And then, Maybe if I sleep with him, he'll stay with me.  It wasn't a funny thought.  He can't say the sex isn't great.  She hadn't had a lot of it that didn't involve Brandon, but she'd known, even before Rick Downing, that they were one in a million in terms of sexual chemistry, and their summer apart had only underscored it.  But it's more than sex too.  I love him.  He's smart and charming and funny and handsome and gentle.  He completes me.  I need him.  I guess I got lucky that we get along so well, but...  I need him.

When Brandon stopped, Jane said, "Wait, you're not done yet.  Don't you want to touch my, you know, my privates?"  She said this without blushing or stammering, which Meredith found both reassuring and disturbing.

"No, not really," Brandon said.  "That's not mine anymore.  I'm not interested."

"You're not!" Jane exclaimed.

"Wow," said Sajel.

"You mean my breasts were it?" Jane said.  "God.  If I'd known that, I might've let you touch them while we were going out.  Save us some trouble."

"Meredith would never have forgiven you," Stasya observed.

"What would she know," Jane asked bluntly.  "They'd never have met."

"Wow, we are a snippy people today, aren't we," Jeff said.

"Thanks, Jane," Meredith said, feeling close to tears.  "I appreciate your charity and generosity."

"Well..." said Jane.  "I didn't mean it that way.  But seriously, you would've never known.  And you can't miss what you don't know about, right?"

"Yunno...  She's got a point," said Sajel.

"Well," said Jane.  "You can't just leave me like this.  Now I need relief."

"Oh yes I can," said Brandon.  Wow, thought Meredith, he's looking at a stranger.  "I can, and I will."

"Now that's unfair," Arie said.  "Brandon, you can't just start and then not finish."

"If you really need it, I'll do it," Jeff said, stepping forward.  For once he didn't seem bothered by the eyes that went to him.

"You'll regret it if you don't," Sajel said softly.  "You know it.  Brandon, you'll never forgive yourself if you don't now."

"All right, all right, fine," said Brandon.  "Fine."  He let his hands fall to her waist.  "Come here."

His hand slipped between her legs, and at the first touch Jane gasped and widened her legs and arched forward to cup her pussy into his hand, and closed her monstrous eyes for the first time.  And then the scene changed; now it was Jane flustered, and Brandon in command, his hand deft on her pussy, sure and gentle.  And Meredith saw on his face what a strange thing it was for him to be there, touching this thing he had never in his wildest dreams truly believed he would ever touch.  The pleasure it gave him; the pain it caused him.  To be here, touching this girl.  Jane.

It was over quickly, a lot more quickly than it was for Meredith; it only took a few minutes before Jane shuddered and gasped.  Eyes widened around the circle.

"Wow," Arie said.  "Wow."

"What," Jane said.  "Why?"

"How many of those have you had today," Derek asked, for all the world like a parent tallying his child's candy consumption.

"Three," said Jane.  "Maybe four."  And then, "Why, is that weird?"

"Very," Arie said.  "It takes most girls more like half an hour to come, not five minutes."

"She's very sensitive," Brandon said in an unreadable tone of voice.  "Someone will like that one day."  Meredith saw the bleak look on his face.  Someone, but not me.  She thought, Well, that takes care of that one.  It was pretty clear, to her at least, that Jane had no more power over his life.

"Well," said Jane, her unblinking eyes open again.  "Thank you very much, Mr. Chambers.  I enjoyed that."

"I'm glad for you," said Brandon.

Jane walked away.

"Wow," said Sajel.  "Wow."

"Wow what?" said Christa.  She and Zach slid into the conversation as one unit.  "What's going on?  Where's Jane going?"

While they were briefed, Meredith slid over to Brandon's side.  "I'm surprised."

He looked at her.  "Why?"

"Because you loved her," she said.  "Maybe as much as you loved me."

"'Loved' you?" he said.

"Brandon, don't tell me you're totally okay with everything, because I know you're not."

"Well...  Yeah.  But..."  He rubbed his face with a hand.

"So, why didn't you go for her privates," she asked.

"Because...  Because of what you said.  'Loved.'  I loved her, yeah...  And I still do.  But I'm not in love with her anymore.  And that's what makes it special.  Tits and ass are tits and ass, every girl has 'em.  It's which girl that matters."

"And she's not the girl for you anymore," she said.

"Yeah."

"Who is?"

The look he gave her was strange: grief and anger and wild confusion.  "It'd better be you, right?"

The thought scared her.  "Brandon, you...  If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out.  We'll just have to learn to live without each other."  Without breath.  Without blood.  Without life.  "We'll just have to learn."

"I know," he said.  "I know.  And it's not like I don't want it to work, I do, I...  But we...  Fuck.  Are you busy this afternoon?  We need to sit down and talk.  I can tell you right now that it's not going to work if we have to keep dancing around it like this."

"Yeah, I can come, I'm not busy..."  In truth, the idea of being alone with him scared her—God only knew what dangers he might unleash in the privacy of his home, in that place where they had been naked before each other so many times...  The honeymoon was over, it seemed, and all the imperfections they had once ignored were tearing them apart.  An idea struck her.  "What if Zach and Christa came too?  That way we—"

"Yeah, that would be smart," he agreed, nodding.  "That would be—  Yeah, why don't we ask them right now, if—"

Christa and Zach listened, and nodded.  "Yeah," Zach said, "we can do that.  We can—"  He glanced at Christa.  "Can we?  I know you wanted to..."

"Yeah, we..."  Christa frowned for a second, and then seemed to come to a decision.  "Brandon, I have a huge favor to ask you."

"What?" Brandon said.

"Can...  Can we bring Tommy and Lisa?" Christa asked.

Brandon frowned.  "Why?  Why do you—"

Meredith understood.  "She got The Shot, didn't she."

Christa nodded.  "Yeah.  Yeah.  That's where we were earlier, talking to Tommy—"

"And you don't want it to be in the back of a car somewhere," Brandon said.

"Well, who would," Zach asked.  "Not the most comfortable of places.  This one time, we—"

"Zach," Christa hissed.  "Not now."

Brandon and Meredith exchanged looks.

"Sure," said Brandon.  "Sure, what the hell.  They can come.  My house is a bordello anyway.  Does Jane know?"

"No, I don't think so," Christa said.  "All things considered, now would probably be the time to tell her."  She made a disparaging noise.  "She wouldn't bat an eye."

"I sure hope not," Zach said.  "I mean, batting your own eye?  Talk about painful.  And you'd scare all the people around you, too.  'Whoa, what's that girl doing, she's batting her eye!' "

"Eyelash," said Christa, evidently not in the mood.  "All right, fine, bat an eyelash."

Brandon looked at Zach for a moment, shaking his head, and then, slowly, smiled.

Th.5

The world was hers for the taking.  And Jane Myers intended to get everything she could out of it.

With her decision had come a font of courage the likes of which she had never known.  It was as if nothing could scare her.  Nothing did scare her.  She felt as though all consequence had been stripped away from her; she could do anything, today and tomorrow, and on Monday it wouldn't matter, it would be as if she hadn't done them at all.  The slate would be wiped clean.  She was free.

A girl could get used to this.  A girl could get too used to this.  Jane had always suspected, a little defensively, that she kept strict rein on herself for a very good reason, and now here it was.

Nonetheless, a girl could get used to this heady feeling of power.

More people had come to Rule Three her than all the rest of the week combined, and she had had more orgasms today than—well, not in her lifetime; she seemed to remember being quite well-acquainted with her plumbing in younger years—but certainly more than she'd ever had in one day, and for a very long time.  Was it three today, or four?  Probably more than most Program participants had in one day, to be certain.  Oh look.  I'm setting records.  And she had not once seized up, or shuddered, or felt any indication that what she was doing was in any way wrong.  Society isn't frowning on me, the school isn't frowning on me...  Even the church can't complain too much.  God gave me a body which feels pleasure, so it must not be wrong to enjoy it.  And it's not like I've actually had sex.

And the one person who normally frowned the most wasn't frowning either.  Nope.  No frown on Jane Katherine Myers's face.

How free.  How free.

Though a part of her did worry that she was getting just a wee bit drunk with power.  I'm not invincible, she had to remind herself, I'm not invincible.  I can get hurt.  I can be harmed.  One day soon the flight will end, and then I have to land again.

But she couldn't get this intoxicating freedom out of her veins.  It was what she had wanted, without truly realizing it, for her entire life: not to have everyone's approval, not to be beyond reproach, not to be unassailable...  But to not care, either way.  On Monday I was Jane Katherine Myers, straight-A student.  But today, I am...  Whoever the heck I want to be.

And let them try to stop me.  Just let them try.

And it showed; it showed.  People weren't just stopping to fondle her titties, people were stopping to talk to her.  People she'd known for, well, twelve years in some cases—she'd known Karin Ashpool straight back through to first grade, at the very least, and David Spirio and Claudia Chung as well—known, but never been friends with, were stopping to say hello and ask how she was doing.  And a surprising number of people were complimenting her as well.  "I'm not sure what you've found, Jane," Karin told her, "but if you could put it in a shampoo, I bet a lot of people would buy it."  And Gordon Lane stopped and said, "You know, you wouldn't think it looking at you clothed, Jane, but naked, you're very attractive," which, from Gordon Lane, was saying something, because when's the last time anyone saw him without an acknowledged beauty like Jen Weathermeyer or Melinda Carlisle on his arm?  If nothing else, this whole liberation thing was getting her a lot more public exposure.

But the person she had most expected a response from—Brandon—didn't seem interested at all.

Well, maybe that was to be expected.  He was dealing with a lot right now, what with Meredith and the situation she had created by sleeping around (See?  See?  That's the kind of thing I was trying to prevent!).  But she had thought he might be a little more interested in her private parts.  He had certainly been interested when they were dating.

She realized now that she wanted his interest—his attraction, his lust, his approval—because she trusted his judgment.  She remembered when they had first begun dating; he had seemed exotic to her, wise and mature, because he knew things she didn't.  But it wasn't just that she didn't know them, it was that she knew she couldn't know them.  She wouldn't know where to start learning.  Things about human behavior.  Things about life.  Things about Jane herself, even; there were things he'd said about her—"You avoid people because you're scared of messing up near them," and, "You have strong feelings, but you pretend you don't"—that she'd believed, simply because he'd said them.  In the quiet cynicism of his smile was that faint touch of veracity—I know, it seemed to say, I've been there—and she loved that about him.  And she loved being loved by him, too; because, if he had been there, if he knew (and surely he did), and still loved her, then surely she must be worth something.

