A return to my fluffy writings of yesteryear, in honor of year CL's Bodice Ripper contest. Comments, suggestions, thoughts, critiques, flames, and fangirls moments all welcomed.
Rated for language.
**
Crazy Little Thing I
Prompt: 011. Book
**
‘Cause she's bittersweet
She knocks me off of my feet
And I can't help myself
I don't want anyone else
She's a mystery
She's too much for me
But I keep coming back for more
She's just the girl I'm looking for
- Just the Girl, The Click Five
**
[Jo]
I sometimes wondered, as all teenagers do, if there was something wrong with me. Unlike the rest of my girlfriends, I didn’t wonder at the transformation of the male species from cootie-ridden perverts into fascinating, wonderful, bewildering creatures; rather, I was bewildered when they failed to metamorphosize along with the rest of us.
When I was thirteen, and we got our periods within a month of each other, we suddenly found movies with kissing scenes far more engaging than we had when we were twelve. We sat on the couch on Friday nights in our mismatched pajama sets, passing around bags of popcorn, and pretended that we just thought the actors onscreen were cute.
But inside, something entirely different was happening to us. Everyone went very still when his mouth hovered over hers, and the living room was silent as we waited, holding our breath, for the moment when their lips would finally touch.
We were too embarrassed to talk about how we were feeling, except in the most generic of terms, until the sleepover when Loren announced that she had kissed Mark Simmons after soccer practice. She opened a floodgate; after that, the questions and confessions, the musings and the secrets—it all came gushing out.
I felt lost.
The other girls seemed to bond over this foreign brand of conversation—the kind that sounds like typical teenage chattering, but if you stand back and listen hard just sounds like boysboysboys—but I participated at the most shallow of levels. It wasn’t that I was unaffected by hormones—Matt Damon’s grin made my heart flutter, and Brad Pitt’s abdomen made me blush—but the boys at school did absolutely nothing for me.
Everyone agreed that Loren was so lucky to have kissed one of the best-looking boys in school, but I thought that Mark Simmons smelled like fish sticks and that his “dreamy” blue eyes spent way too much time lingering on our chests. The other boys were just as bad. They were brace-faced and acne-covered and sweaty-palmed, and the thought of having them anywhere near me in anything that was not strictly platonic was unambiguously repulsive.
Four years later, we were juniors in high school, and while I didn’t want to gag every time I saw my friends’ boyfriends lean over to kiss them, I still had no longing to have any boys my age do the same to me. Maybe it was a case of impossibly high standards. After all, there could only be one Matt Damon, one Brad Pitt.
But I wanted more than a male body to rub up against; I wanted a mind mate, a soul mate, and my head had determined to wait for him. Apparently, my body had decided to wait for him too.
**
Connor Stone was one of those guys that every girl secretly wishes would pay attention to her. He was a senior the year my friends and I were juniors, and when he showed up on the first day of school in a black Porsche, wearing the khaki pants, navy blazer, and plaid tie of our uniform like it was Armani and not a mark of loserdom, he captivated the minds and hormones of every female student grades nine through twelve.
He’d been kicked out of countless east-coast schools throughout the course of his high school career, and so, in a final act of desperation and punishment, his parents sent him to our school, to St. Augustine’s Christian Academy in Texas, to complete his senior year in what they hoped would be obscurity.
For weeks, rumors swirled.
“He got kicked out of one school last year for seducing this real young English teacher.”
“He set the gym on fire during a pep rally.”
“His trust fund doesn’t kick in till his birthday in January, so his parents can only keep him here till then.”
“How do you know his birthday’s in January?” one girl wanted to know.
“He told me,” Loren said smugly, and the group sighed, a collective, jealous exhalation.
In a minority of one, I found him irritating. He swaggered from class to class, slept through the interesting ones, and made trouble during the boring ones. And he decided that in Spanish, my backpack, sitting on the floor beside my desk, would be the ideal place for him to leave his monstrous, muddy feet. So I enjoyed throwing off the glamorous speculations with invented ones of my own, but they were all harmless, and usually so silly no one believed me, until the day I needed revenge.
The paper slipped from my hands when one of the freshmen bumped into me as she sprinted to class, and slid down the hallway, settling on top of Connor Stone’s shoe.
