Surprisingly Violent Bunnies Helped Me Defeat The Loch Ness Monster, Oh And A Pterodactyl: My Time On Acid
I’VE BEEN PUBLISHED!
This is a true story about the time Sandy and I took four hits of double-dipped Blue Lightning fry. It was only the second time I dropped acid. I was 14, Sandy was 15.
Click here for another wild drug infused ride with me. In Reno.
And pretty please (with strippers on top) leave a comment at Belowthelinemag.com so my editor will publish me again!
In love, art & LSD,
Court
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Where is the Youth?
Hello my awesome readers! If only I could kiss each of you on your perfect faces, oh I would. Here are a few awesome updates:
- Posting every 7-9 days is attainable now, so keep your eyes peeled!
- Notice there’s a new rad feature called Title Song at the end of the blog (that will remain during the Goth years, and could continue on) with lyrics and additional info on the song I feel best represents the post. The music was such an important factor during this time, and has been – really – my entire life that I feel it needs its own space within my stories.
- Okay, I’m shutting up now – time to learn what the hell fry was – if you haven’t already figured it out…
Peter Murphy, the ultimate Goth God. Frontman of one of my favorite bands to this day, Bauhaus.
I watched Christie climb on the hottest guy I’d seen in my life so far. He was tall, blonde and Peter Murphy skinny.
Christie handed my new dream man 15 bucks and he slid a tiny piece of tinfoil into her back pocket. Everything was five bucks. Five to get into the club, five for a hit of fry.
And then, in perfect Christie fashion, she did a full-on Bill the Cat “ACK-THBPPT “followed by an “Arp!” and hit her arm across her body, (which was her cruel imitation of someone with a developmental disability), then grabbed me and ran us toward the bathroom.
It was so curious how she was always her weirdo self, yet was pretty popular in the Goth crowd. It reminded me of school – I had to study for hours to get an A on a test, while my friends would barely study and ace it. I mean, for fuck’s sake, I practiced my serious face for hours in the mirror only to be dragged around the club by Bill the Cat.
She (fittingly) locked us in the handicapped stall and perched herself on the back of the toilet. I hovered awkwardly as she unfolded the tiny foil origami only to expose three very small pieces of paper, each with a tiny dragon printed on it.
Courtesy of erowid.org
Fry was paper? All this anticipation for paper?
“Stick out your tongue.”
I obeyed. She placed the small piece of paper on my tongue.
“Hunter bought five sheets of windowpane double-dipped Dragon in The Dead parking lot last week. This shit is so pure – you’re going to fry balls!”
I longed for a drug jargon-to-English interpreter; instead I just smiled and nodded.
“Don’t swallow it for 20 minutes. Just let it soak in, then chew it up before you swallow.”
This was meant to be. Little did most know, but I’d been eating paper for years. I was practically built for fry.
When I was a kid, the dog didn’t eat my homework – I did. I also loved books. They were delicious. I ate half of The Velveteen Rabbit.
I loved the taste of paper and the process of eating paper. I eventually graduated to pants and it got ugly, but it was like corduroys were meant for eating those little rows just like corn on the cob.
Someone walked into the bathroom and knocked on the stall.
“Courtney? Are you in there?” Christie’s eyes got huge, but I knew that voice.
I threw open the door and hugged Sandy for days. She was meeting us there, but with all the paper eating I completely forgot.
Christie suddenly burst out of the bathroom, put the foil with the last piece of fry in Sandy’s hand and ran onto the dance floor. She didn’t like attention wandering anywhere beyond her.
We met her on the dance floor but before we could talk, Front 242’s Headhunter came on. Christie freaked the fuck out and hugged both of us. I guess she was no longer mad.
“ONE YOU LOCK THE TARGET!”
And we all started to dance. And didn’t stop. Nitzer Ebb, Tones on Tail, Sisters of Mercy, and Alien Sex Fiend later, I stopped. In the middle of the dance floor.
Goosebumps shot up my arms. The warmth started in my knees and spread throughout my body and I broke into a sweat. I thought I might be thirsty, but I couldn’t tell.
(Press play and listen while finishing this post for maximum impact.)
Bella Lugosi’s Dead came on, as if on cue. The music vibrated through me as if there was no beginning or end of my body and the song. Where did the song stop and I begin? Nowhere. We were one.
