But the day after today
I will stop
and I will . . . start.

--Violent Femmes

Nothing in the sameness of the school, its walls, its faces, inspired faith in the possibility of change. John Bender felt lost, adrift now. He'd come to an enormous conclusion fed by necessity and want, but his burning resolve had met only tired yellow walls and last year's graffiti and could find no purchase there. He'd acted quickly in the ways he knew how, but after, he found himself casting around for any line that might hold, close to despairing.

He found Brian Johnson hovering around the auditorium door and grimaced. It had come to this.

"Whatcha doin,' dork?"

John leaned against the hallway wall, keeping his distance. Brian looked twitchy.

"Oh, um, I was just—physics club was canceled so," he shrugged his shoulders a little apologetically.

John nodded toward the auditorium. "Claire in there or something?" Any massive fucking douchebags with her?

"Um, no. She, um, and some other meeting. I don't remember. It's just—other numbers rehearsing. From Chorus Line. Or something—who knows? I mean, how lame, right?"

Looking at him quizzically, John motioned Brian to come closer. "Listen, big Bri, I kinda need your help with something. Since your, um, really important club was cancelled, do you think you could, I don't know, hang with me a while?"

Ok, that sounded really fucking pathetic but it was maybe time to swallow some shit.

"Sure," Brian flushed with pleasure and nervously ran his hand through his hair. "Cool. But, um, first—I kind of have to meet Kenny, he had some," he paused, and if possible looked even more awkward, "you know, your friend, who you introduced me to, who, we're helping each other and I just had some stuff to give him for a project, not anything really important or anything to do with you—of course—but he was going to meet me after physics club and now I'm not going to be there do you know where he might be since he's your friend?"

The last words all came out in a big jumbled pile and it took John a few moments to untangle them into some kind of sense.

"Big Bri. Chill. I'm here asking for your help, remember? And I bet Kenny's in the shop room if he was waiting for you to be done with your club. Why don't we find him there, and then we can go shoot some pool or something, cool?"

"Um. Yeah." Brian's face brightened, relaxing. "I—you know, physics can be very helpful in pool, if you understand some of the properties."

John smirked. "So can knowing when to ram your long stick hard, and when to slide it firm but gentle."

Brian blushed furiously and John grabbed the scruff of his neck. "C'mon, dork. This works for me, too, I had something to check out myself down that way."

To Brian's surprise, John insisted on taking the long way around to the shop, and he seemed preoccupied. Brian tried to ask what was up, but John just shook his head.

Suddenly, Brian's attention was claimed by a blond girl up ahead. She was pulling on her locker, hard. A dark haired girl was next to her, and they looked upset. Their voices were high and thready.

Stopping dead in his tracks, John looked up the hall and then quickly around, pulling Brian into a doorway. "Hang out a minute," he said. Something was flickering behind his eyes and his mouth looked poised to break into a smile—not a nice one.

It wasn't the kind of thing Brian would repeat, even if tortured, but seeing John Bender enjoying his own meanness . . . was hot in a way that made Brian understand why mean guys got all the girls.

Brian was really jealous of John getting all the girls—especially Claire, because although Brian would rather die than admit it he had just a little bit of a huge crush on her—but he had to admit, at the same time, he was a tiny bit jealous of all the girls getting John, too.

In fact, the inside of Brian Johnson was really confusing in the areas that weren't occupied by physics, math, or literature. It was why he couldn't talk straight, maybe. He just wasn't quite . . . straight, or quite . . . crooked.

He related this confusion to the way words that started out making sense got tangled when they passed through his conflicting impulses on the way to his mouth. Bent, like light through a prism.

He could explain that effect, but not his own confusion. Better not to try.

Brian couldn't see any more of what was happening in the hallway, but John was keeping watch.

"What's up?" asked Brian, bringing himself back to reality and hoping any dazed expression on his face only looked dorky.

"I just don't wanna deal with those girls," muttered John. It didn't matter what his face looked like, realized Brian. John wasn't paying any attention.

"Past conquests?"

John shuddered, "Not even. Just chill a sec, yeah?" He ducked back into the doorway and folded his arms, smirking.

From the hallway, the sounds of the girl pulling at the locker began to get more and more frantic. Soon it was pounding, the twang of fist on metal unmistakable. The note in the voice edged toward panic. "Omigod, Heather, all my books and notes are in there and I've got two tests tomorrow! I'm going to have to get the janitor or something, it just won't open."

