Jane Read sighed as she looked across the dinner table at her son. She knew that time had come, but so soon? It can't have already been thirteen years. She could still remember when her only son had been her innocent little boy of eight, always coming home after school with third grade problems, playing out in the yard with his friends. Well, he still played in the yard with his friends, but they were... older. They had all started to change in the way that adolescent boys did. Arthur's voice had dropped, he had grown to a modest height of five foot five and was still growing, and he was starting to get... moody. Jane just couldn't believe it all had happened so fast. Where had the time gone? Before she knew it they'd all be in college or university! She shook her head; no, not so fast. She still had some time.
Above all the changes though, the one she had been preparing for most was the inevitable intimacy with girls that all adolescent boys demanded. This development had been saved for last. Well, at least, so far as she had seen with her own two eyes.
Arthur had had his female friends over for dinner before, but this time she and her husband could agree that it was different somehow. David might not be sensing it, but she definitely could. There was a certain... nervousness in the air. Even ten year old DW was glaring sharper eyes at her brother, always the scrupulous one. The atmosphere at the dinner table wasn't so tense that things were uncomfortable, but it did twinge Jane's attentions away from her food as she studied her son and Francine with curious eyes.
She shook herself from her studies as she realized her husband was asking her a question. Slightly embarrassed, she turned to him. "Sorry, pardon?"
"I asked, how do you like the frittata?" David repeated, quirking an eyebrow at his wife's behaviour.
"Oh, yes, it's lovely dear, thank you," Jane replied. She had completely forgotten about it.
DW raised a bite to her eyes and narrowed them in speculation. "What's the difference between this and quiche?"
Jane resisted a laugh as her husband twinged as though a fly had landed on his face. She had actually been wondering the same thing as well.
Arthur had spared no attention to the difference between quiche and frittata; he was currently attempting to deal with the nerves fluttering around in his stomach. He had had Francine over for dinner before, sure, but somehow... this time felt different. Maybe it had been the way her cheeks had stained a light red when he had asked her at school earlier that day to come over. Or, maybe it had been the way she had exchanged suspicious glances with Muffy when he had popped the question. Muffy had giggled fiercely before practically skipping off with Buster, shooting knowing glances at her friend until she was too far away. Arthur had always thought girls were weird, but lately, they were behaving even stranger, if that were possible. Anything was possibly these days, it seemed.
He supposed he was nervous because he was wondering what he and Francine would be doing after dinner. Usually they would play basketball or go rollerblading or something, but this time, all he wanted to do was... none of those things. He wanted to take her up to his bedroom, throw her on his bed and -
His eyes widened and he suddenly choked on his frittata. Where the hell had that come from? He shook his head to get rid of the images birthed from the thoughts he'd just had.
"You okay, Arthur?" Francine asked, raising an eyebrow at the boy's discomfort.
Arthur grabbed for his glass of water and punched his chest a few times. He downed a few gulps and coughed out the food. "Y-yeah, just, uh, yeah."
DW rolled her eyes. "Best response ever," she said mockingly.
Arthur realized he could use his choking fiasco as the perfect excuse to leave dinner. He was almost done, anyways. "Uh, I don't think I can eat anymore, so may I be excused?"
He watched his parents exchange glances. The knowing glint in his father's eye mirrored the concerned look in his mother's eye, and rhymed with the suspicious look in his sister's eye.
Francine looked up as he gathered his dishes from the table. "I guess that means I'm done too?"
Arthur cleared his throat again. "Sure," he said awkwardly. "Do you want to, uh, go throw the ball around?"
Francine got up from her seat and gave a nod. "Sure, but I need to get my glove from my bag. It's this awesome new one I just bought," she said with a huge grin.
Arthur's stomach flushed warm when he realized that he had brought her bag up to his room before dinner. They would have to go up to his room to get her glove. His room, alone.
He realized he had been off in la la land with this knowledge when Francine waved a hand in front of his face.
"Anyone home in there?"
Arthur blinked and felt his face heat up. She heard DW scoff from inside the kitchen.
Francine snorted. "Geez Arthur, you sure are acting brain-dead today. Come on," she said as she left the table for Arthur's room.
Suddenly Arthur's nerves skyrocketed as he realized the time had come to go to his room. "Uh, hey, I can just lend you one of my gloves," he said shakily.
"Nah, this new one is waay better than the pieces of crap you guys have," she said.
Arthur almost cried out as she took the stairs two at a time. Why was she in such a rush? Oh, right, sports and Francine. Like bread and butter.
Wait, was that actually a twinge of jealousy? 'What is wrong with me today,' Arthur thought. How could he be jealous of sports.
He gulped and followed after his friend, who had probably already made it to his room.
