything special in mine. She gabbed it up with Sarah and Gina, while Lena hung back. Sorrel tried to draw Lena into the conversation with some compliments on her guitar playing, but Lena shrugged them off. Even though I was more and more convinced everyone should have fucking known she was the best guitarist in town, guy or girl. The first couple of bands, Punch Drunk and Jesus K. Rice, were pretty good. Kind of thrashy/poppy, like a lot of bands in town. Not as geeky as Weezer, but not as bullshit as Greenday. That part of the show was a total sausage party as twiggy boys moshed and this bloated blonde guy in a black t-shirt tried to stage dive, but no one caught him and his split his scalp. With bright red blood streaming down his sweaty face, he looked like one of the pro wrestlers I remembered from my boyish childhood, BA (before Amy). It didn't slow him down one bit, though. I didn't drink much (hilarious comedian Sorrel jokingly offered me a Kamikaze, the drink that had so kicked my ass), but everyone else did. They got very silly, which I was more than happy to join in on despite being the designated non-driving queen of sobriety. Gina kept asking to go backstage to the ready-room where our idol, Mitsuyo, had once drawn some manga-looking graffiti on the wall. Tamara yawned a lot, as she was prone to do, and Sorrel barely talked to me, though she did offer to light my cigarette and whatnot. Yeah, a cigarette had magically sprouted from my mouth for some reason. I'd asked one of the moshers for one just to see what would happen and he'd dug into a pack and given it to me with no problem. I thought I looked cool as hell with it between my lips and even more so after it was lit. All in all, it was a casual evening. Frieda glared at me from behind the bar and we left before the Leland Palmers actually finished, but we'd informed Sorrel our demo would soon be in her hands. Before we left, she showed us her newest tattoo (she had a lot of really cool ones), a crane. "It means long life and prosperity in Japan," she told us, with a look my way. Oh yeah, Japan. Of which I knew jack-shit despite my home girl appearance. Still, the crane looked pretty cool. "Did it hurt?" Sarah asked. Sorrel just kind of grinned and said, "A little. Get me that tape, okay?" Because her parents weren't at home that night, Tamara got me alone after we dropped off the other girls, and we did our thing together. She always claimed the afterglow was best, when we snuggled our naked girl bodies against each other and felt all soft and warm, but I think she was lying. I, on the other hand, made no bones about it. I loved the snuggling, but the sex part was what I dug most. I mean, that night in particular she made me come repeatedly. Who wouldn't love that? "I'm glad you're growing out that hair," Tamara purred as she ran her fingers through it. I felt like a child in her long brown arms. She was so much taller than I was, so she kind of pulled me upwards towards her face and wrapped me up. "Not that I had much of a choice," I told her, but we both knew I was bullshitting. She'd kind of told me she would like it if I let it go, but if I hadn't started growing my hair, we'd still have been cool with each other. But it made things smoother between us. Like our skin, which was like silk. I'd never known anything could feel like that, her on me. Tamara was kind of conceited in a way, I thought as I lay there entwined with her. On one hand, she acted like she took her hotness for granted, but actually she still worked at it like she had during her brief modeling career. And she drank a lot of water and did all these other things, too. Like exfoliating and moisturizing. I'd never really given a shit about that stuff, but I started doing it, too, even though I'd always felt too soft; at one time, I wanted to be a manly dyke, but girlishness got in the way. But Tam had a real sense of herself, unlike anyone else I knew. Except maybe Heidi Fleegleman, head cheerleader and my personal enemy; only with Tamara, it didn't veer into bitchiness and she never talked about herself. So instead of resenting it, I just accepted it and kind of adapted myself to it. I even wanted to be like Tamara, to a certain extent. So I did the things she told me, and even bought clothes she recommended. She didn't fuck with my skating persona, but she polished off some of my Amy edges. "Guess what?" Tamara said after we'd kissed for a while. "What?" "I've decided I think you're prettier than Jenny Shimizu." "Please don't start that