Dancing for the Deejay

"I practiced in my room. What do you think?"

It took me a second to find my voice.

"What do I think?"

"Is there an echo in here?"

"You want to know what I think?"

"I asked, didn't I?"

"Has Grady had a heart attack yet?"

"Should I go check?"

I chuckled, "Will you give him mouth-to-mouth if he needs it?"

"Would you get jealous?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"Why, were you planning on giving him mouth-to-mouth?"

"Would it turn you on?"

"When are you going to answer my question?"

"Didn't I already answer it?"

"No- Oh, shit! You win!"

"Cool. As for your question, I think you're terrific."

Her grin faded a little, "Really? Terrific?"

"Most terrific, exquisitely terrific."

Her grin faded away completely, and I knew I'd gone too far.

I waited, anxious, and she looked at my eyes. One minute passed, and then another.

Thinking that I'd offended her somehow, I apologized, "Listen, I didn't mean it to sound so forward, I just-"

She interrupted, her face serious, "You'd better take that back."

I was baffled, "Which part?"

"The part about not meaning it, take it back."

"I wasn't being too forward?"

"Terrific? Exquisitely terrific, even? That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me. Ever! You'll hurt my feelings if you didn't mean it."

I was taken aback, "I meant it. I was just afraid I'd overstepped my bounds, that's all."

"So you think I was terrific?"

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no?' You didn't I was terrific?"

"No. If I did, that would mean that I think you used to be terrific and weren't terrific right now. And I think you're as terrific now as I did while you were dancing, so...no."

She shook her head in wonder, "Did you take classes on talking to women, or is this something you were born with?"

"Why, do I pass?"

"What do you think?"

With that, she leaned forward, and her lips brushed mine, lingering for a few seconds before she leaned back. It had been enough to shock me to silence. She blushed, seeing my reaction.

When I had regained my senses, I breathed out, "Wow!"

Her blush went brighter, "Yeah. I have to see you again."

I answered, totally enthralled, "You can see me anytime you want."

"Tonight, then? After you get off work?"

I nodded, "Well, I don't get off work until almost two. Is that okay?"

"Of course. I'll stop by at two."

"You're not gonna stay?"

She smiled, "It wouldn't do any good to get all worn out, would it?"

"So you'll see me at two?"

"Do you want me to mark it in my appointment book?"

"You have an appointment book?"

"Do you want to see it?"

"Is there a reason I shouldn't see it?"

"What if I didn't have one?"

"Would that mean that you wouldn't mark it down?"

"Would it make you feel better if I did?"

"How could you if you don't have one?"

"Do you think I won't go out and buy one just for that?"

"Just to mark me down in your appointment book?"

"Why else would I buy one?"

"Don't you have other appointments?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Oh shit!"

Grinning back at me, she left as the place filled up.

The hours crawled by, and I was anxious to be done. The place was jumping, making me wonder for the umpteenth time what the maximum capacity for the club was. I juggled the LP's, setting new tracks to play the instant the previous track stopped, managed to keep up my witty repartee to make the people respond, and chatted up the fan club perched in front of my booth. Not even the slurring, sluttish drunks blowing their fetid breath in my face as they whispered half-coherent questions at me could ruin my mood.

Finally, the club began winding down, and bit by bit the place emptied out, until the bouncers had ousted the last reluctant group, and Grady locked the door. I locked up the crates, turned off the equipment, and folded the money from the tip jar, stuffing ten or eleven scraps of paper into my pocket. Grady walked up to me, seeing me with the scraps of paper.

"Hey man, what's with all the paper in your tip jar?"

"The scraps? They're phone numbers."

"Really?"

I nodded, "Yeah, they're just phone numbers."

"How many did you get tonight?"

"Ten or eleven, why?"

"You got all those in one night?"

"Sure."

"How many have you gotten since we hired you?"

I did the math in my head. The four hundred seventeen on my bulletin, plus...I pulled the numbers back out, and they totaled twelve, actually, so that made four hundred twenty-nine. I told him the grand total, and his eyes almost popped out of his head.

"Holy shit! Have you called any of them back?"

I shrugged, "A few of them. Four, I think. Every one of them seemed shocked for having given me their numbers, so I didn't pursue it."

Grady laughed, "Four hundred thirty-two drunk college girls gave you their phone numbers? You could have yourself a bonfire with all those scraps!"