The people, pain, music, high school, my father, mom, drugs, this place, this time, the planets, gravity, dimension travel, past lives, the meaning of it all – each piece fit into an intricate puzzle and it was right in front of me. Of all of us everyday really. We just couldn’t SEE it because it was right there.
It was all so simple. If I only had a pen and paper to record the answer to everything, but that would require I get off the dance floor and that was never going to happen.
We danced until the club closed at 2am, piled into David Byrne’s* beat-up 1973 VW Bug and ended up – Sandy, Christie and me – all laying on the floor, chain smoking and watching David Byrne make enormous shadows dance on his cottage cheese ceiling with his very large hands hovering over a single candle – the only source of light in the room.
Bella Lugosi’s Dead came on. It all came back to me – the answer. So I decided to share what was in my brain with my friends and David Byrne, but my voice sounded like a swallowed warbled echo and I wasn’t quite sure about the shape of my words anymore.
David Byrne hovered over me. His face was much more liquid than solid. He smiled wider than the Cheshire Cat.
“Is this your first time riding the LSD train, little girl?”
It didn’t hit me until 36 more plays of Bella Lugosi’s Dead (David Byrne had a cassette tape with nothing on it but that song for this very specific kind of incident), five packs of cigarettes and five hours later (remember, everything’s in fives now) that I realized that I’D TAKEN LSD.
I’d finally crossed the line in the sand. A line I never drew, but a line I was familiar with – that step from minor escape to full-on hard drugs.
I was not scared.
I felt dirty from the inside out.
And I couldn’t wait to do it again.
*I found out later that David Byrne was 20-year-old named Peter Pow and was not actually David Byrne, but he was just as tall and thin and was the front man of a local, very strange band. So I wasn’t too far off.
Title Song
Murderous by Nitzer Ebb, Album: That Total Age, 1987, addt’l info
Lyrics (repeat several times)
Where is the youth?
It’s time to live
It’s time to know
Shout golden shouts
Lift up your hearts
Much better now
We’re stronger now
Don’t be lazy
With the pleasure of sin
Where is the youth?
Where is the gold?
Think of the beauty
Think of your pride
Don’t back away
It’s there, it’s there for you
Hear, hear what we say
Said hear, hear what we say
Let passion spend
Let your passion spend
(Youth)
Better now, stronger now
It’s time, it’s time to know
It’s time, it’s time to live
Shout golden shouts
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Fryday Night
Hello awesome readers! This blog that I lovingly refer to as RENO IS A GATEWAY DRUG is back! I will try to post weekly, but I need your help. If you like this blog, please make comments below so I know you are reading.
If you LOVE this blog, please share it with your friends. The way I describe it is “a teenager makes her way into the 1980’s Reno drug subculture.” Or “a badass, funny, twisted blog.” Or whatever you come up with. Thanks for reading and I love all your faces!!!
Me. Yes, I’m wearing black gloves.
Christie was a parent’s worst nightmare. She put the “wrong” in “wrong crowd.” Of course, my attraction to the wrong crowd was no accident. It was due to a perfect mix of a shitty childhood and horrific bullying.
Saying that I slipped and fell into the bad crowd is like saying Bobby Brown single-handedly destroyed Whitney Houston. Trust me, Whitney was looking for her Bobby, and if it wasn’t that Bobby, there would’ve been another one to flash her the perfect gap-toothed come hither by the glow of a crack pipe.
That being said, I sought out the wrong crowd like a heat-seeking missile. Once I hit Christie, I exploded.
I couldn’t wait for Friday, or shall I say, FRY-day. I’m quite certain I was the only human more excited to do something that she had no idea what it was than anyone ever had been in this particular position.
I went home with Christie after school on Friday, all packed for a sleepover AND a night at the club.
Christie lived in the nice side of town on a small horse ranch. Her mom drove a BMW. But most impressive was the fact that Christie had a Nintendo.
We ate dinner with her mom, dad and younger brother and then played Super Mario Brothers until it was time to get ready for the club. For fry. The butterflies in my stomach flittered up to the top of my esophagus.
I followed Christie into her bedroom. Her walls were a mix of Robert Smith posters and horse riding ribbons. She pressed play on her tape player. And This is What the Devil Does started and she threw me on her bed.
(For a more authentic experience, press play on this song while reading the next section.)
She hopped on me – full Tigger style – and started fake fucking me. This would be a portent of what was to come like nobody’s business.
“I’m going to hug you and squeeze you and call you George!”
