June 1999
They laid side-by-side on Jane's bed, the slow, steady beat of Moby pouring out of the speakers mounted on either side of Jane's bedroom wall. Daria found herself surprised at how comfortable it felt.
She had never allowed anyone to get close to her - not really close to her, that was - until she'd met Jane. Even then, it had taken years before she finally felt herself opening up to her.
Now, lying next to her, she felt soothed by the cool smoothness of Jane's bare arm against hers. Jane had on a black t-shirt with the sleeves cut off and a pair of black shorts. She was wearing a camisole and black pants. The pants felt tight against her stomach and thighs. She rubbed her feet together restlessly.
Jane sighed loudly.
"What?" Daria asked.
"I don't know," Jane said. "Sometimes I get so irritated thinking about society's view that you have to be in a relationship to be happy. Why is that so important? Why can't we just be happy on our own first? Or forever? Why do we have to qualify our happiness with another person?"
Daria paused for a moment, frowning slightly. She looked up at the ceiling, still half-concentrating on the feel of Jane's arm pressing against hers. "I don't know that we have to," she said finally. "Who says that we have to conform to the ideals that `society' puts out? It's not like they speak for everyone."
"Yeah," Jane said.
"I mean, I know I don't need a guy in my life to be happy." She shrugged. "It certainly doesn't help that all the guys I've ever known have turned out to be complete idiots, either."
Jane snorted. "Yeah, you're telling me."
"And anyway, who says that you have to be with a guy, anyway? I mean..." She trailed off suddenly, realizing how that sounded.
Jane immediately turned to her side, propping herself up while smirking at her. "What exactly are you trying to say, Morgendorffer?"
Daria immediately began to blush. "I, uh..." She frowned.
"Are you saying that maybe you want to give girls a try?" she asked, leaning in towards her.
Daria immediately started to scoot herself backwards. "Stop," she said.
"What?" Jane said. "You've never kissed a girl before, right? You have no idea what it's like, or whether you'd even really like it."
She didn't know what to say to that. And before she knew it, Jane was leaning over her and with one cool hand on the side of her face; Jane's lips were on hers, fuller and softer than she'd expected.
She'd never kissed a girl before, no. To be perfectly honest, she'd never really (voluntarily) kissed anyone before. This was ... interesting. This felt ...
Oh, God.
Daria immediately pushed her away. "What are you doing?" she asked, forcing out a small laugh so Jane would think she took it as a joke.
Which she did - right?
Jane smirked again. "Nothing," she said, flopping back onto the bed. Jane ran her hands through her hair, stretching herself out before relaxing again.
Daria felt too weird to lie down beside her again, so she sat up instead. When the song ended, she asked, "You mind if I pick out a new CD?"
"No problem," Jane said in her usual droll tone. It was like nothing had happened.
Daria couldn't listen to that Moby CD again without thinking about how it felt to have Jane kiss her.
November 2001
Daria can't remember the exact day it happened, but it was a couple months into her freshman year at Raft. Despite signing up for one of the "quiet" floors, her neighbors a couple doors down still managed to throw a party every couple weeks in their room. It didn't help that their R.A. was a pre-med student who spent most of her late-nights at the library, and was never around to field noise complaints. Her roommate, Jenna, wasn't at all sympathetic to the problem, since she'd only ended up "on a quiet floor because her parents sucked and thought it would help her study better."
In reality, Jenna spent most of her time researching which sorority to rush and figuring out where that week's frat-house parties and after-parties were being held. (Daria figured that Jenna and Quinn probably would have gotten along swimmingly.)
One night, she became so frustrated while trying to read, she decided to take matters into her own hands, banging her fist on her neighbors' door.
"Come on in!" someone called out.
She opened the door to reveal a packed room - there had to be at least a dozen or more students stuffed in the tiny dorm room, guys and girls alike.
"Hey!" a curly-haired girl said. Daria was pretty sure she was one of the people that lived in that room. "You look familiar - you live on this floor, right?"
"Uh - yeah," Daria said tentatively. "Look..."
"Awesome," the girl said, interrupting her. She already looked drunk. She held her hand out, shaking Daria's vigorously. "I'm Katie, and I share this room with -" Katie looked around. "Crap, where the hell did she go? Vicki..."
