Dave

Dave was hot! He was a 30 year old high school teacher who taught Civics and Social Studies. He didn’t teach at the magnet high school that I attended, but at a regular public school in the same New Orleans district. Typically the kids who got kicked out of my school, then enrolled in his. But that’s not how we knew each other. Dave had a second job due to the city’s low pay for school teachers. He worked part-time as a barista at True Brew, a coffee shop where I did stand-up on Tuesday nights. I was only a senior in high school when we began to bang on a regular basis… 

I was always surprised when a guy flirted with me let alone a hunky barista with chest hair. Since I was granted the name thunder thighs in middle school, it was forever seared into how I saw myself: a chubby weirdo who no one wanted to hang out with and no guy desired to touch. Middle school nicknames are like being diagnosed with a terminal illness that you just have to live with. Even to this day I sometimes feel that way. Fucking crazy, right? Damn you 6th grade assholes! Is it too late to beat you up?

So when Dave asked for my name, not pertaining to my mocha, I was smitten. I couldn’t believe he was talking to me. Smiling at me. Desiring me. I was use to standing out for being a misfit, but never standing out because someone wanted to be with me. But I could feel it. The way he looked at me. He wanted to fuck, and it made my vagina pulse. Thump. Thump. Is this love?

Dave was so…normal. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Smiled without smirking. Those types of guys usually don’t care for people like me. I’ve had to cultivate an affinity for unattractive, weird men just so I wouldn’t be lonely. But maybe I could be with someone like Dave! But how was Dave going to ask me out? He needed to know that I liked him. I needed to do something other than order a Mocha. 

I needed to stalk him.