When she was with him, she could quiet that internal censor that monitored everything she said—quiet it, and just be herself.  With him, she could just be.  That had delighted her and scared her in equal amounts.

And now, here she was—just being.  Free.  Through her own heart and mind and willpower, this time, without any of Brandon's efforts.  And if he was out of reach, there were still plenty of other people to impress.

It was during choir, however, that it all came crashing down; and predictably it all came down to Russell Hebbert.  It was he who had unlocked the box in the first place, by phrasing it all as a challenge—the one thing she could never back down from.  And now it was he who brought the wreckage.

She was ready for him when he arrived, but only barely; she hadn't expected him to show up halfway through choir practice, during their ten-minute break.  What was he doing here?  Was he on a sports team or something?  And why did he always have to have a flock of followers?  Strength in numbers?  Was she really that dangerous?

"Jane Kai-shek," said Russell Hebbert.

"Is this going to be a normal thing," Jane asked.  "Like, should I write it down in my planner?"

Russell was not to be deterred.  "I have come, bearing Rule Threes.  And I came all the way from the goddamn Homer Building, too—"  Across campus, in other words.  "—so you better appreciate it."

"Certainly," said Jane graciously.  "Your presence honors me, Mr. Hebbert.  What can I do for you?"

Russell gave a delighted laugh.  "Well, Ms. Myers, if you would just step this way, I'll explain it all..."  He led her to one of the larger practice rooms, where there was room for a desk as well as a piano.

It was Rule Three, of course; what else.  Why she needed to be pulled off to one side for it, she didn't know.  At least, she didn't until Russell began to open his mouth.

"I think we should up the ante a bit," he said, playing with her breasts.  He was getting very good at that, and she could already start to feel desire arching up her back, tingling in her extremities.  "How would you like for me to get involved a little bit more in all this Rule Three stuff?"

"Sure," she said.  Couldn't hurt.

"All right then," he said.  "My idea is to put you on the other end of the Rule Three experience.  You've never touched a guy, right?"

She didn't even feel the need to be a stickler about it: Well, I've touched a guy, but only in a, you know, friendly manner.  "Yeah, I haven't."

"Well, let's change that," he said.

"And which guy is going to be brave enough to let me at his naughty bits," Jane asked.  Brave enough or dumb enough.  God only knows what sort of mangling I might manage on accident.

"Myself, of course," said Russell brightly.

"Oh, well," she said.  "That's fine then."  Brave, dumb or otherwise, Russell was also quick, lightning-quick and smart.  If anyone should be able to handle himself while she tried to handle him, it would be he.  She felt safer about the situation.

She wondered if she should feel eager about the chance to touch a man's parts for the first time.  She had seen her father's, in the shower, many years ago, but that meant nothing; throughout all the time she had dated Brandon, she had never once wondered what he might be like with his clothes off, which was something he had almost certainly wondered about her.  All of that was foreign to her.  In some ways it still was.  Jane was a practical girl, concerned mostly with the here-and-now.  And here and now was an opportunity—not really anything she wanted or needed, but an opportunity nonetheless.  She might as well take it.

Russell unbelted his pants and let them slide down to his ankles.  Then he shoved off his boxers in the same way.

Jane stared.  "Is it always that...  Wavy?  I just thought I was weird."

"What?"  He looked down at his pubic hair.  "Oh.  Yeah, of course it is.  Don't you look at porn?"

"No," Jane said, a bit of her old defensiveness creeping in.

"Good for you, porn is stupid," said Russell.  "Stay away from it if you can."

Jane glanced around, for the first time realizing that Russell's little entourage had come inside the room with them.  Through the door's small inset window, she could see people passing back and forth on their way to the bathroom.

"So, what do I..." she said, looking back at him.

He shrugged.  "Whatever you want to.  You're Rule-Three'ing me, remember?  It's your chance to investigate any weird little oddity about penises you always wanted to know about."  He seemed totally unconcerned, standing there with his hands on his hips, his privates bared to all the world (and his friends!).  Jane, for no reason she could understand, felt nervous.

Weird little oddity?  The truth was, she'd never been really curious about penises.  They were just there—some people owned them, some didn't.  Some people were interested in them.  She wasn't (she hadn't been).  Maybe she would be, later...  But she wasn't now.

She knelt in front of him, eye-level with his crotch.

She recognized it—the whole package, the whole deal—from biology textbooks.  There's the hair, and then that would be the penis, and here is the scrotum, not quite as distended as it sometimes was—supposedly the testes retract, she remembered, when the air outside is cold, and the Music building was generally air-conditioned to a pretty low temperature.  She recognized it, and yet, she didn't—this was nothing like the cartoonish icons they gave you in school.  This was real, skin and tubes and millions of sperm in there somewhere.  There were wrinkles and ridges and veins and bumps and colors and textures and smells she'd never known to expect.

At a loss, desperate to say something, she asked, "Are you circumcised?"

"No, actually, I'm not," Russell said.  "I'm told that most Americans are circumcised, but my parents didn't have them do it to me, for whatever reason.  Some people think circumcised cocks look ugly.  Some people think uncircumcised cocks look ugly.  What do you think?"

'Cocks'?  Slang term for penis, I guess.  "I don't know," she said, "let me look."

He laughed.

It was growing precipitously—she could see redden, start to bump up and down.  That was blood supply, as she recalled, blood flowing in through valves to engorge special spongy tissues along the length of the penis, to make it hard.  The glans was beginning to poke out from under the foreskin; it was definitely red.  She wanted to see more.  "Do you mind if I..."

"No, go ahead," said Russell.

She reached out and pinched his foreskin between two fingers, to try and pull it back, but only succeeded in tenting it upward.  Russell said, "Ow.  No, look, do it this way."  He took a grip as if holding a pencil—a really large pencil—with fingers on either side, and pulled the entire structure backwards.  Now she could see the shaft, the same shiny red as the head of his penis.  The whole thing was starting to point in her direction.

"Is that...  Is that for me?" she asked.

"Hunh?" he said.  "Oh.  Well, kinda yes, kinda no.  Men aren't really picky, Jane: if they're in the vicinity of a naked female, of any naked female, for a length of time, they'll probably get an erection.  That's the way Mother Nature made us.  We can't help it."

Jane nodded.  Brandon had said as much.

"If you're asking if I'm attracted to you...  Well, yes, actually, I am.  I think you're quite pretty.  And you're brave, too.  Gritty.  I like that."

"Oh," she said.  The head of his erect penis was an inch from her nose.

"So," he said.  "You're here now.  Would you like to touch it?"

Jane didn't look behind her, so she didn't see Christa's shocked face at the window.  All she saw was Russell Hebbert and his penis (cock?), and she reached out to touch it.

His skin was like nothing she had ever felt before: soft, silky, marvelously textured.  She could feel the warmth of the blood pumping beneath the surface, feel its solidness even as its skin gave way beneath her fingers, feel the marvelous life inside.  Babies come out of this.  It brings life.  Or, if you believe all the women who are gagging for it, it is life.  Jane didn't agree with that assessment; but she was willing to allow that this was a pretty interesting organ.

"Oh," said Russell, "oh Jane."  When she looked up, his face was flushed.  "Do you...  Do you want me to do the same to you?"

"What, touch my privates," Jane said.

"Ye—  No, actually, no, let's not," said Russell.  "I'm not going to touch them.  I'm going to lick them."

Jane's eyes popped.  She had heard of the concept, of course—cunnilingus, was it called?—but who in their right mind would actually put their mouth on such an unsanitary place??  "Are you—  Are you sure you want to?"

"Yes, of course I'm sure," said Russell.  And then, before she could ask her next question: "And you're sure too.  Trust me, Jane.  It's one of the best feelings in the world.  It's better than having a hand down there.  It may be even better than sex."

Well, I wouldn't know about that.  But something that feels even better than being touched?  Sure!

Russell had her bend over the desk, and knelt behind her.  She felt his breath on her...  Area.  It was a new sensation, to be certain, but it was not unpleasant.

And then his tongue touched her, and she understood what Russell was talking about.

For long moments there was only the rush of her breath, the beating of her heart, as Russell did...  She had no idea.  She was bent over the desk, her tush in the air, and Russell crouched behind her, doing his monstrous, miraculous thing with his mouth and tongue.  She wasn't sure what, exactly, was going on, but it felt sinfully good.  If he continued like this, she was going to orgasm; it was really as simple as that.

Then Russell's panting voice: "Jane, Jane, do you wanna...  Do you wanna go all the way?"

Do I...  What?  What a silly idea / What a good idea!  Have sex?  Have actual sex?  Do that, that...  That thing she'd been avoiding for years?

Do something that feels better than this?

"All right," she said, before she could change her mind.

She looked behind her.  Russell was rising to his knees, but her shoulders blocked off most of the view.  Behind him, his cronies stood silent.  Through the window she thought she glimpsed Brandon's face—but then she blinked and he was gone again.  What was going on?

"Are you ready?" Russell grunted.

Then she felt it: a penis.  In her vagina.  And it was good—actually it was really good—but suddenly she saw herself, a naked girl of seventeen years, bent over this desk like a common prostitute, a man behind her still wearing his shirt, a man she barely knew—his friends were there!  His friends were in the room!  And she didn't know him and she didn't know herself and he was feeding his penis into her body inch by inch and making noises and groans and exultations and even though it felt marvelously good, a firm spreading sensation and the gorgeous feeling of her vaginal canal clamping down on something just the way it was supposed to, and it was wrong!  It was all wrong!

And then his hips touched hers, and she felt his pubic hair on her buttocks, and his scrotum brushed against her clitoris, and it was very, very good.

It didn't take long; he was primed and ready, and so was she.  It was as if her body, denied sexual release for over ten years, had simply been bottling it all up.  Barely a minute, and she felt the clench and rush and bursting delirium of her orgasm, and heard Russell grunting, and felt vaguely (through the thrashing of her own senses) his final thrust, and then a spurting warmth deep within her, and she knew it was over.  A minute—not all that long.

Too long.

Russell was doing up his pants.  "Jane?  Jane, are you okay?"

"I'm...  I'm fine...  Go on, I'll catch up with you later," she said.  Or so she hoped; whatever sounds were coming out of her mouth were foreign to her.  She was somewhere on the wrong side of rational speech.  But they appeared to work, because Russell left, taking his entourage with him, without a backward glance.

