Maxis_taste Dare #15: Romancing the Sim
This is my first offering for maxis_taste Dare #15: Dating.
The challenge/dare was to take maxis made sims (of your choosing) and put them in a dating situation (though it need not be a scored date).
To add to the challenge, I added a new layer for myself: Love for All Ages.
SO, this is maxis_taste Dare #15: Dating, Love for All Ages TEEN
(for the record, this comes to you via my Alterna-Strangetown--and yes, it's a short story)
"If you don't hurry up, he's going to leave without us. I don't know about you, but I don't want to walk."
I know he's not joking. Despite all the changes, good changes, our dad will never give up his schedules and time tables. Once in a great while we can get some wiggle room but there's no way that's going to happen today. Dad's wound a little tight this morning, anxious over his first one-on-one session with Buck, so he's really going to cling to the schedule. He was the same way the first time he had a one-on-one with Ripp (and me). Something about being stuck in a room alone (except for the doc) with just one of his kids gets him pretty flustered. To be honest, it was no picnic for any of us either, those first times. But it's working and if there's one thing our dad likes more than schedules it's results. I like the results, too. We all do.
It's a short ride so the air conditioning doesn't really get a chance to kick in. Still better than walking.
I'm looking forward to the water but I'm also on guard. That's something I'm supposed to work on. Relaxing and just enjoying the moment, not worrying. So instead of doing a perfect olympic style dive, I just bomb the water with a cannonball.
With no one else in the water, the cannonball's fine. No one got splashed or upset and I swim over to the ladder and haul myself out. I feel relaxed but still jittery.
I'm glad she showed up and wonder if she saw the cannonball and if she thought it was dumb or cool. I really owe Ripp big time for this. She's technically HIS friend. Really, who isn't his friend? Ripp's good with people, girls in particular. Like that kind of strange girl, Ophelia. I asked him once if he's ever tried to kiss her and he just laughed and said she'd make him gargle with Listerine first and he hates Listerine. And that Johnny wouldn't appreciate it, either. I didn't realize Ophelia was into that guy. Despite all the progress the doc says I've made, with patching things up with Ripp, I still haven't really worked on that. I know I need to but family first.
Ripp clomps away on those dumb shoes. I still don't know how he can be comfortable in them but he says he likes them. He likes the attention they get him is what it really is. We fought about that, during one of our shared sessions with the doc. I think it kind of shocked him, the doc that is. Really showed him what he was up against, trying to fix the Grunt family. But he's tough. Tough and fair. Good. So good that me and Ripp now do things together like this. I like this a lot better than always fighting. Not that we don't still fight but now the fights are different. Less like life and death hangs in the balance, more in perspective.
"Is the water cold?"
Ripp's stretched out on a deck chair with his eyes closed and a little smile on his face. He's a professional when it comes to relaxing.
"Nah," I finally answer her. I should have said "no" instead of "nah". "Nah" sounds like the noise a sheep makes. Makes me sound dumb.
"Come on," she says as she walks past me. I'm not sure where we're going and she doesn't say anything else as she leads me down along the side of the pool, away from Ripp, and through a cluster of bamboo and bushes.
I've been to this pool hundreds of times but never back here. It's like a little garden hidden from view by a slight downward slope and all the shrubs and bushes. She doesn't announce it, just starts to sit down. So I do too.
She's so casual and relaxed and the next thing I know we're lying on the ground and my arm's around her.
"This is nice," I say. It sounds dumb but she doesn't laugh just agrees. Her voice is low and kind of a sigh, like she really means it.
I keep looking up at the sky, mostly so I don't have to look right at her. Not that I don't want to look at her but it's easier this way. I have a reason not to look at her, a distraction from what makes me nervous. My palm is so sweaty, lying against her bare shoulder. What if it grosses her out? I try not to touch her too much but then she rolls back a little and I automatically reach out to support her.
"This is what I like most about living here," she waves at the sky. It's bright and nearly cloudless, like a fresh sheet of paper or a movie screen just waiting for the show to start.
"Yeah."
"And you." She taps my chest as she says it and I look right at her. She doesn't look away or seem nervous or self conscious at all. I don't look away either.