Daria gathered that Vicki was Katie's roommate. She thought she remembered Vicki; a longhaired blonde girl who spent a little too much time at the tanning salon.
"Look," Daria started again, but Katie interrupted her again.
"Oh my God, I'm so totally rude. Do you want a drink?" She looked around wildly, and waved at a guy with spiky hair, standing by the CD player. "Josh! Dude, get , um -" She looked at Daria suddenly, realizing she didn't know her name.
"Daria," she said, smiling sheepishly.
"Yeah - Josh, grab Daria a drink, will you?"
Katie immediately turned back to her. "I am so sorry about that, I should have offered right away, right?"
"Um," Daria said. "Actually-"
"I mean, seriously, it's rude to have a party and not share. My boyfriend, Josh," she said, gesturing to the spiky-haired guy pouring a bright-red drink from an obscenely-large pitcher, "is old enough to get alcohol, so, you know, he supplies us for all our parties. It's totally awesome to have a hook-up." She grabbed the cup from Josh and handed it to Daria. "Seriously, you have to try this."
"Um," Daria said again. "I don't really drink."
"C'mon," Katie said. "This isn't Everclear like you're used to..."
Daria really wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean. She didn't even know what Everclear was, unless Katie was referring to the mediocre alternative band by the same name.
"Josh totally only buys vodka, which - okay - it's, like, Skol vodka, but you know, with Kool-Aid, it's pretty awesome, and totally better than Everclear, like, it won't give you that awful headache the next morning where you just want to puke for hours and then pig out on pizza afterwards to get rid of the taste."
"Um. Okay," Daria said, looking down at the red Solo cup. "You're not going to make us all dress up in matching sweat suits and Nikes before we drink this, right?"
"Huh?" Katie asked, obviously not catching the macabre humor.
Daria shook her head, taking a tentative sip of the drink. It actually wasn't ... half bad. She hadn't drank Kool-Aid in years, and it really just tasted like Kool-Aid with a sour bite to it. Weird. "So," she said. "What do you guys do, then - um, at these things?"
Katie gave her an odd look. "I dunno. Sit around and drink, I guess. Why?"
Daria shrugged. She thought, That's it? That's what all the fuss is about? What was so exciting about sitting around and drinking slightly bitter Kool-Aid?
An hour later (for whatever reason), she still hadn't left the party. It was also around that time when it started to dawn on her why people just "sat around and drank." She was actually feeling pretty good. It was weird. She'd never felt like that before. Everything seemed happy. And bright. And ... man, it was really hard to stand up. And she really had to pee.
After announcing this to the group, she stumbled towards the bathrooms. It wasn't until she was sitting in the stall, running her hands through her hair; that she started to wonder what Jane was up to right then. They had made an effort to hang out every other weekend or so, but Jane was caught up in a huge project for her finals now, and they hadn't talked in over a week. She missed her friend. She didn't really have any other friends here (yet) and, man - the lock on the stall door was kind of spinning around, even though it wasn't moving - or at least, she didn't think it was moving...
"That's weird," she said aloud, suddenly realizing her voice sounded really funny. "That's weird," she said again, trying to figure out why her voice sounded so strange.
"What's weird?" someone in another stall asked as she stepped out to wash her hands.
"Oh," Daria said, not realizing someone else was in the bathroom. It was really hard to get used to sharing the bathroom with so many people. Sharing one with Quinn for most of her life had been bad enough. "Um, nothing," she said, quickly washing her hands so she wouldn't have to face the person in the other stall when they came out.
When she got back to Katie and Vicki's room, everyone was sitting in a circle.
"Hey! Diane's back!" Josh said.
Just as Daria was about to correct him (why did that make her want to laugh all of a sudden. What was so funny about it, honestly?), Katie broke in:
"It's Daria, Josh. Sheesh." She gestured wildly to Daria. "Come on! Sit down! We're playing a game!"
Daria sat down tentatively at the corner of the room, and to her surprise, the people beside her made room for her to move in. "What..." she started, but found she had trouble finishing the "are we doing?" part of the sentence.
With a wicked grin, Josh set down a capped, and almost-empty bottle of Skol. "Ladies and gentlemen - it's time to play `Spin the Bottle.'"
