It could change with this relationship
De-derange
we've all been through some shit
if we're a thing, I think this thing's begun
--Violent Femmes
________
He should have known. There was only one person who apparently liked fucking with him more than Dick Vernon did. But he'd had no idea.
"You lost?"
The words set off a huge wave of relief and total shock and some of that wave must have leaked out of John Bender's eye, replacing the tears of fear and sadness and rage he'd been willing himself not to spill. He couldn't help it. He'd gotten what ultimately he hadn't been able even to hope for on his own.
He'd gotten a reprieve. John hadn't been dragged to a closet to be taunted and bullied. He'd been dragged to a closet to be taunted and . . . scolded, maybe, kissed, maybe—he couldn't even really imagine.
What he, John Bender, could come up with to imagine just didn't seem to ever measure up to the things Claire did. With him. For him. So basically, when John thought he'd learned everything there was to know about the janitor's closet when he'd been locked in here Saturday, he guessed he'd been wrong. He just kept getting it wrong. It just kept being better than he'd ever thought it could be.
His entire body tingled.
That innocent little princess girl had fucked with him so hard, and so bad, he knew he should be angry. Instead he didn't think he would ever, ever figure out how to make this girl feel good enough to make up for the stunt she had just pulled. He would like to spend a long time trying, though. He would like to spend days doing nothing else. Starting now. Starting as soon as he could start breathing.
John still hadn't opened his eyes. The adrenalin of the fear he didn't even want to admit he'd felt at being dragged for a private secret interview with Dick fucking Vernon was still coursing through his body mixing with the shock and the happiness he felt and he was totally overwhelmed. He was leaning against the closed door, afraid to open his eyes, afraid she wouldn't be there, wondering if he was still dreaming, asleep in a stupor on Skins' hard floor, doomed to wake up and repeat the cold experience of his hopeless morning. Except his dreams were never this good, never this exciting, he was never, ever this happy in his dreams.
He couldn't speak, but he could feel the laughter bubbling up inside him and he could feel his entire body starting to shake with it and he still couldn't open his eyes.
"So, are we, like, not speaking, then?" There was such a tone of taunting fun in Claire's voice that it almost covered for the real concern that shot through her words. Not quite. There was something in her voice that was not quite calm control. Something that made John feel like he might melt into a puddle at her feet. But he could also tell from her voice that she was smiling.
When at last John did open his eyes, as they adjusted, the room did not seem so dark. The light which had been so dim and depressing now seemed soft, and comforting, and he could see Claire as she sat, exactly where he'd been on Saturday when she'd come to him, and he could see her face as she looked up at him with a curve to her lips that was wanting to be a full-on smile, maybe even a laugh, but she was trying to control it. She looked pleased as hell with herself, but there was something a little tentative behind her eyes.
John finally managed to open his mouth, but it was a few more seconds before words came out. Finally he managed to say slowly, "Well, let's think. You said a couple words just now. I, on the other hand, seem to be having some trouble." He stopped again as if to consider. "That doesn't feel like a policy at this point." He took a deep breath. "Maybe just a temporary disability from the shock. I hope it gets better because I have a question for you." His eyes couldn't leave her face.
She started to stand up. He hoped like hell she was going to come over to him because he still couldn't move. But she didn't. She leaned slightly against a filing cabinet and crossed her legs, putting her hands behind her back. The shape of her body was slightly hidden—instead of the soft sweaters she had been wearing, she had on a kind of oversized blazer with the sleeves rolled up, it made her seem more distant and a little tougher. John immediately wanted to get underneath it. He kind of liked tough on girls, but he wanted Cherry to come to him and be soft and lean into him so he could whisper in her ear about nothing at all. He was so tired. He wanted it to be easy, suddenly, and the look in her eyes said anything but.
Instead, Claire was looking at him with a kind of intensity that made him want to back up further than the door already pressing into him would allow. She adjusted her hips slightly and that made him want to back her up, hard, against a wall, and show her a thing or two about hip adjustment.
"Ok," she said, and she smiled a slow, sexy as hell smile that hit John straight in the stomach and went quickly lower, "Ask me something." She was wearing some darker shade of lipstick, almost purple, and also like some kind of fancy chocolate he could never afford and it made her lips look incredible, a little tougher, maybe. She didn't just look pretty, she looked hot, even with the blazer thing. Which nonetheless was going to have to go. As soon as he could make his body work well enough to get over to her.
"John, you're so quiet," she said. "Cat got your tongue?" He saw her tongue dart out to lick her lips.
But she wasn't coming over to him. She wasn't going to make this easy. She was definitely going to make this hard as hell.
So John crossed his arms and did his best to look down at her in a scolding way, but he could feel himself smiling a little around the edges. He couldn't help it. He was so fucking happy and feeling so good. All because Claire Standish was fucking with his head and obviously getting off on it and breaking rules he didn't even think could be broken and getting off on that too and it was pretty much better than most sex he'd had and he hadn't even gotten to second base with the girl.
So, as hard and difficult as it was, being in a room alone with Claire looking at him like he might be lunch, it was such a radical improvement on anything in the last however long it had been since he'd last had his hands on her, that he couldn't even really believe it was the same life.
But he did his best to sound stern. Because she would get off on that too. And so would he. "So my question is, and you'll need to answer in a complete sentence, restating the question, in order to get full credit. So my question is, Claire, did you somehow get the school janitor to take me out of class so that you could illegally and clandestinely meet me in a broom closet?"
Claire looked down and bit her lip. John wanted to bite it too. He didn't move. This answer should be fueling his fantasies for about the next decade, and he didn't want to miss a word. He loved the whole fucking thing, the room, the blazer, even the waiting.
She looked up at him, a little shy, a little proud, and said, "Yes. I bribed the janitor to take you out of class so that I could illegally and clandestinely meet you, John," and her breath was a little uneven, letting him know she was not in quite as much control as she wanted to be, letting him know she was more than a little turned on herself, "in a broom closet." The word "broom" made her lips in their new color look like they were starring in some kind of dirty movie. "I also used the hall pass that I took from the school principal to make sure that you wouldn't get in trouble for these illegal activities. I think that should be worth extra credit."
John had had to lean his head back and breathe for a minute. "Holy fuck, Claire. Trust me. You have all the credit you are ever going to need." His head was completely spinning. His fingertips were turned on.
She said slowly, seriously, but with more than a hint of challenge, "I have a question for you, too."
At that, and in spite of everything, John could feel the flight or fight impulse rising. This one, this question Claire was going to ask, it wasn't going to be the same game, he knew it. He didn't even want it to be the same game. He wanted to get there with her, this wasn't just a hot as hell sneaking around to make out thing for him. But any time it threatened to stop being that, any time it seemed like it might be about to go further, he was just about ready to fuck it up.
Wait a minute, he thought. Fuck, he thought, You total asshole. Do not fuck this up again. Not only is she still looking at you and still talking to you, she has gone to so much fucking trouble for you. Don't do Vernon's job for him. He breathed deeply, but he couldn't stop the words. "That game didn't work out so well before, did it, Claire? Are you sure you want to play?" His voice was getting that bite, it was getting that mean on, he wanted to strangle it himself and be done with it.
Her eyes never left his. She swallowed. He could see all the planes of her throat move delicately and he wanted to touch each one of them with his tongue. "That game worked ok, John. You put your cards on the table. You just left without collecting your winnings."
John felt his breath hitch. "Did I—did I win something, Cherry?" Well, he didn't have to worry about his voice sounding too harsh any more. He sounded about twelve years old. He figured he must be determined to blow this any way he could, as many ways as he could. But actually, the look on Claire's face in response was telling a different story.
She nodded, but she said softly and a little sadly, "You did, but when you leave your winnings on the table, you have to play again."
Hardly able to breathe, eyes no longer able to meet the steady gaze of the girl across the room, across the tiny room and across some huge gap that he could not get across, John whispered, "Is this high stakes?"
"This one is for keeps, John."
John thought he might have nodded his head. "So shoot," he muttered.
And she did. "John Bender, are you ashamed of me?"
