A/N: Howdy all!! See here I am!!, Ok so I'll grovel a bit for forgiveness at the end, but in the mean time read, read! Bring a fan or two.... ;)
There were candles.
Burning.
Flames in the dark.
Hundreds and thousands just burning –
Like fire - flickering, dancing.
Shadows on the wall.
Twisting and beating; flicker and flame – and fire – faster and faster.
Flame, flicker, flame, flicker, flame – like a drum.
Like her heart.
Thump, thump, thump, thump,
flicker, flame, flicker, flicker, flicker .
More.
Faster.
Flicker.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
She was surrounded by silk and satin and flesh. Hard and hot and –
heat like fire-
unyielding, pressing in. Smooth, slippery, enveloping, suffocating, binding – like the silk that bound her hands; Like the hands wound round her waist. In her hair. On her hips.
More.
Pressing, stroking, stroking and pressing till there was nothing but –
Touches like moth's wing-
Caresses'-
Whisper soft, like spider-webs, Incy wincy Spid-
And the silk.
Writhing, she was writhing and twisting. Hard to breathe. Hard to think, something to remember. Remember… Who she was.
She was,
She was,
She was burning.
Pressures mounting, thump, thump, thump, sweat, silk, fire, HEAT. Don't stop, don-
The thing about morning is that it wakes you up from sleep. It's annoying like that. Just like alarms, annoying little devils them. Mrs. Thornton had once banned alarms from the house, relying instead on her superior internal clock. Jenny arrived to school in time for lunch during that week, until a strongly worded note home from the principal made Mrs. Thornton realise that perhaps, just perhaps, her brandy night-caps were affecting her time-keeping abilities. It was a tossup at that time between no brandy, or no alarms, which is why at 7.05 am, on Tuesday morning, an alarm was brightly singing.
Beep-beep-beep.
Beep-beep-beep.
Beep-beep-beep.
Beep-beep-be-.
It was not going to be a good day. There were a number of factors supporting this statement. Blood-shot eyes. Throbbing head-ache. Pulling a jumper on her feet instead of tights…and the fact that her body was still flushed and strung tighter than a Stradivarius.
Sigh.
But even life as a violin would be preferable. What she wouldn't give to be played like a violin…strummed like a guitar…fiddled like a fiddle….plucked like a -
Gosh darn it, snap out of it Thornton.
Mentally slapping herself, Jenny finally pulled her jumper on in its correct position over her head, and proceeded to the kitchen. Her jumper was red and didn't match her pink nails, but she just didn't care. That's how bad she was feeling. Life was losing all meaning. So much so, that important things were getting lost in the maelstrom that was her lust-riddled mind. And it was utterly preposterous, but oh, that dream…it left her mouth dry; made her skin pulse and her nerves tingle. And there was that faint something about it…sharpness…a sort of blurry- sharpness. Vivid, but hazy. Like it was something she knew - a memory. Pre-recognition - either that or Jenny was spending far too much time with a certain flame-haired harlot.
Still. It was educational at least…
The rest of the Thornton's were eating breakfast in the kitchen when Jenny trudged in. Flipping Sheridan the bird and patting Joey on the head, Jenny bee-lined towards the coffee-machine. Espresso with a double-shot of espresso? Just what the doctor ordered. Her mother was standing at the counter next to the machine, sipping from a large floral patterned mug.
Curious, Jenny thought, there was no steam rising from the coffee…
Mrs. Thornton smiled widely and winked.
Jenny quirked her eyebrow and Sheridan shot her a pointed look from across the room. "Ah" Jenny thought.
Time enough to deal with that later though. Instead she poured coffee into her pink polka dot travel mug, stared at the clock, then sighed miserably at her red jumper. Even her travel-cup was clashing… And people said the life of a teenager was hassle-free.
Rolling her eyes to heaven and asking for strength, Jenny took a large gulp of the scalding liquid. She was in the process of swallowing when her father spoke.
"Everything all right Jenny? You look a little…frustrated?"
She nearly spewed her coffee all over the counter.
Sheridan guffawed loudly in the corner, winking suggestively at Jenny as she tried to compose herself.
She flipped him off again and eyed her father speculatively. He was peering at her over the International Times, all side-parted hair and neatly-trimmed beard.
Well Dad, Jenny thought, I've been trying to fool around with my boyfriend for the past while. Ya Tom, you know, the all American reject, and trying seems to be the operative word here, because he has the sexual ability of Hugh Hefner without Viagra. Shocking I know. To make matters worse I've been dreaming of smutting it out with some faceless stranger, who had me bound up and helpless last night – what can I say, my subconscious likes it kinky- and it was totally smoking hot, only I woke up before we reached…the crescendo so to speak, so I am totally and utterly sexually frustrated – but that's all, nothing to worry about daddy-darling. Hey wanna have Tommy over for dinner?!
