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All my life I’ve hated my name. From the time my parents used it to belittle me to the time it almost cost me my bowling career. Prim and proper and so god awfully preppy. I don’t think it’s ever fit. So when everyone in the league tried to cast me out and torment me with the name “Skunk”, I made it fit. I made it me. I mean, it’s what everyone wanted me to think of myself anyway. Why not lean into it right?
At first that might have been some sad self sabotage but I turned it around. I made it empowering, so I made it true. And in my opinion? I made it better. I took their bullshit and created this identity and by the grace of god it pissed everyone off along the way. I couldn’t have asked for it to go better. Lemons to lemonade and all that. Right? I lost the people I needed to lose. And eventually my career too. (Now, that might be more because I swapped my bowling hobby for a little drinking hobby.) But now? I get to keep to myself.
No one bothers me anymore and I sure as hell don’t bother them. Or I wasn’t bothered until someone pounded down my door needing a bowling coach. But I don’t really mind. I missed being at the alley, it’s close to home, and it has a functioning bar. What more could a gal ask for?
I didn’t think anything could be better, but then we started winning tournaments. Week by week, the money came in faster. AlleyCatz was slowly but surely starting to turn around. The nostalgia in me hated to see the shitty bowling alley vibe be torn apart, but I was proud of Walt.
The lanes got repaired, the bugs and rats were practically non-existent, and the place even managed to drum up a little bit of business. Enough so that they hired another man for the front desk and a pretty new bartender.
It wasn’t like I’d never seen an attractive woman before but it took me longer than I would like to admit to make her acquaintance. We caught eyes several times across the room before I mustered up enough courage to go talk.
I forced myself to walk up to the bar, repeating mantras on the way that I have to befriend her because she’ll be the one supplying my drinks. If I don’t get in good with her I may as well never set foot in this building again.
Once I reached the familiar stained and sticky wood counter I asked her for my favorite can, trying to ignore that she’s probably the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen and hope that some coherent stream of words comes out of my mouth.
I know I could be more eloquent but I don’t really think that’s my brand. At least not anymore. I left behind a version of myself on the lanes that I don’t ever want to try to be again so it was even more surprising to me when this perfect girl took me by the hand and dragged me down the hallway with her.
One minute we were making small talk at the bar and the next I had her against the counter of the ladies room, kissing her anywhere she’d let me. My mouth biting down the side of her neck and my fingers about to pop open the button of her jeans when she pulled away and panted “Wait- I don’t even know your name.”
When I replied, “It’s Skunk.” She pulled me back in to the hottest make out I’d ever had, but not before saying
“I’m not moaning that when you fuck me.”
I didn’t say anything back. I mean, I really couldn’t considering my mouth was occupied. But when she asked me, I almost told her. Like I wanted to hear her say it.
I’ve never wanted anyone to say it before.
It was like every other time I’d heard my name had never happened. Like it had never been used against me, or to make fun of me. I almost couldn’t wrap my head around the feeling of wanting someone to use it for me again. Until I realized, she’d use it to praise me. She wasn’t here to yell at me or terrorize me for “not knowing how to bowl”. So, in the end, when my fingers were finally pressed inside her, I pulled away from our kiss to whisper in her ear.
“It’s Stella. My name is Stella.”
And instead of getting torn apart I was rewarded with the prettiest moans, begging, “fuck, Stella”, and “please don’t stop”, chants over and over again of my name until she came and then whimpered it again into my ear. It was the best sound I’d ever heard.