For a while she lay there, staring dimly at the wall.  She felt drowsy, lethargic, tired the way she was after a good bout of exercise.  It was a good tired, and that made it worse.  She'd heard that some people felt sleepy after sex, and for a moment she considered it.  Sleep.  Why not just drift off...  Drift away, and never come back.

I'm Jane Myers.  I'm not invincible.  I'm weak.  I'm so weak that a man with a penis could destroy me.

Presently she forced herself to move.  She smelled the same acrid crimson smell she had met yesterday, all those years ago—twenty-four hours ago; less—the smell of human semen.  It was coming from her, she realized, from her own vagina, and when she stood up she felt it begin to track down her leg.  Wasn't it supposed to stick around?  How could a woman possibly get pregnant if all that stuff just dribbled down onto the ground like that?

...What do I care?  I don't want to get pregnant.  I'm not on the Pill, I never got The Shot, and I don't think Russell used anything.  So I guess I better pray.

Yesterday the idea of being pregnant would have wrecked her.  Not today, though.  Today I'm already wrecked.

It was cold outside, and the wind cut across her body, drawing stiffness into her nipples and gooseflesh to her skin.  Clouds had drifted in, the dark clouds of an early October rain, and the sky was a brooding grey miasma.  The wind tugged at her hair, tangling it in all directions.  Her body felt raw, like a strange thing, a limb she had never known she had.  Well, I'm not a virgin anymore.  I've been fucked.  I guess it makes sense for me to feel different.

She felt betrayed.  Russell had taken advantage of her.  ...Sort of.  She had said yes, but now she knew what kind of mistake that had been.  She felt betrayed by Russell, for asking.  By Christa and Brandon and Meredith, for encouraging her to step into a world of greater sexuality.  By Dr. Zelvetti, who had done the same.  By Dr. Janine Graves, who had birthed today's social climate out of blood and sweat and genetics.  By her own body.  By herself.

I did this.  Me.

"Hey," someone said.

She was sitting on bare concrete, feeling grit on her thighs and calves and vulva.  It was north Stetsen, the only place to get out of the wind.  Someone stood

above her.  Jeff Gainesborough.

"I followed you," he said.

She looked at him remotely, and said nothing.

"I...  I saw," he said.  "I saw what happened.  We...  We all saw."  He grimaced.  "Christa passed by, and then told us, and..."

She didn't answer.

"Brandon didn't want to see," Jeff said.  "He said he just...  Wasn't interested."

"Did anyone want to see," she asked, acid.

"Well...  Not really," said Jeff.  "But Meredith and I watched."

"Oh, a voyeur," said Jane, acid.

Someone else might have bristled.  Jeff simply said, "No.  We didn't want to watch...  But we didn't want to leave you alone, either."

An act of loyalty, then, if an ugly one.  If all they could do was be near until it was over, then stand they would.  Some of the black humor around her heart evaporated, leaving only a deep, aching emptiness.

Jeff sat down near her.  The wind ruffled his short curly hair and tugged at his thin sparse beard.

"Did he force you," he asked.

"What!" Jane said.  "No.  No.  Of course not.  I did that to myself."  She laughed, low and humorless.  "I got into that mess a-aalllll by myself."

"It's not the end of the world," he said.  "You've done so many other things today, it's not like you really jumped the gun or anything."

"The other things I did weren't mistakes," she said.

"And this one doesn't have to be either," he said.  "Sure, you got into bed with the wrong guy.  You're hardly the first woman to do that in the history of mankind, and you won't be the last.  The question is, are you gonna let it load you down...  Or are you gonna learn from it?  Turn it into a story to tell your kids."

"What makes you think I'm going to have kids," she said.

He snorted.  "Jane, if you tell me he turned you lezzie, I ain't gonna believe it."

Despite herself, she gave a snort of laughter, and for a moment they sat there, huddled against the wind.

"I...  I shouldn't've," she said finally.  "It was a mistake, and...  I think I knew it.  Going in.  But everyone kept saying, you know, Oh, it's the greatest thing ever, you've gotta try it...  And I look at Brandon, and Meredith, and Zach and Christa, and even Arie and Derek, and they're all...  So happy with each other, and I thought..."

"You thought that, if you did it..."

"Maybe, it would...  Maybe I could...  Have what they had."

At another time, she might've been crying right now.  But not today.  Today she had no tears.  Tears required something she didn't have.  Like virginity.

"The thing is, though..." said Jeff.  "It's not just sex.  It's not only sex.  They...  They're meant for each other, at least Brandon and Meredith are.  Zach and Christa...  I dunno about, but they know how to make it work.  Even if they aren't, like, The One for each other, it's pretty clear they still love each other, and they can make up in effort what they lack in chemistry."

"In effort," she asked.

"Mmm," he said.  "Well.  There's a saying people use in countries where they have arranged marriages.  They say to us, 'You marry the person you love.  We love the person we marry.'  Love isn't just something that happens to you, in other words, it's something you do.  You don't just roll the dice and pray, you work at it.  And if you do, you can love...  Anyone.

"And Zach and Christa know that.  I think their dice lined up pretty well, but they aren't going to give up just because something goes slightly wrong."

"But Brandon and Meredith might," Jane said.

"Not if I have anything to do with it," Jeff said, surprising her.  "Those idiots.  Don't they see what they have?  And don't they have any idea how many people would kill to be in their shoes?"

"I would," Jane said.

"So would I," said Jeff.

They sat in silence for another moment.

"It was because you were lonely," Jeff said.

Jane stared at him.  "Yeah.  Yeah, that's it exactly, it's..."  She sighed.  "I used to have friends, but I don't know where they went."

"Away," Jeff said.  "Because you were scared."

At another time, she might've been angry.  "Scared of what?"

"Scared of being judged," he said.  "Anyone who comes near starts to judge; that's just the way humans are.  But you couldn't bear to be judged unworthy, so you didn't let anyone near."

It's like he knows me, she thought.

"So, now, I'm alone," she said.  "And I've got no friends.  And I just gave away my virginity and..."  She sighed.  Blackness enfolded her, tenfold.

"That's not true," Jeff said.  "You have friends.  Brandon, Meredith, Christa..."

"None I can talk to," she said.  "None I can really talk to.  About anything.  Brandon, once, but, now..."  Overhead, thunder rumbled, harbinger to a coming storm.

He regarded her in silence.

She understood.

"Come on," she said.

He stood up after her.  "What?"

"Come on," she said again.  "We're going to leave.  You're going to take me somewhere.  And then...  We're going to do it.  For real this time."

"What?" he said, totally confused.

"Russell didn't count," she said, "it was a mess, it shouldn't be my first time.  So now you're going to do it.  A better job, this time.  A real first time."

"I..." he said.  "I am."  A statement, but a dubious one, the questions clear in her eyes.

"Yes," she said, "you are."  And then, as the last of her courage ebbed out of her: "Please."

When his eyes met hers, she felt as though he could see through her.  But she could see through him, too, and she knew that she had won.

Or lost.

Maybe they're the same thing.

Th.6

"Wow," said Tommy.  "This is your house?"

"Well," said Brandon.  "It's not exactly mine.  It's my parents'.  But right now I'm the only one living here, so I guess it's mine."  He assisted Meredith from the passenger seat of his car, closed the car door, and went to unlock the house.  The tiny courtesy lifted Meredith's heart.

"How long are you guys going to be here," Brandon asked.  "Should I get some dinner going?"

"It's not going to take that long," said Christa.  "...Is it?"

"Well, we don't want to hurry them," said Zach, to prevent Tommy from jumping in.  Of course Tommy would want as much time as possible.  "I mean, we came here so that they could spread out and take their time.  And it is 5:30."

"Dinner it is," Brandon said, and yanked the door open.

"No, no dinner," said Tommy.  "I'm not hungry.  I didn't come here to eat."

"Not food, at least," Meredith said dryly.  Lisa blushed, but Tommy was too eager—or headstrong—to back down.

"Don't worry, kid," Zach chuckled.  "We wouldn't feed you if you were hungry."

"Tommy," said Christa.  "I think you should thank Brandon for the offer of food, and for being so thoughtful and letting you come here like this."

Tommy scowled.  "What are you, my mother?"

"All right," Christa said, calling his bluff with alarming alacrity.  "Get back in the car, right now.  We're going home."

"No!"

"Then thank Brandon!" Christa said.  "He's going to a lot of trouble for no other reason that he is concerned for you, and for Lisa.  He could've said no and forced you guys to do this in the back of a car, or in the dirt behind the baseball diamond, or maybe even just the bathroom down by the library.  Would that be fun?"

"Act like a man," said Zach, not unkindly.  "That's the whole point of this excursion, right?  To make you a man, and to make Lisa a woman.  But if you act like a kid, we'll treat you like one.  And you won't get to do the grown-up thing with Lisa."

Meredith blinked at him.  'The grown-up thing'?

Tommy finally had the grace to look ashamed.  "I'm sorry, Brandon."

"No worries," Brandon said.  "I was eager at your age too."

He let Christa and Zach install them in a bedroom somewhere—his house had thousands—while he began digging out pots and pans.  "Well.  That started off well."

"It could've been worse," Meredith said, ever politic.  "Tommy could've stripped Lisa down and started banging her in the driveway."

Brandon wrinkled his nose.  "All those red tiles give off dust.  She'd be covered in pink from head to toe."

"She will be, if Tommy has his way," Meredith said.

"Nnn," said Brandon, feeling around for a strainer.

"Do you want some help," Meredith asked.

"Yeah, actually, if you don't mind," Brandon said.  "I need some butter and a loaf of bread, and some tomato sauce, no meat."  Christa was a vegetarian, and Meredith was thinking of taking it up herself.  "I've got the pasta here already."

For a few moments there was no talk except the back-and-forth consultations of the business of food.  Zach and Christa arrived and were put to work on a salad.  Meredith felt at home; she and Brandon had done this many times, occupying a kitchen together, feeding body and soul at the dual altars of food and companionship.

For the first time, she began to truly believe that she and Brandon could work things out.

"I've missed this," she said aloud.  "Just...  Being."

Brandon, tending a boiling pot at the stove, looked over his shoulder at her.  "So have I," he admitted.  "It's been...  Way too quiet here."

Zach and Christa looked at each other.  "...You know, I think we'll go check on Tommy and Lisa," said Christa.  "Come on, Zach."

"Not that we haven't seen that already today," Zach chortled.  "Jane and Lisa, whodathunkit?"

And Brandon and Meredith found themselves alone.