Another voice commented, "I'm not sure you even want to open it. Something smells nasty. What do you have in there, last week's lunch?"

"No. As if that smell is coming from my locker. Grody. C'mon."

Brian eyed John Bender hard. "What's going on?"

John shrugged. "Who knows? Lockers jam all the time. The world's an imperfect place." He looked at Brian, who smiled at being in on an in-joke. Of course he himself was not John Bender's main concern. But it was—awesome—that Brian was any concern of his at all.

In fact, John looked affectionate. It wasn't hot, but Brian thought he liked it better.

"C'mon. Let's find that electrician and go shoot some pool."

***

They'd been hanging in the shop room conversing quietly with Kenny when Carl the janitor showed up. "Kids, is Pizzolato around?" He looked at John and nodded in recognition, but didn't say anything.

Nodding back, Bender drawled, "Well, if it isn't the eyes and ears of this institution. What's new in the custodial arts?"

Carl smirked, unbothered by the sarcasm. "Bender, I'm afraid to even say it 'cause I know it will upset you, but it appears that unknown parties have perpetrated a practical joke against an innocent young girl." He shook his head in mock wonder.

Bender snorted. "Impressive. Where'd someone find one of those?"

An even louder snort emerged from Brian, who then choked and immediately blushed to his ears. Kenny laughed.

"Yo, Pizz!" shouted Carl, "Gotta blow torch?"

Mr Pizzolato popped up from behind a workbench and pushed safety goggles over his forehead. "Doesn't leave the shop. Liability insurance. What the blazes you need with a blowtorch, Carl?"

"Locker fused shut. From the smell of it, garbage inside. At first I thought it was just the lock, but I cut it with boltcutters and it turns out some genius managed to epoxy the whole locker shut, too."

Mr Pizzaloto's lips formed an "o" and he blew out, making a low whistling sound. "Well, I don't think you're gonna want a blow torch. They'd probably have to replace the whole locker bank. Lemme think. Acetone would work, but, it might be hard to get it in where the glue is."

"Who was it?" Kenny asked, making conversation. "I mean, the girl."

Brian wanted to know, too. She'd seemed familiar, but he hadn't really gotten a good look at her. He had also noticed that despite her desperation, he'd felt no sympathy for her at all.

Carl scratched his head, thinking. "Well, I don't suppose that's a state secret, since she's screaming her lungs out in the hall all afternoon. I'm surprised you can't hear it down here."

"Drag," muttered Bender. Carl shot him a warning look and he held up his hands, "Sue me, I'm a sucker for screaming girls . . ."

This time it was Mr Pizzolato who shot Bender the warning look.

"Anyway," said Carl, warming to his audience, "it was a lovely lady by the name of Ruth-Ann Daniel."

"Oh, she's a bitch," said Kenny and Brian in unison.

John Bender didn't say a word, didn't look at Carl, who didn't look at him, either.

This kind of outburst from Kenny earned a look of pure surprise from Mr Pizzolato. "What's eating you, kid?" he asked, interested, "not your kind of language." He rubbed the back of his neck, clearly a little confused. "She do something to your girl?" Mr Pizzolato liked Kenny, and one of the things he liked about him was that he did not get dragged down into all that dumb stuff among the kids. Good, level head, eye on the prize, friendly but kept himself to himself.

Bender was pretty surprised at Kenny, too. Even more so, when the kid started coloring up.

"Not my girl—um, I mean, no. That Ruth-Ann just—she pisses me off. She—she's the kind of girl that just likes to make trouble for people, just out of spite—and for people who are, you know, trying to do good things, too, for—other people, I mean other in the sense of different from the people they normally might, um, do good things for."

Brian snickered. "Even I had trouble following that."

Frowning slightly, Bender looked curiously at his old friend. It was true, the usually even-keel Kenny did sound like Brian friggin Johnson. What was up with that?

"Like, for example . . ." he probed, looking for more. John Bender began to get the distinct sense that he was missing something. He knew, of course, that the others were missing something, too, or at least he hoped so, but he liked to be the one with the most and best info at all times.

"For example, Ruth-Ann was really mean to me," blurted Brian, who actually had known her only by name before two minutes ago, "in, um, class. When I was trying to help someone with their problem set. Someone popular, you know, who I wouldn't normally help. Like what Kenny said. I told Kenny about it. He doesn't like that kind of girl."

