Okay. Fan service from Alistaire Too is now complete. I think. If there are other dangling threads left to, erm, snip, remind me in the comments. Time for some new wrinkles to Alistaire's life. We will see if he likes them or not...
Oh, and more fragments of the big easter egg are back in this story. No one has gotten it yet!
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THE ONE WITH OTHER INTERESTS
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I know from looking at the story so far that it seems like I spent the summer just boning Mary and Maddie... and also Carrie for a while, at first, and then Jessica after a while... except for when I was taking time out to bone Poppy and Sloane. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The job Mom had gotten me turned out to actually be pretty cool. I got to do more than an intern typically would, due to my ability to swiftly complete whatever task was set before me. This meant it took up more and more of my time as the summer went on, and my boss gave me more hours, squeezing whatever he could from this criminally underpaid resource before it left for USC. I know I sound kinda harsh there, but those were pretty much the exact words he used when I bitched one day about the new schedule and not having more free time.
I also hung out a lot with Chris and Tony. I also hung out with just Chris. In our little friend group, Chris was the apex of the triangle, so I never hung out with just Tony. Sometimes, later on, Maddie hung out with the three of us to play board games. She and I never let on any of what was happening between us.
Chris remained irritated that I hung out so much with Mary, Maddie, and Carrie, yet never 'made a move'.
"Dude, we are just friends," I said, with absolute, utterly misleading truth.
"Well, it is pissing me off that you won't at least try to hook up with Maddie."
"Why her in particular?"
"Because she has started hanging around all the time! And talking to me at other times, when we run into each other. It is frustrating that I can't even simply ask her out."
"Why not?" I asked. I admit to being amused with this, and was toying with my buddy.
"Because she is your territory, man!"
Oh, no he did not. He was not putting his problems in my name!
"She is not my territory. No one is my territory," I said firmly. "If you want to make a move there, go right ahead. I will not be miffed in any way. Any. Way." I thought that I better add some other provisos... "That said, I have seen exactly zero indication that she is interested in your scraggly hide. More importantly, if you do get with that in any way, you will not be the only guy doing so, on an ongoing basis."
"So you are saying she is some kind of slut?" Chris said dangerously. Dangerously for him.
"Chris you are my oldest standing friend, but if you suggest Maddie is a slut ever again, I will take your already smaller than mine body and reduce it into even tinier, evenly weighted portions."
"Whoa! Chill, Al! I was about to get mad because I thought it was you who was going there! Maddie is my friend now, too."
We dropped it, as guys do, and went back to talking baseball.
Later, I called Maddie.
"Just a heads up, Chris is pissed that I won't make a pass at you."
"I love that those two have yet to get a clue about us," Maddie laughed in reply.
"Well, I told him that I would not object if he made a pass himself."
"Alistaire!" Maddie yelped. "You have a better chance of getting Mary and me to lick your cock simultaneously than Chris has with me."
"So you are saying there is a chance."
"Fuck you, Taylor."
"Please!"
"When?"
*
Chris did, miraculously, screw up the courage to ask Maddie on a date. She turned him down.
But she did wingman for him about ten days later, with Jo Harrington. That worked out extraordinarily well for Chris. By his standards. He got to second base there before all was said and done, and he would
not
shut up about it.
Tony started calling him Tit Man. It was
adorable
.
*
I also made friends with Felix Donaldson, the other economically-exploited high school graduate working at the paper. He had had the utter misfortune of his parents moving to town in the middle of his senior year of high school. Moving during the middle of a kid's senior year is pretty brutal, so he was not eaten up with friends.
But Felix was cool, and organized, and determined to fix his social problems. This made him the king of knowing about commercial social options.
It turns out that there is a huge, upscale time-share complex on the south shore of the big lake on the other side of the city. The lake is actually the main metropolitan reservoir. The complex is full, all summer, with families, including a lot of older kids, shuttling in and out for one or two-week stays.