Meredith finished the bread and slid it into the oven, manipulating the controls with practiced ease.  Then she meandered—casually, casually!—over to where Brandon was standing.  Her heart hammered in her ears; she was intensely aware of his presence, of his location, in the kitchen, in her life.  It was all she could do to keep calm.

"How've..."  He jumped at the sound of her voice so close to his ear, and she gulped.  "How've you been?  Over the summer, I mean.  It's been a long time."

"I've...  I've been okay," he said; if his face was any judge, he was as nervous as she was.  "It was quiet, but...  Zach and Christa were here a lot.  Everyone was, but them two especially."

"And Jane?" Meredith asked quietly.

He shook his head.  "No, not as much.  She was in the hospital for a while, and then she didn't want to come here.  I went there."

She nodded as if she understood.

"How about you," he asked.  "I bet you had friends at camp you were happy to see again..."

"Yeah, I did," she said, "and I was.  I mean, the Internet's just not the same, and some of them live like hours away.  But I missed you all a lot."

"Yeah," he said.  "I missed you too."

"I especially missed you," she said quietly.  "I mean, you're...  Just...  So much a part of me.  Going away was like...  I dunno, being lost in a strange land."

"Well, you're here now," he said firmly, "and you don't ever have to leave us again, if you don't want to."

Her heart melted.  "I don't want to," she said.  "I don't want to be away from this ever again.  Not from all my friends.  ...Not from you.  You're a part of me, Brandon.  You're my heart, and I have to have you inside me."

He blinked, and then laughed.  "Well," he said.  "We could work in that, if you really wanted."

She laughed, and he smiled, that same canny smile he always smiled, and she felt her body responding.  It had been a long time, hadn't it.  It was like nothing had changed, it was like nothing at all had ever changed...

But as he moved to kiss her, she pulled away.  "No.  ...No, Brandon, I—  I—"

He stopped, disappointed.  "What?"

It's too much like before.  We became...  I don't know what, what we became, but it was wrong, we couldn't...  "I fucked Rick Downing," she blurted.

He scowled, and she could see his libido draining away just as fast as it had started.  "I wish you wouldn't bring that up."

"But I did," she said, hating herself, hating to bring it up, hating herself for knowing she had to.  "We can't go back, Brandon.  Too much has changed.  And we can't just pretend it didn't, or else it'll...  It'll tear us apart.  Then it'll be the end.  Really the end.  Sink."

His face crumpled up in anger, but she could see her words working in his mind.  "Yeah," he said.  "Yeah.  You're right.  We can't."  His face turned ugly.  "And in any case, I'm not sure I wanna touch anything Rick Downing's had."

Tears threatened her throat, and she swallowed them.  "Yeah.  Yeah.  Neither would I."

At six o'clock on the dot, he was there, as he'd promised he would be, and Sajel let herself out of the front door before anyone could notice.  She hadn't actually told her family that anyone was coming, and she didn't intend for them to find out.

"Hey," said Garrett, smiling broadly.

"Hey," she said, gulping to control nervousness.

She looked good—if she dared say so herself.  Anything too revealing was out, unfortunately, though thank God she could at least bare her arms.  She had settled on a nice blouse, cut as low in the front as she really dared (factoring the skimpy atrocities she called her boobs, it wasn't much), and barely any in back.  A light jacket doubled her protection.  She'd found her best pair of pants, olive-green capris, and was going to do something nice with her hair until she had the presence of mind to look outside.  The murderous clouds overhead convinced her that it was hopeless, and she strapped it into a serviceable ponytail.  Garrett looked good too: a fleece sweater in blue and black, with a red T-shirt underneath, and what looked like corduroy pants.  He dressed simply, which she liked.  Clearly he was anticipating cold, which was his look-out, though it did make her wonder whether she should find a thicker jacket.  Those clouds looked menacing.

"So," he said.  "Shall we?"

"Sure," she said.  "...Uh.  Where are we going?"

Garrett grinned at her.  "Oh, don't worry.  You'll see."

The car ride was uncomfortable and nerve-wracking.  Garrett was, to put it mildly, an aggressive driver; he pushed his new-type Beetle to the edge, swerving through traffic and screeching around corners with a nonchalance that bothered her stomach even more than the driving did.  I should've volunteered to drive.  Definitely should've.  There wasn't much to talk about, either; the only thing that she could think of to say was, So, where are we going, and clearly that wasn't going to have much mileage.  And, to top it off, as they drove, the rain started: the first early-October rain, the first rain of the season.  Good thing I didn't do up my hair, she thought, but the prospect of the cold dim wet outside did not please her.

It got worse when they arrived.  Garrett turned off into a parking lot, but through the rain-streaked windows she could see little to nothing.  And it only got worse as he continued searching for a parking spot.  By the time he had found one, she couldn't see any buildings in any direction whatsoever—just a flood of cars.  And, of course, he didn't have an umbrella.  He didn't need one anyway; his fleece was waterproof, as was his hair (probably because he hadn't washed it in a while); after he had wiped off his glasses, he was practically good as new.  She liked that—it spoke of a certain ruggedness—but it was hard to be positive standing in the lobby of a fancy restaurant under full-blast air conditioners after having hiked what seemed to be several miles in pouring rain, looking like a drowned rat and slowly turning to solid ice.

"Ex-ex-excuse me," she chattered to the concierge.  "D-d-d-do you have a towel?"  They didn't, but they did have a tablecloth; would that do?  Poor thing, must have gotten soaked outside, would she like a tablecloth?

In the women's room, toweled and dried off as well as the tablecloth would allow, Sajel looked at herself in the mirror and thought, What am I doing?  She hadn't worn any makeup, so she didn't need to sponge it off or re-apply it; that was good.  But that was just about the only thing that was good about the whole night.  This isn't my place.  This isn't my thing.  What am I doing?

She realized that it wasn't quite as fancy a place as she had anticipated; it was only the decor, in the warm browns and yellows of fall, that had confused her.  Most of the diners were wearing clothes similar to hers—business-casual was about the upper limit, and most of them looked fresh from the office—and a number of them were nearly as wet as she was.  And when she got back to the table, Garrett offered her his sweater.

She put it on, feeling a strange mix of emotions.  That was the sort of thing people in a committed relationship did.  There was a certain amount of ownership involved, when one could help herself to his possessions—or when he could place such a public and obvious marker on her.  What was he trying to say?  Was he so conceited as to think she would swoon helplessly over her charms?  Was he saying he was in it for the long run—that he would do whatever it took, no matter how outrageous, to bring her around?  Or did he just realize she was cold?

There is, she thought, a certain advantage to remaining totally celibate throughout the course of one's life.  For instance, one is dramatically less likely to be driven insane.

Conversation was stilted for a bit, the usual pleasantries and empty witticisms.  How are you?  Okay.  Cold?  A little.  How's classes going?  Yuck.

"I think all of this is stupid," Sajel burst out.  "I think all this courtship stuff—  It's just stupid.  Think about how many flowers have gone into trash cans.  Think about all the trees that've given their lives for bad poetry.  Think about all the mental stress and incapacitation.  It's ridiculous!"

"Oh," said Garrett neutrally.  "And how would you change it?"

"Simple," said Sajel, making it up on the spot.  "If a man's looking for a partner, he pins a blue button on his left shoulder.  Unless he's looking for another man, at which point he puts a red one.  Women do the same thing on their shoulders.  And then, if two people want to get together, they just say it.  'Hello, I'd like to have sex with you.'  'Okay.'  And then they do.  Wouldn't that be simpler?"

Garrett stared at her for a long moment, and she suddenly realized just how blatant a proposition she had just inadvertently issued.  And how offended he might be, that he had gone through the trouble of bringing her here, only to have her declaim it as 'stupid.'  See, this is why I don't date: because I'm a moron.  A thousand points from Sajel, for a grand lifetime total of, let's see, something around negative four hundred eighty thousand?

Then he burst out laughing.  "It would certainly be more...  Convenient, I suppose," he said, grinning, his eyes shining with mirth.  "But, don't you think it's a little biased?"

She leaned forward, attentive, her hands near her ears and her elbows on the table.  "How so?"

"All the jocks and pretty boys would get all the action," said Garrett.  "I mean, let's say someone like Jonas Prier—"  A notoriously smelly fellow.  "—or Bernard Castagne or me walks up to, say, Lenora Walters or Melinda Carlisle or you, and says, 'Want to have sex?'  Of course you're going to pinch your nose at me and say, 'Get away from me, you ugly brute.' "  Why had he lumped her in with the beauties and himself in with the incompetents?  He was grinning, and his voice was gentle, like warm rain.  Shouldn't it be the other way around?  "But if, for instance, Alex Masterson tries it with, well, just about anyone, maybe even the lesbians, they'll say yes.  So now the popular people just get more sex, and the rest of us—the ones who really need it—still get nothing."

The idea flashed into her head.  "Simple," she said.  "No birth control.  All the popular people will get pregnant, and be so traumatized by the idea that they'll commit suicide."  She grinned.  "And voila!  Only the nerds and dorks and misfits are left, and then they can all find true love with each other."

It was such a tasteless idea that even she felt a little guilty, but Garrett grinned and rolled his eyes.  "Such a brilliant designer of policy," he said; in his hands, sarcasm laughed with her, not at her.  "They should let you become president.  You'd whip the country into real shape."

"Damn right," Sajel agreed, grinning.

Score.  Plus three hundred Sajel!

The rain had begun to come down in earnest by the time Jeff got her to his house.  They had waited for quite a while in the school parking lot—Jeff said that his parents would leave for dinner, and that he could sneak her in once that happened.  He was an only child.  To pass the time, they talked—nothing of consequence; idle chatter.  They both liked Tolkien, liked old video games, liked math.  His grade-point average was not 4.0, but still respectable.  They had gone to the same summer camp for two years without knowing each other.  She spoke of her childhood, of the life and times that had shaped her into a girl too scared of judgment to accept praise; he spoke of his own life, of his academic parents and their hard-minded scientific accuracy, of the way he had learned not to speak unless absolutely sure of what he was saying.  She could understand that; she felt the same way.  Theirs was a life born of caution and much yelling, of tripping, falling, skinned knees, and plenty of peroxide with nary a kiss to leaven it.

"I've never felt like a child," she said, hearing the words for the first time as they left her mouth.  I haven't?  Really?  "I've always felt...  Grown-up.  I've always felt as if there were consequences.  That I had to be careful, because, even when I was young, I could still make mistakes and have to pay for them."