I struggled my way out of her attempted rape. I barely trusted her; she was the second most unpredictable human I’d met behind my bio dad.
She heated up a black Wet n’ Wild eyeliner pencil with a lighter – oh high, of course – and started applying thick HOT black eyeliner to my eyelids. I tried not to flinch.
We began comparing notes.
- We both weren’t virgins, but she was a downright whore. I’d done it once with one guy and she’d done it hella tons of times with hella lots of different guys. And one of them was over 40 – awesome!
- We both drank alcohol, but she’d already had her stomach pumped once. I was so jealous.
- We both smoked cigarettes and weed, but she smoked cloves and she didn’t get paranoid when she got high.
- We both went to Premier, but I only went once and she went 8 zillion times and knew everyone.
- We both went to Rocky Horror, but she most certainly didn’t go with her mom. Let alone two moms.
- We both felt Goth, but she was brave enough to wear it on the outside. I was too chicken to look Goth anywhere other than the Premier and I hadn’t even done that yet, so I was really only Goth in my heart and in my super deep poetry.
I was living the song Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better) – in reverse.
She was so many steps ahead of me on the badassedness scale it was like I got to the party after everyone was already drunk so I had to do 12 shots to get on the level STAT.
My competitive nature kicked in and my drive to become Goth was now at the top of my priority list. That, and keep a 3.0 GPA. Oh, and try out for drill team. And stay in French Club, Ski Club and Students Against Drunk Driving. And have everyone like me so I could stay on this planet.
Oh, baby, look at you, don’t you look just like Siouxsie Sioux!
Three hours later, we were dropped off at Club Underground. I don’t think my own mother would’ve recognized me. I looked like Siouxsie Sioux with blonde hair. I was nervous, but I felt almost as if I was on stage. Like I was acting. My outsides were protecting me from any rejection because it wouldn’t be me who they were rejecting. It would be this facade.
I mean, Jesus, I had Christie’s thick leather jacket on. No one was penetrating my wall.
My hands shook as I held up a clove for Christie to light. The fucking hands – they’re the only traitor on my body. They are incapable of being cool.
We walked in the front door smoking and posing, half of Woolworth’s Wet n’ Wild black makeup on our faces. Christie scanned the club for her connection, then jumped up, grabbed my hand and we ran into a crowd of underage club kids who hurt just like me: some were being molested at home, most were addicted to drugs and all had a story.
And a common solution.
Instant Club Hit (You’ll Dance to Anything) by The Dead Milkmen gives a somewhat accurate portrayal of the Goth club kids of the 80’s – by totally ripping us a new asshole. It’s basically the punk perspective of the Goth subculture. It will help you enter the world we’re going to be in for a few years…
. . .
Tune in next week to find out what fry actually is and what it does to walls!
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Sabbatical
Hello amazing readers!
I am going on Sabbatical because I’ve always wanted to say that and it sounds way more cool than I need to make some money. But don’t despair, I’m going to actually get paid to write. It’s just not about teenage sex and drugs.
This blog is my soul. On a platter. If you find yourself jonesing for a fix, just start from the beginning again. I bet we’ll meet up right at the perfect time.
I shall return once I learn to balance my new gigs. Until then, I give you the last beat of my heart.
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Christie
It was time to shop for a new, rad friend. A boss. One who would propel me to new social heights. And she had to be Goth; I made up my mind that my future was going to be black.
Oh, and it was. Just wait.
I met my best friend Sandy where the smokers hung out, so I threw my badass on and moseyed over to the sidewalk across the street where we smokers got our 10 minutes of nicotine meditation on.
Christie said she was 5’ tall, but she was lying. She was 90 pounds kitty cat wet, but she rode horses so she was all muscle. She could jump horseback hurdles without the fucking horse.
And she was Goth. Openly. At school. She didn’t give a fuck.
The second I met her, I knew she was trouble. It’s what drew her to me and eventually tore us apart.
I watched her flail around as she excitedly talked to a small group about the probability of aliens. And the probability that they had probed her anus. And she was literally bouncing.
Christie was like Tigger on crack. With a dark side.
She bounded up to me and did one of the best Bill the Cat impressions I’ve seen TO DATE.
How did she know about my obsession with Bloom County? That I had all the books and read them over and over?
My drawings of Bill were as good as her impersonation. I drew Bill the Cat on everything including the notebook I was… holding.
In hindsight, it was quite fitting that the mutual love of a derelict drug addict cat was our bond.