Instead Jenny smiled, sipped her coffee and said, "Womanly troubles daddy, you know."
"Ah" Mr. Thornton said, blanching and disappearing behind the paper.
Smirking, Jenny gathered her book bag and bade a fond (and totally contrived) farewell to her family. She passed the living room on her way out, eyed the brandy-cabinet, weighed up the pros and cons of a few drops in her coffee, then sighing melodramatically made her alcohol-free way to school.
She was 100% certain she was going to regret it.
The drive to school was uneventful. She may, just possibly, have reversed into her mother's potted begonias on the way out… But hey, at least it wasn't a person right!
Unlike that last time…
All was quiet over at the new neighbours too, which meant that: A) they were not morning people, or B) they were vampires. Jenny went with option B. It just seemed more plausible.
She was depositing books in her locker when the over-powering scent of Chanel No. 5 nearly rendered her unconscious.
"Holy mother of kittens Audrey, did you empty an entire bottle on yourself?" she said, slamming the locker shut and covering her nose with her arm.
"Whatever Jenny, just cause y-"
There was a pause; a very long and pregnant pause. …..
"What?" Jenny said finally.
"Your jumper is red", Audrey stated, and Jenny sighed, knowing where this was going.
"Yes, and?"
There was a slight edge to the end of her voice that would have made normal people run in terror. It was unsurprising therefore, when Audrey continued regardless.
"And your nails are pink. What did you get dressed in the dark?"
"Shut-up Audrey, besides, why are you masquerading a belt as a skirt?"
"Darling this is au courant. No need to disrespect just because you dress like a tree-hugging hippie."
"Did you just say "disrespect"?"
"Yes…"
"Hang out with Mike again last night did you?"
"Fo shizzle."
"Uh huh…"
Jenny's head pounded. Out of all of her friends, Mike was definitely…special, which in itself was saying something. He liked re-inventing himself. His parents had divorced when he was young, and a childhood of trampy mothers and missing dad's all played a part in raising the fine, happy-go-lucky man that Michael had become. Just because he currently believed he had ghetto roots did not mean he had any issues. None what so ever. Although his recent habit of saying "dawg" after every sentence was beginning to grate a little….
Jenny's head pounded again, painfully.
"Anyway", Audrey continued, "Before you blinded me with that heinous excuse for clothing, I came to ask you if you'd heard the exciting news!?"
"Yes" Jenny sighed, "I have, they're my new neighbours after all."
Audrey blinked. "You have new neighbours?"
"Who has new neighbours?" Summer asked, bouncing up before Jenny could reply.
"Jenny does, apparently"
"Oh", Summer replied.
"Yes" Jenny said, "It's very exciting."
"erm…"
"Well, I mean, they're vampires."
There was an awkward silence and Jenny's head pounded- again. "Ok whatever, and if it wasn't my new neighbours, what was your news?!" she scowled at Audrey.
"Oh, we have a new student! And apparently he's like totally fly dawg! Like way hot!!! According to Susie Byerson he's a male model from New York. His parents have just transferred to Los Angeles."
"Hmmm" Jenny said non-commitedly, as they made their way to homeroom. Hot was good and all, but there was something about male-models… they were just…conniving…or something. Like all their looks and muscle-y pecs was hiding something. Something secret. She didn't trust them one bit.
"Aren't male models like dumb?!" Summer giggled, twirling her hair around her fingers.
"Well then you should get along great with him Summer" Audrey joked, and Jenny hid her smirk.
Summer Parker Pearson was blonde, blue-eyed and had developed her, err…assets when she was eleven years old. It was widely known that Summer's favourite colour was pink, that she liked ponies, and thought that Shakespeare was like a really good rapper, or whatever.
It was also a total lie.
Summer was in fact a child-genius, boasting a 4.0 GPA, having passed college-level classes and was currently studying advanced chemistry after school on Tuesdays. She was also captain of the cheer-leading team. Go figure.
"I guess!" Summer giggled, fluttering her eyelashes innocently, "Ohmygosh-I-totally-heard-this-like-way-awesome-song-this-morning! It's like, erm, ya, You're my hunny-bunch, sugar-plum, plumpy-umpy up-kins, you're my sweetie-pieee."
The singing continued down the hall, alternating with Summer skipping, twirling and asking if she had lipstick on her teeth. They passed Tom's locker too, and Jenny's head thumped even harder than before.
Why couldn't things just ever be simple?
Jenny had a very productive morning. She couldn't tell you what classes she was in, or what was being taught, but she could tell you how she was going to overcome the Tommy problem. She had come up with a plan.