shit again. I'm so fucking tired of everyone saying I look like everyone else." "I'm serious, Amy. She's beautiful and all, but you're kinda... You're like... I don't know. Not as harsh? Does that make sense? It's like you're soft and hard at the same time. It's a really nice mix." "I am not soft at all." "Yes, you are. And I think you like being soft more than you let on. That's why you're always acting like such a badass." "And now she's analyzing me," I said, with a sigh. Tamara had this very direct way about her, too. Part of being confident, I guess. The first time I ever met her, she'd really fucked me mentally without meaning to, or even trying. I had no defense against her, mainly because she was right all the time. I mean it. She was always fucking right. But she'd smile afterwards, and throw her head back and maybe laugh, so it was cool. "When are you going skating again?" Tamara asked, to change the subject. She was cool that way, too. "Maybe Sunday, if we finish our demo," I told her. Then my eyes went wide. "Oh shit! What time is it?" "3:37 AM," she told me, as she peered over my shoulder at the alarm clock. "Oh fuck," I said. "I've gotta get home. We're supposed to meet at Gina's at 10." Which is exactly what we did, although I was very out of it. At least I wasn't hung over like Gina. She looked like total shit. Her dark hair was usually all messy, but on purpose. Not this time. Even her cute freckles had a greenish tint. Guitar Genius was there when I showed up, which was a bummer, even if his being there was actually the whole point of the rest of us being there. I didn't know what his deal was, but he didn't like me at all. Maybe I was too demanding on Sarah's time. Or maybe he picked up on the fact I didn't like him. Or maybe Bob had been filling him with anti-Amy propaganda. I wasn't trying to break anyone up. I just didn't like anyone from Creamed Corn Superstar anymore. "Oh, hi, Amy," Guitar Genius said, all disappointed in a way he couldn't hide. Maybe he was hoping I'd gotten hit by a car or a bus or something on the way there. "What's up, Beck?" I said. He liked to say he looked like Beck although he didn't. Not at all. Beck seemed like a little guy and Guitar Genius was actually talk and dark and pretty good looking in a monobrowish sort of way. I'd decided to humor the guy and be all bantery and friendly, for Sarah's sake. Plus, it totally shocked him. Which I liked, because I didn't want people to get too complacent around me. "This is Jordan," Guitar Genius told me, and pointed out this really heavy, pale guy all in black with a cobra tattoo on his calf. He had long, curly hair and a goatee and looked like a total child molester. Plus, he had those sick sores fat guys get on their arms. He barely looked at me and went back to setting up microphones and sweating and breathing hard. I mouthed "Fucking loser" at Gina, and she cracked up, but wouldn't share the joke with anyone. Then she grabbed her forehead because she was obviously in pain. The demo recording went pretty well. Except Guitar Genius and Jordan wanted us to lay down the tracks individually, starting with Gina and me, then Lena and, finally, Sarah's vocals. "Dude, we're not trying to make a fucking masterpiece," Gina told him. "And anyways, I feel like shit. I just wanna get this over with." "Look," Guitar Genius tried to explain. "It'll sound more professional that way. We'll be able to mix it and adjust the levels." "I want an accurate audio documentation of our live sound," Gina replied. "Not some soulless, polished studio piece of shit." She looked at me, sort of my cue to back her up with a cutting remark, but I just shrugged and said, "Yeah, let's just do it the quick and dirty way." "Okay," Guitar Genius said. "If you want it to sound like total shit..." "Yeah," I told him. Then, I broke my unilateral cease fire. "We want it to sound like total shit. That's what we're going for. The Shit Sound." "That's what you're gonna get," he said. I let it go. Humor him, Amy. I could tell Sarah was getting agitated, and the last thing we needed was for her to start crying. And Lena was fooling with the knobs on her amp and acting like she was deaf. So we knocked out 5 songs on a Jordan's Tascam 4-track, and Guitar Genius said he was going to take the tape home with him to clean it up and make some copies. He and Jordan started unplugging things. "I think it sounded pretty good," Guitar Genius told Sarah. She'd been extremely nervous and I had to admit he'd done a great job of keeping