It's all the Plot Bunnies' fault

[valarltd]

Title: Let's Dance
Author: Angel
E-mail: valarltd@hotmail.com
URL: http://www.geocities.com/lady_aethelynde
Fandom: American Graffiti
Rating: NC-17
Summary: A farewell trip to Modesto is more than Bob Falfa bargained for.
Type: PWP
Archive: Sure
Disclaimer: This is George Lucas's Sandbox. I'm just playing with the sand that fell out. Ya know, using "Let's Dance" as the music for the drag race, coupled with all that macho posturing was just BEGGING for it.

Acknowledgements: The various artists whose songs I've quoted. All attributions are to the singer. All songs are from the time period the story takes place.

Warnings: Slash, het, gender bending, mention of underage.

Feedback: I crave it. It's my favorite high.

*****
Let's dance
2003 Angel
*****

Look what has happened with just one kiss
I never knew that I could be in love like this
It's crazy but it's true
I only want to be with you
You stopped and smiled at me, asked me if I'd care to dance
I fell into your open arms and I didn't stand a chance
Now listen honey, I just wanna be beside you everywhere
As long as we're together, honey, I don't care
'Cause you started something, can't you see
That ever since we met you've had a hold on me
--Dusty Springfield, I only want to be with you


August 1966

"Well, I'm back. Took me a while, but I'm here. Thought I should stop by and see you before they ship me to Vietnam." The young man in uniform sighed heavily.

"It shoulda been me, man. Out there on the drag strip when I rolled it. You didn't have to pull me out. You didn't have to take me to the doctor for my arm the next mornin'. And mostly you didn't have to put me up and find me work until I could get the money to go home. I came gunnin' for you like some cheap hood in a western out to take on the fastest gun in the west. And you sat with me in the Emergency Room, and took me home and told your mom you were sublettin that little garage apartment to me."

A wry grin crossed his face. "You made me have to lie to the draft board, boy. You, with your kisses and that single bed. You made me lie, Milner. And I'm glad. You're a better man than I was. I hope I can be as good as you were."

He laid the grey cowboy hat softly atop the headstone and walked away into the setting sun.

A slim shadow drifted out of the trees and laid flowers on the same grave, and was just putting the cowboy hat on her head when the man in the uniform turned around.

"Whatcha doin', doll? Stealin' my hat?"

"No."

"Then what? I left that for Milner. In case I don't come back."

"Yeah. And the caretaker will just take it his shed after Labor Day, and throw it away." She jerked her head toward a small building at the edge of the cemetary.

"So you're just gonna take it?" He stepped closer and she realized just how big he was as he gripped her arms.

"I'll think of him when I wear it."

"Doll, you weren't out of diapers when he died."

"Was too. I was riding with him that night you challenged him. You said I could have a ride with you in ten years."

"Wait a minute. You're that scrawny little kid? The one who said my car was uglier than you were?" He ran appreciative eyes over her. "Shaped up nice, doll. Real nice. Want that ride now?" The leer was at odds with the army uniform. He pulled her in close.

"Only to the drive in. Would you tell me more about him?"

"Sure. Give me something nice to think about when I'm in country. An evening drinking coke with a cute chick. You're not even close to legal."

"I'm not a chick, OK? I'm seventeen and my name is Carol."

"Bob Falfa."

"I know who you are. I know everything about this town. People ignore you when you're twelve and thirteen."

"Well come on, doll. It ain't a 32 Deuce Coupe, but it runs." He held open the door of the sedan that had replaced his old black chevy.


See you in September
See you when the summer's through...
--The Happenings, See you in Spetember


"You know, Steve, we should go see Milner."

"Why?" Steve put the hamburger down. "He won't know we're there."

"Just a good-bye. I won't be back."

"You can't know that."

Curt reached into his pocket and pulled something out. "I'm moving to Vancouver tomorrow."

"Holy crap. This is a draft notice! You got called up!"

"Not so loud, Bolander! I'm not showing."

"All right. We'll go when Laurie comes back."

"Go where?" The slim girl slid into the booth beside her fiance.

"Hey Laurie. We're going out to the cemetery to see Milner."

"That's morbid."

"It's not morbid. It's," Steve groped for a word, "respectful to visit old friends we haven't seen."

"It's morbid. Besides, we have to go home for our engagement dinner, or did you forget? Here you are, wrecking your appetite. Curt, how could you let him?"

"I'm not his mother, or his wife." Her brother put up his hands and backed out of the conversation.

"Laurie, I've been back in town for half an hour," Steve sounded weary of the argument. "I drove six hours. I'm starved, and one burger isn't going to ruin me for dinner with your folks in," he checked his watch, "three hours. Just lay off, for tonight?"

She huffed assent. Steve finished the burger and stood up. "I'm gonna go see Milner. Curt, you coming?"

"Steve," Laurie began.

