From Butt to Booty by Amber Kizer Read Free Book Online

point this out.
    “Tell me about it.” Clarice bites into a chip and noncommittally licks the salt from her lips. She doesn’t seem to care what she looks like with her tongue all gyrating to get the salt crystals only she seems to be aware of. Gross.
    “So, maybe you just haven’t met him. I mean, really, Maggie, you have an amazing brain, and you’re so good with computers. Here’s the deal: you have to be complete yourself before anyone else can make you more.”
    Both of them stare at me like I’ve just turned into Oprah and Dr. Phil’s love child. That’s a picture.
    “Thank you, Dr. Gert.” Clarice snorts chips out her nose, and it’s so gross we all roll on the floor laughing.
    “Onward, Kissing Soldiers! Push play and let’s educate the masses.” I wave my hand in the general direction of appliance-dom. “Next?”
    “
Body Heat
and
9½
Weeks
.”
    “Okay. Are these in color?”
    “Yes.”
    And hours later? Our necks hurt from watching other people kiss and pretty much what we all know now is what we knew before watching the movies. At least it was a fun way to come to grips with the truth about the kiss. And I’m definitely not gay.
    I hesitate to say this out loud and give it power, but what the hell. “I think Stephen sucks.”
    “Yeah. That’s my conclusion,” Clarice says with a belch. “ ’Scuse me.”
    I’m disappointed and utterly confused.
    Maggie, good ol’ bookworm Maggie, asks, “Can he be taught?”
    “I don’t know. Can he?” Can you teach a thing like kissing? Or is it divine knowledge shared with a few privileged souls at birth and the rest of us are destined for bad kissing?
    “Yes, he can. My sister says most guys have to be taught everything.” Clarice throws a bunch of wrappers and soda cans in the trash.
    “Everything?”
    “Sex-wise. They’re pretty dense.”
    This is comforting? How does the species propagate if boys are so bad? I guess pleasure doesn’t babies make.
    “Maybe that’s it,” Maggie says.
    “What?”
    “Is he a virgin? Are you his first kiss?”
    “I don’t know.” Talk about pressure. “I don’t think so.” Holy-Mother-of-the-Breath-Mint, I hope not.
    “Stephanie and Ruth in my English class say they’ve seen him at some pretty wild parties and he’s so not a virgin.” Clarice shakes her head, shooting the idea out of the clouds.
    What’s that mean? “I’m dating a man-ho?” How do I feel about that?
    Maggie hands me a box of Junior Mints. “I don’t know about that, but he’s not monkish.”
    “A monkfish?” Clarice asks, looking up from the diagrams of kama sutra positions Maggie printed out.
    I can’t eat Junior Mints right now. They are the first food I ate with Stephen.
    “How is this possible?” Clarice holds up a particularly acrobatic pose.
    Here I am worrying about kissing and she’s showing me Rubik’s Cube position number eight. “I don’t know. Who’s who?”
    “I can’t tell.”
    “So, Stephen isn’t a virgin.” That is news. “Why did you wait until now to tell me this?” I must reel us back on topic.
    “I didn’t know if it was important to you or not. Are you a virgin?”
    “I’m watching black-and-white movies to find out if I’m a sucky kisser. I’m thinking the odds are good.” I don’t try to keep the ire down.
    “Point.”
    “Hey, you didn’t say who you think your soul mate is,” Clarice says.
    And here I was hoping we’d all forgotten that little bit of conversation. Moment of truth. I will find out if I can truly trust these girls, or if I’m going to have to move to Florida. “Lucas,” I say.
    “Lucas?”
    “Soccer-playing girl magnet of the junior class?”
    “That’s him.”
    “Wow.”
    “He’s your soul mate?”
    Why do they look so incredulous?
    “He’s hot.”
    “Yes, even my frigidness thaws in his direction.” Maggie smiles.
    “I know I don’t stand a chance, but a girl must have dreams.” Why do I need to defend my soul-mate choice? As if I