After the Calling

Warnings: Fuzzy graphics. Androgyny masquerading as youth.

And… this is Jax and Chloe… sex is involved.

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“Well,” Mrs. Bouchard started, struggling to keep her blush under control. “You certainly realize that I must relieve you of your obligations to this household. There is no way that we can all retain our dignity with you continuing your services here. You agree, yes?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the young woman replied. Her chin was tight to her chest and her voice quivered with the threat of tears, but she stood dutifully. She had been hired for her looks. Or lack thereof. Her frame was curveless, boyish, as was her face. Her thin, mousey hair was kept in an unkempt knot at the nape of her neck, and her clothing was bland and unattractive. In the interview, she had been quiet and prim. Perfect, it seemed.

Mrs. Bouchard released a heavy sigh and shook her head. “And no worries from you. Not a word of this will leave the walls of the house, I assure you. Any recommendations that you need for future employment will be promptly provided, and with glowing praise. Your work, otherwise, has always been exemplary.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“If it is convenient, we can ship your belongings to you at your notice. And severance will be supplied in cash.” The elder woman paused in the speech that she had given at least a dozen times prior. She simply had to ask. “Excuse this inquiry, but you must have heard rumors of the women who held this spot before you? And the women employed elsewhere on staff? Six maids in as many months would certainly lead to improper talk. But six maids, a chef, an accountant’s secretary, and the gardener’s daughter, all made sparse in less than year, brew nothing but gossip. My husband’s payroll is rife with scandal, and you must have heard of some of it.”

“Yes ma’am, I had heard.”

“And did you not take it into account when you took the job?”

“Yes ma’am, I had.”

“Then why are we here? What is it that continually places me in this position of embarrassment?”

“Ma’am, I am so sorry. Your son is – ” The woman brought her eyes up briefly, but the sight of Mrs. Bouchard set them to tears.

“Oh dear, my son is what?” Mrs. Bouchard thought of a number of different descriptors that would be suitable to end the statement. Her son was a miscreant. A fool. A manipulative jackass. A terrible thought crossed her mind. “Jaxon certainly didn’t… you weren’t… forced, were you?”

“Oh, no!” her former maid rushed to clarify. “It was nothing like that at all!”

Mrs. Bouchard leaned forward anxiously. “Then what? My son is what?”

The woman shuddered. “Irresistible.”

It took a long moment for Mrs. Bouchard to actually process the word and realize its meaning, and once she did, her body jerked upright in scandalized surprise. Her delayed reaction startled the young woman who took a timid step back from the desk where the grand home’s employment record books were stacked.

Mrs. Bouchard found her voice. “Well, that is ridiculous! Irresistible? That should not even be a word in the English language for all of its insidiousness. No one is irresistible. Certainly not a man, and most certainly not my son.” Her sympathy left her like warmth in winter. “That you would forget your responsibilities to your employers and jeopardize your means for a living over your lack of self control is disgraceful.”

She stood up, signaling the end to their meeting. “If I could fire that degenerate as my offspring, I would. And send him out the door with you.”

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The mistress of the Bouchard home stormed down one of the grander halls in the manor in search of its younger master. She thought briefly that she might open her auroric senses and trail him by way of his energy, but she pushed the idea from her mind. As a civilized woman, that was completely unacceptable. It would be just as well she scream for him from the rafters.

“Mother, are you looking for me?”

Mrs. Bouchard stopped short, finding her son lounging on the ledge of a window. “Should you be sitting in direct sunlight like that?”

Jaxon shrugged and nonchalance played on his face, looking so despicably like his father’s. Mrs. Bouchard was hardly able to speak again before annoyance overtook her.

“Well, another one gone. Are you please?”

“Why would I be pleased? I was quite enjoying myself,” he said indifferently. “You will be giving her a healthy severance, yes?”

“Yes!” Mrs. Bouchard snipped. Severance payments had become a necessity for the women that had been let go, as her son, Jaxon, had developed a habit of sending money on his own. Not out of the goodness of his heart, but strictly for appearances. Mrs. Bouchard, and everyone who frequented the society gossip mill, had come to the same conclusion based on those appearances.

“IS SHE PREGNANT?!” she had howled at Jaxon when she became aware of his charity.

Her son had laughed at her. “No. But she has just been fired from her job.”

From then, every woman was left with good will, a promise to help find other employment, and hefty imbursement to tide them over.