She grabbed me by my notebook and spun me around with great force.
“Cut with me. I have cloves.”
She had me at “with me.”
We walked two miles to the cemetery. It was obvious we were cutting for the rest of the day. Christie sang some song about dead poets the whole way and I realized that I was going to have to bone up on my literature to become Goth.
Christie took me to an unlocked tomb and we crawled inside. It was empty. The sun streaming in through stained glass made it feel like a tiny church. A sense of calm pervaded my senses. When my family lived in Mexico, I used to hide from my abusive father in church. It was the only other time I felt that all over body peace without using drugs and alcohol.
We sat on the stoop and Christie handed me a clove cigarette.*
“Hold the clove between your fingers and then make a circle with that hand and cup it with your other hand. No take a huge hit and hold it as long as you can.
I’d been smoking pot long enough to come off overqualified.
The promise of distorted reality was always a carrot I would chase, even if it meant possible death.
I exhaled and I had a sweet buzz on. The cloves tasted like strawberry. It was a perfect cemetery day.
Signature Christie, right in the middle of my buzz, picked me up and spun me around and around and around. Like a record, baby.
The only predictable thing about this girl was that she was completely unpredictable. And hyper as shit.
“Now lay down, take a power hit and listen to this.”
I lay where Mary Buford made her final resting place. I imagined her 6-feet under me in a coffin. Decaying. I felt so Goth.
I was beginning to feel like a slave to her whims. But of course I would do what she said rather than face the consequences of standing up for myself. This girl was my only touchstone to the world I wanted so badly to belong to. I was no victim in this scenario; I was definitely a volunteer.
The only other person I knew in the scene was Ethan, but he made me want to puke and he wasn’t even Goth.
She put her headphones over my ears. I took the hit. She pressed play on the Walkman. It was My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult – I’d never heard them. The song was A Daisy Chain 4 Satan. Right when the song started, I was floating. I was in the music. I was the music. I felt that peace wash over me again, but this time it stayed.
I knew this was going to save me. I was going to reinvent myself. I was going to be untouchable. No one would break my heart again. No one would know about my deep shame of losing the Brie Lesbian Attempt.
I tried vulnerability. It didn’t fucking work. I suddenly understood why punkers wore those thick leather jackets. I was in need of a shell.
I felt breath on my face.
I batted my spider legs open. Christie was an inch away from my face studying me as if I was her very own science experiment.
“Stay over at my house Friday night. We’ll go to Club Underground and do some fry.”
I felt like Charlie getting the golden ticket to Goth. I had no idea what fry was, but if it was half as good as cloves, I was in.
*Clove cigarettes were illegal in Nevada, but Reno is only a 45-minute drive from the state line. It wasn’t as rad as having weed, but it still meant you drove or kicked it with people who drove, which made you badass.
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First Love
The good thing about sleeping until Saturday afternoon and being promised sex that night was at least we slept the first half of the day away.
It was still a zillion hours until my parents went to bed. Which was strange, because they went to bed at 7:30pm.
Brie and I distracted ourselves by watching my VHS tape of Terms of Endearment on the couch. I pulled my comforter off of my bed and put it over us. I sat so close to Brie that our complete side bodies were touching one another.
Then I put my hand on her thigh, more than halfway up her thigh. She didn’t move away. About 23 minutes later – just an approximation – she put her hand ON MY UNDERWEAR.
There was no way in hell she was going to pass out on me tonight.
Approximately 10 seconds after my parents went to bed, we were in my bedroom.
“What should we do? Where should we do this?”
Brie was concerned with practicing bisexuality correctly. Before I could answer, sheer brilliance danced out of her mouth.
“Let’s take a bath. With candles. Lots of candles.”
“I’ll get it ready. You just relax.”
I was clearly the dominant in our relationship. It seemed pretty obvious that the person who wanted something from the other (sex) is the dominant one. That whole “she’s the man, she’s the woman” thing is like trying to organize clouds. There’s no point and they’ll just blow away and change shape anyway.
I drew a bath. (Courtney Rule of Life #35: if you ever have the opportunity to use a fancy phrase, do so.)
I put candles all over my boom box; after all it was as high as a small table. I already had two handcrafted mix tapes ready to roll – my boom box had a double tape deck, of course.
The first song was Somebody by Depeche Mode. Right out of the gate, I laid my heart on the chopping block with this song; after all, it was used to destroy me at one time. I was weak then; now, I was unafraid.