"Just for a few minutes. Come on." Steve led the way to his car and they piled in.

Come a little bit closer you're my kind of man
So big and so strong
come a little bit closer, I'm all alone
And the night is so long.
--Jay and the Americans "Come a little bit closer"


The sedan slid into the parking space the big old white car had just left. Carol hopped out and attached herself to Bob's arm. They took a corner booth.

"Hey Carol. Good looking soldier you got yourself. Better not keep him out too late," the waitress winked.

Carol stuck her tongue out. Bob took a glance at the menu.

"You eat yet, doll?"

"No. You gonna call me doll all night?"

The cock-eyed grin he shot back informed her he most certainly was. "Okay, babe," he said to the waitress, "One cheeseburger with fries and a cherry coke. What're you having?"

"Chili cheese coney with onions, cheese fries and a chocolate malt."

When the waitress left, they looked each other over a bit more closely. Four years had made changes in both of them, all to the good in Carol's case. The freckle-faced, slightly buck-toothed kid had grown into a pretty girl. No raving beauty, but that type would never have gone for a hot-rodder anyway.

"I heard what you said out there." Her voice was low, almost instinctively knowing that this discussion should be private.

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Did you love him? I did."

"I learned to like him a lot, doll, but we didn't fall in love. That's for girls."

There wasn't much more to be said until their food arrived. Carol chattered about the latest music, and how Milner had hated most rock and roll after Buddy Holly. Falfa wondered aloud what he would have thought about the Beatles. They ate in companionable silence.

"You want to talk about Milner?" Carol said softly after their plates had been taken and a second coke had been drunk. "I do. I know some place we can go."

"Lead on, doll." Falfa tucked a five-spot until the glass, enough to pay their tab and tip the waitress handsomely. His wallet was full and he wouldn't be needing greenbacks for a while.

In the car, Carol turned and leaned closer. "Do you like girls too, or only boys?" she asked very softly. "You had a girl with you that night. And I heard Laurie was with you when you rolled it out at Paradise Alley."

"I like girls just fine." The retort came out a little hotter than he'd planned.

"Would you kiss me? You can think about Milner if you want to."

He reached over and pulled her to the middle of the seat. "Look, doll, that's over a long time. He's been dead for almost four years."

"But you never forgot. That's why you're here now."

"All right." He wrapped one arm around her and tipped his hat back so he could reach her face. The kiss was solid and a little rougher than she'd expected. His tongue wasn't hesitant like most of the boys she'd been kissing lately. He knew what he was doing, and what he wanted.

She sat a bit stunned when he finished.

"So, still interested?"

"Out to the lake," she said softly and guided him through the darkening streets, where the neon had chased the last bit of daylight from the sidewalks.


Hey there little Red Riding Hood
You sure are looking good
You're everything a big bad wolf could want.
--Sam the Sham, "Little Red Riding Hood"

He shut down the sedan on the bluff above the lake. It was early enough, and a weeknight, that they were the only car out here. She curled up closer, letting him wrap one arm around her.

"I loved him. I saw him a while on the sly. He didn't like being seen with a 14 year old. My folks didn't know." The words came out of her like old secrets that had festered and rotted. "He kissed like you do. In a scary demanding way."

"Didn't mean to scare you, doll," came the soft reply.

"It's okay. I knew about you and him already. I know everything about the town. Everyone ignores you when you're thirteen."

"Yeah, you said that. So what did you know?"

"I saw you two, in the room over garage. He'd come home from work that night, and instead of going in the house, he went up to see you. I followed and watched through the window."

"What'd you see, kiddo?"

"Your arm was still in the sling and you were sitting on the bed without your shirt. He came over and kissed you. You pulled him down onto the bed. It was better than the movies!" Her eyes were wide and excited.

"Your own personal stag film," he chuckled.

"You lay there and kissed each other for a minute or two, and then shoved your hands into each others' pants. He had his arm under your head, and you were being really careful about your sling, but those other hands were sure busy. You kept kissing each other until he tensed and threw his head back. You laughed at him and bit his neck. You left a hickey and boy he got mad about that."

Falfa snorted in remembrance. He remembered that night vividly. "How much more did you see?"

"That was it. Mr. Milner came out to empty the garbage and I had to hide so I wouldn't get caught. I watched a couple other nights though."

"Sneaking little spy." The words held no anger, they sounded almost teasing. "You know what they do to little spies like you where I'm going?"

"What?" Carol asked almost breathlessly.

"When they're little chicks like you, the whole unit passes them around, rapes them until they can't walk, then chains them up next to the latrine and keeps raping them until they die or kill themselves."

A shiver went through the girl. "Would you...Would you do something like that?"

"That a question or a request, doll?"

"Que-question." She was shaking in earnest now. This was all her mother's warnings and her father's tirades coming true in the shape of a man who had bought her a dinner, and listened to her stories.

