Everything Vicki Stands For

Black dress, with the tights underneath
I’ve got the breath of a last cigarette on my teeth
And she’s an actress but she ain’t got no need
She’s got money from her parents in a trust fund back east

Jon knew she wasn’t the…um…president of the celibacy club, you could say. Vicki was as far from it as you could get - maybe you could tell just by the slutty little skintight black number she was wearing. As he walked in. To their class Prom.

It was moments like this that Jon was happy they weren’t together anymore. He couldn’t trust a girl like that, you know? Couldn’t trust her to stay his, and not go gallivanting off to be with some other guy when he wouldn’t put out - which he didn’t. He was a firm believer in abstaining until the ‘til death do us parts. ‘Cause it was proper, y’know, and he wanted to please his parents. And sure, they’d liked Vicki at first, and they still liked her, but he wasn’t going to date her. Not when she gets drunk at parties and gives three of his fellow basketball players lap dances…when neither party has pants on.

T-t-t-tongues always pressed to your cheeks
While my tongue is on the inside of some other girl’s teeth

Maybe Jon took the song out of context as he heard it when he thought that she’d done that, too. Put her tongue on the other side of some other girl’s cheeks. Also when she was drunk.

But he didn’t have to deal with shit like that, did he?

And tell your boyfriend, if he says he’s got beef
That I’m a vegetarian and I ain’t fucking scared of him

Can you believe, Jon asked himself after that part, that a lesbian - the same girl that Vicki made out with - came up to him after he pulled them apart, and spat at him? Telling him that she wasn’t scared of no sissy boy. Jon didn’t let it phase him, but he had to blink to make sure he’d heard right and wasn’t just dreaming.

She wants to touch me, whoa
She wants to love me, whoa
She’ll never leave me, whoa, whoa, oh, oh

“Yeah, right,” Jon laughed to himself, turning back towards his date, Ella. Ella was president of the celibacy club, actually, and quite a nice girl, if a bit shy. Not usually the type a basketball player goes for, in the eyes of the rest of the school, but she was fine. She was better than Vicki, at any rate.

Because the truth about Vicki?

She wants to touch you, all right. She wants to love you. But then she wants to leave you. Just drop you in the dirt after she’s used you.

And that had happened to a lot of Jon’s teammates. She gave them a fun time, mostly to benefit herself, and then she was off. And the whole time, she was trying to get to Jon. Just because he was the goody-two shoes of the team, and wanted to stay clean for whoever he’d marry.

Don't trust a ho, never trust a ho
Won’t trust a ho ’cause the ho won’t trust me

That’s not exactly it, Jon thought when that part played. You shouldn’t trust a whore, because that’s probably just about all they’ll ever be - a whore. Like that one Paramore song…Misery Business? ‘Just a whore, you’re nothing more…’

That sure was Vicki’s song. And besides, who cares if the ‘ho’ won’t trust you? Jon reasoned. You shouldn’t trust one anyway. They could have all kinds of diseases, and screwing around with them could just end up in screwing yourself in the long run. And any chances of getting married to have a nice, comfortable family in a nice, picket-fenced-in home. Like in the movies.

X’s on the back of your hands
Washed them in the bathroom to drink like the bands
And the set list, you stole of the stage
Has red and purple lipstick all over the page

That’s Vicki. Jon shook his head. She’d do anything for attention, especially male attention. She’d be a stripper if it got her laid once a night - which it probably would, with moves like she’s got. And it wasn’t like Jon wanted that, but he was a guy and he knew what guys wanted. And most of them wanted sex, and a lot of it.

B-b-b-bruises, cover your arms
Shaking in the fingers with the bottle in your palm
And the best is, no one knows who you are
Just another girl, alone at the bar

Sad as it is, Jon had seen that side of her, too. Just going out to a bar and grill with his buddies for a burger and some pool. She’d obviously pulled some strings, because she sat there with a coke and Jack - and you knew it was coke and Jack, because it was strong on the Jack, and because the bottle was right beside her. And she’d pick the Jack up and take a swig, sometimes.

The bruises were still there. He could see them as she and one of his teammates that she hadn’t screwed yet were grinding together. They were faint, but still there, and it looked like there were new ones. Just like Vicki.

She wants to touch me, woo ooh
She wants to love me, woo ooh
She'll never leave me woo ooh, woo ooh, ooh ooh
Don't trust a ho, never trust a ho
Won't trust a ho 'cause the ho won't trust me

She wants to touch me, woo ooh
She wants to love me, woo ooh
She'll never leave me woo ooh, woo ooh, ooh ooh
Don't trust a ho, never trust a ho
Won't trust a ho 'cause the ho won't trust me

She can want to touch me, to love me, all she wants, Jon had decided when he’d broke their short fling off. She just won’t get to. Because Jon, Jon’s a good kid. Really, he is. He’s not as bad as his teammates, not wanting anything more than what’s proper, and he’s willing to wait and take his time with his girls and treat them like real women. Not like someone you can take for one night and toss around like a sack of potatoes.

Cheesy as it seemed, Jon wanted the long haul.

Shush girl, shut your lips
Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips
I said shush girl, shut your lips
Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips
I said shush girl, shut your lips
Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips

And those lines, right there? Don’t any of these girls take offense?

Isn’t it a bit degrading of the women, and girls, to just tell them that they don’t need to talk to get their points across? Degrading to say that anything they want to say can be said by moving their hips? Jon wasn’t a bit fan of half of the guys in his grade, because they thought it was just fine to tell the girls to do that. And the bad thing was, half the girls did just that.

Jon had stopped going to parties all together, because every time he broke down and went, there was the no-pants straddling ‘lap dances’ and some random couple on the couch feeling each other up in plain sight of everyone else. And Jon didn’t like that. It made him feel dirty just to be in the same room, because, honestly, it’s not right. He didn’t see how anyone could get used to it. But everyone did - and everyone had. Others just sat around and talked, and when one of the others moaned too loudly, they got a lot of shit for it. It wasn’t right, and Jon hated it.

Hated that it was everything Vicki stood for.

She wants to touch me, woo ooh
She wants to love me, woo ooh
She'll never leave me woo ooh, woo ooh, ooh ooh
Don't trust a ho, never trust a ho
Won't trust a ho 'cause the ho won't trust me

She wants to touch me, woo ooh
She wants to love me, woo ooh
She'll never leave me woo ooh, woo ooh, ooh ooh
Don't trust a ho, never trust a ho
Won't trust a ho 'cause the ho won't trust me

And you know, Jon loved Vicki. At school, when there wasn’t any chance of her doing any one of those things she always did when she got drunk, Vicki was the perfect girl. She was kind, smart, and just the right amount of pretty.

But he didn’t want mixed up in everything she stood for.