One-Shot: School Trysts
The hem of my blue Reaping dress swishes about my ankles as I glide through the school library. Outside of the annual Reaping for the Hunger Games every summer, this dress (the fanciest I own) acts as my school uniform. It's a hand-me-down from Mother's days as a Merchant, and she insists that I wear it. Just as she insists that both her daughters - myself and my little sister, Primrose - become well-informed women and get a good education. I have never really seen the point of school, as I know Mother will expect something else of my sister and I: that we grow up and get married and have babies. Become wives and mothers. Besides, the Capitol isn't exactly enthused about educating women. Or really any citizens at all, regardless of gender.
In Upper School, there isn't much to learn. And what there is to learn I have already written off as either useless or not applicable to me. Why is it important for me to know the difference between two types of coal? I'm never going to be a miner - District 12's most common profession - nor the wife of one. I have vowed that I will never marry, and especially not become pregnant with children. Aside from Prim, I am the farthest thing from the loving and nurturing type. My ambition in life is to hunt, even if it remains illegally. I am good at it, the job requires an independence that I naturally gravitate towards, and it will keep my mother and sister (and anyone who might be in my sister's future family) from starvation.
Right now, I am in the school library, probably one of the smallest rooms in the building, even smaller than some classrooms. There are only a couple of tables in between a few shelves of books - the content of which is controlled by the Capitol. Yes, school is nothing more than rote memorization and test scores, mostly. But, Mother still expects me to graduate, and so I am here to study.
I study the same way that I hunt: alone. At least, I have since my only friend, Gale Hawthorne, graduated and entered the mines last year.
However, fairly recently, even that changed.
When Peeta Mellark, the Merchant son of the Baker, took to studying at the same table as me, I almost stalked away, and even glowered at him a little behind my textbook. Any social interaction makes me feel like the cornered animals I take down on my hunts. Even if I was more adept at making friends, mingling between Merchants and folks of the Seam is almost universally frowned upon. After Mother married Daddy when they weren't much older than I am now, it caused a stir through the whole district. Besides, Peeta Mellark and I don't know each other. We only interacted once, years ago, and it is an incident my pride and I would rather forget.
However, even though I am standoffish, I am not rude, so I could not really find a polite and guiltless means to shoo him away. These last few weeks, Peeta and I have taken to studying together after school in companionable silence, before I have to get home to hunt and then cook Prim dinner. The tradition of sitting together during our lunch period quickly followed. Sometimes, we have even managed to carry on a civil conversation, albeit stiltedly.
On this late afternoon, I sense his presence before I see him, taking his usual seat across from me. I can feel his impossibly blue eyes on me, waiting to see if I will say hello, or ask him how his day was. I finally get my head out of my assignment and frown in his direction.
"Quit looking at me like that!" I hiss. "I mean... we study together in class."
I feel Peeta smiling, and I know he has taken my gentle chastisement to mean that I have come to accept our routine as the new normal.
Even as a gaggle of Merchant girls passes by, and make no point of voicing their disapproval of seeing Peeta and I together. It is delivered in hushed tones, but barely.
As much as I can try to pretend that these Merchants' judgment and prejudice doesn't sting... it does. It is not as though I am not accustomed to it; Seam hatred runs deep in Town. Rather ironically, the Baker's wife - Peeta's mother - is one of the ugliest perpetrators. When I have been unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of her vitriol during trades with the Bakery (the Baker has a guilty pleasure for my squirrels), I have tried to ask Mother why the Witch is the way she is. So far, I have never received a satisfactory answer.
I must give away too much on my face, for Peeta feels the need to break our calm silence for the first time all afternoon. "They're idiots, Katniss - the whole lot of them."
I shrug. "What else can they say when they see Merchant and Seam together? People talk."
"Most people are fools," Peeta dismisses, his voice firm despite the gross generalization. Even so, he's not entirely wrong. If most of us weren't fools, would the Capitol still have power over us so easily? Control what we watch, what we eat, what we read? Control everything in our lives except perhaps who we love, who we marry and who we fuck?
"You shouldn't let them get to you," Peeta's voice is bringing me out of my thoughts.
I sigh. "But how am I supposed to respond? They're right - I'm just the poor daughter of a dead Seam miner."
I am shocked by Peeta's vehemence as he hisses, "I don't want to ever hear you say that again about yourself!" And as if to be patronizing and make me recant, he suddenly lifts my book out of my hands and snatches it across the table.
"Give me back my book, Peeta."
He shakes his head, clearly waiting for me to say something, even if I don't know exactly what he wants me to say. I know the general gist, but really, what's the point? If this is his way of trying to help me boost my self-esteem, his methods are rather unorthodox. Huffing, I stand and prissily march around the table, stomping my feet into the carpet. But Peeta is already standing, and being taller than me, is able to hold the book above both our heads, out of reach.
"Give me back the damn book, Peeta."
I jump, trying to pluck the book out of the air, but I just end up knocking Peeta off-balance instead, so that he falls back into his chair with such force that it nearly tips over, leaving him no choice but to grab my wrist on reflex, pulling me down onto his lap.
