Good Girls Don't

I. Body Shots

         “Fuck it all,” Jessie said, “Let‘s go to Mexico.” So they did, leaving behind a note to keep her roommate from calling the police. “Be back soon,” scrawled hastily on the back of a crumpled receipt and left on the kitchen counter.
         They hopped in the car and took inventory of their resources on the way to the frontier. “A few hundred dollars and a ridiculous amount of halter tops,” Caroline announced with a mischievous smile. “The essentials,” Jessie reassured.

         The small town was on the beach, full of loud bars and friendly locals, away from the tourist traps of the city. They couldn’t even pronounce its name, but they just wanted to get away from reality for a while and that was all that mattered. They danced hard to the beat of a techno song, covered in a sheen glaze of sweat, feeling the hot press of nubile bodies around them. They downed tequila shots like water. Salt, drink, lime, a fluid motion of lick, drink and suck that they repeated over and again. Then came the body shots. Jessie’s mouth on Caroline’s collarbone. Caroline’s tongue tasting the salt on Jessie’s cleavage, the burn of liquor sliding down her throat, the tart of the lime that separated their mouths by just an inch or two. But it was just a game, Caroline thought. A game they kept up until they were wrapped in a haze.

         The girls got to their dirty motel room, the door closed behind them with a loud creak. Then they kissed for the first time since their high school years. Back then they would try to convince themselves that they were just experimenting. That their constant groping under the bleachers was just because they were “going through a phase.” But now they were older, more experienced and comfortable acknowledging the fact that what they felt was sheer attraction, sexual tension.

         The numbness caused by the tequila was shattered by Jessie’s tongue exploring new boundaries between Caroline’s legs. She tilted her head backwards, forgetting the room was spinning before her eyes just minutes ago, and rested her thighs on the brunette’s shoulders. She found herself trembling as she neared climax. A loud yelp escaped her lips and she tried to brace herself to no avail. Jessie giggled as the strawberry blonde let her body drop on the bed, blithely ignoring the admonishing shouts coming from the next room, which even through the language barrier were obvious orders to shut the hell up.

         Then it was Caroline’s turn to make Jessie scream. She fondled a breast, and let her hand fall lower, feeling the tender folds of the brunette‘s shaved pussy. The blonde slid a finger in, slowly. Took her time moving it in and out before introducing another. Just then she discovered she really liked the way Jessie panted and snaked under her touch. She enjoyed how biting down on whatever flesh she could, shoulder, wrist, neck, made Jessie even wetter.

         Times like that one, full of excitement and discovery, made it easy to pretend that life was perfect. The nights were fogged by alcohol, the rush of adrenaline and bass. During the day they would practice what Jessie called “the art of Zen tanning.” This consisted of laying next to each other under the sun, eyes closed, barely talking. There was no need for words really, because as different as they were, they were thinking the same thing. That while it was easy to pretend everything was dandy in their lives, that same thought made it harder not to remember that they were older, wearier. Then Jessie would turn to her and smile, and Caroline would remember that as long as they were on the south side of the border all she had to worry about was her friend, the heat and the slick easiness of an unplanned future.


II. Whiskey

         It snowed all the time. Gray skies and cold air that she was entirely unused to, and she realized how much her mood depended on the climate of southern California. “Shitty days,” as Bobby called them, and she thought how his mellow voice didn’t quite match his foul vocabulary. She pulled the blinds closed so she didn’t have to see outside. She’d rather look at him instead, sitting on the bed, legs crossed under him as he cleaned his guns.

         Things were different from the start; usually she left them after they slept with her, but she left Bobby long before. They were like strangers now, so she paid clinical attention to the way he gasped, the way his hand tangled in her hair when she took him in her mouth. Caroline was learning him as a man, in order to forget him as a father figure. Of course he wasn’t nearly old enough to be her father, just 7 years her senior, but he took her under his care as soon as she set foot in the foster home in Lansing, Michigan. He was living in Detroit now, and it seemed that life had been harsh with him. They ran into each other by pure coincidence, he offered her his spare room so she could stay in the city as long as she wanted. After a few nights she found herself in his bed, pretending he was just some man she was sleeping with, so he wouldn’t be Bobby who she left behind.

      They were back in the apartment before dawn, letting the ski masks and the bag of money on the floor, the guns on the couch. “I bet old Mrs. Jones is rolling in her grave right about now. Caroline, her little baby girl, an armed robber,” Bobby said with a deprecating smile. “Yeah. Wait. Mrs. Jones is dead?” she asked as she unconsciously shook her head.

         She thought a lot about her past those days in Detroit. Being an orphan, getting adopted, moving to San Diego and falling in with the wrong crowd, doing the things that good girls don’t. She finally understood that she was only looking for substitutes in those boys that behaved too much like him, but that never looked at her with the same adoration. But all those thoughts dissipated every time he looked at her with his timeless Bobby love, an affection that neither of them bothered to categorize as brotherly or passional.

         There was a cabinet full of liquors in his kitchen and when she kissed him he tasted like its contents, harsh and adult. He poured two shot glasses of whiskey every night as they sat at the dinning table. He didn’t ask her, but she hated the taste and drank it anyway. Hid her shudder and felt the sour Jack burn on the way down, blurring reality, taking her away from everything.

         After a few shots they always headed to his bed where she would spend the night by his side, on top of him or under his burly figure. She still had her things in the guest room although she had forgotten why, formalities she guessed. He wasn’t her best lover, nor her worst. He fucked her hard, exactly the way she wanted and precisely the way she never thought he would. Caroline always thought that one day Bobby would be the one to make love to her but that wasn’t the case. Still she took comfort in him, in his arms. He always held her until she fell asleep, and she knew that the gesture meant something. The cold and rude Bobby was a facade, a shield used to survive in the tough streets of the city, and holding her was his only way of saying he still loved her, and he would still protect her as if she was his.

