Robin, Boy Virgin: Original Series

It was Wednesday morning and I was getting dressed. Here is my opinion on Wednesdays:

1.) They are in the middle of the week. What working people call "hump day". The week was half over, which is a good thing. But there's still half of the week left. Which is a shit thing.

2.) Wednesdays are Jazz Band practice days, which makes me school day extra long and extra obligatory. Which sucks.

3.) On Wednesdays, I take the bus down to this tourist trap village by the river. Nestled in an out of the way spot is this totally kitschy, eclectic record store. They get new-old albums in on Wednesdays and I like to be in there as soon as I can to pick them over first. It's me and the retired grandmas who thumb their way through Neil Diamond tapes, and we eye each other competitively, even though our taste in music doesn't typically overlap.

Overall, Wednesdays are okay days. My punishment for being a virgin was still going on at school, so that brought things down. But like Mondays and Tuesdays (and every other day), the crap I take for being a virgin isn't limited to only certain days of the week.

That would be handy though, wouldn't it? I could plan out which days I stay in bed and stare at Pink Floyd's prism.

After I was dressed, I went downstairs and entered the kitchen. I halted and my first instinct was to turn on my heel and run back up the stairs. Linda was in the kitchen, wearing one of my dad's button down shirts and nothing else. I mean, I couldn't see anything, but the bare legs tipped me off. I didn't know that she'd spent the night last night and, gross, I didn't want to know that she had.

When my parents lived together, my mother always wore this great big, dumpy, unattractive white house robe with blue daises on it my dad bought her when they first got married. God, I missed those days.

"Oh. Good morning, Robin," Linda said cheerfully. Lady, are you aware you aren't wearing pants?

"Morning," I muttered. I wanted to get a bagel, but it was allll the way over on the other side of the kitchen.

"I'm making omelettes. Have a seat," she invited.

I hesitated and then sat down at the breakfast table. Linda put some eggs on a plate and handed them to me. When she leaned over I could almost see down her, or I guess my dad's, shirt. But she'd buttoned it up enough that, you know, nothing fell out I stuffed a large chunk of egg in my mouth, looking down at my plate.

Glen entered the kitchen, then, and I suppose he'd watched Linda give me breakfast and me start scarfing it down, because he said to me, "where are your manners?" very playfully. He was tying his tie. He walked over to Linda.

"Hey baby. That smells great," he said, kissing her cheek.

"Thanks for the eggs," I spoke up.

"You're welcome," Sse smiled at me. "Eggs?" she asked my dad.

"Don't mind if I do," He said and started nibbling on Linda' ear, making her giggle. I nearly spat out the eggs I had in my mouth. As it was, the forced swallow was very painful. I stood up.

"I gotta get going to school. Thanks for the eggs. Bye," I said in a rush and hustled out of the kitchen.

"Wait, Robin come back- well okay. Have a good day, kiddo!" I heard Glenn call out after me as I hurried through the front hall and out the front door.

When I got to school I went directly to my locker. I used to mosey around a bit, talking to Harold or Max before going to my locker. But I can't afford to mosey anymore.

New condoms spilled out of my locker when I opened it and I bent to pick them up.

"Wishful thinking?"

I looked up and immediately looked down again. The comment was coming from Amanda- one of the popular girls. She was from my elementary school. I've known her since we were six. Well, I mean, I've known who she is, we don't actually know each other. And this opener from her wasn't exactly warming me up to the idea of getting acquainted.

I stood up and put the condoms back in my locker, deliberately avoiding looking at her.

"Hello? Robin, girl talking to you here?" she prompted. Talking and teasing are two different things, girl.

"What's up?" I forced myself to say.

"Nothing much. I was just wondering how you're holding up," she said. Imagine for a second, these words coming out of the mouth of someone who actually cared about me. It might be kind of nice, right, to commiserate? But Amanda was talking to me like I was a child and she was an adult: far cooler, far more worldly. Patronizing.

"I'm fine," I lied.

"No you're not," she disagreed. Oh, well, if she says so, it must be true. "Everyone's talking about you, that must be rough."

"Whatever. It doesn't bug me," I lied, looking around in my locker for something, anything that wasn't Amanda talking to me.

"Well I think it's kind of sweet," she said. I shoved my hand to the back corner of my locker - oh look old erasers. "I mean a guy who wants to wait? that's adorable," she went on. At this, I did look at her I gave her the most pathetic look I could muster. As you might imagine, I'm a black belt-er at the pathetic face.

"Anyway, I was thinking. Maybe we could hang out," Amanda said out of the blue. I kept looking at her, looking right through her.

"Why? Because I'm a challenge?" I asked. The voice was mine, but those words had not run through the my mind's filter. I turned red and instantly looked away from her in my locker again, this time with the purpose of retrieving my Geography binder.

"What?" Amanda giggled. That giggle was evil. "Come on," she coaxed.

"No," I said. Hoooly crap. I was turning her down. In what world did I have the right to turn down someone of Amanda's status? Under different circumstances, were I still a true nobody, I might have caved under the peer pressure and agreed to hang out with her. But I just couldn't subject myself to the torture.