“The replacement will be here before noon tomorrow,” Mrs. Bouchard informed Jaxon through pursed lips. “And I am certain that this one, at least, will retain her self-respect.” Tired of discovering her son occupied in various coital arrangements with the estate employees in all corners of the house, she finally hired a woman who was far older, fatter, meaner, and uglier than any of her previous employees. It was the only acceptable method she could come up with to thwart any more indecent engagements.

At first she had thought that Jaxon simply lacked discretion and tact, as she had known that to be true since he was twelve. But after finding her weekly seamstress, a married mother of two, fellating him in her personal study, the one location beside her bedroom where she spent the most daily hours, she realized that he was doing it on purpose and entirely for her detriment.

His acting out was not baseless. Mrs. Bouchard knew exactly what he was protesting, but she wished that he would use another manner. But then, newly nineteen and newly vampiric, and having been treated like a dynasty heir for the whole of his life, she was somewhat relieved that ruining the family reputation was the only thing that he had thought to do.

“Oh, mother,” Jaxon huffed. “She isn’t post-menopausal is she? She’ll be dryer than a salt-lick.”

Mrs. Bouchard pretended she didn’t hear him. “I have given up believing that you can behave like anything other than a troll, but I can only ask that you pretend you are educated and treat her courteously.”

“On that I can give my word.” Mrs. Bouchard frowned at him, and he laughed. “I was wondering, dear woman, why you refuse to hire a man. That would likely stem my rampage, don’t you think?” His eyes grew wide with mocking. “Unless that’s not what you think. Unless it frightens you just how deep I might dip my groin.” He laughed again. “That would blow the doors right off that closed little mind of yours, wouldn’t it? You can’t even bring yourself to test the theory.”

Mrs. Bouchard clenched her hands together, angry that she had not put on gloves that morning. Jaxon was far more boorish with her when her hands were bare, because he knew that she would not smack him. She had stopped touching him without gloves when he was a barely out of toddlerhood, for the visions he instilled in her were relentless. Even as his mother, she could not bear it. By the time he was an adolescent, she had ceased motherly affection entirely, gloveless or not. At this point in his life, she wouldn’t dare lay a hand on him unless it was a palm across his face. And even then, never without some barrier between her skin and his.

She laid out the only viable card in her hand. “You will control yourself in these coming weeks, or I will cancel dinner with the Morans.”

The laughter fell from Jaxon’s face. “Your husband would not allow that.”

“My husband hates the Morans. Why would he care to dine with them?”

“Business.”

With a flick of the wrist, Mrs. Bouchard dispensed of the notion. “Politics can be managed over the phone. And even if you father actually desired a meeting with Mr. Moran, the accompaniment of the Moran wife and daughter are hardly necessary.”

Jaxon was stoic, although she knew that he was laboriously mulling over every word. “Should you refuse me this, I will retaliate, of course,” he said after a moment.

“And what will I have lost?” Mrs. Bouchard asked him, prepared for such a threat. “If anything, it will be business as usual. You’ll be a prat, and I’ll be miserable. I’ve become quite used to it, really.” She turned on her heel and began clicking down the corridor. “It is up to you.”

She was able to maintain her composure all the way to her husband’s study, but by then, the effort to remain civil was beyond her. “Does he drug them?!” she screeched at her husband. “They can’t all be idiots!”

Mr. Bouchard chuckled, not looking up from his reading. “He doesn’t drug them.”

“He pays them! They’re whores!”

“Well, we pay them.”

“He isn’t even that attractive!”

“He’s a handsome boy.”

“He looks like a fish!”

“He looks like me.”

“You look like a fish!”

“The more you pay attention to him, the more he will act out for your sake,” Mr. Bouchard told her, as he had on many occasions. “Just let him screw the maids, Madeline.”

“What?! That is just – I can’t believe – ” she sputtered, appalled. For the whole of Jaxon’s life, Mr. Bouchard had only paid a cursory attention to the boy. He was mildly pleased that he had a son, but the child’s antics had never quite interested him. When it was clear that Jaxon would be vampiric, Mr. Bouchard had delegated his son never leave the grounds of the Bouchard properties for the sake of the family name and the safety of all. Jaxon’s rebellions to this, however, were met with a nonchalant eye, and given to Mrs. Bouchard to handle. “This is my reputation, if you care nothing about yours!”

“Well, if you let him have his way, you would not have to continue disposing of our staff, and then no one would draw salacious conclusions. Your reputation would be spared.”

“But it isn’t the women he wants! He cares nothing for them! He does it to rile me! And if I give him his way, he’ll find something else, something worse to torture me with!”

Mr. Bouchard nodded. “Yes, and you’ll ignore that as well.”