Jeff nodded.  It was something she had liked about Brandon too.

He was tall, spindly; he drove with a spare, careful grace, gliding through traffic like a dancer.  Cars jockeyed and swerved in their endless snake duels, but she never felt threatened.  It was as though they were insubstantial, and nothing could touch them.

"Don't ask me if I want you to stop," she said.  "When we do it, I mean.  I've made up my mind.  But I know I won't be able to hold myself to it, so."  She took a deep breath.  "Don't ask me if I want you to stop."

He looked over at her, his bushy eyebrows raised in concern.  He had bronze hair and a beard that would fast become a goatee.

"I mean it," she said.  "Don't."  And he said, "Okay," though it was clear he didn't understand.

In his room they took their clothes off, silently, standing before each other, almost formally.  His chest had some definition, and his arms showed the wiry strength of hard use.  His pubic mound was the same curly, wavy, disorganized thatch that hers was.  Unlike Russell, he was circumcised.  His tan cut off at the neck and halfway up the bicep, evidence of long days in T-shirts.  He had removed his socks but not his glasses.

"Do you want some light," he asked.

"This is fine," she said.  The only light was an indistinct gray glow through the windows from the sky outside, shrouded in clouds and spattering the panes with raindrops.  Jeff was a dim silhouette in the gloom, outlined only by silver-blue lines where the edges of his face and arms and body caught the diagonal light.  She wasn't sure she wanted to be seen.  She wasn't sure she wanted to see.

"What do you want to do," he asked.

She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the dim, cold air around her, the weight of her breasts, the padding in her thighs and buttocks, the curtain of her hair hanging down across her shoulders.

"Everything," she said.  "Everything lovers do.  I want to do it all."

"You—"  His voice cracked.  "You do realize I've never done this before.  You'd—  You'd really be better off with someone more experienced.  Like Zach.  Or Derek.  Or Brandon."

"I've never done this before either," she said.  "We'll figure it out.  Adam and Eve did.  Why not us?"

He looked away for a moment.

"All right," he said.  "As you wish."

They stood in the middle of the room, touching.  She ran her hands over his body, learning the planes of muscle, the leanness of his torso, his shoulders and hips reversed in width from her own.  His hand traced over the curve of her cheek, the edge of her collarbone, the warm hollow at the back of her neck that her hair kept warm.  She looked into his eyes and saw the wonder there.

His hand slid down her hip.

She lay back on the bed, across it, propped up on elbows to watch him.  She opened her thighs when he touched them, and he knelt before her, looking down at her privates.

"What do they call it," she asked.  "They don't just say 'vagina,' I hope."

"Well," he said, not taking his eyes off it.  "Some people say 'cunt.'  Others say 'box.'  Some say 'pussy.'  I think that one's the most popular."

"Pussy," she said.  "Pussy and cock."  His eyebrows jumped, evidently surprised she knew the word.  "Why animals?" she asked.

He shrugged.  "Why not?"

Why not, indeed?

His hands soon gave way to his tongue, and she lay fully reclined as he explored.  He wasn't good, that she could tell; nowhere near Russell.  But Russell she could never trust again.  Jeff...  She could.  And so she lay there, as his mouth and tongue explored the outside of her body, the fleshy padded outer lips, and then, as her arousal rose, the inner ones, and finally, the bud at the center of her flower, the holy clitoris itself.  He knew what that was.  He had waited long to worship at this altar, and he wasn't going to mess it up now.

But well-intentioned or not, he still knew little of what he was doing, and eventually Jane could tell this would go nowhere.  "You can stop, if you want," she said, and he did, coming up to lean across the bed, bending at the waist as Russell had bent her over the waist.

"Is that what lovers do," she asked.

"Well, they probably do a better job than I did," he said.

That was irrelevant.  "What else?"

"Well," he said.  "Sometimes the woman does the same thing to the man."

"Lie down," she said.

It was a taste unlike anything she had ever experienced.  It was flesh, to be certain, but warm and red and bursting with life in a way she could never explain.  His penis—his cock—was slightly salty and a tad bitter, but his texture was every bit the same as Russell's, and she marveled at it as she took it into her mouth, feeling it, sucking it, resisting the urge to sink her teeth into it—no, that would be bad, she had better not.  She banished the thought.

She found its features: the lip of his bulbous head, the slight downward curve, the slightly scaly ring of skin just after the head, the ridge underneath, the little slit in the tip where urine and semen must come out.  She tasted it without hesitation, tasted nothing.

"Can I touch your...  Your balls?"

"If you want."

"I want."

The skin there was even softer, but she could see the folds and seams where it could wrinkle up in times of cold.  She thought about licking them, taking them into her mouth, but then she thought about her teeth and how easy it was to hurt them (or so she had heard), and decided against it.

"How do I make you" (what was the word?) "come?"

"Well, if you suck on it, it helps, and also if you stroke it up and down," he said.  "Or lick it.  Or something."

"And what do I do when you" (uh) "spurt?"

He raised his head.  "Well.  That's, uh.  That's your choice.  Some women eat it—swallow it, I mean.  They let it go in their mouths and then they swallow it.  Some spit it out.  Some just stand back and let it go everywhere."

"What do you want?"

"I—  Me?" he asked, and for the first time she realized just what she had done to him—Jeff Gainesborough, nerd, virgin, shy, suddenly ejected into this sexual situation.  You bless me, you take me, you give me my heart's desire, and now you ask what I want??  "I don't...  Well, some people say it's sexy to have the woman swallow it.  Some say it's sexy to see it on her face, or on her breasts, or some other body part."

She said, seeing the jumps in his logic: "But you have no idea."

He shrugged—feebly, from his prone position.  "I've been here as often as you have."

When she sucked him to completion, she swallowed it.  It was thick and goopy and clogged her throat with its salty warm taste, and when he actually came she almost choked on it—she wasn't sure what she had expected, but it wasn't that.  But then, she'd been so distracted by his penis—his cock—that she hadn't even really thought about it.

"Wow," he said.  "Wow.  Most girls won't do that."

She shrugged.  "I'm not most girls."

They lay next to each other on the bed, longways this time, lying on their sides, touching each other gently.  They murmured to each other: what it had felt like, what it had not felt like; the newness, for both of them, and yet the old things they had known about their bodies for a long time.  And presently she saw that (his penis) his cock was up and ready, and she knew the time had come.

"There's a lot of different ways," he said, when she asked him.  "You could bend over again—but that probably isn't as usual," he said, seeing her face.  "Some people say it's best for the woman to be on top, especially if it's her first time.  Others like it with the man on top."

"I don't..." said Jane.  Sex Education had never covered anything like this.  "I don't understand."

He lay on his back.  "Now you would sit on my hips and let my..."  Nervousness robbed him of his voice for a moment.  "Let my, uh, penis, uh, go inside you.  Or..."  He pushed her to lie on her back.  "If you opened your legs, I could lie on top of you and put it in.  I, uh."  He tugged at his glasses.  "I think that's how most people do it most of the time."

She gestured, as if to say, Hop on.

Of course, it was harder than that.  He lay with his head between her legs for some time, licking her vagina (her pussy) until she was ready for him; and then there were the mechanics of suspending his weight over her, and then actually making him go in, especially after nervousness robbed him of his erection and she had to suck him again.  But finally they were ready.  He held himself on his arms, and she reached between them to take up his cock and put it at the entrance to her pussy.

Then he began to slide in, and the feeling of his penetration was so good that she moaned.  And when he had gone all in, she could feel the base of his staff against her clitoris.  And when she opened her eyes and looked up, she could see his face.  And she reached up to touch it, and smiled a smile of pain and sadness and joy.

He didn't last long.  It was his first time; she supposed that would happen.  She didn't come this time; perhaps her body had exhausted itself, or perhaps (maybe more likely) he just wasn't very good at this.  But she'd known that going in.  And it felt good as he slid in and out of her, and it felt good to hear his moans and whispers and murmured exclamations, and when he came she felt the tension leaving his body and arms and legs and cock and bursting within her, and she stroked his back gently as he lay upon her, panting, his strength gone.

I'm not a virgin, she thought.  I've done it all, all that can be done.  —Besides anal sex, at least.  I am a woman, inside and out.

"Oh," said Jeff.  "Oh.  Oh."

"Shhh," she murmured.

How long they lay together, entwined, she never knew, but a mechanical bleating broke them out of it.  It was a cellular phone; she recognized the ringtone: hers.  A moment later a second one joined it.  "Unh?" said Jeff.

"Jane," Brandon said.  "Are you there?"

"Hi Brandon," she said.  "What's going on?"

"Are you busy?  There's been...  Well.  Arie called, and she wanted me to call everybody..."

"Brandon, what's going on," she asked.

He told her.

The food was good, the conversation was fun, and to Sajel's surprise, Garrett didn't even ask before settling the entire bill himself.  She wasn't sure how to read that either—was he expecting her to be one of those shy, delicate types who had to cover her head when she went outside?  Or should she just stop trying to read all his moves and enjoy the dinner?

They didn't go to a movie, afterwards, and Sajel wasn't sure whether to be disappointed or not: a deviation from tradition!  Blasphemy!  She also wasn't sure how to handle the car ride; the rain had ceased, but the streets gleamed with water, with red and orange and green lines from traffic lights and streetlamps.  Garrett drove as recklessly as before, but this time she felt a little more accustomed to it.  Still, she couldn't help but quip, "We're not in a movie car chase or anything, Garrett, you can slow down."  She pantomimed fear in a rapid, head-turning reaction.  "Or are we talking hidden-camera reality TV?"

Garrett slowed down, but grudgingly.

It was at her doorstop that she felt most nervous.  This was, after all, the location for most first-date kisses...  And she wasn't sure she was into that.  Kissing led to embraces.  Embracing led to unpleasant discoveries.  For the millionth time she wished desperately for an insider's knowledge of dating.  Would he take offense if she turned him away?  Would he think she didn't want to see him again?  How could she do it, subtly and gracefully?—all she could think of was a knee in the groin, a trick her older brother had taught her.  It would be a blatant overreaction, and she knew it.

So it was with an odd mix of relief, regret and confusion that she found him leaving her without attempting it.  "Wait," she said.  "You aren't going to try to kiss me?"

Garrett blinked down at her.  He had a disconcerting way of resembling an owl.  "Do you want me to?"

"Well, I..." she said.