Peeta and I freeze, our faces suddenly inches apart, neither of us saying a word. It is as if the air between us has become electrified, a phenomenon scary and new to us both.
"Peeta," I breathe slowly. "Give me the fucking text-"
He suddenly leans forward and shuts me up with a kiss right on my lips. Instantly, I feel all his strong muscles relax underneath me, and he moves his hands to my waist, bringing me closer.
To the surprise of us both, I actually let out a small moan and wrap my arms around his neck, my hands fisting the top of the chair's backrest. "Hmmm..."
Peeta slides his tongue along my bottom lip, and when I don't pull away, slides it all the way into my opening mouth, exploring the warm, wet cavern with abandon. He tangles one hand in my hair, undoing the pins that Mother did up this morning so that my brown locks soon cascade down my back in waves. His other palm is still resolutely at my waist.
Pretty soon, Peeta and I are very involved, our hands rummaging up and down each other's backs as we make out. I shift ever so slightly in his lap, so that my blue skirts move up my legs, exposing more of my creamy skin to his touch. Peeta takes advantage of this by sliding his hands up my thighs, letting out a low groan.
Peeta's mouth is hard and demanding against mine, but his calloused, baker's hands are gentle, caressing my chest, my sides, my face...
After several minutes, we break the kiss, panting and very, very confused. At least, I am. I just had my first kiss, and I didn't even try to stop it! In fact, I was an active participant!
"This is so wrong," I say, rising gracefully off of him, but not really moving away.
Peeta shrugs. But his voice is anything but indifferent when he says softly. "I disagree."
Flustered, I return to my seat. I leave the almost deserted library not long after, still shaken. Prim walked safely home with Rory Hawthorne, but she will be wondering where I am.
Besides, I need something - anything - to think about and get my mind off that kiss...
Peeta and I continue our study routine, under the silent agreement that we never discuss the kiss again. More normal events begin to rule the day once more - the quiet of the library, Peeta's and my now more noticeably awkward pleasantries. The Merchant girls teasing me.
By now, the whole school has noticed Peeta's and my habit of sitting together, naturally leading to wild theories about the nature of our relationship. A practice that these girls don't refrain from, as I hear one of them clearly hiss, "If she wants him that badly, she should just fuck him and get it over with!"
Peeta clearly hears the jab too, and looks as though he wants to stand and go after them, but my hand suddenly stays him.
I have all at once become quite pale and am now clutching the table.
"Katniss?"
"It's true, you know," I whisper, choking on my own words. I suddenly let go of the table and come quite near him.
"What is?" Peeta visibly gulps.
"That I... want you. Find you... attractive." I have to force the words out, my hands wringing along my braid self-consciously.
Peeta appears as though the wind has just been knocked out of him. "Wha... what?" he stammers.
I glance furtively about, ensuring that we are quite alone, even as I back away, playing with my blue dress to stave off the panic. I am almost on the verge of tears.
"I mean... that is, that... well, it's not because of the... bread, I'll have you know!" I splutter, not making any sense, even to my own ears. "It was... that kiss... and studying... and... I'm sorry, Peeta, forget I said anything; I'm going to go home now..."
Peeta is all at once smiling so disturbingly wide, it looks like his face is broken. "Come here," he says.
I eye him warily. "Why?" I ask, my voice suspicious.
"First, you have to close your eyes. It's a surprise."
Against my better judgement, I trustingly do as he asks. Peeta takes my hands in his and I feel him leading me out of the library. Even when plunged into a darkness of my own making, I could walk these halls blindfolded, and I hear the door opening as we enter one of the building's two, now long-deserted stairwells.
"Can I open them?"
"No, not yet."
We hit the landing, and I feel the cool air conditioning. "Now can I open them?"
"All right... now."
My eyelids have barely fluttered open, enough for me to register that we are standing behind the erected statue of Haymitch Abernathy (one of District 12's two Victors in the Hunger Games), away from nosy people, before Peeta tilts my chin up and kisses me full on the mouth, each of his hands gently framing my face.
"Mmm!" I squeal in shock, for I hadn't had the time to realize what he was doing even as he was doing it. My eyes are wide open, but Peeta's are tightly shut. Then...
My arms suddenly go up behind Peeta's neck as I audaciously kiss him back, clutching him towards me, pulling him closer and closer until I forget how to breathe and don't care if I ever learn again. Peeta's lips are softer than I remember and his gold-spun hair smells like sweet honey.
It is the best kiss I have ever had in my life.
It is deep night, the school long since closed, as I feel my back slam into the bookshelf once again so hard that it rattles.
"Uhh... Ohhhhh... Fuck..." I groan, as my eyes flutter shut, enraptured by how Peeta is mouthing his lips down my neck, suckling on my pulse point. The hem of my blue dress has been pushed up past my hips, my panties discarded in some corner, as Peeta pounds his member into my center again and again. My parted, spread thighs tremble as I writhe and squirm under my lover's attentions.
"Peeta... I... I'm g-gonna... cum..."
Peeta claps a hand over my very kissed mouth, muffling my wail as I orgasm all over myself and him. Giving each other one last passionate kiss, we redress ourselves as hurriedly as we undressed each other and sneak out of the library and the school building.