One of many attempts by the resort to keep these well-off tourist kids happy was the dances they put on twice a week for under-21s. There were refreshments and a live band under the huge outdoor pavilion near the shore of the lake.
Crucially, to keep the numbers up and make it a 'happening', the resort sold a limited but significant number of entrances to local kids.
I had never heard of these events before, but when Felix told me about them, he insisted I come along with him to one. I was not exactly on the hunt for girls, but I figured what the heck. If Maddie could wingman for my boy Chris, the least I could do was wingman myself a little for my boy Felix.
Also, I was dimly aware that I was not much of a dancer and felt that getting better might be a good idea before I got to USC.
The less said about my few prior efforts at dancing, the better.
Driving over to the place the first time, Felix was practically bouncing in the passenger seat, eager for an opportunity to talk to girls who didn't know anybody in the room. Girls who might be up for a little adventure. Felix knew he was not a player, though I had a very firm idea that he was no virgin. Regardless, the guy was quite focused on meeting girls who were bored and possibly ready for a little vacation adventure.
The first night we went, it was a good time. The band was the best I had ever heard live.
Don't get excited. They were only the third I'd ever heard live. Prior to that night, the best live band I had ever experienced had been the Bloodshot Rhinos back at school...
There was decent food and lots of people. Lots of girls. Lots of presentable girls.
I did not initially seem to be needed as a wingman, as Felix was off dancing with some girl wearing an Ohio State University polo shirt and a short, scarlet skirt within twenty minutes of arrival. I waved him off happily and tried to figure out what to do with myself. Despite everything, I could still be a little shy with strangers and was surrounded by nothing but. I sucked it up and looked around for a way to improve my social skills.
The place was crowded, and I had never been comfortable simply walking up and introducing myself to just anyone. That had still not changed. Despite everything (and everyone) I had done, I was still... me.
Worse, even though this was supposed to be a meet-and-greet party for out-of-town kids, the whole place was mostly filled with little clots of kids who had clearly already met. No way I was inserting myself into any of those. So I focused on the few kids, like me, who stood around alone.
The first few dudes I wandered up beside were a disappointment. Most were flat-out boring, and those that weren't were kinda a-holes who just wanted to stare at girls' asses.
I like staring at girls' asses too, but I can multi-task, dammit.
I approached a girl, and she was the worst. It had been quite a while since a girl had looked right through me like I wasn't there. That brought back uncomfortable memories, and I was starting to resolve to just hang out and drink sodas until I could leave, with or without Felix.
I was amused by the way everybody dressed. The dudes were totally casual. They almost all just wore jeans, usually nice but not always even that, and there were a crazy amount of plain white teeshirts. A few guys who wanted to dress up were wearing what kids who did
not
go to prep school think kids who go to prep school dress like. I was wearing one of my 'brave' shirts, a Robert Graham, and khakis. I might as well have had on a tux.
The girls... well it was kind of ridiculous. Most of them were wearing short dresses or skirts, seriously short. Those with cleavage to offer were damn well offering it. Whether the girl was hot or not, she dressed like she was going to a Miami nightclub. Felix's dance partner would have been a crazy outlier, if her skirt had not been so short and so very tight.
I rapidly figured my chances of meeting any new friends here were low. And to be honest, I was not interested in meeting any new playmates either. I was... satiated. I had arrived fully ready to embrace any such opportunity, but I was not looking for one. And by the time the night was half over, I wasn't really even in an embracing mood anymore.
At one point, my eyes lighted on a blonde girl, standing by herself. I will admit, I first noticed her because she had a nice build, but I wandered her way because she was standing alone. And because she had to be a local, since she was not in something satin and short. She was, in fact in a nice-fitting pair of jeans, a pair of low boots, and a sky-blue, long-sleeved shirt.
"Um, quite the spectacle," I said, moving sideways the last few feet to stand next to her.
She took her eyes off the crowd for a minute to give me a quick glance, smiled politely, and replied, "You must have gone to Pisstree."