Matt Micheli

Fuck City Girls

I remember that summer like it was yesterday or even today. It was smoldering hot, hotter than it had been in years, hot enough to get into the record books and have the weathermen toss the terms “hottest day” and “record highs” around loosely and frequently. That was the summer I graduated high school and made up my mind that attending college at-least-a-city away from here was best. I broke it off with my high-school sweetheart—she cried, I didn’t—packed up, said my goodbyes, and I was on my way. I was leaving it all behind, everything, every one, the only world I had ever known to venture into the exciting unknown. 

I got settled into my dorm, unpacking what little I brought with me. I met my new roommate who seemed weird and just left his boxes on his bed unopened. Later that night, the boxes were still there. The next morning they remained, untouched. I wonder if I’d ever see him again. 

This new world known as college-in-the-city was definitely different from what I was used to. Back home was a small town of only several thousand where the Dairy Queen was the coolest spot to hang out after school and the local grocery store was the primary place of employment. The people in the city… It was somewhat refreshing to meet people that weren’t cheerleaders or football players and who weren’t white. The party scene was unbelievable with more booze, drugs, techno, and young women throwing their inner selves at you (that’s putting it lightly) than I could’ve ever imagined—bass thumping, girls dancing, everyone high on something. These were real parties, not like the little high-school get-togethers involving a keg and a few bottles of Boones Farms.

I remember meeting her. She was cute and so were her friends. Their clothes were straight out of the punk scene from the 80’s—torn fishnet stockings, lots of lime green and fluorescents, combat boots—ugly, but hip. Sexy. She was so free-spirited. They all were, laughing and smoking and dancing around in public, not giving a fuck about what anyone thought of them. And her eyes… She didn’t look at you. She looked in you. I had never met anyone like her. All the girls back home came from the same republican-conservative-cheerleader factory. They were all beautiful, but in that small town look-like-all-their-friends sort of way, like they were molded from perfection—blonde, tone, perfect teeth, clean clothes. Not her. Not by a long shot. She was different and as far from the perfect I knew as you could get. And this difference drew me in like a fucking magnet. 

Before I knew it, I was smitten over her, and she appeared to be smitten over me. And the sex… it was wetter and wilder than any world I had been to. Sex with her felt like freedom. Or maybe that was just the drugs that made it seem that way.

She and I had been hanging out for a couple weeks, and that day, we went to the mall. I remember how hot it was, and how I couldn’t remember a day ever feeling this hot back home. We goofed around. She was so playful. She’d hit me and slapped my ass, and I’d slapped hers. She grabbed my crotch in front of everyone which was kind of embarrassing but also exciting. We laughed and laughed about anything and anyone unfortunate enough to cross our field of vision: fat people, Asians, want-to-be punkers, the old guy with basketball calves and tall socks. I remember her flicking her lit cigarette on the ground after being told that there was no smoking allowed. That was right after she took a long, slow puff, staring dead-on at the security guard, and blew the smoke in his face. I was stunned. That was probably the coolest thing I had ever seen. The look on the guard’s face was priceless: angry, but too shocked to react, a look of total disbelief, or maybe disgust.

Later on, we walked past one of those sunglass places, and there were these big fluorescent green Wayfarers. She grabbed them and put them on and posed in the mirror and posed some more—turned this way and then that way—and at that point, she had drawn a couple other admiring fans. 

“Those are awesome,” I said to her. 

“I want them,” she said. 

I bought them for her, despite never spending that much money on anyone or myself ever before. 

After that, we had some ice-cream in the food court and then went and met some of her friends at an outdoor downtown café. It was in the heat of the day, and it must have been one-hundred degrees out there, but no one except me seemed to care that our own sweat was dripping into our drinks and our food. We sat around in this God-awful heat, sweating profusely, while they discussed bands I’d never heard of, and she showed off her new expensive shades. Her friends loved them. I felt good about buying them, but wondered if I was going to overdraft my account, and then figured, fuck it. She’s worth it. She’s that girl you only dream about but never meet in real life. 

That night, we got drunk and went to some party, and despite it being almost midnight, she never took the shades off. She started making out with one of her friends whom she kept saying was hot, and I kept agreeing. She pulled me and this other girl back to a dark room in the back of this house we were in, and before I knew it, someone’s mouth was on my dick and someone else’s on my mouth. Then I was fucking one of them and both were moaning. It was too dark to see anything. I could only imagine what was going on. But whatever was going on, it felt amazing and like there were a hundred hands and wet mouths on my body. 

After I don’t know how long, I heard the door open. Light crept in from the hallway. The door shut, and I lie there in the dark, my body drenched and becoming one with the bed. I wondered where she and the other chick had gone. I got myself up, stumbled around, found my clothes on the floor, and decided to go find them. I never did. 

A couple weeks or so went by, and I hadn’t seen her again until I ran into her at a party on east campus. She was with someone else. She didn’t have on those expensive green Wayfarers I bought her but some light blue ones. This guy she was with looked like a total loser, but I didn’t care. I was with someone else, also, and this new girl I was with seemed an exact replica of the old one, but only better, like she had been manufactured in the same democratic-liberal-hates-jocks-loves-punk bands factory—equally free spirited if not more and loved life just the same if not more. And our sex… it was also out of this world. Or maybe it just seemed that way because of the drugs. Or maybe, that’s just how it was with girls from the city—wild, wet, uninhibited, dirtier, different, better. 