She squirms and kind of pulls herself closer to me. Her hand is on my chest, just resting there. I put my hand over it and we stay like that, just watching the sky.
After a while Ripp tracks us down. I don't really want to get up but I'm not mad, either.
"You ready to check out my new suit?"
I'm not sure if she's talking to me or Ripp, so I don't answer.
"Hope you didn't get a bikini," Ripp replies.
"Or you might end up like this chick I just saw."
"She had on this kind of skimpy number. Blue. This guy was all over her, I mean REALLY all over her. She didn't seem to into it. So I'd say a one piece is a safe bet around here."
They keep chatting and laughing as we go over to the locker rooms. That's another thing about Ripp. He's so casual with nudity. I bet he'd change right out in the open if he could get away with it.
They're already changed and at the far side of the pool by the time I get out of the lavatory. It's such a nice day and I'm really feeling so relaxed, I take my time joining them.
The water looks even better than it did earlier, so I go for it with a giant belly flopper. It stings a little but it makes a great sound. When I swim back up to the surface, they're both still laughing.
Ripp suggests Marco Polo and we both yell "NOT IT!".
She doesn't seem to mind.
I get cocky and swim right up to her. I figure I can get away with it, since she doesn't seem very good at this game. She turns and tags me and I know I've been played.
"I had my eyes open," she admits. "I was just getting kind of bored, you know?"
I nod.
She puts her face in the water and blows bubbles, making a noise like a motorboat. It makes me laugh. She laughs too, then snorts and starts to cough.
"You made water go up my nose," she coughs, splashing water at me.
She swims over to the side of the pool and scrubs at her face a bit more. Then she leans back and starts floating. She reaches out to me and I lean back and do the same.
Though I'm a little more tense than her. I laugh as I try to stretch out like she does, to just let the water hold me up. I just can't quite get it.
I swim over to the ladder and start climbing out.
"Where are you going?," she calls after me.
"I need a snack," I say. I always bring money for the snack bar.
I wonder where Ripp is. He always wants snacks but never seems to remember his money, so I end up buying. It used to irritate me but now it's kind of a joke with us. He introduces me to his friends and I pay him with popsicles and pepperoni balls. It's not really like that but it is, too.
I'm kind of glad he's not around. I don't know if I have enough money for all three of us.
"Get whatever you want," I tell her. If she picks something expensive I'll just get something different or I'll just pretend I changed my mind.
She goes right to the cooler and gets a monkey pop. Banana creme. Ripp claims they taste like glue but they're my favorite. And cheap enough I still have enough left over if Ripp wants something later.
She peels the wrapper down but not all the way off then bites right into the bright yellow pop.
"I hate waiting to get to the ice cream," she laughs. "It's the best part."
I nod.
"It's freezing in here," she offers, rubbing her free hand over her arm. "But I don't want to go outside and have it melt." She takes another bite.
"That's why I leave the wrapper on," I offer, holding up my pop as an example. The wrapper is pulled clear of the food but not completely off the stick. A built in catch all for any drips.
"Me too!," she laughs. I want to tell her I already noticed but I don't. It would sound too weird.
We don't talk a lot while we eat, so we finish quickly. She takes my wrapper and stick from me and throws it away with hers.
"Come on," she says, holding the door open for me. It's like walking through a curtain, going from the cold to the heat. "There's something I want to do."
I follow her down the steps and around the back of the building.
The monkey pop feels like an iceberg in my stomach as I figure out what she wants to do.
Ripp has told me stories about what goes on in these photobooths, with people having sex and doing all kinds of crazy stuff. That's not really what makes me so tense. It's the camera. Or rather, the picture.
We wait for the booth to become available. With every flash and pop from inside, the monkey pop iceberg in my stomach gets bigger and bigger.
A guy comes out and winks at me.
"Way to go, bro," he says, like he knows we're going to go into the booth and have sex. The thought of a stranger thinking about me like that, imagining me doing something so personal in such a tiny public space is repulsive. I want to smack him. Hard. Right in the face.
