Secrets should never be kept

We were so close I could feel his breath on my cheek. Closer, I could feel the hair of his face on my face--it tickled and itched. Now so close the force of his lips fought that of my own. My guilty little secret. With my head on his chest I drummed his heartbeat with my fingers. Those moments were timeless. Hours, maybe days, maybe years. How old was I then? A child's age, a young woman's. How old am I now? I'm at an age of experience. My experience shows secrets should never be kept.

Lazy summer days and lemonade, driven by an old friend who Mama said was a bad influence. During the day we watched Lifetime movies and spent hours making ourselves clean and pretty for the night. Sometimes a bar, a poolhall maybe a party until 5 in the morning. Trying to sound sober as we called my dad to tell him we wouldn't be home tonight, we're staying at Dana's house. Then we head to the hotel--no boys, nothing bad, just hiding our drunkeness amongst the other drunks. We played drunk Olympics, running and laughing and having the best time of our lives. A little pot, a little too much beer and maybe just a couple boys. We didn't live the party lives other teens did though. We didn't drink and drive, we weren't used as sex toys. We were in control of what we did, where we went, we were smart and smart about what we did. We always had a back-up plan and a back-out plan. We mastered the art of seducing a man and leaving him satisfied without a single kiss. We made him feel lucky we even talked to him. Made him feel special that we asked him to pay for us. A false name and a number to a fast food restuarant and we'd be back to our safety circle. Surrounded by close friends and the present laughter, the future would never come.
As I remember those times I feel a sense of longing. We didn't bother any one, hurt ourselves, I can't remember even having those little arguments from being around someone too much. Well until the big blowout when she went back to New York. All good things have to come to an end eventually I suppose, but until then it was all smiles, sleep, food, and Lifetime movies. I don't know what we were addicted to more actually, the movies or the partying. We always had enough money because we lived with my dad so I only had to pay my car payment and food. We both got a job later at Ruby Tuesday and had a pretty steady income--she finally paid me back everything she had borrowed over the previous months. That was her way, borrow till the pot was dry and then refill it plus some. She never left a debt unpaid for more than what 2 or 3 years. Ha. At least she paid it back though. You know she was absolutely brilliant. Skipped the 6th grade--that's when we met. I was a year older than her. She had that something about her. Made you just want to know her--and I was her best friend. We made the perfect team--opposites and exactly the same. She was beautiful--could have been a model easy. The long legs, blonde blue eyes. Big make-up and the city girls taste in fashion. I was the small town girl--simple, brown hair and curves. What one didn't have the other did, but we loved the same things, finished each others sentences, same ideas. You couldn't find one without the other. I'd wake up early for my 8 o'clock class while she slept till noon. I'd call her between classes to find out where she wanted to go that night, she start getting ready. She was infamous for how long it took her to get ready. My dad described it as covering the Mona Lisa with Mickey Mouse because she was naturally beautiful without the make-up and jewelry. Despite how beautiful she was to the world she was never good enough for herself. Isn't that how it goes though? The perfect ones are never satisfied. But together none of our defects or faults mattered. We accepted each other for who we were and found solace in the simple fact that each wasn't the only one to think like I suppose all teenagers do. We told each other absolutely everything. We never judged. We decided that girls like boys had needs. And that fufulling those needs would never make a whore out of you. It was when you did it for the attention that made you unthinkable.
So one night we were playing pool and one of the guys that worked at the pool hall came up to us. The typical introductions and inquiries and by the end of the conversation, he got off at 12 and if we followed him in our car he'd get us some beer and some score. And well we did. There was a small party at his step-mom's place and that's where we were heading. It was a lot of backroads and turns, but she was good with directions--a lot better than I had ever been. We managed to weave our way to the house and up a fairly long drive way. There were a few cars there but not too many and all looked safe so we got out of the car and followed him in. We walked in the door and surveyed the room. I leaned over to her and whispered in her ear "I call the Mexican." He was a cutie--a little rough looking perhaps, but he greeted us with a smile as he drank a mexican made drink that happened to be one of my favorites. We took a seat not too far from my target and chatted a bit while the guy from the pool hall went for some beer. We got our first beer and picked up some darts and played a minute, laughed, kept a little more to ourselves until we felt sure these people were the kind of people worth getting to know. Then our favorite song started playing on the radio and we couldn't help but dance. No guy can resist a girl dancing. She had her eye on an apparent friend of my guy and both immediately picked up on the signs. We did the girl-ish thing to do and ignored at first, we could always have fun with or without guys, guys just tended to be a plus. Mr. Pool Hall invited us out back for a joint and tried to place a couple moves of his own which were poorly played and made him seem a little unstable. Back inside again our men each played their best lines and we never let them know we had made them do it from the moment we entered the room, had played all the right gestures and innocent faces to make them think they were in control. Exchanged numbers and then grabbed a couple more beers, the keys and she and I left--alone. It's easier that way, to collect some numbers so we can call on our own terms, when we were good and ready. That was the way we handled things.
It's this secret seductive power women hold over men, if women would stop fighting the men and learn they were born with the ability to control them--always have. How many presidents wives used them for their own agenda? How many times was it the women who made the decisions while the men put on their suits and read the speeches written for them? A man is a figure-head--a women, the brains. There's an old chinese proverb a boss of mine used to tell me all the time, it was something like "behind every successfull man, there is a women" and I believed it--still do actually. The trick is to never try and tell a guy he's not in charge. Let him and the whole world believe what they want, while the women sits back and enjoys everything she wants.
We definately had what we wanted.