Daria's eyes went wide. She wasn't used to this kind of stuff; she didn't go to parties, and she certainly didn't play games like this. This was the kind of stuff Quinn did at her parties. In junior high. This was - stupid.
Still, she really didn't want to get up, and maybe some part of her was morbidly curious how it happened. The logical part of her knew exactly what it was going to be: stupid attempts by guys to stick their tongues down girls' throats and lots of dumb laughter and cheering. It was misogynistic, immature, and completely not her kind of thing.
"Daria," Josh said, still grinning like an idiot. (Did he ever stop doing that?) "Since you got here last, you have to go first!" He nodded at the bottle.
Everyone in the room started chanting: "Spin it, spin it, spin it!"
The girl next to her nudged her. "Have a drink for courage!" she whispered.
Daria looked around at everyone staring at her. The regular Daria would normally have felt mortified, made a smart comment, and ran out of the room. However, the now-drunk Daria felt a new surge of courage she'd never felt before. She took a large sip out of her (now-refilled) cup, and reached out and spun.
It went around the circle almost two full times before landing almost straight on some kid with long hair and a Weezer shirt. He reminded her of one of Trent's band mates. She swallowed hard. Now what? she wondered.
It wasn't until someone said, "Are you going to do it, or what?" that finally motivated her to get up. She didn't know how to kiss him - was she supposed to kiss him on the lips? On the cheek? She really hadn't kissed anyone except for Tom. (Well, and Jane that one time, but that almost didn't count, except that it did, because - well.)
She started to lean in to peck him on the lips, but at the last minute, chickened out and kissed him quickly on the cheek. She felt his lips brushing against her jaw as she did so, simultaneously as the rest of the room groaned in disappointment.
"Bor-ing!" a scrawny kid on the other end of the circle called out. "Hope you can do better than that, Tom!"
Daria instantly jumped back at the sound of that name, looking at the longhaired kid and suddenly seeing her ex-boyfriend Tom's face in place of his. She almost fell down, but a girl behind her caught her and helped her sit down again.
"Hey," the girl said. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah ... I just..." she trailed off, not knowing what to say. She should have just left at that point. But something in her wanted to stay, to see what else would happen. Maybe it was just because she never did this kind of stuff. Maybe it was the alcohol - was she actually, really drunk now? she wondered. She'd never been drunk before. She wondered what Jane would say to her if she was here. Jane would probably laugh her ass off if she told her about this.
What happened after that was what changed everything for her, and strangely enough, it was the last thing she remembered from that night before she woke up the next morning, on top of her covers, fully clothed.
Katie spun the bottle, and Daria watched it spin around several times before it landed straight on her. Wait - on me? she thought. Did that mean Katie had to kiss her?
Before she knew what was happening, Katie crawled over (apparently, getting up onto her feet was too much effort at that point), and bent forward, her lips pressing hard against Daria's. Daria was surprised at the sudden rush of warmth she felt. Her stomach flipped upside down as she parted her lips slightly and Katie's tongue slipped inside. She tasted like Kool-Aid and flavored lip-gloss, or something, and, holy crap, Katie was a much better kisser than Tom had ever been -
They must have kissed for a long time, because as soon as they broke apart, she vaguely remembered everyone in the room staring at the two of them. A couple of the guys had actually stood up and were clapping wildly. Daria felt the heat rising rapidly in her cheeks. Some point shortly thereafter, she passed out on the floor of Katie and Vicki's room.
June 2002
"What... is that?" Daria eyed Jane incredulously as she pulled out a colorful glass pipe.
"What does it look like?" Jane asked, smiling slyly at her.
"It looks like a pipe that people generally smoke illegal substances out of."
"Rack a point up for `ol Einstein here. I may have to call Kevin and tell him that he's got some competition in the brain department."
"Ha, ha," Daria said.
"Of course, then he'd probably just think I was talking about zombies," Jane said.
Daria watched as Jane pulled a small box out from under her bed, and out of that, a small baggy of what looked like -
"Is that pot?" Daria asked.
"Wow, you are just batting a thousand today," Jane smirked, not bothering to look up.
"You don't smoke pot," Daria said.
"Didn't used to," Jane corrected. "It's not like I smoke a lot, anyway. I tried it recently and kind of liked it."
"With who?"
"Um, I don't know. A couple friends at BFA." Jane looked up at see Daria staring at her. "What?" she said.
