Whores on the Hill Read online

  commando.

  After months of trying to get his attention, you’re talking to the local skater star who’s finally digging your vibe when your best gal pal tugs on your arm, complaining, “I feel sick.” You

  ignore her. She always pulls a stunt like this when you’re getting attention from a cute guy.

  sigh, roll your eyes, and tell her there’s Pepto-Bismol in the car.

  slip the skater your digits and get your girl to the pharmacy, pronto. Girls come first. Always. No questions asked.

  Last record you bought:

  New Kids on the Block, New Kids on the Block.

  Cat Stevens Greatest Hits.

  The Dead Kennedys. Rawk on.

  Your grandmother gives you a cashmere Lacoste sweater for Christmas. You

  wear it every single day. It looks smokin’ with a silk scarf knotted around your throat.

  give it to your mother, commenting, “Want this rag?”

  dye it black and wear it inside out. So punk rock.

  C’mon, be honest—if you could be the star of any major sitcom, you would be

  Blair from The Facts of Life.

  that blond chick who got Ricky Schroder’s ID bracelet on Silver Spoons but had to give it back because some loser guy saved her life instead.

  Lisa Bonet from The Cosby Show.

  You walk into a party and it appears your reputation has preceded you. A bunch of guys in baseball caps laugh into their hands, coughing, “Slut!” You

  spin around on your heels and run home, crying kind of.

  ignore the jokester guys, find a scruffy metalhead you met at a concert, and sit on his lap instead.

  march over and say, “Interesting word choice. I hear crabs are fresh this season. At least that’s what your ex said.”

  Close your eyes. Think of an animal. You see

  a horse with a golden, flowing mane.

  your dad with his pants around his ankles jerking off in the pantry.

  a fierce, yellow-eyed she-wolf licking her chops.

  You’re backstage at a rock show. Grunge boy rockers everywhere. The lead singer, a scruffy, mop-topped lovely, is leaning into you. He asks, “Wanna see our tour bus?” You

  start giggling compulsively and get the hell out of there, like your tail feathers are on fire.

  check out the bus and get nekkid quick. Hello? Rock star, score!

  say “Okay” and check it out, knowing that “Okay” doesn’t translate to “I promise I will give you a blow job now.” It means you’ll check out the motherfucking bus and do whatever the fuck you want, when you want.

  YOUR SCORE SAYS: NUN-IN-TRAINING (MOSTLY A’S)

  Hello, Singing Nun? What’s wrong with you? Listen, it’s no big whoop. Seriously. “I mean, come on. Even I can do better than that,” sophomore Thisbe Newton from Sacred Heart Holy Angels says. “It’s scary, I know. But listen, my friend Astrid says, you could die tomorrow. You’re alive, sweet-heart. Make the best of it. The world is waiting for you. It’s whispering, ‘Come here. Closer. No, closer. Thaaaaat’s it.’ ”

  SKANKY HO (MOSTLY B’S)

  Take it down a notch, sister. Holy shit. Act out much? “You’re a skankin’ ho,” says Juli Sung, a sophomore from Sacred Heart Holy Angels. “Reel it in, girl. Before you get yourself in trouble.” Puking in the bushes? Please. Where’s your self-respect? This is the age of AIDS, babyface, yourself included. Do you want to grow nasty, groddy-looking sores all over your face and die before you’ve even had an orgasm? Yeah, we know all about that. Listen, just chill out. Next time, instead of going South of the Border for him, why not palm him a one-way ticket down Mexico way? Yeah, girl! You know you want to. Go for it. You’ll be surprised.

  WHORE ON THE HILL (MOSTLY C’S)

  Rock on. You are so Lisa Bonet, so she-wolf, so commando-going, get-your-freak-on, powerhouse sex bomb. “You’re exploring your sexuality,” says Astrid Thornton. “You’re a healthy, normal teenage girl.” You know there is power in promiscuity, but there’s a trick to it. You know the difference between doing something for fun and doing something because you feel pressured. Own it. Love it. Live it. And tell the rest of the world to step the fuck off, pronto.