I laughed with him, "I probably will."

Grady heard the knock on the door and went to go see who it was. He grinned and held it open, and Maya walked in. She had changed into a pair of jeans and a T shirt. Grady greeted her warmly, and she giggled, "You sure know how to win a lady's heart, don't you?"

"I wouldn't know. I'm still waiting for Tom Cruise to walk in the door."

It took her a second to get it, but then she replied, "And I'll bet that when he finally does, he won't know what hit him!"

They shared a laugh over it, and I grabbed my jacket from the booth. I started toward the back to clock out, but Grady called out, "I'll clock you out. You don't want to keep this young lady waiting."

I wished Grady a good night, and walked out with Maya. I only saw Grady's Datsun and my own Honda in the parking lot.

"Where's your car?" I asked.

"I walk here."

"I could've picked you up."

"I've got legs, you know?"

"You definitely have those."

She laughed, "You beast."

I opened the car door for her and she got in. When I got in the driver's seat and started the car, I noted, "It's not safe walking by yourself at two in the morning."

"I can take care of myself."

"Knives can hurt."

"I'm sure bullets hurt just as much."

"Exactly, and there's two reasons you shouldn't be out by yourself."

"I'm not alone."

"You were when you walked here."

"And that's why I wasn't worried about it."

She threw me with that last reply, "Huh?"

"I might have worried more if I wasn't alone."

"Yeah, I guess that's true."

I pulled out of the parking lot and headed to my apartment. She seemed a bit nervous, so I asked, "Just so you know, I wasn't expecting company, so if my place is a bit of a mess, stand warned."

She smiled a bit, "Okay. Um, I don't normally just go home with people I don't know."

I arched an eyebrow, "Are you worried about coming to my place?"

"A little bit. I don't date a lot, so I'm not really used to it."

"Well, I don't want to pressure you into anything you don't feel comfortable with." I meant it, too, despite the pressure against my zipper that said that I didn't care.

She looked over at me, grateful for the gesture, "Thanks, but I wouldn't want you to think I was a tease or something."

"I already do."

"Why is that?" she blinked.

"The way you were dancing for me in the club, that was an ultimate tease."

She laughed, "Oh yeah."

I offered, "But seriously, I'm not bringing you with me just for that. I think it would be nice to spend some time with you while I'm not on the job, you know, with the booth between us. We could watch a video, or I could try cooking something, although it'd be a better idea to order out."

She seemed dubious, glancing down at the traitor in my pants, straining to be released to wreak havoc.

"Are you sure?"

"Sure, because I really shouldn't try cooking, it always backfires."

She corrected, "No, I mean about not... you know."

I, trying my best to be a gentleman, reassured her, "Absolutely, let's just watch a movie, and maybe sometime in the future you can decide for yourself if you want to go down that road with me, okay?"

She looked as if she was ready to cry, "That's so nice of you. If we did 'go down that road,' it would be my first time."

I almost ran off the road, "Really? I mean, I'm not saying I thought you were, I don't know, experienced, but you sure dance like you know what you're doing."

"Yeah, but that was just dancing. If you want to know the truth, you never see my dorm mate at the club because she works late. She's an exotic dancer at that strip club at the edge of town. Really, she taught me those moves, and I practiced in front of her so she could tell me how to dance better."

I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing. Her response was a bit of hurt in her eyes, so I tried harder to contain my laughter, "I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you, it's just funny that your dance moves were really a strip routine without the stripping, and I had no idea."

She eyed me, "It's not that funny. I saw you there, and I liked you right away, but I knew you'd never pay attention to me, so I went to my dorm mate for help. A lot of the girls that were grouping around you look so much prettier than me, so I had to try something that would make me more attractive to you."

I was astonished that Maya would go to such great lengths to be noticed by me, and a bit flattered, "Wow, you stood out all right. If I didn't notice you, it's only because I tried not to really notice any of those girls. And it's not true, either. Those girls may have been pretty, but their attitudes and the booze on their breath made them the kind of girls I would've chewed my own arm off just to get away from."

"That can't be true. A lot of those girls had dynamite bodies, and I know, because my dorm mate is built like that, and I've seen her naked enough times to know."

"There's an image: the both of you walking around naked in your dorm room."

She hit me on the arm playfully, "Neanderthal!"

