American Dream

Mrs. Leung, she was a friend of my mom's now, and poor Mrs. Leung was heartbroken, because they were from China, one-child family and everything, and now Serina was booked to get her, you know, the male bits, chopped, and he was going to Seoul for lots of extra work there, at the same clinic I'd been to, so Mrs. Leung, she'd asked me how it was, but what she was really sad about was no grandkids. End of the world, that's what it was for Mrs. Leung, and all us girls by birth felt for her, but what could you do?

Wasn't like Serina would listen to us, was it?

In Serina's mind, well, we were girls.

Serina was a Chinese guy.

Chinese guys?

Well, let's just say Serina thought he wanted to be a girl, and I guess he thought he was a girl, but he'd been brought up as a Chinese guy. He was born a guy, with a real dick and real balls and everything. He had testosterone, and he had all those Chinese guy attitudes because that was the way he'd been brought up, and he wouldn't listen to us Chinese girls, because we were...girls.

Personally, I didn't think this was going to work out too well for him at all, once he'd been chopped and made over, because then, after that clinic that'd made me over made him over, which they would because they were really really good at all that stuff, Chinese guys would think he really was a Chinese girl and let's see how he liked that one, but hey, that was an aside.

Really, I thought Serina Leung was bat-shit crazy.

So did Betty Boop, and she was a banana.

A banana who liked girls, it turned out, as well as guys, which we'll talk about later, but Betty didn't want to be a guy. She liked being a girl, and I was pretty sure she liked me. Her and Conchita both, and I knew about the two of them, but neither of them actually said anything about it, not to me, and their moms had no idea, and I liked them, and they were really friendly.

They did date guys too, and they didn't have dicks, so I didn't sweat it, but I still didn't want to share the showers with Serina, and neither did Betty or Conchita, because Serina might have thought he was a girl, and he might had been taking those drugs, and he might have been growing boobs, but he still had his dick and his balls.

Nope. Waiting.

So we grabbed some juice from the vending machine and just relaxed for a while.

"I always thought cheerleading was this thing for white girls," I said.

"Nope, not here," Betty said, eyeing me. "This is San Francisco, not North Bumfuck, Wyoming. There's not that many white girls around here." She grinned. "Except for Conchita."

"Tell me," Conchita said, tossing her hair back, and she was one of those blonde Hispanics. Naturally blonde, I'd seen her in the showers. "One of my grandmothers was German," she added, "and my other grandparents were all Spanish. Criollo. Real Spanish, not mestizo."

She looked at us. "My great great great whatever grandad was one of the Conquistadors, with Francisco Pizarro."

"Who?" I asked. Was that some kind of pizza franchise in South America?

Conchita kind of eyed me. "The Spanish soldiers that conquered the Incas way back in the sixteenth century," she said.

"Incas?" I said.

Betty Boop laughed. After a second. Conchita joined her.

"What?" I said.

"Uh, I think you kind of missed a lot of American history, April," Betty said.

"No kidding," I said. "We didn't study anything like that in China."

Serina walked by, and he didn't say a word, so I guess he knew why we weren't showering, but we waited until he'd left the gym anyway.

"Anyhow, cheerleading isn't just for white girls, April," Betty said, rather earnestly, I thought, as we undressed. "It's for every American girl. Look at our squad, Conchita's the only white girl we have."

"I'm the token person of European racial origins," Conchita said. "From about four hundred years ago. We criollos are the purest of the pure. Well, except for my German grandmother. She was probably half-Polish or Swedish or French or something." She grinned, and they were both looking at me as we all stood in the group shower and soaped ourselves down. I was still a bit shy, but not with Conchita and Betty.

"Well, you're not the token girl with the biggest boobs on the team anymore, 'Chita," Betty said, and they were both looking at my boobs, and I was soaping them, and I looked too, and then we all looked at Conchita's. Including Conchita.

"I think they're about the same size," I said, although maybe my boobs were marginally bigger than hers. Not by much, but they were, and they were just as firm. Hers weren't silicone implants though. Hers were the genes, but I wasn't going to mention that.

"Maybe April's are a bit bigger," Conchita said, grinning, and she was looking at mine and soaping her boobs, and then we both looked at Betty, and her boobs were really small by comparison. Small, but really pretty, and I closed my eyes and ducked my head under the water to rinse out the shampoo.