Thunder growls overhead and the sky starts to darken. That's a big downside of living in the desert. We don't get much rain but when we do it comes out of nowhere and is pretty violent.
"Tank. . .," I peer out under my arm and see Ripp. "It's going to downpour, man. I'm going to call dad and see if he can come get us."
"Ok."
He smiles at me.
"So hurry up, yeah?"
I nod and duck into the photobooth.
Inside it's like being in a hamper. Warm and dank. We sit close and make faces at the little camera eye mounted in the wall. I can't even imagine how people have sex in here.
She's laughing, pleased with the photo.
I don't want to look.
"Look," she holds the print out and I do.
She looks silly and happy. I look clueless.
"This is the best," she says, pointing at the corner picture where I'm laughing and just her eyes are peeking up from the bottom of the frame. I actually look relaxed, like I'm really having fun. I am really having fun.
"No, that's the best," I say, pointing to the opposite corner, where she dominates the frame, smiling and making bunny ears over my bristly head.
"I'm really cheesing it up in that one," she offers. "But that one is still the best," she repeats with a tap to the picture of me.
She looks up from the picture and she seems very serious.
"Tank, there's one more thing I want to do?"
With her free hand on my upper arm, she pulls us together.
I've never kissed anyone before. Well, not like this. I wonder if she's ever kissed anyone before, I wonder if she likes it, if it's good.
"Oh, hey. . .," Ripp's voice makes us both jump. "Tank, dad's going to be here in three minutes."
"Ok," I say, without looking at him. He laughs as he walks out to the curb to wait for our dad.
"Do you think your dad would give me a ride, too?," she asks me.
I think about all the things my father has said about the Ottomas family since they moved in next door. How irritated he gets over the noise that seems to echo from their house at all hours of the day and night. How he feels Sharla's five younger siblings are excessive and wasteful. How they don't tend the shrubbery, threatening to bring down his property's value.
Then I think about how he spent the afternoon, one-on-one with his youngest son and a therapist. About how much time he's already spent with Ripp and me. And how much time he's spent alone, with just the therapist, working on himself.
I smile at Sharla and nod.
"Yeah, we can take you home."
The challenge/dare was to take maxis made sims (of your choosing) and put them in a dating situation (though it need not be a scored date).
To add to the challenge, I added a new layer for myself: Love for All Ages.
SO, this is maxis_taste Dare #15: Dating, Love for All Ages TEEN
(for the record, this comes to you via my Alterna-Strangetown--and yes, it's a short story)
"If you don't hurry up, he's going to leave without us. I don't know about you, but I don't want to walk."
I know he's not joking. Despite all the changes, good changes, our dad will never give up his schedules and time tables. Once in a great while we can get some wiggle room but there's no way that's going to happen today. Dad's wound a little tight this morning, anxious over his first one-on-one session with Buck, so he's really going to cling to the schedule. He was the same way the first time he had a one-on-one with Ripp (and me). Something about being stuck in a room alone (except for the doc) with just one of his kids gets him pretty flustered. To be honest, it was no picnic for any of us either, those first times. But it's working and if there's one thing our dad likes more than schedules it's results. I like the results, too. We all do.
It's a short ride so the air conditioning doesn't really get a chance to kick in. Still better than walking.
I'm looking forward to the water but I'm also on guard. That's something I'm supposed to work on. Relaxing and just enjoying the moment, not worrying. So instead of doing a perfect olympic style dive, I just bomb the water with a cannonball.
With no one else in the water, the cannonball's fine. No one got splashed or upset and I swim over to the ladder and haul myself out. I feel relaxed but still jittery.
I'm glad she showed up and wonder if she saw the cannonball and if she thought it was dumb or cool. I really owe Ripp big time for this. She's technically HIS friend. Really, who isn't his friend? Ripp's good with people, girls in particular. Like that kind of strange girl, Ophelia. I asked him once if he's ever tried to kiss her and he just laughed and said she'd make him gargle with Listerine first and he hates Listerine. And that Johnny wouldn't appreciate it, either. I didn't realize Ophelia was into that guy. Despite all the progress the doc says I've made, with patching things up with Ripp, I still haven't really worked on that. I know I need to but family first.
