A/N: Sexist? In 1960's Tulsa? Well, Tim's education continues, with the facts of life according to Dom. Be advised. ;)
I do okay for chicks.
Dom gets things started, gets some girl to play nice, even though I'm younger than her. I'm surprised how different it feels, when she puts her hand on me. Way better than jacking off. I think she's some kind of present to me. I don't remember thanking him.
She thinks we're brothers, when we pick them up. Says that she didn't know Dom had a kid brother. He just grins at me, in the rear view and lets her think it.
After that, I start to pay more attention to the bull sessions the older guys get into. If something they dismiss as 'just a hand job' was actually pretty fine, I wonder what the rest of it must feel like.
The difficulty is, I'm caught between the girls my age, who don't really put out, as far as I can tell, and the girls who hang out with the older guys, but who aren't likely to look favorably at my skinny thirteen year old ass. I can't tag onto Dom's dates all the time, in hopes he finds it amusing to give me another present.
Sometimes when the older guys are passing round skin mags and talking up their latest conquests, I think I might go crazy.
The lumberyard ain't much more than a scrub lot, with a shack for an 'office'. It needs warmer weather to make it an acceptable party hang out. When that finally happens, I'm like a dog straining on the leash.
Dom says to be cool, like he does for most things. He's an impossible act to follow, but I try. More than any of the other guys, who take his 'luck' for granted, who hear what he advises but don't listen – and he's the one who taught me the difference - I watch and I learn.
I learn it isn't about any of the cheesy pick up lines the other guys swear by. I learn it isn't about Aqua Velva and cheap promises and getting them out of their skulls on booze. It's about choosing the right girl in the first place. Being watchful.
The right girl is already interested. The right girl don't need to be wasted because she's already in the mood.
The right girl might actually be someone else's girl, but if you play it clever, that don't have to matter.
Watching Dom put the moves on chicks, it seems to me that being the leader of an outfit like ours makes every girl the right girl. They never say no to him.
One of those parties, one hot night, I'm pretty sure I've got the watching and waiting down pat. There's a girl who's never been there before, who's come with a friend of a friend. I let her see me looking at her, but I don't go near her.
She walks right up to me, smiles, asks me, "You go to St. Anthony's?"
I shake my head. She tilts hers to one side.
"I'm sure I've seen you around."
"I'm around," I agree, real casual, trying to sound like Dom. Although I'm sure his heart don't beat like this when he gets a whiff of scent and hairspray.
After a beer she lets me kiss her. After two, she agrees to go up to the office.
She's not as good at the hand stuff as the girl Dom set on me, but I discover that don't matter so much. Because this time ain't as one sided as that was, this time I've got my hands on her. All over her. And that makes up for the fact that she tugs me a bit too rough.
We get kicked out, because Dom wants the office now. He winks at me as I go past.
The next day, he talks to me about rubbers, in detail this time. He says that I oughta be prepared. He says to practice, in the bathroom, on my own, because even the first time, you don't want the chick to think that you don't know what you're doing. In fact, he says, do not tell the chick it's your first time, because then they get all sappy and possessive and you don't want that. You want to be moving on to the next one.
He says that it's better without a rubber, but you gotta know what you're doing and don't trust yourself the first few goes, because it's tricky to pull out in time, just at first. But you gotta make sure to do something, 'cause no one wants the hassle of a bawling chick and child support dragging you down. Or worse, someone's daddy a-huntin' you with a shotgun. Some chicks are after that, apparently, some chicks will try and trap you deliberate.
When he says that, I remember words I used to overhear, when Dad was pissed at Ma for some reason. 'Suckered into it. Trapped like a fucking rat.'
I figure I will learn to use a rubber and my dad was a sucker if he didn't.
I like the first one. She's real pretty. I think that even before I get her clothes off. I know she's been with one of the other guys, he said so after the last party. But I don't care. I think she's pretty and her skin is real soft. She laughs when it happens, but it's okay because she ain't laughing at me, she's laughing because it feels good, because I did it okay. I like that.