Kenny shook his head, relieved, apparently agreeing with Brian's confused assessment. "No, sir, I do not."

John looked sharply at Brian. What the hell? First Kenny sounds like Brian and now Brian is speaking for Kenny? Well. Whatever. He guessed he's been wrong about nothing ever changing. And just like that, he felt his mood and his heart lift just a little.

All he needed sometimes, was just a little thing, just something to grasp onto, to pull himself up and remind him that change was, in fact, a possibility.

Even if that little thing was nonsensical, weird, and probably totally stupid. It could be a start.

Carl looked slowly around the faces of the boys in the room, but his face remained impassive. "Hmm," was all he said.

Mr Pizzolato looked around at the faces of the boys in the room, too, and at Carl's face. It looked to him like everyone was hiding something, and he couldn't figure out for the life of him why, since none of them looked like the kind of person who would have much to do with someone like Ruth-Ann Daniel. He remembered her, himself. She'd been the kind of girl to take shop to get close to a boy, but the way she'd gotten close to him was to wind him up, brushing against him, and then sneer at the poor kid in front of everyone for working with his hands. Then he'd caught the two of them going at it behind the plastics press one afternoon. And she'd still treat him like dirt in public. Piece of work.

But he kept these thoughts to himself, naturally. Although girls like that didn't see it, Gene Pizzolato was a professional through and through.

Scratching his head, Mr Pizzolato decided that whatever was going on with any of these three kids, that girl, Carl, and an epoxied locker, he would let it go. He didn't need to go out of his way for a girl like that. "Well, you know what'd probably work, is some oven cleaner. With an aerosol, so you could spray it into the cracks to get at the glue. Thing is, I'm fresh out of oven cleaner. You got any on you, Carl?"

Carl patted down his pockets, straight faced. "You know, Pizz, I am fresh out, myself."

Brian Johnson made a show of turning his own pockets inside out, then snorted, managing not to choke this time and looking proud.

"Well, fellas," Carl intoned, "it looks like the damsel in distress may just have to wait another day because I don't think I'll have time to make it to the store and back before quitting time—plus it will take some time for that EZ-off clean action to kick in, if I'm not mistaken." His face darkened. "I should get overtime, though, for breaking the news to her. That girl has a mouth on her."

"I'll do it," volunteered all three boys at once.

Shaking his head, Carl exchanged a look with Mr. Pizzalato. "No can do, boys, but I tell you what, you can watch. Just stay out of sight. Deal?"

"Y'know, sometimes I hear nothing, here in the shop, with these loud machines," muttered Mr Pizzalato, pulling his eyeguard back down.

As the boys followed the janitor out, if anyone saw the look pass between Carl and John Bender, no one said a word.

***

Later, John Bender was teaching Brian Johnson pool and Brian Johnson was teaching John Bender the principals of physics. Brian was quivering what with being in a real pool hall, with a bar, and men with long hair and ponytails and tattoos. They had eaten burgers and French fries, which John had insisted on putting on his tab.

"All I need is one rich prick to come in here thinking he can get the better of me and I'm good for it, Eddie, you know that," he muttered to the manager.

"Yeah, you better, or you'll be washing dishes til morning," threatened the older man, scratching his stubbled chin. But the threat did not reach his eyes.

Soon the two boys settled into a pattern of talking, then pausing while John would make a shot and Brian would get excited about the principles of physics it involved, and then they would talk a little more. After they had reminisced a while about the beauty of seeing Ruth-Ann Daniel lose her shit all over Shermer High while Carl the Kick-Ass Janitor remained cooler than ice, they began to talk about John's life.

This time it was John Bender who was tongue-tied.

He tried to think of it as another one of those stupid little things that reminded him change was possible. But really, it just felt stupid.

"I don't know, man. I mean, you know, Claire, and I, and—"

Christ. Now he sounded like Brian. Maybe it was contagious or something.

But Brian just nodded. "Yep. I know."

"And she's just, really—"

Brian nodded again. "I get that."

John took a deep breath. See? Talking about his feelings and private shit like, a mile a minute. Since Brian Johnson was of course completely fluent in Inarticulate Retard, they were communicating just great. "And I, just me, I mean, it's ok, with my dad, and whatever, no big deal, it's ok, but she—"

"No, it's not." Brian put his hand on John's shoulder. John's first instinct was to slap it away but instead he let it stay. He turned to the shorter boy and looked a question.