She might have thrown something at him. “You both will drive me insane.” She slumped down petulantly on one of his couches. “I threatened to cancel the dinner with the Morans.”

“Please do.”

“It depends on your son. If he continues to behave like a baboon’s ass, then I definitely will.”

“Darling, you swore just then.” Mr. Bouchard noted quietly.

“Well, I meant it!” Mrs. Bouchard huffed. “In some ways I feel like I should cancel it for his own sake. Do you see how he looks at that girl?”

“I haven’t noticed. But he does tend to look at all members of the opposite sex a certain way.”

“No, no!” She was becoming a bit fed up with her husband’s indifference. “He looks at her differently. He’s infatuated, I’m sure of it.”

Mr. Bouchard looked up then, his nostrils flaring. “Certainly not the spawn of those red-headed, demon worshipping – ”

“Oh, stop it, Dane, they’re Episcopalian.”

“ – money thieving, freckled, hole digging – what would he see in her?! They’ve met no more than three times!”

“They’ve known each other since grade school. Why do you care?” Mrs. Bouchard asked. “You expect him to lead a normal life? You expect him to find some nice girl and get married? What do you care of his feelings for the spawn of demon worshippers? Nothing can come of it.”

Mr. Bouchard cooled visibly, but his frown did not soften. “It’s rumored that she’s pre-vampiric. It’d be disastrous should something come of it.”

“Well, nothing will,” Mrs. Bouchard said coldly. For a moment she had thought that his outburst was based in some sentiment for his son’s future. But he was more concerned with the idea of vampiric grandchildren. Well, her husband’s feelings on vampirism were not at all secret. She had no reason to be surprised.

She tossed her legs up on the couch and closed her eyes. Dealing with the fool men in her life was exhausting. “It’s all the more reason that I should cancel dinner. No need to get the boy’s hopes up.” But even as she said it, she knew that the banquet would happen as planned. Not only to give her some reprieve from Jaxon’s wrath, but to give her son his own reprieve.

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Jaxon’s good behavior shocked the entire household, and Mrs. Bouchard, who had not seen her son display urbanity in years, was on edge through its entirety. She was positive that he was toying with her and at any moment, she’d find him setting her grandmother’s tapestries afire, or urinating in the water heater, or humping one of the family Pomeranians. She didn’t know what to expect, so she expected the worst.

On the eve of the Moran visit, Mr. Bouchard expressed to his wife that he had forgotten that the boy had even been taught proper manners.

“Isn’t it terrible,” Mrs. Bouchard replied, “that I have to threaten him in order to get him to remember his humanity? And even then, I wait for him to ruin my life.”

“Well, then maybe you should start preparing a list of new threats to use should he decide to ruin your life,” scoffed Mr. Bouchard.

But outside of one vulgar remark about the new maid, something about tying her sagging breasts around his neck, a remark he later apologized for, Jaxon remained docile, even polite.

By the time of the Moran’s arrival, Mrs. Bouchard realized that she had more to worry about from her husband’s decorum rather than her son’s.

“George, how are you?” Mr. Bouchard greeted Mr. Moran. “Your company stock is not completely dismal, I hope?”

“Oh no, no, quite well, in fact. Steel is on the rebound. We expect great things in the coming quarter,” Mr. Moran replied with a smile. “Of course, we all can’t cut down trees for a living, but we’ll survive.”

“Well, there are but so many bridges to be built. Good thing wood is sustainable.”

“Sustainable until your run out of forests.”

“And then you’ll suppose we’ll be making paper out of metal?”

“Well, I’ve always said that you lumberjacks were resourceful.”

“Not nearly as resourceful as you mine-diggers. Kill any canaries lately?”

Mrs. Bouchard forced her attention away, should her embarrassment kill her on the spot. She looked warmly to Mrs. Moran. “The ride was tolerable?”

The red haired woman smiled in commiseration. “Oh, we were lost briefly. Had George hired a driver, that would not have been the case, but at least we’re here.”

“Thank you for making the effort. I haven’t had a guest to entertain in ages.”

“Oh, our pleasure. Getting Chloe to be cooperative was a chore, but… well, she just made 17 and you know how they get around that age.”

Mrs. Bouchard forced a smile. “Do I ever.”

“You do remember my Chloe – oh, where did she go?”

Mrs. Bouchard had a sudden and frantic urge to slap her son, but it was premature. He had commandeered the Moran daughter, but they were only a few yards away, standing very closely – closer than Mrs. Bouchard would have ever appreciated – keeping their conversation just out of ear shot.

For a moment, Mrs. Bouchard felt some trepidation for the youngest Moran. She was so tiny, even smaller than her slouching mother, and Jaxon, with his father’s stature, might be liable to sling her over his shoulder and steal her away. But to Chloe’s credit, she never appeared to hold any interest in Mrs. Bouchard’s son, despite Jaxon’s obvious attempts to gain her attentions. And she also retained a personality large enough to belie her diminutive figure, and make it at least somewhat difficult for her to be carried off on anyone’s shoulder.

Mrs. Bouchard let these observations comfort her, and chose to believe that her son was continuing his streak of good behavior. He had not yet given her a reason to think otherwise. As he had been asked, Jaxon was keeping his aura closed so as not to alarm the guests with its vampiric nature. It was not out of the ordinary. Mrs. Bouchard’s own aura was tucked away appropriately. Mr. Bouchard, in his bid to one-up Mr. Moran, had absentmindedly let his loose, but Mrs. Bouchard knew that her husband would have no complaint in shielding it when she told him to do so the minute she could afford it.

The Moran family, however, made no such pretenses with their auras, and left them brightly available for all to see. This included the youngest Moran, whose aura was quite a show. Despite Mr. Bouchard already having voiced his suspicious to her, Mrs. Bouchard was utterly stunned to see the vampiric markers beginning to show in the young lady’s energy field. She was certainly pre-vampiric, and it seemed her parents held no embarrassment over it.

“Chloe!” Mrs. Moran called her daughter, “Did you greet Mrs. Bouchard?”

The young red head pushed past Jaxon, who seemed to be in mid-sentence and made her way back to her mother. “No, how rude of me!” she sang and extended her hand. “How are you Mrs. Bouchard?”

Mrs. Bouchard stared at the hand presented to her and rubbed her fingers together, trying to gain some comfort from the fabric of her gloves. It was fairly common knowledge that she avoided physical contact at all costs, and by the bright flush that had overtaken Mrs. Moran’s face, her daughter’s seemingly mild greeting was a tad insolent. But, offering a weak smile, Mrs. Bouchard took Chloe’s hand.

“I’m doing very well, thank you. And yourse – ” the vision hit her without warning, and fiercely, as though it had been streamed directly into her consciousness. It was set in a wide classroom with calculus equations chalked neatly on the board. The room was empty save for the teacher and one student, the Moran girl. It just so happened that said teacher was pantless and sprawled across his desk. Straddling him, with a hiked skirt and a firm hold on his tie, was his lone, red-haired student, growling that he tell her what her final grade was at that moment.

Mrs. Bouchard was scarcely recovered before Chloe had pulled her hand away.

“Oh, I’m very well,” Chloe answered. “I received straight A’s this semester.”

Oblivious, Mrs. Moran confirmed. “Yes, she did! We’re all very pleased with her.”

“My… that’s – that is – wonderful,” Mrs. Bouchard forced herself to speak.

“Yes!” Mr. Moran overheard the news and chimed in. “And she’s already been accepted to some of the finest schools. Many of them Ivy.”

“Harvard?” Mr. Bouchard offered his alma mater.

“No, we didn’t bother. There is a level of pretention that even I simply can’t bear,” Mr. Moran answered. “Yale, however, accepted her straight away.”

“Oh yes, well, it is a wonder that everyone wouldn’t send their child to school in the slums of Connecticut.”

“Better to be mugged by the homeless on Harvard Yard, of course.”

“Oh, George, really…” Mrs. Moran tried meekly to intervene while Chloe Moran giggled behind her.

Mrs. Bouchard felt faint with embarrassment. No, anger. No, blinding fury. She was surrounded by heathens and whores, and they had to leave her sight at once. She opened her mouth to belt her disapproval with the lot of them, but was interrupted.

“Mother, don’t you think that we should make our way to the dining room?” Jaxon had appeared at her side without her knowledge and she almost leaped. “It is impolite for us to bore our guests in the parlor all evening.”

“Yes, absolutely,” she said quickly, her senses returning. She almost thanked Jaxon for reminding her that no matter how bilious the nature of their daughter, the Morans were guests. She decided to ignore the biting glare that Chloe was aiming at the back of her son’s head and made the announcement. “How about let’s begin dinner, everyone? Immediately.” The sooner this night could be over with, the better.

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“It was not such a terrible evening,” Mr. Bouchard tried soothingly later on that night.

“Don’t you say one word to me. I won’t be speaking to you for the whole of this week. You’re fortunate that you are even sleeping in this bedroom,” Mrs. Bouchard replied from her vanity. The entire dinner consisted of her husband and Mr. Moran making spectacles of themselves, mixing subliminal insults with financial manipulation, throwing everything from personal attacks to silverware. Oddly, the Morans left with each man holding stock in the other’s company. “I can’t believe that my son behaved better than his father.”

“Oh, well, that is subjective. You certainly noticed that Chloe Moran was masturbating him under the table. I would hardly call that good behavior.”

Mrs. Bouchard leaped to her feet and nearly fell over. “THAT SLUTTING WHORE OF A PROSTITUTE, SHE WAS NOT!”

“I kicked him in the shin twice, if that is any consolation.”

“And he was so quiet! I thought that he was – ugh! UGH!”

Mr. Bouchard was not nearly as scandalized over his son’s transgression as he was over the Moran youth’s aura. “You would think that George would leave her home, the way her aura is looking. And sending her to school! That would be disastrous. But maybe Rowanne Kelley will have found a cure by then.”

Mrs. Bouchard stared at her husband, shocked that he could be more worried about Chloe Moran’s state of psyche than about the fact that his son just committed the most heinously embarrassing act that she had ever encountered. “I might divorce you!” she shrieked.

“Oh, well not this evening, so soon after the Morans had visited,” Mr. Bouchard mused. “Everyone will think one of us was having an affair.”

Mrs. Bouchard took off her slipper and threw it at him.

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Jaxon fell back into his bed, a bit giddy from the events of the day. He had been counting down the hours until he could see Chloe Moran, the half-sized girl with the red hair who sang her words instead of speaking them, and dominated the majority of his thoughts. She was offensively wicked to him, and he could never quite pinpoint what it was about her that enthralled him so. Charming compliments and gifts were thrown back in his face. His sweet talk was met with derisive laughter. Phone calls went unanswered and letters were returned to sender.

So he had taken to being rather crass with her, vulgar to a point where even he had to fight a blush. His mother would have dug a grave and fallen into it, had she heard some of the things that he had said to Chloe. And he would never use that tone with any other woman he was trying to subdue.

At first it had been out of frustration. It was his habit to be a lout toward those who irked him. But inexplicably, she had responded to it and finally took notice. Well, more notice than she had before. She still laughed at him and refused his advances, but now she held at least some conversation with him.

“I spent the day telling my mother I’d hang myself if she made me come here,” she had told him that evening when he had managed to herd her away from their parents. “Your family is so boring.”

“Well, then we’ll save you the rope and bore you to death,” he replied. “I can’t say I have anything to spike your interest except for what is in my pants, but then you have no interests outside of that, do you?”

“Oh, but I do. What is under my skirt interests me far more than what is in your pants. And I dare say that the same is true for you.”

“At the moment, my interest lies in your mouth, actually. You talk so much, I can’t seem to think of anything except for muffling your voice.”

She giggled. “Oh my, aren’t you indecent? But then if only you’d stop talking to me, as I’ve tried so hard to get you to do, you’d never hear my voice again.”

“But I do enjoy your voice, occasionally. I can imagine how you’d sound screaming my name. But then, you might forget it and accidently call me God.”

“Do you speak to your mother with that mouth?”

“I do many things with my mouth,” he answered.

“Well, no wonder she’s almost comatose with scandal.”

Jaxon glanced briefly at his mother. “She’s far from comatose. She has come to expect the worst and handles it with the self-possession of a brick wall.”

Chloe peered at his mother who was now feigning deafness to the insults his father and Mr. Moran were flinging at one another. “No, I know that type. She isn’t in denial, like my mother, but believes that she must fix everything. She can’t, and it will break her.”

Jaxon balked at the assessment of his mother and scoffed. “Hardly. Her lack of denial is to her benefit.”

“No. Some things are meant to be denied. No mother would survive her teenage children otherwise.” Chloe raised her eyebrows. “I bet I can get Mrs. Bouchard to kick my family out without second glance.”

“Impossible. The embarrassment would cause her to stroke.”

“Then what is your wager?”

Jaxon stared at her, but could think of no answer. Whatever she was going to do could not be suitable for their dinner engagement. But hell if he didn’t want to see it. Although, upon returning his eyes to his mother, he did wonder if she might actually have a stroke.

“Oh, the momma’s boy all of a sudden are we?” Chloe teased. “Is a bet with me really all that unappealing? Afraid I’d end your night early?”

He defied her taunt. “If I win,” he grabbed her hand and pressed it to his crotch, “you two will become formally acquainted.”

The move surprised her, but only briefly, and the moment she recovered she closed the space between them. “Jaxon Bouchard, I have to say I expected…” she gave his groin a squeeze, “more of you. So typical you are to think of your penis before anything else. I could have done so much for you. You’ve no idea the people I know and have the ability to blackmail.”

“Already conceding defeat?” he asked, pressuring himself to remain unaroused.

She chuckled. “Please, I’ve already won.”

“Unlikely, but what would you get?”

“The minute your mother sends my family walking out of the door, no doubt flinging hateful profanities at our backs – ”

“Ha, imagine.”

“- you will forget me. Pretend I never existed. And if you can’t do that, you’ll at least force yourself to understand that you are an intolerable bore and have no chance with me. I’m out of your league, and you will leave me to it.”

It was his turn to be thrown off his guard, not from the malice of her words, for she had said worse to him, but from the knowledge that if she won he’d be completely unable to hold up his end of the wager. “I won’t agree to – ”

“Chloe!” Mrs. Moran called her daughter just then. “Have you greeted Mrs. Bouchard?”

“No, how rude of me!”

Jaxon watched, half fascinated, half worried, when Chloe offered her hand to his mother. That act alone would certainly send Mrs. Bouchard reeling, but not enough to throw anyone out to her doorstep. It wasn’t until his mother’s words caught in her throat and her face took on the coloring of a plum that he realized what Chloe had done. If one mancer knew the ability of another, they could inflict a vision, and Jaxon could only imagine what his mother was seeing. The sight was brief and Chloe kindly took her hand back.

“Oh, I’m very well,” Chloe said in delayed answer to Mrs. Bouchard’s initial attempt to query her well being. “I received straight A’s this semester.”

Jaxon saw his mother sway and give Chloe a look of which he had been on the receiving end many times. It translated roughly into: “You filthy whore.” If less were on the line, he would have laughed, but he could only cringe when his father and Mr. Moran chimed in to make the conversation worse. He rushed to stem the flow of disaster.

“Mother, don’t you think that we should make our way to the dining room? It is impolite for us to bore our guests in the parlor all evening.” he said, careful not to touch her. He kept his voice cool so as to pull her back from the brink of humiliation.

“Yes, absolutely,” she replied quickly, her color returning to a more human shade. “How about let’s begin dinner, everyone? Immediately.”

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“You cheated,” Chloe said to him quietly over dinner while their fathers hammered at each other’s egos. “If it weren’t for you interference, I would have been home right now. I demand a rebid.”

“I think you are being a sore loser, but no worries. I can make you sore elsewhere to take your mind off of it,” Jaxon replied, pretending to smile at a comment from his mother.

“I am not a sore loser and meet all my debts in full. I would have presented myself to you nude, on all fours, if you had played fairly,” Chloe huffed under her breath.

“And how will you present yourself to me now that I haven’t?”

“And you admit it!”

“Admit what, darling?” Chloe’s mother spoke up from across the table.

Chloe did not miss a beat. “Jaxon is being so modest, mommy. Make him admit that he is by far the best rider the polo league has seen.”

“Please! I haven’t played since I graduated,” Jaxon added, keeping with the ploy. “Maybe if I had gone on to university, but with my affliction – ”

Jaxon’s father spoke up then, “Don’t mind that, son. With your smarts, you’ll double my number of loggers before I’m dead.”

“And of course, I’d take on a young mind as my apprentice any day,” Mr. Moran offered.

Mr. Bouchard looked struck. “And why would he take an apprenticeship in a steel mill when his name is on every stack of industrial wood this side of the country?”

The squabbling resumed and Jaxon brought his attention back to Chloe, ready to bat anything she’d throw at him. But she was looking at him quite differently than she had been all evening. Or ever. She was studying him when previously she had hardly the concern to look him in the eye.

“Is that why you stay holed up in your house for the life of you? Your affliction?” Although she was speaking quietly enough so as not to interrupt their bickering fathers nor arouse concern from their mothers, there was a prominent condemnation in her voice when she said the word. Affliction. As though she would spit on it if it were tangible.

Jaxon looked away. What could he tell her? His parents were holding out hope for some magical cure from an organization they felt they were too good for, but until then he was sealed in their home. His grand oversized prison. A well paid healer came every three days for a half an hour to restore him. An even better paid dentist would come once a week to file down his canines, which had grown unnaturally long, and sharp enough to break skin.

“There are dangers in vampirism,” he answered finally. “My parents fear I’d encounter them sooner in public than at home.”

“Well, of course you would,” Chloe spat as though his statement were obvious. “But what does a fear belonging to your parents have to do with you?”

He frowned, unsure. He had assumed his parent’s fear in some ways. Despite his knowing where the door was, he had never left. He had only made it a mission to annoy his mother using more and more outlandish methods.

Chloe seemed angry suddenly. “I misinterpreted you. You’re not a bore,” she said. “You’re worse. You’re a coward.”

“I’m no coward,” he replied sharply.

“I’d see you prove that,” she scoffed.

“And how would you have me?”

She didn’t answer but her pale eyes were burning through him almost painfully. He was relieved when she finally looked away. They sat tensely for an entire course of the meal, listening to their fathers rant at each other and their mothers struggle to add civility the conversation. By the time the main course arrived, Jaxon was considering an apology for any number of things, but he was positive that if he actually voiced contrition, she’d despise him even more.

He had run a circle in his head when he felt her hand on his knee. Confused, he eyed her, but she continued to appear engrossed in her meal while her hand travelled up his inner thigh. He remained willfully ignorant of her intentions until her hand gained entry into his pants. At that point, her intentions were blatant. Despite that, he asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m holding up my end of a wager,” she replied.

“I don’t remember this being in the stipulations.”

“You told me I had to become formally acquainted with a certain member of your party,” she explained. “I simply cannot think of one formal acquaintance that I have who I did not first get to know over dinner.”

If there was ever a battle so bloody and brutal, so heinous and hopeless, so devastating and disconsolate, it was a war with an erection. But Jaxon fought, and he fought hard. “That’s unnecessary. I promise the acquaintance will be made well enough in private company.”

Her gaze swiveled in his direction. “Do you want me to stop?”

“Yes.”

He felt her hand release him and retreat; But what little relief he gained from the act was short lived. With pre-meditated discretion, so that no one else at the table could tell what she was doing – although Mr. Moran, in a heated moment, had thrown a fork, thoroughly distracting anyone who might raise their brow in the teen’s direction- Chloe brought her palm to her mouth and slowly licked the length of it, stopping to savor the tip of her middle finger.

And Jaxon knew that he had lost. He had fought and died, realizing far too late that he never had a chance. “Oh, Christ,” he mumbled, gripping the bridge of his nose.

Her hand returned to the now eager and willing traitor in his pants, and she coaxed it out with mild effort. Jaxon’s composure was now his only ally, and even that threatened to forsake him. He decided to keep his eyes strictly on his plate and mouth shut, avoiding all contact with either set of parents at the table. However, to his mortification, his father somehow noticed their impropriety and kicked him in the shin.

The silent admonishment from his father startled him, and he grabbed Chloe’s wrist to halt their misdeed. However, Chloe responded with a glorious maneuver of her thumb, and Jaxon’s grip on her wrist became one of encouragement and not censure.

A second kick to the shin later on went unacknowledged.

By desert, Jaxon was unduly relaxed, as was noted pleasantly by his mother, who misinterpreted the reason behind his tranquility and asked him to give appreciation for the meal by thanking the cook, not by leaning back in his chair like a truck driver. Jaxon merely smiled, content to keep the sticky dining kerchief in his lap and the secret with the jovial redhead at his side.

“The meal was excellent, Mrs. Bouchard,” Chloe complimented. “You really must hold these occasions more often.”

Jaxon’s mother smiled politely, and managed to keep most of the sarcasm out of her voice. “Oh, honey, aren’t you just… sweet.”

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Jaxon awoke from sleep and opened his eyes just as Chloe was pulling her weight onto his balcony.

He kicked off his covers and sat upright as she moseyed into his bedroom and climbed onto his bed, as though her presence before him was more natural than it being 2 in the morning.

“How did you get here?” he asked.

“Well, I stole a car, naturally,” she answered. “My father won’t miss it.” She watched him curiously, seeming to wait for his next inquiry.

He noticed that she was dressed in far less fabric than she had been when he had seen her last. “Why are you here?”

“Why do you think?” she countered. “We had a wager, no?”

He could only look at her suspiciously. Somehow he had expected this to go differently. He realized that he had been hoping to court her, and wasn’t sure he liked the idea of having her lain before him on a platter. “Yes, we did,” he answered after a beat. “I fully expect you to hold to your word. But… not quite like this.”

She looked at him coyly from under her eyelids. “How else can this arrangement be made?”

“You’ll continue to visit, and come what may.”

“Oh, you are funny.” She chuckled. “You plan to woo me, of all people. How is it that every time we meet, you act as though you’ve never met me before? But, you would be a romantic. Shows how long it’s been since you left the house.”

He kept still, letting her mock him.

“It’s no fun, you know, when you put up with me,” she said, smile fading slowly.

“I’d give you all my patience if you wanted it,” Jaxon answered. He did not mean to be sweet to her, but he couldn’t help it.

She shook her head and crawled into his lap. “I don’t want your patience, Jaxon Bouchard. And I’m not interested in your romance, either.” Her kiss was imposing, and a bit mean, like her nature. She whispered against his lips. “You take me now, or you leave me.”

The desire for her body was there, but this wasn’t really what he wanted. He gripped her face and kissed her again, but stopped her hands when they began tracing paths down his torso. “I suppose I’ll have to leave you,” he said quietly.

“Don’t be silly,” she teased. “You’ve won me. Albeit, unfairly.”

He shook his head, and could almost see the seduction leave her, replaced by her usual antagonism.

She sat back and studied him inquisitively. “And to think, you might have proven to me that you weren’t a bore.”

“I thought you decided I was a coward.”

“Well, aren’t you?”

“I can’t see how you’d make that conclusion.”

“If I left right this moment,” she said, “would you follow me?”

He looked down and almost unconsciously shielded his aura. “I couldn’t.”

“And what would you call a man who doesn’t go after what he wants? Because I would call him a coward.” Her voice was tinged with anger and annoyance. “You’re unhappy here, but you don’t leave. You want me, but you won’t chase me. There is no other conclusion to be drawn, and frankly, I have no use or desire for fearful boys.”

She pushed herself away from him and hopped from his bed, not even giving him the benefit of a second glance.

But by the time she had made her way down the tree that had granted her access to his second story bedroom, he had pulled on his clothing and was swinging his legs over the balustrade of his balcony. Some strange new stability in his limbs told him that should he jump, he’d land on his feet without consequence. And so he did, landing lithely in the manicured grass.

He helped her down from the tree trunk and watched her eyes travel the length of him.

She giggled. “If you’re not careful, I’ll have you wrapped around my little finger in no time.”

“And then you’ll never be rid of me,” he said lowly.

Her smile abruptly flattened. “Don’t joke like that.”

It was his turn to laugh at her, and despite herself her smile returned. “Where are you going?” he asked.

Her hand rose as though she might touch him, but she changed her mind and brought her palm to her cheek. Absently, she bit down on the nail of her pinky finger. “The only way you’ll find out is if you come.”

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TO BE CONCLUDED

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TECHNICALS:

Okay, first, things tend to look different to me in game, so I’m generally just as surprised by my crazy as everyone else when I see my pictures. It was not quite my intention for Jax(on) to look like a girl. It was my intention for him to look young. Somewhere in my brain, I must have gotten those two looks mixed up.

Second, there is only a Part II after this, and I would have put the whole thing up at once, but it’s too long for that. Even for me, it’s too long. But the more of the nitty gritty aspects of Jax and Chloe’s past are addressed in Part II. Loris is in too.

Third. Bouchard parents are actually not the Bouchard sim parents. Dane is Jax’s brother from another mother (all my Bouchard men are whores). And Madeline is his aunt. Dane probably would have played Jax’s character if it weren’t for the fact that he makes babies that look like blond banana-nosed sea monkeys. Jax, however, makes babies that look like Chauncey (*coughandJoelcough*), and since my love for my sims hinges solely on what kind of offspring they make, Dane was thrown out with the bath water. I like him though. He doesn’t suffer from profile flat-face and looks like Jax, except manlier. And not just in the cases where I have Jax looking like a girl. In general. Madeline was just better looking than Jax’s real mom, who looks like a horse. Pixie hero is a tough skin for female sims.

Fourth. The Moran parents are Chloe’s real parents. Chloe’s mom is Mercer’s second cousin and Rowanne’s great great grandmother. Or something like that. They have a batch of fug children with sunken cheekbones, and then they have Chloe.

Both Chloe and Jax are from a time when I actually played my sims and raised their babies, banana sea monkey or not. But then, I discovered CAS toggle, and no sim will ever have an ugly sibling again.

Fifth. This is taking place in the late 1960s.

Sixth. Chloe gets shorter in my brain everytime I think about her, which is why her height relative to everyone else is constantly changing. Originally, she was 5’4. She’s currently 5′nothing in my brain. Tomorrow, she’ll be 3’11. Or maybe I’ll upgrade her to 5’1. But basically, I want her to be a foot shorter than everyone. To me, that makes her even more intimidating. Although, I have yet to reconcile how she managed to have a son who grew to be 6’4. Nonsense.