In her senior year, Kristie went into full tilt rebellion mode. The movie Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? had just come out and she had cut a piece from the script to use as her dramatic monologue for the speech contest. She had both of the characters of George and Martha down pat. She took an award for all county, but bogied out at the state level.
She was getting ready for her senior prom and she didn’t want to wear that yellow dress again. She chose to wear a slick black, tight fitting, low cut mini dress with long sleeves. She wore black satin pumps and her hair was ratted out and done up New Jersey style. She wore lots of black eyeliner and some false eyelashes. To complete her look and because it was prom, her date got her a specially ordered black orchid corsage with purple ribbon.
Her date was not a fellow senior or the typically older college boys she was dating now, but a younger gayboy friend of hers. Straight boys were fun to date and fuck, but she would really rather hang out with her gay friends. George wore black pants, a white shirt, a white silk cravat and a tweed smoking jacket. It wasn’t typical prom costuming, but it fit the characters they were playing.
They went out for dinner and drinks at a local lounge. No one seemed to bother with ID’s. They didn’t look like typical teenagers anyway. He had a gin and tonic and she had a vodka Collins. They repeated lines from the play while they ate.
‘Your father is a tiny white mouse with little red eyes.”
“My father’s a god! We all know that!”
“Martha, your son is dead.”
“Noooooo!!! He’s not dead!” she moaned as she flailed her hair from side to side
After dinner they sauntered into the prom looking nothing like the whirling pastel chiffon acid trip that filled the room. Her dad had been right about that yellow dress. Everyone was wearing one similar to her empire waist Audrey Hepburn look only two years later. Geez! In another couple of years the girls would probably all be wearing short black dresses.
“I’m ahead of my time, George,” she remarked to her date.
“You certainly are, Martha. You most certainly are.”
Since it was senior prom, a few of their gay friends had teamed up to play it straight. Her butch friend, Pat, was wearing some god awful purple satin dress that made her look like a matron out of an English drama. Pat’s date, also gay, accompanied her in a traditional black tuxedo.
They were twirling away fighting over the lead as Martha and George entered. They nodded and kept on twirling. A gasp arose from the staff as the rebels made their entrance. Mr. Wally, the social studies teacher, who knew Kristie well came up to greet her and check out her intentions.
“Don’t worry. We’re not here to make a fuss,” she said. “We’ll just get our pictures taken and be out of here.”
Mr. Wally was relieved, he didn’t want anything to disrupt the party.
“What did they think we’d do?” she asked her date. She told him she thought it would be funny if they launched into their routine in really loud theatrical voices.
George kept in character as he shook his head, “I don’t know, Martha, I just don’t know.”
They decided to go down to Alice’s to see what was happening. George left Martha at the table while he went to the rest room to wash his hands and get his dick sucked. They had a couple of drinks, danced to the jukebox, and watched the queens frolic.
At midnight they drove down to the beach to watch the sun rise. They drove with the windows wide open to feel the wind. At the beach they sat in the life guard tower and drank some Lancer’s out of the bottle.
The waves lapped at the shore. The moon hung low in the sky. No one was about. “I would totally fuck you right now if I wasn’t gay,” her friend began.
“I feel the same way about you,” she replied. Something in the air was brewing. The summer of love was just around the corner.
“Monkey Nipples!” she yelled out as she jumped down from the life guard tower and ran towards the surf.
George took off his shoes and jacket and joined her, “Monkey Nipples!”
(First published 5/29/12)
