Categories > Cartoons > Daria > Daria's Party Addition
Daria’s Party Addition – 03 Frustrations
by Dr T
You know the disclaimer drill. If you are unfamiliar with the first season episodes, you may wish to become so, or at least revisit them!
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Daria found the next week to be mostly frustrating. First, Monday morning Mr. O’Neill had spent the opening portion of the period complaining about a break-in at a cyber-café that Daria had barely noticed even existed before this incident. After that, he had twisted Daria’s sarcastic remarks into a campaign to reopen the café as a teen hangout. If even half of Jane’s stories about Ms Li were true, this would certainly include pressure on students for fundraising (which Li would no doubt skim some of the funds off of for some other pet project). Helen would no doubt find out from Quinn, who would use this as an excuse to cheat on at least some of the last of her grounding. Worse, O’Neill already wanted Daria to perform at the opening.
Sure enough, Quinn started the campaign to allow her out fundraising that very night. Worse, their mother had found out that the school was sponsoring three weekly sessions on college/SAT preps for Freshmen through Juniors. (The first one was Wednesday, and then the following two Mondays). She had already signed both of her daughters up. While Daria had to bribe Jane with a promise of pizza, Jane at least agreed to join the prep sessions.
Wednesday also started the pressure on the students to fundraise for the café. To get Ms Li to place the café as an ‘extra-curricular’ entry in the file which would be sent out if colleges asked or checked, a student had the choice of performing, working at the café itself, or fundraising. For fundraising credit, the student had to get rid of a minimum amount of ‘merchandise.’ Daria decided Thursday that selling boxes of 24 chocolate bars each was the best (or at least the easiest) option. She got the two boxes (one plain, one with almonds) and talked Jane into joining her – selling one box of candy bars was the minimum needed to earn credit from Ms Li. Immediately after school, during the first ‘college prep course’ session, Jane had been bored while Daria had been bored and disillusioned. Jack, who had nothing to do with any of these activities, cheered them up a bit by taking them to McGrundy’s for a snack of the brew pub’s ‘shovel o’ onion rings’ and house-brewed birch beer when the session ended – Daria was a bit touched that he had waited around for her. Jane was merely hungry and bored. Jack, however, just wanted to spend time with a teen he found very attractive on all levels.
“Yeah, those things are usually a scam,” Jack agreed when he heard about the prep sessions. “Still, while a lot of places mostly care if you can pay your own way without their having to anything to help you, at least after you meet their minimum requirements, all this stuff doesn’t hurt to have on file, and sometimes you get someone who gives some good advice.”
“I don’t know which is the worse thing you talked me into this week, this college prep garbage or selling crappy chocolate bars for O’Neill,” Jane complained.
“O’Neill actually managed to talk you two into getting involved in that?” Jack asked, a bit surprised.
“No, Mom forced me into it, and I bribed Jane into helping,” Daria retorted.
“While I’m enjoying the onion rings, don’t think you’re going to get out of treating me to two pizzas,” Jane informed her friend.
“I am well aware of that,” Daria agreed, even if she paid for Jane’s pizza about a third of the time in any event. The difference would be that Jane could pick the toppings the next two times Daria paid.
Ignoring the byplay for a moment, Jack needed more information. “So, what are you two going to have to try hawking around?”
“The easiest thing was selling chocolate bars – two boxes of twenty-four each minimum so we can both get credit,” Daria explained.
“So we’re got a box each – we are at least allowed to work as a team – one plain, one with almonds,” Jane added.
“Those are what, two bucks each?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Daria was curious. “Why?”
Jack pulled out his wallet and gave Daria two twenties and a ten. “You owe me two bucks, and the chocolate of course.”
Daria was puzzled. “Thank you, but why?”
“Other than to help you, you mean?” Jack replied. Daria flushed a bit at that sentiment, but Jack continued. “Dad may or may not reimburse me, but he gets hit up for this kind of thing at work pretty often, not to mention my sibs and I have had to do a bit of fundraising on and off, especially in middle school, plus my sister was a girl scout. That means on the one hand, we’re all sympathetic about people having to go around trying to sell stuff for school projects and so on, and on the other hand Dad had to do something other than eat the junk food – Mom’s pretty strict with all of us. When things like the chocolate bars or cookies are sold, we buy ‘em and donate them to the food pantry over in Oakwood.”
“Thank you,” Daria told him sincerely. Even if this didn’t wind up costing Jack money, it still showed an interest in helping Daria that no one (other than perhaps Jane) had ever shown, not even her parents. At least they rarely bought from Quinn either.
“Did you two decide about Friday?” Jane asked. McGrundy’s operated at a slightly higher level than the Zon. Mystic Spiral usually played the brew pub one or two weeknights per week at best, usually for dinner (a burger and fries), tips (if any), free beer, and a few dollars. This week, the booked band had cancelled and the Spiral had one great advantage in that situation – they were almost always available.
Jack looked at Daria, who nodded. Jack then told Jane they’d join her here to listen to the Spiral.
“You two don’t mind that I’m tagging along?”
“No,” Daria stated firmly.
“Besides, you get us in without paying the weekend cover,” Jack teased. While he would have preferred to have been just with Daria, he liked Jane well enough and also knew that dating was new for Daria.
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It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say the three enjoyed their time Friday night, or rather that they had actually enjoyed the music. Jane and Jack had danced a few times, but since the Spiral did not do slow dances or ballads, most of the rest of the time when they hadn’t been snacking, Daria had allowed Jack to hold her hand. By now, Jack thought he had some understanding of Daria, and realized that just holding hands in public was a major step for her at this point. That they were coming a bit closer pleased Jack as well as Daria.
The next afternoon, Daria took Jane out for a promised pizza. While Daria watched Jane paint afterwards, she left just after 4:30 so she could get ready for her date with Jack. Somewhat to both their surprises (not to mention Helen’s), the two had previously enjoyed the dinner at the country club, and decided to repeat the experience, but add in dancing afterwards.