The only fear in love for me was and still is regret. I offered her my pound of flesh. It was hers for the taking. If she rejected me, then at least I wouldn’t regret not showing her all of me. Heartbreak is a painful enough event without bringing feelings of regret into the ring.
The bathroom was transformed into a lesbian paradise. The bath was steaming, the candles glowing.
Before I knew it, we were facing each other in my small linoleum and wallpapered bathroom. We took off our clothes at the same time, piece by piece, while looking into each other’s eyes. Approximately 47 days later, we were naked.
It was heaven to truly take in her naked body – without fear of getting caught. I had full eyeball freedom. I felt the freedom of a bird for a split second.
She was the most beautiful a human could ever be. Every curve was perfection. If she saw what I saw, Brie would never have been insecure again.
We got in the tub, slowly, staring at each other. I was unsure of my body. My mom and sister had anorexia, so they always called me “the stocky one.” I was solid. I was extremely unsure of my small, incredibly perky breasts. I wished they would just calm down – they were practically around my neck they were so high.
I knew my face was beautiful but I was totally out of touch with my body.
We sat cross-legged, staring in each other’s eyes. Then she leaned in toward me, lips slightly open. Everything was in slow motion, but it was all going far too fast. I wanted tonight to last forever. I was trying to stay in the moment, but it was so sensual and such a dream come true, that my inner addict wanted to schedule at least three more play dates in pen.
This couldn’t be the only time.
When her lips touched mine, electricity ran through my body. And then her tongue. I could barely breathe it was so intense.
Even in hindsight, this was possibly the most amazingly sensual experience of my life. Her lips were so soft. Her touch was softer.
When we came up for breath, she opened her eyes and smiled.
We kissed and heavily petted each other until the water was cold, then I took her to my bed and made love to her.
I hate the phrase “made love,” it’s so cheesy. But it’s what it was. It wasn’t fucking. It wasn’t just sex. I was deeply in love with her and showing her with my body.
Every single part of it made sense. My body knew what to do; so did hers. There was nothing unnatural about making love to a woman. Comparing it to the one time I got fucked by a guy was like comparing Oingo Boingo to Mozart.
Of course, after that night, I thought every night would be the same. Ends up the experiment was truly only an experiment for her. The next time I spent the night I assumed we would make love again, so I started busting my moves and she stopped me. Her face held the look of disgust and judgment.
She stood up and said, “I’m not gay. I like men.”
Somewhere off in the distance on a foggy knoll, I can still hear the sound of my heart shattering into a zillion pieces. I would have future sexual encounters with women but none, and I mean none, ever compared to Brie.
Her tone of the word “gay” was ugly. I felt deeply ashamed for my wants. I didn’t even know if I was gay or not, but I knew if she said “yes,” I would’ve been proud to be her girlfriend.
Our friendship became distant. Our long weekends were less and less. Her insane mother accused me of stealing her diamond earrings.
She found them a year later. By then, Brie and my friendship was nothing more than passing each other in school halls.
We never launched our clothing line.
And we never went to Paris.
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And… Action!
Brie recounted her conversation with Ethan approximately 453 times on the car ride home. So many times that I still remember every word.
Here’s how it went down:
Brie walked right up to Ethan, cigarette between her moisturized and cuticle-free fingers.
“Can I get a light?”
“Sorry.”
Awkward moment. Ethan wiped his coked up nose as Brie begged the universe to give her a sign of what to do next. Then it came to her.
“Can I use your cigarette?”
“Huh?”
This guy was brilliant. I could totally see why she wanted him.
“To light my cigarette.”
“Oh sure.”
Then he did something beyond magical… he SMILED at her. This smile alone kept hope alive for poor Brie for approximately another two years.
He handed her his smoke. She used it to light hers. Where did she learn this technique? If you guessed “her amazing friend, Courtney” then you guessed correctly.
“Have I seen you at Rocky?”
Oh Lord.
And that’s how we ended up at Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight the following Friday night with not only Brie’s mom, but my mom as well.
I couldn’t make this shit up if I wanted to.
I was expecting an Italian man in boxing shorts, not a transvestite in fishnets. And talk about feeling like everyone was in on the joke but us. Everyone yelled back at the screen, in unison, throughout the film as if they’d been practicing for years.
Ends up they had been.
I got up to sneak a cigarette in the bathroom and two girls were going at it FULL ON in the stall next to me.
