THE FIRST TIME

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN - LOVERS IN A DANGEROUS TIME

"These fragile bodies of touch and taste

This vibrant skin, this hair like lace

Spirits open to the thrust of grace

Never a breath you can afford to waste

When you're lovers in a dangerous time"

BRUCE COCKBURN (From the album "Stealing Fire" (1984))

How many times during the course of her life up to that point could Jen say that everything was as it should be? Okay, so that was perhaps blowing it out of proportion, but she figured that this had to be the closest that she'd come to it, and it all came down to one word and one boy, Henry. Ever since Pacey (who was still at home recovering from the cowardly attack on him a week earlier) was attacked, he'd been extra protective of her and to her delight, this meant that they'd been spending time together every day after school, before it came time for him to head home in time for dinner. Something, that his mom insisted on and with her already not being all that crazy about the thought of her son dating an older girl, Jen figured that rocking the boat in that department would be like shooting herself in the foot on purpose. All she could hope was that in time, she would be accepted by her "Mother-in-Law" and until then, she'd simply have to accept that there were some unforeseen things that she had to live with, when it came to dating a freshman.

"What time does the show start tomorrow?" Jack asked her, while she was hanging out down by the beach and enjoying a nice late summer afternoon with him and his sister Andie.

With everything that had been going on in their little family and they'd (understandably) kept so private that even their closest friends were out of the loop, she'd taken in onto herself to invite them to Henry's first "gig". Which in actuality was just an open-mic night down at the community center that they held a handful of times a year, and she'd had to spend hours convincing her far too painfully shy boyfriend to sign up for, but it was still by definition of the word a gig, you couldn't argue with that much!

"Seven o'clock, but Henry probably won't be the first act to take the stage" she answered Jack, although in all fairness, she'd never attended one of those events before, so she had absolutely zero way of knowing how many acts and of what sort of quality, had signed up for it as well.

"You aren't just a little bit afraid of what it can lead to?" Andie asked her, before taking in a whiff of fresh air that made her let out a tiny "Ahh".

"As in?" Jen had to ask her back.

"Look at the history, when it comes to the OG girlfriends after their boyfriends start to become famous. It isn't exactly pretty, is it?" Andie asked her in a serious tone, yet all it did was make Jen let out a small laugh in response.

"It's an open-mic night in front of what can't imagine will be more than fifty people at the most! If he was playing for a full house in Madison Square Garden, I'd have reasons to be worried, but let's at least try to keep it a tiny bit real here!" Jen answered.

"They all had to start somewhere, right?" Jack reasoned.

"And you can't deny that you aren't the only girl in school, who sends longing glances Henry's way on a daily basis!" Andie teasingly brought up perhaps the only issue that Jen had with her relationship with Henry. Still, it was also one that she tried her best to ignore, seeing as it could never be Henry's fault that those girls looked at him like they wanted to rip his clothes off, and do the kind of slightly perverted things to and with him, that they wouldn't in a million years tell their mothers about.

"It's just the old "wanting what you can't have factor" playing its part, nothing else" Jen tried retorting, even if her explanation sounded a little hollow to her own ears, as she was saying it.

"Let's play a game, then. Andie and I will take turns naming a famous musician, who dumped the spouse that they had, when they became famous and you'll name one, where they're still together" Jack suggested.

"I'll start. John Lennon, who left his son and wife for Yoko Ono" Andie began their little game with.

"Madonna. I mean, can you even imagine how many boyfriends that she's gone through over the years, since she became a household name?" Jack continued with, making all three of them share a laugh between them. "Your turn".

As much as Jen tried to, she couldn't come up with a single name off the top of her head, who'd stayed with their high school sweetheart after they became famous. It didn't matter to her though, or so, she tried to convince herself. She certainly wasn't going to turn into one of those horribly possessive girls, who are insecure in themselves that they practically keep their boyfriends under lock and key, and in her opinion exemplified all of the worst qualities that frustrated her immensely about other girls her age!

Emasculation. A word that in essence means to have your masculinity taken away from you, and is usually reserved for the sort of guys, who give up all of their personal rights and bend to just about anyone's will because it's just easier that way, not to mention a word that Dawson never thought that he would associate with himself. Nevertheless, Pacey being ruthlessly attacked in a way that seemed so random to him, leaving his best pal battered and bruised, had him feeling like he was less of a man for not having been able to prevent it. Even if he knew that it was silly of him to think that way, and he probably couldn't have put up much of a fight against someone, who's used to fighting and has long ago been stripped of the fear of getting hurt in a brawl, it still hit a nerve with him and the only way that he knew how to deal with it was to be the best friend to Pacey, that he could be. This included bringing him his homework and most of all, keeping him entertained whenever Joey wasn't around to do it for him.