As Jack had admitted, he was not really graceful. However, neither was he actually clumsy. He therefore made an adequate dance partner during the ballroom dancing that started at 8:15. Daria was surprised how much she enjoyed the formal dancing – she had loathed the years of dance class, deportment lessons, and cotillion. In the first, she was often stretched beyond her coordination in the later years (hence her tripping in the final recital); in all of them, she usually had to dance or play-act with younger boys (as boys usually were allowed to quit after a year or two) or with girls who didn’t want to dance with other girls or younger boys any more than Daria had.
Daria decided very quickly that she liked this type of dancing with Jack even more than the gentle swaying/tight embrace of the school slow dances – which she had also enjoyed, to her surprise. Nearly all the dances were at most at a moderate tempo – none of the older (or old) couples were about to jitterbug or even polka. These numbers were designed to allow the couples to dance slow and close and, if they possessed them, show off the steps they had been forced to learn as tweens. While Jack and Daria were by far the youngest couple (by well over 20 years, and close to 35 years below the average), they were above average in skill amongst the dancers.
Having learned the dance schedule, Helen and Jake allowed Daria to push her curfew to 11:00. Jack wondered why, since they were having a good time, Daria had them leave around 10:15. He discovered why when Daria had him stop in the spot where they had first talked – it was a lonely block, and the street lights on the corners were partially hidden by tree limbs. The early neckers had already left, and later couples had not yet arrived. Jack was more than happy to spend nearly 15 minutes kissing with Daria. While he had had a great deal of experience with his previous steady girlfriend, he was willing to take things at Daria’s pace. He was amazed at exactly how sensitive Daria’s ears and neck where – he correctly realized that it would have taken very little more stimulation to bring Daria to climax without even much direct stimulation of her erogenous zones.
As shocked as she had been that she had gone along with a make-out session (she preferred to ignore the fact that she had really initiated the session), Daria was even more thrilled (and both surprised and shocked) with the effects it had on her. She had never imagined being held close and kissing deeply could be both so satisfying and intensely arousing. She had sometimes tried to imagine such a session, and had always failed. That night, for the just the second time since arriving in Lawndale, Daria would take herself ‘in hand’ to climax, all the while remembering the feelings Jack had aroused in her – as well as thinking about Jack himself, the first time her self-touch had succeeded in focusing on a specific person. It was still somewhat non-specific in what she imagined they might do, which led Daria to, for the first time, wonder what she might be willing to do…and she did immediately reject the idea of sharing some real intimacy with Jack.
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The next Monday and Tuesday were annoying to both Daria and Quinn. This was in part because at the end of the second college prep session, the participants were told they were to go to a college campus the following weekend. As the sessions were co-sponsored by Lawndale State University, the University was happy to have students come there for a tour – this was all part of their recruitment plans. Most of the class, including Jane, would be taking LSU up on the offer.
Daria and Quinn, however, would be stuck going to their parents’ alma mater of Middleton. Middleton had been a very average, if socially a little prestigious, school when their parents had attended in the late 1960s. The 70s and 80s had hit the campus hard, however, and they had lowered the admissions standards (and the graduation requirements) three times to keep their enrollments (as well as their tuition and fees) high. Daria was unable to get past her parents rose-colored (and pot-infused) memories to get them to understand that even Lawndale State, perhaps the lowest ranked state school in their state, was better (and of course much, much less expensive) than Middleton.
In addition, the social status of Lawndale’s Freshman class had suffered an upheaval as Quinn, prodded and taunted for the last few weeks by Sandi, had decided to leave the so-called fashion club, taking Stacy with her. Unable to find ‘acceptable’ members (i.e. girls who would obey Sandi), the fashion club was soon dead and buried. Sandi soon found that without the nice and pretty Stacy, not to mention the incredibly cute Quinn, she had no standing whatsoever, and was quickly relegated to the ‘not that popular’ category. Tiffany ended up alone, ignored by all.
Sandi raged in the hallways of Lawndale High, which kept her popularity down. She would need to plot to regain her former assumed status.
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In the end, the visit to Middleton was a disaster for Jake, Helen, and Quinn. Granted, Quinn had managed to get elected ‘keg queen’ at an afternoon frat party. However, that had gotten the Morgendorffers kicked off campus and banned for the rest of the academic year.
Helen and Jake had already been in bad moods even before the campus security had caught up with them. They had not been on a campus since their grad school days of the mid-70s. They had not really realized how out of touch they were with the college students over twenty years later, and closer to thirty years after they had left Middleton.
Helen had, as usual, tried to blame Daria for Quinn’s misbehavior, or at least for Quinn’s opportunity to misbehave. Daria however was able to point out she had stuck with the campus guide while the other three had wandered off – her parents’ first. Daria did not mention that she had scored nearly $200 correcting students’ papers and had over $400 in commissions. She knew that, regretfully, this would have to be a one-time deal, as if the scam went on too long her mother would sooner or later stop it, and worse, confiscate any money already earned.
Quinn, who would have ended her grounding after that weekend due to the fact her parents kept forgetting to come home early to check on her, had the ban on weeknight dates extended through the next week. Jane and Jack both had good laughs at the other Morgendorffers’ experiences when Daria recounted them, however.
None of the three would notice that the student café would bomb that following Friday night, and be robbed the next morning. This would be in part because of what happened in Econ that Tuesday. Mrs. Bennett misinterpreted Daria’s comments in class, and they would be taking a field trip to the new Mall of the Millenium the following Monday (Lawndale High classes met every other day). Hearing Daria complain about that during lunch, Jack managed to get Mrs. Bennett to take the other two grades taking Econ to the Mall as well.