  OUR FATHERS

  Dads were nowhere, mostly. This was the suburbs. They were busy with the nine-to-five. They wore white shirts, heavy on the starch, and boxy suits. Most of them had a variety of ties. Juli’s dad had super money. Like, he inherited it. And then he had his psychiatric practice. “He charges two hundred dollars an hour. Just to sit with him. Once you know you’re worth that much, I think it colors all your other relationships. Like with me,” Juli said. “And you know, I think he hates my mom.” She stirred the whipped cream into her mocha latte and laughed.

  Astrid had the loser stepfather instead. Padgett. He liked to pull her onto his lap in the mornings while he was reading the paper. “Come here little muffin. Little yellow-haired girl.”

  She’d hit him in the head with her elbows, or her heavy blue suede satchel, saying, “Get off me, you Crisco-dipped dick.” He liked to swat at her butt, laughing. He was always grabbing at her or her mother. “Fingers,” Astrid called him. “Greasy Fingers.”

  “He’s a hood doctor, can you believe that shit?” Astrid said. “Here, pass me the sugar.” We sat at the Coffee Trader’s pink-and-cream marble counter, swinging our legs from the swivel chairs. “That means he cleans grease traps at restaurants. He’s got grease in his fingernails, grease in his eyebrows, I swear to God. Like little flakes of butter, just dangling. I can’t stand it. I don’t know how my mother can stand it.”

  Padgett was also an alcoholic, a happy drunk, but still. He had a knack for hitting parked police cars with his dented Chevy truck on his way home from the Packer bar. Astrid and her mother were always bailing him out, greasy and remorseful, holding his hat in his hands, slipping on the city court steps on his way to the car, whispering, “Oops-a-daisy.”

  “Leave him,” Astrid said to her mother.

  “I can’t.” Her mom was a shy, flaxen-haired former beauty queen who answered phones at Miller Brewing and got bad five-dollar haircuts at the Hair Cuttery in the mall.

  “Please,” Astrid sighed, at least once a week.

  “How would we get by? How would I afford Sacred Heart on my own?”

  “She’s terrified of being alone.” Astrid licked foam off her lips. “That’s her biggest fear, always. That she’ll be left alone. And when my dad split, her worst fear came true. Jesus, I’m so sick of this shit.”

  “What about you, Jellybean?” Juli poked my side with her swizzle straw. “You never talk about your Mr. Handsome Daddy. I see him drop you off at school in that big black Jag of his.”

  “Yeah, well.” I smiled and spun around in my chair, winking at a handful of razor-haired skaters hanging around the gumball machine. “What can I say?” What could I say about my dad?

  Adman extraordinaire. Cold, collected, impeccably dressed in Armani suits he bought special in Chicago, dragging his Jaguar through the suburban streets like his own corporate brand of rock star.

  “Is that your dad?” everybody always asked when they first met him, because he was so good-looking. Like a movie star, brushing the greying, chestnut hair off his face. When he smiled, he showed enormous white teeth. His hands were clean and square, a light, bronzed tan from weekend sailing trips he took with his advertising buddies to Barbados.

  They each had their own extramarital affairs—my parents—but nobody had ever talked about it. When they lived together, our house was silent, like a crypt, like a tomb and just as cold. Then my dad took all his things and moved into a chic town house on Lakeshore Drive with marble everywhere. My mom sent him divorce papers by courier and we moved into our Colonial on the outskirts of Wauwatosa.

  Still, my father picked me up in the mornings and drove me to school. We didn’t talk much. He was a mystery to me, untouchable, and I’d given up trying to get on his good side. But he was pleased when I chose
Sacred Heart.

  “I knew a girl there once,” my father said.

  “He called me ‘Barbara’ in his sleep,” my mother told me. “Or Susan.” My mother’s name was Caroline. They were busy. They had things to do.

  As did I. I had Astrid and Juli, this teenage brand of family.

  “Cute,” Astrid said, following my gaze in a straight line to the skaters. “Look at that.” Astrid slid off her chair and slung her blue suede satchel over one shoulder. “What Jellybean wants, Jellybean gets. Right, Juli?”

  We spilled change on the counter, grabbed our jean jackets, and hit the road jacked up on caffeine, sugar, and teenage vanity. Those skaters, skinny and blond, oblivious, never even knew what hit them.

  The first prayer they teach you at Catholic school is the Lord’s Prayer. We said it every morning after the first bell rang. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

  “Sure,” Astrid said. “Whatever.”