"Have you heard anything from the police?" he asked the still mostly bedridden Pacey, while they were zoning out in front of the TV in Pacey's mom's living room.

"From what Doug tells me, that Jerome guy has practically sunk into the ground, ever since he decided to use my face as his own personal punching bag!" Pacey dark-humoredly joked, as he switched positions on the couch. With the left side of Pacey's body still being black and blue after he'd landed hard on it, a simple thing like finding a comfortable sitting position was clearly an uphill battle for him, yet another thing that made Dawson feel guilty that he hadn't been there for a friend like Pacey, who selflessly and without thinking about it for a second had been there for him, so many more times than he had count of.

"You don't think that he'll come looking for you?"

"If I never see him again, it'll still be too soon. Anyway, if he tries anything again, I'll be prepared for it this time" Pacey coldly stated, in a way that un-nerved Dawson a little, if nothing else because his friend had always been a peaceful sort of fella, who hadn't even taken part in the usual playground scuffles back when they were kids.

"Haven't you heard the saying "Violence only breeds more violence"? Even if he started it ..."

"Are you saying that it's my fault for sticking up for Nikki to that jerk?" Pacey sharply asked him, in a tone that his normally jovial friend practically had never used, not even after the worst dressing down's that he'd been given by his dad, prior to them slowly having come to a peace arrangement of sorts over the past year or so.

"I'm saying that guys like Jerome comes from a different world than safe little Capeside, where the worst that happens is the occasional domestic disturbance, or a pair of drunks getting into a fight down at one of the bars by the pier. He could have come after you with a gun instead of his fists, have you thought about that for a second? Or how it would have completely destroyed Joey, if the worst had happened?" Dawson asked, in the most diplomatic way that he could, while still making it clear how serious this was. "She loves you, man! Take a second to think about her, before you go off and start acting like the smalltown version of Rambo!"

"You know that the last thing, I would ever want to do is to hurt Joey. I can't just forget about this either, like it never happened" Pacey answered after a handful of seconds to ponder what his reply would be.

"No one is asking you to. Just do me a favor and think about the potential consequences, before you do something that you'll regret later, okay?" Dawson asked of his best buddy, who only answered him with a shrug of the shoulders, making it clear that this wasn't a topic, he wanted to debate any further.

After he'd "handed" Pacey over to a girlfriend, who was more than happy to play nurse for him for the evening ahead, Dawson had headed home in his dad's car that he'd been allowed to borrow, now that he'd gotten his driver's license. With nothing interesting awaiting him there though, seeing as Eve was at home with a bad cold and his parents would both be attending a neighborhood watch meeting that evening (yet another consequence of the recent unpleasant events that had rocked life in their neck of the woods to the core), he took a drive around town to see what was going on and just as much, simply to pass the time. As he'd expected, for the most part the town was its usual quiet self with only a few people being out in the streets and those that were, looking like they were heading home in time for dinner to be served. Even if the rest of the world was changing rapidly in both positive and negative ways, Capeside was still like a time capsule of the past, always stuck a minimum ten years behind the rest of the world, or at least that was how it came off to himself.

It was for this reason kind of a shock to him, when he saw someone, whom it didn't look like belonged in with the rest of scenery, looking like he was breaking into one of the few houses that were for sale in the area. An African American boy, who was wearing a Tupac hoodie.

If there was one class at school that Abby had always hated with a fiery passion, it would be P.E. Partly because she simply wasn't athletically built, and having such a naturally tiny physique also meant that she could get easily get bullied physically by girls, who were two or three years younger than herself, it was just as much that it didn't interest her in the slightest and for that reason, it seemed rather pointless to her to participate. Lately however, this had begun to change and there was really only one reason for it: the sight of Nikki's perfectly shaped behind in those tight spandex shorts, she wore as part of her gym clothing! Not that there was anything wrong with the front part of Nikki, mind you, but as she'd slowly come to embrace her own sexuality over the past year or so, it had also become clear to her which kind of features on a girl turned her on the most, and there was no denying that she was a girl, who definitely appreciated a nice bit of "Junk in the Trunk"! In her new friend's case, it was like if Abby could shape a girl's butt to what in her eyes were the perfect proportions, then Nikki's would be as close to the end result, as it was humanly possible to achieve! Melissa had a nice posterior too, it wasn't that, but if there was one tiny thing that Abby would want to change about her, it would be to give herself a bit more to grab onto, when the pair of girlfriends were having yet another grope-fest of epic proportions!

