The Witch by Jean Thompson Page A

ran a finger down his arm, it would squeak.
    â€œBecause your normal clothes make you look like a farmer.” Mikey rummaged through Royboy’s top dresser drawer. “I need to introduce you to the concept of date underwear.”
    â€œI don’t think I want to go to the party, Mikey.”
    Mikey sat down on the opposite side of the bed from Royboy. “You’re nervous, right? That’s okay. That’s just adrenaline. Adrenaline is like a power surge. It helps you stand your ground in a fight or jump out of an airplane.”
    â€œI don’t want to do either of those.”
    â€œOr ask a girl to dance. You want to be able to do that, right? The girl of your dreams?”
    â€œIf she’s the girl of my dreams, she asks me.”
    â€œI’m gonna fix you a drink, kind of a pre-party thing. Chill you out. Then we’ll go through everybody’s closet and come up with your new,
GQ
look.” Mikey reached over the stacks of laundry to the high-heeled shoe and gave it to Royboy. “She’s waiting for you, buddy. But you have to step up to the plate.”
    The party blossomed. Girls, whole flocks of them, arrived and were provided with high-caliber alcohol in the form of rum and coconut, rum and pineapple, rum and orange juice, rum and rum. Dave D. was the bartender and he kept the drinks coming. Lance the Pants did his DJ routine. Mikey was the official host and greeter, steering the guests toward the bar and other hospitality venues. Royboy was installed on a sofa in the corner of the front room, and as each girl arrived, he sent a verdict to Mikey by way of head shakes or shrugs:
Nope. Nope. Maybe, no wait, I don’t think so.
    He was dressed up in his borrowed party clothes, a V-neck sweater with a T-shirt underneath, and jeans so tight that he kept shifting around, as discreetly as he could, to rearrange himself. The party picked up steam. It ebbed and crested around him. Some of their guy friends had come too, and Royboy watched them maneuver—effortlessly, it seemed—among the fluttering girls. He didn’t think the girl with the shoe was here, though he couldn’t have said why. He just didn’t feel it.
    Finally a girl came up to him, sent by Mikey, he suspected, and leaned over him to be heard above the music. Her breasts were so well framed and presented, they reminded him of the items on display in the bakery case. “Want to dance?”
    â€œSure.” He let her pull him off the couch and take him by the hand to where the dancing was going on. On those occasions when he danced with somebody rather than by himself, his strategy was to imitate whatever his partner was doing. This girl was moving up and down with a grinding shimmy, which just didn’t work for him. He settled for doing what his roommates called his “monster dance,” bending forward with his arms extended while he trod out the beat. The girl kept sending her encouraging smiles his way. Her cleavage smiled at him too. It was confusing. The sweater made his arms itch. In an effort to focus, he watched the girl’s feet, though he didn’t recognize anything familiar about them.
    Then his brain must have taken one of its little vacations, because now he was dancing with a different girl, and he’d taken the itchy sweater off. Or maybe somebody else had. The party was banging. Everybody had loosened up. They were singing along with the music, or in some cases they were singing other things. This new girl was wearing more coverage on top than the last one, and on a point scale she wasn’t as pretty, but she was dancing up close to him in a way that Royboy thought was friendly. She swayed against him. “How about we get some fresh air?”
    â€œSure,” Royboy said. Always obliging. He followed the girl through the kitchen and out to the back porch. His roommates gave him encouraging nods. You the man, Royboy! At the far end of the room he