From what I could see through the stall cracks, one of them was the prettiest Goth girl of them all – the one who lit Ethan’s smoke.
She was beyond cool. Well beyond. Like if cool was Saturn, she was Pluto. Like that. Only slightly cooler. And we all agree that Pluto is the coolest planet in our solar system. Duh, it’s the only controversial planet-moon-no-longer-a-planet-yes-it-is-no-it’s-not around.
I ran into the theatre and grabbed Brie. I finally had a method to get my point across right there in black lipstick and panties-on-the-ground. I dragged her into the bathroom and pointed to the stall.
“Tres chic.”
Yes, that is what actually came out of my mouth. Again, I wish I was making this up.
She was enthralled. Thank you God!
“Bisexuality is very common in France,” she whispered to me.
Why yes, Brie, it is. Of course, so is not wearing deodorant, but I wasn’t about to bring that shit up.
“Do you want to try it?”
Please oh please oh please oh please say yes. I just handed her my vulnerability on the chopping block. My heart was racing. This was the do or die moment.
I didn’t want to die, but if she waited one more second to mull it over, I might have perished right then and there in that grimy ass bathroom.
“Yes. We should try everything French once.”
And with that, we planned to practice bisexuality when we got back to my place.
Rocky was waaaaay too long. I feared I’d die before I could kiss that mouth. Those lips. The anticipation was too much to bear.
That damned movie was 870 hours long.
We finally got back to my place at 3:30am and Brie’s eyes were heavy. And then she yawned.
And then she passed out on my bed.
Epic fail.
Over French Toast (yes, really) the next afternoon, my heart started pounding really hard. It still does this to me when I better say something or live to regret the hell out of a missed opportunity.
I’m not a fan of missed opportunities.
“Can you stay over tonight?”
“I have to ask my mom.”
Dammit. Brie’s mom was never a huge fan of mine. I secretly thought she saw through me. She saw my lust for her daughter. But it was just a feeling.
Her looks made me feel ashamed. That’s all I knew. I knew it wasn’t OK to have these feelings for my friend, but I couldn’t fight them even if I tried.
And, of course, I didn’t want to fight them because I wanted Brie to be mine.
But it was OK in Paris. I think that’s what made it OK for me. Because when we were together, we weren’t in Reno. That’s why they call it “gay Paris,” oui?
Her mother said yes. I took back all my nasty thoughts about her right then.
Yes…
Yes.
Yes!
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The Math of Lesbianism
Brie hated smoking. She thought it was gross. Whenever she caught me smoking, she’d pluck it out of my lips and stomp it out.
Thankfully I smoked generics.
Back when he showered.
I tried and tried to convince her that smoking was trés chic. I pointed out smoking in the French films we watched together. Johnny Depp from “21 Jump Street” smoked and he was my new number one and her number two, behind George, of course.
But nothing, I mean nothing, could get that girl to smoke.
Then, at that very moment, at the other end of the club, Ethan put a cigarette in between his perfect lips and, as if on cue, the most gorgeous goth girls of them all pulled out a lighter and lit his smoke for him.
And yes, it did all happen in slow motion if you were wondering.
Here’s the math:
George Michael = G, Ethan Johnston = E, Brie = B, Smoking = S
G ≥ E, E=S ∴ B=S
Brie had a cigarette between her pouty lips quicker than I could throw away every colorful item of clothing I owned and buy a box of hair bleach.
She made her way to Ethan and asked him for a light, knowing full well that he didn’t have one, but that’s how we rolled. I don’t think I would’ve ever gotten a boyfriend if I had a lighter. Or at least pretended like I didn’t have a lighter.
So now I was alone in the club wearing pink and chain smoking. I studied the girls glaring and laughing at me knowing that next time I came here, I would look just like them and they wouldn’t recognize me as the Betty from the week before.
Then it happened. Another defining moment in my life. A moment that changed me forever.
Never Let Me Down Again by Depeche Mode blasted through the nightclub speakers.
The dance floor grew thick with kids. I knew this song and all the lyrics which made me super goth. I sang along, loudly, and smoked at them. The song was about betrayal, a subject I knew all too well.
My despair intensified with every flip of Brie’s hair. With every fake drag off her cigarette. With every word Ethan spoke to her. The pain that she wanted him and not me coursed through my blood.
My face got very serious.
I now had two things going for me:
- Smoking
- Serious face
I was already Goth on the inside, now my outsides just had to catch up.