"Excuse me? Do you have other plans?" she asked me, every word dripping with sarcasm and mocking.

"I think I'll go make some. Good bye," I said, closing my locker. I turned and walked down the hall, trying to remember how to breathe. You have to inhale and then exhale. And repeat: Inhale, exhale. And you just keep going round and round.

That afternoon, I skipped lunch entirely and spent the hour or so in the practice room. I sat down and turned on the computer, something I rarely did, and brought up Garage Band, something I never did.

Here is my rant about Garage Band:

1.) It is designed for people with half a brain so the features are limited.

and

2.) It gives mediocre, untalented people the opportunity to string a bunch of pre-written loops together and then have the unmitigated audacity to call it "their own work". That is one thing that grinds my gears, gets under my skin, turns my balls blue. I swear to god, if just one of those emo kids in the other practice rooms presents a ten minute loop fiasco for their midterm and say they "wrote it", I will have a proper freak out.

Anyway, I brought up Garage Band and started poking around. I suppose that if you have no other resources, Garage Band is a passable music production program. But just don't go around bragging that you're a wiz at Garage Band. Cuz a monkey could work Garage Band.

I picked out a simple melody on the guitar and recorded it on the computer's shit microphone. Then I played it back and it sounded decent. I found my discarded Coke can from last class and recorded me crushing it in my hands and ended the track by dropping the can on the floor. I played the can crunching sound over top of the guitar, playing up the Coke can and playing down the guitar. I felt pretty arts-y and brilliant for what I'd made with the limited resources. I cleverly titled my project "Throw Out Your Garbage Band"

I didn't hear the 'end of lunch' bell ring, so when Cora entered the classroom, it scared the crap out of me. I jumped in my seat and looked at her.

"Hey Boy Wonder," she said. Her voice was very sympathetic, making me suspicious.

"Uh, hi," I said, turning back to the computer to type my name in as the composer of my project.

I heard Cora sit down in her chair.

"Listen, I thought you understood that being a virgin is okay. I mean, don't you remember when I said that I admired your convictions?" she said. What the hell was she talking about? I turned around in my chair to look at her.

"Um, what the hell are you talking about?" I asked.

Cora leaned forward, placing her elbows on her knees and bringing her face closer to me. I hate it when she does that. It's one of those too sexy things.

"I'm approaching this wrong," she said, looking up at the corner of the ceiling and thinking. I just stared at her, waiting impatiently. "Okay. There's this... um, dumb rumour," she began, "and well, people are saying that they saw you hitting on some girl. Whatsherface. Evil's friend," Cora said.

"What??" I gasped.

"I don't know her name! Give me a break," Cora said, sitting up straight again.

"No, I mean, what, people are saying I hit on Amanda?? That's her name, by the way. Evil's friend," I blurted out. "Erica, I mean," I sighed. Cora frowned, confused. "Her name is Amanda," I said and groaned. I was a delusional virgin, hitting on a popular girl.

"So, it's, like, not true, right?" Cora asked.

"Yes, of course. She was asking me to hang out, but I turned her down," I said. Even though that was true, when the words came out of my mouth, it sounded like a lie.

"Hang out?" she asked, surprise.

"Yeah..." I said, frowning.

Cora shrugged one shoulder and looked away, nodding. I dropped my shoulders.

"Oh my god. People are saying I begged her to have sex with me, right?" I demanded. Cora's blue eyes looked at me, as kind as a newborn baby's. Fuck, I'd hit the nail on the head. "Oh my god," I groaned, putting my arms on the table and hiding my head in them.

"Oh, sweetie, its okay," Cora soothed, as she put her hand on my shoulder. No, it was definitely NOT okay. Would you consider this situation okay? Also, don't, don't call me sweetie. Her hand was really warm.

"Look, if it's not true-" she said.

"It's not true. She hit on me because to her I'm just a little idiot virgin she can play with like a lab rat," I snapped, my head buried in my arms. Somehow, I had become more pathetic than I already was. People, the entire female population of this school, would skirt me in the halls, terrified that I would pounce on them and plead for them to deflower me.

"Okay, okay it's not true," Cora said, rubbing my shoulder a little.

I groaned quietly.

"And that's awful of her to treat you that way," she went on sympathetically.

I didn't say anything.

"Evil 1 and Evil 2?" she was trying to get a reaction out of me.

I didn't move.

"Robin?" she said insistently. My real name. She must feel really bad for me. Super duper. "Hey," she said, tapping my shoulder.

I moved my head so that one eye was looking at her. "What?" I asked tiredly.

"... did you ever consider the possibility that Amanda was genuinely interested in you? And you wanting to wait to be in love before you have sex was, like, a desirable thing?" she asked me.

"Stop teasing me, Cora," I begged and buried my head in my arms again. Cora removed her hand from my shoulder and I heard her lean back in her chair.

"I'm not teasing you, dumb ass, think about it," she said.

I dropped my arms to my sides and turned in my chair to look at her. Cora crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at me.

