Music Lover's Alert: If you like to listen to music while you read, I recommend "Pressure" by Paramore for the first part and "Hello Dolly" from the movie for later in the chapter.

Chapter 17 Breaking Barriers

Joan arrived back at Rakitan Industries so late that almost everyone else had gone to sleep. However, she still encountered a few people creeping through the hallways. Instead of simply exchanging greetings with her or nodding politely and going on their way, they made up unnecessary excuses for why they were out of bed. However, after what Trevor had told her, Joan knew better. She wanted to tell them that she knew and understood, but they were all too jittery and eager to get back to their own beds. Therefore, Joan just nodded at them and let them go.

By the time Joan got back to her room, she was grinning from ear to ear at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. Why hadn't she just listened to Sean all along? What had started off as a dignified and moral society had degenerated into one where people snuck around behind each other's backs. It was all because of one simple rule: no romantic relationships, no exceptions. Now, people were keeping so many secrets from each other that Joan could not even begin to guess who was partnered with whom. The possibilities spun through her head as she drifted off to sleep, too preoccupied with her thoughts to realize that she was still wearing her clothes.

…

The next day, Joan woke to a knock on her door. The voice of her best friend Tam reached her ears, but she could not tell what she was saying. Joan looked up at her alarm clock bleary-eyed and saw that it was already afternoon.

"Joan? Are you OK in there?" Tam's words finally registered in her mind.

"Yeah… come in," Joan replied at last.

Tam entered the room to find Joan still under the blankets in bed and stood in the middle of the room awkwardly trying to decide how to react. "You missed the meeting… Sean told me afterwards to go find you. Everyone is worried sick about you."

Joan let out a long yawn and stretched happily, then sat upright. She gestured for Tam to sit beside her and Tam took the offer.

"So… you had a good night, I take it?" Tam inquired hesitantly.

"How did you know?"

"Um… no reason."

Joan grinned broadly and stretched some more. "I met a man yesterday."

Tam stared silently back at her friend. The secrets she had kept from Joan burned in the pit of her stomach.

"He taught me how to love again," Joan continued.

"And you let him?" Tam asked curiously.

"Yes, but it's not just him. I keep thinking about Sean and Trevor, too."

Tam went rigid. Those are the guys I love, she thought, is Joan trying to get me to fess up or something?

Joan continued speaking despite Tam's silence. "It's strange; I've been suppressing my feelings for so long that I had to go out and fool around with a priest. I could just make a habit of driving out there to see him every so often and never tell anybody, but then that would make things worse. I'd be keeping everything bottled up inside. Do you get what I'm saying?"

Tam nodded slowly. Of course I understand. You have no idea!

"And then one day, what if I lose it again? What if I can't contain myself anymore and do something really stupid?"

"Like what?"

"What if I wind up in Sean's bed one of these days?"

"So what if you do?" Tam said it more like a challenge than a question, "He always wanted you there anyway."

"But I thought that… I don't know what I thought anymore. Everything seems like it happened so long ago now."

Tam's gaze toward her friend softened.

-flashback-

Sean turned to the eighteen year-old girls and offered them hugs as well. "Hi Joan! Hi Tamara! I'm so glad to finally meet you!"

"Just call me Tam," the girl in black said, smiling broadly and giving him a flirtatious look with her amber eyes. "So, any chance you want to catch a movie with me after this, handsome?"

Joan elbowed Tam in the ribs. "Hey! That's my pen-pal you're talking to."

"Yeah, but I saw him first, remember? You wouldn't even look at his picture until I told you how cute he was." Tam countered.

Sean swiftly moved in-between the girls to separate them and put an arm around each girl's shoulder. "Ladies, please! There's plenty of me to go around."

Tam and Joan glared at him suspiciously. "All guys say that," Joan said.

-end flashback-

"He wasn't kidding, you know," Tam said.

"I know that now. It took me a while to get it, but now… do you think everyone else will understand?"

"If they don't, everything we have built here will split apart at the seams. You stuck all of us in a pressure cooker and walked away from the stove."

Joan groaned and put her face in her hands.

"I'm sorry, but that's just the basic fact of the matter. You can't go back and change things. The only way out it forward."

"You're right. Let's do this." Joan stood up and Tam stood with her. Joan still wore the wrinkled jeans and T-shirt that she had worn the previously day, but it simply did not matter anymore. Every moment her people remained under the oppression of the rule she had set for them increased the likelihood that they would explode.

Joan and Tam walked into the huge dining hall where everyone was seated for lunch. Everyone was chatting and cracking jokes, but still there was something about the way they all held their bodies that seemed unnatural. Joan stood before all the residents of Rakitan Industries and waited silently.

Trevor noticed her presence first. He stopped talking mid-sentence and turned to stare at her. His conversation partner also turned his attention toward Joan. One-by-one, everyone else in the room stopped what they were doing to look at their disheveled leader with curiosity.

Joan cleared her throat, and the last of the people who were chattering stopped. "One of the hardest things for a leader to do is to admit she was wrong, yet today that is what I must do. As I am sure many of you are already aware, the rule I have put in place to protect you has done more harm than good. By forbidding you to have relationships, I have forced you to hide feelings you cannot deny. As a result, you have gone behind my back-and each other's backs-to express yourselves."

Practically every single pair of eyes present flitted around the room. Those whose eyes did not flit cast their heads down.

"I don't blame you," Joan continued, "I myself have bowed to the influences of temptation. Therefore, I can no longer expect you all to adhere to the old policy. I hereby release you to love anyone you want to love!"

The others were silent for a moment. It took several seconds for Joan's words to fully register in their minds. However, once they understood the message. They all jumped out of their seats and shouted for joy. Sean tackled Joan and kissed her full on the lips. Tulip was hugged simultaneously by Salt and Pepper while he kissed one, and then the other. Penguin smothered Pretty Pictures with kisses while everyone else grabbed the nearest person they found attractive. Seeing that Sean and Trevor were already occupied, Tam kissed a skinny boy named Grant who looked a little lost. As soon as she let go of him, Grant ran away and squeezed himself between Tulip and Pepper, clinging to the men as if his life depended on it.

Tam laughed to herself, and then turned toward the place where she had last seen Trevor. The pupils of her amber eyes dilated in happiness when she found his emerald eyes staring into hers. Without hesitation, she jumped onto him, throwing her arms around his shoulders and both legs around his hips. Trevor lost his balance and fell backwards onto the floor, but Tam managed to soften the blow for him by extending a hand to reduce the amount of potential energy converted into kinetic energy by the fall. Once they were on the floor, Tam kissed Trevor hungrily as she rocked her hips over his.

Suddenly, Tam felt herself lifted off of Trevor by a pair of incredibly strong, yet lean arms. She knew his touch instantly and felt as if she was flying into his embrace. She twisted around to face him and found her intuition about his identity confirmed. It was Sean! Tam briefly wondered what had happened to Joan, but if felt so good to be with Sean that all of her worries disappeared.

Joan was off getting kissed by every guy who could get his hands on her whether it was a simple thank-you kiss or something more all the while trying to make her way back to Trevor. Trevor waited patiently for a while, but then a pretty brunette from the information team named Clarissa approached him, and he could not resist. He engaged in a sensuous, mind-blowing lip lock with her for several minutes until they both drew back panting. The girl smiled at him happily, and then moved on to steal a kiss from Penguin.

Trevor was still staring at Clarissa when Joan caught up with him. "So, are you feeling better about your sister now?" Joan asked.

Trevor looked around for Pretty Pictures and saw that she was standing a little away from everyone else, just watching. "Yeah, I guess. I think that this wasn't exactly what she had in mind when she wanted people to stop calling her a slut, but now that everything is out in the open, I don't think people will consider it such a dirty word anymore."

"Projection," Tam interjected. She had one arm around Sean's waist, and slipped the other around Trevor.

"Huh?" Joan asked.

"That's why everyone was calling Jessica a slut. Projection is a defense mechanism that people use when they are afraid to admit the truth about themselves. Jessica actually wasn't putting out as much as everyone else, so people started projecting their own insecurities onto her," Tam explained.

"Is that so?" Joan asked as she sidled up to Trevor's other side and put an arm around him.

Sean chucked, and Joan felt the vibrations of his laugh transfer through Tam and Trevor. "I prefer not to stick labels on the behavior of people," he said.

The others nodded silently. "Now that that's settled, let's get back to work. We have some evil corporations to dismantle!" Joan said.

Closing Note: Last week, I uploaded the first chapter of my Peach Girl story. Guess which OCs it stars! Anyway, please review!