And then, suddenly, he was in his room. His heart was racing a million times a minute as he saw his friend near his bead, bent down, rummaging through her bag. What was so different about this particular day? Francine had been in his room a bunch of times before. Now it felt... intense, heavy and thick with anticipation.
He supposed it was all this "puberty" stuff Brain was always going on about these days. He had warned all of them that they'd start to see girls differently and they shouldn't be scared of it or ignore their feelings. He said that'd be a waste of time and embracing the changes would be a lot easier, or something like that. Arthur hadn't really been listening before but now, hell, it was like Brain was manipulating his brain to learn his lesson faster by infusing within him these feelings for Francine.
But he knew something else was tweaking at his brain, something important, something that he had forgotten... He didn't have any more time to think on it as Francine made a sound of annoyance. The glove had rolled underneath Arthur's bed.
"Goddammnit, I hate it when that happens," she grumbled. She moved over and bent down to look underneath Arthur's bed.
Arthur's eyes widened.
Magazine. Under the bed.
Shit.
Arthur dove, a million things flying through his head, like how much he didn't want Francine to find the magazine and think he was a pervert, how he would blame it on the fact that it was really Buster's, how maybe she would like the fact that he had it under his bed, or maybe she would picture him doing those things to her... She couldn't find it, not EVER.
"OW, what the heck Arthur, what's your problem?" In his dive Arthur had knocked Francine and her head had smacked on the bottom of his bed.
She backed out from under the bed, holding her head and squinting her eye, glaring daggers at her highly embarrassed friend.
Arthur's heart plummeted as he saw what was in her other hand. He wouldn't mistake those colourful glossy pages for anything else. Acting quickly, he snatched up the magazine before Francine noticed.
But of course, even with a minor head injury, she would notice such a hastily clumsy movement. And how red his face was.
Arthur closed his eyes in mortification as he heard Francine ask what she was holding, felt his stomach plummet as the pages flipped, and resisted the urge to bolt when she gasped in what sounded like deep disgust.
Saying "it's not what it looks like" would have just sounded stupid, in Arthur's opinion, so he just sat silently and absorbed the awkward silence that had morphed into a blanket over their heads. Fortunately, that silence only lasted for a few seconds.
Francine slapped the magazine down and stood upright, fuming and glaring down at Arthur.
"Arthur Reed, you are SUCH a PERVERT!" She yelled, balling her hands into fists.
So loud! "Ah, no, shh! Don't say that!" Arthur waved his hands in panic. He couldn't deny that this wasn't how he expected her to react. He wasn't sure if her cheeks were red with rage, or something else...
"I'll say whatever I want! You are sick, perverted, disGUSTING!" Each word was punctuated with rage and anger that only embarrassed Arthur more. Any minute now, DW would come running up, he thought.
Francine bent down again to grab the baseball glove from underneath her bed. "I'm leaving!"
Arthur panicked again. "Don't leave, come on Francine!" He winced as his voice cracked on her name.
She hastily crammed the glove in her bag and fast walked to the door. "You have plenty of company here, you sicko!"
"It's not even mine! It's Buster's!"
"And now you're just a liar, too! Or you sell your friends out!"
"Just please, please don't tell anyone, especially not Muffy," Arthur pleaded as she opened the door.
Francine's reply was an angry snort as she bolted down the stairs.
Arthur listened as Francine apologized to his parents for her storming out. His ears were ringing, his heart was racing, and, he was mortified to admit, he couldn't stop thinking about her with his magazine. He'd only had the thing for a few weeks, and usually when he read it, he thought of her has he enjoyed the effects of the images. Now he'd probably never see her again. Or he'd be the shame face of Elwood High. Arthur groaned out loud as he thought what a disaster it would be if Muffy found out.
He sighed and walked back to his bed. He shoved the magazine underneath his bed. He couldn't bear to look at it right now.
A series of rapid, light footsteps ascending the stairs warned Arthur a few seconds before DW stormed into his room.
"Haahaha, I knew you'd screw it up!" She said in an annoying singsong voice, pointing at Arthur and skipping around his room like a little sister would.
"Screw what up?" Arthur said grumpily as he rose up from beside his bed. "You don't even know what you're talking about," he said defensively. Nine years of growing up with DW had taught him that this girl didn't miss anything.
DW just smirked and put her hands on her tilted hips. "And why are you a pervert? Did you try and-"
"Shut UP, DW! Get out of my room!" Arthur yelled, his face burning. He didn't want to hear anymore. He especially didn't want to here THAT word again.
"Why is your face so red, huh?" DW asked, testing Arthur's patience.
Arthur resisted the urge to call for his mother to deal with his sister; he was thirteen, afterall. "Just get out of my room, DW, now," he said calmly, his voice lower. He took a step forward and DW took a step back; he had her. He'd have to remember that technique for later.
"I'm going, I'm going!"