         That night she was on top, straddling him as he thrust into her. She lay on him after they finished, caressed his black hair and rested her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. He then wrapped his arms around her and held her tight until she dozed off. The next night they would dance to the same tune, choose a gun, improvise a crime, drink and go to bed together. She usually hated routines, but with Bobby she felt like she could get used to loving the simplicity of a semi-predictable life.


III. Strawberry Daiquiris

         The relief was a familiar feeling, comforting. If she could chart their relationship, she had the feeling it would be a series of peak and valleys. A lot of low spots followed by all the times they’ve made up, mending things that seemed broken beyond repair. There were a lot of mistakes on both parts, but she refused to analyze the relative healthiness of the things they said in those bouts of anger. They managed to forgive each other every time and the simple reassurance of that was enough for her. She was just glad to see Kaylee smiling at her and to be able to smile back without any hypocrisy.

          Nowadays they just traveled around the country with a map full of funny town names and a sense of easy relaxation. They giggled their way through bars across Houston, Vancouver, Madison and even Orlando and Miami. Always ordering sweet, girly drinks but they had taken a liking to rum packed strawberry daiquiris that always left Caroline with brain freeze and a flush on her cheeks. They made up fake names to tell the creepy guys that hit on them assuming they were a pair of single girls having fun. Those creeps always failed to notice Kaylee’s foot bumping against Caroline’s under the table, and the way the blonde reciprocated the playful gesture. The way she brushed her toes against her girlfriend’s ankle for the first time, half hesitantly, made them both laugh with sweet spontaneity. But then Kaylee kissed her, discouraging the lecherous businessman preying on Caroline. Tangling her fingers in the short hairs at the nape of the blonde’s neck and making her shiver.

         Later at the hotel room, both drunk and silly, they fell to their bed, giggling. They talked about how fun their night out was, how amusing it was to watch the men’s faces after they kissed, with a mixture of desire and disappointment in their gazes. Then Caroline caressed Kaylee’s cinnamon colored hair as they kissed again. And all she thought about was of how uncomplicatedly good it felt to have the brunette’s mouth hot on her neck, the allure of running her tongue along Kaylee’s hips. She rejoiced in the newness of having a familiar body under her touch once again.

         The brunette grinded her pelvis against Caroline’s, until she made her come so hard she was half crying. Then she gave the strawberry blonde a half-hearted smile and laid half on top of her. It felt so good having a warm, naked girl against her skin, pressing her hard into the cheap cotton sheets. Soft in all the same places, an awesome sensation, and a bit weird because it wasn’t all too often that she shared a bed with someone of her own size and feel.

         Caroline ran her fingers over the supple skin in the small of Kaylee’s back and smiled into the dizzying kiss she received in return, tasting the headiness of herself through bittersweet traces of fruit.


IV. Beer

         The memorial service was depressing enough. She never thought her trips would be cut short by the passing of a dear friend, but her life had that kind of cryptic unwinding. Caroline found herself standing in the crowd that had been her school peers so long ago, yet feeling completely alone. Jessie didn’t attend and, for the love of God, she couldn’t find anyone worth talking to. So she just clutched her shawl while she heard the eulogy as a distant echo, her watery eyes behind dark glasses, and her face partly covered by her blonde hair.
Then she felt a tap on her shoulder, turned around to see a tall, raven haired man she recognized as the only meaningful person at the funeral, besides the one in the casket. “Dom. I’ve missed you,” she managed to say in a tearful voice as she hugged him, and his answer was the most sincere “I’ve missed you too” she had ever heard.

         The monastic anguished routine of misery never made sense to her, and she guessed Dominic agreed when he asked if she wanted to go to his place, get a beer and grief in the way most familiar to him, with music. Back at the condo he handed her a cold one. Caroline watched as he twisted off the cap for her like she couldn’t do it herself, and thought about how his black eyes saw her with the same admiration of their first date. Even though their lives were far more detached, too much history tightened around them and pulled them close together. She listened attentively to his blues guitar improvisation, heartfelt and sexy at its best. She remembered how much she used to love listening to his guitar, sneaking around the band room after cheerleading practice. He was her biggest guilty pleasure because her friends would much rather accept the she liked making out with girls, before acknowledging that she was attracted to a band geek. Yet, she couldn’t resist how wonderfully intriguing was the way he enjoyed every piece he played. Putting his heart and soul into it, like making music was his only purpose in life.

      That night they slept together. And at least once again every week after that. It was astonishingly easy to fall back into each others arms, to slip into an intimacy that was comforting despite its lack of meaning. Caroline liked having sex during the day, with sunlight from the partially open windows drawing across her breasts or his back. She liked how the slick heat of Southern California made them hot and sweaty as she rode him. Dominic, on the other hand, preferred doing it at night, when the combination of the cool breeze and his kisses down her spine made her shiver. He was good in bed, even more practiced and solicitous than when they met. But when she looked into his eyes she guessed he was thinking about her just as much as she was thinking about him. Some, but not quite enough.
         
        It wasn’t love, or anything like it, just a simple affection and a refusal of letting go what once was but couldn’t be anymore. Yet it was easy to curl up on the couch watching sitcoms inside the whitewashed walls of his condo. To shift and make room for Dominic right next to her as he handed her a beer. To settle her head comfortably on his arm as the day went by. To feel his wet, cold mouth on her neck as she let the bitter weight of the malt beverage slide down her throat, the bottle sweating in her hand. It was just too easy to lay back on his bed and feel like she was still a high school cheerleader giving herself to a band geek in a drunken haze. It made her feel young, laid back, like a normal girl. With him she felt like the good girl she never was.