American Royalty

I checked the girl out from across the hallway as she giggled with her friends and shot a pair of bedroom eyes my way. She wasn’t anything special – a few blonde highlights in otherwise bland hair and a toothy smile that was probably a few too many shades off white. She was, however, special enough to have distracted me from a football conversation and compelled me enough to count down the steps to her across the short hallway, taking into account the few seconds it would take to seduce her, and then the distance to the Janitor’s closet.

Gerry the Janitor’s closet. We were on a first name basis since the last time he’d caught me fondling a girl beside his large stash of bleach. At first he’d hated me – shooing me and the unfortunate girl away with a broom – but after the seventh or eighth time he’d pretty much given up. He didn’t even bother locking up anymore, knowing I could break any lock he put forward if I had enough incentive. And girls were always enough incentive.

“Dallas!” some guy pounded me on the back as he passed, head turning towards me with a grin on his face. “Nice game the other night.”

I didn’t know him but I knew his type. Wannabe jock who turned up for tryouts every year even though he didn’t have a chance in hell of getting on the football team, the kind who would tell you you were amazing in the hopes that one day you’d grace them with a similar greeting. It should have been common knowledge now that I was a senior that I didn’t greet anyone like that – even my brothers on the team. It should have been common knowledge that Dallas King was just that – the King.

A few more hands clobbered my back good-naturedly, chorusing out congratulations on the game, as I shut my locker. The girl was gone but I didn’t care. There was always another girl, one with a whiter smile and shinier hair who’d show a guy like me a good time in Gerry the Janitor’s closet, no questions asked. They were my favourites. The ones who didn’t ask questions, or say anything for that matter.

Then there were the clingers. God, the kind of girls who held on so tightly that they were close to strangling you, and who wouldn’t let go even when told repeatedly that you didn’t want a relationship, didn’t have the time for one, that this has been fun and all but you didn’t want anything to come out of it. I liked to think that after my years in high school I could spot a clinger from the other side of the lunchroom.

“Hey man,” Brice, my wing-man and second in command, chirped as he slunk through the crowd. “You seen the new kid yet?”

I shook my head “girl or guy?”

“Guy.”

Instantly I lost interest and took to flickering my eyes across the still-bustling hallway, flying from girl to girl in the hopes of finding my next candidate. One preferably with a nice wrack – I was sick of girls with no chest.

“The kid looks straight up like something out of ‘Napoleon Dynamite’, suspenders and everything,” Brice chuckled. “The biggest nerd we’ve seen in a while.”

A slow, malicious smile made its way onto my face. Brice had my full attention again, girls temporarily forgotten for something no less pleasurable. I didn’t get called the King for just being the boss of this school and deflowering all the maidens; I got it for dealing out punishments to unsuspecting subjects who didn’t know any better. Naive kids, or just those who pissed me off. Anyone really; especially dorks wearing suspenders.

Brice’s face mirrored mine, the evil brewing in our thoughts spilling over into those passing by. Just one look at us and they knew something was up, that they should probably steer clear but tag along too just so that they could enjoy the show. That’s all we were sometimes – a show. A Goddamn good production though.

“Lead the way,” I smirked and watched my best friend turn to the crowd of curious faces. They moved around him, the whole mass of them shifting just to accommodate him. It was like that for me but better, they stepped fully out of the way for me, they knew Brice wasn’t the one really in charge.