Despite me loving the girls here in the city, and how they so eagerly threw their inner selves at me, I got tired of that whole party scene I had become a part of. And the buildings and streets and cars made it seem hotter and more miserable than how I remember it ever being back home. I remember standing outside several hours after the sun had gone down, the salt from my sweat burning my eyes, and thinking to myself that this is no way to live. 

I dropped out of the school I wasn’t attending anyway and moved back home within the following week. It was hot, but not as dreadfully hot as it was in the city. I was horny, so I asked my ex to give me another chance. She did almost too easily. I remember walking into her parent’s big house—they were out of town—and up the stairs where she was waiting. I opened the door to her bedroom. She was propped up on her bed on full display like a gift wrapped in red lingerie I hadn’t seen before, and she seemed cleaner and shinier than what I remembered. I made my way into her perfect room, surrounded by the stuffed animals she had since she was a little girl, and her perfect self was on that perfect bed, enticing me. I walked over to her. My dick was hard. I started kissing her. She said that she missed me. I continued kissing her. She asked if I had been with anyone else. I told her “No,” and then thought about the girls from the city and their free-spiritedness and their wild bedroom antics and the threesome I had and said again, “No.” I continued kissing her neck and slid her red bra down and kissed on her breasts. She smelled and tasted freshly-bathed—like edible soap mixed with Happy perfume—which was refreshing. I gently pushed her back onto her fluffy white bed and climbed up over the top of her. After a minute or so, our roles reversed, she was on top of me, kissing my chest. I looked at her kissing my body with those innocent, crystal eyes peeking up from time to time, really trying to be naughty, and wondered how or why I ever left. But then I noticed this picture of her and her cheerleader friends on her nightstand. As good as her warm mouth felt getting lower and lower, I was fixated on this picture. As clear as the picture was, I couldn’t tell her from her friends. They were all blonde, tone, had perfect teeth, looked like the picture was stolen from an Abercrombie and Fitch. They all looked perfect. And when everyone is perfect, then everyone is the same. And being the same is only . . . ordinary. I remember the way she smelled and the way her hot breath felt on my chest and then on my stomach which sent pulses of electricity throughout my body. She unzipped my pants and worked them below my knees and kept kissing my stomach, slowly working her way down, one soft nibble at a time. She grabbed my dick and then looked back up at me and asked me again if I had been with anyone else. Then she said she had too much respect for herself to allow herself to have sex with me if I had been. I assured her that no, I hadn’t. I then thought about the way those city girls smelled and tasted, and it was different. 

She started kissing me again and slowly—even slower than before—inched her way closer to my dick one kiss at a time. It tickled. I remember when she stopped. I lie there for a second thinking, What the fuck? before looking up. Those crystal eyes were staring back at me, and I smiled and said, “What baby?” 

She didn’t smile back but more scowled, her eyebrows pulling to the center of her face. Her eyes went from mine back to my dick. She moved it to the side and leaned in closer to examine something. 

“What?” I asked. 

That’s when she leapt off me. She paced frantically back and forth, back and forth, shaking her head and looking into some distant land before calling me a liar and cursing which was not of her typical character. She told me to get the fuck out. I remember asking what, again and again and again, and her just repeating the words “Liar,” and “Get out,” and “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

I left her that day in all her perfection, in her perfect room in her big white perfect house, and I remember thinking that she will someday make some preppy politician type very happy.

On the way home, my dick started to itch. I scratched it, but that only seemed to make it worse. It soon turned from an itching to a slight burning. I remember that night, seeing the small, red bumps and trying to pop them, but Goddamn, it hurt. 

The next day, my parents asked me where I was going, and I lied and said, “To a friends.” I remember thinking about the girls from the city and the threesome and thinking that not any of us, in all of it, even as much as mentioned protection, and shaking my head in disappointment of myself. Fuck.

I pulled into the doctor’s parking lot, and embarrassingly sat in that lobby for what seemed like an eternity. I remember the doctor coming out, and of course she had to be female, which made my situation even worse. She asked me how many partners I’d had in the past three months and if we wore protection. I wanted to say only one, and yes, but I said, “Three or maybe four” and “No.” She put on latex gloves and examined whatever those fucking little bumps-turned-blisters were that had gone from itching to burning like angry wasps. With a tone that was too straight and calming, she said I was now one out of four young adults, and that there were treatment options to keep the outbreaks from flaring up. She also said I would need to let any of my partners know to get checked. She nonchalantly suggested she take some blood for testing, saying that one STD could lead to another and threw out some statistics I can’t quite recall. My stomach dropped out of me. 

I remember that girl from the city in all of her free spiritedness trying on those green Wayfarers and the other guys checking her out while she tried them on and her loving the attention. There was the threesome and then the other girl I started fucking from the city whom I almost couldn’t tell apart from the first. All the girls in the city were so imperfect, they were the same. And when everyone is the same, then everyone becomes . . . ordinary. I remember thinking that I wanted the fucking money back for those shades.

The doctor put on a new set of gloves and told me that what she was about to do was going to hurt a little, but it needed to be done. She squeezed on the blisters. They popped. My eyes went black. I had never felt anything so fucking venomously painful in my existence. Fortunately the paralyzing stinging of the popping blisters only lasted a few moments which was long enough.  

Leaving the doctor’s office that day, it was hot out, but not nearly as miserably hot as it was in the city. I was glad to be home.