her calm and on-task. Too bad he was in Cream Corn Superstar. Sarah helped Guitar Genius put some stuff in his car while everyone else except Jordan and I put away mics and whatnot into boxes. Jordan hadn't said much to anyone but Guitar God all afternoon, but now while we were alone together he asked me some stuff about the band, like how long we'd been together and all that. I kept answering him and before I knew it he had me laughing with some well-placed Simpsons quotes. It turned out I'd been totally unfair in my initial assessment of him, but that was an old story. As fucked-up looking as the poor guy was, he was actually really nice when you talked to him one-on-one. He obviously had some personality issues or was terminally shy for the most part and that made him seem standoffish and he'd cultivated that as a result. I felt proud of myself for coming up with that on the fly. I felt somehow more mature. A couple of years before when I was still unsure of my gender I would have been freaked out having to interact with him and turned it into an ordeal. But still it was taking forever for Sarah and Guitar Genius to get back from the driveway and I had no idea what Gina, Lena and Tamara were doing in the house. "So, you seeing anyone?" Jordan asked in this casual way that took me off guard. It took me so off guard, I actually told him, "Nah." "Oh. Interesting." "Wait. Did you just ask me if I was seeing anyone?" I asked when my brain caught back up with the conversation. "Yeah. Like maybe you wanna see a show sometime or something." It wasn't phrased as a question, but it wasn't too hard to understand he was asking me out. I kind of laughed a little. "I might see you at a show," I said. "But actually, I am seeing someone." His chin kind of went up like he was going to nod, then he smiled. I couldn't tell if he believed me or not, but all he said was, "Ahhh. Okay, that's cool." Jordan shrugged, grabbed up the last of his gear and trucked it on out of the garage. Sarah, Guitar Genius and he came back and then the door opened and the other three missing pieces spilled out of the house giggling at some private joke of their own. "Okay, Silly Monkey," Guitar Genius said. "I will see you later." Sarah left with him, and the rest of us hung out for a while. Chapter Three: Got Two Eyes, But We Only Got One Mouth Tamara and I had lunch at this vegetarian restaurant and then she drove me to the skatepark the next day, and I told her all about the recording session and what a couple of assholes Guitar Genius and his recording friend Jordan were. I probably spent way too much time describing and ragging on Jordan because Tam just smiled and told me she pretty much knew Guitar Genius hated me but she was sure Jordan had the hots for me. "No fucking way!" I shouted. "It's pretty obvious when you step back and study the situation," Tamara replied. "Plus, I don't think you realize sometimes the affect you have on people." "What affect? I piss them off?" "No. You make them... you know." "I know what?" Then she told me. I laughed it off at first, but as she talked, it kind of made sense, and it kind of scared the fuck out of me. Because what she told me was all this stuff about my being actually beautiful or whatnot. I brought out my standard protests, about not having big breasts ("I don't either," she said), and being short ("Yeah, but you've got an outsized personality," she said). Then she started listing people, but I really didn't want to hear it. People asked my friends about me all the time, especially Sarah, because she was the most approachable. Tamara named about 10 guys from school, then added Dallas. "But I don't like guys," I told her. "What about Dallas? She's not a guy." "She's just mixed up." "And Sorrel? Is she mixed up, too?" That made it not embarrassing and cute and flattering anymore. That made it all too real and made my heart close as if Tam had zipped it up really fast. In fact, you could almost hear the zipper noise, that plastic whirring sound they made. I was shaking mad at her for even saying that name and bringing up all the dumbness Sorrel had made me put myself through. "Oh my fucking god! Stop it!" "And me? Am I mixed up?" "I'm going to skate now," I said. I got out of the car and slammed the door. Tam drove off without even saying goodbye and I slouched to the side of the vert. "'Sup?" Michelle said. "Was that Tam?" "Yeah." I couldn't bring myself to even look at Michelle. My mind was whirring away, replaying my conversation with Tam. "You guys have a