He picked it up. Bleary-eyed from whatever party I’m sure he was at till God only knows what time that morning, he didn’t even look to see what was in his hand. Crumpling it up, he threw it into the nearest trashcan along with his half-empty coffee cup.
And within the space of fifteen seconds, Connor Stone managed to destroy my Calculus homework and five hours’ worth of hard labor.
“He’s only got one kidney,” I told Loren that day at lunch.
“What happened to the other one?” Sarah asked, wide-eyed.
“Sold it,” I said casually, pulling the crust off my sandwich and dropping it into my mouth.
“You’re lyin’,” said Brad.
“Mm mm.” I shook my head, and swallowed. “I heard Nurse Compton telling someone on the phone the other day.”
“That’s stupid,” Loren said. “Why would anyone sell their kidney?”
“People do crazy things to get their hands on drugs,” I said.
Brad let out a low whistle. “That’s intense.”
I nodded sagely. “And it’s really too bad about his ear.”
“What’s wrong with his ear?” Loren demanded. “I don’t see anything wrong with his ear.”
“Stop yelling,” Sarah said, pulling her back. “He’ll hear you!”
“You’re makin’ this one up,” Brad said, before popping a chip into his mouth. “Now you’re just trying to get Sarah and Loren all freaked out.”
“No, really. I heard this one from Nurse Compton too. She mentioned it in the hall the other day, when he went past and someone called his name and he didn’t answer. ‘Poor boy,’ she said. ‘Can’t hear a single thing out of his left ear.’”
Sarah covered her mouth, horrified. Loren aww’ed. Brad shook his head in masculine sympathy.
Within three days, people were shouting when they spoke to him from his left side, just to make sure he could always hear them. Connor appeared at first angry, then confused, and finally resigned.
“But I’m not deaf!” I overheard him say a week after I started the rumor.
“You don’t have to yell at me, Connor,” said the girl he was talking to. “I can hear out of both ears.”
“So can I.”
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” she said. “Everybody just wants to help…”
I dissolved into giggles as soon as I was out the door, satisfied that my revenge was complete.
I don’t think he ever found out I was the one who started the rumor.
It was done in a moment of weakness really, because I was exhausted from staying up late the night before, and still furious that he had been the reason I lost all that work. Confronting him hadn’t done any good, either. He’d shrugged.
“Wanna copy mine?”
“No, I don’t want to copy yours—you never finish yours!”
“Oh. Huh.” He scratched his chin—stubbly today, since he apparently hadn’t bothered to shave. “Well, you know, I do get right all the ones I do.”
“What, the first five?”
“Nah, more like first eight. After that I just get bored. Better things to do.”
I wanted to shove his head into his locker and slam the door on it over and over and over again. I fought for control.
“Listen,” I said. “I don’t want to copy your homework. I just need you to explain to Mr. Michaelson what happened, so I don’t get in trouble for not having the assignment.”
“Oh, right, right. Sure. Cool. Who’s Mr. Michaelson?”
I stared up at him, disbelieving. “Our…Calculus teacher.”
He looked back at me for a second. Then he slapped his forehead. “Oh yeah, right, Michaelson. Brown beard. Belly. Right. Yeah. I know him. Calculus. Got it. Okay, we’re on the same page now.”
“Just how hung over are you?” I asked him.
“I’m not,” he said, and looked surprised that I asked.
“Right.”
He shrugged. “Whatever, don’t believe me. You’re Jo, right?”
“Yeah. Jo. Anyway—“
“We’ve got Spanish together.”
“And history, and Calculus, in about thirty seconds.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I remember now. You’ve got a kick-ass backpack, by the way.”
I bristled with irritation. “Connor—“
“Oh, but you know my name. That happens a lot here. So how’d you land in three of my classes anyway? You’re only a junior.” He glanced around, then leaned in a little closer, raising his brows. “Special request?”
I made a face. “Hardly. Look, are you going to help me or not?”
His eyes flickered over me in a way that would have sent every feminist in the country picketing for their rights, then he shook his head. “Sorry, bookworm, not today. I’m not really in a giving mood.”
He adjusted his backpack on his shoulder and began to walk to class. Halfway to the room, he turned around and walked the rest of the way backwards. “Catch me again in a couple months, though, and I’ll see what I can do. The holidays are usually really good for my altruism.” He winked, then disappeared into the classroom.
I, who am usually very forgiving, and relatively understanding, and always reasonable, have hated Connor Stone ever since.