  PATIENCE IS NOT A VIRTUE

  Juli’s dad gave her a lemon-colored Audi for her sweet sixteen in November. It was an old hand-me-down. She was the only one of us with a license and drove us all over town.

  “Five minutes. Maybe fifteen,” Juli said. “Just wait.”

  Astrid smoked a Kool and brushed green paint through her eyelashes. It was the latest thing. I sat on Astrid’s bed, nervously bouncing a little rubber ball tied to a paddle. Blondie warbled on the radio, “I’m gonna get ya.”

  “Wait a minute, listen. Would you just listen to this song?” Astrid asked.

  We waited for Juli to pick us up. Then we drove around town and waited to see somebody we knew—Billy or Barry or Ty—standing on a street corner. Astrid would lean out the window, chatting, “Hey.”

  Instead of waiting on my father every morning, I caught a ride with Juli in the dirty light of dawn. We went flying down Blue Mound Road, the stereo playing the same New Order song all the way to Sacred Heart. When they heard about Juli’s Audi, our parents said, “Hallelujah” and “Praise be,” consecutively.

  We waited in lines at the movies, at the White Hen, at McDonald’s. Most of the time, we waited our turn.

  At Sacred Heart, we waited for the first bell to ring. Then the second and the third. We waited to open our books. We waited for papers to be passed out, papers to be collected. We waited for morning prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, Quinn Catherine in the hall whispering, “Trash.” We waited to flip her the finger when Father Flynn wasn’t looking.

  “Contrary to popular belief, patience is not a virtue,” Sister Mary Pat said in theology while adjusting her John Lennon wire glasses. “But charity and fortitude are. What else?”

  “Can’t you wait? Just a sec?” Juli asked in the bathroom, pawing through Astrid’s blue suede satchel for her makeup tin. “What do you think of this?” She painted the bow of her lip, then striped the rouge under her eyes like a soldier going into battle. “Or this?”

  We waited for the boys from Fenwick to stop by after school, taping up posters for a school dance. All the girls— not just Astrid, Juli, and me—went electric. Our hands flipped around in our hair, going spastic all of a sudden.

  “Hiya,” Astrid said. “Need a hand?”

  Fenwick boys were shy and stuttering at first, reeking of Old Spice or, worse, Drakkar Noir. Still, we thought they looked nice in their starched shirts and flat-front khakis.

  We’d wait for one of them to ask, “Hey. You doing anything after?”

  We’d wait a second, maybe kick a pebble loose, and say, “Nothing much.”

  Wait a minute, he’d open the car door for you. Fix your prettiest face and whisper, “Nice wheels.” He’d sink the boot for you, I swear, speeding down the highway for the beach, the coffee bar, wherever.

  You’d find boys were waiting too. They’d lie and say, “For you.”

  If he was a gentleman, you could wait for him to open the door for you. If not, you knew how the handle worked. You could say to yourself, It’s just a gesture. Walk down the beach in the wind, hold your face square to it, like a prow, as if you did that kind of thing every day, moving into the sea wind. Wait for his fingers, first, nervous and searching. Maybe tugging at your skirt. Or snaking through your hair, but gently, shy at first.

  Wait. Hold the moment like a shell. Sand in your hair, sand in your mouth. Be careful. Know when to wait. When to say go.

  He’d exhale in your neck, breath like peppermints, whispering, “God, my heart is racing. Can you feel that? Or this?”

  Your heart would jerk to Blondie singing, “I’m gonna get ya.” It was all easy, really. At least, that’s what Astrid said. His zipper would run down on its teeth that fast. You’d take his sex in your hand, feel it flinch like a sinewy animal, hush and quiet. Put it in your mouth like an oyster, a stone, a washed, clean seashell, dug from a coral bed. Touch it with the pads of your tongue, exploring, turn it over with your tongue. Move your head. Move your mouth. Move your hands, his fingers fluttering in your hair.

  Later, at home, in our bedrooms, alone, we’d wait for the phone to ring. We’d wait and paint our nails. Wait and shower. Wait and go to school. Wait for the first bell to ring and the second. We’d wait to open our books and to close them. We’d wait with our loafers in the gutter, kicking dead leaves, for Juli to come over in her new lemon-colored Audi and get us the hell out of there.

  “Know what Protagoras says?” Astrid shook out a Kool and waited to light it. “He says mankind is the prize of possibility.”

  “Yeah?”