She doesn't ever come back to the parties again. It's okay. There are others.
Later, after Dom goes inside, one of the older guys tells me that Dom was a hypocrite. He fell hard for the married broad, hard enough to take risks he shouldn't have.
"Why'd he warn off them little chicks who were into you, Tim, to make sure you didn't get distracted, an' then let himself get hooked like that?"
I tell him to shut the fuck up about Dom, if he knows what's good for him.
Just once I make the mistake of chasing a broad because I think I like her. She's hanging around this big guy, Richardson. He don't go to our high school though, so it's easy to get in under his radar. Too easy. I find out why she don't mind two-timing him, when she does it to me. I find out that she's banging Adam Murphy too.
She winds up pregnant, but that ain't down to me, I'm still following Dom's advice. I ain't no sucker. Murphy's a rising star over at the River Kings and I coulda done without him in my face about it. Richardson wants both our asses, but he ain't in a gang at all and he's in the reformatory before he gets the chance to mess me up.
I decide no broad is worth that much hassle. I don't need a steady girl. I stick to one time only deals.
One night when I'm sixteen, I'm down at the yard – my yard - when Collins says that he saw me with a chick early in the morning and ain't I gonna spill the details?
I tell him he's crocked or crazy, I didn't get any last night.
"Mirage, was it?" he insists. "All that hair? All those tits?"
When he's gone, Winston snickers. He brought booze, so I'm letting him hang, but only as long as it lasts. I kicked out the kids, Curly included. Winston reminds me that Collins is fairly new in town, new to the outfit.
"Talking about your sister, ain't he. She's stacked, man. Even you gotta see that." He grins.
I start to say something, but then I stop. She ain't even thirteen yet, my sister. But hell, he's right. She got tits overnight.
I'm torn between ripping out Winston's tongue and ripping out Collins's eyeballs.
"Well, someone better put him straight, damn quick." I threaten. He shrugs. Not his problem. Not his sister. Well, Collins and every other fucker out there had better wise up to the fact that I'm making it my problem. No one's layin' a finger on Angel, if I've got anything to do with it.
Winston stretches. He's bored. I'm bored.
We head over to The Dingo, scope out a few chicks and Winston sees these two girls right away. I can practically hear the zipper on his fly straining. Not that I ain't interested, but I'm playing it way cooler. It ain't hard to be cooler than Winston in heat. He ain't what I'd call subtle.
I tell him to let them come over to us. Then they got no excuse for backing down later.
Of course, it's Dom's voice in my head.
Winston's all over the stacked one, the bottle blonde. Good luck to him, she looks like trouble to me. Got an intelligent spark in her eye and who needs that in a skirt?
Her friend though, she's just dumb enough to be useful. We get round the back of the building, where it's dark and she can be useful on her knees.
Tries to give me her number after. Yeah. 'Cause I'll be calling.
Winston though, oh, he's a dead man walking. He asks for Miss Brainy's number and she just says she'll see him around. She catches my eye as she says it. She sees that I see that she's playing him and, damn, if she don't give a rat's.
He knows she's smart, tells me so.
"So what?" I say. "You wanna bang her, not join the friggin' debate team with her."
A few months later, I make a mistake. I let Winston know that I think he's whipped. Miss Brainy has a name now and I tell Winston that he ain't no more than Sylvia's puppy dog.
The fucking doctor in the Emergency Room is a quack; he hurts my nose more in fixing it, than Winston did in breaking it. I only went to the frigging hospital because I couldn't breathe right.
As it is I can't smell nothing but blood for three days.
Double standards, much? Ah, Tim, they're all someone's sister...
Cookies to anyone who reads my Evie stories and spotted Buzz, and Tim's side of the story ;)
And...I have dabbled with the girls' POVs, from their encounters with Tim. Side fics, anyone?