fight?" "No. It's something else." "Oh." She didn't ask me to elaborate. At least Michelle was cool like that. She kept up a stream of movie scenes and crazy wisecracks and shit talk to try to keep my mind off my problems. Very personal problems. But I couldn't participate with her or even concentrate. Tam had made me start thinking and because of that I crashed a lot, which caused all the little woodpushing dumbasses there to laugh at me and make comments. Michelle kept eyeballing me with these expressions of confusion and that threw me off even more. "STOP LOOKING AT ME!" I shouted at her at one point from the bottom of the vert where I was getting back to my feet, one hand on my knee and my body in this kind of praying, kneeling position. I hefted myself up. Her face disappeared from the top of the vert and I skated in a dark cloud. "Dude," Michelle said when we were through for the day and just chilling on the vert watching the guys drop in, "Don't take your shit out on me." I shrugged. Eyebrows up, eyes half-mast. "I'm serious. I'm about this close to slapping your ass." I sighed. "Okay, I'm sorry." "I've been trying to get your mind on skating all afternoon, dude." "I know. I told you I was sorry." Michelle lightly punched my arm. Then she put hers around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. "If you wanna cry it out on my shoulder, go ahead." I laughed in spite of myself. "Fucking dykes, get a room," one of the woodpushers said. Before I could even say anything, Michelle was up on her feet, this tiny black-haired thing yelling at him about how she was going to knock him out or something and he backed off kind of laughing at her to save face with his friends. Then it hit me that was probably their way of flirting with us. How did everyone see Michelle and me, anyway? I mean, if a lot of people were interested in me, then I was half flattered, half horrified. And that nude painting Dallas did of me... everybody had wanted to see it. What if Tamara was right, and I was pretty enough people were so into me? Oh shit, even Heidi Fleegleman had a thing for me. And Willis Wallace. No way! That's what had been bothering me and what had been playing through my mind since Tam dropped me off. Being with her was changing my self-perception. "Michelle," I said. "What?" "Can I ask you something serious?" "Yeah." "Not in front of these fuckers." We got down off the vert and skated over to the railing where I'd tried to grind and instead broken my arm. Going over there gave me time to kind of focus on what I wanted to ask. Which I did, quietly. "Do you think I'm pretty?" Michelle's eyes got wide for just a second and her face brightened, and then she smiled. "You're seriously asking me this?" "I'm curious. And I don't really know. My mom says so, Emily says so, Sarah says so but I don't know." "Tam?" "Of course she thinks so." "What's really important is what you think." "No," I said. "I want your--" I had to think of the word. It was one I'd learned a long time ago in college when I'd had a dick and I'd been older but I hadn't used it very often since then. "-objective opinion." "Subjective, you mean." "I mean objective. Look at me objectively, not as a friend or a girl or anything. Am I pretty?" "Of course you are." "So you're saying I'm actually pretty?" I could feel my face warming up. "You're you. Why do you care about this all of a sudden?" "I'm starting to realize something." "What?" "That people are interested in me. And not just a few people. Lots of people." "God, I suspected you were into yourself but I didn't know how much. What a conceited little bitch you are." "No, dude. Tam made a whole list including people I didn't even realize." "Yeah, everyone's into you." Michelle was still being sarcastic and poking fun at me. She shook her head like she couldn't believe what she was hearing from me. I felt defensive. "I'm not saying I'm the shit or anything, dude. What I mean is, it makes me feel kind of... I don't know... I feel weird. It's like I'm seeing me for the first time. In this way." "In what way?" "Like... I don't know how to describe it." "A sex goddess? Oh, fuck you." "No. I'm just trying to figure out why anyone would like me." "Well, if you really want to know, okay, yeah, you're better than average-okay looking. I mean you look kind of like a boy to me but Dall thinks you're wicked hot and obviously Tam is into you. And Tam is fucking gorgeous, dude. She's way out of your league, to be honest, and no one can figure out what she sees in you, but