This trip would in turn set off Quinn – it was almost time for the holiday shopping season to start and the super mall, the largest within several hundred miles, had just opened. There were supposed to be at least nine unique boutique teen fashion shops there, along with just about every chain of teen-oriented clothing, shoe, and other accessories stores on the East Coast. She had been begging for a week to be allowed to go, or even (as a last resort) for her parents to take her.
Unfortunately for Quinn, Econ was not offered to Freshmen.
As much as Quinn wanted to go, Daria did not. Outside of books, there was very little she was interested in shopping for. Granted, she had been forced to expand her wardrobe a bit, but she currently deemed it adequate. (Quinn, who had considered Daria’s clothes ‘unmentionable’ before this had recently reluctantly upgraded Daria’s wardrobe to ‘almost barely adequate for one week and an informal weekend.’) There was really no reason for Daria to want to go to a mall.
On the other hand, she would be with Jane and Jack. Jane had even less interest in a mall than Daria – this mall did have a ‘Books by the Ton’ to pique Daria’s interest after all. Still, the trip got them out of a day at school, including Jane’s math class and their mutual gym class. Daria would help Jane with her homework on Sunday, and she wouldn’t have to risk losing any points during class. Plus any day without Coach Morris was a good day so far as both Jane and Daria were concerned.
In addition to Books by the Ton, the Mall also had a small mineral and fossil shop and one devoted to science hobbyists. That would keep Jack happy. In addition, Jack pointed out they had two computer stores and two additional gaming stores. In the end, even Daria had to agree it might not be a bad trip after all.
Daria and Jack spent both weekend nights at the country club – that Friday was also just after Daria’s 16th birthday. At Daria’s request, Jack did not make a fuss or inform the club’s waitstaff. He did, however (and with her permission), spend ten minutes kissing her before making the final approach to valet parking after presenting her with a rosebud to wear on her jacket – the first flower anyone had ever given her. (Daria would dry it, and keep it for the rest of her life.) In addition, after the first waltz that Friday night Jack invited Daria to the Snow Ball. While many, if not most, high schools usually held a winter formal of some sort, this was a big deal around Lawndale. All the county schools, plus the private elite Fielding Prep as well as the state-sponsored Grove Hills for the Gifted went in together on a huge formal held the Saturday before Christmas (December 21 this year).
“If you’d like to go,” Jack added.
Daria shrugged. “To be honest, I think we’d enjoy being here more – or at least we’d dance more.”
“True,” Jack agreed. “Would you terribly mind if I show you off to our peers, rather than to these folks yet again?”
Daria blushed at that, correctly believing Jack. He liked her at the least, and wanted people to know that he liked her. “Okay,” she responded in an embarrassed whisper to his obviously sincere statement. The invite would please her mother and likely aggravate her sister (who, since losing another week’s allowance because Helen had heard Quinn refer to Daria as a foreign exchange student on a phone call, had finally stopped pretending Daria wasn’t her sister, although she still avoiding mentioning Daria whenever possible). Daria would just have to make certain that neither forced her to go overboard getting ready.
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Saturday afternoon at Jane’s, after Daria had told her about the invite to the Snow Ball, Daria asked, “Would you like to go?”
“What, as part of a threesome?” Jane teased.
“No,” Daria retorted firmly. “Jack has a friend….”
“Of course he does,” Jane retorted.
Daria glared for a moment, and then said, “If you don’t want to go at all, just say so. I won’t be hurt either way.”
Jane looked a tad embarrassed. “Sorry. Who with?”
Daria shrugged. “Do you know a Fred Johnson?”
Jane thought a moment. “Vaguely.” Still, Jane knew most of the students, even seniors, if they had been in school with her long enough. “Senior, music geek….”
“So an art nerd can’t go with a music geek?” Daria deadpanned.
“Ha, ha, very amusing,” Jane retorted.
“What kind of music?”
“Band, orchestra, select choir,” Jane answered. “Not our kind of music.”
“And?”
“Not bad looking…not that good looking either. But it’s just a formal dance, where lots of couples just want to show up. It doesn’t have to be steady couples.”
“Exactly. Jack said he’d take care of everything.”
“Why?”
Daria thought. “Well,” she finally said, “he knows we’re close friends. He’s friends with this Fred. And I think he wants to get out of driving his little brother and his date around.”
“Okay, those are good reasons, especially the last and if Jeffy takes Quinn.’”
“Yeah, although just to my limited knowledge, she’s turned Jeffy and Joey down at least three times each, and Jamie four times. They won’t have a good chance with her until they can drive.”
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Saturday afternoon, Jack convinced Daria to come watch the recently released ‘The Princess Bride.’ While she had considered it likely to be a silly children’s flick, she was surprised at how much she enjoyed it. Given the usual and very complete wide-range of options, she again dismissed the ‘couples party’ idea. To Jack’s surprise, but eventual slight disappointment, Daria chose to spend the evening at his house, since his parents would be out all evening while Jeffy was out with Jamie and Joey.
After dinner at a Taco Bell, the two went to Jack’s house. Daria was, unusually, wearing jeans. While the pair ended up in his bedroom, Daria only took her boots off. The pair laid on his bed and thoroughly enjoyed themselves, even if they did not go anywhere nearly as far as Jack had thought they might when Daria had suggested the location. Hands did not go under clothes, but Daria did allow Jack’s hand a fair amount of free roaming over her clothes. After nearly three hours of heavy, passionate necking, both Daria and Jack had to relieve their sexual buildups once they had the privacy of their separate bedrooms later that night, a rare event for Daria.
For Jack, the evening gave him hope that Daria might not only allow freer access to her bare skin and intimate places, but perhaps more. However, as he knew he really liked her (actually, he was starting to acknowledge he was falling hard for her), he was in no hurry to push her limits. For Daria, she realized that she needed to decide what boundaries she might want (or need) to place on her relationship with Jack. She did not like thinking about such things – in this, she was more like Quinn than either sister would have liked to admit – but she understood that she should not avoid the issue. Under her stoic demeaner, Daria was potentially far more sensuous and passionate than the vast majority of people, even if she was only now becoming aware of that. She didn’t want to think these issues and ideas out, but she knew that if she did not, she could easily get overwhelmed and carried away. Like many girls who had attended Highland, Daria was on the Pill (as was Quinn). Still, that was not guaranteed, and Daria knew of course that even if it did (mostly) protect against pregnancy, there were other potential health problems that could occur along with unprotected sex.