"Only when Uncle Sam orders me to, kiddo." He squeezed her reassuringly. "And only gook spies, not a good American girl like you."

Carol calmed down slowly. She talked to ease her nerves. "I saw you the night he kissed you all over. And I mean all over. And I saw you the night when he was the bed and you were kneeling behind him, holding his hips with one hand and rocking both of you back and forth."

"It's called fu---screwing, doll, and you weren't old enough to have seen that." He automatically corrected the cruder army term into one more fit for the suburban ears.

"Don't act like my dad. I not only saw it, I did it four months later."

"Thirteen. Damn, you're starting young."

"Fourteen. I had a birthday right before school started. My grandmother was married at fourteen. My mom was married at my age. My folks think I'm a little kid, and they don't want me to grow up. I'll finish high school in the spring and they want me go to college. Yuck, more school. They'd make me wear hair bows and knee-socks if they could."

"Milner your first?"

"Yeah." Her face was very sad. "He died the next day. I miss him a lot. He didn't treat me like a kid. He knew I'd grow up."

"And you have. Pretty nice, too." He tipped her face up and kissed her gently. "Was he good to you?"

"He was very sweet, and really gentle. He was scared, though, because I was jailbait. I never would have told." She looked at Bob, his sharp features accented in the wan light from the dash. "Just like you wouldn't ever tell on him."

"Got that right. Gonna tell on me if I want more than a kiss?"

"Like what?' She was getting skittish again and covered it with more talk. "Are you wanting to screw me?'

"It had crossed my mind. Thought I'd see if I could be as good to you as Milner was. But I dunno. You're still jailbait."

"I'll be eighteen in twelve days. And besides, girls get married at sixteen and seventeen."

"Only cause they have to. I'm not gonna put you in that position, doll. There are ways we can do this so you won't get pregnant."

"Tell me about screwing Milner. Was it good?"

"Doll, I'm not sure you're ready for that story."

She sat up and pulled him in closer. "That's the deal. You have to tell me about it or you can take me home right now." Her hand planted itself firmly on his crotch and kneaded him through the army slacks he wore.

"All right. Guys do it a little different than chicks, all right? They only have the one hole, and it takes some doing to get anything up it. The first night we did it, I was scared of hurting him."

The car faded and Falfa was back in the little room above the Milner garage. John looked up at him from the bed and said, "You wanna screw me? I don't mind."

Surprised and a little confused, Falfa made a business of adjusting his sling. They'd fooled around plenty, but this seemed to go right over the line into queer. And he was pretty sure he wasn't that. But getting laid was getting laid. And who was he to talk about queer when he'd had a mouthful of cock not an hour before?

"All right." And as simple as that it was decided.

"There's Vaseline under the sink in the bathroom. I burn myself on engines a lot, and come up here to take care of them."

Humpty-Dumpty grinned from the side of a giant-sized jar of Vaseline. "Found it. Bet your mom did this shopping."

Milner laughed, "Yeah. She still thinks I'm her baby. Now, just take it easy. Rub it all over your dick. I don't get all wet like a girl, so that's what we're using instead." He watched approvingly. "Okay, now, I'm going to do like this," he slithered out of bed to kneel with his torso pressed against the mattress, "and you're going to get on your knees behind me. Yeah, just like that. Now slip it in."

Falfa did as he was told, finding the tightly puckered opening and pressing the head of his greased cock against it. It resisted and then yielded to him, sucking the head in.

Milner hissed in pain and clutched the wadded blanket until his knuckles turned white. "Just, uh, hold still a minute, ok?"

"OK. Does it hurt?"

"Yeah. It always does. Just give it a second."

It took far longer than a second, but Falfa waited patiently. Milner finally relaxed and said "All right, more." He pressed backward for emphasis, taking another inch or so.

They took it slow and steady. No wild abandon, no roughness, just a good solid fuck between two friends. Falfa came and pulled out. He turned Milner over and saw he hadn't finished. He nudged Milner to get on the bed and stayed on his knees to suck him off.

The next night, they done it with Milner inside of him, curled around each other on the bed.

Carol's eyes were big and her breathing was very rapid as Falfa finished up. She pressed against him, feeling how hard telling the story had made him. "That was the sexiest thing I've ever heard. Would you do that to me?"

"What?" It was his turn to be surprised.

"I want you to screw me the way you screwed Milner. I want you to pretend it's him while you do. I want to pretend he's screwing me and imagining you."

A crooked grin crossed Falfa's face, making him look wicked in the low light. "Doll, you are one twisted little chick. All right. Let's do it.

The backseat of the sedan was wide and comfortable, and carol lay face down on it. Falfa knelt behind her and pulled her hips back a little. She'd taken a tube of hand-lotion from her purse, the best thing they had for lubricant before he had another idea.

"Doll, I'm going to screw you like a girl for a minute to get wet. This part is for you, Carol." She looked back at him, surprised to hear her real name. He leaned forward and kissed her again. This time it didn't seem so scary and demanding, but more like a promise. His fingers were gentle as they entered her, preparing the way for the next penetration.

When he decided she was wet enough, he slid in and rubbed a little. He wanted this to be good for her, because the rest of it was about Milner. Carefully, he slid a couple of fingers along the bottom of his shaft and stroked her. She got a lot wetter and then she shuddered.

""Smatter Doll?"

"It felt like I lit up all over. Do it again."

"You came, baby. Fancy folks call it an orgasm." He stroked her in the same way until she shuddered some more. The damp fingers tapped lightly at her asshole as he squeezed some of the lotion there. "Carol, you've been really sweet, but so long for now. Close your eyes. You're in the backseat of his old Deuce. It's Milner rubbing you like this. Open up for him." When she relaxed, he managed to work one finger in, using it to spread the lotion inside her. A second followed and he moved them enough to make sure she could take him.

Falfa closed his eyes and pressed against the tight ring as he had four years ago. Oil and auto smells filled his nose, real and remembered. And it was Milner beneath him. Sexy, funny Milner, all insults in his mouth and hot desire in his eyes. He stopped just as the head popped in.

"Press back when you can take more," he said, and the hips beneath him surged up greedily, trying to swallow him whole. "Not gonna fuck you like a New York Queen, Milner. Just slow and easy."

Carol felt opened, her whole body seeming to tingle and light up with every one of Milner's thrusts. She knew he was thinking about the guy in the black car, but it didn't matter. This was so good. She slid her hand down to rub where he'd touched her earlier and exploded in sensation. She never wanted this to end. "More," she said softly.

Falfa moved a little faster, the tight hotness overwhelming him. So good. How had he gone four years without this? Milner was making little breathy sounds as if he was enjoying it too. And the rhythm was just right, and the stars outside the Deuce's window mixed with the stars in his head and he came hard, shoving deep.

More she had asked for and more she got. A solid stroke that left her panting and wanting more and more. She touched herself again, and this time there was no more.

"Milner!" they both gasped together, the memory of the man having fused their shared passion into ecstacy.

Falfa pulled out slowly, not wanting to hurt the girl who'd been so good to him. He wiped up with a napkin from the drive-in and pressed another to her bottom. He knew how empty she would be feeling right now. He fastened his pants.

Carol took charge of the napkin, and pulled up her panties and jeans. She looked over at the older man. "Was, Was I okay?"

Falfa pulled her in close and held her for a moment before tipping her face up to kiss her. No demands this time, just a sweet memory shared. "Doll, you were fabulous. You are one hell of a woman, and not too bad of a man."

They cuddled together a while longer. The moon was high in the sky before they got back to her house.

Oh, Sweet Pea
Come on and dance with me
Come on come on come on and dance with me.
--Tommy Roe, "Sweet Pea"


"You're not gonna get into trouble are you?"

"I've been sneaking out since I was twelve. You be safe over there in Vietnam. Here. Take this." Carol fished inside her shirt, and drew out a gearshift knob on a string. "This was Milner's. I think he'd like you to have it. I've got your hat to remember you both by." She leaned over and kissed him. "Come back safe and look me up."

"Take care of yourself, Doll. Will you get in trouble if I write to you?"

"Nah, I'll just tell the folks I signed up for an army pen-pal at school. Bye." One last kiss and she had bounced away, climbing the trellis into her bedroom window.

"So long kiddo. " Falfa turned the gearshift knob over in his hand. "C'mon buddy, we got some traveling to do."

Jimmy, Oh Jimmy Mack
When are you coming back?
--Martha and the Vandella, "Jimmy Mack"


The letters from Vietnam came like clockwork, one a week. Falfa was a surprisingly good correspondent, and Carol wrote him back as faithfully, always aware that the current letter could be his last. They stopped coming at Easter.

All the letters began the same way, "Hey Doll and Milner too."


Imagine me and you
I do
I think about it day and night
It's only right.
--The Turles, "Happy Together"


March 1967, Vietnam

"Got another fragged one over here," yelled the medic.

They loaded the grunt onto the stretcher, and checked his tags. "Falfa, Robert. What's this in his hand?"

"Looks like a gearshift knob."

"Pitch it. Dead weight if it's not a bomb. We got others to worry about."

It gleamed silver in the greenery as they left with the body.

La-di-dah-di-dee, La-di-dah-di-dah
And the beat goes on
And the beat goes on.
-Sonney and Cher, "The Beat goes On"

*end*


I think it was the Happy Days slash in the zine that triggered this edgy little piece. i'm not sure if it's het, slash, transgender or what. I would happily take comments on what people think it should be called.
Because I'm still very confused.