"You really should come out with us, April," Conchita said, as we were leaving. She laughed. "Set an example of how new immigrants can aspire to the American Dream and, you know, become cheerleaders, and party the American way, and date guys on the football team, and go to Florida for Spring Break, and fit right in, and assimilate, and stuff...."

"Except maybe don't assimilate like Serina Leung," Betty said. "That's going a bit too far."

"Uh, I dunno about Spring Break or parties, but maybe dating," I said, because, okay, I was a good Chinese girl. Three months here, and I really liked San Francisco, and America, and Americans, and I really wanted to be an American too, but I wasn't planning to assimilate quite so thoroughly as Serina Leung, and I didn't party or anything either.

Not yet, anyhow, but I did think dating with a cute guy might be fun. I was thinking about, you know, maybe dating one of those high school guys. There were a couple on th e football team I kind of liked, and I did like the American guys. Especially the blonde ones with those big round blue eyes, and I sort of wondered if that was part of my mom's American Dream too.

I wasn't quite sure how to talk to my mom about that one though, because mom and dad, they hadn't been too hot about me dating back in China. It just didn't happen there, not like here, but now dad was back in China with his girlfriend, who was only a year or two older than me, so maybe I could talk to my mom about it.

"There's some cheerleading movies for you in the shopping bag in your room, April," my mom said a couple of days later. Friday evening actually, and I was getting used to that cheer uniform now, short skirts and all, what with practicing in the gym after classes every day with Betty Boop and Conchita. What with my workouts in the gym every morning, yeah, I was really toned and fit and hot and everything, and I was kinda getting used to the car crash sounds and the thumps and thuds and the odd scream behind me as I walked to and from high school.

Didn't even bother looking now.

"It's Jia-ying, Mom," I said, but mom didn't listen.

"I asked that nice Mexican with the little stand down that side road on the way to the Wing Chun Mall in Chinatown, and he gave me every movie about American cheerleaders he had, about a hundred of them for fifty dollars, and there's lots of them, so you can totally immerse yourself in American culture and the American Dream."

She smiled. "I always dreamed of being a cheerleader, April...."

"It's Jia-ying, Mom," I said, again, weakly, but it was like she didn't even hear me. She called me April all the time, and everyone at school did too.

I was even starting to think I really was this April person that I saw in the mirror every time I looked. It's really strange, looking in the mirror and seeing some stranger looking back at you, and it was even weirder having that body that didn't feel like mine at all, although I was beginning to really like it. Sometimes I'd just stand in the bathroom, naked, and look at myself, and I'd have to run my hands over that body before I'd really believe that was me.

So, okay. I looked through that shopping bag of cheerleading movies my mom bought for me. "Bring it On." "All or Nothing." "But I'm a Cheerleader." "Poms." "Sugar and Spice." "Gotta Kick It Up." "All Cheerleaders Die." "Ninja Cheerleaders." "Cheerleader Camp." "Satan's Cheerleaders." "Undercover Cheerleader." "Cheerleader Sluts." "Cyndi Sucks the Team." "Asian Cheerleader Pussy." "Schoolgirl Cheerleader Virgin Gangbang." "Ling-Ling Takes It for the Team." "Japanese Virgin Cheerleader." "Asian Cheerleader Anal Extravaganza."

What the heck?

There were quite a few more like that, too, and I sort of wondered what my mom was thinking, because just one look at some of those covers gave me an idea of the content. Huh? What? Had she even looked? If she had looked, was this part of my mom's American Dream too? Jia-ying sure wasn't going to take one for the team. Neither was April. Why did she buy those movies for me? Did she even know what she'd bought? I didn't want to ask.

She might take them away before I had a chance to watch them.

But okay, I was going to watch those ones first.

So I picked up "Asian Cheerleader Pussy", and slid it into the old DVD player that my dad had picked up last time he was here because he liked those old Chinese movies and you could only get them here on pirated DVD's. I had to look for it, because usually I watched movies on Netflix, or, you know, Amazon, or that online streaming one mom signed up for because she liked all the cooking shows. She was learning to cook, like, American style, and that older guy she'd met in the gym was coming to have dinner with us every now and then.

It was good to see my mom making friends for herself, and I guess that was part of her American Dream too, and she was a pretty good cook, my mom. That Cajun Jambalaya thing had been really nice, but I still preferred dim sum on Sundays, and congee for breakfast.

So I did slide in that first DVD once I figured out how to do it, hit play, and okay, the cheer team was a lot like the one I was on, which was all Asian-American girls, and by the time I'd got half way through, I didn't really need that Korean plastic surgeon to give me round eyes. Wow. I'd never watched a movie like this before, and I watched it right to the end. Then I watched it again, and I replayed parts of it, and I was thinking wow, there was more to cheerleading than I thought there was. I had a really hard time going to sleep that night, and when I did, well, I had these weird dreams.

About the guys on the football team. And me.

In my cheer uniform with the short skirt.

Doing all those things I'd watched.

Was this an American Dream?

I must be assimilating.

Saturday, I watched a lot more of those movies, and by the time I'd watched them all, there was one Chinese cheerleader pussy that was sort of thinking, okay, maybe I should date. Or at least go to one of Betty Boop's parties that she kept asking me to come to with her. Except I didn't want to date any of the guys from my high school, not really, not even those two cute guys on the football team. They were sort of my age and cute, but they were stupid, the way eighteen year old guys are, and the way Betty asked me, I sorta thought she was looking to take me as her date, and I wasn't going there.

Then I watched "Lesbian Cheerleader Orgy."

Guess what it was that I dreamed about that night.

Maybe I was assimilating into the American Dream far too easily.

"I see," John said. "So I guess this must be about when you met Paul? Wasn't he your boyfriend to start with? Before he started directing your movies?"

"Uh, yeah, he was," I said. "He's still at Berkeley, actually."

...and when I met him, he'd been absolutely the coolest boyfriend to have, and all the girls in my senior year were totally jealous.

Not just because he was totally a hunk, either, although he really was.

Paul? Yeah, that Paul, the guy that directs all my movies now. He's not my boyfriend now, but back then he was, and I had this huge crush on him right from the day we met. Yeah, he was hunky, but he was so cool, too. All artistic and funky, you know, man bun when it wasn't in a ponytail, long blonde hair, blue eyes and tats, and he worked out, he was totally ripped, and just so adorably hunky. And yeah, he studied film at Berkeley, which I'd thought was so cool. He'd actually worked on a couple of indie films, name on the credits and everything, and sure, I told all my friends. You know what was even better? The old house he lived in was on my way home from high school, which was how we'd met.

You want to know how Paul and I met? Really?

Yeah?

Sure, I don't mind, let me tell you.

In the end, I really needn't have worried about finding a guy to date. Monday afternoon, on my way home from high school, Paul landed right at my feet. And not metaphorically speaking, either.

Literally.

We met right outside his house, because I was walking home from high school. Early October sometime, fall, and I was just about skipping because it was the first American fall I'd ever seen. I'd arrived in early August, summer, a few weeks before high school started, and there weren't exactly leaves everywhere, not in San Francisco, but there were a few trees and the fall colors were just gorgeous, and so was this blonde guy coming down the steps from one of those beautiful old houses you get in San Francisco.

You know, the old painted Victorian ones, which was sort of mostly the type of neighborhood we lived in, except there were a few condo high-rises scattered around, like the one mom and I lived in now. I sort of looked at this guy, and my heart did this little dance, and my brain did some sort of short circuit, and I swear I just about moaned out loud, because he was like my dream American guy, which, okay, was weird, because I'd really never had a specific type of dreamy American guy in my mind, but just like that, I knew I did, and he was it.

Paul? He looked at me, his eyes went all round, and he tripped on the steps, and landed on his ass, and I was, like, right next to him and my school uniform skirt was as short as all the other girls skirts were, because, you know, fashion conscious now that I had legs guys perved over, so from where he was, he got a good look at my panties, which were totally hot....

No, not any American brand. That's so, you know, everyone buys American, and they're really not that hot, and the colors. They're so tacky. Mine? Hang on, I've still got them here, let me look. Here, these ones. They're from Seoul, from Neiwai. I market them through my website and on IG and TikTok and everything. Guys buy them for their girlfriends.

Yeah? You like them?

