THE FIRST TIME

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - LOVEFOOL

"Love me, love me

Say that you love me!

Fool me, fool me

Go on and fool me!

Love me, love me

Pretend that you love me!

Leave me, leave me

Just say that you need me!

I can't care 'bout anything, but you"

THE CARDIGANS (From the album "First Band on the Moon" (1996))

Sent: March 12th, 1999

From: Jen Rocks

To: A Girl Named Joey

Subject: Boys and how they're driving me crazy!

Hi, Joey. Let me start by asking you a theoretical question. Are all boys emotionally stunted, or is it just the ones, I try to get it on with? I try my hardest, I really do, to try to get any information out of Jack, that could just give me the slightest pointer, if he wants to date or not, but so far, I've come up with absolutely Butkus for my efforts! Nada, nothing, zippo, squat! Argh, sometimes they can be so frustrating, you know? Hopefully, I'll be able to get my answer at the dance, or for as little as I'd like to, I might have to see if I can't find someone else to take his place. Which I don't want to, since I'm sure that him and I would be a cracking couple, but at the same time, it's been so long since I even kissed a guy, that I'm sure there are hermits, living far away from the rest of society, who still somehow get it on more often, than I do!

In other news, did I tell you in my last e-mail, that Chris Wolfe and Hannah Von Wenning are now an item and are flaunting it in front of everyone, like there's no tomorrow? I can easily see that it would be an advantage from his point of view, as a rather dumb guy, who just wants to get laid with any girl, who'll have him, but I can't help thinking to myself that she has some kind of nefarious ulterior motive, that'll be revealed to us sooner or later. Then again, maybe it's just because myself and Pacey have started watching the entire James Bond series at work! What do you think?

Still missing you!

Jen.

Sent: March 13th, 1999.

From: A Girl Named Joey

To: Jen Rocks

Subject: Those damned boys, huh?

Hi, Jen. I wish that I had some kind of words of wisdom, when it comes to what to do about Jack, but seeing as I haven't met him yet, it's kind of hard to come up with any on the fly here. My best advice would be to ask him and see how he reacts, just remember that this is advice coming from a girl, who completely lucked into her first and so far only relationship and before then, whose only romantic experiences extended to one kiss through a game of truth or dare and a snog (as Emma has told me that the English call kisses) with a boy, she'd lied her tiny, little butt off, to get that far with! In other words, don't take my advice as any kind of expert opinion, please!

Chris and Hannah, huh? They sound like a weird combination in my book, but then again, I can't say that I've known Hannah, since we were kids, so who am I to say that it can't work between them? And yes, I agree that you've probably been watching too many Bond movies with Pacey lately!

Still missing you too!

Joey.

Andie had, growing up in Providence, always believed that honesty was the best policy. She'd held onto this belief, right up until her older brother Tim had been taken from them in a tragic accident, and she'd had to start re-thinking how much information that it would be beneficial to her, that those around her knew. For example, having unreal visions of her older brother still being alive and talking to her, was one of those that she'd learned to keep to herself, while the things that she wouldn't be able to hide from her family anyway, like when she'd practically stop eating for days due to being stressed out, fell into the other category.

Her on-going crush on Pacey fell somewhere in the middle, even if she was sure that at least a few times, he must have picked up on the ever-growing crush, that she had him. It wasn't like she hadn't tried to move past it, and Ty had at first at least, seemed like a decent replacement for Pacey, he just didn't do it for her, the same way that her all-time favorite tutee could. Maybe, it was that Pacey had some sort of unexplainable X-Factor in abundance, that Ty had practically none of, or maybe it was simply that when you got down to it, Ty was (in spite of being more than adequate, when it came to the looks department) kind of a tedious bore, once you got past those good looks and started peering into what was underneath. On top of this, he was far too "Smalltown Minded" for her liking on some subjects, and she seriously had to wonder to herself, if it was something, she'd ever be able to look past.

He did have one large advantage over Pacey, and it was the sole reason why she was still considering going out with him, when she honestly couldn't see them lasting more than a few months at best, as a couple. He was single, and with that side of Pacey not looking it would change soon, if it ever would, and with the rest of the selection at their school not exactly being full of date worthy candidates, she still had to rate him as being "The Best of the Rest", for now at least.

"Isn't this the day of the big dance, you've been looking forward to for weeks?" her mom kindly asked her, while they were making breakfast together. Part of her mom's recovery was based around them doing the same things, they'd always used to do, when Tim was still alive, and ever since she'd been old enough to be able to lift a frying pan, she'd loved getting up early in the morning and by helping out with preparing breakfast, also getting some precious alone time with her mom, before the rest of the house began to wake up.

"One and the same! Can't wait for it!" she smilingly told her mom, who looked glad for her, even if she knew her daughter more than well enough, to be able to see past her fake smile.

"Do you think that is Pacey looking forward to it, as much, as you are?" her mom inquired, before taking a sip of her morning coffee.

"Probably not. I bet that he wishes, he could go with his real girlfriend and not just the best substitute, he could find for her" she replied sadly, seeing as the chance of getting her boy that evening seemed about as likely, as her dear mother suddenly getting over the grief of losing her first-born in an instant, just because Andie, her dad and her brother all desperately hoped, that she would.

"It doesn't mean that you can't still have a great time with him. When I think back to being your age, none of the dates I took to school dances ended up being the romance of a lifetime either, and either way, you're all still only in the beginning of that long process of finding out, who you are. I wouldn't give up on him just yet, if I were you" her mom tried consoling her, and it did help a little bit.

"Thanks for trying to cheer me up, but you don't know him the way, I do. There isn't a snowball's chance inside of a volcano in full eruption mode, that I'm getting a goodnight kiss tonight, and that's just how it is!"

"In that case, maybe you should try seeing it as an advantage".

"How do you figure?"

"If dates at school dances are still more or less the same, as they were, when I was around your age, most of those with dates will be so nervous at trying to impress those dates, that they won't have the time to enjoy the other things, you can do at high school dances".

"You've seen me dance, mom! It isn't like anyone there will be forming circles around me and clapping along, while I bust out my latest break-dancing moves!" she joked, albeit with a hint of truth to what she'd said at the same time.

"We can take a simple thing like having fun with your friends, just to name one. If you put that big mind of yours to work on it, I'm sure that you could come up with a few more ideas, just off the top of your head" her sweet old mom, like the near-eternal force of positivity that she'd been in Andie and Jack's lives, from the time that they were born, suggested. "Speaking of dates for the dance, do you think this could be the day, where your dad and I finally get ourselves a new daughter-in-law?"

"I am hoping so, just as much as you are! You know that I love my twin brother as much as the day is long, but why he hasn't made his move on her yet, when Jen is SO obviously the best girlfriend, he could possibly find here or anywhere else, is the kind of mystery, where I think that we'll have to call in Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew, Miss Marple AND the Hardy Boys, if we're going to solve it!" she quipped to her mom, who couldn't help smiling to herself.

"You don't think that it could be a case of also having too many cooks in the kitchen at once?" her mom quipped back at her.

"Probably. I just don't understand him at all sometimes, when it comes to his choice of girls. Remember his date with that girl, who clearly wasn't over her ex-boyfriend and got back together with him, the day after Jack and her had gone out on their date? It as if he picks the girls, he has the least chance of lasting with, while the girls that he should be asking out, get to watch him from the sidelines, failing over and over again, with what clearly to everyone else than him, are the wrong girls for him! Honestly mom, if he didn't have me to help him with sorting out the worst of them, there's no telling what sort of girl, he'd be bringing home for dinner!" she half-jokingly explained.

Moments later, she could hear the door to her brother's room opening upstairs, signaling to her that he'd soon be coming down to join them.

"You're forgetting that there's a rational explanation for all of it" her mom whispered to her.

"What's that?" she whispered back.

"He's a teenage boy!" her mom dryly whispered, and they shared a small laugh, just as Jack came into the kitchen, rubbing his belly and looking ready for his (sometimes rather incredible) food intake in the morning, that was rarely less, than what her and her mom would eat between the two of them. It often made her and her mom wonder to themselves, how he could keep on eating that much and never put any visible weight on, when he should have ballooned up to two hundred pounds plus by now, according to all logic.

"What's so funny at this time in the morning? All I feel is tired, like I haven't slept at all!" he yawningly got out, before slumping down on a chair, by the kitchen table.

"Nothing that a boy would understand!" Andie cheekily answered him, before sharing a knowing smile with her mother.

Another girl, who'd been looking forward to this day for weeks with a belly full of anticipation was Jen, who for once had actually been something close to fresh as a daisy, from the moment she'd opened her eyes. Going by her own standards at least, seeing as it usually took a minimum of two cups of "Good Morning, America" (the only coffee strong enough to wake up a hibernating bear, according to their TV ads!) and a hot shower to cap her morning routine off, before she'd even begun to catch her bearings.