to be totally honest, you're not bad at all. I can see why you'd appeal to a certain limited demographic of like a special palette." "I guess that's a ringing endorsement coming from you." "Fuckin'-A, it is. Go look at yourself and give yourself an honest appraisal." Chapter Four: And You've Got To Know How To Take It Away So that's what I did. When I got home, I stared at myself in the mirror for a while, and tried to look at myself as Michelle did. Or just anyone on the outside. It was hard finding that mental state, and I had to dig down deep. That messy nest of glossy black hair (which was starting to get in my eyes a lot now, and I had to admit totally fucking rocked harder than Gibraltar), eyebrows and lashes. Those black eyes, too. They were kind of deep-looking in a way. The high cheeks and shiny, tanned skin. The long, slender nose with tiny nostrils. That small, pouty mouth. Plus, overall, a really hard little body that was incredibly limber and graceful in movement whether I wanted it to be or not. It's funny. When people tell you that you look like someone, really you don't at all. Especially if you put a photograph up to your face. So it's really very subjective. This is something I thought about a lot, because people were always telling me I looked like someone else, usually some Chinese actress. The only person who'd ever compared me to someone actually Japanese (other than this pro aggressive skater chick I looked nothing like) was Tamara, and that was my favorite one, but like I said, it was pretty subjective. I mean, when I held certain expressions (scowling or screaming), I definitely did look like Jenny Shimizu, but at the same time, my face was gentler, rounder, a little wider. Plus, Jenny Shimizu's chin was squarer, not pointy like mine. But I studied my face, and did these dumb "wide-eyed innocent Japanese schoolgirl" faces and tried to see what others saw in me. But in the end, inhabiting myself was inhibiting, so I couldn't really decide if I actually was pretty or just someone's flavor. Feeling a little light- headed and slow-moving, I kicked off my sneakers, dropped my pants. When the phone rang, I almost wet myself. "Hey, Amy," Sarah's voice said. "Guitar Genius made copies of our demo. Did you know that? He said it sounded awesome... for something recorded in a garage." She said it all at once, all breathy and worried and didn't give me a chance to reply. "Uh huh... cool," I replied. "Are you high? You sound sorta... out of it." "Why do you always ask me that?" That brought me back, a little. Sarah told me she'd already called Sorrel and told her we'd bring the tape by sometime that week. And then she got all worked up about playing the Mixer on a regular basis, which sent her into a panic attack, so I pulled myself together and dealt with her problems. I had to love her. Even at her worst, she was always doing things for others. School sucked big time that Monday. I felt on display and it was awkward. Even innocent comments jolted me. I was so glad to skip our last class to go see Sorrel with Sarah. Sarah told me specifically that Sorrel wanted me to come with her, because I was the "leader" or something. Sorrel had all the lights on inside the Mixer. It was weird seeing the place all empty, and relatively clean. Even the floor, where dozens of friends and acquaintances had vomited, looked swept and clean. Not that I'd eat a grape dropped on it. No 3 second rule inside that place. "Girls!" Sorrel cried when she saw us. She had on a muscle tee to better show off her tattooed arms. "Let's have that tape." Sarah gave it to her, and she took us back to her office to listen. So far, so good. I poked Sarah as we passed the ready room and mouthed "Mitsuyo" at her. She giggled and Sorrel stared at us with an arched eyebrow. "Hey," I said. "Where's Frieda?" "Oh, she's either at her sculpting class... or her boxing class," Sorrel replied, as if we should've known or something. "She takes boxing? That's so fucking cool," I said. "Oh yeah," Sorrel said. "Not only did she come here on a track scholarship to the university, but she's also really into martial arts. She has a couple of black belts in stuff." And this was the chick Sorrel had hit on me in front of. We gave the tape a listen, and surprisingly, the guys had done a kick ass job. I winced when I heard a couple of bad notes played by me, and there was this slight echo, but for something recorded in a couple of hours in a garage, it sounded pretty decent. Even I was impressed, and I figured I