I clapped my hands together like I was praying. "Please. Just stop. There is no conceivable way on this planet that Amanda would ever be interested in me, okay? She probably only spoke to me on a dare," I told her. Cora puckered her lips. I could tell she wanted to argue. One word I would not use to describe Cora is "submissive".

"Alright. Fine if you say so. But if I hear people talking shit I am going to tell them that she wanted to hang out with you and you turned her down," she said. Even though it still sounded weird, hearing Cora relay the true events with her conviction made it sound, at least... more believable. People would be more likely to believe her when she said it than believe me, anyway.

"Thanks," I mumbled. Cora gave me a small smile. I scratched my neck and turned back to the computer.

"You wanna hear the song I wrote during lunch?" I asked.

"Lay it on me," she said. I could imagine her grinning a crooked, too sexy smile. I rolled my eyes and played my song.

For the rest of the class, I fooled around on Garage Band while Cora listened to my shitty compositions and played her single notes on the piano.

When the final bell rang, Cora stood up. I stood up too, as a reflexive reaction to the last bell. Cora slung her purse over her shoulder and walked to the door. I sat down again and put my hands in my pockets. Cora stopped at the door and looked at me.

"... aren't you leaving?" she asked.

"I wish. I'm imprisoned in Jazz Band," I told her, rolling my eyes up to the ceiling. Cora's hand dropped from the door handle and she gaped at me.

"Jazz band?" she said, aghast. "I get it now. I think I've finally pin pointed why you are still a virgin."

"I know, I know. But I'm the only one who can play the bass guitar, so," I shrugged, taking my hands out of my pockets.

Cora continued to stare at me. As those hard blue eyes looked at me, my heart started to pound. And then Cora started walking away from the door and towards me. That was okay, until she got in my personal space. The bottoms of her thighs were touching my knee caps and my instinct was to get up and surrender the chair to her. I stood up, but she didn't take the chair and instead kept stalking toward me. Instinctively, I backed up. Then I was against the flaky dry wall and there was no were left to go. Fuck this little practice room!

She was way too pretty up close. Her dark blue eyes had flecks of black in them and her eyelashes were short and very curled. The faint, dark circles under her eyes suggested late nights of sexy vampirism or something else really cool. Her nose was small and girlish and up close I could see her pores and a faint dash of sun damage on the bridge of her nose. Her lips were naturally dark, a brown-ish pink, and smooth, that they turned up mischievously at the ends even when her face was at rest. Just now, Cora parted her lips and her breath smelled like sharp spearmint gum. She blinked her eyes, making her eyelids lower, and then she braced her free hand against the wall. Trapping me. Shit, fuck, whoa.

"You know, I don't get it, actually" she said softly. Her voice was low and contemplative and kind of swirled around in my ears and it was turning me on whether I wanted to admit it or not. My eyes darted away from her face and then looked at her again. She was practically leaning on me. At least, I could feel her legs against mine and that was making my legs really hot beneath my jeans.

"I mean, you're tall, pretty cute. You're funny. You're musical. You're not totally socially inept," she went on in that soft voice. I looked down at her throat because her eyes were intimidating me and then looked at her face again. My heart was panicking.

"Um," I managed to get out. I felt myself kind of crane my neck, but all this did was make Cora tilt her face up when mine was raised and her eyelids lowered a fraction more.

"I mean, why don't you have some cute little hippie chick girlfriend to love you? She'd be totally blowing you at the very least, I'd think." She tilted her head and her hair smelled like shampoo. The scent wafted over me. I mean, we were like a millimetre apart. Shit, fuck, whoa.

"I don't know," I murmured.

"Hmmm," Cora hummed, making things much worse. My skin singled and I knew I was turned on. I was afraid, too, I will admit it, since the things Cora were saying weren't... exactly nice? I couldn't really understand them. Mainly I was keenly aware of every muscle in my body and felt, instinctively, that if I didn't actively try to not touch her, that I would end up naturally trying to touch her without thinking about it.

Cora just looked at me and the moments that passed were intense, screaming at me. Sweat started to accumulate between my shoulder blades. Her blue eyes were making me crazy. Her thoughts were impossible to discern, like her mind was somewhere else and she didn't realize what position she'd put us both in. I could feel her legs pressing against mine. Don't touch her, don't touch her, she's not the cute little hippie chick she's referring to... is she? I mean, she is from California, maybe she is talking about herself-

I heard the Jazz band warming up their instruments outside the practice room.

"... um, Cor?" I began. No, I wasn't giving her a nick name or being nonchalant. The name stuck in my throat and I couldn't get all of it out.

"Hm?" she replied, her voice husky. Um... yep, I'm gonna go ahead and say that the humming was too sexy.

"Could you get off me, please?" I requested. I'm straight. I am attracted to girls and I was, goddamn it, attracted to Cora right then. I just... this was... I panicked.

"Oh. Right, Jazz band. Sorry," Cora said and backed away. My breathing eased, but my muscles instantly felt the ache of disappointment when she was no longer all up in my space.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Boy Wonder," she said, easy as could be, as she walked out of the classroom.

My heart started to calm down and I took a deep breath, blinking.

Shit. Fuck. Whoa.