Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8: MELLOW MELODRAMA
9/11/11

Callista stayed the night,
At Billy's apartment.

Billy was living on a trust fund, for college, making him the only person she knew officially living alone.

Everyone else still lived with their mommies – Zane, Callista, most of their other friends. There was a recession going on; either you lived with a stranger, as a roommate, your friends (until you wanted to kill each other), or, dear ol' momma.

Billy woke up at 8 for work. Callista woke up to the alarm. They'd gone to sleep around 2, after giving up on Jason Voorhees for the night. 8 came way too early. Naturally, they spent all of Billy's getting-ready time gossiping about Zane.

“You know, I actually remember the night I tried to make a move on Zane,” she'd said, smiling a little at the memory. “It was really sweet, in a stupid-kid kind of way.”

“Oh, really?” Billy'd said, swooping in to peck her cheek. “I hope it's less romantic than the night I finally make you scream to your maker.”

“Oh – totally. He was so.. adorrrrrable about it. You know, until that moment, I'd never considered sex with Zane. I mean, we'd been little chummy-shits our whole lives. We grew up together. He was like a slighlty older bastard brother, really.”

“So – fill me in. How did Brainy Zane woo your pants off? Did he bring you flowers? You never told me the whole story.” Billy popped out of his chair and retreived some toast. “Want some?” he asked, offering a slice, in his teeth.

“Ew. No. Bananapants germs.”

“Don't you start; it took me right up until the 6th grade to kill that nickname. Hey.. why didn't we call Ricke something? That kid wore rainbow suspenders, and biker boots...” Billy sat back down, nibbling away at dry toast. “C'mon; Ricke was practically a Village Person, for fuck's sake...”

“I like 'Bananapants'. You know, as an adult, it sounds like you're packing a massive shlong.”

“Ohhh, baby...”

“Okay, okay. It goes like this: Zane's mom got us some primo weed. Probably medicinal, or something. I don't know; Zane and I never really did pot. Anyway, we get totally fuckin' crazy-baked. We're sitting around, watching Rugrats reruns on TV – out of the blue, he lets out this big-ass speil about his ever-long love for me.” She mused a second. “He said something like, 'If I was your man, I'd love you until the sun came up,' or something cheesy, at the end.” “I said something like, 'Dude, you're a virgin. You don't know shit about loving a woman – here, I'll prove it to you.' Then, I skinned off my jeans, and plopped my ass in to his lap. The kid was so stoned that he just sat there, staring at me like a puppy on Christmas.”

“Oh, c'mon. He didn't even kiss you?”

“Naw. He just sat there, gazing in to my eyes – like the secret of life was in there.” She smiled, somewhat wistfully. “Like I said, it was really adorable, in a stupid-kid kind of way. I had no idea – our whole lives, he'd been carrying this secret boner for me. The one time I go for him, he's too doped to roll with it.”

“And, like.. why didn't you make a move?”

“I dunno. I thought about it. But, like, I know Zane. If he's got this one-true-love kind of crush on me, he probably wouldn't appreciate the reality of getting his first-ever nookie in a state wherein he wouldn't remember the night quite right. I mean, this is Zane. He told me about the first time he tried to get in Janet--”

“-- Janet Whimple? We used to call her Nunnery.”

“-- Janet Whimple's pants. He'd done the whole traditional set up: Barry White, candles. Basically, she flipped shit, and told him he'd 'know when she was ready'. He's been waiting since he met her for that. I mean, you think I'm sort of a locked treasure, but like, I plan to eventually jump your bones.”

“Well, well now. It's good to see that your box is warming up to the amazing charms of the Billster.”

“Mmm. You know it. Nothing says 'sexy' to Callista Lovhays quite like a dude emulating the worst of the 90s.”

“You know you dig the sheer trivia of this get-up,” Billy said, flaunting his giant Jesus-on-a-cross necklace. “I'm so retro-chique that it's cool.”

“Mmnm. Sure. If you liked boy band rappers. I mean, when I was a little shit, and we were digging the aftermath of the 90s, my little crowd was still nuts for Soundgarden, and Danzig. Not so much Nirvana, though. Carly Doolittle was really Christian, and really offended that Kurt Cobain turned his face in to spaghetti. So, like. Her opinion leeched to the rest of us, and we shunned Nirvana until we reached mature conclusions of our own – much later.”

“What was a Christian doing, listening to grunge?”

“Rebelling.”

“She should have stuck to Sunday school. Isn't she the one with three sets of twins?”

“Actually.. yeah. All with different daddies. She married the last one, but he ran off with Estelle. Do you remember that Estelle Beggaba girl?”

“You mean the one that failed two grades, because her sugar daddy wanted to have her live with him, his drug dealer, and his three older-than-her sons?”

“Yeah. I bet every school has one. Estelle got that stomach-belt thing, and dropped like 120 lbs. She got sober, in the same year. Actually, after she got a nice set of dentures, she was a real looker.”

“People from school are soo weird,” Billy said. “You know, we barely talked, in school.”

“Mmm. I doubt it would have went well. I was hopelessly in love with Freddy Kruegar.”

“The pedophile serial killer guy? Ew.”

“I dunno. It wasn't a sexual love. It was sort of fangirly.”

Billy ate the last of his toast. “At least you have interesting taste, I suppose...” Billy loped over to the coathangers, and pulled off his giant tube-y jacket. “I feel like the black Michelin Man in this fucker. Woo!”

“You know, I love a man with roly-poly rolls all over his torso. Even if the color of his tits don't match his nads.”

“Ohh, bay-bee. Woman, why don't you let me shake your tree, until some damn apricots fall off you. We'll eat like kings.”

“Aww, man. That's the most cracked-out come-on I've ever heard. Isn't that song about peaches?”

“'I could eat a peach for hourrrrrrrs.'”

“Ew. Go to work, you horny shit.”