"At your service. But, sure, maybe their bodies were nice. It's not just bodies that make the woman, though. Do you realize that if I'd played that 'question game' with any other girl at the club, they'd just talk away, having no idea what was going on. I'd essentially be talking to myself. That's not the kind of thing I like. But you not only understood the game, you played it right back at me and beat me. Not only that, but you seemed to have fun playing it. That, as much as your knockout dancing and your gorgeous smile, sold me."

All through my explanation, she stared at me, her mouth slightly open in wonder, her eyes wide. When I stopped talking, she blushed, lowering her eyes for a few seconds, absorbing what I had said.

"I'll bet you aced that class, didn't you?"

It took me a second to realize that she was talking about that "Talking to Women" class, and I grinned, "The teacher never knew what hit her."

We both burst out laughing, and some of the tension was dispelled. About that time, we reached my apartment building. I parked the car, and led her upstairs to my third-floor apartment. I had warned her about my apartment being a mess, but that was an exaggeration. I'd become pretty good about picking up after myself. The messiest area in my apartment was the stacks of c.d.'s and records in the corner, next to an old-school turntable and nearby stereo.

"Interesting science project," she replied cryptically, eyeing the haphazardly stacked music in the corner.

"What?"

"Your indoor tornado project. Man, you must have succeeded, this place is such a disaster area."

I laughed, "Yeah, maybe I did exaggerate a bit."

"Other than your science project, it's a pretty nice place, especially the extensive movie collection."

We wandered over to my movie collection. When I wasn't at work, or absorbed in music here, I loved watching movies. Almost any category I could think of, comedy, science fiction, horror, drama, etc, I had at least a couple movies of each, and I stress, 'at least a few.' In some cases, I'd find every movie with certain actors or actresses in it and buy them in bulk. Like I said, I love watching movies. She ran her fingers down the spines, tilting her head slightly to read the titles. She picked out more than a few that she would want to see, showing me one she wanted to watch now. I popped the movie into the DVD player, and we sat down on the couch.

This movie, a comedy with Adam Sandler, was one of my favorites, which is probably apparent, since I've seen it eight times. She started to scoot closer to me, seemed about to lean up against me, and then stopped, glancing at me, perhaps to see if I noticed. I pulled her against me the rest of the way to show her that it was okay, and she relaxed, her cheek on my shoulder. I keep my arm around her, enjoying the feel of her against me. It had been awhile since I'd had anyone close like this and not just wanting to have sex. We watched the movie for about half an hour, and by some mutual, unspoken consent, I slid down on the couch, my feet more towards the other side, and she lay mostly on top of me, her head on my chest, with my legs on either side of hers.

That treacherous part of me that sometimes speaks up to try and betray my intentions began doing just that, growing ever harder to control. Gradually, she became aware of it, too. I felt her head move to look down, and I felt her breath stop for a second or two. But rather than being offended and our short time together being over, she just looked at it for a minute or two, the movie instantly forgotten. Then her breath stopped again for a few seconds, and I suddenly felt the pressure of her hand on me. She rested her hand on it for almost a minute, and then lightly stroked me through my jeans. I was more than a bit surprised, as she said earlier that she'd never had sex. Of course, that didn't mean that she'd never fooled around a bit.

As her hand rubbed me slowly, she looked up at me tentatively, and I just looked down at her, waiting to see what she'd do next. She continued to move her hand on me, looking at me, slightly surprised at her boldness.

"It feels so weird. I-I've never really done any of this before. My dad was really strict, and I wasn't allowed to date, so I never really tried it. Am I doing this right?"

I nodded, amazed at her change from confident, sexy, to this girl before me who seemed completely unsure of what she was doing. It threw me for a loop.

"This isn't a proposition or anything, but do you want to stay the night?"

"Well, I have a few classes, but they're in the afternoon, so I think it'd be okay. Why?"

"Nothing has to happen tonight unless you want it to, but either way, I really like having you here, tonight, and I'd like it if you'd stay."

She chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip for a minute, making her look much younger than the nineteen years old that she was.

"I'd like to stay the night, too."

"You can have the bed, and I'll take the couch-"

She shook her head, "I don't want you to take the couch."

"You want the couch?"

"No," she elaborated, "I want the bed, but I don't want you to take the couch."