"Most of the time, a woman makes it pretty clear what she wants," he said.  "It's your first date, yes, I'm aware of that, but even then, most women can still get the point across.  But all I get from you..."  He shrugged.  "Is ambiguity.  Do you know what you want?"

She stood on the precipice.  On one hand, possibility, opportunity, the unknown: a chance to make it work.  To have the husband and family and children she had resigned herself to abandoning.  On the other hand: rejection, humiliation.  Horror, revulsion.  Pulling away.  The phone calls unreturned, the hellos in the hall that flew straight by.  Failure.

It was too much.

"I...  It'd probably be better if you didn't," she said.

"Oh," he said.  "I'd like to," he offered helpfully.

"I..."  I'd like you to too.  The words hovered at the tip of her tongue.  Did she mean them?  They would be so easy to say.  "It just...  I'm sorry, Garrett.  It wouldn't work."

He looked at her silently for a moment.  "Because of your problem," he said.  "Because of your condition."

"Yes," she said.  That blasted condition.  "Yes."

He was silent for a moment with his unblinking owl gaze.  She squirmed, feeling her scars burning on her back and hip and legs.

"Well," he said finally.  "I guess this is good-bye then.  Because, Sajel, if you can't open up to me now...  Well, how will it be different later?  You don't want to tell me, and I can tell you don't intend to ever tell me."

"That's not true," she said.

"Yes, it is," he said.  "You're too set in your ways.  You've come in with a thousand assumptions, and now you're imprisoned by them.  I'm not sure what afflicts you, Sajel, but you're sure—absolutely, positively sure—that it'll stand between you and I.  And there's nothing that'll convince you otherwise."

"You don't even know what it is," she said, compressing ultimate scorn into her voice.

"No," he said.  He did not flinch before the lash.  "I don't.  And until I do know, I can only hope it wasn't something life-altering or destructive.  Because if it was something relatively non-threatening, like epileptic seizures or sickle-cell anemia or three elbows, then I'm not sure what you're afraid of."

"Because people will hate me," Sajel said.  "If they knew.  I can't wear bathing suits, did you know that?  Or a prom dress.  I haven't been swimming since I was eight.  I used to love swimming, but I can't now!"  Anger surged up in her—bitter, vitriolic, good.  She held onto her anger.  Even destructiveness was better than powerlessness.  "Don't you see?  It changed my life.  It messed me up.  I can't drink alcohol because I'm missing part of my liver.  I lost one of my ovaries, at the age of eight.  I almost had brain damage.  Don't tell me this is just something I can walk away from!"

"I am telling you just that," Garrett said.

Sajel gaped at him, totally flummoxed.

"Judging from what you say," Garrett continued, unperturbed, "it was an accident of some sort, involving bodily injury.  Well, Sajel, I'll tell you right now: I can live with that.  I'm not sure what the extent of the damage is, cosmetic or otherwise, but I can live with that.  The question is: can you?"

And he fixed her with a calm stare.

Sajel gaped at the ground, her mind awhirl.  The grass glistened with rain-dew, orange-yellow in the light of the porch lamps.  What if...  What if what he'd said was true?  The grass was getting long; Dad would need to mow soon.  What if people would actually be okay with it?  All the fallen leaves on the ground, they would muck up the mower if he—  She couldn't think about leaves.  Couldn't think about her scars.  Couldn't think about anything.

What if...  What if the only thing holding me back...  Is me?

Something was shaking her hip.  She glanced down and saw flashing lights, heard a cartoony song: a cellphone.  Her cellphone.  The faceplate was blue, incised with lightning slashes of white.  The song indicated the caller: Meredith.

"Sajel?  Saje, are you free tonight?  Can you drive?  Arie called.  We have a situation..."

"What kind of situation?  Is Arie in trouble?"

She told her.

The four of them were well into dinner before Tommy and Lisa emerged, fully clothed and holding hands.  Lisa smiled shyly, but Tommy was boisterous and proud.  Brandon was reminded of a bantam rooster, strutting about the yard.  He was reminded of the balloons of pride that had swelled his own heart after his first sex.

"See, told you we'd need dinner," Zach grinned.

"Then it's a good thing we listened to you," Christa said.

"Pull up a chair, guys, you must be hungry," Brandon said.

Brandon was sitting at the head of the table, with Meredith on his right and Zach past her.  Across from them were the two empty place settings Christa had suggested.  Tommy sat next to her, across from Zach, and Lisa took the final seat opposite Meredith.

"Thank you," Lisa said to Brandon.  "It was...  Really kind of you to let us do this."

Brandon shrugged and smiled.  "Nothing's too good for my friends."

"But I'm not one of them," Lisa said, confused.  "Am I?"

"Well," said Brandon, with another shrug.  "Christa is, and your sister is too."  He smiled.  "That's good enough for me."

Lisa toyed with a piece of bread.  "Yeah...  I guess."  She looked up.  Her face was similar to Jane's in its plain lines and open honesty.  "But I bet you'd've been happier if it was you and her, not me and Tommy."

"Well..." said Brandon, conscious of Meredith sitting beside him.  "Yes and no.  Maybe a year ago, that would've been true; there's a part of me that still loves Jane, and always will.  But my heart belongs to someone else now."

"Oh," said Lisa, evidently not sure how to take that.  "Well, thank you, in any case."  She rolled her eyes.  "I have to thank you on behalf of this barbarian, too, because he's a little too excited to remember his manners, so."  She grinned.  "Thank you again."

Brandon smiled.  "You're welcome."  She was Jane's mirror in other ways too.

"I swear..."  Lisa shook her head, still smiling, showing her braces.  "He's so...  Bullheaded sometimes.  He's like my sister.  She gets fixated on something and just...  Doesn't let go."

"Sometimes an inconvenient trait," Meredith offered.  "But very useful in a lover."

Lisa turned red.  "Well," she said, smiling shyly.  "Yes."

Brandon and Meredith exchanged grins.

Conversation tapered off for a moment, as everyone applied themselves to their food.  Despite their early dessert, Lisa and Tommy were just as hungry as the rest of them—maybe more so.

"So, you guys," Brandon asked.  "How was it?"

Tommy dropped his fork, and his face went white.  But Lisa grinned and said, "It was great!"

"Really?" said Christa skeptically.

"Wow, Tommy," said Zach, grinning.  "Way to go, man!"

"You can't tell him about that!" Tommy exclaimed.

"Why not?" Lisa asked.  "It's my life too.  I'll tell people what I want to."

"It's my life too!" Tommy retorted.  "What if I don't want people to know about...  That stuff?"

"What, going down on her," Zach asked.  Thomas Sternbacher nearly swallowed his tongue.

"Tommy," Lisa said.  "We wouldn't have anything to talk about if not for Brandon and Christa.  I think the least we can do is tell them we had a good time."

"No one's going to make you say anything you don't want to, Tom," Meredith said, using his adult name to make him feel older.  "Not even Christa.  It's all free speech here."

"Besides—"  Zach cackled.  "You know you wanna talk about it."

"I, I do?" said Tommy, suspicious.

"I certainly hope so!" Christa exclaimed.  "Tommy, you just had sex for the first time in your life.  I'd be worried if you didn't want to talk about it!"

"Well..." said Tommy.  "...First and second time."

"Oh-ho!!" said Zach.

"See," Brandon said, smiling.  "That wasn't so hard."

"Or was it?" Meredith said.  "I mean, they probably had some problems if it wasn't so hard."

Tommy turned an alarming shade of red.  "Well-lll," said Lisa.

"I guess that's not too surprising," Brandon said, swerving into the gap.  "I mean, on your first time, of course you're gonna be nervous.  And when your body's nervous, it's got other things to worry about than sending blood rushing to your genitals."

"Besides, she looks like one pleased lady to me, pardner," Zach said, grinning and nodding at Lisa, and Tommy blushed again but managed a weak grin.

"That she is," Lisa agreed.

"So what happened," Meredith asked, "did he go down on you?"

"Yeah, actually, he did," Lisa said.  "I kinda had to prompt him into it, but in the end he did it.  And the thing is, he made me come!"

"What!" Christa exclaimed.  "It took me more than a month to teach Zach how to do that!"

"You've got a really talented brother there," Meredith said to her.

Tommy was still as red as the tomato sauce, but behind it was a glimpse of pride.  "Really?"

"Really," Brandon told him.  "It's a huge deal to be able to do that.  Women take like four times as long to reach orgasm as men do, and their bodies are built to be a lot more finicky."

"I hope you went down on him," Christa said.  "I mean, obviously it's not as big a deal for him to come from oral, but you oughta thank him!"

"Either you got lucky," Brandon said to Tom, "or...  Well, no 'or' about it, you did get lucky.  But clearly you're also pretty skilled, too."

"Of course I went down on him," Lisa said.  "I wanted to, even before I came."

"And how was it, Tommy, when she sucked you off," Zach asked.

"Well..." said Tommy, glancing at Lisa.  "It was...  Okay," he said.  "She..."

"Was about as skilled as you'd expect from a virgin?" Meredith offered.

"I wouldn't know, but...  I guess so," Tommy said.  "It was slower than when I, uh.  When I jack off."

"Well, that's to be expected too," Brandon said.  "Generally, masturbation is the fastest way to reach orgasm.  You know exactly what to do to yourself.  Whereas Lisa, who has never done this before, has no idea what to do with penises in general, much less your penis."

"Did you like it, though," Zach asked.

"Yeah!" Tommy said.  "Yeah, it was...  Really cool!  I especially liked it when it got everywhere.  It was, like, all over her face and everything."

Brandon peered at Lisa surreptitiously.  She didn't look like it had.

"Why did you like that?" Meredith asked, intrigued.

Tommy stopped, frozen for a moment, caught with his mouth open.  Then he shrugged and grinned helplessly, an answer that justified itself.

"Lisa," Christa said, leaning forward.  "One thing that most guys have in common is that the little ridge on the bottom of their penises is really sensitive, especially up near the base of the head.  If you..."  Zach, not to be outdone, began tutoring Tommy in the fine art of cunnilingus.

Meredith caught Brandon's eye and shook her head, laughing.  Quietly, the two of them slipped out, leaving the sex fiends to their conversation.

It was to the TV room they went, the place they had spent so much of their lives together in.  Their first dinner date, during Brandon's Program week; their first time together, only a few days later; endless weekdays spent together, playing video games or doing homework or making love or just sitting, enjoying each other's presence.  The sight of that old brown leather couch brought back a whirlwind of memories, and Brandon blinked his eyes tight, unable for a moment to discern between the present and a thousand swirling firefly recollections.

