It’s my birthday! As my birthday is progressing, I have decided I’m going to talk about that which is my favorite to talk about. I’m gonna tell you all about the love of my life. This is a section of my autobiography. It is the third volume, and the thirteenth book of the autobiography titled Reality of the Unreal Mind. This section is called The King’s Concubine. It’s about the times when me and my wife almost got together spanning from the last day of eighth grade til six years later, when we actually did connect. So today we talk about the near-misses of love. This is the fifth post in this series. I will be releasing them all day.
Now we’re talking about my day, and I live on a 48-hour schedule. So a new one of these will be coming out every two hours and 45 minutes from now until 2 in the morning on the 24th, when I go to sleep.
Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader.
Can you see where we are headed? Well, you are wrong. You’re so wrong.
The first time I saw a cheerleader, I was in sixth grade. Cousin Gorgeous came to the house with her fiancé. He was big and boisterous, and I loved him instantly. I forgave him for running off with a girl I had been crushing on since I was five.
Gorgeous was Mumble’s niece, who I met after Rose married Mumble. I was five. She was, I’m pretty sure, a senior or junior in high school, and she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was obsessed with me. She would get me talking and listen to every story that came out of my mouth. She stared at me with her perfect eyes, and I knew I was not ever going to have her, but what does have even mean to a five-year-old?
Have, to a five-year-old, does not mean sex. It does not have any sort of possession to it. It is just marry I guess. Maybe spend all my time with. I don’t know what flavor of heartache I had for this girl, but I loved her instantly in that way five-year olds love pretty girls, and she was so interested in me.
She would always listen to stories, hang out with me, buy me gifts. She spent as much time with me as she could, and she made me happy. I stopped seeing her after we moved away from their neighborhood. When we moved to Crimson Blades territory, we stopped seeing them much, but when we lived side-by-side with the Benders, she came to visit. She had told her man about me, and he wanted to meet me. We hung out for a while. Mumble kept trying to get his attention, but the guy was focused on me. They came over soon after to take me to the game.
They took me to see the Bucks. In case you are not a basketball fan, the Bucks are the Milwaukee team that has never been amazing, but we went to see them because they were playing the Celtics, and they were great. We got there and man, I was obsessed with the cheerleaders. I stared at them and their moves. I cheered when they told me to and gawked every other time.
A few years later we were watching a lot of Green Bay Packers games, and they play the Cowboys. Now the Dallas Cheerleaders are famous. I don’t know about you, but when I think about cheerleaders that is the image that passed through my mind.
Very short skirts. Tops that are more like straps than shirts at all. No shoulder, nothing covering the belly, perfect makeup. Perfect bodies. When the Dallas Cheerleaders hit the screen, they had my attention.
I realized one day in eighth grade that when I got to high school I was going to be around cheerleaders. That was a fun day. That realization followed me all year, and I was psyched when finally cheerleaders entered my life.
Until I saw the uniform. These girls were not dressed like sex symbols at all. The shirt was all wrong. The hair was all wrong. The skirts were too long. And the movements. They did not dance with the proper, provocative flare at all. They clapped a lot. They yelled a lot. They would do flips, every now and then kick. They were not doing it right, and though I tried really hard to picture them as sluts, what they were was school spirit representatives. All my desire for all cheerleaders died instantly.
Until her.
I was bored in Health class. Mrs. Vernon was not a bad teacher. She was fun and cute, and tough if you got out of line. But she was the Cheer coach, and every time a pep rally was planned for the afternoon, she was stressed. We were given busy work to keep us entertained and she met with all her cheerleaders. A few cute faces, but nothing I was looking for. I kept my head down that day, and I will let Shadow tell the rest. He is hopping up and down in his seat and yelling at me that I am not doing it right.
Okay, busy work, no fucking way. I have no use for homework at all. I had to do an assignment every now and then, but I had learned with Liechen how to coast, and that is what I was doing. I waited for Mrs. Vernon to get busy, and when she did not give a fuck what I was doing, I pulled out my novel and started to read.
It was a good one. Drizzt the dark elf, the barbarian, and the dwarf. This is before the dwarf’s adopted daughter shows up as anything but a cute side feature and I am getting to the good part.
