by Craig Birk
Chapter Thirteen
Porn + Games Part II
6:38 p.m.
“Truckin', like the do-dah man.
Once told me, “You've got to play your hand”
Sometimes the cards ain’t worth a damn, if you don't lay ’em down,
Sometimes the light’s all shinin’ on me; Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me, what a long, strange trip it’s been”
– Truckin’, The Greatful Dead
Ten miles beyond the official Barstow city limit, Alex, Mike and Gary outvoted Roger three to one and switched off the Stanford game, promising to put it back on for the second half. Gary cycled through the iPod in the front seat and announced he would start things off with a vintage beat. Moments later, Skid Row’s I Remember You began to play.
Alex and Gary sang along in the front seat, “We spent the summer with the top rolled down,” while Mike turned toward Roger in the back and simulated shooting himself in the head. A lack of enthusiasm for the vocals emanating from the front wasn’t the only thing contributing to Mike’s lack of appreciation for life at the moment. His stomach was churning in a way that had morphed from annoying to painful. He now regretted the Kodiak.
Mike rolled the window down. At the current speed of eighty-four miles per hour, the noise from the wind mostly drowned out Sebastian Bach and his newfound chorus. He firmly pinched the chew with his left hand, reached out the window and flipped it into the nothingness on the side of Interstate 15. Alex tried to look in rearview mirror to make sure Mike wasn’t making a mess in the car, but the sun was now directly behind them, a fireball resting on the horizon rendering the mirror useless.
“That better not be all over the car out there,” Alex said sternly.
“Don’t worry, there is none on the outside of the car,” Mike said, smiling to himself.
Roger had been trying to go back to sleep for the past few minutes, but the burst of air from Mike’s window left him completely awake, and bored. “Can we pull over and get some beers and maybe play a drinking game or something? Even better, let’s play something where I can take some of you bitches’ money.”
Alex did not want to stop for beers. His vision involved getting to Vegas as soon as possible, perhaps allowing for time to relax with a few drinks in the room before going out. Also, he knew if the other guys started drinking now it would have the following negative effects on him:
1.At least three additional piss breaks prior to arrival
2.Small jealousy factor that everyone else was drinking
3.Higher likelihood the one or more of the other guys would end up too drunk by midnight to enjoy the whole night
4.Risk of spilling in the car
5.Legal risk if they get pulled over
Alex: “Let’s just make it to Vegas and you can drink all you want there.”
Mike: “A few beers would be nice to take the edge off.”
Gary: “I agree, let’s hit the next store and grab a twelver.”
Alex realized he would not get his way on this one. Five miles later they pulled off on an exit containing a Shell station with a twenty-four hour mini-mart. Though he still had a third of a tank of gas, Alex got out of the car and began to fill up, first inserting a Southwest Airlines Visa card in the pump and then entering his zip code. Meanwhile, Gary headed toward the store to get the beers. The sky was now dark blue with the last reminders of daylight coming from the west and a sliver of a moon starting to assert itself from the north. Gary broke into a slow jog because the temperature had dropped significantly in the brief time since they left the In-N-Out and a brisk wind had picked up.
Mike was happy that Gary had proactively taken the initiative to go in and buy the beers because he knew Gary wouldn’t ask him to chip in, but he felt his stomach really starting to turn and wondered if he should try to use the bathroom in the Shell. The thought of taking a shit in a gas station sounded entirely unappealing, however, and Mike decided to hold out for a few hours until they got to the hotel in Vegas. Also, should the situation deteriorate, he knew there would be more bathroom stops before too long if they were going to start drinking beers.
Four minutes later the Beemer was fully fueled and Gary was getting back in the front seat, placing a large brown bag on the floor between his legs.
“What’ve you got in there?” Mike asked.
“Oh, it’s a Bag O’ Tricks,” Gary answered excitedly.
Alex accelerated aggressively up the onramp, demonstrating the power of the BMW’s engine and hitting seventy-five miles per hour well before entering the right lane of Highway 15. Gary instinctively fastened his seatbelt before opening the bag. On the stereo, Gwen Stefani was explaining what she would do if she was a rich girl, which always bothered Mike considering she was, in fact, a rich girl. Gary pulled out one of the two six-packs of Budweiser tall boys in the bag and quickly ripped off two beers. Without looking back, he reached behind his head and offered them to the back seat. They were removed from his hands instantly. He put one more in the cup holder next to his seat and returned the remaining half of the six-pack to the bag. When his hand re-emerged, it was holding a pack of Bicycle playing cards, which he also handed to Roger in the back seat. Next he pulled out one of the four Slim Jims in the bag and handed it to Alex.
