Welfare Moms
Tank came in without knocking, like she has for most of my life since she's my best friend.
I live with Mom in a ground-floor apartment but Mom's away most of the time, traveling Mary Kay sales rep. Tank's from the trailer court, a double-wide with seven brothers and sisters, the oldest.
She has red hair, pale skin, freckles, is skinny. Sassy as fuck.
Today she's barefoot, tube top that shows everything. Tiny, tiny camel-toe flannel shorts and flip-flops. A slash of red lipstick for some reason, she puts it on in the 5 and dime when nobody's looking. Her fuck-puppet outfit she calls it.
I have dark black hair, warm skin, a little Mexican looking but Mom won't say why. Nice hips, pretty eyes, maybe some Hispanic in me. Smart as fuck.
Why I've applied to a dozen colleges around the state, hoping for admission to anything that would get me out of this little Texas town, get me a life somewhere less hick.
Anyway she had a wad of mail in one hand, flipping through.
"You got another letter! Some place called Wiley, like in the Road Runner!"
I took it from her before she could open it. We've never been big on personal space. Sleepovers since we could talk, shared baths, clothes, every secret from middle school to High School graduation which was not long ago. Our Moms were friends somehow, I think it started with Tank's Mom babysitting me but got all mixed up after that. Now we shared Holidays, birthdays, everything.
"Wiley? That's the last rejection. The others have already replied, Denied!"
Tank pouted. "You're so down on yourself. Open it! Who knows!"
I ripped off the end of the skinny envelope, pulled out the single sheet and unfolded it so she could see. Sorry! in large letters across the top.
I didn't need to look to know; an acceptance would be a big packet, like the half-dozen manila envelopes Sharon Mills got and showed off Senior Year. Fucking Sharon Mills. She's not the top of the class or even very bright, but her Mommy is an Executive at the meat processing plant and can afford any place she wants. Rejection letters were always a single sheet. I should know; I had 11 of them already.
"What am I going to do now? I wanted to get out of here!"
Tank led me to the sofa, sat me down, snuggled with me, arms around me like a sister. Which we were, essentially.
"What you do, sweet cakes, is do what Mom did and her Mom before her. You become a Welfare Mom! You go out, get laid by half a dozen guys, get knocked up, squirt out a happy little snot, apply to the State for support.
"Money every month as long as you keep popping them out! Sex whenever you want, whoever you want, no limits!"
I was close to tears. I'd thought, naively, that being top of my class and Math Olympiad winner two years running might mean something out there in the big world. Now I knew the truth: without money I was no different from the rest of the girls from the wrong side of the tracks.
Tank saw my brimming eyes, hugged me tighter.
"Farm boys! Townies! Big black dudes with their big black cocks! All up your yummy cunt, making you cum like a two dollar ho, filling you with their sweet sweet jizz!"
That got a snort out of me, and I'm afraid my face turned red. Tank could be a slut, a total whore but she was my friend, and she was just trying to cheer me up.
I rubbed my eyes, straightened my back.
"I can get an office job over at the Meat Packing plant."
Tank shook her head. "And let Sharon Mills lord it over you every day for the rest of your life? Call you Honey and make you do her errands? Look down that long nose at you, disappointment reeking from her pores?"
She was right; I would cut my throat before I would do that.
"Your Mom is not a Welfare Mom!" I was stoutly defending Mandy, Tank's redheaded cheerful Mom who'd made me a birthday cake every year since I could remember, my Mom always on the road. There for me, for all the kids. Band-Aids for my knee; compliments on my report cards. Except Friday nights when she went out on the town for her Me Time, left us to fend for ourselves.
"Yes she is! How do you think she could afford a double-wide, stay home all the time? Before Buddy joined up, married her, she was the sluttiest whore in seven counties, riding those cowboys down at the Triple Crown every Friday night, keeping herself plumped up and dicked down."
I was shocked; she'd never talked about Mandy this way before. Tank saw my look and laughed.
"Silly. She sat me down after graduation, gave me The Talk. Told me the whole story, how she didn't want some shit-kicking lay-about holding her back so she decided to make her own way, the only way a pretty girl in rural Texas can.
"Mom says I was conceived during the Longhorns game at the Holiday Bowl, when Tank Johnson intercepted and returned for a touchdown. Says their press guy jizzed inside her when Tank scored, while the crowd cheered, all eyes on the field, her with this publicist guy pounding his discount dick in her from behind, in a press box 10 stories up with her bare boobs smashed against the window, exposed to 20,000 fans. Says the touchdown was more exciting than the dicking! Her first welfare baby! The start of her career!"
That explained why her nickname was Tank! I'd kind of wondered.
May as well go for it; what else is there? Shack up with some ignorant oil roustabout? Who was away 11 months of the year fucking other girls? Have his kids, raise them on whatever he remembered not to drink or spend on whores?
So Tank did what she did best: she did a makeover on me. We walked across the tracks to her Mom's, Friday night so her and Buddy out on the town, her brothers at the movies.
Not so different from when we were little, exploring her Mom's costume box under her bed, choosing slinky dresses way too big for us, clomping around in shoes that nearly made us fall over.
Oh! It wasn't a costume box! It was her Friday Night fuck-me outfits. Ok, so this was starting make more sense.
But that was then, and now they fit. The dresses were no long for princesses; I could see they were for slutty girls trying to get laid. Tank chose for me, clearly the expert here, a black satin thing with green trim. Nice-girl pretty except where I almost spilled out the top, way too small now that I had filled out, and it didn't really cover my crotch. And no panties! No hose! Flat shoes, all easy to remove.
Essentially I was naked and tied in a scrap of a satin bow, a fuck-toy for some guy to unwrap. Excellent.
"No bra?"
Tank considered, one finger on her chin. Shook her head.
"Nope! Your tits are good enough by themselves. Maybe in five years, after a few brats have sucked them all stretchy. But for now those fab nipples are all you need! Like marshmallows! I could eat them up!"
Sometimes I wondered about Tank. But hey, even if she was into girls I didn't mind, she was my best friend and that was that.
She had been jealous of my tits forever, her skinny Mick frame not running to more than a handful of boob. As she put it, more than a handful is wasted! Still, mine were my best feature.
Tank reached into my dress top, scrubbed at my nipples, got them all puffy and sticky-outey, adjusted the neckline. It did look good in the mirror, not me looking back but a hot dark beauty! This could work!