The question turned John's head away and back as hard as a slap. Now he really was going to cry. He changed his mind. He hated her that she could hurt him that much when he'd just . . . opened himself to it, hadn't run away, hadn't fought. She'd pulled a fucking John Bender on him, and he'd thought she was better than that. And now he couldn't even slap her back, with a good hard answer, an answer that would get some of his own back. All he could come out with was, "So that's it? You just brought me here to make fun of me?" He could hear his voice shaking. And even though it made him want to die right there, he sniffled.
Dick Vernon would have been better, after all. At least he didn't really care what that asshole thought.
He was never going to look at that bitch again.
"John. Look at me."
He wasn't going to do it.
"I'm not making fun of you. Look at me, I'm serious."
John snorted derisively and curled his lip and would not look. He shook his head. "Right. Because everyone knows getting seen with the fucking prom queen is the kiss of social death at this school."
"John, Look at me. You said," and she paused, getting a breath, and he saw his opening, and he took it.
He whipped around and the words knifed out of his mouth, "What did I say, Cherry, and this better be good. Because last time I checked, I had spilled my fucking guts to you, you bitch."
But the look on her face, her face already crumbling before he'd even spoken, hit him in the gut this time. He didn't know what she was doing, but he was pretty damn sure he was doing it again, he was playing hard for the win in the wrong fucking game which was the surest way to lose.
And now that he needed to say something, fast, his mouth was dry and he couldn't say a fucking word.
Now the tears were in her eyes. "You said I had all the credit I was ever going to need. When does that start? Or did you not mean that?" She sniffled, but she didn't cry.
"Cherry. I think we went over that one. Don't you remember hearing what part of what I said I meant? Do you need to go over that again?" He spoke in a deadly calm. Claire shook her head no.
John took a breath. "So yeah. You're credit's good. So is that it?" John's voice was clipped. "You just wanna write that one off? Bad joke? Ok. Ok. What's a joke on Bender? You're credit's good. This was all--" and he gestured around to the walls, the room, between him and Claire, "a pretty priceless joke."
"That's not what I meant. You—that's not even what I was going to say. And I wasn't joking. And I'm not playing any stupid game." Now she was looking down. Now she was struggling. A tear spilled down her cheek. And John was paralyzed with fear.
He was doing it again, the thing where he shot himself in the foot and didn't care who got caught in the crossfire. And he couldn't move. He couldn't stop. He was so stung that she would ask that.
"John, you don't really talk to me in public, and I know—I don't do that either. But you don't, you know? And at lunch yesterday, you didn't even—I don't know, acknowledge me, with a look or anything, despite—everything before, and you walked out on me, and when you said—what you said, which I liked, but you sounded—like you, like you didn't like it. Like you hated that it was true."
Hard defense. "Yeah, it must be tough for you when you're fucking coming up to me all the fucking time, introducing me to your friends, wanting to hang out. . . Like you're so happy and proud to be with the school delinquent." He switched to offense. "How dare you ask me if I'm ashamed of you? How can you be such a bitch? You don't even know—"
He broke off. She didn't know. Not about Vernon. And she never, ever would. And there he was, fight or flight, back again. A game he knew how to play to win and lose everything at the same time.
"I said I wasn't doing that—talking to you. But that's partly—because you're the one, John, you're the one who said that I didn't need to worry about what people would say if we walked down the hall together because it was never going to happen. So did you mean every fucking word of that, too?"
John was silent, shocked. He had completely forgotten he'd said that. It was so far, so far from the truth of how he'd been feeling the past few days, and even at the time, it hadn't been like he was saying what he wanted, just what seemed possible. And he'd been wrong again.
He turned his eyes back to Claire. He forced himself to look her in the eye, to look at what was there, and to let the consciousness settle over him that Claire Standish had thought, really thought and feared that he, John Bender, might be ashamed to be seen with her, the same John Bender who'd just yesterday been told by the principal, that he wasn't worthy even to go near her. It was like when she'd thought he might not like kissing her. He didn't get it. He couldn't get his mind around it at all.
No one was going to tell Claire that she wasn't worthy to be with him. No one was going to be going up to Claire Standish telling her that she needed to keep away from him because she wasn't good enough. He realized that the only person who could possibly have put those thoughts in her head was . . . him.
And then he was ashamed.
"Get over here, Cherry." He sounded rough, but he couldn't help it. He was holding it together by a thread. How could he get it so wrong? Why couldn't he just make her feel good? He knew he could make her feel good. Why did he keep making her feel like shit?
"No. You can't just order me around, and you haven't answered my question." Her voice was shaking.
John remembered that not only had he made her feel like he was ashamed to be with her, ashamed to like her, but that he was the first guy she'd ever even really kissed. He remembered that if he didn't find another way of dealing with this, if he couldn't find a way of making her feel good again, she'd be moving on to the next guy sooner instead of later. It was on him now. She'd given him every chance in the world.
John looked up like he might find an answer on the ceiling. He had to find a way to unsay it. He had to find a way to say something else. Despite feeling like he was being strangled by his own big hands, he had to get something out.
"Claire, please. Please. Please come near me. And then I'll—fuck it, sweetheart, no, no, I'm not. I could never be. I swear to God, Claire. Please."
When he looked down, she was in front of him, looking up, her eyes wide. "Ok," she said.
He couldn't even keep looking. He would lose his shit. The wall above her head seemed safer. "I had—it wasn't you, Claire. Some of the stuff, that I—that's in my life—it's just not in yours. There was stuff yesterday you didn't know about. I don't want to bring you into it." He sniffed and wiped his face with his sleeve. "But I didn't—I wouldn't want—I was up so much last night, Claire. I looked for you this morning. I asked everyone—I wanted to see you, so I could just—." His breath was coming fast. This wasn't working. He was failing.
"John." Her hand was on his chest, gently. "You answered my question."
He shook his head. "Let me, please—let me say it another way. I'm no good at this, Cherry."
Claire took a shaky breath and started to speak, but he touched his finger to her lips and gently shook his head no.
She let her hand fall from his chest to his waist. She left it on his waist and looked at him, waiting.
He trailed his finger gently over her bottom lip and let his thumb stroke her chin. His hand moved up her cheek, his thumb smoothing the damp track where her tear had slid, his fingers cradling her jaw and moving back to lightly touch her hair. All the time he was looking into her eyes and hardly daring to breathe. "I'm better with my hands, Cherry," he muttered, as he moved his own lips to trace over on her face where his hand had gone, avoiding her lips but kissing her cheek on either side, twice where the tear had been. He felt her head lean back and she made a breathy little sound and he kissed her cheek again, and then her forehead and her eyes while letting his fingers stroke her neck, by her ear, along her jaw.
Claire whispered, barely audible, "You are good with your hands, John. But I also like it when you talk."
He moved his mouth closer to her ear and spoke again, moving his other hand up to the other side of her face to stroke her there. "I'm not ashamed of you, Cherry." He stopped a moment, breathed in, and remembered the last time he did that, he'd been being such an asshole he'd worried she might not let him near her again. This time felt better. "It's more like I'm ashamed of me," he was whispering right into her ear, and one hand was holding her hair back and stroking it gently while the other fell to her throat and stroked down to her collar, "but—when you look at me sometimes, it makes me think maybe there's a chance I'm wrong, that they're wrong—" and then his voice trailed off and his hands stilled, he just stood there, breathing in her hair and neck and not able to go on, it was too much feeling, not enough words, too many words.
And then she started to back away and John let her go and this letting go felt like it might kill him.
He sighed and looked down and the sigh had a shuddery feeling to it. If she was going to pull away after that it was going to be the one thing he couldn't bear. "Wait, Cherry—" and he could hear the desperation in his own voice as loud as if he'd been screaming.
Claire put her hand up to his face, pushed the hair back from it the way she seemed to like to do, and said, "I'm not going anywhere, I just wanted to—" but she stopped because his face moving toward her and he whispered, "Ssh, just wait, I still had something else to say," and then his mouth was on hers, moving over her lips which were soft and full as they looked, and then he opened to taste her with his tongue, they tasted like chocolate, just the way they looked like they would, and he felt a moan somewhere deep inside him, and waves of warmth and relief coursed through him as he took the collar of her jacket in his hands and pulled her closer and she started to move slowly toward him and then against him.
He felt her mouth open under his and her tongue lightly licked over his own lips to nudge them open. Then her tongue stopped moving and her entire body stopped moving, she held her breath.
"Bingo," thought John, and teased her tongue gently with his. She moved her mouth more fully open to his and tentatively grazed his top lip with the tip of her tongue, then the bottom.
She pulled back and stared at him open mouthed. He leaned back against the door and looked at her, he could feel his lips crooking up. This was good, he knew. Score one for the burnout. Maybe a few more than one.
"What's the matter, Cherry? Cat got your tongue?"
Her mouth worked. No sound came out. One corner of her lip twitched up, then the other.
"John. John Bender. You taste like cherries."
He shrugged. "What else am I gonna taste like? How often have I had a mouthful of cherry the last couple of days?"
"You taste like cherries. John."
"So? Today you taste like chocolate. Which is, by the way, a really strong choice. I'd definitely taste that again. If you're asking."
"John, your lips taste like cherries."
"Again—why the surprise? Are you slow? It's my favorite flavor—why would I want anything else near my lips?" He scoffed. "Were you a social promotion, Claire?"
"You bought—you're wearing cherry flavored chapstick. You bought cherry flavored chapstick."
And then suddenly he had an armful of prom queen and she was squealing that he was the cutest thing she'd ever seen and he was unbelievable and she was kissing him everywhere, on his face and neck and ears and mouth, she was taking fistfuls of his shirt and pulling him to her, then she moved her hands up to his neck and grabbed his hair and pulled his mouth down on hers so hard, pushed her tongue into his mouth so hard, and so deep, that he couldn't help himself, in two seconds he had her blazer open and down her arms and off and then his arms around her back, moving over the fucking cashmere after all little soft thing she'd been wearing underneath, and he was pulling her all the way against him and she was pushing to get closer and moving her hips up against him and there was not one point on her body that was not straining to get closer to his.
So. Good idea.
After a minute she let go and leaned back a little and he let her move away but still kept his hands on her so their hips were slightly touching. A break was ok. He was breathing very hard. And he wanted to see her face.
She looked starry eyed. She smiled at him and took one of his hands and put it to her lips. "So that was the best thing you could possibly have ever done. And you were wearing that the entire time."
"My lips get chapped. It was the only flavor they had. No big deal."
"Liar."
John chuckled. "Well. It was the only flavor they had at the third store I went to. But still, not technically a lie."
"You're completely incredible. Does anyone else know how adorable and sweet you are?"
"No, but give them time, I only bought it this morning."
She dropped his hand and swatted him. "Totally inappropriate comment but you have built up some credit."
"Sorry, Cherry, I was only teasing. No one knows I'm adorable and sweet except for you and Dick Vernon."
Claire started shaking with laughter which meant that her body was rubbing up against his in a very pleasing way.
"Dick, by the way, is going to be very jealous that I'm in here with you. He kind of thinks of this as "our" little room. We should make sure he doesn't find out."
John was still joking but Claire stopped laughing and looked up at him with serious eyes. "That's right, that reminds me, we don't have all the time in the world, so we should probably get on with the lesson."
Smiling, John leaned in for a kiss. "I love learning." He kissed her slowly and let her go and licked his lips. "Mmm. Chocolate covered cherries."
Claire pushed him away a little firmly. "John. Don't distract. It's time that you learned that in some weaves, cashmere feels slightly different on the bottom side near the skin from the way it feels on the top, on the part everyone sees.
John felt his eyes get very wide as his breathing completely stopped.
"Now. This is a lesson that might have to last over several sessions. And if you don't remember to breathe, you may pass out and we'd have to start over the next time. There. That's better. We'll start from the back. I don't think we'll get farther than that today. Is that clear?"
John nodded. "Crystal. You're the boss."
Claire tossed her head. "Correct. Now. Mr. Bender. It seems to me you just had ample hands-on experience with the outside of this particular item. So why don't we just start with you," and she took a breath, which trembled and made John's heart ache in an entirely new way before she continued, "with you putting your hands underneath the shirt."
John tried to smile. "You can't just order me around that way."
"Sorry, that was rude. Please, John, put your hands up my shirt. In the back."
"God knows I wish I had a fucking tape recorder, because that, what you just said, was so fucking sexy that I could make millions as a porn producer, right now. Are you trying to kill me, Claire?"
"No, but that might be an added side benefit I could live with—unless you shut up and do as you're told."
Tracing the bottom of the skimpy sweatery thing she was wearing, John slowly worked his fingers underneath and touched the hidden skin on Claire's body for the first time. It felt incredible, warm and smooth, and he only had the tips of his fingers against her. He felt her sharp intake of breath. He stopped, suddenly worried.
Her voice trembled and was full of breath as she touched his face and softly said, all pretending gone, "You can touch me a little more than that. If you want."
"Trust me. I want to touch you enough that it could be a full time job." And with that, he brought his hands up under her sweater, which felt so soft on the back of his hands, and her skin felt so soft on the palms of his hands, and he was glad he'd taken his gloves off that morning so that nothing was coming in between him an this incredible feeling. "Holy fuck, Claire. Do you know how good you feel?"
Claire managed a smile. "Not really. I can't really feel my own back up." She kissed his jaw, then his neck, as his hands roamed over her back, down around the sides of her waist, then back up to press her more fully into him. She murmured into his neck. "I only know how good you feel doing it."
She leaned back a little and he stopped. "No, you leave your hands there. I just want to see your face while I ask you a few follow up questions and add a few points. First. How many other guys do you think I've let put there hands up my shirt, either from the front or the back."
"Oh, fuck Claire, don't start with that."
"Answer the question. How many?"
"How the fuck would I know? Jesus, Claire, you wouldn't like it if I—"
"That's right, I wouldn't. Because you would probably lose count. But this is a different question. So how many? Take a deep breath. You can get this. You're not a social promotion, are you?"
"I don't know. Five." John couldn't think because it felt so fucking bad to think about but he couldn't move his hands either because they felt so fucking good where they were.
"Wrong answer. The correct answer is one. What's his name?"
"It sure as hell better not be Percy fucking Dale," growled John.
"Wrong again. His name is John Bender, idiot."
John felt a huge breath of air escape him as he let his head drop down. "Ok. You're right. I'm an idiot. God, I'm sorry. Claire, you make me fucking insane. How do you do that?"
"Maybe it's the lip gloss. Anyway, the important point is, that you're only touching me there because I said it's ok. Actually, I asked. Actually, you made me say please, for which you will someday pay dearly."
"I said please earlier, do you think that happens every fucking day?"
"No, I just assumed hell had frozen over. But you're distracting me again. The point is, that I get to decide who touches me, and where, and I decide that based on the criteria of who I want touching me, which is you, and that is the only criteria there is, and so far the only person who has ever met my criteria has been you. I make the rules. I'm the boss of who touches me. No one else has thing one to say about it."
John couldn't believe what he was hearing. She was telling him these incredible things that he couldn't even dream of hearing from her. But there was something else, something that caught at him and kept him from getting what he wanted out of the feeling of Claire saying things like "who I want touching me" together with "you" and "only" and "ever." It would be easy to just let those float around in his mind, let them float him right out of the room, somewhere to some heaven made up of soft lips and sweaters and tongues . . . but there was this other thing.
It took him a minute to figure it out. Then he wanted to hit something. She knew.
He moved his hands off her and let himself fall against the door. His hands balled into into fists. "Clark fucking told you. He told you what that asshole said, didn't he. I should have fucking known."
Now, and again, he was ashamed. And now she felt sorry for him. That's what this was about. Andyhad betrayed him, probably as some kind of joke, or who knows, maybe thinking he was being nice, and now Claire pitied him, maybe even felt guilty. And that's what this was about. He badly needed to punch many things, but he didn't need to do that in front of Claire, who was only trying to make him feel better.
He had to get out of there. He had to turn his back on this right now, no matter how hard it was. He had to go.