**
[Connor]
I rolled the cigarette back and forth between my thumb and pointer finger. To smoke or not to smoke? That was the question. Whether ‘twas nobler to suffer the bitching and nagging of my mother clear-headed, or to face her with nicotine fresh on my breath.
And they thought I didn’t pay attention in lit class. I pulled a lighter from my blazer pocket as I slipped the cigarette between my lips. But over the flickering flame, a brunette anomaly captured my attention.
Know-it-all Jo Fitzgerald, who annoyed the piss out of me in every class we had together, was unbuttoning her blouse in the middle of the school parking lot. Granted, there wasn’t anyone around—St. Augustine’s turned into a graveyard after four o’clock—but still. She was undressing. In a parking lot. In the middle of the afternoon.
My mind searched for some explanation. She was on fire. There were ants crawling in her underwear. She was sexually repressed and couldn’t take it any longer.
Each explanation was lacking. It was April third; had it been declared National Disrobe In the Parking Lot of Your Prudish Private School Day and I’d just missed it?
Fascinated, I hardly noticed when the cigarette fell from my lips and rolled beneath my car, and I replaced the lighter in my pocket without taking my eyes from the striptease six cars and one aisle over.
She didn’t pull off her shirt even after it was unbuttoned all the way, instead unbuttoning her skirt, and lowering the zipper enough for it to fall to her ankles. She was wearing a pair of cotton shorts underneath it, the same shade of red as one of the lines in the plaid on her skirt. Shrugging off the white button-down revealed a white tank top, and a hint of cleavage that disappeared when she turned to open her car door. Leaning forward without realizing I was doing so, I watched her toss her skirt and top into the backseat, then pull off her shoes and dump them in alongside her other discarded garments. Next she ditched the plaid headband, and for the big finish, stripped off her white knee socks.
I had originally planned to watch the cleavage reappear when she leaned over, but she managed to distract me. She didn’t rip off the socks and fling them aside, the way she had her other clothes, like they were burning her flesh and had to be removed immediately, but instead peeled them off slowly, relishing the moment. In the silence of the parking lot, I heard her sigh. She must have been waiting to take them off all day.
I think I’d been waiting my whole life for her take them off, and never realized it.
Hiding beneath those white knee socks for eight long months, were Jo Fitzgerald’s legs. And while I’d always known the teachers’ pet had all her limbs, I had never imagined they looked like that.
As the first sock released her toes, she wiggled them around and flexed and pointed her foot, changing the shape of her leg with each motion. I’d known she was solid ever since the time she knocked some guy down during basketball in P.E., but I never realized that the origin of her strength was smooth and creamy and muscular. When she took off the other sock, I was given a five-second slice of erotica on the campus of St. Prude’s Academy before she dropped into the driver’s seat, pulling those legs inside with her, and closed the door.
I watched her drive away, windows down, the wind grabbing at strands of her dark ponytail. The sun reflected off her rearview mirror as she turned into the street, and mockingly, winked.
**
I studied her the next morning in first-period Calculus for any signs of abnormality, but she sat in her regular seat, asked too many questions, thanked Michaelson about seventeen thousand times, and chewed on her thumbnail on her way back from handing in her homework. As usual.
In third-period Spanish she knew vocabulary words the teacher needed to look up and rolled all her r’s with relish. As usual.
At lunch she sat with Sarah Reese, Loren Jones, and Brad Camby. I’d never noticed how she acted at lunch though, only her table companions, so I couldn’t accurately judge the level of normalcy there.
In sixth-period history, the class dissolved into a three-way debate between Josephine and two other know-it-alls about whether Roosevelt’s programs and government stimuli in the thirties had helped or hurt the nation recover from the Depression. Jo played devil’s advocate—as usual.
I didn’t know what class she had last period, so I hung around near the front of the building and earned ten minutes’ worth of suspicious looks from the broads in the administrative office before she went breezing by (knee socks, blouse, and plaid skirt all in place) and headed for the library.
Straightening, I followed.
**
[Jo]
I glanced over my shoulder. Normally the school cleared out faster than my dog after I’ve forgotten to let him out overnight when school let out on Friday afternoons; today was no exception. But the weird thing was that while the halls were emptying quickly, it almost looked like Connor Stone was following me.