“Thought you might want to slip into a Slim Jim since you can’t join us in a beer,” he suggested, before adding, “Rodge, why don’t you shuffle up the cards and we can start a game of High/Low, Red/Black?”
Alex accepted the synthetic beef stick, grateful for a friend like Gary who was compassionate enough to alleviate the difficulties of being unable to drink by providing a desirable savory snack. His admiration only grew when Gary then produced a twenty-ounce plastic Diet Coke and placed it in Alex’s cup-holder.
In the back seat, Roger opened the deck of cards and began shuffling them, using his left hand only. It was a trick that he thought was incredibly cool, but for some reason most women did not share his enthusiasm. Gary again stuck his hand in the bag, this time pulling out a copy of the latest Club adult magazine. It was wrapped in a bright pink cellophane packaging which prevented one from seeing most of the front cover. Gary hungrily tore off the packaging to see what it revealed. It featured Tera Patrick sitting on top of what appeared to be an antique wooden kitchen table. She was leaning back, her legs spread and knees raised, naked except for a small white lace apron which covered part of her stomach but left her breasts and everything below the waist exposed. Behind her was an attractive blonde who was kneeling on the table and leaning over Tera’s right side. The blond had one hand on Tera’s shoulder and was looking down toward her stomach. Her other hand was looped under Tera’s knee and was holding a baby-blue colored dildo. Gary suspected that the other end of the dildo was a few inches inside Tera’s vagina, but it would forever remain a mystery because there was a bright yellow star covering this particular part of the picture. According to the headline (also in bright yellow) next to the blonde’s head, more information could be found starting on page thirty-four under the story, “French Country Lesbo Chefs Cook up Something Hot!” Other noteworthy items included “Janitor’s Closet Orgy!,” “Young Tennis Star Bares All on the Court!,” and, simply, “Bobby does Nikki.” Gary noted that this was the only article that in the opinion of the cover editor did not warrant an exclamation point. The remaining contents of the magazine fell under the umbrella statement, “More Filth and Nastiness Than You Can Handle!”
Gary felt a twinge of guilt at buying porn, given the cause of his recent arguments with Blair and the fact that he probably should not even be on this trip to begin with. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help but flip to “Young Tennis Star Bares All on the Court!” It featured a girl who looked enough like Maria Sharapova to make the obvious connection. Most of the pictures were kind of lame, but on the third page of the article he found one of the girl (named Maria, of course) bent over a tennis net with her little white skirt pulled up ov
er her waist. She was holding a Wilson tennis racket in one hand and was using the other to lightly pull apart her butt-cheeks in order to reveal more of her pussy and asshole. She was looking backward over her shoulder, bright red lips slightly parted, heavy blue and black mascara surrounding closed eyes.
“Game, set and match,” Gary mumbled to himself while reading the all-too-obvious commentary on the sides of the pictures about “playing with balls” and “ground strokes.”
“That’s enough for you, pederast. Unless there is an underage burger flipper in there, let me take a look,” Mike demanded.
Gary conceded and tossed the magazine back to Mike while Mary J. Blidge declared that there would be no more drama in her life.
Roger, now finished shuffling, cracked his beer and took a healthy sip. “Damn, that’s good,” he declared. “You can’t beat the King of Beers.”
“Congratulations, I am happy for you,” Alex said through a mouthful of Slim Jim. Internally, he began justification for the acceptability of having a beer during the last forty minutes of the trip, once they crossed the state line into Nevada.
Roger ignored Alex and announced the rules of the game. “Okay bitches, Red/Black, High/Low is the game. The stakes are a quarter a point and ties pay double. Someone find a pen.”
Gary searched the glove compartment, pushing aside the registration for the BMW and an assortment of somewhat crumpled currency notes which looked to amount to about a hundred and thirty Euros, thirty-five British Pounds, fourteen hundred Japanese Yen and a hundred Czech Koruna. In the very back he found a blue and white pen advertising Barclay’s Global Capital. Meanwhile, Mike tore out a page of “Bobby does Nikki.” It featured her blowing him on a lounge chair, but also provided a lot of empty space to use as a scorecard. He handed it to Gary, who briefly checked out the other side of the page for exciting pictures, but it contained only a host of uninspiring phone sex advertisements. He flipped it back over and made a score sheet in the upper right portion of the page, writing R M A G along the top.
Roger declared he would go first. He held out the deck of cards to Mike who cut them roughly in half. Roger put the bottom half on top and buried the top card, a six of spades. He then flipped over the next card which was a ten of hearts.
“Low,” he said and flipped another card, this time a three of spades. Predictably, he guessed the next card would be higher, but a two of diamonds appeared. “Sons of bitches,” he exclaimed and flipped over another card to start the process again. After two more failed attempts, he got two in a row correct and passed to Mike, netting a score of negative two. Mike correctly guessed the next card would be red, passed to Alex, and began inspecting the rest of the magazine.
When the cards came back around to him, Mike correctly guessed “high,” racking up seven points, then made an important realization.
Mike: “Have you guys noticed how much better porn is now than even, like, four years ago?”
Roger: “What are you talking about?”
Mike: “Well, the obvious difference is they didn’t used to show penetration. Now they have close-ups of a guy’s cock buried in there. Sometimes a bit too close-up, I am afraid. But more importantly, now they show you the pictures you actually want to see. Take this, for instance . . .”
Mike held up the magazine opened to the Tera Patrick spread. Tera looked as though she was about to spank the blond girl from the cover with a wooden cooking spoon. Meanwhile, the blond girl was bent over the antique table with her legs spread so you could clearly see the entirety of her ass and pussy. The red high-heels covering her feet were about eighteen inches apart. She was looking back over her shoulder, with her lips forming a bright red O shape and her eyes closed. The other guys took a look and nodded appreciatively.
Mike continued: “See, this is what you want to see. You want to see a direct shot from behind of a chick bent over with another hot chick with big tits right next to her. Now, a few years ago you would not have had this picture. It would have been some side angle and they would have maybe been playing with each other’s tits and laughing or something. It used to be all very Playboyish, trying to be art or something. But this is what you want. It is tremendous progress.”
Alex agreed: “The evolution of smut. Capitalism at its finest. Competition and innovation.”
Gary: “I am not sure Mike’s opinion of spank mags qualifies as betterment of society and validates the free market experiment.”
Alex: “I think it does. It is a great example. For instance, a 2006 Honda Accord is probably a better and nicer car than a 2000 BMW 5-series. In 2010, the Accord will probably be nicer than this car is now. This is all because of competition. And as with cars, porn will continue to evolve as well. Probably it is because of the Internet that the magazines had to get better and you see so much positive change so quickly.”
Gary: “So you don’t think the communists had good porn?”
Alex: “I am guessing not. But I don’t think the communists had much good of anything.”
Gary: “So maybe in fifteen years there will be, like, virtual 3-D porn?”
Alex: “Yeah, probably something like that.”
Mike: “If they can make a virtual chick who will suck my cock and then cook my dinner, it will be a better world.”
With that, the topic was exhausted. Over the next twenty minutes the score sheet slowly filled itself. Roger initially took a big lead, but then got greedy with a four showing and fourteen points on the board. He caught another four and gave up most of his advantage. Still he ended the session up $25 on Mike and $7 on Alex. Gary, who was hoping to win back the money spent on the Bag ‘o Tricks, broke even.
In Palo Alto, Stanford’s kicker hit a field goal to tie the game at thirteen.
Interlude Seven
Roger (15)
In his twenties, Roger usually had little interest in the news, other than the sports section. There was one other type of story that always attracted his attention. It was any type of accusation of statutory rape, especially where it was a female being charged. Roger found it curious that the women in these cases were almost always attractive. The same could definitely be said of his tenth-grade history teacher who claimed his virginity.
Ms. Peters was thirty-two years old and was widely agreed among the student body of Parker High School to be the hottest of the female teachers. Therefore, Roger didn’t terribly mind when he failed a test on the American Revolution and was asked by Ms. Peters to meet her after school to discuss his poor performance. Roger was so woefully prepared for the test because he expected to be given the answers during brunch recess from a friend who had the same class for first period. The plan went awry when the girl was called home for a family emergency during second period and was nowhere to be found for the exchange of information.
Roger showed up for the teacher-student meeting, as instructed, at 3:15 p.m., completely unsure what to expect. He had always been a decent student, but he never took school all that seriously. He wasn’t the Ivy League-bound type of kid who would raise red flags by failing one test. He hoped Ms. Peters would try to teach him personally about the founding of the country, but assumed there was a greater chance he would get a lecture. He didn’t think anything of it when Ms. Peters closed and locked the door to the classroom.
Ms. Peters: “Thanks for coming, Roger. You know, I was a bit concerned about your performance on the test yesterday.”
Roger: “Yes, Ms. Peters. Sorry about that. I knew we had the test, I just sort of forgot to study, you know? I will make sure to study for the rest of them.”
Ms. Peters: “Maybe there is a way we can improve your grade for this one as well.”
Roger: “Yeah, okay. That would be great.”
Ms. Peters: “Why do you think the Founding Fathers were so insistent on declaring independence from the British?”
Roger: “Um. Well, they believed in liberty and justice for all?”
