“Are we going to do anything today?” I asked. Dave and I were sitting in my house, watching TV. He sat on the floor, his head resting on the couch pillow between my legs. My knees hung over his shoulders so that he could rub my bad (although it wasn’t so bad anymore) foot.
“D.C. wants us to rehearse today,” he reminded me.
I pouted, “Do we have to?”
“I guess not, but then she’ll probably hate us forever.”
“Let her hate us,” I said, turning myself around so that I was curled up in his lap.
“But then who will I get ass from?” he teased.
“And just what do you think I’m for?”
“Cuddling and kissing and desiring,” he reached his arms over his head and rested them in my lap.
“But you’re still going to get ass from D.C.?” I asked quietly.
“No!” he laughed, kissing the top of my head.
“You can if you want to… I would understand.”
“Are you joking?”
“Well, I mean, I’d rather you just go ahead and do it with her than be unhappy with me.”
“Tayler,” he tilted my chin up to his mouth, “I could never be unhappy with you.”
“So you say that line, and then you go offstage,” D.C. was instructing. Dave and Heidi and I and two or three other people I didn’t know were gathered in D.C.’s basement. We’d been rehearsing for like three hours and I was so damn bored. She continued, “So, Tayler, then you get undressed while the scenes change.”
“Wait… undressed?” I sat up from my spot on Dave’s lap.
“Yea, didn’t you read the stage directions?”
“Yes, but I don’t recall anything about me being naked…”
“Well, you won’t be totally naked,” D.C. was impatient, showing me the part in the script where it says “wearing little girls’ underwear and a training bra.”
“A training bra?” I laughed, “Thanks a lot, Deece.”
“Well you are supposed to be twelve…”
“Are you saying my girlfriend looks twelve?” Dave grinned, “I may be a sick freak, but I’m not a pedophile.”
“Anyway,” D.C. looked impatient. She was way into her director gig, “You undress while we change scenes. You have to be fast.”
“Okay,” I said, quite unsure about the whole thing.
Practice dragged on and on and on… Luckily, however, I didn’t have to shed any clothes in front of all those strangers. Heidi showed up a when there was only like a half an hour left. While D.C. worked with some of the other people, Heidi and Dave and I made plans to chill. When the last actors left (other than us, of course), D.C. totally changed. She took off her director’s hat and was totally back to normal… it was pretty schizophrenic and scary about it. She didn’t even talk about the play.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Let’s do something,” I spoke up.
“I have work,” D.C. said, checking her watch.
“Why?” I whined.
“Because I need to make some money.”
“What time do you work?” Dave lay back on the couch.
“Starting at nine.”
“I didn’t realize piercing places were opened that late,” I said, sitting on Dave’s stretched out legs.
“I’m not working at the piercing place,” she replied.
“Where else do you work?” I raised an eyebrow. Dave laughed, his face in the couch pillow. “What?” I asked, bewildered.
“Wanna see?” D.C. smiled rather evilly.
“Um… okay…”
“But you can only come if you promise to help me out.”
Dave lifted up his head and said, “Can we not impurify her this early in our relationship?”
“Ooh, relationship… That’s a word David doesn’t use too often,” D.C. laughed, poking him. “Not since… Sue Ellen Pichesnyk I think.”
“Shut up,” he said, putting his face back in the pillow.
“That was like junior year,” she poked him again.
“Shut up,” he repeated.
“She was a virgin,” Deece continued.
“Shut up,” his voice was harsh and serious. D.C. obeyed him, looking a little sorry that she’d upset him.
“So,” she spoke up, her voice softer, “Do you wanna come see me at work?”
“Sure,” I was still perplexed as to what the funk was going on. “Where do you work?”
“Leather and Lace.”
“Where?!”
Dave lifted his head again with a smirk, “The strip club over by Travis’s house.”
“You’re a stripper?!”
“On Fridays and weekends.”
“No way!” I turned to Heidi, who has been silent throughout all of this, and said, “Did you know she was a stripper?”
“Yea,” Heidi nodded.
“Dude!” I paused. The look on D.C.’s face seemed to show that she thought I was going to flip out at her and tell her how dirty that was. “That’s the coolest!” I exclaimed.
Dave and Heidi and I went back to my house to order pizza and eat so that D.C. could ready herself for work. While Heidi showered, I asked, “So, Dave… Who is this Sue Ellen girl?”
Dave rolled his eyes, “You don’t want to hear that story.”
“Yes, I do.”
“It’s too long to tell right now.”
“Please?”
“Aw, come on, Tay… Don’t make me… I’m in a good mood right now. The story depresses me.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling bad for him.
He kissed my forehead to tell me it was okay.
“So D.C. really works at a strip club?”
“And you offered to help her out,” he laughed, reminding me.