"It we're going to do this; we can't wait much longer. My mom will be home in half an hour, tops" Melissa gaspingly told her, while they were lying almost naked on Melissa's bed, after what was originally supposed to be an afternoon of them studying together for their chemistry test, had yet again turned into a display of hormonal teenage lust of the most sexual kind!

"Don't you think that she'd be happy to know that you have a girlfriend, who spoils you by handing out wild orgasms to you, like they were cheap candy bars at Halloween?" Abby jokingly asked back, bringing a sweet giggle out of Melissa.

Even if she had the occasional dirty fantasy, where Nikki made an unwelcome appearance, the sweet sound of Melissa's laughter was still the best sound in the world to Abby, and as crazy as it may sound, she actually got more internal satisfaction from bringing her girlfriend to orgasms, that would leave her shivering for several minutes afterwards, than when it was done to herself. In a strange sort of way too, it made her feel proud to know that although, there weren't any other things that she could claim to be a Bonafide master at, keeping the wonderful and in every way amazing girl that she loved sexually satisfied was clearly a specialty of hers!

"I can't even imagine how she would react, if I told her about all of the dirty stuff, we've done to another! What do you think that your mom's reaction would be, if you told her that you love it, when I do this to you?" Melissa seductively asked her, all the while gently caressing a very tender part of Abby's body, that only Abby herself had ever touched with erotic intentions, prior to them having fallen head over heels for each other.

"I have no clue and I couldn't possibly care less! Ooh, that feels so nice!" Abby had to moaningly let out, thanks to Melissa's "Magic Fingers" once again doing a very fine job at what she wanted them to, in that moment.

After their "Private Time" was over (far too soon for both of their likings), it was time for Abby to head back to her new home, where a family dinner with the Potters (minus Joey, who was busy playing nurse to her injured boyfriend) awaited her. Seeing as she got there a little early, she figured that she might as well help out Bodie in the kitchen with what little work was left to be done, while Bessie took on the (not all that hard) job of keeping little Alexander well entertained in the living room.

"Can I ask you something, Bodie?" she asked what was the closest thing that she'd had to a real dad, ever since her biological one had more or less decided to check himself entirely out of her life, in the wake of her parents divorcing.

"Sure. What's up?" Bodie casually answered her, before having a little taste test of how his Bearnaise sauce was progressing and adding a few more leaves of Tarragon to it, that he apparently felt were needed.

"It's just ... you had your share of girlfriends, before you met Bessie, right?"

"Around the same amount as most of my friends had. Why?"

"Did your eyes ever stray towards other girls, when you were with them?" Abby asked, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

"Yeah, but you know what they say: There's nothing wrong with gathering your appetite out on the town, as long as you still eat dinner at home. Don't tell Bessie that I said that, by the way!" Bodie answered her, as they shared a knowing smile.

"I won't, I promise!"

"It didn't mean that I ended up cheating on any of my girlfriends either. Having little physical attractions now and again is just a natural part of growing up, if you ask me. That you're a girl, who prefers the romantic company of other girls, doesn't mean that it won't happen to you too" Bodie assured her, bringing a small smile to her face.

Would it be that easy to get over this physical attraction though, that she had on Nikki? As Abby saw it, only time would eventually tell.

Jen hadn't wanted to, but she'd found herself turning in a girl, who was the perfect example of everything that she didn't want to be, during the day that led up to Henry's first gig: Bordering on neurotic, filled with every thinkable doubt over how she looked and worst of all, jealous as sin whenever she saw any other girl checking out her boyfriend! What hadn't made it better was the conversation that she'd had with the twins the day before, or that she still, after having wrecked her mind with trying to come up with one single example of a girlfriend or boyfriend, who hadn't been left by the wayside after their partner became famous, couldn't come up with an example of it ever happening. It had to have happened at least once, she figured, if nothing else because any other result would have been highly statistically improbable, but the facts staring her in face told her that if this one gig led to more of them and perhaps even an eventual career in the music industry for Henry, then it would also mean the end of the road for them, as far as their blissful new-found relationship went.

"Is it just me or is there a distinct over-representation of freshman girls from our school here tonight?" Andie casually asked her, while they were waiting for the show to start and for the rest of their friends to turn up. An observation that Jen had made too and in her own paranoid mind, those girls were all only there for one reason, that being to salivate over her boyfriend!

"Maybe there's a "Backstreet Boys" cover band performing tonight" Jen tried reasoning, although with the names being displayed on the cheaply made posters, there weren't exactly any of them that screamed "Cheesy Boy-Band Cover Band".

"If there was, then we'd probably have all of the sophomore girls here as well!" Andie quipped, with a hint of truth to it too, no doubt. "Maybe you should just face the fact that you aren't the only girl in town, who thinks that your boyfriend is rather attractive. For the record, I don't, he's far too young to tickle my fancy, but if I'd been fourteen and on the prowl for my first boyfriend ..."

"You would have fallen for him too?"

"With ninety-nine percent certainty! Henry is everything that most fourteen-year-old girls have wet fantasies of finding in their first boyfriend. He's sweet as candy, has the looks of a model and he can sing romantic songs to them, that will make their little legs buckle. You can't deny that it worked on you, can you?" Andie asked, only fueling the flames of Jen's paranoia even more, with every word that came out of her mouth.

Unfortunately for Jen, it would be another hour and a half after the show had begun, before it became time for Henry to take the stage and by then, the venue had filled up with far more people than she'd imagined would want to come to a thing like this, where the quality of the evening's entertainment was bound to be uneven, at best. Most of the acts that they saw weren't half-bad though, she couldn't deny that much and none of them came close to what you could call truly terrible, so there was a bit of pressure on Henry to perform up to his best as well, now that it was his turn.

"Next up, here to play and sing a couple of old Bruce Springsteen songs for you is a tremendous young talent, who's making his stage debut tonight. Please, give a big hand to Henry Parker!" the show's host introduced Henry, who came out onto the stage looking nervous, like she'd rarely seen him be it before. It did look like the applause from the crowd was helping to calm his nerves a little, however.

"Thanks, all of you. This first song is about what it's like to be in love for the first time. Like I am with my girlfriend, Jen Lindley" Henry cutely introduced the song "4th of July, Ashbury Park (Sandy)", a song that he'd sung to herself several times, when it had just been the two of them together in the Capeside High music room and he was singing it just for her.

Dawson's head was filled with thoughts of things that had nothing to do with school, during the school day that followed the evening before, where he'd seen what had to be Jerome, breaking into a house that couldn't have been his. The logical choice of course, would be to go straight to the police, but what evidence did he have that this really was Jerome, for one thing? After all, he hadn't seen the guy in person on the day of the attack, and if he had to be honest, the only reason why he'd come to the conclusion that he had seen him, was thanks to the hoodie that he'd seen the burglar or squatter, or whatever he was, wearing. Even someone like himself, who admittedly knew all that he did about law enforcement from watching TV or movies, was well aware that what little he had of it would be considered flimsy evidence at best, and if he was going to get the police involved, he figured that he needed to be a bit more certain first, before he made his move.

To his luck, Jack had tried going on something similar to a stakeout before (although, he refused to disclose when and where this had been) and so, he could pick his brain for whatever information could be useful to a guy in his own situation.

"I still say that you should let the cops handle it. If that guy is as dangerous as people say he is, there's no telling what he's capable of" Jack reasoned, as they were getting ready to leave school for the rest of the day.

"What if we're wrong about him, and he's a victim of circumstance? Doesn't he deserve the right to explain the reasons behind his actions?" Dawson asked back.

"I guess so. I just don't want to be the guy, who asks him those questions. From what I've heard, he isn't exactly a fan of us white people either, so what makes you think that he'll even want to answer any questions, you might have for him?" Jack asked, bringing up an issue that Dawson hadn't thought about at all.

"I guess, it's just never been an issue around here. Everyone here is so ..."

"White?" Jack finished Dawson's sentence for him.

"I meant to say well-off, but yeah, you're spot-on in that observation" Dawson conceded. Even if there were a few persons of color in Capeside, Bodie being one of them, they were generally seen as a rarity, and it hadn't escaped his eyes how some of the upper-class residents looked down on them, for no other reason than not looking exactly like "the rest" did.

"Look, I know that the only place you've ever lived is here, where racial issues aren't a thing that you're ever been faced with, but there are very real and serious problems with them out in the rest of the world. As much as we don't want to admit it to ourselves, the fact is that how you get treated by the system in this country depends greatly on what the color of your skin is".

"You don't really believe that do you?"

"The L.A. riots happened for a reason and it wasn't only thanks to that handful of police officers, who beat the living crap out of Rodney King, on camera no less, getting off Scott-free" Jack explained, bringing up what at this time was still a very recent bit of U.S. history, that while most of the population would rather forget that it had ever happened, was still a gaping wound in the minds of the untold number of millions, who'd either directly or indirectly been affected by the horrors, that had taken place. "All I'm saying is that Jerome comes from a world that you know close to nothing about, so keep that in mind at all times, okay?"

"I'll try. Am I crazy to even be considering doing this?" Dawson asked, seeing as it had crossed his mind a few times.

"Your heart is in the right place. I just hope for your sake, that Nikki's ex will see it that way too" Jack said to him in closing, before they switched to talking about more pleasant topics, like Henry's upcoming stage debut.

Thusly, he spent his evening waiting by the house that he'd seen Jerome breaking into, in the hope that he would come back, and he could confront him with what he'd done. All that he got out of it was an evening of boredom though, with nothing substantial to show for it.

Abby's most debated thoughts in her head, during the P.E. class that took place the day after, in second period:

"Stop staring at Nikki's butt! It's just a butt, Abby!"

"Oh yeah, bounce that thing like you mean it, Nikki! Stop it, now!"

"I'm such a pervert and a sex-freak! There's absolutely no way that this can be normal, teenage hormonal rage!"

"Try to think about something else! Anything else will do! Literally, anything else!"

"Mental note: Don't watch any rap videos on MTV for at least a month! Okay, maybe "Shoop", but that one is a real banger!"

"Whoever it was that invented Spandex must have been picturing that booty, somewhere in the back of their heads!"

"How I really wish that hot pants would soon become fashionable again!"

"Nikki could be a butt double for J-Lo, if she auditioned for it! Do they even have butt doubles in real life? They did in that one episode of "Friends", where Joey was Al Pacino's butt double. That episode was so funny!"

"Try to picture to her butt with lots of puss-filled zits on it, that are so big that they're ready to burst. Dammit, it still isn't working!"

"Ten more minutes of gym class and then, I can finally start thinking about something else! Who am I kidding?"

If Jen's paranoid delusions could be classified bad the day before, when it came to the day after Henry's gig, they'd reached astronomical proportions! On one hand, she was stoked on his behalf that his performance had gone down so well with the crowd that he'd been asked to do an encore, and it had been really nice for her to see how his self-esteem had kept growing all the time, during his short, twenty-minute set. That he now, only one day after playing his first gig, had his own unofficial fan-club was taking it more than a little too far in her own humble opinion!

"So, are we going out on a date on Saturday?" she asked Henry, when they finally managed to get a moment semi-alone together, in the middle of what had been a unexpectedly busy school day.

"I'd like to, but I've been offered a gig. A real one, where I get paid fifty bucks to perform. I've also sort of already said yes to it" Henry nervously answered her. "I can tell them that I can't though, if you don't want me to do it".

"No, it's okay. Where's this gig? Maybe, we can hang out afterwards?" she suggested, at the same time as bad thoughts of him leaving her for one of his groupies coursed through her brain.

"It's a private party, some girl's fifteenth birthday. Jen, if you're not okay with it, I'll just tell them that I can't. It's no big deal to me, as long as you're happy" Henry sweetly told her, although it also had the adverse effect of making her feel even worse, that she would even consider for a second that he would leave her for anyone else.

"Will your new fan-club be there?"

"You mean those three girls, who came to my show last night? I guess so, why?"

"Henry, I know that you haven't tried a whole lot of ... well, anything before! I just don't want you to get the wrong idea, when it comes to why they started a fan-club for you. It isn't just because they like your singing, if you know what I'm saying?" she asked Henry, who smiled shyly to himself afterwards.

"Is this your way of telling me that I'm a hunk?" he asked her back, glowing with pride as he said it.

"You are and you're also kind of naïve, when it comes to the opposite sex. I'm just afraid that ..."

"I'd leave you? Is that it? Jen, I'm the lucky one here! Honestly, I'm still kind of shocked that you chose me, when there must have been so many other guys, who wanted to date you too, if you want the truth" Henry replied, and even though it wouldn't make every paranoid thought in her head evaporate instantly, she still chose to trust him for the time being.

At least that way, she wouldn't instantly turn into one of those insecure girls that she couldn't stand!

The day after Dawson's first attempt at talking to Jerome had turned out to be one big bust, he'd made the decision to give it one more shot, if nothing else to be able to say that hadn't given up without properly trying first. This time however, he got lucky and as he sat in his dad's car and watched Jerome climb in through an open window to the house, he'd seen him breaking into the last time, he made a snap decision that it was now or never, if he was going to do this.

Clearly not being someone with an eye for detail, Jerome had left the window open and climbing in after him was therefore Dawson's one and only option. Falling onto the floor of the house, he looked up to see Jerome holding a frying pan that apparently made for the best choice of weapon at his immediate disposal.

"You have five seconds to explain yourself, or I'm calling the cops!" Jerome threatened him, as he was still getting up on his feet.

"And tell them what? That someone broke into the house, you're squatting in?" Dawson asked, trying to sound as brave as he could, for the sake of appearance. That his heart was racing and every cell in the rest of his body was telling him to make a run for it, wasn't a fact that he needed to share with anyone, after all.

"How do you ..." Jerome began asking, before Dawson cut him off.

"You beat the hell out of my best friend. Plus, in case you haven't noticed, it isn't like Capeside is overflowing with other homeboys, you can blend in with" he told Jerome, who lowered his "weapon" and slumped down up against one of the walls in the house, he was currently calling home, for as long as it lasted.

"I can't even explain why I did it, if that's any comfort to your friend. Sometimes, I get riled up and I just lose my mind completely and I can't explain why. Believe it or not, I only came here to apologize to Nikki for what a shitty-ass boyfriend that I was to her" Jerome explained, and from what Dawson could tell, he was telling the truth.

"Yeah, I know what that's like. My last girlfriend skipped town on me, after I cheated on her" Dawson honestly answered, in a vague attempt to find some sort of common ground between them.

"Aren't we the top two candidates for boyfriend of the year?" Jerome sarcastically asked back. "Did you hit her, like I did to Nikki?"

"No, but I constantly lied to her for months on end, while I was seeing another girl behind her back. There's more to the story than that, but that's basically what it boils down to. It isn't the same, I know, but there's nothing that I wouldn't give to be able to change, what I did".

"Doesn't feel good, does it?"

"I can't imagine a worse feeling in the whole scope of human emotions".

"You got that right! Are the cops out looking for me?"

"What else would you expect, when you beat up the youngest child of the chief of police?" he asked Jerome, who shook his head at the thought of how dumb, he'd been.

"That's just perfect, isn't it? I thought that blonde girl was only bluffing, when she said it. Well, I'm screwed now, aren't I? It's back to juvie for me, where I apparently belong, if can't control my actions".

"If that's true, then we wouldn't be talking right now, would we? If you turn yourself in ..."

"Can you honestly imagine that they'll give me a fair trial this time? It wasn't at my first trial, I can tell you that much!"

It would end up taking Dawson more than two more hours, before he eventually convinced Jerome that the only point of running, was so that he could get caught up with later, with the main difference being that the courts would go much harder on him, than they would if he admitted to what he'd done and faced his punishment.

Whether that punishment would be just or not, who could honestly say?

"So? I have sexual fantasies about other girls all the time too!" Melissa confided in her, after Abby had finally made the decision, that if she couldn't get over her attraction to Nikki all that easily, the least that she could do was be open with her girlfriend about it. She had of course, chosen the perfect time to do it, right after they'd had sex and were still both basking in the afterglow, something that was perhaps also a reason for Melissa's aloof reaction to her little revelation.

"Like whom?" Abby asked back, more than a little relieved that it wasn't just her, who was guilty of it.

"All sorts of girls! There's that girl, who plays Buffy, there's that red-haired girl from those Aerosmith videos and the lead singer from The Cardigans, just to name a few. Oh, and of course that girl who played Juliet in the new version of "Romeo and Juliet"! I picture myself having sex with them all the time, when I'm ... you know ... having a personal moment. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but sometimes I picture having you performing sexual acts on other girls on my command, while I'm just watching you go at it and playing with myself".

"Not with any of the girls that we know, I hope?"

"That's between me and my imagination. Abby, if we can't be allowed to think freely about whatever we want to, then this relationship is never going to last and I don't want us to ever break up, because I'm crazy in love with you!" Melissa sweetly told her and for the first time, no less.

"It can't be nearly as much as I'm crazy in love with you!" Abby smilingly answered the girl, she'd given her entire heart to and was planning on continuing to do so, for a long time to come.

If not for the entire rest of their lives.

END OF CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN