Chapter 2

Jenny looked up as someone knocked on the front door, and she checked the time, smiling as she confirmed who it was. Leaving the Ritz crackers and cheese she'd been eating on the table (her mom would take care of it later, once she got back from work), she undid the deadbolt and opened the door. "Hey Brad!" she said as he walked in.

"Hey Jenny," he said as he carefully set his backpack down next to the coat rack. "Having a good day?"

"You should know," she said with a laugh. "You saw my grade, didn't you."

"I sure did. Congratulations." He smiled, briefly, and she felt her own smile wilt a bit at its brevity. He was always so shy ... he really should smile more. It's a really nice smile, and it's not like there's something wrong with his face.

Her hand twitched as if to reach for her brow, and she smothered the instinct with a vengeance.

"So, can I get you anything? Ham sandwich, some milk, or..."

"Oh, don't worry about it. I had a bite to eat before I came. Thanks though." He took a look around, glancing at pretty much everything except, she noticed, her. "So, um, did you want to get started?"

She nodded. "I've got my books and everything set up in the den. As usual."

"Good," he said. "I-"

"Jenny!"

She winced as the loudmouth upstairs shouted down at her, and she smiled and shooed Brad into the den before stepping into the hall.

"Did you need something, Maddie?" she asked with cartoonish sweetness.

Her sister appeared at the top of the stairs, dressed in the jeans and tank-top their mother didn't let them wear at school. "You left your stupid Count of Montezuma book on the bathroom counter again!" she complained.

"Monte Cristo," she corrected smartly.

"Yeah, well it's on the damn countertop!"

"So?" she said with a shrug. "Do you need the entire counter for some reason?"

"It's called courtesy, and not leaving your stuff out for other people to pick up."

"Alright," Jenny said irritably. "I'll put it away later. If that won't do, then chuck it in my room or something."

"Fuhine." Maddie rolled her eyes and swung around the corner.

Jenny smiled and shook her head. Maddie was only two years younger, but she certainly didn't act like it. She took it as a point of pride that she already had a boyfriend, while Jenny didn't, which she supposed was supposed to mean something, and she tended to fight longer and yell louder when it came to their mother.

Still, she wasn't that bad when she wasn't being a complete-

"Oh," Maddie said as she popped her head around the corner, "how long is that creep of yours going to stick around?"

Jenny didn't remember climbing the stairs. The next thing she knew, she was topping the flight, and her sister's eyes widened as she poked her finger sharply into her chest.

"Now you listen, Mad. He isn't a creep. I don't want to hear you calling him a creep when he can hear. I don't want you to call him a creep when he can't here. I don't want you to even think about calling him a creep."

Maddie tried to interrupt, but Jenny simply kept talking, slowly, deliberately, punctuating her words by jabbing her sister repeatedly with her finger.

"If I ever hear you say that again," she went on, "then you'll have to explain to Mom what you and Kennith are doing up in your room."

Her sister's eyes, previously narrow with anger, now flew wide in shock, and Jenny smiled as she took an involuntary step back. "You wouldn't..."

"Don't bet on it. You got me?"

Nothing. Then:

"Fine."

Jenny continued looking at her for a few more moments then forced a smile on her face as she turned to make her way back down.

"It's just he's always watching you, Sis."

Jenny turned, eyebrows raised, as Maddie continued while rubbing at her chest where she'd been poked. "He's always looking at you when you're not paying attention, or staring at your butt when you walk by. It's cree ... it's disturbing."

Jenny's eyes softened as she heard the genuine concern in her sister's voice. She walked back over, saw her sister brace herself, then felt her stiffen as Jenny folded her into a hug. "Thanks, Mad," she said quietly. "I appreciate it, trust me. But let me worry about it, okay?"

She held her sister at arm's length, and Maddie's head bobbed, somewhat reluctantly. She gave her forearms a squeeze, and then let go. She turned to go back down once again, but stopped, instead making her way to the bathroom and plucking her worn, beloved novel off of the countertop. "Better?"

Maddie blushed. "Yeah," she said sheepishly, then laughed.

Jenny nodded, then finally, finally descended the staircase, Maddie's words rattling around in her head. She knew Brad stole looks at her; everyone did, to some degree, though not always for the same reason. But the thought of him staring at her like Maddie said ... excited her.

Brad looked up as Jenny walked into the den, smiling broadly as she sat down in the second chair behind the desk he was sitting at. "Sorry about that. Sisters, you know."

"Yeah." Actually, he did know. His sister, when she was around, was a royal bitch, and the day she'd gone off to college had been a huge relief for him. Now he only had to see her around holidays, when she was (generally) in a good mood.

He didn't bother to mention that he'd overheard them before Jenny had marched up the stairs. Even if he'd taken offense, it'd been between the two of them. And, to be honest, the more he thought about it, the more he began to agree that "creep" was a good word afterall. What did you call a guy like him anyway, constantly steeling peeks at someone? A guy who'd jerk off to the thought of it later?

Taking a deep breath, he turned towards her and nodded. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

She nodded. "So where did you want to start?"

"Well, I figure we could take a look at the questions you missed on the test, first. Make sure you've got that down-pat. Then we can-"

Brad sat back an hour later, watching Jenny jot down a few final notes, and gave a nod of satisfaction. We got a lot done so far. I didn't even have to tell her where she made her mistakes!

Jenny's problems with this test, he'd discovered, lay mostly in her getting so involved in the problem she was solving that she lost track of what it was she'd been trying to solve for. In this case, more a matter of manner than method, and something she was already working on.

Jenny dotted the last 'i' before leaning back with a groan. "Oh, my! My poor neck..." she tensed, then slowly, popped her vertebrae; first left, then right. The sounds of bones popping set Brad's teeth on edge, and he shivered as she went on. Finally, with a sigh of relief, she tipped back her chair, arms outstretched. As she did, Brad noticed two things. First, that it was actually quite warm in here, which would explain why Jenny had unbuttoned the top two buttons of her shirt.

And two, that the lack of those two buttons gave him a clear view of her bra-clad breasts.

He stared, wide eyed, at the fleshy orbs, seeing them for the very first time. Definitely c-cups, he told himself. The shifting, perfectly round breasts stared back at him, and he felt a stirring in his pants. A stirring which redoubled as she leaned back further towards him, giving slack to her bra, which peeled back to expose her bubblegum pink nipples. His hand reached down towards his fly...

What the fuck are you doing!?

His hand jerked away from his crotch, and he spun abruptly away from her. Jesus, get a hold of yourself, Brad. If jerking off to her in your bathroom isn't okay, it definitely isn't okay to do it when she's literally three feet away!

"Brad?"

He turned back around to see Jenny, fully extended, looking at him with confusion. He bit his lip trying not to look down the gap still pointed in his direction, then jerking his eyes away when he failed.

Jenny followed his eyes, and then let out a gasp before snatching her shirt closed. Her face flushed immediately, and Brad felt a quiver of fear that he'd finally gone too far. That his voyerism had finally come home to roost, and she'd ask him to leave. He braced himself...

Jenny stared wide-eyed at Brad, cheeks flaming furiously, as she realized where his eyes had been. Where no man's eyes had ever been. Not since her mother had forced her into her current wardroab as soon as her breasts had begun to bud.

She hadn't understood, then, what her mother was doing, and it took her several years to fully understand. When she finally did, she'd been furious. The Bitch doesn't trust me! She wants to make sure that no one looks twice at me, to make me so unattractive that the boys wouldn't give me the time of day. Sometimes, in the darkest recesses of her mind, she'd wondered, briefly, terribly, if that had been the reason she had the scar. The horrible, awful, wretched scar that had been nothing but pain her whole life. Taunts and teases, when she'd been a kid, and now distance and disgust by her peers. Had it all been to keep her "pure?"

It had all come out into the open one night, when her mother's stern lectures had pushed her too far. The gall of this hypocrite to lecture her on pre-marital sex. Her, who'd given birth to not one, but two daughters before she'd turned 19. Daughters who'd never known their fathers because their mother had been too high, too drunk, or with too many men to remember which had knocked her up. She'd cast her accusations into the Bitch's teeth, expecting her to rant and rage in return.

What she hadn't expected was for Sandra Lee, her mother, a woman 17 years her senior, to stagger back as if she'd been shot. For her face to crumble, and for her to fall to her knees, sobbing and keening like a broken child.

She'd learned the truth of it, then. All of it.

It hadn't been easy, but she made her peace with Sandra. It had taken weeks to gather the broken pieces of their relationship, to forge it into something which let her once more call her Mother. They never again discussed what had happened that night, whether of fear of what it might bring or an unwillingness to reopen that pain, she didn't know.

From then on, she'd tried to respect her mother's wishes. To remain chaste. To downplay her god-given features when she wanted so desperately for someone, anyone, to look at her the way they looked at other girls.

The way Brad had, just now.

On the heels of that revelation, she felt something she'd never felt before. A primal something that surged up from deep inside of her, sending her pulse racing.

She stared at him, shock still painted on her face as this new feelnig enveloped him., and she saw the answering chagrin, the sheer panic which swept through him. She opened her mouth to say something, and he suddenly turned away, frantically sweeping his things into his backpack as he babbled heedlessly at her.