No matter what happened at that dance, she would try to find out exactly where she stood with Jack. It wasn't like she couldn't respect or understand, that he was still in the beginning stages of a grieving process, over tragically losing an older brother, who'd meant the world to him. Or, for that matter, that his mom's mental illness was something far beyond her own understanding and something, where she'd come to conclude, that unless you were being forced to live with it up in your face constantly, like they were, wasn't a thing that you could fully understand. Even with her limited understanding of these things, she was well aware (mostly from talking to Grams, who knew far more about losing loved ones, than she herself did) that getting over such a thing is very likely to take years, not weeks or months, to recover from (if you ever do). If that saddening part of his life wasn't constantly nagging him, she'd have had to consider him abnormal, all things considered and whether or not they wound up going on a second date, she'd still try to help both him and his sister to get back to some kind of normal life again, in any way that she could. Now, where she'd started caring that much about and for them, it almost went without saying.

It had even (in some small way) been nice to hear, when he'd told her that he wanted to show devotion to his ex-girlfriend, by not just jumping straight from one girl's bed to the next (like she could guess that many boys his age would have, without thinking twice about it). Him saying so had only proved to her, that he wasn't some womanizing dog, who'd sleep with her and dump her in the worst way possible the day after, the way that all of her first three lovers had done. In the sob story case of the guy she'd given her cherry to, she'd arrived at school the day after, just in time to see his merry re-union with his ex-girlfriend, leaving her feeling like a used-up fool for thinking, that he'd actually meant it, when he'd convinced her emotionally fragile and very high younger self, that he liked her, so much more than any of the other girls.

Those sorts of bad boys, were what her former self had gone after and it had only (without fault) led to a soul-crushing mix of heartbreak and self-loathing every time, she'd gotten it on with one of them. This was yet another reason why Jack, with his distinctly anti-bad boy and very shy personality, was exactly the sort of kind-hearted boy, that she needed to restore her faith in his entire gender, if she wasn't going to end up as a bitter old spinster like her aunt Hilda, who only saw faults in everyone, especially men and as a result, never gave any of them a fighting chance, to change her mind on them.

Of course, that was only one side of it and the other side of it, that he was being so incredibly frustrating, when it came to keeping her in the dark about his actual feelings for her, annoyed the living heck out of Jen and she wasn't afraid to admit it!

"Don't you sometimes wish that boys came with subtitles, that say what they really mean, when they give you a compliment?" she casually asked Abby, while she was waiting for her friend to get some books from her locker.

"Like women are any better, when it comes to making underhanded comments? Let's be real here, Jen!" Abby sharply answered, before sighing to herself at not being able to find the book she needed, in the masses of cluttered mess inside of her locker. "How's this for a lesson in cleaning out your locker more than once every six months?"

"That'll teach you! You're right though, when it comes us women and underhanded comments. Come to think of it, I don't think that my aunt Hilda ever gave anyone a compliment, where there wasn't some tiny little bit of criticism, she had to throw in there right at the end! It's probably why no one could stand the sight of her, and her funeral turned into more of a celebration of none of us having to ever see her anymore, than the sob-fest, she would have wanted it to be. That horrible, old banshee just couldn't stand seeing anyone having a good time, no matter what the reason for it was".

"What a truly fascinating story, Jen!" Abby sarcastically remarked, before smiling to herself at the sight of the book, she was looking for. Even if it meant that she had to rearrange most of her other junk in there, so she could reach it. "Disco!"

"Someone watched Pulp Fiction yesterday?"

"Only for the sixth time! It's just so good, that movie! Anyway, you were saying about boys and wishing, that they came with subtitles?" Abby answered, as she tried to wrestle the book free with brute strength. The problem there of course being, that with her only weighing around ninety pounds on a good day, the last thing she had, was any kind of brute strength to speak of!

"Maybe, we should try doing an experiment" she thought out loud, as she saw Pacey coming down the hallway towards them.

"Hi, girls!" he greeted them good morning with a small, but slightly tired looking smile. "Abby, wouldn't it be easier to just clean out your locker of all of that junk, and not have to go through this routine of looking through all of it to find your books, ten times a week, minimum?"

"Logic would suggest so, wouldn't it?" Abby, who'd been too busy trying to get to her book, to pay any real attention to what he'd said, casually replied to him in her best smart-ass fashion.

"Pacey, let me try something out on you. If a boy tells a girl that she has a pretty face, but doesn't mention her body, what's he really saying?" she asked a grinning Pacey, who seemed willing to play along and be her "Test Subject".