A genius plan.
A stroke of brilliance, if you will. It was going to fix Tom, and all his, well, problems, there-by fixing all of her problems (the hormone fuelled ones anyway). It was called "The mis-education of Thomas Yorke, to make better sexing for Jenny", otherwise known as "The Plan." It was deliciously wicked, thoroughly corrupt and had Jenny's already raging libido worked up into quite the frenzy.
This resulted in an even more frustrated Jenny walking into the cafeteria for lunch.
Tom, Audrey, Mike, Dee and her cousin Zach, were already seated at their table when Jenny made it over with her lunch tray. Setting her mac-n-cheese and green apple on the table, she sat next to Tom and gave him an exaggerated kiss as a hello.
"S'up Thorns", he said warily, which was understandable seeing as she'd kicked him from her room last night.
But bygones and all. And besides, she could afford to be nice now. Now that she had "The Plan." She snuggled into his side, took a massive spoonful of her lunch, and gave him another cheesy kiss.
"Nothing much!" she said cheerily, "same old, same old!"
Nahahah , her inner-Tramp said, Nothing but my nefarious plan to steal you from your virtue. Nahahahhaa.
Shut-up, Jenny's inner - Priss said. We are not stealing his virtue; we're merely broadening his horizons.
Whatever you say sweet-cheeks, but an onions an onion, no matter which way you look at it.
Oh please, the day I take lessons in reality from you, is the day I let Jenny decide that pink is a good hair colour. Now I'm eating, go away.
Sure, sure, I'll leave; I've got more important things to do than watch you salivate over cheese. Like replaying that dream from last night…
Shut-up, Priss squealed, We can't think of that now! Bad things will happen!
Oh baby, Tramp moaned, remember the heat? And there was oil too, you betcha, rubbed all over your-
Not listening, not listening, not listening, na na na na, singing the national anthem now, "Oohh say can you see..."
A high pitched giggle broke Jenny from her inner monologue. Summer was meandering her way to their table, leading someone behind her. She stopped with a bounce and a flip of curly hair.
"Hey guys!" she said, "I know I'm late for lunch, but oh-my-gosh-the-most-amazing-thing-happened!"
"Ya?" Dee said one eyebrow raised.
"Ya, oh-my-gosh. So, I like ran into the new guy, you know and he was like all alone so I thought why not invite him for lunch, and so I did, and well everyone, let me introduce you to Julian Diaz!" She gestured at the person behind her with a large "ta-da" movement.
Smirking, Jenny looked up, and all at once Tramp was back in action.
Holy schnitzel-sticks Thornton. Holy. Schnitzels. Are you seeing that, are you? Oh lordy, lordy, lordy. Need. Them. Hands. On. Me. Now. Move Thornton, move now. Jump, launch yourself. Lick his God-damned neck. Someone get a fan over here stat, it's bout to get steammmy. Oh Lordy, lordy lordy, I'm bout to have me a heart-attack. Call 911!
Tramp died and went to heaven when Julian spoke.
"Hi", he said, lifting a hand to the group.
There was a moment in which Jenny blanked, and before she knew it, her right hand was in Julian's shaking it vigorously up and down. Jenny looked at their hands, at the table, and back at their hands.
Tramp was running in circles up in heaven, Ok now Thornton, 1, 2, 3, put that hand on your ass!!!
Jenny immediately sent Priss to gag her, and clearing her throat, offered Julian a shaky hello. "Welcome…to the table…and erm, L.A. and lunch, yes welcome to lunch!" and gosh darn it she really needed to stop talking now.
Stop shaking his hand too! Priss screamed.
"So ya" she said, finally dropping his head and flopping into her chair. Her legs felt like jelly.
Dear god what was wrong with her?
Smiling bemusedly, Julian sank into the chair opposite her. So graceful, Jenny thought sighing.
The rest of lunch passed in a blur of randy thoughts and stern talking too's. There was some unabashed ogling too, and it was bad because Tom was right beside her. Had his arm around her shoulder, but dear God Julian bought a whole new meaning to the words Four Alarm Chilli. And mamma-mia, make her up a taco full of that and she'd happily abstain from meat for the rest of her life. He was just….wow. All chiselled jaws and full, plump lips and aquiline nose. And that hair…oh that hair. Ice-white and silky. It was sex hair. It was sinful hair. Bad hair.
Jenny wanted to spank it.
But it was the eyes that really got her. Made her want to melt into goo and drip all over the floor.
Blue.
Electric, sparkling, deviant blue.
Like the sky at dawn, or the sea on a summers day.
Blue.
Endless, torturous, heart-stopping blue.