"I don't know. I just thought you were above that, I guess. I mean, who wants to consume something that's just going to make them dumber? If I wanted to do that, I would have joined the Fashion Club in high school."
Jane snorted.
"Besides, I thought you said you didn't want to end up like Trent..."
"Hey, now," Jane said.
Daria held up her hands. "I'm just repeating what you said."
"Have you ever tried it?" Jane asked.
"No..."
"C'mon. It's not like smoking a cigarette. Just try it."
"I feel like I'm in the middle of an after-school special."
"If you hate it, you never have to do it again." Jane held out the freshly-packed pipe. "What do you have to lose?"
"My pot-smoking virginity, obviously," Daria said, tentatively taking the pipe from Jane.
"The first time's always a little awkward, but it gets easier after that."
"Hm," Daria said, studying the pipe. "You know I'd never do this with anyone else."
"I'm flattered. I think."
They smoked what was in the pipe, then Jane declared that they needed to "sit it out" so Daria could really see how `funny-weird' it was.
"'Funny-weird,'" Daria repeated. "Interesting."
"Oh, it will be."
Sure enough, an hour later, the room was rotating on a slight tilt, and Jane - Jane wouldn't stop grinning at her.
"What?" Daria asked.
"How do you feel?"
"Weird," Daria said. "My mouth is really, really dry right now. And I think my lips are numb. Is that normal? Tell me that's normal." She didn't want to freak out, but she really did feel weird, and it was hard to believe people really liked this kind of thing.
"Yeah, it happens sometimes. Trent told me this was pretty good stuff."
"Wait-" Daria said. The words were coming out slower than she was thinking them. "Trent gave this to - you got this from Trent?"
"Yeah," Jane said, lying back onto the floor. "Who do you think I'd get it from?"
"That's just ... weird. I mean, I can't see Quinn asking me for anything," Daria said.
"You two are totally different, though," Jane said. "Man, you have got to try laying on the carpet. The texture feels totally awesome on your back!"
Daria lay down next to her on the floor, all of a sudden aware of how close they were. Her bare arm brushed up against Jane's. The sensation sent a sudden chill up her spine.
"Doesn't that feel weird?" Jane asked, grinning.
"Yeah." Daria didn't think they were thinking about the same thing.
She turned to look at Jane at the same moment that Jane turned to look at her. Then, just like that, her mouth was pressed against Jane's, her tongue pushing into Daria's. She wasn't sure who had made the first move, but here they were. Daria groaned involuntarily as Jane's arm snaked around her back, pulling her closer.
God, it felt amazing. Her senses were so much stronger - every touch, every flick of her tongue, felt like it was magnified a thousand times. She felt a low ache in her belly as her leg wrapped around Jane's, intertwining them even tighter.
Daria wasn't sure how long they had been going for when Jane's other hand slid up to cup her breast. Daria broke away suddenly, breathing heavily. "What - what are we doing?"
"I think we're making out with each other," Jane said, a long, languid smile pushing up on the corners of her lips.
"I know," Daria said. She frowned. "I mean - what does this mean?"
Jane moved her hand to push her hair back out of her face. "I don't know," she said slowly. "What do you want it to mean?"
"What do you want it to mean?"
Jane paused. "Are you asking me if I'm gay?"
"I guess - yeah," Daria said. It was an uncomfortable thing to ask. She didn't know how she would answer if she was asked the same question, really.
"I don't know," Jane said. "Maybe."
"Okay," Daria said.
When she didn't say anything else, Jane continued. "I mean - I don't know. I didn't think so when I kissed you back in high school. I mean, that was kind of interesting," she said, smiling slightly, "but, I mean, I wasn't really thinking about you that way. It just kind of seemed like something to do at the time."
"Hmm."
"I mean, don't take that the wrong way - I think I was just trying to prove a point, or something, you know, that I could kiss a girl, or something, I don't really know. It was so long ago."
Daria nodded, but didn't say anything. She propped herself up on her elbow.
"Since I've been away at school, though - I don't know. I just haven't found any guys that, I don't know, interest me."
"Have you kissed any other girls?" Daria asked.
"No," Jane said. "Have you?"
"Um."