On the other, she had to admit to herself (and although she didn’t always succeed, she did try and be honest with herself) that she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to set too many boundaries, short of that final step of intimacy. She had enjoyed herself in Jack’s bedroom, but while she had some rough ideas, she was not entirely sure what might come next, short of actual intercourse.
She knew she could not resolve this entirely on her own, even if only she could make the decisions. She also knew there was only one person she could talk to.
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“Daria!” Jane was pleased and surprised, that Daria would be so open about what she and Jack had done, Daria’s private responses, and her quandaries.
Blushing, Daria hid behind her hands.
“Sorry,” Jane told her friend. “You have to admit, this is a side of yourself you’ve largely kept under wraps.”
“True,” Daria muttered, almost wishing she’d kept her mouth shut.
“Let me get this straight,” Jane started, managing to keep any teasing out of her tone (if with difficulty), “you’re so sensitive, you have had to keep your distance….”
“No,” Daria corrected. “I’ve always kept my distance; I just discovered that, well….”
“You’re easily stimulated.”
Blushing, Daria nodded.
The two were sitting on Jane’s bed. Jane leaned over and ran a forefinger up Daria’s upper calf and onto her lower thigh as she leaned in and kissed Daria’s throat just under her jaw.
Daria shuddered with pleasure.
Jane took ahold of her friend’s shoulder. “Sorry, but I had to make certain you were telling yourself the truth – you do tend to exaggerate towards worst case scenarios at times.”
Daria, very red in the face, could only nod.
Jane put her arm around Daria and told her straight out, “Okay, first, how much can you trust Jack? If you explain you don’t want to go further than X, can you trust him to stop even if you’re so into what you’re doing to think to say stop at the time? If the answer is ‘no,’ or if you’re not sure, then you need to back off the relationship, at least for a bit until you feel you can trust him that much. If the answer is yes, then you need to realize that you are on the road to where you will likely want to move those boundaries further along at some point.”
Daria had to admit that last point to herself before she went on. “I…I’m fairly certain I can trust him, but I’m not in love with him.” ‘Yet,’ she mentally added. That made her correct herself, ‘At least, well, maybe I am?’ She looked at Jane, a little dispirited. “I wouldn’t want greater…intimacy without greater, well mutual affection.” She wanted to at least be more certain of Jack’s feelings. She was starting to think she was becoming very certain of her own, very fast. Too fast?
“And?”
“For the first time in my life…I think it could happen.”
“Great! I can understand that. You need to think about it, and then talk with Jack.” She paused, and then asked, “So, how do you feel about him right now?”
“I really like him; he’s…attractive.” She looked at Jane. “There are supposed to be all sorts of kind of love. I have no idea what spiritual love is, or love for humanity or such might be. I don’t really know what familiar love is – I don’t think I love Mom or Quinn, even if I do care about them, at least some of the time. I think I just feel more sympathy than affection for Dad.” Her eyes went down. “Maybe…maybe….”
“Platonic love?” Jane suggested, placing her hand over Daria’s.
“Yeah,” Daria agreed. Her eyes went back up to meet Jane’s. “It’s not that I want to kiss you or anything like what Jack and I did, but I do want to be around you. You mean more to me than anyone as a person, as opposed to, well, a boyfriend…or girlfriend.”
“I want to be around you, too – we aren’t just close acquaintances who hang around because we’ve nothing better to do.”
“Nope, not just that,” Daria teased. She moved her hand so she could squeeze Jane’s before letting go. “So, ready for the Mall date?”
“Yeah – and since three classes are going instead of just ours, maybe we can get on a different bus than Kevin.”
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In fact, they were indeed able to get on the second bus. Daria and Jack sat in one of the back benches, while Jane and Fred sat in front of them. Observers wondered if Daria was whispering ‘sweet nothings’ into Jack’s ear on the way to the Mall, but instead she was outlining her concerns about how physical their relationship might turn out before she was ready for it to go that far.
Jack was understanding – and the fact that Daria had put it in those terms meant he had hopes that things would be very close and physical at some point. As he was something of a romantic as well as being a sexually-interested teen male, he was content with this for the moment.
At the Mall itself, the two couples were part of the third of the students who met with Mall representatives. When Daria realized that they were being used for market research – and were being observed via a two-way mirror – she and Jack were able to obtain $20 certificates for those students present to various Mall stories once the scam had been exposed. Jack would be the one to suggest the students trade around for stores they might be interested in. He also made certain that Daria got a Books by the Ton certificate, while he scored one to The Nature Company. Fred traded a hair salon coupon for a video/gaming store that specialized in anime, while Jane ended up with one for a kiosk that sold silver jewelry.
Jane and Fred’s class assignment was to observe ‘the flow’ amongst a series of unrelated kiosks that just happened to be near each other. Daria and Jack observed different flow patterns among a series of neighboring women’s clothing shops (one each child’s, teens, business woman’s, and a Victoria’s Secret – despite a slightly teasing offer, Daria declined to enter any of the stores, let alone try on or purchase anything).
When the two couples entered the food court, however, three of the four recognized Quinn.
None of the school-skippers had fully realized that there would be a number of their fellow students (plus a teacher, plus one of the school secretaries acting as chaperones). Considering how much trouble Quinn had been in, she knew she was doomed if Daria turned her in. Quinn negotiated a deal giving Daria two future alibis. In turn, Daria and the other three figured out the best place in the huge mall where Quinn and her cronies had the least chance of being recognized.