And all the chemicals in her body were screaming at once: this is it, this is it. This is what you have been waiting for. Go too, go too! And reality was beginning to get blurred, and all Jenny could see was her wrapped around him, under him, over him and -
It wasn't until the apple spun across the table, that Jenny realised she had been spinning it in her hands for most of the lunch. Julian stopped it with the pad of his thumb.
"Sorry" Jenny said sheepishly.
"No problem" Julian replied, "You going to eat it?"
I'd eat you, Jenny thought, stopping herself in time to say "No" out loud.
"You mind?" he said lifting the apple and pointing at himself.
"Not at all," Jenny replied.
Smiling he lifted the apple to hit mouth and bit.
Time stopped.
All Jenny could see was his hands, his lips and her apple. Everything else disappeared, faded into the background. There was just Julian and her apple, and her eyes on his mouth. She watched how his teeth ripped into the skin, and dug into the flesh. Watched his lips wrap around the skin, soft and plump, and pull. Watched the juice as it trailed across his lips, grazing his teeth and dripping on to his tongue. Drop, by drop, by drop. One escaped, curving around his bottom lip and rushing to meet his chin. His tongue slipped out to lap it up, and Jenny gasped out loud. Time rushed back in and Jenny's eyes flew from his mouth to his eyes. He was watching her with a knowing look on his face, blue eyes flashing, and Jenny was lost.
She was – she didn't- cafeteria – but she was drowning in the blue, and she couldn't think, and she needed to escape. Land – she needed land –
Tom shook her, and stifling a shriek, Jenny whirled and looked into his eyes, his hazel eyes. Green flecked with warm brown, just like the earth. Like land, her anchor. Shaking herself, Jenny focused on Tom for the rest of lunch, and ran to her class as soon as the bell rang.
She knew she should have taken that brandy.
Jenny wondered what was wrong with her for the rest of the day. It wasn't until later that evening, after dinner with the family, the Jenny realised what it was: Frustration, pure and simple. All this dreaming and yearning for weeks on end had frazzled her nerves. Made her go slightly cuckoo, and fantasise about whatever hot piece of ass was closest. It was therefore, even more imperative now that "The Plan" get set into motion. After all, it was for Tom's benefit anyway.
Well, mostly.
After long discussions on the phone with Dee, Summer and Audrey, Jenny had a guide-line for enacting the plan, starting from lunchtime tomorrow. Within one week, she'd have a new and improved Tom and they'd be back on track as being the most shit-awesomely hot couple ever. Forget Julian and his deviant apple-foreplay, it was just her and Tom. Forever and ever, Amen,
Having missed out on sunset during her evil-plotting, Jenny focused on getting some study in. She had just finished her homework when her mother knocked on her door.
"Jenny darling, just going to drop some pie over to the neighbours, a welcome to the neighbourhood present, from us."
Jenny quirked her eyebrows, it was more of a lets-suss-out-the-neighbours-and-be-the-first-with-gossip type present.
"Why don't you come over with me?!"
Jenny shrugged her shoulders and went. Like mother like daughter, after all. And besides, she could scope out whether they were vampires or not.
Wrapping the pie in aluminium foil, Jenny and Mrs. Thornton made their way across the street. Light was flooding out of the living room window, the faint sound of guns firing echoing on the porch. Whoever was watching TV liked it loud! Jenny pressed the door-bell and waited. The noise from the TV lowered and presently the door was answered.
"Hellooo!" Mrs. Thornton trilled. "We're you're neighbours, and we just wanted to pop over and say a big welcome! We bought some pie!"
"Thanks, why don't you come on in? My parents are just in the kitchen."
Mrs. Thornton was over the threshold in a second, walking purposely towards the kitchen. "Helloooo" she trilled again, as she disappeared inside.
Jenny stood frozen at the door, her "welcome" stuck in her throat. Julian was standing in the door, wearing low slung jeans, and a wife-beater.
Tramp chose that moment to break-out from her gag, and started running rampant. Priss was knocked out cold in the corner.
Oh lordy, lordy, lordy!!! Tramp squealed.
Oh. Smuck.
A/N: Hee!...so yeah, anyone for green apples?!
Lol, so no really I must apologise, just life has a tendancy to escalate at a moments notice and all you can do is hitch a chariot and enjoy the ride you know! But hey look it's a long-ish chapter right!? So, it's a bit of a mea culpa!!!
In the meantime, I will be working on another me and Juju out-take!
Also, please review! It makes my writing seem like it's not a waste of time!! so please, even if its just to say hi! review, review, review.....!
P.S. this may go up to an M rating from the next chapter, not due to any planned explicit events, but just so I dont offend any delicate sensibilities!
XX mes amigos!