I passed one of the exits—careful not to join the kids sucked out of it faster than water from a bathtub—and looked over my shoulder again. He was still behind me. He was following me.
Disturbed, I looked away and walked faster. In the newly-evacuated hallway, I heard his steps quicken. What was he doing? I slipped into the library and to my favorite table, where I dropped my backpack, and turned around just as he came around the corner.
“Hey.”
I glanced around, just to make sure he was actually talking to me.
He grinned. “Yeah, you.”
“Yes?”
He shrugged. “Nothing. How’s it goin’?”
“Fine…”
“Cool.” He slipped a book off the nearest shelf and flipped through it without reading any of it, then put it back in the wrong place.
Irritation overtook the instinct to keep my distance from him and I reached out, pulled it off the shelf, and replaced it in the correct spot.
He raised his brows. “Damn. They got you medicated for that?”
“Can I help you with something?”
“Why, you the librarian’s assistant now?”
“No, I’m just trying to figure out why you followed me in here.”
“Who says I was following you?”
I looked pointedly around the deserted library, then back up at him, and shrugged.
He didn’t look embarrassed. “So why are you here?” He leaned against a shelf, arm up.
“Homer, Austen, Wilson.” I scanned the titles of the books in front of me.
“Shit, really?”
I glanced up at him. “Yes, really.”
“Didn’t think you were a Simpsons fan.”
“I’m not…”
“Homer…”
“The poet. Greek. Dead a long time. Not the yellow-faced, spider pig-singing cartoon.”
He straightened. “Oh, but you do know who that is.”
“Of course I know who that is—I haven’t been living under a rock.” Rolling my eyes, I turned away and unzipped my backpack.
He leaned against the shelf again, slipping his hands into his blazer pockets. “Huh. Well, you might have fooled me. Your legs are white enough.”
I didn’t bother to look up. “What are you talking about?” The hems of our uniform skirts could be no shorter than the tops of our knees, and we were required to wear white knee socks every day; if Connor Stone had been looking at the color of my legs, he must have done a very careful study of my knees.
“I saw something really interesting yesterday.”
“Wonderful. Did you take pictures for your scrapbook?”
“No, but I wish I’d had a camera on me. I’m sure administration would love to get their hands on the footage.”
I ignored him, rifling through my backpack for my history notes, indicating which books on Woodrow Wilson I was going to need to start on my research paper that weekend.
He continued, “Michaelson caught me in the hallway after last period and started in on one of those speeches about how I should apply myself, so I was late getting out. But once in the parking lot, I realized that the little pep rally really made my afternoon.”
“Mmm,” I said vaguely, flipping through a binder, supported against my hip.
“Because out in the parking lot was none other than one uptight St. Augustine’s Academy junior, stripping half-naked beside her car.”
I looked up sharply and found him standing closer to me, hands still in his blazer pockets.
He half-grinned. “You know anything about that?”
Heat rushed to my face. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” I said.
“Didn’t say you did. I actually really enjoyed the show.” He came closer and leaned on my backpack so I couldn’t continue searching for my notes. “I was just curious about the reason for it. You planning to forget the whole college thing and just hit the clubs instead?”
“Hardly.”
“You might be good.”
I realized suddenly how alone we were. Most of the students had gone for the weekend, and the librarian, a heavyset woman with crooked teeth and rust-colored hair, usually sneaked out on Friday afternoons to kidnap whatever goodies were left over in the teachers’ lounge. I didn’t think he would try anything, I just didn’t like him standing so close.
“I don’t think so.” I snapped the binder shut and moved his elbow off my backpack, intending to replace the binder and save the studying for later.
But he caught my hand and tugged lightly, throwing me off-balance and bringing me a step closer. He looked down at me with the dark eyes that had enchanted so many girls before, looking like he was about to say something, then laughed softly and let go.
I snatched my hand back and turned away from him to pack my bag.
“Forget it,” he said. “I’m going. You can have your library back now.”
My movements slowed when he disappeared around a shelf. I looked down at my hand, feeling like it wasn’t a part of my body anymore, then touched my fingertips to my cheek, thinking.
Connor suddenly stuck his head out from behind the shelf. Startled, I jumped.
“This conversation’s not over, though.”
My face, which had cooled considerably, flamed back to life.
He noticed, and grinned. “See you Monday, bookworm.”
).
And don't worry; Connor will definitely get what's coming to him. 
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