The fucking barbarian is trying to take over his people, but in order to challenge his king, he has to have some sort of impressive feat accomplished and he is still young. Hasn’t fought any wars. Hasn’t crafted any impressive weapons, and he has spent his life living with the dwarves. So he decides to go kill a dragon.
Well he gets into trouble and Drizzt helps him out, then the big challenge. I hope I am not giving this away. There is a really gory ending that I want really fucking bad to tell you all about, but if you haven’t read the book yet and you might want to read it, I will just say it is a great scene. To be honest, I have no idea why I looked up.
Now here comes this chick. I look back at the door as she is walking in. The high school sound system in the gym is a total bust, so this girl is bringing in this big boom box. I hope you guys know what that is. Well I guess I should tell you. Think huge box that takes cassettes, with massive speakers on both sides that takes like four D batteries that last for about two hours. Anyway, she comes bringing in this piece of brilliant technology and for some reason, I have no idea except to say fate, I turn around when the door opens and I see a cute girl.
Great face, she is smiling and she has a great smile. She is wearing her cheerleader outfit, which is white. Looks like polyester, which is always attractive, right? It covers everything except her arms, and her kinda long skirt, and she walks past. I watch her walk by and badonka donk.
Now ever since 20th street school we have been drawn to a build that cannot be found in most white girls. I am not going to say it, but it’s a thing. We liked black girls. White girls, too, but black girls drove us crazy.
Well this girl, this cheerleader, which I have sworn off, walks by and she is curvy where it counts. I watch her strut. (I’m pretty sure she was just walking but I’m doing a thing here, so I’ll choose the words, thank you very much.) She struts past me and walks directly in front of the class. I can’t take my eyes off her, and she bends over and sets the boom box on the ground.
Girls are taught at a young age how to wear dresses and skirts. They are taught how to walk, they are taught how to sit, and they are taught how to bend over. Well for some reason that I can’t come up with, this chick bends wrong.
Did she know I was watching her? Well probably not, but I told myself she did. I told myself she knew exactly what she was doing.
Close the book. No marker, no dog ear. Just slap the book closed and slap it on the desk. I have no use for reading right now. I have a thing to do. I have to memorize this girl.
I see her talking to the other cheerleaders. Can’t tell you what they looked like. I see her laugh a lot. I see her face grow deathly serious when Mrs. Vernon is giving them their instructions. I see every expression this girl is capable of.
They are all captivating.
Okay, that was not my word. Artist jumped in and tried to take over. He tried for just a minute to church it all up. Captivating. Does that even sound like me?
This girl was sexy. Her expressions were not unnormal. She was not flirting with me. She was not even aware of me. She could not feel the hot burning holes my eyes were searing into her as I stared wide-eyed and slack jawed at her. What I can say is that she was sexy. Not sexy in an “I want to have you” way. But sexy in an “I am not even trying” way. “I don’t even know to try,” kinda way. She had the easy grace of a girl who is not putting any effort in. And I could not take my eyes off of her.
Had to get a name. Had to get close. Had to talk to her. Had to get to know her. Had to have her in my life.
But Artist saw her first. He didn’t want the unrelenting sexual desire within him to soil her. Because she was pure. To him she was a light at dark times. So when he realized I had noticed her, he directed my attention other places.
She had seen me. She told me so. She had asked one of her fellow cheerleaders about me. They had known my name, called me Hardly’s friend, and looked at her like she was an idiot for not knowing me. Never mind that I had never had a conversation with a single one of those girls. Never mind that if you held a fucking gun to my head and asked me to name one you would have to pull that fucking trigger. That other cheerleader I still don’t know the name of made Bekah feel self-conscious, like she should have known who I was. And she pulled back. She didn’t put herself in my life. Didn’t come introduce herself. She did not make a move.
The reason she asked about me was she had looked at me while she was walking out, and our eyes met. Since 20th Street, I was not real good at making eye contact with a girl I was super attracted to, but I could not pull my eyes away when I looked into hers.
Might think I knew what color they were. Nope. Might think I could picture them later when I needed to. Nope. In fact I couldn’t tell you anything about her eyes. I did not really see them.
What I saw was her. Not her body. Not her face. Not her eyes, even though my gaze was locked on them. I saw her. I saw a thing in her I had never seen before.
Suddenly I was attracted to cheerleaders again.
Well, Cheerleader.
Jesse Teller 