"Morgendorffer! What have you not told me?" Jane said, sitting up suddenly. "I need to..." She stopped suddenly. "Wait, I'm going to need some water before we continue. I don't know if it's the pot or the anticipation, but my mouth is bone dry right now."
Daria waited while Jane went to go get some water. She propped herself up against the bed, registering what had just happened. She'd just made out with Jane. And confessed that she'd kissed another girl. Of course, she'd been under the influence of something both times. Her first instinct was to blame that; after all, the first time it happened was the first time she was ever really drunk, and this was the first time she'd ever smoked pot. Something told her it wasn't the alcohol or pot that had made her do it. It might have made it easier, but it wasn't the only reason she'd done it.
The fact of the matter was, kissing Jane had felt amazing; even better than the first time. She found herself thinking about Jane's full, red lips, her hot tongue pushing against hers...
Daria was startled when she looked up and saw Jane standing over her, holding two water glasses. She started blushing, wondering if Jane had any idea what she'd just been thinking about.
"Scare you?" Jane asked with a smirk.
She sat down across from her in a cross-legged position. Daria took a sip of the water, hoping that she wasn't still flushed.
"So," Jane said. "Tell me about this story of yours. I can't believe there's this wild new Daria I haven't heard anything about yet."
"You don't tell me everything," Daria said defensively. "You didn't tell me you started smoking pot."
"I just told you," Jane said. "Now spill."
Daria rolled her eyes. "It ... wasn't that big of a deal. I - one of the people on my hall was having a party, and I had a little bit too much to drink. And - it happened during Spin the Bottle."
"Aw," Jane said. "That's a little disappointing. I was hoping for some clandestine make-out behind the school memorial on the quad, or something."
"Sorry," Daria said.
"So now you're going to tell me you're another one of those girls that just makes out with other girls when she gets wasted?" Jane asked.
"Um, no," Daria said.
"So... what are you saying, then?"
Daria pursed her lips. She didn't really know what she was saying. Was she gay? Did she prefer women? It was true she hadn't dated any guys since breaking up with Tom, but she really wasn't the type of person who dated all kinds of guys, either. Tom had been her first and only boyfriend. But, really, if she were being honest with herself, she would admit she hadn't even really been paying attention to guys lately. And that maybe the whole thing with Tom hadn't really ever been much more than a glorified friendship. Kissing him certainly didn't make her feel the way that Jane did.
"Um," she said.
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, you have got to be about the best kisser that I've come across," Jane said.
"How many people have you kissed?"
"Including you?"
"And Tom."
Jane shrugged. "Four."
"Well, I guess it's flattering to know that I beat out three other people."
"One of them was Jeff Palmer, who kissed me behind the jungle gym in fifth grade."
"You really know how to make a girl feel good about herself," Daria said.
"I just figured I should be totally honest," Jane replied. "So... I guess in the interest of total honesty - I wouldn't really mind doing it again."
"Kissing Jeff Palmer behind the jungle gym?" Daria asked.
Jane's eyes flashed at her, and Daria instantly knew she wasn't referring to Jeff Palmer, or anyone else she'd kissed in the past. Jane licked her lips. Daria felt her breathing start to become shallow. She stared at Jane's mouth.
Before she could stop herself, she'd moved forward, her mouth pressing tightly against Jane's again, her legs straddling Jane's lap.
September 2002
"Thank God I don't ever have to live in a dorm again."
"What - sharing a germ-filled public bathroom with fifteen other college students isn't your idea of the high life?" Jane turned to Daria and grinned as she led the way into their new apartment.
"Oh, there was definitely some kind of thrill from not knowing if maybe you were going to get a sexually transmitted disease from the toilet seat you were sitting on, or perhaps a foot disease from stepping into the shared showers."
"Right - not to mention the eight different kinds of mold growing in the corners of the shower stalls..."
"Oh, yeah, and my roommate who listened to Avril Lavigne non-stop - I'll probably miss that the most," Daria dead-panned.
"I'm sure," Jane said. "So tell me ... what do you like the most about your new living arrangement?" She came over to Daria, wrapping her arms around her waist.
"Hmm. I think it's got to be the fantastic view of the brick wall next door, definitely." They both turned to look out the window, which faced the building next to them.
"Yeah," Jane said, turning back to look at Daria. "The view here is pretty damn fantastic." She leaned in, her lips closing over Daria's.
= THE END =