Francine couldn't believe what she had seen in Arthur's bedroom. She admitted that, after she had cooled down a bit on the walk home, she had been a little spazzy around her friend. And she really had had no right to call him a pervert like the huge hypocrite she was.
She had the same issue of the magazine, after all.
She had been extremely embarrassed when Muffy had given the thing to her a week back, at lunch in the third floor alcove. Apparently Muffy had found a secret stash of dirty magazines that her butler owned. Muffy had brought it to school and they had giggled and blushed at some of the pictures, skipping the really dirty ones out of shear embarrassment. Francine had wondered aloud if people had actually practiced some of the actions she had seen... the magazine clearly wasn't for the eyes of thirteen year olds. Especially page 42. Francine shivered as she recalled the image on that page.
In the Days Before the Magazine, as Muffy had so dubbed time before obtaining the issue, Francine hadn't really given a thought to anything like... that. With boys. Her innocence had disappeared with the first flip of the first page. In class, instead of paying utmost attention to math, she now caught herself in daydreams and fantasies involving the images on those shiny, flimsy pages.
So when Arthur had asked her to come over for dinner, like so many times before, she had exchanged glances with Muffy and she knew they had thought the same thing. That had been the first time since obtaining The Magazine that one of the guys had asked them over. Muffy had danced off with Buster, a certain glint in her eye as well, and she had left with Arthur.
And now, in discovering that he had the very same issue, and knowing that they had both looked at those sometimes disturbing images, well... she was in an interesting place.
At this moment, Francine was glad that she had the bedroom all to her self now that Katherine had moved away to university. If she caught Francine with such an obscene magazine, it would be a disaster.
She lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, thinking only of the magazine under her bed which she dared not to touch, seeing only the embarassed look on Arthur's face when she had exposed his secret. 'Our secret,' she thought subconsciously. He had been embarassed, but he had also been... restless. All throughout dinner he had been acting strangely, and when she had mentioned going up to his room, he had frozen like a deer caught in the headlights.
Francine closed her eyes and sighed in frustrating as she tossed and turned for the fifth time in ten minutes. She couldn't stop thinking about the magazine, Arthur's reaction to it, what Arthur would have done while looking through the magazine, how he would feel doing those things to her...
Francine felt her face burn and shoved her face into her pillow. She also felt guilty for how she had stormed out on him... luckily tomorrow was Saturday; she could go apologize to him, and then...
Another reason why she was glad the room was under her name now was that it was private. She could let her hand down drift to where she wanted to touch oh so badly and not be worried about anyone hearing the sounds elicited by it. Before things got too intense she, biting her lip, forced herself to stop, hoping that her arousal would linger when she saw Arthur again.
Arthur paced his room with a restless frustration. He was tired, annoyed and, there was only one word for it - horny. He knew he was being stupid. He needed to go to bed, but to go to bed meant to be near the magazine and the temptation to slip into yet another sexual fantasy. Usually there was no problem with that, in fact it had been for the last week his bedtime routine. But now, he would just feel guilty to think about Francine in that way. Hence his frustration: he was aroused and wanted to take care of it so that he could sleep, but he couldn't think of Francine or else a torrent of guilt and embarrassment would kill any progress that the magazine could rise.
This cycle of thoughts had kept Arthur from his bed, and thus awake, for the last hour.
Luckily, the next day was Saturday, and thus there were no pressures on him to actually go to sleep. He also wouldn't have to endure school tomorrow and any whisperings of what had happened, if Francine told on him. Maybe he could go see her tomorrow in private and apologize... or more, his subconscious added in afterthought.
After another hour of trying to keep himself awake with meaningless tasks, he finally admitted defeated and trudged over to his bed. He knew he wouldn't be able to fall asleep without looking at the magazine, so he assumed his routine and picked up the magazine. It flipped open to the dog-eared page, page 42, his most visited image. Just the sight of what the couple was doing made him moan quietly.
He closed his eyes and fell back into the pillow, letting the magazine drop to his lap. He had memorized the image. He inhaled a shaky breath as he moved his hand down to the evidence of his growing arousal. His mind supplied him with a quick image of Francine doing the same thing to herself in her bed and he bit his lip to suppress a particularly loud moan.
Arthur awoke to the sound of the phone ringing. The clock let him know it was still too early to wake up, considering the time he had gone to sleep, so he ignored it. Only when there was a knocking at his door did he acknowledge that his presence was needed.
"Arthur, it's for you, it's Francine," his mother said through the door. She had paused before saying who was responsible for the call.
Of course, thought Arthur miserably, she had probably heard everything. The whole goddamn neighbourhood knew he was a pervert, Francine had been yelling it so loudly. She was probably calling him to tell him more times how he was a perverted, sick boy. Lovely morning so far.
Arthur sighed and tried to ignore how his cock had twitched at the mention of Francine's name.