  “And Nietzsche says nothing means nothing means nothing.”

  Juli stole up to the curb in a haze of gas. “Come on. Get in,” she said, rolling down the window. “Now.”

  SEX-SIGN INTERPRETATIONS

  So, you want to know what your first sexual experience is gonna be like? Easy! It’s all in the stars. Check out what the first time was like for your fellow star signs:

  LEO JULY 24–AUGUST 23

  I was in seventh grade and had been dating my steady almost the entire school year. He was really sweet, passing me notes in class all the time, buying me flowers. Right before the spring dance, my steady told me he wanted to “take our relationship to the next level.” Despite the groddy way he said it, I was game. Way I figured, why not? On the night of the big spring dance, his parents were out of town. Word to the ’rents: If you leave town, your kids will get freaky, beyond your wildest, most lurid dreams, guaranteed. Several times. And yeah, especially on your bed. Isn’t that what they call Murphy’s Law or something? Now, if we’re talking about the first orgasm I’ve ever had, that’s a whole other story entirely and his name is Barry. Jesus, that boy.

  —Astrid Thornton, 15,

  Sacred Heart Holy Angels, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

  VIRGO AUGUST 24–SEPTEMBER 23

  My father bought me a promise ring for my fourteenth birthday. It is silver with gold braiding on the front of it. It has I PROMISE engraved on the inside of the ring. That means I took a chastity vow and promised my dad I won’t have sex until I get married. We took the vow together on my fourteenth birthday right before I blew out the candles on my cake. My dad had tears in his eyes. No, it’s not creepy. I wear my promise ring with everything.

  —Taliferro Moss, 15,

  Sacred Heart Holy Angels, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

  LIBRA SEPTEMBER 24–OCTOBER 23

  I’ve never told anyone this, okay? When I was a kid, my best friend, John Topp, and I would tell our parents we were going to go upstairs and play ThunderCats. But instead we’d take off all our clothes and roll around on top of each other. I guess you could call that my first sexual experience. It doesn’t mean I’m gay or anything.

  —Big Tuna, 17,

  Fenwick Preparatory, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

  SCORPIO OCTOBER 24–NOVEMBER 22

  Astrid Thornton. She was my first. If you ask me, it was well worth the freaking wait. A wildcat, that girl. No lie, I still have scratches.

  —Van L
una, 17,

  Milwaukee West High School, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

  SAGITTARIUS NOVEMBER 23–DECEMBER 21 Freshman year, I went to Madison for the Crossword Puzzle Championships. I lasted to the final five in my age group, but bit it on an eight-letter word for doctrine—orthodox. Stupid! Anyway, they put us up at the Omni Madison and kids were crawling all over that hotel. When Allen, a bucktoothed kid from Peoria, asked me if I wanted to see his room, I said, “Why not?” I lost my virginity to him that night. Best part was when he strutted around the room in the hotel’s white terry cloth robe, doing his Stallone impression. I laughed so hard I almost peed the bed. No, really.

  —Juli Sung, 16,

  Sacred Heart Holy Angels, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

  CAPRICORN DECEMBER 22–JANUARY 20

  Even though these dumb kids today think it’s a big joke, it was my wedding night.

  —Fritz Judd, Janitor, 53,

  Sacred Heart Holy Angels, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

  AQUARIUS JANUARY 21–FEBRUARY 19

  Keep this under your hat because this could ruin my rep at Thomas Aquinas. But I’ve never actually completed the whole transaction. Do I have to spell it out for you? My doctor told me it’s called premature ejaculation. It’s a condition, okay? I’m doing exercises to fix it. I can hold a towel with my erect penis. Seriously. Do you want me to show you? Any towel.

  —Brett Smith, 17,

  Thomas Aquinas, Pewaukee, Wisconsin

  PISCES FEBRUARY 20–MARCH 20

  It was in college with the TA from my English Romanticism course. We were sharing a joint in my dorm room and I don’t know whose suggestion it was, maybe mine, maybe his, but we starting reading poems to each other. Byron, Shelley, and Keats. The romantics. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” That kind of stuff. By two a.m., we couldn’t help it. We gave in to the desires of our flesh. The next day, I took a bath in holy water and scrubbed my skin raw. That was a long time ago. I don’t do that anymore. I’m God’s servant now and pray to be everlasting. Forever.