Ms. Peters: “We
ll, it is good to see you remember the Pledge of Allegiance, Roger. That is basically exactly right. To say it another way, they believed in the idea that people should not submit to silly rules and over-burdensome taxes, would you agree?”
Roger: “Um. Yeah, that sounds right.”
Ms. Peters: “And the Founding Fathers were brave enough to explore new ideas and fight for what they wanted, even if others considered it wrong. Am I correct?”
Roger: “Uh. Yes, of course.”
At this point, Ms. Peters got up from behind her desk and walked around to the front of it, leaning against it so she was half sitting and half standing. She was wearing a simple black dress that covered her knees and shoulders but it was ambiguous enough to be used for a fancy dinner date or a trip to the grocery store. While still leaning against the table, she moved her left foot to the side, so her legs were spread to the maximum amount allowed by the dress.
Ms. Peters: “Would you like to explore new things also, Roger?”
Roger was by now thoroughly confused. He was fairly sure Ms. Peters was hitting on him, but everything was happening so fast he did not have time to properly process it. Part of him desperately wanted to touch her body. Another part of him, already fearing punishment for the failed cheating endeavor, just wanted to get the hell out of there. He felt like he was six years old. All he could think to say was, “I guess so.”
Ms. Peters sensed his hesitation and confusion. She was slightly annoyed but mostly amused by it. She attempted to clarify things for him. “How would you like it if I walk over there and get down on my knees and suck your cock?” she asked seductively. This helped Roger considerably and his lust conquered his fear. His only remaining doubt was if he was dreaming or not. Either way, his answer was the same.
Despite his willingness to participate, Roger was too shocked to move, never mind undress, so he simply swiveled in his chair, where Ms. Peters pulled off his shorts and delivered on her promise. This was a quantum leap for Roger’s sex life which, other than rampant masturbation, had previously consisted mostly of making out and the occasional boob grab. Twice he had stuck his hand down Karen Anderson’s pants, but both times the angle was awkward and each event yielded little new information or pleasure for him, and almost certainly not for her either, he guessed. In contrast, the feeling of the blowjob was exquisite, far and away more pleasurable than he had previously fathomed. He contentedly watched his penis disappear in and out of Ms. Peters’ mouth, not wanting the moment to ever end, but it did. Ms. Peters stood up, gave him a quick peck on the cheek, walked back over to her desk and hopped up on it so she was facing him. She spread her legs, hitched her dress up above her hips, and leaned back so much of her weight was on her hands. Roger was delighted to see she was not wearing panties. “Now, come over here and fuck me. Teach me a lesson,” she commanded in the very same tone she used earlier in the day to describe the circumstances of the Boston Tea Party.
Roger complied, though based on her subsequent instruction not to come inside her, he was only able to partake for about ninety seconds before he pulled out, at which point she jerked him off onto the classroom carpet.
Roger went straight home and locked himself in his room to think about what happened. He was not immediately sure how he felt. He felt somewhat used and somehow dirty. He took a shower to cleanse himself but ended up masturbating in the shower, reliving the event in his mind. By the time he toweled off, his mind had reconciled the situation and he simply felt happy. He now saw only good in the events of the day. The next day in history class, he sat in his seat with a half-grin on his face for the whole period. He had to restrain an outright smile when he saw the faint outline of the stain he left on the brown carpet. Two days later, Ms. Peters asked him to meet her after school again. She swore him to absolute secrecy about their meetings and then had sex with him again. This time Roger lasted four whole minutes. The affair ended six weeks later, coinciding with the conclusion of Roger’s sophomore year. Remarkably, the whole time Roger told no one but Gary, and Gary managed not to tell anyone until college started. There were rumors about Ms. Peters and other boys the next year, but nothing ever came of it and she moved out of state during Roger’s senior year.
Looking back years later, Roger wasn’t sure how he should feel about the way he lost his virginity. He came to understand that he was supposed to feel somehow victimized, but the truth was that he treasured the whole experience and wouldn’t have changed a thing. Maybe it would have been nice to have lasted a little longer.
When he was twenty-five, he heard that the male biology teacher at his old high school was convicted of having sex with some of the female students, including the younger sister of a friend of his. He was outraged. Gary was the first person he discussed it with.
Roger: “I hope his corn-hole gets stretched out one inch in prison for every high school girl he fucked.”
Gary: “You don’t think that is a double standard, given your history?”
Roger: “There is no such thing as a double standard. There is simply right and wrong. If it is discrimination, people know it. We can disagree about what is right or not, and sometimes there are shades of grey. Maybe Ms. Peters was wrong, maybe not. But this scumbag was just plain wrong.”