"That her body is so unappealing to him, that it's why he doesn't want to date her. Unless we're talking about the I'd guess, twenty to thirty percent of the boys here, who'll make out with just about anything with a pair of a X-chromosomes and isn't so young, that it would be illegal to do stuff with her or is old enough to be their mom. Let's do a little "Quid Pro Quo" here, shall we, Agent Lindley?" he asked her back, just as Abby finally succeeded in her "mission" and looked all kinds of pleased, that she'd once again (for a few hours at least), managed to fool the Gods of cleaning up after yourself.

"Fire away" she answered him.

"If a girl says that she's fine with just being friends, but you get a distinct feeling that she's undressing you with her eyes, practically every time you're together, what are her real ... intentions, I guess is the word, I'm looking for?"

"Is this about you and Andie?" Abby asked him, butting into the conversation, like she was often prone to do, even if it wasn't a subject being discussed that interested her, in the same way this one did.

"I was asking Jen, if you don't mind?" Pacey scolded Abby, who was far too busy fighting to close up her locker again, just enough to make it lockable, to pay any attention to his annoyed looks.

"She wants to do it with you, and either is afraid to admit it to herself, or she has admitted it to herself and is probably pleasing herself to the thought of doing it with you, at least twice a day! In some ways we're basically all the same!" Jen explained to him, getting a small giggle from Abby in the process. "My turn. If a guy says that we wants to get together with you, but there are things getting in the way of it ..."

"Like?"

"A family crisis or his ex-girlfriend, that he needs time to get over, before he's ready to start something new up?" she tried slyly asking Pacey, hoping that she wasn't giving away too easily, whom she was referring to.

"As far as I know, no family crisis has lasted forever, but family stuff is a very personal thing to most people. If it were me, I definitely wouldn't ask further into it, unless it's himself, who brings it up. All I can tell you is that if you're crushing on a guy, who's going through some tough stuff, the only thing, you can do is hope that whatever is going wrong in his life, gets sorted out quickly. The old "Not Over the Ex" line could be interpreted a few ways. My first thought is that he still hopes to get back together with her. In which case, I'd tell you to let him sort things out with his ex, before you start looking his way again".

"Not that it takes a rocket scientist to figure out! What if you'd consider it highly unlikely?"

"In that case, you have three likely scenarios. One: He's telling the truth and like myself, if me and Joey ever were to break up, he wouldn't feel like it was proper for any of us, to move on too quickly. Guys like us do exist in high school, Lindley, in spite of all myths to the contrary!"

"He said, not tooting his own horn at all!" Abby teasingly just had to chime in with!

"Did anyone ask for further comments from the cheap seats, Miss Morgan?" he (once again) scolded Abby, who replied to this scolding by sticking her tongue out at him, much like an annoyed five-year-old, who isn't getting their way would have. "If he isn't telling the truth, you're down to two options: He either has a crush on someone else, or he just isn't into you that way. Is that a good enough answer?"

It wasn't. Until she could get the info, that she wanted from the horse's mouth itself though, she'd unfortunately have to make do with it.

Andie, even if she prided herself on being "The Most Attentive Student" in every single one of her classes, for once found her mind being too cluttered with unwanted thoughts, to properly keep up in her gifted student classes, that she took in the morning, before she joined her brother and the rest of her "Not So Gifted" students for the rest of the day.

Sex, in Andie's eyes, was a double-edged sword. A few years earlier, when she was thirteen, her then-BFF and neighbor Kate (the same one, who would later become her brother's first girlfriend) had brought a couple of dirty magazines over to their house, that she'd stolen from her (by then in college) older brother's room. Andie could still remember like it was yesterday, how a new world full of things that people could do naked together, had opened up for her that afternoon and how later that evening, had also been when she'd made her first attempts at giving herself the kind of orgasms, she'd seen the girls in those magazines looking as if, they were experiencing. Not that she'd entirely gotten there that first time, but it had still been more than pleasurable enough, that it quickly became a going to bed ritual for her.

As you could almost guess, Kate's mom had, not long after, caught her daughter red-handed, doing the exact same thing to one of those magazines and (after what Kate had told her was a VERY uncomfortable mother/daughter conversation!) more or less immediately, they'd (to Kate's brother's enormous disappointment, no doubt) ended their lives full of urging people to touch themselves, in a humble trash can out by the street.