Brian explained, calmly. "It's not ok that he does that. Like that, with the bruise. John—seriously, can you leave?"

John paused, sizing up a shot on the table. 5 ball, corner pocket. Not a problem.

"I'm fucking seventeen, so no, not really. Plus where else am I gonna go, y'know? I mean, I stay around, but I can't just be a burden to people, I can't really pay my own way, not all the way, not and finish school, and if—if I tell anyone—"

John trailed off. This was fucking humiliating. He breathed, closed his eyes, opened them, and sank the shot.

Brian was fascinated by the difference between Bender's smooth, confident movements around the pool table and the anxiety in his voice as he spoke about his life.

"That was roughly a ninety degree vector, which requires us to assume the same mass for the cueball and the target ball. The angle also allows us to understand that on that shot, your cue ball hit the five ball at its center—without follow or draw, which would skew the vector." As usual, the words flowed calm and smooth from his mouth as soon as they pertained to physics.

"Huh?" Apparently, John didn't speak brilliant as well as Brian spoke Retard.

"It's a lot about vectors. See," and now Brian looked shy and his voice was softer, "I could explain to you the physics of pretty much every shot you make, but I can barely sink anything."

John chuckled. "That's cause you're too much of a spaz. Seeing the shot is only half the battle, it's also a lot about the stroke." He demonstrated, going right up to the cue ball with the stick but pulling back, not touching it, cool and calm and smooth. "You're so twitchy. I bet if you got laid, you could sink twice as many balls."

Brian looked up at him and laughed. Not a giggle, just a normal laugh. John figured it was progress.

"Goes without saying, right?" John rubbed his head. "So, not like the physics of pool isn't really fucking fascinating, but what about the rest of it—you know," he gestured off into somewhere toward the Miller Light wall clock, as if the rest of his life was lurking up there somewhere between "tastes great" and "less filling."

"Yeah, well," Brian shuffled uncomfortably, "that's actually where I was going with the physics and not being able to make a shot. Like, I can find out, technically, what are some options, and I can explain them, but that doesn't mean that I'm a good person to know anything about what it would actually mean to have them happen, you know?"

"Right." Kid had a point. "Well, for starters, I'm pretty sure Family Services are out. If they pulled me it'd be into foster or probably a group home, cause not that many people want to foster fucked up teenage boys and those that do are probably way too fucked up themselves, you know?" John looked at Brian, expecting an argument. It would seem obvious to a rational person that if there were people paid to protect you, you should call them. "I mean, I could go from getting slapped around some to getting slapped around a lot, you know?"

To Bender's surprise, though, Brian nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah," he said sadly. "We—I mean, John, this shouldn't be secret, some of us—you know, from Saturday, earlier we were talking, because—we figured we knew what happened when you had that bruise and we were wondering why you never said anything and then Allison—I think she might have looked into child services for herself at some point, you know? And she said she didn't think it would be the thing. Another problem is that sometimes once you report abuse, people are legally obligated—you can't stop the process, you lose control, which given how old you are, you need more of, not less. So I—did some other research. There's something called emancipation."

"Just a second. I have to concentrate." Brian paused as John lined up another shot. This one was trickier. Reverse English. A balance between speed and spin. He breathed, focused, the cue shot forward, smooth, no jerk. And it was in.

"Reducing cloth friction, requires a firm stroke. . ." Brian was muttering.

"Keep your masturbation to yourself in here, big Bri," chuckled John.

"No, that was an incredible shot," Brian was all excitement—literally, about physics. What a weird kid, thought John. Must be kind of cool, though, to be excited about something that could actually get you somewhere. Couldn't make much of a career out of fingering Claire Standish's cashmere collection. Although the college essay would be fun as hell to write.

It is the unparalleled access to cashmere sweaters that attracts me to Harvard; my underprivileged background has meant that my experiences are limited but I have been making up for lost time. I am a quick study in rich cashmere groping, I can fucking assure you, Harvard, now please let me come . . .

OK, enough of that. John looked around quickly and adjusted his pants. Brian was still going on about reverse English. "It was all about—about the pool table, the cloth, not just where you hit the ball, although that has to be high. I could show you the calculations."

John shook his head. Kid was crazy, and the combination of physics and pool sounded even more like sex than pool usually did and sex made John think of Claire again, which reminded him that it was not just cashmere, but Claire's cashmere that he wanted, with her in it, warming it with her skin, soft on soft, which brought him back to the whole reason he was trying to talk this shit out in the first place.

"So, um, Bri—emancipation, like the slaves?" John prodded.

Talk about reverse English. Here was John Bender trying to talk about serious issues and all the biggest geek in school wanted to talk about was pool.

"Oh, right, sorry, not exactly like the slaves, but I guess a little bit. You'd get freed from your parents. Legally. You go to court."

Raising his eyebrows, John stopped dead in his tracks. He could get free? "Where's the catch?"

Brian took a deep sigh. "Well, that's the—um, I think you have to be able to demonstrate maturity. Like, in the way grown-ups would see it. Hold a job, live apart, financial independence, school activities, maybe mentoring . . ."

John's hopeful face darkened and a scowl deepened with every word on the list. Brian went on.

"And then—your parents would have to agree, or you'd have to say why they shouldn't have to. For that, there'd need to be witnesses—over eighteen, probably. So, I think first, you'd need a job, references, and a place to live. How do you get money now?"

John gestured toward the pool table, then shrugged unhappily. "Plus maybe a few other. . . retail ventures."

Brian held his hand up. "Don't even say it. So, first you gotta get a job. And then maybe, do something—responsible looking. Like, volunteer at a boys' club or something." John shot him a look and gestured at himself up and down. "Well, maybe not. But something. I don't know."

Sighing, John started looking for his next shot. "All right, well, that's not fucking happening." All of that sounded pretty unBenderlike. Too much change all at once. Setting himself up. "Maybe I can just crash on Skins' floor."

Bank shot. Side pocket. Cake. It should all be that fucking easy.

He looked up at Brian to see if he had any other bright ideas but Brian was looking over Bender's shoulder toward the door. Come to think of it, every guy in the place was looking toward the door. Motorcycle guys. Beefy bearded rock guys. Scrawny drug guys. Preppy guys trying to look cool. All of them. And the girls some of them were with—they looked none too happy about it.

And no fucking wonder, because, as John saw as soon as he turned around to see what the fuss was about, she was wearing shiny little red heeled boots and jeans that made her legs look eight miles long and then tapered into a cut up t-shirt. The shirt was black and sliced and angled to show a razor thin slice of belly and some collarbone and it looked like some shoulder but then skin disappeared under a little black leather jacket. Spike heels, tight jeans, torn cotton, black leather on pale skin.

In other words, custom-made wet dream.

Her hair was a little messy like someone had been running his hands threw it and it had been him and fucking hell did Claire Standish look hot in his pool hall.

She was leaning against the wall by the door, hands shoved in her leather pockets, zippers probably digging into her wrists, but gently. John would like to get in on a little of that. One leg hiked up a little on the wall. He would like to get in on a little of that shit, too. Christ, did this rich girl look good against a dirty wall.

The darkest, most powerful desire coursed through John Bender's veins, so strong he couldn't move a muscle. Those legs, he wanted wrapped around him. Those boots, he wanted digging into his ass. Right. Fucking. Now.

And she was also beautiful. Red and blue light from the neon sign in the window reflected on her skin and hair, flashing and glowing like her eyes sometimes did when she looked at him. But with the red and blue, it made her look like she was in a movie, dressed up to fit in but still standing out, electric, a play of light and color.

Except the people in movies didn't know who the hell he was, they had eyes only for each other, and Claire been watching him. It showed in her eyes. Because when she looked at him, what flashed and glowed was want.

Right back at you, Princess.

Claire saw John's eyes find her and she smiled one of her little smiles that looked like it was trying not to be one and John felt so much electricity throb through his groin and his stomach and his chest where his heart was that he thought he might literally pass out.

He smiled the same smile back at her. They were doing that thing where they watched each other want each other which was like foreplay in itself but now she was doing that in front of all these people and John was sure he was suddenly six inches taller or some shit.

Every dude in the place was clearly thinking, who's that girl?

The queen of Shermer High had come to Bailey's Billiards to see him, John Bender. How the hell and why the hell and how had she even known of its existence and where to find him were questions he should have probably asked but fuck she was looking at him like he was God.

Christ that was hot.

She bit her lip, then licked at it. John Bender thought he might come in his goddamn pants.

Not a bad idea. But not alone. He'd make Claire come in those sexy fucking money soaked jeans, then he'd christen his 501s, he had a change of clothes in his backpack, and then—

Whoa. Maybe he should say hi or something first considering he'd been a first class prick to her for all but about three minutes of the day and had made all these resolutions about how he was going to be awesome to her instead.