The music pulsed through me. I fell in love with at least 12 men on the dance floor. I studied the dance style so I could practice once I got home.
I could do this. I could be Goth. No problem. I knew pain. I knew sadness. I looked forward to stop pretending like I was happy because I hadn’t really been happy since the horrible day we moved to Sparks and before that I was only happy for about six months.
My life before we moved to Reno was hell. My biological father was a violent alcoholic who tried to murder my mother on a nightly basis. And we lived outside a fishing village in the middle of Mexico. Now I was excited to delve into my sadness with other people who understood. I could tell they understood. That they were like me.
If these Goth kids wanted to have a sad-off, I’d wipe the dance floor clean with all I’d survived.
Then, in the middle of my smoking sad-a-thon, a ray of sunshine broke through the smoke clouds. There they were – beautiful, fantastic and trés chic.
TWO CHICKS WERE FULL-ON MAKING OUT ON THE DANCE FLOOR!!!!!!
My sad face was totally destroyed. I was grinning from ear-to-ear. Let’s go back to the blackboard:
Brie = B, Goth = G, Courtney = C, Trés Chic = T, Kissing Chicks = K
G=T, C=G, B=G, G=T, K=T ∴ B+C=K!!!
It. Was. On.
I’d even let Ethan watch if that was a stipulation.
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The Club
The only thing I thought of when Brie said “let’s go clubbing” was how much I loved baby harp seals and how she found the one thing I wouldn’t do to win her love.
“Huh?”
“The Premier. Everyone’s going. It’s tres chic.”
Yes, we overused the term. We were branding trailblazers.
The Premier was a nightclub that had an underage night every Sunday. The reason she wanted to go was because Ethan was going to be there.
Ethan Johnston.
Ethan was a Junior at Reno High. He drove a BMW. He wore nothing but Ralph Lauren – hell, he played water polo. He wore fucking pastels.
But he had a striking resemblance to – guess who?
Grrrrrr.
Yup. George Michael. My nemesis.
I was a freshman and Brie was still in eighth grade when her psycho mom took her to tour Reno High so she could get a variance just like me and there he was, leaning on his Beemer, just like Steff in Pretty in Pink.
Hi Steff.
I think he was the only other human on the planet who really saw her. Who undressed her layers of baby fat and insecurities and saw her true beauty underneath. Not enough to actually date her, but definitely enough to lead her on for the next, oh, four years or so.
“Were you at Premier last week?” he asked her as she walked by without actually looking at her, which I know from experience is a cool technique.
She stopped, dead in her tracks. The color drained from her perfect face. Was that George Michael leaning on a Beemer?
“Yeah, you. With the brown hair.”
I already hated him.
Somehow we managed to talk Brie’s mom into letting us go to Premier on a school night. The mind still boggles.
The only fact we knew about the club was that Ethan went there. He was a prep, so we assumed the other kids would look like him. After hours of wardrobe changes, Aqua Net and important lip gloss decisions, we finally deemed ourselves club worthy.
We were nothing short of an epic fail before we even got through the front door. Brie’s mom decided to wait for us in her car PARKED IN FRONT and read a book.
We pulled open the front doors and smoke billowed out. Lame, party of two, nervously stood by the door front door to find a subculture we never even knew existed. Once we adjusted our eyes, it was obvious that no shade of lip gloss was going to save us.
Everyone was goth.
We were so fucked.
The protocol was black clothing, powdered white faces, black eyeliner, black or dark red lipstick, and smoking. Everyone smoked. At least I had that going for me.
The only color allowed was saved for hair. If it wasn’t dyed black or bleached white (not blonde, white), it was purple, blue or fire engine red. There were a few Oranges, greens and yellows (again, not blonde, Martin Gore yellow).
We looked like this.
They looked like this.
We weren’t the only non-Goth kids. There were other kids that mixed in:
- SHARP’s (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice).
- Nazi’s (Skinheads for racial prejudice).
- Straightedge (Skinheads who were violently anti-drug).
- Rich kids with money to blow on, you guessed it, blow.
Ethan had a full head of hair. Do the math.
Nitzer Ebb’s Join in the Chant came on. I’d never heard anything like it. It sounded nothing like Madonna or 2 Live Crew. The closest I’d come to this sound was Depeche Mode, but after The Blue Banana Incident, I no longer went over to Jan’s house and listened to Depeche with her. Backstabbing bitch.