should tell Guitar Genius...someday. After all, according to Tamara, he was about the only person in town not trying to get into my pants. "Look," Sorrel said when the last song faded. "I have to admit I lied when I asked for this demo." Sarah opened her mouth to ask why, but Sorrel laughed. "It's nothing bad, believe me," Sorrel reassured Sarah. "Look, from what I heard last November, I'd book you anytime. You guys rock. The deal is, I have a friend who's starting up an independent, all-girl label and I wanted something local to give her." "Then why didn't you just tell us that in the first place?" I asked. "Well, people in this end of the business lie a lot and make a lot of empty promises, and I'd hate myself if I'd gotten your hopes up for nothing. Anyway, I'm going to give this to my friend. And I want your band to open for this band from Cali in a couple of weeks. My friend's coming into town. I don't want to oversell it, because it may not happen, but this could be a big opportunity for you guys." "That's so cool," Sarah said, in almost a whisper. Then she told us she had to pee. We waited for Sarah to leave, and then we snorted a couple of laughs. Sorrel made this big production about suddenly remembering something she wanted to show me, so I got up and went around her desk. She opened the top drawer and pulled out something so amazingly cool; I almost went into a Sarah-styled spazz fit of my own. "Holy fuck!" I exclaimed. "Can I hold it?" "Of course," Sorrel said, laughing. "The cover instantly reminded me of you." "These go for like 200 bucks!" It was this import 12-inch vinyl of Mitsuyo's solo project. The sleeve had this kick-ass color photo of Mitsuyo in a typical Japanese girl's school uniform, only she was screaming fiercely, leaping into the air and pointing a massively foreshortened and blurry fist at the camera. Totally badass, the exact opposite of the demure schoolgirl. Dissonance, I guess. That's who I really wanted to look like. Yeah, I could instantly see why Sorrel would think of me. It had Amyness all over it. I stared at Mitsuyo. I'd have bet anything she wouldn't give a fuck what people thought of her. She probably did whatever the fuck she wanted, and whenever the fuck she wanted to. "Her English is terrible, by the way," Sorrel told me. "English is overrated, anyways." I turned the record over and studied the Japanese characters on the back. I had no idea what they meant, and Sorrel started breathing on me. I started to tell her that her office was getting very hot and stuffy, but I didn't get the chance. "And another thing I was thinking about," Sorrel said, then stopped and smiled for a moment before continuing. "Did you know one of the main reasons Brian Epstein started managing the Beatles was that... that he had the hots for John Lennon?" "I didn't--" I don't know who started it. I only know we kissed. We broke it off quickly when we heard Sarah coming back. I wanted to fucking kill myself, and I couldn't even let on something had happened. Not with Sarah there. Sorrel went all businesslike, and showed Sarah the Mitsuyo import, but I barely said a thing after that. Then Sorrel invited us to this party at the house she shared with Frieda, and we told her we'd be there. I felt worse than shit for kissing someone other than Tam on one hand, but kind of over the moon on the other. And the reason for the over-the- moon feeling was I felt I'd confirmed what Tam had been telling me. People were into me. Not everyone, but certainly some amazing people. And therefore I must be amazing myself by extension. It excited me and made me feel like some kind of mini-demi-goddess of coolness and at the same time, it scared me that I felt so good about something so selfish and self-involved. It was a Heidi Fleegleman feeling, I thought. I hated myself for it even while that fizzy feeling kept tickling my stomach. Sorrel wanted me. Maybe I wanted her, too. Just because. Was kissing her cheating on Tam? Well, I was cheating in my heart already. I knew that instantly and that it was true. Shit, what a mess! My body was telling me to do something I knew I shouldn't and I wanted to. I really, really did. I was exploding inside with excitement super- novas about the possibilities of doing the most amazingly wrong thing in the world. Sarah kept asking me what was wrong, and I kept telling her nothing was. "Isn't Sorrel cool?" Sarah said. "She's so totally cool." "Uh huh..." Yeah, but smiling, laughing at a joke that was mine alone, I wasn't sure if I was anymore.