SHINY TOPS AND SODA POPS: PART TWO

"I can't believe you have episodes of Dawson's Creek on tape." Jamie stared at the tv screen, her expression somewhere between fascinated and disturbed.

From the bathroom, Aaron's voice called, "Shut up. Its just the episodes with Mike on them."

"Oh, its Mike, is it? You're on a first-name basis now?"

Aaron came and stood in the doorway, arms folded. "I'm going to meet him tonight, Jamie, I can't go around calling him 'Michael Pitt' all the time. 'Hello, Michael Pitt, this is some good punch. Wow, Michael Pitt, that's a cool shirt you're wearing. Hey, Michael Pitt, want a blowjob?'"

Jamie smirked and turned back to the TV. "Okay, if thats your seduction technique, its no wonder you're resorting to eyeliner."

"Fuck off. It was just an example. Besides, the eyeliner is because I heard he likes boys in makeup."

Jamie snorted. "Forget 'in makeup'; where did you hear that he likes boys?"

"Well...all right," Aaron admitted. "Not 'heard', per se. But JT LeRoy wrote an article about him, and it said that Mike was staring when he came back to the table wearing lipstick. So I figured I might as well play it safe."

"Who's JT LeRoy?"

"This author. He writes the books that actually make me glad that my mom is my mom." Aaron sounded slightly awed at the concept.

"Wow."

"Yeah. Cause, like, I may be all fucked up, but at least I'm not sucking cock in truckstops or being taught to preach on streetcorners." Aaron paused, surveying Jamie critically. "Hmm. You know, I think you'd appreciate the books too."

"Hey!"

"Okay, okay. Never mind." Aaron backed off, hands raised in defeat. "Anyway. What do you think I should wear: leather, to work the sex appeal, or ripped jeans, to appeal to Mike's sense of style?"

"Gee, I dunno. Maybe you should go online and see what his girlfriend likes to wear."

Aaron looked set to say something pissy, but then he stopped, a sly smile coming over his face. "You've looked up pictures of him on the internet."

"What?" Jamie's face turned pink. "Shut up! Maybe I have, okay? At least I didn't devise some intricate plan to stalk him, though."

"Its not stalking," Aaron told her for the hundredth time, "its networking."

Jamie's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. Then she said, "Okay, I'm not even going to dignify how stupid that excuse was."

"Whatever. Leather, or ripped jeans?"

Jamie turned over on her stomach, surveying both selections critically. The leather was on Aaron, the jeans were on the chair next to the bed. "Well. You're kind of relying on him not recognizing you, right? So you should go for the ripped jeans."

"Unless he's a big fan of the Disney Channel, he's not gonna recognize me anyway. And the leather pants make me look hung."

Jamie was kind enough not to burst into giggles at this, but she couldn't stop an un-girlish snort from escaping. "Oh, fuck you," Aaron pouted. "They do so."

"If you say so. But they also make you look like a rentboy." Jamie had just learned the week before what a rentboy was, so she was pretty happy to get to use it in a sentence. Especially since she'd always had to settle for 'cheap teenaged boy prostitute' when referring to Aaron.

"Okay, see, 'rentboy' is actually to my advantage in this case."

"Whatever. Just wear the jeans so I don't have to watch you wiggling your crotch at everybody."

Aaron rolled his eyes and unzipped his pants, pulling the leather off his body. Unfortunately, he'd forgotten to mention to Jamie that leather could not be worn with underwear, so she shrieked and covered her eyes a second too late. "Told you I was hung," he smirked.

"Ew," she said, and refused to speak to him again until he was properly dressed.

He'd also refrained from mentioning that his ripped jeans were at their worst state of disrepair in the crotch. And they were still too tight to wear with underwear. "What do you think?"

"Ew!" Jamie's hands flew to her eyes again. "Leather! Now!"

"Your wish is my command," Aaron said lightly. This time, he politely chose to change clothes in the bathroom with the door shut, so he missed Jamie 'politely' dropping his Dawson's Creek tape out the window.

Shiny Tops and Soda Pops: Part Three