Questioned by Jack, Daria was confident that her deal with Quinn would hold, if ever needed.
by Dr T
You know the disclaimer drill. If you are unfamiliar with the first season episodes, you may wish to become so, or at least revisit them!
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Daria found the next week to be mostly frustrating. First, Monday morning Mr. O’Neill had spent the opening portion of the period complaining about a break-in at a cyber-café that Daria had barely noticed even existed before this incident. After that, he had twisted Daria’s sarcastic remarks into a campaign to reopen the café as a teen hangout. If even half of Jane’s stories about Ms Li were true, this would certainly include pressure on students for fundraising (which Li would no doubt skim some of the funds off of for some other pet project). Helen would no doubt find out from Quinn, who would use this as an excuse to cheat on at least some of the last of her grounding. Worse, O’Neill already wanted Daria to perform at the opening.
Sure enough, Quinn started the campaign to allow her out fundraising that very night. Worse, their mother had found out that the school was sponsoring three weekly sessions on college/SAT preps for Freshmen through Juniors. (The first one was Wednesday, and then the following two Mondays). She had already signed both of her daughters up. While Daria had to bribe Jane with a promise of pizza, Jane at least agreed to join the prep sessions.
Wednesday also started the pressure on the students to fundraise for the café. To get Ms Li to place the café as an ‘extra-curricular’ entry in the file which would be sent out if colleges asked or checked, a student had the choice of performing, working at the café itself, or fundraising. For fundraising credit, the student had to get rid of a minimum amount of ‘merchandise.’ Daria decided Thursday that selling boxes of 24 chocolate bars each was the best (or at least the easiest) option. She got the two boxes (one plain, one with almonds) and talked Jane into joining her – selling one box of candy bars was the minimum needed to earn credit from Ms Li. Immediately after school, during the first ‘college prep course’ session, Jane had been bored while Daria had been bored and disillusioned. Jack, who had nothing to do with any of these activities, cheered them up a bit by taking them to McGrundy’s for a snack of the brew pub’s ‘shovel o’ onion rings’ and house-brewed birch beer when the session ended – Daria was a bit touched that he had waited around for her. Jane was merely hungry and bored. Jack, however, just wanted to spend time with a teen he found very attractive on all levels.
“Yeah, those things are usually a scam,” Jack agreed when he heard about the prep sessions. “Still, while a lot of places mostly care if you can pay your own way without their having to anything to help you, at least after you meet their minimum requirements, all this stuff doesn’t hurt to have on file, and sometimes you get someone who gives some good advice.”
“I don’t know which is the worse thing you talked me into this week, this college prep garbage or selling crappy chocolate bars for O’Neill,” Jane complained.
“O’Neill actually managed to talk you two into getting involved in that?” Jack asked, a bit surprised.
“No, Mom forced me into it, and I bribed Jane into helping,” Daria retorted.
“While I’m enjoying the onion rings, don’t think you’re going to get out of treating me to two pizzas,” Jane informed her friend.
“I am well aware of that,” Daria agreed, even if she paid for Jane’s pizza about a third of the time in any event. The difference would be that Jane could pick the toppings the next two times Daria paid.
Ignoring the byplay for a moment, Jack needed more information. “So, what are you two going to have to try hawking around?”
“The easiest thing was selling chocolate bars – two boxes of twenty-four each minimum so we can both get credit,” Daria explained.
“So we’re got a box each – we are at least allowed to work as a team – one plain, one with almonds,” Jane added.
“Those are what, two bucks each?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Daria was curious. “Why?”
Jack pulled out his wallet and gave Daria two twenties and a ten. “You owe me two bucks, and the chocolate of course.”
Daria was puzzled. “Thank you, but why?”
“Other than to help you, you mean?” Jack replied. Daria flushed a bit at that sentiment, but Jack continued. “Dad may or may not reimburse me, but he gets hit up for this kind of thing at work pretty often, not to mention my sibs and I have had to do a bit of fundraising on and off, especially in middle school, plus my sister was a girl scout. That means on the one hand, we’re all sympathetic about people having to go around trying to sell stuff for school projects and so on, and on the other hand Dad had to do something other than eat the junk food – Mom’s pretty strict with all of us. When things like the chocolate bars or cookies are sold, we buy ‘em and donate them to the food pantry over in Oakwood.”
“Thank you,” Daria told him sincerely. Even if this didn’t wind up costing Jack money, it still showed an interest in helping Daria that no one (other than perhaps Jane) had ever shown, not even her parents. At least they rarely bought from Quinn either.
“Did you two decide about Friday?” Jane asked. McGrundy’s operated at a slightly higher level than the Zon. Mystic Spiral usually played the brew pub one or two weeknights per week at best, usually for dinner (a burger and fries), tips (if any), free beer, and a few dollars. This week, the booked band had cancelled and the Spiral had one great advantage in that situation – they were almost always available.
Jack looked at Daria, who nodded. Jack then told Jane they’d join her here to listen to the Spiral.
“You two don’t mind that I’m tagging along?”
“No,” Daria stated firmly.
“Besides, you get us in without paying the weekend cover,” Jack teased. While he would have preferred to have been just with Daria, he liked Jane well enough and also knew that dating was new for Daria.
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It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say the three enjoyed their time Friday night, or rather that they had actually enjoyed the music. Jane and Jack had danced a few times, but since the Spiral did not do slow dances or ballads, most of the rest of the time when they hadn’t been snacking, Daria had allowed Jack to hold her hand. By now, Jack thought he had some understanding of Daria, and realized that just holding hands in public was a major step for her at this point. That they were coming a bit closer pleased Jack as well as Daria.
The next afternoon, Daria took Jane out for a promised pizza. While Daria watched Jane paint afterwards, she left just after 4:30 so she could get ready for her date with Jack. Somewhat to both their surprises (not to mention Helen’s), the two had previously enjoyed the dinner at the country club, and decided to repeat the experience, but add in dancing afterwards.
As Jack had admitted, he was not really graceful. However, neither was he actually clumsy. He therefore made an adequate dance partner during the ballroom dancing that started at 8:15. Daria was surprised how much she enjoyed the formal dancing – she had loathed the years of dance class, deportment lessons, and cotillion. In the first, she was often stretched beyond her coordination in the later years (hence her tripping in the final recital); in all of them, she usually had to dance or play-act with younger boys (as boys usually were allowed to quit after a year or two) or with girls who didn’t want to dance with other girls or younger boys any more than Daria had.
Daria decided very quickly that she liked this type of dancing with Jack even more than the gentle swaying/tight embrace of the school slow dances – which she had also enjoyed, to her surprise. Nearly all the dances were at most at a moderate tempo – none of the older (or old) couples were about to jitterbug or even polka. These numbers were designed to allow the couples to dance slow and close and, if they possessed them, show off the steps they had been forced to learn as tweens. While Jack and Daria were by far the youngest couple (by well over 20 years, and close to 35 years below the average), they were above average in skill amongst the dancers.
Having learned the dance schedule, Helen and Jake allowed Daria to push her curfew to 11:00. Jack wondered why, since they were having a good time, Daria had them leave around 10:15. He discovered why when Daria had him stop in the spot where they had first talked – it was a lonely block, and the street lights on the corners were partially hidden by tree limbs. The early neckers had already left, and later couples had not yet arrived. Jack was more than happy to spend nearly 15 minutes kissing with Daria. While he had had a great deal of experience with his previous steady girlfriend, he was willing to take things at Daria’s pace. He was amazed at exactly how sensitive Daria’s ears and neck where – he correctly realized that it would have taken very little more stimulation to bring Daria to climax without even much direct stimulation of her erogenous zones.
As shocked as she had been that she had gone along with a make-out session (she preferred to ignore the fact that she had really initiated the session), Daria was even more thrilled (and both surprised and shocked) with the effects it had on her. She had never imagined being held close and kissing deeply could be both so satisfying and intensely arousing. She had sometimes tried to imagine such a session, and had always failed. That night, for the just the second time since arriving in Lawndale, Daria would take herself ‘in hand’ to climax, all the while remembering the feelings Jack had aroused in her – as well as thinking about Jack himself, the first time her self-touch had succeeded in focusing on a specific person. It was still somewhat non-specific in what she imagined they might do, which led Daria to, for the first time, wonder what she might be willing to do…and she did immediately reject the idea of sharing some real intimacy with Jack.
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The next Monday and Tuesday were annoying to both Daria and Quinn. This was in part because at the end of the second college prep session, the participants were told they were to go to a college campus the following weekend. As the sessions were co-sponsored by Lawndale State University, the University was happy to have students come there for a tour – this was all part of their recruitment plans. Most of the class, including Jane, would be taking LSU up on the offer.
Daria and Quinn, however, would be stuck going to their parents’ alma mater of Middleton. Middleton had been a very average, if socially a little prestigious, school when their parents had attended in the late 1960s. The 70s and 80s had hit the campus hard, however, and they had lowered the admissions standards (and the graduation requirements) three times to keep their enrollments (as well as their tuition and fees) high. Daria was unable to get past her parents rose-colored (and pot-infused) memories to get them to understand that even Lawndale State, perhaps the lowest ranked state school in their state, was better (and of course much, much less expensive) than Middleton.
In addition, the social status of Lawndale’s Freshman class had suffered an upheaval as Quinn, prodded and taunted for the last few weeks by Sandi, had decided to leave the so-called fashion club, taking Stacy with her. Unable to find ‘acceptable’ members (i.e. girls who would obey Sandi), the fashion club was soon dead and buried. Sandi soon found that without the nice and pretty Stacy, not to mention the incredibly cute Quinn, she had no standing whatsoever, and was quickly relegated to the ‘not that popular’ category. Tiffany ended up alone, ignored by all.
Sandi raged in the hallways of Lawndale High, which kept her popularity down. She would need to plot to regain her former assumed status.
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In the end, the visit to Middleton was a disaster for Jake, Helen, and Quinn. Granted, Quinn had managed to get elected ‘keg queen’ at an afternoon frat party. However, that had gotten the Morgendorffers kicked off campus and banned for the rest of the academic year.
Helen and Jake had already been in bad moods even before the campus security had caught up with them. They had not been on a campus since their grad school days of the mid-70s. They had not really realized how out of touch they were with the college students over twenty years later, and closer to thirty years after they had left Middleton.
Helen had, as usual, tried to blame Daria for Quinn’s misbehavior, or at least for Quinn’s opportunity to misbehave. Daria however was able to point out she had stuck with the campus guide while the other three had wandered off – her parents’ first. Daria did not mention that she had scored nearly $200 correcting students’ papers and had over $400 in commissions. She knew that, regretfully, this would have to be a one-time deal, as if the scam went on too long her mother would sooner or later stop it, and worse, confiscate any money already earned.
Quinn, who would have ended her grounding after that weekend due to the fact her parents kept forgetting to come home early to check on her, had the ban on weeknight dates extended through the next week. Jane and Jack both had good laughs at the other Morgendorffers’ experiences when Daria recounted them, however.
None of the three would notice that the student café would bomb that following Friday night, and be robbed the next morning. This would be in part because of what happened in Econ that Tuesday. Mrs. Bennett misinterpreted Daria’s comments in class, and they would be taking a field trip to the new Mall of the Millenium the following Monday (Lawndale High classes met every other day). Hearing Daria complain about that during lunch, Jack managed to get Mrs. Bennett to take the other two grades taking Econ to the Mall as well.
This trip would in turn set off Quinn – it was almost time for the holiday shopping season to start and the super mall, the largest within several hundred miles, had just opened. There were supposed to be at least nine unique boutique teen fashion shops there, along with just about every chain of teen-oriented clothing, shoe, and other accessories stores on the East Coast. She had been begging for a week to be allowed to go, or even (as a last resort) for her parents to take her.
Unfortunately for Quinn, Econ was not offered to Freshmen.
As much as Quinn wanted to go, Daria did not. Outside of books, there was very little she was interested in shopping for. Granted, she had been forced to expand her wardrobe a bit, but she currently deemed it adequate. (Quinn, who had considered Daria’s clothes ‘unmentionable’ before this had recently reluctantly upgraded Daria’s wardrobe to ‘almost barely adequate for one week and an informal weekend.’) There was really no reason for Daria to want to go to a mall.
On the other hand, she would be with Jane and Jack. Jane had even less interest in a mall than Daria – this mall did have a ‘Books by the Ton’ to pique Daria’s interest after all. Still, the trip got them out of a day at school, including Jane’s math class and their mutual gym class. Daria would help Jane with her homework on Sunday, and she wouldn’t have to risk losing any points during class. Plus any day without Coach Morris was a good day so far as both Jane and Daria were concerned.
In addition to Books by the Ton, the Mall also had a small mineral and fossil shop and one devoted to science hobbyists. That would keep Jack happy. In addition, Jack pointed out they had two computer stores and two additional gaming stores. In the end, even Daria had to agree it might not be a bad trip after all.
Daria and Jack spent both weekend nights at the country club – that Friday was also just after Daria’s 16th birthday. At Daria’s request, Jack did not make a fuss or inform the club’s waitstaff. He did, however (and with her permission), spend ten minutes kissing her before making the final approach to valet parking after presenting her with a rosebud to wear on her jacket – the first flower anyone had ever given her. (Daria would dry it, and keep it for the rest of her life.) In addition, after the first waltz that Friday night Jack invited Daria to the Snow Ball. While many, if not most, high schools usually held a winter formal of some sort, this was a big deal around Lawndale. All the county schools, plus the private elite Fielding Prep as well as the state-sponsored Grove Hills for the Gifted went in together on a huge formal held the Saturday before Christmas (December 21 this year).
“If you’d like to go,” Jack added.
Daria shrugged. “To be honest, I think we’d enjoy being here more – or at least we’d dance more.”
“True,” Jack agreed. “Would you terribly mind if I show you off to our peers, rather than to these folks yet again?”
Daria blushed at that, correctly believing Jack. He liked her at the least, and wanted people to know that he liked her. “Okay,” she responded in an embarrassed whisper to his obviously sincere statement. The invite would please her mother and likely aggravate her sister (who, since losing another week’s allowance because Helen had heard Quinn refer to Daria as a foreign exchange student on a phone call, had finally stopped pretending Daria wasn’t her sister, although she still avoiding mentioning Daria whenever possible). Daria would just have to make certain that neither forced her to go overboard getting ready.
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Saturday afternoon at Jane’s, after Daria had told her about the invite to the Snow Ball, Daria asked, “Would you like to go?”
“What, as part of a threesome?” Jane teased.
“No,” Daria retorted firmly. “Jack has a friend….”
“Of course he does,” Jane retorted.
Daria glared for a moment, and then said, “If you don’t want to go at all, just say so. I won’t be hurt either way.”
Jane looked a tad embarrassed. “Sorry. Who with?”
Daria shrugged. “Do you know a Fred Johnson?”
Jane thought a moment. “Vaguely.” Still, Jane knew most of the students, even seniors, if they had been in school with her long enough. “Senior, music geek….”
“So an art nerd can’t go with a music geek?” Daria deadpanned.
“Ha, ha, very amusing,” Jane retorted.
“What kind of music?”
“Band, orchestra, select choir,” Jane answered. “Not our kind of music.”
“And?”
“Not bad looking…not that good looking either. But it’s just a formal dance, where lots of couples just want to show up. It doesn’t have to be steady couples.”
“Exactly. Jack said he’d take care of everything.”
“Why?”
Daria thought. “Well,” she finally said, “he knows we’re close friends. He’s friends with this Fred. And I think he wants to get out of driving his little brother and his date around.”
“Okay, those are good reasons, especially the last and if Jeffy takes Quinn.’”
“Yeah, although just to my limited knowledge, she’s turned Jeffy and Joey down at least three times each, and Jamie four times. They won’t have a good chance with her until they can drive.”
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Saturday afternoon, Jack convinced Daria to come watch the recently released ‘The Princess Bride.’ While she had considered it likely to be a silly children’s flick, she was surprised at how much she enjoyed it. Given the usual and very complete wide-range of options, she again dismissed the ‘couples party’ idea. To Jack’s surprise, but eventual slight disappointment, Daria chose to spend the evening at his house, since his parents would be out all evening while Jeffy was out with Jamie and Joey.
After dinner at a Taco Bell, the two went to Jack’s house. Daria was, unusually, wearing jeans. While the pair ended up in his bedroom, Daria only took her boots off. The pair laid on his bed and thoroughly enjoyed themselves, even if they did not go anywhere nearly as far as Jack had thought they might when Daria had suggested the location. Hands did not go under clothes, but Daria did allow Jack’s hand a fair amount of free roaming over her clothes. After nearly three hours of heavy, passionate necking, both Daria and Jack had to relieve their sexual buildups once they had the privacy of their separate bedrooms later that night, a rare event for Daria.
For Jack, the evening gave him hope that Daria might not only allow freer access to her bare skin and intimate places, but perhaps more. However, as he knew he really liked her (actually, he was starting to acknowledge he was falling hard for her), he was in no hurry to push her limits. For Daria, she realized that she needed to decide what boundaries she might want (or need) to place on her relationship with Jack. She did not like thinking about such things – in this, she was more like Quinn than either sister would have liked to admit – but she understood that she should not avoid the issue. Under her stoic demeaner, Daria was potentially far more sensuous and passionate than the vast majority of people, even if she was only now becoming aware of that. She didn’t want to think these issues and ideas out, but she knew that if she did not, she could easily get overwhelmed and carried away. Like many girls who had attended Highland, Daria was on the Pill (as was Quinn). Still, that was not guaranteed, and Daria knew of course that even if it did (mostly) protect against pregnancy, there were other potential health problems that could occur along with unprotected sex.
On the other, she had to admit to herself (and although she didn’t always succeed, she did try and be honest with herself) that she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to set too many boundaries, short of that final step of intimacy. She had enjoyed herself in Jack’s bedroom, but while she had some rough ideas, she was not entirely sure what might come next, short of actual intercourse.
She knew she could not resolve this entirely on her own, even if only she could make the decisions. She also knew there was only one person she could talk to.
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“Daria!” Jane was pleased and surprised, that Daria would be so open about what she and Jack had done, Daria’s private responses, and her quandaries.
Blushing, Daria hid behind her hands.
“Sorry,” Jane told her friend. “You have to admit, this is a side of yourself you’ve largely kept under wraps.”
“True,” Daria muttered, almost wishing she’d kept her mouth shut.
“Let me get this straight,” Jane started, managing to keep any teasing out of her tone (if with difficulty), “you’re so sensitive, you have had to keep your distance….”
“No,” Daria corrected. “I’ve always kept my distance; I just discovered that, well….”
“You’re easily stimulated.”
Blushing, Daria nodded.
The two were sitting on Jane’s bed. Jane leaned over and ran a forefinger up Daria’s upper calf and onto her lower thigh as she leaned in and kissed Daria’s throat just under her jaw.
Daria shuddered with pleasure.
Jane took ahold of her friend’s shoulder. “Sorry, but I had to make certain you were telling yourself the truth – you do tend to exaggerate towards worst case scenarios at times.”
Daria, very red in the face, could only nod.
Jane put her arm around Daria and told her straight out, “Okay, first, how much can you trust Jack? If you explain you don’t want to go further than X, can you trust him to stop even if you’re so into what you’re doing to think to say stop at the time? If the answer is ‘no,’ or if you’re not sure, then you need to back off the relationship, at least for a bit until you feel you can trust him that much. If the answer is yes, then you need to realize that you are on the road to where you will likely want to move those boundaries further along at some point.”
Daria had to admit that last point to herself before she went on. “I…I’m fairly certain I can trust him, but I’m not in love with him.” ‘Yet,’ she mentally added. That made her correct herself, ‘At least, well, maybe I am?’ She looked at Jane, a little dispirited. “I wouldn’t want greater…intimacy without greater, well mutual affection.” She wanted to at least be more certain of Jack’s feelings. She was starting to think she was becoming very certain of her own, very fast. Too fast?
“And?”
“For the first time in my life…I think it could happen.”
“Great! I can understand that. You need to think about it, and then talk with Jack.” She paused, and then asked, “So, how do you feel about him right now?”
“I really like him; he’s…attractive.” She looked at Jane. “There are supposed to be all sorts of kind of love. I have no idea what spiritual love is, or love for humanity or such might be. I don’t really know what familiar love is – I don’t think I love Mom or Quinn, even if I do care about them, at least some of the time. I think I just feel more sympathy than affection for Dad.” Her eyes went down. “Maybe…maybe….”
“Platonic love?” Jane suggested, placing her hand over Daria’s.
“Yeah,” Daria agreed. Her eyes went back up to meet Jane’s. “It’s not that I want to kiss you or anything like what Jack and I did, but I do want to be around you. You mean more to me than anyone as a person, as opposed to, well, a boyfriend…or girlfriend.”
“I want to be around you, too – we aren’t just close acquaintances who hang around because we’ve nothing better to do.”
“Nope, not just that,” Daria teased. She moved her hand so she could squeeze Jane’s before letting go. “So, ready for the Mall date?”
“Yeah – and since three classes are going instead of just ours, maybe we can get on a different bus than Kevin.”
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In fact, they were indeed able to get on the second bus. Daria and Jack sat in one of the back benches, while Jane and Fred sat in front of them. Observers wondered if Daria was whispering ‘sweet nothings’ into Jack’s ear on the way to the Mall, but instead she was outlining her concerns about how physical their relationship might turn out before she was ready for it to go that far.
Jack was understanding – and the fact that Daria had put it in those terms meant he had hopes that things would be very close and physical at some point. As he was something of a romantic as well as being a sexually-interested teen male, he was content with this for the moment.
At the Mall itself, the two couples were part of the third of the students who met with Mall representatives. When Daria realized that they were being used for market research – and were being observed via a two-way mirror – she and Jack were able to obtain $20 certificates for those students present to various Mall stories once the scam had been exposed. Jack would be the one to suggest the students trade around for stores they might be interested in. He also made certain that Daria got a Books by the Ton certificate, while he scored one to The Nature Company. Fred traded a hair salon coupon for a video/gaming store that specialized in anime, while Jane ended up with one for a kiosk that sold silver jewelry.
Jane and Fred’s class assignment was to observe ‘the flow’ amongst a series of unrelated kiosks that just happened to be near each other. Daria and Jack observed different flow patterns among a series of neighboring women’s clothing shops (one each child’s, teens, business woman’s, and a Victoria’s Secret – despite a slightly teasing offer, Daria declined to enter any of the stores, let alone try on or purchase anything).
When the two couples entered the food court, however, three of the four recognized Quinn.
None of the school-skippers had fully realized that there would be a number of their fellow students (plus a teacher, plus one of the school secretaries acting as chaperones). Considering how much trouble Quinn had been in, she knew she was doomed if Daria turned her in. Quinn negotiated a deal giving Daria two future alibis. In turn, Daria and the other three figured out the best place in the huge mall where Quinn and her cronies had the least chance of being recognized.
Questioned by Jack, Daria was confident that her deal with Quinn would hold, if ever needed.
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