He opened the door and received the phone from his mother, who was eyeing him with worry and a slight curiousity. "It's fine, Mom, thanks," he said through a yawn.
Arthur waited with his hand over the phone until he was sure his mother had at least left the landing. "Hello?"
"Hey. Can I come over?"
Blunt as always. Arthur supposed he was glad for that. "Right now?"
"What, do you need time to do your hair, or what?"
"What? No, now's fine," he said. He was also glad she was back to bullying him like usual. Good signs that she was going to remain his friend.
"Cool. Be there in ten,"
The line went dead.
Arthur had ten minutes to get ready. His heart began hammering again in his chest. Everything was different now. That had been a tense phone call, surely a prerequisite for a tense visit.
He quickly threw on some clothes and descended the stairs. Seven minutes.
The kitchen embraced him with smells of freshly cooked pancakes that did nothing good for his nervous stomach.
"Is it alright if Fracine comes over?" Arthur asked his mother.
DW, her legs kicking underneath the table, frowned. "Why would she want to come over?"
Mrs. Read shot her a look. "DW, mind your own business."
Arthur glared at his sister. "What the hell do you mean by that?"
"Language, Arthur," his mother directed at him. Another sign that he was growing up. Bad language and relationship problems. Jane ignored the slight headache nagging at her temple as she entertained the thought of all the new motherly responsibilities coming up.
DW smirked. "You're a pervert remember?"
Arthur fought to keep the heat from his face. "Don't talk about things you don't understand," he said, knowing full well she understood exactly what she was talking about.
They were all saved from anymore unwanted comments by the arrival of Francine.
Francine entered the kitchen, avoiding Arthur's gaze, and greeted everyone. "Morning Mrs. Read, hey DW,"
Mrs. Read nodded and smiled. DW put an angelic mask. "Good morning Francine! What brings you here today? What did my brother do this time?"
Arthur gave a nervous chuckle and Francine cleared her throat nervously, her face flushing.
"Just ignore her," Arthur said, once again glaring at DW, which apparently had no effect whatsoever.
"So, we should go-"
"Talk, yeah, where?-"
"Your room,"
"Yeah, good idea,"
They left the kitchen after their ten second conversation, leaving behind one amused and one confused occupant.
DW shook her head and grinned. "What an idiot. He's going to mess it all up again,"
Mrs. Read suspected if her daughter knew what had happened last night to make Francine accuse her son of being a pervert and to storm out. She also suspected she didn't want to know. "DW, don't pry," she warned her daughter.
DW shrugged and pushed her pancake around.
Arthur didn't know what had possessed them to return to the scene of the crime, his room. Or why he had said it was a good idea. Well, he supposed it was the only private place they could go, and therefore was suitable to discuss private things. With his luck Buster or someone equally as loud would pass by and pick up snippets of their conversation if they had gone to the tree house or other hangouts outdoors.
Once again, Francine had beaten him to his room. He closed the door behind them, and locked it for good measure. He didn't want DW bursting in on them. Especially not if they were going to do anymore than talk...
Arthur had been expecting Francine to demand for him to explain where he had obtained the magazine, why he had it, and what could possibly make him interested in that kind of thing. He was not expecting, however, for her to go immediately to the bed, pick it up and open it to the page he had book marked. His heart skipped a beat. Page 42.
Francine took a second to look down at the image, her face bleeding blush pink. She looked up at Arthur. "This is my favourite page, too."
Arthur froze. No...
Did she just say... no...
"Huh?"
Francine shoved the image on page 42 in his face and pointed with her finger. "This is my favourite page too," she said, loudly and clearly. She retracted the magazine and blushed again. "As in, I also have this magazine."
Francine... had the same magazine...
She also loved the same page as him...
Francine. Magazine. Page 42.
Arthur blinked a few times and swallowed to rid the dryness in his throat.
"That is..." He could seem to put into words how incredibly hot it was that she had the same magazine as he did. That she had maybe looked at the same page over and over again, touching and feeling THERE, maybe for even longer than he had.
"That is... what?" Francine asked, her voice hushed.
".. so hot," Arthur finished, his face heating up.
Francine bit her lip and closed the magazine. She placed it on the floor beside their feet and figeted with her hands. She wanted to.. do something, anything, to relieve the tension in the air. Tension that the magazine had created.
Arthur couldn't stand the tension anymore. He grabbed Francine's hand and tugged so that she sat on his bed. Lightly, he pushed her chest down onto his bed. He removed his glasses and moved so that he was on hands and knees, straddling her thighs.
He swallowed thickly. "Who did you get the magazine from?" He whispered.
"M-Muffy," she stammered out.
Arthur slowly bent his head down so that his lips were an inch from hers. "I guess we're both perverts then," he whispered, the words ghosting her lips.