Still, there was no doubt that it had led to the beginnings of a sexual awakening, for the at that time, only barely teenaged version of herself. Now, where she'd had a few more years to mature both emotionally and physically, and with her natural instincts (no matter how much she tried to ignore them) practically yelling into her ear every second, that it was time try some of those "Naked Activities" for herself, it however, also made her status as perpetually single all that more annoying. The fact that she still couldn't say that she'd had boyfriend number one or could even say that she'd had anything resembling a really successful date so far, were all facts that spoke volumes, when it came to how much of a romantic wasteland, her existence on Earth had been so far in the fifteen years, that had gone by of it. As for how far she'd gone with a boy, she was still waiting in vain for anyone other than herself to round first base and just as sadly, so far, the only close thing to a good kiss that she'd experienced, was her first kiss, and even that was mostly because she was simply so overjoyed, that any sort of romantic action was finally happening for her.

She couldn't say what it was about Pacey, that made him all that different from any of the many other nice guys, she'd met over the years. The only conclusion that she could come to, was that he had some sort of unseen X-Factor, that drew troubled girls to him, like they were a starving group of bear cubs circulating an appetizing looking salmon, that's been dumb enough to jump out of the water and land on the shore. Joey certainly (from everything that she'd been told about her) fit that description to a T, and as for herself (arguably the most troubled girl in their entire town), she'd found herself feeling drawn towards him, practically from the first second, she'd laid eyes on him. Whenever she found herself with a head filled of erotic fantasies about him (a near hourly occurrence), they would always be about him being the perfect ultra-gentle lover for a nervous girl like herself, who was on the verge of giving him the biggest present that she could to a boy, her precious virginity. If she had to be honest, right at this time there weren't any other guys, that she could even remotely imagine going all the way with, not even some of those stars from the early or pre-teen marketed shows on the Disney Channel, who'd made up her first faint crushes, long before the topic of sex had reached her young mind.

Most of all, there was also a great fear inside of her, that if she didn't do it with the right guy, this first time at least, it would be something that she'd regret for the rest of her life. To hold up hope that Pacey would have her, or find someone else to have sex with, there-in laid her double-edged sword.

If only he didn't have a girlfriend, things would be so much easier ...

Jen's school day had, to her own personal joy, passed by in what had felt a few hours, at the most. Even the often-questionable food in the cafeteria had tasted better, than it usually did (not that it took all that much!), and in what was an even rarer occurrence for her, there hadn't been a single person all day, who'd done the tiniest thing, to get her blood boiling. With Chris now giving her the cold shoulder (like she knew that she thoroughly deserved, after how she'd told him off in the worst way possible, the last time he'd tried to ask her out), it also meant that her near-daily ritual of turning him down was a thing of the past. Even if she still didn't have the first clue, what a (for all of her general bitchiness and obvious faults) clearly very intelligent girl like Hannah could possibly see in a guy, who thinks that glancing through the articles in Playboy and not just gawking at the naked girls, makes him more sophisticated than their average reader.

Probably due to her still guilty conscience, she tried to be glad for him, that he at least had a great chance of getting some pillow fun with a love-starved rich girl like Hannah out of it, and in addition, was surely scoring some much-needed suck-up points with his parents, for dating one of the main heirs to the Von Wenning family fortune. A stark contrast to his failed attempts at hitting on herself, that had ended with him being ridiculed in front of an entire hallway full of his peers.

"Penny for your thoughts, dear?" Grams smilingly asked her, while they were looking through some old boxes from the basement, one of which according to her grandmother's memory should contain a very old dress, that she'd worn to one of her own school dances, back in near-ancient times, when she was around Jen's age. Not that Jen had thought about it, but she must not have said anything for a while, since Grams would ask her that way.

"Would you believe that I have boys on the brain again? Dear Joan Jett is there any way that I can be more of a boring old cliché?" she blurted out and Grams could help herself from laughing.

"Jennifer, in spite of how adult you think you are, you're still only fifteen. Calling yourself a cliche this early in life is a more than a little premature, don't you think?" Grams asked back, making her smile to herself.

"You always know just what so say, Grams! Why can't my life be a Meg Ryan movie?" she asked rhetorically, while opening another box to look through. "Every movie that I've seen with her, she plays basically the same love-hungry girl every time, who can't find the right guy and just when everything looks the most hopeless for her, into her life comes the man of her dreams. Circa an hour and a half of mostly amusing romantic entanglements later and presto! She has her man, and they live happily ever after!"

"Sweetheart, even you have to know that life isn't like the movies".

"I know, but ... what do you mean, even me? Don't you think I'm intelligent? No wait, don't answer that!"