Noooo, I'm not going to model them for you. You can watch one of my movies if you want to see me in hot Korean lingerie.

Anyhow, Paul, he got a real good look at them, but I didn't realize that at the time, and I stopped to help him. I didn't usually stop to help when someone eyed me and had an accident, or I'd never get to where I was going, but he was just gorgeous. One look at him sitting there, and my heart was pounding. Nor just that, I was all breathless, which was just weird.

"Aiiyaaaaah, are you alright?" I asked, bending over, half concerned, half-eyeing him, because wow, he did look sooooo good. Blonde hair, and I knew it was long, because he had one of those man-bun things, and this blonde beard and mustache. He was totally ripped, too, and that black t-shirt?

"Oh my god, you like BlackPink?" I said.

"Uh, yeah, love 'em, they're so hot," he said, looking up at me like a stunned tilapia, but I was sort of used to that now, so I just waited for the blood to hit his brain again.

"You look a bit like Jenny," he added, blinking. "But hotter."

I'd heard that one a few times, and I didn't mind hearing it again from him at all. Jenny was so hot, but I also knew my new boobs were a lot bigger than hers, and I knew what he was looking at.

"Please, let me help you up. Are you sure you're okay?" I said, taking his hand, because he was just sitting there. He took it in his, and now it was me that was going to have to wait for the blood to hit my brain again. I knew that as he stood up, and up, and up. I'm five five, and he was way taller than me. Six feet? God, he was just sooooo gorgeous, he really was. Not just gorgeous. He was dreamy.

"What's your name?" he asked, looking down into my eyes, and we were both of us just standing there, me with my hands in his, and I don't know about him, but I was melting, and all hot and bothered, and my nipples felt really strange, like they were swelling or something, the way they had when I'd watched "Take One For The Team, Junko," again, last night.

"April," I said, without thinking.

"Hi April, I'm Paul," he said, and ten minutes later we were in that Gunslingers Coffee Shop I walked past every day, but I'd never been into, and he'd bought me a small Silencer Smooth Cappuccino, and he was drinking an extra-large Beyond Black. I took one sniff of his and nearly destroyed my nasal linings.

He laughed, a low chuckle that reverberated right through me and made my insides dance.

That laugh? I just knew he was the perfect American guy I wanted to date.

All of a sudden I was thinking maybe my mom was right about her American Dream, because this guy, he was just dreamy. It was getting a bit late by the time we'd finished that coffee, and he was telling me all about the indie films he'd worked on, so I called my mom and told her I'd be late, and that I was having a coffee with this nice American guy, and she was okay with that. She said it was really good I was making new American friends, so I sort of took my courage in both hands, and asked her would it be okay if I dated an American guy, which, okay, was a bit premature.

"He hasn't asked me yet, mom," I said, in Cantonese of course, so Paul wouldn't have any idea what I was saying, except I'd told him I had to call my mom, and tell her I'd be late getting home.

"Cool," he'd said, and he was watching me talk, with that sort of stunned look on his face that guys seemed to get now when they looked at me. Guess I wasn't in Guangdong anymore, Jia-ying.

"Well, if he does, of course you can date him, April," my mom said. In Cantonese, because she didn't actually speak much English, although she was learning really fast, what with all that time she was spending with her English-language tutor and that guy she'd met in the gym that she worked out with most mornings now. "Dating American guys is part of the American Dream, April. You just have to be careful with them, that's all, and just remember..." She giggled.

My mom actually giggled. "...If anything happens, well, we can always go back to Seoul, and get things fixed."

"Okay, Mom," I said. "Thanks, see you when I get home."

I disconnected, kind of looking at my phone and thinking, aaiiyaah, Mom, did you actually say what I thought you said? I mean, I'd always thought my mom was really conservative, but I was sure she'd said I could, you know, get fixed up in Seoul if I needed to, and I was pretty sure I knew what she meant.

"My mom said it was okay," I said to Paul, smiling, because mom had said it was okay, and when I licked the frothed up cream off the top of my coffee, every guy in the coffee shop groaned. I was a bit embarrassed, because you could actually hear them all. It was like a choir or something, and I don't think a single guy had left since I walked in with Paul. Well, two had, but I was pretty sure they'd been gay.