Inducing orgasm could be considered totally awesome, pointed out his boy parts, who saw no conflict here.

John rolled his eyes and darted a look over to Brian, hoping as ever that a good Johnson visual would calm those parts right back down again. But Brian just raised his eyebrows and gave John a look that said, "are you dense?"

Before John could think to be taken aback by that kind of attitude from his geekwad friend, he looked around him. What he saw was enough to shake himself out of his Claire- and hormone-induced trance, pronto. Because guys were heading toward her from every corner of the hall like her magnet pull suddenly extended to every dickhaving member of the species, and one dude was clearly going to beat him to her.

Now his gut was clenching with a very different feeling. It was a newish feeling for him but it was really just a stronger version of things he'd been feeling all week.

It went like this: "Hands off, she's mine."

The full court press of pool hall skeeves also reminded John that Claire wasn't actually a movie, porno or otherwise, she was a girl who was way out of her element and zip code and probably feeling more than fucking uncomfortable at the prospect of Tony "The Rocket" Canetti coming on to her with his Hell's Angel's jacket and gold tooth. He wasn't a bad guy, but he was also not a small guy or a good-smelling guy.

Ricky Mallone, however, was more than goodlooking in an oily sort of way and he smelled like a goddamn cologne factory or some shit and John was even more interested in making sure he got nowhere near Claire, because he clearly made a hobby out of underaged girls.

Christ, Claire fucking Standish was in John Bender's own not at all very nice pool hall and what the living fuck was she doing there, the place was filled with horny-ass not very nice at all guys who looked at her and saw fine, rich, pussy and he could not possibly take every one of them all at once and—

John Bender dropped his pool cue and vaulted over a chair that was blocking his way. He straightened himself up and swaggered over to Claire, who was looking nervous and sweet and sexy at the same time, obviously trying to be polite to Rocket and not shy away from him like she probably wanted to because he totally looked like any nice respectable girl's nightmare and probably was, for all that he was a little bit of a softy in an asshole kind of way.

"Hey, Princess, about time you got here, babe," said John nonchalantly. He grabbed her waist and pulled her into his side like he'd been doing it all his life.

"She's one of yours, Bender?" Rocket looked incredulous.

One of. Christ. Claire Standish would no doubt fucking love being included in the mythic stable of John Bender's pool hall ponies. Well fucking played, dude.

John glared deep and meaningfully at Rocket and studiously avoided Claire's gaze. It didn't escape him, however, how Claire's body tensed against his side and under his arm. "She's not one of anything, asshole. And girls aren't property but on the other hand, damn right, she's mine, so fuck off." He shot a glare towards Ricky for good measure.

It further didn't escape John Bender that what he had just said was a massive laughable fucking contradiction, but somehow that didn't matter, it was totally true, both sides of it at the same time. Plus it made Claire relax into his side a little more.

Still not looking at Claire because he was afraid to turn into a total babbling puddle of goo, hich could happen so suddenly when he looked at her if he wasn't careful, and which was an especially bad idea in a pool hall full of horny pricks who had their eyes on his girl, John steered her toward the table where he and Brian had been playing. He whispered in her ear, "Sorry for the caveman bullshit, sweetheart, but some of these guys aren't joking around. Come over here so you can tell me to what I owe the distinct pleasure and total fucking shock of you showing up here."

Claire just leaned into him further and then she put her hand down his back pocket so she was palming his ass and just like that John was twitching all over again. On top of that she leaned reached up and whispered in his ear, "I can't even tell you how hot that was."

At this, John looked down at her, goo puddle risk be damned. Her face was all glowy and flashing more than it had under the neon and her lips were looking like they were just aching to be more swollen from being kissed. Her t-shirt was gapping and exposing skin and basically it just said, why do you not have the girl wearing me moaning up against a brick wall?

Yup. Loud and clear. Clear as day. At least in John Bender's dialect.

"Hey, Bri," John muttered, not much trusting his voice.

"Hi, Brian, this is a surprise," Claire said somewhat unconvincingly.

"I know, total shock, isn't it? Who would have thought I'd be here, right? I mean, how would you ever know?"

John Bender was paying little to no attention, however, to the interactions between entities that were not his own teenage boy parts and any part of Claire Standish dressed like that. "Listen, Dorkwad. I want you to practice your bank shots. Be very careful about your arm, keep it steady. Don't play anyone for money, no matter how bad they seem. Rocket! If anyone gives my man, Bri, here, any shit, you stop'em, ok?" Rocket owed him after that "one of yours" comment. "Claire has come here to talk to me about some very important shit, so, um, we'll be right back."