Ripp clomps away on those dumb shoes. I still don't know how he can be comfortable in them but he says he likes them. He likes the attention they get him is what it really is. We fought about that, during one of our shared sessions with the doc. I think it kind of shocked him, the doc that is. Really showed him what he was up against, trying to fix the Grunt family. But he's tough. Tough and fair. Good. So good that me and Ripp now do things together like this. I like this a lot better than always fighting. Not that we don't still fight but now the fights are different. Less like life and death hangs in the balance, more in perspective.
"Is the water cold?"
Ripp's stretched out on a deck chair with his eyes closed and a little smile on his face. He's a professional when it comes to relaxing.
"Nah," I finally answer her. I should have said "no" instead of "nah". "Nah" sounds like the noise a sheep makes. Makes me sound dumb.
"Come on," she says as she walks past me. I'm not sure where we're going and she doesn't say anything else as she leads me down along the side of the pool, away from Ripp, and through a cluster of bamboo and bushes.
I've been to this pool hundreds of times but never back here. It's like a little garden hidden from view by a slight downward slope and all the shrubs and bushes. She doesn't announce it, just starts to sit down. So I do too.
She's so casual and relaxed and the next thing I know we're lying on the ground and my arm's around her.
"This is nice," I say. It sounds dumb but she doesn't laugh just agrees. Her voice is low and kind of a sigh, like she really means it.
I keep looking up at the sky, mostly so I don't have to look right at her. Not that I don't want to look at her but it's easier this way. I have a reason not to look at her, a distraction from what makes me nervous. My palm is so sweaty, lying against her bare shoulder. What if it grosses her out? I try not to touch her too much but then she rolls back a little and I automatically reach out to support her.
"This is what I like most about living here," she waves at the sky. It's bright and nearly cloudless, like a fresh sheet of paper or a movie screen just waiting for the show to start.
"Yeah."
"And you." She taps my chest as she says it and I look right at her. She doesn't look away or seem nervous or self conscious at all. I don't look away either.
She squirms and kind of pulls herself closer to me. Her hand is on my chest, just resting there. I put my hand over it and we stay like that, just watching the sky.
After a while Ripp tracks us down. I don't really want to get up but I'm not mad, either.
"You ready to check out my new suit?"
I'm not sure if she's talking to me or Ripp, so I don't answer.
"Hope you didn't get a bikini," Ripp replies.
"Or you might end up like this chick I just saw."
"She had on this kind of skimpy number. Blue. This guy was all over her, I mean REALLY all over her. She didn't seem to into it. So I'd say a one piece is a safe bet around here."
They keep chatting and laughing as we go over to the locker rooms. That's another thing about Ripp. He's so casual with nudity. I bet he'd change right out in the open if he could get away with it.
They're already changed and at the far side of the pool by the time I get out of the lavatory. It's such a nice day and I'm really feeling so relaxed, I take my time joining them.
The water looks even better than it did earlier, so I go for it with a giant belly flopper. It stings a little but it makes a great sound. When I swim back up to the surface, they're both still laughing.
Ripp suggests Marco Polo and we both yell "NOT IT!".
She doesn't seem to mind.
I get cocky and swim right up to her. I figure I can get away with it, since she doesn't seem very good at this game. She turns and tags me and I know I've been played.
"I had my eyes open," she admits. "I was just getting kind of bored, you know?"
I nod.
She puts her face in the water and blows bubbles, making a noise like a motorboat. It makes me laugh. She laughs too, then snorts and starts to cough.
"You made water go up my nose," she coughs, splashing water at me.
She swims over to the side of the pool and scrubs at her face a bit more. Then she leans back and starts floating. She reaches out to me and I lean back and do the same.
Though I'm a little more tense than her. I laugh as I try to stretch out like she does, to just let the water hold me up. I just can't quite get it.
I swim over to the ladder and start climbing out.
"Where are you going?," she calls after me.
"I need a snack," I say. I always bring money for the snack bar.
I wonder where Ripp is. He always wants snacks but never seems to remember his money, so I end up buying. It used to irritate me but now it's kind of a joke with us. He introduces me to his friends and I pay him with popsicles and pepperoni balls. It's not really like that but it is, too.
I'm kind of glad he's not around. I don't know if I have enough money for all three of us.
"Get whatever you want," I tell her. If she picks something expensive I'll just get something different or I'll just pretend I changed my mind.
She goes right to the cooler and gets a monkey pop. Banana creme. Ripp claims they taste like glue but they're my favorite. And cheap enough I still have enough left over if Ripp wants something later.
She peels the wrapper down but not all the way off then bites right into the bright yellow pop.
"I hate waiting to get to the ice cream," she laughs. "It's the best part."
I nod.
"It's freezing in here," she offers, rubbing her free hand over her arm. "But I don't want to go outside and have it melt." She takes another bite.
"That's why I leave the wrapper on," I offer, holding up my pop as an example. The wrapper is pulled clear of the food but not completely off the stick. A built in catch all for any drips.
"Me too!," she laughs. I want to tell her I already noticed but I don't. It would sound too weird.
We don't talk a lot while we eat, so we finish quickly. She takes my wrapper and stick from me and throws it away with hers.
"Come on," she says, holding the door open for me. It's like walking through a curtain, going from the cold to the heat. "There's something I want to do."
I follow her down the steps and around the back of the building.
The monkey pop feels like an iceberg in my stomach as I figure out what she wants to do.
Ripp has told me stories about what goes on in these photobooths, with people having sex and doing all kinds of crazy stuff. That's not really what makes me so tense. It's the camera. Or rather, the picture.
We wait for the booth to become available. With every flash and pop from inside, the monkey pop iceberg in my stomach gets bigger and bigger.
A guy comes out and winks at me.
"Way to go, bro," he says, like he knows we're going to go into the booth and have sex. The thought of a stranger thinking about me like that, imagining me doing something so personal in such a tiny public space is repulsive. I want to smack him. Hard. Right in the face.
Thunder growls overhead and the sky starts to darken. That's a big downside of living in the desert. We don't get much rain but when we do it comes out of nowhere and is pretty violent.
"Tank. . .," I peer out under my arm and see Ripp. "It's going to downpour, man. I'm going to call dad and see if he can come get us."
"Ok."
He smiles at me.
"So hurry up, yeah?"
I nod and duck into the photobooth.
Inside it's like being in a hamper. Warm and dank. We sit close and make faces at the little camera eye mounted in the wall. I can't even imagine how people have sex in here.
She's laughing, pleased with the photo.
I don't want to look.
"Look," she holds the print out and I do.
She looks silly and happy. I look clueless.
"This is the best," she says, pointing at the corner picture where I'm laughing and just her eyes are peeking up from the bottom of the frame. I actually look relaxed, like I'm really having fun. I am really having fun.
"No, that's the best," I say, pointing to the opposite corner, where she dominates the frame, smiling and making bunny ears over my bristly head.
"I'm really cheesing it up in that one," she offers. "But that one is still the best," she repeats with a tap to the picture of me.
She looks up from the picture and she seems very serious.
"Tank, there's one more thing I want to do?"
With her free hand on my upper arm, she pulls us together.
I've never kissed anyone before. Well, not like this. I wonder if she's ever kissed anyone before, I wonder if she likes it, if it's good.
"Oh, hey. . .," Ripp's voice makes us both jump. "Tank, dad's going to be here in three minutes."
"Ok," I say, without looking at him. He laughs as he walks out to the curb to wait for our dad.
"Do you think your dad would give me a ride, too?," she asks me.
I think about all the things my father has said about the Ottomas family since they moved in next door. How irritated he gets over the noise that seems to echo from their house at all hours of the day and night. How he feels Sharla's five younger siblings are excessive and wasteful. How they don't tend the shrubbery, threatening to bring down his property's value.
Then I think about how he spent the afternoon, one-on-one with his youngest son and a therapist. About how much time he's already spent with Ripp and me. And how much time he's spent alone, with just the therapist, working on himself.
I smile at Sharla and nod.
"Yeah, we can take you home."