Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SHIFTING INTO REVERSE

Jackie pushed open the basement's back door but let Donna go ahead of her. Jackie needed to assess the situation before she stepped inside. Coming here was like playing chess. Her strategy depended on what pieces were on the board and where they were positioned, information she'd get only through observation.

Fez's voice reached her first: "—to earn some money. I brought my résumé to a few places, but the DMV is the only one that called me. I have an interview there on Monday."

"All right," Eric said. "Good luck, man."

Cartoonish sound effects punctuated their mundane conversation, followed by Michael's chuckles. Scooby-Doo or The Flintstones had to be playing on the TV, and Jackie kept a grip on the basement door. Only a few weeks had passed since she'd come here, but it felt like a year.

"Forman, chair." The order came from Steven, and it lured her from the door. Eric was on his feet. He darted from the couch to the laundry area and brought back a folding chair. Steven nodded to the space between his own chair and the couch.

"What's going on?" Donna said.

Eric opened the chair. "Just making a place for one of our friends." He looked at Jackie as he patted the chair's metal seat. "You're always welcome here, Jackie. Always welcome."

He sounded like a blithering numbskull, and his change in attitude was suspect. She glanced at Steven for an explanation. His fingers were laced over his stomach. His sunglasses hid his eyes, but he tilted his head toward the folding chair.

"Fez," she said, "why don't you take that chair?" It was much closer to Michael than the lawn chair, Fez's usual spot. Michael had squashed himself into the couch's corner. If she sat between him and Steven, it would be like putting her king in check, an illegal move in chess.

"It's okay, baby," Michael said and rubbed the top of his thighs. "You've always got a seat right here."

"Thank you, Kelso." Fez moved toward the couch. "This is a true sign of friendship—"

Michael thrust out his hand and kept Fez from sitting on him. "I meant Jackie."

"I see." Fez backed up and sat on the lawn chair again.

Jackie stayed by him, but her skin heated up as Michael stared at her. "I knew you'd couldn't resist me once I became homecoming king," he said, and she forced her fingers not to close into fists. "I thought it was impossible, but I'm even hotter now."

"I'm not here for you," she said and strode to the folding chair. She picked it up and slammed it next to Fez. "I'm here for Donna and Fez."

"For me?" Fez laid his hands over his heart. "Does this mean I have seat on your lap?"

"No." She sat hard on the chair. It could've used a cushion, but at least she'd claimed a place for herself in the basement.

Michael, though, vacated the couch as Donna and Eric took up space on it and snuggled. The sight was revolting. A make-out couldn't be far behind, and Jackie concentrated on the TV. The Flintstones was on. She'd guessed right, but Michael walked up to her and blocked her view.

"I have got a fantastic idea," he said, standing too close. His crotch was inches from her eyes. "You used to be the girlfriend I cheated on, right? But how about you try being the other woman? How hot would that be? No obligations, and you'd totally be sticking it to Valerie while I stuck it to you. It's win-win!"

"Kelso!" Donna said, but Jackie smashed her feet into Michael's shins. He yelped and doubled over. His head grazed her knee, and she jumped out of the folding chair.

"I have a boyfriend!" she said.

"Well, you shouldn't!" He was rubbing his shins, and she smacked the back of his skull. He cried out in pain, but he'd earned it. His suggestion was more than disrespectful. It was demeaning. Donna, Eric, Fez—Steven—they'd all heard it, and her flushed skin tightened around her bones.

"You're a selfish pig, Michael. Mark has given me more than you ever have."

"Oh, yeah?" He straightened up. Blood had rushed into his face, reddening his cheeks and forehead. "Like what?"

"Like head."

He shrieked and thrust his finger at her. "That is a lie! Tell everyone that's a lie, Jackie!"

"Okay, the truth is..." she looked at Fez, Donna, Eric, and Steven in turn, "Michael. Never. Gave. Me. Head."

Michael shrieked again, and Eric groaned in disgust. Donna was silent, but Steven laughed the kind of laughter that made his voice hoarse and bounced his stomach.

"What is head?" Fez said.

"For guys, it's a blow job," Steven said between laughs, "but for ladies it means sucking on their love bud—"

Eric clasped his hand together as if in prayer. "No more. Please. I beg of you."

But Jackie stepped closer to Michael. "Did you ever go down on Laurie or Pam Macy?" She poked his lips. "What about Valerie? Have you gone down on her yet?"

"Jackie, quit it!" He grasped her fingers and shoved them from his face. "Why would I ever put my mouth where a chick's pee comes out?"

"Oh, God—" Eric said. He snatched a throw pillow from the couch. "Donna, if you love me, you'll kill me. Suffocate me right now."

Jackie reached for Michael's lips again, this time to twist them, but he evaded her grasp. "You tried to get me to do that to you all the time!" she shouted. "You begged and begged and begged me to."

"That's different! It makes a guy feel good when a girl does that to him. It's also sanitary 'cause a man's anatomy is built for cleanliness." He peered back at Steven, maybe for approval, but Steven sneered at him. "They should've taught you that in health class last year, Jackie," Michael went on. "Licking a girl's pee-hole only makes her sick. I didn't want to give you a bladder infection."

She opened her mouth, intending to ask him if he were serious, but a giggle came out instead. Other giggles followed until she was full-on laughing. Her throat became sore, and tears welded her eyelashes together. She couldn't see as air flowed over her knuckles, but they began to hurt, and her laughter sounded strange.

Pressure hit her stomach. Not painful, but it dragged her backward. She dug her heels into the floor, and her feet lost all traction. They were no longer touching anything, and a new, harder pressure pushed into her stomach.

A door slam broke through her own voice. Her feet landed on the ground as the pressure left her stomach, and warm hands cupped her cheeks. Gentle thumbs glided across her wet lashes.

Her vision finally cleared. Steven was standing in front of her in his room. His hands were the ones cradling her face, and he said, "Have any clue what you were just doing?"

Her fists were white-knuckled balls. "I was laughing."

"For a second." He let go of her face and offered her a wad of tissues. "You started wailing on Kelso. Probably gave him a black eye."

"I did? I don't—" She leaned back against his door without taking the tissues. "Everything went dark."

"That's what happens when a person goes beyond pissed. Been there. Needed someone to haul my ass out of that sitch, so..."

He'd done the same for her.

She pressed her fist to her lips, and the memory of her screams shot through her like a comet, icy and hard to hold onto. She'd been out of control. Steven had picked her up and brought her into his room.

"Michael's crazy!" she said and accepted the tissues Steven had offered again. "I should've run when he blamed me for his infidelity! But what did I do? I accepted his point of view about my kiss with Todd. I—"

Steven turned on his stereo. A frenetic guitar riff blasted from his speakers, accompanied by a drum beat loud enough to vibrate Jackie's ribcage.

"Now you can yell all ya want!" he shouted over the music. "The Ramones'll keep anyone out there from hearing it."

"Am I yelling?" she said.

"Little bit."

"Well, sorry!" She blotted her cheeks with the tissues and wiped her nose. "I'm just sick of him! Acting like I'm so desperate that I'd be his mistress." The tissues crumpled in her grip. They started to break apart, and white dust flew into the air. "I don't want to be tied to him the rest of my life, Steven, or anyone like him. But no one seems to care how I feel!"

Steven was sitting on his dresser. His boot-covered feet rested on his cot, tangled in his knit blanket. "Jackie," he said after a deep breath and pulled off his sunglasses, "why the hell do you think I hauled you in here?"

"To protect Michael."

He hooked his sunglasses on his shirt collar and pushed his palms into his eyes. "Right."

She swallowed when he removed his hands from his face. His hair was too long. His curls were losing their shape, clinging to one another and becoming wavy chunks, and his beard needed a trim. But her body still responded to him. The adrenaline in her blood, generated to fight Michael, had found a new focus.

"What you did for Julie," she said, "what you didn't finish … finish it with me."

He grasped the edge of the dresser. "Crap. You're havin' a psychotic break."

"I am not!" She made sure the door was locked and moved away from it. Her heart pumped wildly, warning her to leave, pleading with her stay, and she pressed her shins against the frame of his cot. "You look like an overgrown Bergamasco, but—"

"An overgrown what?"

"Bergamasco. It's a sheepdog. Anyway, I know how soft your lips are..." She glanced down at his pillow as blood rushed into her neck. "And Julie wasn't shy about how skilled your tongue is, so I thought maybe..."

She looked at him again, but he didn't move from the dresser. He wasn't outwardly reacting at all, but she'd tossed aside her pride. Asking for this favor wasn't just about her body. It had taken humility and trust. She'd been utterly degraded by Michael, and she needed to feel the opposite. To be respected. Valued. Cherished. Surely he understood that.

Unless he was waiting to hear what he'd get in return.

Her mouth dried out. She had nothing to offer but gratitude, but he'd gone to jail for her. Going down on her couldn't possibly be worse.

Hyde trapped his tongue behind his teeth. His mouth had grown moist, and he was getting hard. The record he'd put on would work as well for pleasure as it did rage. The Ramones' Rocket to Russia was loud enough to distract the scary kids outside. They'd have no chance of hearing whatever noises he and Jackie unleashed.

His body urged him to go for it, but her request was too early. It was a killer. Before it came out of her mouth, he'd planned on admitting the truth, that he more than cared about her. Ironic, considering Rocket to Russia had reached the song "I Don't Care".

She stood in front of him and cupped his knees. He stayed on the dresser but clasped his hands over his lap. Spotting his erection would give her an unfair advantage, but her touch strengthened it, and the throb reached his brain.

"Remember when we went to the mall," she said, "and I bought you those?" She indicated the boots on his feet. "You told me then if you didn't know me and you'd never talked to me, you'd think I was hot."

Her fingers drummed on his knees. The sensation vibrated into his blood, and he licked his lips.

"But you do know me, Steven, a lot better than you used to. You've talked to me a lot more, too, enough to consider us friends … which means maybe you think I'm hot now."

She smiled, and he cursed his life. Her makeup was smudged from tears, but she had him by the balls. No girl had been hotter. Or more exasperating.

"Maybe," she said, "you even think I'm hot enough to go down on me."

"You don't want me to do that," he said. "You're just pissed at Kelso." It was the only explanation that made sense, and he slid off the dresser to the cot. The mattress sank a little under his weight, but Jackie's hands were off him.

"Yes, I'm mad at him, but that's not why I..." She sat beside him and leaned her head on his shoulder.

Despite his instinct to shrug her off, he didn't. If this were a show of trust on her part, not an attempt to seduce him, he'd only screw things between them more. "Why me?" he said. "Why now? Why that?"

"I don't know what it feels like." She sounded defeated. It was consistent. It matched her demeanor in the backyard earlier. "I've kissed six boys in my life but had sex with only one, and I want—need to know it can be better."

"And you're choosing me to prove that to you?"

"I don't expect you to be my boyfriend afterward. I just need you to give me a beautiful memory, a hope I can hold onto."

His temples hurt from clenching his jaw. She hadn't answered his question. "You felt nothing when I kissed you here," he said and pointed to her lips. "What makes you think you'll enjoy me kissing you somewhere else?"

"I felt something. … I was just numb to it."

"What's the difference?" he said, but no details followed. He leaned his aching temple against the top of her head. Her hair was soft against his skin and smelled like its usual apricot. "Come on, man. You don't want me to go down on ya. You want the next guy you're gaga over to do that."

She sat up straight, and his shoulder grew cold without her presence. "So you're saying no."

"I'm sayin' that even if we're not friends—even if we're not anything—I'm yours, all right? And I can't go down on you since you're not mine. Too much of a mind-fuck."

"So if I agree to be friends with you, you'd be okay with doing that to me?"

He got off the cot and kept his back to her. She didn't get it. Didn't get him. "I'm not going down on you, Jackie."

"But you can do it to Julie? To Kat Peterson? To, I don't know, any girl who isn't me?"

"Any girl who's not trying to use me for more than sex, yeah."

"What are you talking about?"

He propped his foot on the Formans' old ottoman. "Kelso," he said. "What the fuck else?" He plucked his shades from his collar and brought them toward his face, but hiding his eyes wouldn't do crap. The strain in his voice was obvious. The tension in his muscles had to be, too. His hard-on was gone, replaced by a rigidity that infected his whole body.

He tossed the shades onto the armchair and turned around. Jackie was standing, and she stepped into his personal space. "Michael has nothing to do with this," she said. "I already told you that."

"Like he had nothing to do with you buyin' me these boots?" He gestured to his feet, and her gaze flicked toward them. "Or us ending up on the hood of your car? How about you coming by the basement every day this summer?"

"Steven—"

"Every damn thing you've tried to get from me has to do with him. Either to make you feel better from his bullshit or to pay him back for it."

"That's not true!"

Unshed tears rimmed her eyes, but he crossed his arms over his chest. He couldn't shift into reverse. His road was clear, whether she cried or not.

"If Kelso wasn't part of your deal—of every deal you've ever made with me—you'd be on my cot, legs spread open, and squirming with how good you felt. 'Cause I'd enjoy that." He jutted his chin at his dresser. "Top-left drawer. Open it."

She stared at him, unmoving.

"Go ahead," he said. "I'm declassifying the Jackie files, so open it."

She did as he said, and her chest rose and fell with fast, shallow breaths. She swiped the shooting star pendant from his drawer. It dangled in her grip, and her posture worsened until she resembled a dying flower. "Why?"

"I was cool with waiting for you. With hurting for a while. Even with letting you go." His arms uncrossed and dropped to his sides. "I'm not cool with you using me as a weapon to make Kelso wait. To make him hurt. To make him let you go. Getting it now?"

"I..." She bolted to the door but grappled with the knob. The door was locked, thanks to her. "Are you a cheater?" she said and unlocked the door. "My mom's been cheating on my dad, and who knows? He could be having affairs, too. Would you be faithful to a girlfriend? Not those girls you sleep with for a week. An actual girlfriend."

His neck muscles grew tenser, making his head pound. "My dad cheated on my ma and split on us. What do you think?"

"Michael and Valerie made out in front of me this Friday, and I cheered during it." She clutched the door knob but stayed put. "It was the homecoming pep rally. I had to do my job, but I almost shouted, 'Get off my boyfriend!' and shoved my pom-poms down their throats."

"See, that's exactly the kind of crap I'm trying to avoid."

She held the shooting star pendant out to him. "You're right. I might always have some kind of feelings for him. It's horrible, and if I can barely handle it, how can I expect you to?" She shook the pendant. "Take it."

"I don't—"

"You have to take it! Because I won't be able to leave it here. I'm having enough trouble leaving you. Because no matter how I feel about Michael, you're the only person I want to be with."

The stiffness in his neck infected his back. "Would ya call it what it fuckin' is already?" He surged forward, ignoring the physical pain it caused, and snatched the pendant from her. "I'm your Goddamn safety line."

She fell silent but remained in his room. She didn't speak again until dozens of conflicting thoughts careened through his skull. "Maybe I did use you," she said over Tommy Ramone's drums. "To go to the prom. To feel better after Michael cheated on me. And the first time we went bowling together, I used our friendship to soothe my broken heart and looked at you … selfishly."

Hyde squeezed the pendant's chain until the links dug into his skin. She'd admitted what he'd thought was true since their first kiss. He hadn't been imagining it. "And today?"

"Yes, even today! And now I've hurt you the way I've been hurting..." She blotted her eyes with her wrist. They'd grown wet, and her voice was shaking. "I didn't mean to. I didn't realize I'd done it until a a minute ago. And you deserve so much better than that, but it's not the whole story."

Tears ran into her mouth. She swallowed them, but her gaze stayed on him. "It's not," she said, "but if that's all you're willing to believe, if my history with Michael stains the way you see me, then what can I do? You'll keep using him as an excuse to push me away. I'm ruined for you."

She finally opened the door. A hiss accompanied her leaving, as if all the air in his room was escaping with her, and he kicked the door shut.

The hiss continued, but it was coming from his stereo speakers. Side A of Rocket to Russia had finished, and he flipped the record over. The drums of "Teenage Lobotomy" thumped against his walls while Joey Ramone shouted about what Hyde needed to get. Because loving Jackie had wrecked his brain.