Starting to get what she was saying, I nevertheless acted clueless. I think I wanted her to spell it out to dispel any confusion, "I'd rather not sleep on the floor, if that's what you're suggesting."

"No, you goof! I want you to sleep in your bed with me." Her face went red after she blurted it out, and eyes went wide.

I chuckled, "I know, I just kinda wanted you to say it. I'd be delighted to."

She buried her face in my chest, embarrassed, and the hot breath I felt through my shirt made my skin tingle pleasantly. I touched her hair, watching the glossy strands spill through my fingers.

When she looked up at me again, I waited to see what she would say. She was silent for a minute, just looking at me, a storm of conflicting emotions passing through her dark, luxurious eyes. I was so lost in the depths of her eyes that I almost jumped when she finally spoke.

"Do you have any, um, pajama pants or anything like that? I can't really sleep with jeans on, and..."

I told her I had a few pairs, so she stood up reluctantly, and I followed her into my bedroom. Then she saw the bulletin board. I could imagine the thoughts going through her head. She got up close to it and read the suggestive comments and the various phone numbers for a few minutes before she stopped on one.

"I know some of these girls. Jasmine...Katie...Nicole, wow, she had some things she really wanted to do to you, didn't she?"

She stood up and looked at me questioningly, "Did you, um... do it with any of these girls? Is that why you have all this?"

I clapped my hand over my eyes for a second, and a big grin spread on my face.

"Um, no, I never had sex with any of them. It was just this idea when I started working at the club and these girls just started giving me those. I decided to see how many I collected in a month, and then here it is, one year later, and you can see how many I have found in my tip jar, or given to me directly."

She exclaimed softly, and her eyes took in the hundreds of little scraps of paper, "How many are there?"

"Four hundred seventeen. Oh," I dug the twelve scraps I'd gotten earlier, and added them one by one. When I'd tacked the last one, I amended, "Four hundred twenty-nine. I keep thinking about what I want to do with this bulletin board once it's completely full. I mean, it probably looks kind of sad, keeping all these, but it was so amusing once they began piling up."

Maya smiled wonderingly, "Four hundred twenty-nine drunk college chicks gave you their numbers over the course of a year. Is the scrap of paper I gave you already up here?"

I laughed self-consciously, "Um, no. I went over to the scratched up nightstand I had bought off a friend, and picked that particular scrap up to show her.

She laughed, "What, because it didn't have a phone number, it didn't qualify to go up there?"

"No, it doesn't qualify for the Board of Shame because it doesn't belong up there. That's why I put it on my nightstand."

"How sweet! You just came up with that name a second ago, didn't you?"

I admitted, "Yes, because I just got the greatest idea ever."

"Do tell," she waited, curious.

"I'll find a place to hang it at the college, somewhere everybody can see it, but nobody can get to it. I think I can fit all the numbers on there stretched out, and if not, I'll get another bulletin board to make it fit. Then all those girls can see if they can find their names on the Board of Shame and be humiliated for being so drunk as to hit on a lowly deejay!"

Maya laughed, "That'd be perfect! Oh, I'd pay to see the looks on their faces as they find their names. It would be the greatest joke! But there's a problem."

I asked what the problem was.

"If you're just a lowly deejay, then does that make me desperate?"

"No, that makes you lucky."

"Oh, is that so?"

"Of course. A lowly deejay is a great friend to have. Especially at parties."

She stepped up to me, turning away from the board, put her arms around me and kissed me. It wasn't like the kiss at the club, this one beat the first one hands down. Her mouth opened slightly, and her tongue poked out a bit, touching my bottom lip, and I brought my tongue out to meet it. The kiss grew even hotter as our tongues contested each other, and my arms went around her. Her body pressed against mine, heedless of the erection that was presently poking her stomach. We kissed for almost five minutes straight before she backed up a step, and we were both panting. Her eyes were wide, constantly surprising herself with such forwardness. She went over to the bed and drew back the covers. Then her hands unbuttoned her jeans, peeled them off, revealing a pair of the hottest black, bikini panties. Of course, I would've bet everything that those panties wouldn't look anywhere in the galaxy as hot as they did on her. Before I could stare for more than a few seconds, she slipped into the covers, drawing them up on her. Her face was again flushed, because she knew I saw her taking her jeans off. I decided that I would be fair, so I took my own jeans off exposing the boxer-briefs I was wearing, turned the light off, and slipped into bed next to her.