"I've missed this place," Meredith said, her voice tight with emotion.

"I've missed you," he said, barely daring to turn to look at her.  "The place is nothing.  It's you that makes it special."

Now she had tears in her eyes.  "If it were our first date, you could've just gotten into my pants with that line."

He smiled at her, feeling a strange queerness in his stomach.  She was beautiful, and he loved her, and he wanted her—but Rick Downing, Rick Downing, Rick Downing.  He was like some grotesque thing stapled to her, a third limb or a second head or just a dead body, his arms draped around her neck, slumped down over her back like some deluded idea of a cape.  It was impossible to get past him.

She must have seen in his face, because she said, "I know.  I feel it too."

"Will we never get past this?"  He flung himself away from her, frustrated.  He could see them, five, ten, twenty years in the future: loving each other, as they had before, having children, having careers, having life...  And then moments of tenderness falling to pieces, shattered by that hanging ghost.  Rick Downing.  He won't even make it into a real university.  He'll go off to the community college and drop out after half a year, and spend the rest of his life at an oil-change place with a plumber's crack and a beer belly, and he'll sink down into oblivious death and take us with him.  Had he ruined them?  Would it always be like this?

"Yes," she said, her quiet tone disguising her intensity.  "Yes, we can, Brandon.  Time will pass.  It'll fade.  There will be minutes and days and years in which we don't think of it at all.  If we..."  She trailed off, anxious.  "We can do it.  We can."

"How do you know," he asked suspiciously.

"Because we did," she said.  "Don't tell me you spent all of dinner thinking about it, because I know you didn't."  She knew him too well.  "And I know I didn't either.  So, there's, what, half an hour?  Not a bad foundation to start on."

"Fine," he said, "but...  But how?  How do we do it?  How do I learn to...  How do we get over this?"

"I..."  She bit her lip, pensive.  "I think we have to learn to trust each other again."

"Trust?" he said, incredulous.  "Yeah right.  How do I know you aren't going to betray me again?"

"Betray you!"

"You slept with Rick Downing!"

"Yeah, well, how do I know you're not going to mutate on me?  I thought I knew you!  But then Michael came in and I realized we didn't understand each other at all."  She bit her lip, her eyes downcast.  "I was so lonely, Brandon.  I couldn't bear my guilt alone and I couldn't tell you about it.  It drove me insane."

"Oh, is that your excuse?" he sneered.  "Temporary insanity?  You lost your mind, so you flung yourself at the nearest guy who was available, at the most—  The most ridiculous, overbearing, self-absorbed, greasy—"

"Uh," said Zach.

They turned.  Zach and Christa stood at the threshold, looking from one to the other of them.  "Is this a good time to step in," Zach asked.

"Yes," said Meredith.  "No," said Brandon.

Zach looked at Christa.  Christa looked at Meredith and Brandon.  "We're staying," she said.  "That way Brandon has to hold his temper.  But we're not letting you hide behind us, Meredith," she said.  "You guys have to work this out."

"Where's Tommy and Lisa," Brandon asked curtly.

"They went back," said Zach.  "They liked some of our suggestions so much that they decided to try them out."

"Good for them," Brandon said.  "Now, why are you interrupting?"

"Because you need a neutral third party," Christa said, matching the iron in his voice, "before you hurt each other even more than you already have."

"Christ, you guys," Zach said, and unexpectedly his voice was full of sympathetic pain.  "Don't you see it?  It's right there."

"Meredith's right, Brandon," Christa said.  "You do need to learn to trust her again.  Just like she needs to learn to trust you."

"What did I do," Brandon said.

"Abandoned her," said Christa.  "Ignored her.  If she came to you with her concerns about Michael and you blew her off, it's no wonder she felt hurt.  She sent her brother to jail, remember.  Not juvenile hall, not a quick overnight stay in a cell, full-blown jail.  State penitentiary.  Now he's dead.  And you treated her like she was wrong to feel guilty."

"I—  I—" said Brandon.  "Okay, so I made a mistake, and—"

"Yes," Christa said.  "You did.  And you, Meredith."  She turned to her.  "Rick Downing?  Girl, where did your sense go?  You have more self-respect than that.  You have more respect for Brandon than that.  And you love him more than that."

"And there's my mistake," Meredith said softly.  The tears in her eyes and voice were enough to make Brandon love her again...  And yet, he resented how easily she could manipulate him.  You can't make me feel sorry for you.  It isn't working.  You hear that, bitch?  It isn't!

Zach was looking at him with a knowing smirk.  Brandon scowled.

"All right," said Christa.  "So there's the problem."

"No," said Brandon.  "That's not the problem."

Christa looked at him, confused.  "What?"

"I can deal with her having slept with Rick Downing," Brandon said.  "God help me, but I think I can honestly forget that one day.  But...  All this running-away stuff.  Why didn't she come to me in the first place?  —I mean, I know she tried it, once, but that's all she did.  Once.  If she had tried again, I might have listened.  I probably wouldn't've understood, not all at once, but at least I would've listened."

"You would've," Christa asked skeptically.

"Of course," said Brandon, offended.  "I'm not that stupid.  I would've listened, so that she could talk, if nothing else.  What kind of moron do you think I am?  I love her.  I'd do anything for her if it'd make her happy."

There was a silence as he heard what he had just said.

"Well, that begs a question, then, I guess," Christa said quietly.  She turned to Meredith.  "Why didn't you try again?"

"Because...  Because I'd tried once, and..."  Now she was crying.  "He just didn't understand.  It was the first time that had ever happened, normally we're just so much on the same wavelength...  And then this time it failed.  This time we weren't on the same wavelength.  We couldn't even meet halfway.  It was just...  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Ships passing in the night.  And then it was about Michael, about the most important thing in my life..."  She shook her head.  "Everything just...  Failed.  All at once.  The worst thing we could've failed on, we failed it.  I mean, if we'd just had an argument about junior prom clothes, it wouldn't've been a problem, but this was..."  She shook her head, at a loss for words.  "Big."

"So you ran," Zach said.

"So I ran," said Meredith, and Brandon heard all the things she hadn't said: fear of failure; panic as Murphy's Law struck with a vengeance; conflict avoidance; branching yes-no decision trees, with each 'no' a dead end.  Meredith was the type to avoid conflict.  If there was something she wanted, she'd ask after it, and if the answer was No, she would suffer it in silence.  It was one of the things he loved most about her—that willingness to put others before herself.

"And it didn't help that he was getting angrier and angrier," Meredith said.  "Just...  The little things.  He used to be so even-keeled, but now...  The tiniest things would set him off.  Bad drivers.  Forgotten homework assignments.  Messing up at video games.  He started to be...  Enraged."

Christa's eyes beckoned him for an answer.

"I don't...  It started with my parents, I know that," he said.  "But then they left," he added, forestalling the obvious conclusion, "and it kept going.  I..."

"Did anything else change," Christa asked.

"I..." he said.

He looked up.  Discovery dawned on him like sunlight.

"Meredith started pulling away from me," he said.

There was silence for a moment as she listened to what he'd said.

"It was...  Your rage," she said.  "At your parents."

"And you started drifting away, and I didn't understand it—"

"It was because you scared me, with your anger—"

"And there didn't seem to be any cause for it, I wasn't sure what I'd done or you'd done or what, but it was happening, and I—"

"You just got angrier."

"There wasn't anything else I could do.  It was like everything was just happening to me, I wasn't an active player, I was just a piece of scenery that things were being done to—"

"And you hated it."

"I clung to my anger.  It was better than just sitting down meekly and letting the world fuck me over—"

"And I just kept pulling away—"

"Because you were scared, because you were scared of me—"

"Because I was never sure if I might set you off, if your anger would overpower your love for me, because it gave you power, and you needed that so much—"

"And so you ran."

"And that just made you—"

"Angrier."

They sighed.

"Well," Christa said.  "Maybe that's a good sign.  That you can push each other's buttons so thoroughly without even trying."

Brandon gave a humorless laugh.  "Great.  Either we'll be perfect for each other or rip each other apart."

"Oh, perfect for each other, certainly," said Zach breezily.  "But it'll be a bit of a long road."

"Now, Brandon," Christa said.  "Why were you angry?  Why were you angry at Meredith?  What brought this all on?"

"I..."  Brandon stared at her, stared at himself, stared into the depths of his heart.  "I dunno, I just...  She was leaving.  I didn't understand why."

"And so you got angry because—"

"There didn't seem to be anything else I could do!  The love of my life, the girl of my dreams, and she's drifting away, she's drifting away God save me, what do I do!"

Zach reached out and laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

"And Meredith," Christa said quietly.  "Why do you run away?"

"Why do I...  Why do I run away," Meredith murmured, her eyes unseeing, turned inward.

"To leave," she said.

"Leave what?" Christa asked.

"Whatever I'm running away from," she said.

"And why do you need to run away from it," Christa asked.

"I—  I don't...  I think it's..."  Meredith squeezed her eyes shut.  "Because I don't want to be left.  My parents turned crazy on me when I was six, they suddenly became—I dunno, these monsters, these slave-driving monsters who wanted so much out of me...  They left me for achievement.  My brother abandoned me when I was thirteen, left me for drugs.  My best friend abandoned me when I was eleven, left me for boys, for popularity, for big breasts.  And now, here's...  Here's Brandon, the love of my life, and he's changing, he's changing so fast, I don't know him anymore, I'm not sure I ever did know him anymore...  What if the new him hates me?  What if he can't stand me?  What if he thinks I'm, I'm stupid, for, for my scars and my brother and my...  What if he did?"

"So you left," Christa said.

Meredith said nothing, only wiped her eyes.

"All right," said Christa.  "All right."  She heaved an enormous sigh.

"Guys," she said.  "You've talked, and I've talked, and we've talked, and we've sorted this out, I think.  And I'm hearing only one thing from you both, down at the bottom:

"You hurt each other.  You hurt each other out of panic, out of confusion, out of fear.  You hurt each other because you were both scared to lose each other."

Brandon and Meredith stared at each other.

"You saw the best in each other for seven months.  Then things turned, and over the last five you've seen the worst in each other instead.  Maybe you didn't really know each other before, but you do now.

"So, Zach.  You've got a friend, right?  His name's Brandon."

Zach squinted at his girlfriend.  "Yeah.  Yeah, I do."

"He's a nice guy, right?" Christa asked.

"Yeah, he is," Zach said.  "A little rough around the edges, but nice most of the time."