"You're intelligent in your own way, Jennifer! I didn't mean it that way. However, there are many ways of being intelligent and some of them don't come along, until you have life experience to draw on. Even with everything you've tried back in New York, where it counts inside, you're still only a child and children make mistakes. Especially, when it comes to their first adventures in the ways of love" Grams, in her own very grand-motherly way, explained to her.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You can try" Grams answered, before she too shifted from the box she was looking through, to one of the many, that they still hadn't gotten to yet.

"Say that there was this guy, who's kind of been bugging you. Maybe, bugging you isn't the right term, but he's asked you out several times and he's refused to take no for an answer every time".

"I'm following you so far" Grams, only half paying attention to what she was saying, replied.

"Well, now that boy has found a girlfriend and I ... oh, screw it! I'll just tell it like it is! There's this boy named Chris at school and he's dumb as a doorknob, not to mention that he's a jock, and you know how I feel about their obnoxious cult and their followers, and ..."

"You still find yourself attracted to him?" Grams, with a small knowing smile, asked.

"It's not so much that I find myself being attracted to him, as just me finding myself being unbelievably jealous of his girlfriend, now that he's found one! As in the "I want to tear the hair off her head and tell her to get her dirty paws him" variety! I guess, what I'm asking is, am I acting completely crazy here?"

"You're not crazy, dear child!" Grams told her with a reassuring smile. "You're just fifteen, that's all!"

"Fifteen in all of the worst ways, is more like it! Maybe, it's because I haven't gotten anywhere with Jack yet, or for that matter seen any kind of action, since I broke up with Dawson last fall. I mean, what other earthly logical explanation would there be why I, and I honestly never thought I'd hear myself saying these words, am wishing that it were me, holding his hand and flirting with him, while we walk down the hallway together? We'd make for an awful couple, I just know it!" Jen exclaimed and once again, Grams had to laugh a little at her granddaughter's outbursts.

"Do you know who all of my friends, when I was your age, thought the same of? Your Grandfather".

"You and Granddad weren't always seen as the perfect couple?" Jen had to ask, seeing as such a thing was practically unthinkable to her.

"Far from it! Some of my friends and some of his had a pool going on how long we would last. From what I was told later on, none of them thought that we would last more than a few weeks. Even on our wedding day, believe it or not, one of my best friends tried to talk me out of marrying him, because she still refused to believe that we stood a chance of lasting the distance".

"I guess, you proved them wrong, huh?" Jen asked, while she had to smile to herself, as she imagined her grandparents as a pair of young lovers, defying everyone's expectations every step of the way.

"Sure did. Love is a hard thing to explain and who works best in a relationship with which other person, is something that you simply can't be sure of, until it's been tried. I've seen more than my share of couples, that you wouldn't think would last a week, last a lifetime and literally dozens of couples, where it looked going in like they were meant for one another, not even make it through the first month. Just because you and Jack have more in common, than you do on the surface with this Chris boy, doesn't automatically mean that Jack's the best choice, when it comes to who the best boyfriend for you would be. Perhaps, and it's only me speculating here, but perhaps it's that you already know deep down that Chris is someone, you could possibly see yourself with, that's why your mind is playing tricks on you. Your own reservations on the subject notwithstanding, of course. Ah, here it is!" Grams exclaimed, before pulling a simple, yet very elegant light-blue dress out of the box, that in Jen's opinion looked more like the kind that a Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe or one of the other perfectly shaped starlets from the golden age of Hollywood should be wearing, than a girl whose still developing body full of imperfections, wouldn't come close to filling it out, the way it was intended to.

"It's beautiful, but I can't wear it to the dance, Grams! For one thing, I don't have anywhere close to the needed cleavage to fill it out and ..."

"You're talking nonsense, Jennifer! It'll look gorgeous on you, I'm sure of it" Grams re-assured her, before taking a whiff of the dress. "After I've given it a good rinse!"

In that moment, all Jen could think of was ways to get out of wearing it. After Grams was done rinsing and drying it, though, she had to admit that it looked pretty damn good on herself and completely unlike how she felt about the hated dresses, still in her closet back in her old home, that her parents would force her to wear for their chosen social functions, wearing this dress and looking this feminine in it didn't feel nearly as un-natural to her, as it had, when she'd put on one of her old ones and felt like a total faker from the time she'd put it on, until it had blissfully come off again.

Would the sight of her in it be enough to allow her to seduce Jack and finally get her the smooches, that she craved from him, though? Only time would tell and the clock that was telling her that time, was ticking down awfully fast.

END OF CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN