Hairspray: What They Don’t Teach You in School (Link/Corny/Seaweed | T | 776w)
[ Link/Corny/Seaweed | T | 776w | 2007-11-30 | Mirror ]
This kid, Christ, he was like nothing Corny had seen before.
What They Don’t Teach You in School
This kid, Christ, he was like nothing Corny had seen before.
He and Inez were both regulars on the show, now, and he saw them day in and day out, saw the way Seaweed moved.
He had to ask Seaweed to stand in the back, not because of his skin color, but because he made everyone else look clumsy and stilted by comparison. Even Link, who was the farthest from the jealous type you could get, came to Corny after practices asking for extra help because dancing next to Seaweed made him feel like “I got three left feet, Corny, and they’re all pointing in different directions.”
Like it wasn’t bad enough that he was eyeing the son of his new co-host, now he had Link coming in every day and forcing Corny to watch him shimmy for hours on end, wearing pants that surely cut off his circulation and smiling too damn wide to be seventeen.
So when Seaweed started dropping in before school, he attributed it to God having a big fat laugh at his expense, because there was no other explanation for the way Seaweed just up and volunteered to teach Corny a few moves, albums tucked under his arms and his tanktop doing a better job of highlighting every contour of his chest rather than covering it.
His days were filled with hop steps and knees in, knees out, arms wide and then shake the shoulders, twist the hips and bend at the waist, that’s right, bend, bend, now left, now right, now here, now closer, now, yes, right there, just bend a little more and come a little closer, kid, I’ll show you, your waist just goes a little more like this, and wait, am I doing this right? Will you help me get the end of this spin right, don’t worry, you can put your hands there, that’s good, yeah, that’s real helpful.
After a few weeks, it just made sense to combine their lessons. After all, as lead dancer, Link was getting all the benefits of Seaweed’s lessons secondhand, and Corny couldn’t teach it nearly as well. Sure, it just made sense. Had nothing to do with the fact that both of the boys couldn’t stop talking about each other under all sorts of ridiculous pretenses-so where’d he learn that move? You know where he goes after school? I might, um, have to find him for practice some time, yeah, sure.
They couldn’t stop making him wonder what would happen if he put them in a room together and stirred.
So the three of them met, and the heavy beats and deep voices on Seaweed’s albums set their tone, Seaweed’s moves leading, his hands on their shoulders and hips guiding the details, the turns and twists and nuances of the transitions between up and down, the difference between a jerky arch and smooth curl.
“Let’s try somethin’.” Seaweed slid his legs apart, lifting an arm in the air and undulating his body in a downward wave. “How ’bout it?”
Corny knew this was the time to say no, that this was the moment when he should stop this, as the responsible adult, but the beat was pounding under his pulse and Link was looking at him with some strange mixture of pleading and demanding, and the word just wouldn’t come out. He felt every step towards Seaweed as a skip in his pulse, and when he was standing behind Seaweed, not even an inch of distance and Link doing the same on the opposite side, his heart felt like it was going to pound itself right out of his body, trembling out of his wrists, his neck, his chest, every place where his skin burned with anticipation.
“Move with me, baby,” Seaweed said, humming a little as he shifted back and forth to the beat, one hand sliding down his side as the other slid up. Link put a hand on the right side of Seaweed’s hips, clumsily following, and Corny the left, taking Seaweed’s hand in his and following its path from thigh to stomach to shoulder and down again.
And when Seaweed leaned forward and kissed Link, well, Corny just followed his example, leaning down and biting at the crook of Seaweed’s neck, grinding their hips together to the increasing tempo of the music, Link’s sliding down the back of his pants and pulling him closer.
This kid. Christ, he moved like no one Corny had ever seen before, never truer then when their dance evolved into something else altogether, every damn move smooth and sweet, each of their steps falling into perfect time.
This kid, Christ, he was like nothing Corny had seen before.
What They Don’t Teach You in School
This kid, Christ, he was like nothing Corny had seen before.
He and Inez were both regulars on the show, now, and he saw them day in and day out, saw the way Seaweed moved.
He had to ask Seaweed to stand in the back, not because of his skin color, but because he made everyone else look clumsy and stilted by comparison. Even Link, who was the farthest from the jealous type you could get, came to Corny after practices asking for extra help because dancing next to Seaweed made him feel like “I got three left feet, Corny, and they’re all pointing in different directions.”
Like it wasn’t bad enough that he was eyeing the son of his new co-host, now he had Link coming in every day and forcing Corny to watch him shimmy for hours on end, wearing pants that surely cut off his circulation and smiling too damn wide to be seventeen.
So when Seaweed started dropping in before school, he attributed it to God having a big fat laugh at his expense, because there was no other explanation for the way Seaweed just up and volunteered to teach Corny a few moves, albums tucked under his arms and his tanktop doing a better job of highlighting every contour of his chest rather than covering it.
His days were filled with hop steps and knees in, knees out, arms wide and then shake the shoulders, twist the hips and bend at the waist, that’s right, bend, bend, now left, now right, now here, now closer, now, yes, right there, just bend a little more and come a little closer, kid, I’ll show you, your waist just goes a little more like this, and wait, am I doing this right? Will you help me get the end of this spin right, don’t worry, you can put your hands there, that’s good, yeah, that’s real helpful.
After a few weeks, it just made sense to combine their lessons. After all, as lead dancer, Link was getting all the benefits of Seaweed’s lessons secondhand, and Corny couldn’t teach it nearly as well. Sure, it just made sense. Had nothing to do with the fact that both of the boys couldn’t stop talking about each other under all sorts of ridiculous pretenses-so where’d he learn that move? You know where he goes after school? I might, um, have to find him for practice some time, yeah, sure.
They couldn’t stop making him wonder what would happen if he put them in a room together and stirred.
So the three of them met, and the heavy beats and deep voices on Seaweed’s albums set their tone, Seaweed’s moves leading, his hands on their shoulders and hips guiding the details, the turns and twists and nuances of the transitions between up and down, the difference between a jerky arch and smooth curl.
“Let’s try somethin’.” Seaweed slid his legs apart, lifting an arm in the air and undulating his body in a downward wave. “How ’bout it?”
Corny knew this was the time to say no, that this was the moment when he should stop this, as the responsible adult, but the beat was pounding under his pulse and Link was looking at him with some strange mixture of pleading and demanding, and the word just wouldn’t come out. He felt every step towards Seaweed as a skip in his pulse, and when he was standing behind Seaweed, not even an inch of distance and Link doing the same on the opposite side, his heart felt like it was going to pound itself right out of his body, trembling out of his wrists, his neck, his chest, every place where his skin burned with anticipation.
“Move with me, baby,” Seaweed said, humming a little as he shifted back and forth to the beat, one hand sliding down his side as the other slid up. Link put a hand on the right side of Seaweed’s hips, clumsily following, and Corny the left, taking Seaweed’s hand in his and following its path from thigh to stomach to shoulder and down again.
And when Seaweed leaned forward and kissed Link, well, Corny just followed his example, leaning down and biting at the crook of Seaweed’s neck, grinding their hips together to the increasing tempo of the music, Link’s sliding down the back of his pants and pulling him closer.
This kid. Christ, he moved like no one Corny had ever seen before, never truer then when their dance evolved into something else altogether, every damn move smooth and sweet, each of their steps falling into perfect time.