Waiting in Line for the New iPad

"It's kind of nice talking to someone different for a change," she said. "I feel like I say the same things to the same people all the time."

He caught a hint of her fragrance on the breeze, and couldn't help but melt a little inside. She was so gorgeous. She had a girl-next-door freshness, a small-town sweetness, but the confidence of a glamorous catwalk model.

Dylan felt she'd mistaken his own reckless bravado for a similar innate confidence. Women liked confidence in a guy - he'd read that often enough - and yet the irony of it was, most really confident guys their age were the kind of selfish idiots that would never bother to please anyone but themselves, even if they had a goddess like this interested in them.

Oh, he felt all weak in the knees to have Noelle sitting so close to him, but he knew he had to attempt to portray some kind of confidence if he was going to maintain this veneer that had somehow enticed this princess from the school across town to come talk to a lowly frog.

"So it sounds as though girls at Marchmont are being hard done by when it comes to the guys," he said, trying to sound casually headstrong.

"I guess we are," she said, smiling broadly. "So are St Josephs guys so different?"

Dylan shrugged. "I think we probably have our own fair share of idiot jocks interested in noone but themselves."

"But there's also guys who could… you know… out-compete a vibrator?"

Was she being flirty with him?

"I should imagine there's a few of us," he said, once again surprising himself at how brazen he could be.

"And wait," she said, "Are you saying that's because you guys hace read up on how to do it, or are you saying St Josephs men can actually handle a girl telling them what she wants?"

"Both, I've no doubt at all."

She flashed her eyes at him. "Intriguing," she said. He saw her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her skirt, drawing his eyes down to the alluring sight of her thighs. "You guys must have girls queuing up for dates, huh?"

"Not especially," Dylan said, his mind scrabbling for some kind of explanation other than - well, most guys who know how the biology of the female body works are so shy and socially awkward they won't manage to even talk to a girl until at least college graduation.

Instead, he said: "Trouble, I think a lot of girls don't seem to know what they want."

There was another pause. Dylan wondered if he'd offended her by suggesting girls didn't know what they wanted in a guy. That all their problems were their own fault.

But she broke the pause by saying: "I know what I want."

"That's good. I like a girl who knows what she wants.

Jumping Jehoshaphat - where did that come from? That was flirting, wasn't it? Class-A, triple-distilled. Where on Earth did that come from?

Noelle said: "So Dylan, do you like it when a girl tells you what she wants?"

Dylan felt all aflutter - so light, he could have floated away if there had been any kind of breeze. Doing his utmost to keep calm and collected, maintain the pretense that he had some kind of confidence going on, he answered: "I can't think of anything better. It usually means I can give her exactly what she wants - and then everyone's happy."

Oh, that wasn't good. A white lie - making her think he was actually experienced. But she wouldn't want to keep flirting with him if she knew he was a virgin, would she?

She nodded, buying his lie. "It doesn't damage your manly reputation?"

"Of course not. If I know what a girl wants, I can make her feel amazing, and surely that makes me more of a man?"

She gave him a mock swoon, fanning her face with a hand like a Southern lady. "Lord have mercy," she said. "Where do I sign up for whatever college St Joseph's boys go to?"

Dylan smiled, feeling so warm inside, he didn't even need an extra sweater now. "This time of year? Good luck."

She laughed.

Then he looked up to see Noelle's friends all returning bearing brown paper bags stuffed full of fast food, and his heart sank. Was that it? Now that her friends had returned, she wasn't going to want to be seen talking to someone who looked like him, a guy with no puffed-out chest or anything - just unkempt black hair and old clothes that were kind of fraying at the edges.

But as the other girls approached, she didn't move an inch, remaining sitting right where she was beside him.

"Guys, this is Dylan," she called out. "He's cool."

"Hey, Dylan!" Dylan flushed a little, though he tried not too.

"And Dylan, this is Ellie, Chrissy, Sasha and Marie.

"Hey, how's it going?"

"We had the feeling you might be joining us, Dylan," Chrissy said, and to his utter surprise handed a brown paper bag to him. "Quarter-pounder okay? We figured if you're man enough to stand up to Noelle here, you probably wouldn't want anything less."

"Seriously?" he asked, but felt overjoyed at being included in the meal.

*

As proper darkness came, Dylan was surprised to find people in the queue actually bedding down in sleeping bags and - a few - in tents. It seemed ripe for some unscrupulous types to find ways to jump the line, but he supposed that everyone knew well who was in front and behind them in the queue, so it would be easy to self-police the line.

Over a pleasant supper, Dylan found himself fitting into his new circle of adopted friends comfortably. They seemed to make certain social assumptions about him based on the fact that he was hanging out with them - that he liked certain bands, that he must be a regular party-goer and all round social alpha-male at St Josephs.

He did his best not to lie, but saw no reason to correct their views of him, either.

He found out more about Noelle and her friends - they seemed so normal to him, even though they were all like minor deities to him. They didn't seem to talk much about the whole reason they were all there - the upcoming iPad launch - and he began to suspect that only Chrissy was anything close to being an Apple geek.

They seemed quite impressed that he was queuing through the night on behalf of his sister - that got him some brownie points, and a lovely smile from the enchanting Noelle.

Conversation was easier when there were more people to share in it, and Dylan found that although he was grilled quite a bit as the newcomer to the group, he was able to leave the talking to the others when the subject came round to areas in which he was not an expert.

Compared to everyone else in the line, their group seemed to stay up much later - into the small hours. Until midnight came and went, the girls' conversation appeared to steer clear of the kind of dirty subjects they had been talking about before Dylan came along. But as they passed into the day on which the mighty iPad would be launched, things began to loosen up a little again.

All through the evening since he'd joined them, Dylan had been given the strange sense that the other girls were trying to get him interested in Noelle. He thought at first that it was just his ego going nuts because a pretty girl had actually shown him a tiny bit of attention that night.

But as things drew on, it was hard to mistake it.

There were the unabashed attempts to impress him with something about her.

Ellie saying at one point, "You know, Noelle's, like, one of the best swimmers in the Marchmont team?"

Chrissy telling him: "Noelle's going to get into law school, you know that, Dylan? She's so brainy. She's Ivy League brainy."

Or the fact that she'd once been on Good Morning America as a seven-year-old, or the fact that she used to be the best gymnast in middle school before she took up swimming because it was less traumatic on the joints.

There was the way that every now and then when some small detail about Dylan emerged - his passion for travel, for example, or his love of movies - they tried to point out how his interests fit so well with Noelle's.

"Noelle drags us to the movies, like, all the time."

"Hey, haven't you been to Italy, Noelle?"

Noelle seemed to be good at fending off the more obvious attempts, and Dylan just found himself ignoring it in order to protect himself from blushing. What was going on?

After midnight, and a lot the queue-goers around them seemed to be fast asleep, all bedded down and blanketed up, and the girls' voices might have gotten a little quieter out of respect for the sleepers around them, but their conversation topic took a distinct turn for the filthy again.

*

Somebody had said there was a rumor that St Josephs people had regular rainbow parties, or at least that's what Chrissy had asked Dylan about once things started getting more relaxed and there were less concerns about the queuers around them overhearing.

Dylan wasn't entirely up to speed on what rainbow parties were, but he had five faces eagerly after information on whether he could substantiate or deny these rumors.

He was a little put out that they should assume a normal guy would know what one of these 'rainbow parties' was. Was he so sheltered? Did normal guys know all about this?

He assumed it was some kind of drug thing. Psychedelic drug-taking, perhaps. People seeing rainbows as they hallucinate. Or maybe it was a gay thing - wasn't a rainbow flag a symbol for the gay community?

"Sure, I've heard they happen," he said dismissively. "It's not really for me."

"Not for you? You ever been invited?" Chrissy pushed him.

"Sure."

"So what, you said 'no'?"

"It's not really for me."

There were a few eyebrows at that. Noelle gave him a funny look, and he couldn't quite work out whether she was somehow impressed at him - no doubt for keeping his nose out of drugs - or baffled as to why he should pass up such an opportunity.

Or maybe she could tell he'd told a white lie hoping they'd just drop the subject.

She said: "I thought you said guys from St Josephs were above all that demeaning stuff."

He was a little confused himself. Maybe he'd got the meaning of the term 'rainbow party' wrong. He said: "I didn't say all of us, did I?"

She said, with a skeptical note: "And you're seriously telling us you turned down a whole night of free blow jobs?"

His ears burned. A whole evening of what-what? Now he suddenly found himself wanting a quiet corner where he could consult Google via his iPhone.

"I don't know, sounds like a weird thing to me," he said.

She said: "Doesn't it?"

He felt a sudden drop in tension in the air - he did not like lying to this girl. It really was not worth it. Ellie said: "Robbie Fallon and Archie Settler have been trying to talk girls in our school to throw one for ages."

"It's an urban myth," Sasha said. "Nobody really does that."

"But they do at St Josephs?"

"Well, I've never actually seen one," Dylan said, feeling himself hot under the collar, really wanting them to drop this subject.

"I bet you have," Ellie said. Were they taking the wrong interpretation of his blushing?

Noelle looked at him and gasped, putting her hands to her mouth - was she kidding around again? She said: "You have, haven't you?"

"No, I - "

She said: "I thought you said you were all read up on, you know, how to please a girl in bed. You're all in tune with how to make them… you know. And you've been to a rainbow party?"

Dylan felt sick. Maybe he had been wrong to think Noelle had ever really liked him, and that this group of girls was simply setting him up for a fall. Toying with him. He was disappointed in the revelation that he was an idiot, though.

He said, pointlessly, "Maybe some of those girls like it."

Jesus, he was defending an urban myth now.

"Like it? A whole evening of giving guys blow jobs? And what do they get for their trouble other than a face full of jizz?" Noelle huffed again. She said: "That's the thing, isn't it? Girls will do that sort of thing to make guys happy, but guys won't do it for girls."

"Sure they will," he said. Well, he didn't have the experience to back it up, but he read around the subject enough. There were plenty of male authors of erotic fiction writing about that kind of thing for him to know there were some guys out there who liked it.

The whole idea thrilled Dylan himself no end - if only some willing girl would let him.

"They will? Can I quote you on that, Rainbow Boy?" Noelle's friends laughed at that, at her new nickname for him.

He wasn't sure why they called it 'rainbow', but he was sure it probably wasn't the best nickname someone could have.

Dylan felt awkward, he felt cornered. He let his mouth wander again, and that was always dangerous. It said: "Here's the thing - a lot of guys love doing that, but there's no way any of them can if girls won't ask them to."

Noelle rolled her eyes. "Here we go again," she said, seeming to coil herself up ready for a return to the earlier argument.

"No, hear me out," he insisted. "Girls can assume if they offer a guy a blow job, he's never going to say 'no'. But girls have all kinds of paranoid fears of letting a guy do it for them, that he won't like it, that he won't like how it tastes or smells, that he'll never want to see her again. So they never seem happy to let guys do it, so guys figure they don't like it anyway, so they don't offer to do it. It's a vicious circle."

"You're saying it's our fault?" Noelle was irritated at him again.

Dylan heaved a sigh. He didn't know what to say now, every word that left his mouth seemed to be the wrong thing.

He said: "Look, you know what the teachers told all the guys in St Josephs when they were freshmen?"

"I don't know, what?"

"They took all the guys aside, and sat us down and explained to us that we might be starting to like the look of the girls right now, and that we might find ourselves tempted to do something about that, but that if we laid a single finger on any of them, there was a chance we might be accused of rape."

Dylan spoke the truth. St Josephs might not be like most high schools out there, with its strong Catholic traditions, but that particular 'sex ed' class had certainly left an impression on its male students.

"Seriously?" someone said.

Noelle remained quiet, one eyebrow raised skeptically.

Dylan said: "We were told fairly clearly that if we touched a girl on the god damn ankle, and she wasn't happy about it, she'd be capable of going to the authorities - and that would be the end of our hope to get into college, the end of our future careers, everything."

"Jesus."

"So you know what?" he said, "For the guys I know, if a girl doesn't explicitly ask him to do something to her, they're pretty nervous about doing anything with her."

"Wow."

That was Noelle. Dylan looked up, and he could tell she'd believed his story - why shouldn't he? He'd sounded as earnest and truthful as he was.

She said: "And that's why guys at St Josephs like girls to tell them what to do?"

"I guess."

"Sounds kind of nice," one of the other girls said. Sasha, Dylan thought.

"Nice? Those poor guys! Probably scared out of their heads!" That was Ellie.

"Not about the sex ed class - about liking girls telling them how to do it."

"But it probably got the message through their heads about assaulting girls, though, huh?" Noelle said. But then she looked at Dylan, and her expression seemed to soften. "So what would you do if a girl asked you to?"

He felt his insides turn to molten led, his manhood thickening up quite suddenly in his pants. Somehow, everything seemed to have gone quiet, yet his ears were ringing. Nothing quite seemed real.

He heard himself say: "Anything she wanted me to do, if it was the right girl."

Noelle's friends seemed to have gone deathly quiet.

*

He felt a little stupid when Noelle finally unrolled her sleeping bag, and it was quite clear that he was the only person in this part of the line who was going to be without any form of bedding to help him through the night.

She was the last of them - by the time she'd got her sleeping bag in place, her friends were already bedded down, Ellie and Sasha already asleep.

"You're going to be cold," she said, looking over at his modest little place between her sleeping bag and the nearest emo.

There was a distinct chill in the air - his mother had been entirely correct about the heat suddenly evaporating after the sun went down. He was shivering a little already, though trying not to show Noelle.

"I'll be okay - the sun'll come up in a few hours."

"You're insane."

Then suddenly she seemed to make a decision, silently to herself, looking at him and standing up, saying: "I have some emergency blankets in my car."

"Huh?"

"I have them in case I ever break down, you know? If I have to wait for roadside assistance in the cold. Come on, let's go get them."

"Oh, really, you don't have to - " He protested, but she flashed her eyes at him.

"I thought you were okay about the whole girl telling you what she wants," she said, tapping her feet. Dylan heard a stifled giggle from one of her friends.

"Sure, of course I am."

"So come on, then."

Another soft giggle from somewhere over toward Chrissy's sleeping bag.

She held out her hand for him, and for the first time he touched her.

He tried not to show it affected him, though it was hard not to. It wasn't just that her hand was so delicate and soft - somehow the touch made her real to him. The evening had taken on a magical quality ever since he'd intruded on the girls' conversation, and Noelle hadn't turned her back on him.

As an ordinary run-of-the-mill guy without any kind of lofty position in the school social hierarchy, he had been frankly astonished that these girls would give him the time of day, let alone share a meal and spend all night allowing him in their circle.

Now, the prettiest girl he'd ever laid eyes on was helping him up, ushering him away from her friends, out toward a dark parking lot to fetch a blanket so he could sleep beside her.

He felt so nervous walking away from the Apple Store with her - it wasn't that he might lose his place in the line, he was fairly confident that was safe, it was that now they were rounding the corner and heading away from the actual mall, into the parking lot, he didn't quite know what to say.

Noelle stifled a giggle.

"What?" he asked, worried he was supposed to have done something.

"You really do do what you're asked, don't you?" she smiled at him - and now took hold of his hand again. Even in the low light of the street lamps, she looked so beautiful it made his chest tighten up so it was hard to breathe.

She was holding his hand.

Oh, it felt so incredibly right - but what did it mean? She really was interested in him? There was a storm of butterflies now howling inside his stomach. He felt a curious mixture of sheer excitement and a slight tinge of nausea from his jangling nerves.

"Of course," he said, and then as he was going about the process of closing his mouth, it suddenly went off on its own accord again: "For you, I'd do anything at all."

That secured another of her incredible smiles - dazzling, even in the half light.

"Most guys would have sat there and probably grunted at me that they were all right, they'd be okay even though it's freezing cold," she said. "The guys I know, anyway."

"I think your friends were amused that we've gone off together," Dylan said, thinking he might make her smile again at the thought that her friends were already making baseless assumptions that this whole trek to the car to find blankets was some kind of pretext for some kind of romantic -

"They've been trying to set me up with various guys for months," she interrupted his thoughts. "I think they're just excited I actually found someone worth talking to."

Dylan had to conceal a gasp.

Found someone worth talking to?

What was going on? He felt as though he was walking on clouds, somehow. Were his ears deceiving him now? She was excited about being with him?