"I've got a girl friend he might like to meet," Christa said.  "Sometimes she's a bit of a flake, but she's the sweetest girl I know."

"Ehh, that might be trouble," Zach said.  "He needs someone who's gonna be there for him no matter what."

"So does she," Christa said.

"Oh," said Zach.  "Oh."  He grinned.  "Well, hopefully, they'll realize that before some big disaster happens.  'cause, I mean, then they'd be good for each other.  He needs someone there for him, but he knows how to be that someone, too.  It's just a pity he can't be that someone for himself."

"Yeah, same with her," Christa said.  "But hey, if they could make it work, it might work really well.  I think they'd get along."

"Wanna set them up together," Zach asked.

"Yeah, I think we oughta try it," Christa said.  She turned to Meredith.  "Meredith?  This is Brandon."

Brandon waved sheepishly.  "Hi."

"Hi," said Meredith.

"Brandon, Meredith," said Zach.  "I think you two might get along."

"Meredith's a really nice girl, Brandon," Christa said, "but she has problems with
abandonment.  So the one thing you've got to never, ever do, is give her any indication that you might want to drive her away.  It's not like you can't ask for a day off or something, but, if you have problems with her, you need to approach her openly.  You can't be passive-aggressive or anything.

"Brandon's a great guy, Meredith," Christa said.  "He's funny, he's smart, and he's been around the block a few times.  But he's really careful about who he opens up to, so if he does that to you, you've got to never turn away from him.  I mean, you know, if he's coming on too strong, you can tell him that—might hurt his feelings, but I'm sure he'll understand.  Just don't be all nice to him on the surface and pushing him away underneath.  He'll never forgive you.

"And you guys've gotta talk to each other," Christa said.  "You really, really do.  Brandon, I understand you had some problems with that in your last relationship.  Meredith did too.  They really loved each other, but they almost killed each other because they were too afraid to say what they really meant."

"So."  Zach clapped his hands together.  "I think that covers it.  Why don't you say hello."

Brandon approached her tentatively.  He felt shy, like a boy on his first date.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," she said.

He stuck out his hand.  "I'm Brandon Chambers.  ...Sometimes, I really fuck things up."

"I'm Meredith," she said.  "And don't worry, I do too."

Their hands clasped, and they shook.

And then, somehow, she was in his arms, hugging him, as he hugged her back—just where she belonged.  And she wept into his shoulder and he wept into her hair and they kissed clumsily in their relief and joy, and he was laughing and crying all at once and she was giggling and he wondered for a minute just how much Zach must be snickering over all of this, and then decided he didn't care, because the woman he loved, his Meredith, his god, his angel, was back, was his now, in his arms, as he had always wanted her to be.  And all was right with the world.

Something was shaking his hip.

He frowned.  It was his cell phone, lighting up, vibrating in his pocket.  Meredith frowned and looked over at her backpack, which was emitting similar noises.  She grabbed hers and he grabbed his.  "Hello?"

"Brandon?"

"Arie?" he said.  "Derek?" Meredith said.

"Is Meredith there?"

"Yeah, she's right here—"

"Oh, good, I'll—  Derek, call Christa—"

"She's here too," Brandon said quickly.  "And Zach."

"Good," Arie said, "call everybody.  Anyone you can think of.  We're on our way to the hospital..."

"What!  Why?"

She told him.

Th.7

"Yes, but, the thing is, it's a lot closer," said Derek.  "And a lot cheaper.  Yeah, I know it isn't Harvard or Stanford, but it's almost as good."

Arie shook her head.  Derek never ceased to amaze her.  He could talk sense to her parents—and they would listen!  Even she couldn't do that!

Though her father didn't quite seem as tractable.  "It seems to me that if you're going to spend money on a degree, you might as well go for broke.  Why settle for something less if you could get Stanford, or Berkeley, or an Ivy League?"

"Well, that depends on whether you get accepted," Derek said, "and I can tell you now—no offense, sweetie—but Arie does not have a whole lot of chance of getting into one of those prestigious big-name schools.  She just isn't what they look for."

"No kidding," Arie said.  "They look for people with straight A's, five or six club leadership positions, and perfectly straight teeth."

"They look for people who want to go on and become world leaders," Derek said.  "Arie, do you want to become a world leader?"

Arie snorted.

"I rest my case," Derek said.

Arie's father shook his head and chuckled.

"Well," said her mother.  "All I know is that I want Arie to be happy.  If she wants to go to Harvard and get a degree in...  I don't know...  Subsonic Isotrope Biology, and then goes on to become the leading scientist in that field, then that's what she should do.  And if she wants to come home and get married and have children and be as fat as I am—  Then that's what she should do."

"Mom," Arie protested, "you're not fat.  You're...  Festively plump."

Derek blinked.  "I have never heard—"

They all winced as the wave of music crested over them with a squeal and an explosion of static.  Then Derek finished, "I have never heard that description before," as if nothing had happened.  In some ways, nothing had.  They were used to it by now.

"Where are you applying, Derek," her father asked.

"Oh, you know, the usual places," Derek said.  "Jones Falls, Willot, ISU...  White Plains Community College..."  Her mother laughed.

Trina, Arie thought.  If you don't turn that music off soon, we're going to have to break down the door.  The neighbors have complained twice already.  ...Not that you could hear, with all that racket.  Your eardrums probably went a couple hours ago.

The question of college applications done, they helped her parents clean up the dinner dishes.  Derek had been an impromptu guest at the table that night, but he got along well with her parents, and they with him.  Much as it surprised her to admit it, she wanted her parents to approve of him, and was glad they did.  God, look at me.  A year ago, I would've brought home a boy named Weasel just because I knew it'd piss them off.  Now...

"So," Arie said to Derek.  "We can try to work on homework upstairs.  Or we can try to work on homework down here in the family room, where the only flat surface is a glass coffee table."

"Upstairs," he said.

"But upstairs has a lot of screaming noise from my sister," Arie said.

"True, but, we can't make out down here in the family room," he said.

They went upstairs.

Unfortunately, they couldn't make out in her room, either, because of the sheer amount of noise blasting out of Trina's room.  The air felt like glass, solid and unyielding, and Arie could've sworn she could see the walls flexing.  Or maybe that was just the pounding of her head.  "This is not working out the way we planned!" she shouted.

"What?" Derek shouted.

"I said, this is—  Never mind."

"What?" Derek shouted.

They chose the sitting room this time, just off the entry foyer, where they had the dual advantages of relative quiet and distance from her parents.  "And this has been going on all afternoon," Derek said.

"Yeah," Arie said, "or so my mom tells me.  She skipped orchestra, evidently—no one's really sure how she got home.  Maybe she walked."

"From school?  That's like five or six miles."

"Yeah, no kidding."  Arie shook her head.  "But who knows."

"Any idea what caused it," Derek asked.

"Well..."  Arie hesitated.  "Yes."  She described the conversation in Dr. Zelvetti's office over recess.  "I think we really shook Trina up," she said.  "Really just...  Got to her, in a way that...  I didn't even think it was possible to shake her up that much."

"There seems to be a lot of that happening this week," Derek said dryly.  "We decoded Trina, we decoded Jane, Brandon and Meredith...  Maybe that guy Garrett is chewing Sajel out right this second."

"Yeah right," Arie said.  "She'd chew him up.  Sajel's got fangs.  It's part of who she is—she uses them to keep people away."

"A porcupine," Derek said.  "So many spines, so that you never get to see their soft underbellies."

"Yeah," Arie said.

She sat back, leaning against him.  His arm went around her shoulders almost by habit.

"Isn't it weird," she said.  "We're, like, some of the only stable people in the whole group right now."

Derek laughed.  "Us?  Stable?  Weird."

They sat like that for a time, enjoying each other's presence.  After the huge shake-up in May, they found themselves having less sex and doing more cuddling.  Arie liked it.  She was horny and would always be, but sometimes there was something to be said for wrapping herself in him like a blanket, snuggling together, as warm and cherished as she would ever be in this life.

"Well," said Derek eventually.  "We should probably do our homework at some point."

"Ungh," said Arie.

"College awaits," Derek said dryly.  "Have you even started on your applications?"

"Ungh," said Arie.  "I left my stuff up in my room."

"So did I," Derek said.

"Ungh," Arie said.  "We have to go up into that?"

But they did, and it was good that they did, because while they were in her room, something caught their attention.  It was the chime of an incoming Instant Message.  "Arie," Derek said.  And then, louder, to be heard over the music: "Arie!"  And then, when that didn't work, he just tapped her on the shoulder and gestured to the computer.

Arie squinted, bent over the desk, broke the machine out of screen-saver mode.  There were several messages, spaced over the course of a few hours; evidently this person had been trying to contact Arie for some time.  Arie scrolled up to the top of the message window.

Her eyes widened, and her mouth formed a silent O.

"TRINA!"  She hammered on the door.  "TRINA, OPEN UP!"

There was no response.

"TRINA!  Derek, help me."  She had to yell to be heard above the noise of Trina's endlessly-repeating stereo.  "Above the door sill, there's a key.  I can't reach it, but it unlocks—"

Derek, standing on his tip-toes, felt around with his fingertips.  They dislodged a small strip of metal in the shape of an L.  "Is that it?"

On the base of the doorknob was a small hole, covered by the side-flung handle.  She stuck the base of the L into that hole and turned the key like a crank.  Derek heard nothing, but clearly it worked, because she grabbed the doorknob and the door opened.

"Trina!" Arie shouted.  The room was dark, lit only by dim slivers of streetlamp shining through the drawn blinds, and by the electric blue shine of the stereo, which was shaking with volume.  Derek couldn't see Trina at all.  He smelt acrid smoke, a whiff of ozone.  Arie stomped into the room.  When silence fell, his ears rang.

"Trina," Arie said.  "Trina."  She switched on a light.

Derek didn't see how she'd avoided stepping on her.  Trina was sprawled on the floor, facedown.  Near her hand was an open bottle of pills.

Derek snatched it up.  Empty.  Arie knelt and touched Trina's pale face.  Cold.

"Call Brandon," Arie said.  "Call Meredith.  Call..."  She swallowed, and tears glimmered in her eyes.  "Call my parents.  Call an ambulance."  Derek grabbed for his cellphone, and Arie's hand darted for the land-line phone on Trina's desk.  "Mom!  Dad! she shrieked.  Derek could see her hand shaking on the phone's buttons.

"Hurry," she whispered.