The longer I listened, the longer I realized Nitzer Ebb would’ve eaten Depeche Mode for breakfast.
The song pulsated through my body. It made me want to fuck someone dirty, even though I’d yet to actually fuck someone, I’d only been fucked. I wanted to do drugs. Hard drugs. I wanted to dance. I wanted to hurt people. And myself.
I got on the dance floor and started moving to the music. I didn’t care that I didn’t look like everyone else. I didn’t care about the past. I didn’t care.
I just didn’t care which was the one thing I had been searching for all these years. The ability to NOT CARE.
I felt powerful. I pulled up my rage and showed it. I pulled up my shame and told it to fuck off. I pulled up my tiny khaki skirt because my ass was just about to make an unwelcome appearance. Not again.
I’d wasted years trying to fit in when the real way was to not fit in at all. Brie’s stupid crush led me to the Holy Grail. For a second, I was almost grateful for Ethan Johnston.
Ends up there was another subculture of kid that hit the club, very rarely and usually only
once:
- Betty (A girl who tries to fit in with the goth subculture without wearing black or listening to The Cure and smiles when she should be frowning. A poser. The most disliked person in the club.)
And this was going to be the last time I ever looked like a Betty again.
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My 1st Orgasm (with Another Person)
I was single. Sex was awful and my last hope for a boyfriend almost ate my face off. There were no prospects on the horizon, until…
Brie was in 8th grade at Sparks Middle, but we still spent every weekend together on her dad’s 80-acre horse ranch.
I originally took Brie under my wing to save her from bullies, but our roles reversed as she grew more and more confident. She introduced me to worlds previously unexplored by yours truly.
Her goal in life was to be chic – tres chic. We decided to move to Paris and start a clothing line the second we got out of Sparks called – you guessed it – Tres Chic. We had pages and pages of designs. I invented the sideways zipper ankle boot and let me tell you – it was a fucking fashion revolution.
One particularly magical Fall day, Brie and I were prepping our horses for our longest horseback ride to date. As she put the saddle on her horse, she turned around, her perfect brown hair swishing as she grinned at me and said, “Are you sure you’re ready for this? You won’t be able to walk for days.”
And then she winked at me.
A lightning bolt tingle shot my downstairs taco like nobody’s business. I longed to squeeze my legs together to orgasm immediately. It was over. There was no way I could continue denying that I wanted to be so much more than friends.
She had opened a window and I was not going to let it shut until those lips were on mine.
The horse ride helped. We rode English, which involves basically dry humping the saddle the entire trip. We rode for hours and fantasized about our lives in Paris. How chic we would be. How we would leave this horrible place behind us.
I fantasized about kissing her in Paris in the rain.
We returned 4 hours later, sweaty and exhausted. Her dad and stepmom had gone into town for the day. Once we got the horses untacked, we went swimming in their above ground pool. We always swam after a ride.
“I like to swim naked when no one’s home.”
Yes, she said that to me. Yes, I decided I was a lesbian after all. Yes, I was naked in 30 seconds.
She wore a “D” cup. She was 12 and I was 13. Her breasts floated in the water. I couldn’t turn my eyes away. I wanted to touch them. I wanted to lick them. It felt so natural I didn’t understand why people made such a big deal out two girls together.
She swam and floated and I stared and squeezed my legs together for over an hour, and then she said, “I want to show you something in my bedroom, a secret.”
My heart beat so hard I don’t know how she didn’t hear it. We wrapped towels around our naked bodies and ran into her bedroom. She closed the door.
And she turned on the TV.
And there he was – George Michael.
Sigh.
George Michael was her dream man. The only thing she talked about more than Paris, was George. As her boyfriend. I hated him.
“Get in bed.”
This still wasn’t weird. We watched Wham videos in bed all the time. We fashion designed in bed while watching Wham videos. We kind of did everything in bed watching Wham videos.
My heart sank. At least I had skinny dipping to hold onto for classroom fantasy.
“Grab that pillow and put it between your legs.”
What?
“Pull up on it and grind yourself into it, like this.”
And then she showed me what I’d been doing to pillows for a year now. Only now I was doing it with a friend. Okay.
Okay!
And we both climaxed while watching George Michael dance around on stage. How we didn’t know he was gay is a complete mystery to me in hindsight.
There was no kissing, no nipple licking, no fingerbanging. But there was an open window and there would be more. It was time to strategize my way into her pants.