John released Claire from his side and took her hand to make maneuvering through the pool tables easier. There was a back door and by the back door there was a perfectly serviceable alley, hopefully no one would be smoking a j. back there. Whatever, if they were they were going to get a show.

Wait. Remember about saying hi first because of having been a total shit to her all day?

He opened the door for her. Check that shit out.

And then it was John and Claire in an alley.

Talking was not working for him right now. He managed, "So?" Major fucking victory, right there.

"So . . ." She bit her lip a little, and then smiled and John wanted to eat her mouth. "So, I heard Ruth-Ann Daniel screaming in the hall after school. Do you know. . ." She moved her hand to toy with the button on John's jacket, darted her eyes up to his face, then looked down again, quickly. She dropped her hand, then put it on her hip. "Do you know that someone glued her locker shut? And I think there was garbage in it." And then her eyes were on him, wide and alive and intense with something, but in this moment, John found them unreadable.

"Is that right." John was right back to trying to avoid her stare. Shit. Was she pissed?

She was pissed. Claire probably thought of the girl as a friend and he had overstepped boundaries or dirtied her territory or fucked up in some other way a fuck-up like him couldn't even imagine.

Well tough shit. That bitch had fucked with John Bender. There were rules about that.

Plus what was more, she'd fucked with John Bender's girl. So maybe that was too recent a situation to have rules, especially since the girl in question hadn't exactly gotten updated on her new status, or agreed to it, or anything like that.

Whatever happened with that, though, Claire Standish had come to his pool hall and looked at him like that. And she'd already made his shitty day better, even before that. Not to mention the scarf and the cashmere lessons and the stupid princess bed. Given all that, there sure as hell were going to be rules about what happened to anyone who even tried to look at her wrong, much less fuck with her. Damn straight.

Now, though, the fact remained that Claire was down here, on his turf, where strictly speaking she had no business being because it really wasn't quite safe for someone like her to be wandering around here, which probably meant she was too pissed off to be thinking clearly. And John just didn't feel like having anyone be angry at him, even Claire. He felt his defenses go up and he crossed his arms over his chest. "And?"

"And," Claire moved up closer to him, but didn't touch him, "that was so unbelievably hot. And for some reason, the fact of Ruth-Ann Daniel screaming in the hall made me think of you and suddenly I had to see you or I was going to die, I don't understand it, I have no idea even how I made it this long."

Her breath was coming fast, and John could hear it in her voice. Her voice was shaking with it. She had started out trying to be controlled and she failed, totally fucking failed to control it.

John could feel the white coming over his vision and he knew he was going to let go just a little bit too, because he'd identified what it was he was seeing and hearing in Claire that he hadn't quite recognized before and it wasn't anger. He'd gotten confused because anger and want got so confused for them, but this was different.

It was. Total. Fucking. Lust.

He knew his hands were shaking, he put them on her hips just to steady them and slowly walked her backwards toward the wall, the air between their bodies acting like a thousand tiny hands fanning flames all over his skin.

Just one more thing. Then he'd know and she'd know that he'd at least made a start.

"Claire?"

"Yeah?"

"Just one thing. I'm gonna get a job, ok? And Claire?" He could hear his own voice, barely recognizable, rough from the same raw lust that was making his hands shake and Claire's voice almost disappear.

"Yeah?" Her voice was barely a whisper.

"Hi."

note on the text: English and reverse English is American for putting spin on the ball . . .

If you're old enough and so inclined, see you soon in the M-Rated companion fic Really Good Feelings for . . . the rest of this scene, about which John Bender may have given you some idea. If that's not your thing, any plotlike events that sneak into the smut will be recapped at the beginning of the next chapter of this fic. Which will be updated, really, when I can.

I appreciate all your reviews, alerts, favorites, PMs, etc, and although I prefer critical to downright nasty, I do appreciate all of them. Except the ones that say, "Your fic sucks, and you suck for not updating it faster." Really. Pick one.

Reviewers get pool lessons from John Bender, and for everyone else . . . the Physics of Pool with Brian Johnson, which is actually really interesting and does not suck (although, certain reviews notwithstanding, everything I know about sucking, I swear I learned from Cosmo!).

Cheers!