…or, Oh, Just Read
Missy was still deciding what she wanted when I got to the store. Marlot had her little chicken salad, a bottle of chocolate milk and an ice cream bar up at the counter. I got a little smoked turkey wrap and a big orange pop. Missy finally settled on a vegetable tray.
“You’re wasting a punch just on that?” I asked.
“It’s all I want,” she said.
We ate in my room with the TV on, which was fine with me. I didn’t feel like being on display in the lounge again. The TV gave us things to talk about that didn’t lead back to the circular argument about me “supporting” Marlot over Missy. After a while, Missy left to get ready. I told Marlot that I needed to shower.
“If you’re going to the union anyway, do you want to walk over with us?” I asked her before she left.
She raised her eyebrows.
“What?” I asked.
“Are you trying to piss Missy off?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Why would she get pissed off? I’m going into the dance with her, not you.”
“So why do you need to walk over with me?”
“I don’t need to, I want to,” I said. “Because you’re my friend.”
“No, this is the question that will be in Missy’s head: if you’re not going into the dance with me, then why do you need to walk over with me?”
“I can’t just want to, I have to need to?”
“Oh, wanting’s even worse,” Marlot said. “Why do you want to?”
“Please tell me this is just you being weird,” I said.
“No, this is actually a case of everybody else being weird and me being normal,” Marlot said. “But trust me when I say that if you include me in your little date in any way, shape, or form, you will regret it.”
“When she asked me, it wasn’t even supposed to be a date-date,” I said. “We were going as friends.”
“And then you boinked her,” Marlot said.
“It was more of a co-boink,” I said. “And even then, it’s not like I gave her my class ring or something.”
“You really might want to tell her that you don’t want to go out with her,” Marlot said.
“What, dump her the night of the dance?”
“The freshman year welcome dance isn’t exactly the most specialfullest time of a young girl’s life,” Marlot said.
“I’ll tell her afterwards,” I said. “I’ll tell her that it was fun but I don’t see us together.”
“Make sure you wait until she looks up at you with big, bright eyes and tells you that she had a really nice time,” Marlot said.
“This just isn’t going to end well no matter what I do, is it?” I said.
“No, but it only has to end once,” Marlot said. “Whereas if you don’t break it off, it can keep going and going forever.”
“Good point,” I said.
It seemed I wasn’t the only one with a date. Three of the other showers were in use, at just past six on a Saturday night. That made me a little more furtive than usual as I took care of myself, but there were many reasons I didn’t want to pop a boner in the middle of dancing with Missy. I featured Violet, just for a change of pace. If she was going to go poking around my fantasies, I might as well let her in on them.
I’d have to remember to check the names on the corner door.
Half the sinks were in use when I got out. I couldn’t understand why people didn’t use the ones in their rooms, unless their roommates had issues with people shaving in their living space. Sucked to be them. I had my own private sink and I didn’t even need a shave.
Assuming Violet had told the truth, it seemed she was either Temperance or Beth. She didn’t seem like a Beth. She seemed even less like a Temperance.
At five to seven, I went over to the other side. I was a bit relieved to see Missy in a nice pair of jeans and a peasant blouse and not a formal gown and a sparkly tiara. She’d gone overboard with the make-up, but it wasn’t terrible. Glittery eye shadow wasn’t my taste, but the way it blended from midnight blue to purple was well done. Marlot had made herself scarce.
“Oh, wow, and you thought the blue and purple wouldn’t go,” she said. I still thought that, but I didn’t argue. “You look seriously hot. If you could just point your ears a little, you’d be perfect.”
“Yeah, I think I’ve had enough body modification for one day,” I said.
“You look pretty nice.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I got Juliana to glam me up a bit.”
“Juliana?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t you think she’s kind of a bitch?”
“Yeah, but she’s good with eye shadow,” Missy said.
Then we were off. It was another mild night. The sky was clear, but it was hard to see the stars with the glow from the path. I kept my hands in my pockets on the walk over. Missy kept “accidentally” running her arm into mine, but if I was going to straighten things out after the dance I didn’t want to give her any encouraging signs.
If the union had been any further away, things might have gotten tense by the time we got there. The music was already playing. We checked our weapons and headed in and out onto the dance floor.
I’d only been to a few school dances, mostly in junior high. They’d been a bigger deal when I was fresh out of elementary and it seemed important to prove it. I could move okay, though. Elven grace and all that.
We swayed and bopped around a bit to the first couple of songs, and then a slow song came on. I started to say something vaguely apologetic, but then Missy said, “I don’t like this song, let’s wait for a better one.”
“Okay,” I said. “You want some punch or something?”
“Sure,” she said.
Heading towards the refreshments got us further away from the music, making it easier to talk.
“I don’t want our first slow dance to be to something stupid,” Missy said. “I’m trying to decide if I want to put in a request, or leave it up to fate.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
“Missy, do you remember when you first told me about this dance?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “Wow, last weekend seems so long ago, doesn’t it? But time’s really flown by. It’s weird.”
“I don’t think we should make a big deal out of our first slow dance, or anything,” I said.
“Are you nervous?”
“Not exactly,” I said.
“It’s okay if you’ve never slow-danced before,” she said. “Or slow-danced with a girl. You’ll have time to get better.”
This couldn’t go on, I decided. Missy was inventing special occasions, looking for relationship milestones. I needed to end things, or at least get them back on the friendship track. I sighed and prayed for strength.
“The thing is, Missy—”
“Oh my kosh, will you look at that,” she said in a horrified not-whisper.
“What?” I asked.
My first reaction, which I kept to myself, was wow. The girl was seriously trashy, but also kind of hot. She was wearing fishnet tights and a skirt that was almost too short to be legal. Her top contained about a napkin’s worth of material. All that was missing was a pair of stiletto heels. Those would be hard to dance in, I guessed, but I wasn’t sure you could call what she was doing dancing. The guy she was with was squeezing her ass like he was making lemonade, and she was practically screwing him.
“That’s her!” Missy said.
“Who?” I asked.
“The demon girl.”
“I thought you said that Mack girl from Harlowe was the demon,” I said, right as my brain sorted through what I was seeing and I realized it was Mack.
“Yeah, that’s her,” Missy said. “I thought she was a lesbian, though.”
“She looks pretty straight to me,” I said. I realized my stupidity a second later. “She could be bi, obviously.”
“The guy’s kind of cute,” she said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. He was built like me, though taller and a little darker. He had a nice ass. I would have fucked him, if he was into that and I hadn’t been involved with Iason.
“I wonder what he is?” Missy said.
“Probably straight,” I said. That was my default assumption for guys. It was just safer.
“I mean, racially.”
“Could just be human,” I said.
“Why would he be dating a demon?”
“Maybe he doesn’t think she is one,” I said. That seemed safer than suggesting she wasn’t.
“Look at her, she’s such a slut,” Missy said. “I’m surprised she doesn’t drop to her knees and—”
“Don’t eat me!” the girl’s date yelled over the music, shoving away from her and landing on his ass. She reached for his hand, but he shielded his face with his arms. He might have made a warding gesture, it was hard to tell. The crowd parted, giving them a wide fucking berth, as we all stared on.
If we’d heard the words from where we were standing, then everybody in the room had heard them, too.
It was hard to say, but Mack looked hurt. The guy dropped his hands. He looked sheepish. Her mouth formed the words “what the fuck?” He got all apologetic and started to get up, but she turned and bolted for the door. She could move. Not gracefully or pretty, but she was gone in a flash. Her date yelled “Mackenzie!” a few times before getting up and following after her.
“Wow,” Missy said. “I guess he just found out?”
“It could just be a rumor,” I said.
“Maybe,” she said. “But she’s got to be something, and you said yourself, she doesn’t look like anything but a human.”
“Maybe that’s what she is,” I said. “Maybe she requested Harlowe because her friends are there. Maybe she wanted to room with somebody in particular.”
“That would mean all her friends are non-human, so she probably would be, too,” Missy said. “Anyway, I think she rooms with that Puddy.”
“Well, there you go,” I said. “She could be in Harlowe because her girlfriend’s there.”
“I don’t think they should let lesbians room with each other,” Missy said. “It’s not like straight couples get to share rooms. Why should lesbians get special consideration? That’s a bunch of bullshit.”
“Yeah, I think it’s more a matter of not being given any consideration in the first place,” I said. “If Marlot and I wanted to share a room, people would officially assume the having of hanky-panky, but she rooms with you and nobody bats an eye.”
“Well, of course, because I’m not a lesbian.”
“But nobody asked. Nobody checked. Nobody cared,” I said. “If Iason wanted to move into general housing, I could share a room with him, but the closest Marlot and I can get is adjoining rooms in one of the tower suites.”
“Oh, that would be so cool,” Missy said. “You and Iason could have one, and we’d have the other.”
“I don’t think Iason would go for general housing,” I said. “And I think we’re getting way ahead of ourselves.”
“Oh, well, I’m just having a hypothetical conversation,” Missy said. “Of course, I could sleep over on your side of the suite when Iason’s away, or even when he isn’t.”
“I don’t think Iason would be into that,” I said.
“Well, hypothetically.”
She could hide behind that word, but it was obvious she was planning ahead, and her plans didn’t fit in with mine. Marlot and I had already talked about moving to the towers, but the idea was we’d each pay for single rooms. Significant others didn’t factor into that plan because they didn’t need to; if one or the other of us was seeing somebody, they could sleep over without causing problems because we each had our own room.
“Missy, I think we need to get—”
“Oh my freaking kosh, are they actually coming back in here?” Missy asked. I knew before I turned to look that she was talking about Mack and her date. “Why would he be with her now that he knows?”
“That probably means it isn’t true in the first place,” I said. “Just a dumb rumor that somebody started.”
“It isn’t dumb,” Missy said. “Let’s talk about something else. No, let’s dance.”
“You know, I don’t really feel like dancing,” I said.
“Well, I do,” she said.
“You can dance if you want to,” I said.
“By myself? But, you’re my date.”
“I thought I was your friend,” I said. “That’s what this was supposed to be, right? Just a casual thing.”
“Are you br—do you not want to go out with me?”
“I don’t think it’ll work out,” I said. “We don’t really have anything in common. We keep getting into stupid little arguments.”
“If you would quit disagreeing with me all the time, that wouldn’t happen,” she said.
“This is why it wouldn’t work,” I said. “We don’t see things the same way.”
“So? Opposites attract, right?”
“It’s not that you aren’t attractive. I’d bet if you were here alone, you’d have guys asking you to dance,” I said.
“You’re damn right I would,” she said. “What, do you think I sat on the sidelines all through high school?”
“No,” I said. “I really don’t.”
“I don’t need you, Jamie,” she said hotly. “I could have asked a bunch of guys to come here if I hadn’t met you first, you know that? Maybe I settled too quickly.”
“I’m sure,” I said. “You know, I don’t want to fight, so I’m just going to go.”
“Do that,” she said. “You just, um, do that.”
She turned and headed out onto the floor. I watched her go for a few seconds, then turned to leave just as she turned back to see if I was watching. I hurried out and retrieved my weapon.
I found Marlot in the game room. She didn’t ask, and I didn’t say. I joined the card game she was playing and we took a bunch of other freshmen for a small pile of coppers. We stayed there until long after the dance ended, and parted ways when we got back to our floor.
It hadn’t been awful. It hadn’t been great, but it hadn’t been awful. There was still room for awfulness to come, though.
Arf! Mook!
Missy is really repugnant and racist… I’d rather hang with Marlot any day. Besides, she’s dorkier in a good way!
“Well, there you go,” I said. “She could in Harlowe because her girlfriend’s there.”
Should probably be be “She could _be_ in Harlowe because her girlfriend’s there.”
Great for Jamie. I just hope Marlot doesn’t get troubles with Missy as a result.
I really really really can’t stand a person incapable of having a hypothetical conversation. I think that’s my biggest issue with Missy. That and her being a big hypocrite… I hope we don’t have to see a lot of her right from now on…
OOK!
“Yeah, I think I’ve had enough body modification for one day,” I said.
“You look pretty nice.” – return error?
Yeah, C8H9NO2, poor Marlot; she’s probably going to get the brunt of Missy’s ire. But Marlot did tell him to do it now, so at least she’s ready for it. In general, I’m liking Missy less and less.
Baaaaaaaa! >:=)>
So goodbye to Missy, then. Perhaps. While she’s surely what Lao Tsu would have described as an “inferior” person, she didn’t seem capable of doing much harm, to the point where I didn’t even register her as a nuisance, let alone a threat.
Maybe this will change now that her intended (?) has ditched her. Or maybe she’ll just flit off elsewhere. For her sake, she shouldn’t make too much trouble, or Iason might feel moved to deal with her…
If Missy is too annoying, Marlot can just move in with Jamie. Sleep on his couch thing.
Wouldn’t help stop people from thinking that they sleep together though.
Is it just me, but I like this story a bit more than TOMU…
Glad he got rid of Missy. She’s irritating and annoying, and I seriously think that the only reason why Jamie is dating her is because nobody else would go near her.
I still love Jamie and Iason though.
fucking FINALLY, jamie…MAN, i REALLY dont like missy much anymore
I have two points to make. The first and less serious is that I believe Violet is Temperance. No offense to anybody named Temperance but I believe a girl with that name would be wanting a nickname more than a girl named Beth. The second is that since Missy is Jamie’s first female lover that he’s going to pine for her some and that would only be natural. They weren’t a great couple but she’s going to be his first woman forever and you can’t forget or easily dismiss that.
This exchange just cracked me up, and Jamie is right, it does show in a nutshell exactly what’s wrong with Missy:
“We keep getting into stupid little arguments.”
“If you would quit disagreeing with me all the time, that wouldn’t happen.”
Great story as always!
Seems to be an extra “at” here:
… but if I was going to straighten things out _at_ after the dance…
Yay! I honestly think part of the reason Jamie let things go on as long as they have is because she’s the first girl he’s dated. He has no one to really compare her behavior to, other than Marlot, whom he already knows is weird. Plus, he knew girls acted differently than guys and wanted to give this an honest shot. I think he just ended up with a bad match for him. I have a feeling it won’t end his interest in other women though. ^_^ He seems pretty tolerant overall, or else he would have gotten rid of Iason long ago and not kept with Missy for as long as he did either. ^_^
I’m glad you’re updating here again. I can’t say which story I like better.. I think I like them both and the fact that they overlap just makes them EVEN better to me. ^___^ But I’m a dork and goober on stuff like that.
Oooh, now I need to go back through ToMU to read Mack’s side of the dance again, because it’s been so long I can hardly remember it.
Horrah for Jamie getting rid of Missy!
@12,
I don’t think Jamie will have to worry much about pining over Missy. She may be his first sexual encounter with a female, but he’s not inexperienced and she was less of a lover and more of a casual sex partner. If it was the first time he had ever had sex then I could see some irrational attachment. As it is he screwed her before he knew how annoying she was, and now with any luck she is on her way out for good.
Though in her defense, Missy seemed to devolve into this kind of stupidity. Her internal sarcasm detector seems to be seriously on the fritz, for example, because Margot doesn’t strike me as the subtly sarcastic type. Sure, Missy might not get the meaning, but I imagine it’d be hard to miss the intent. She didn’t feel so dense until rather recently.
@ Christopher Nagy:(Nice name by the way) Who the heck is Margot? =P
Just to get the low count (19 comments showing after reading):
ARF, MOOK, whatever
At least now Jamie is free to follow up on his interest in Iolana.
Mackenzie’s sexual awakening happened way too fast under the tutelage of the likes of Puddy, Amaranth, and Steff. She went straight from shy innocent young girl who just wanted a date and maybe a kiss sometime to extreme exhibitionist. She had no experience of what’s commonly considered normal and appropriate for PDA’s, so doesn’t know how to tone it down and hold back. Ian’s in the same boat, despite his claims, or was just taking advantage of the situation. Based on this observer’s description, they were lucky they didn’t get kicked out of this date too.
…excuse me…meant to write “this dance too.”
Is it just me or does this version not mesh with the ToMU version? They are different narrators and remember different things but even the timing seems off. I could be remembering this wrong but in the other version weren’t Jamie and Iason together when Mack and Ian entered? But in this version Jamie is still with Missy when Mack and Ian are already dancing. Hmm time to go find the other chapter.
Cass you’re mixing up Tales of MU and More Tales of MU. MoToMU has Missy and Jamie at the welcome dance and ToMU has Jamie and Iason at the later dance. Mack went with Ian to both though. ToMU is just further along time-wise.
Can anyone direct me to the chapters in ToMU with the welcome dance? I’m too lazy to find them myself.
@Cass The dance you’re thinking of is the second of the school year… This is the first, which is in Book 3 of MU if I remember correctly, and about a month into the schoolyear.
Greenwood Goat @9,
I think Kung fu-tzu might have ben a beter referent than Lao-tzu for your observation. Eiter way an interesting asment of Missy.
…And what do you know, I happen to have that very chapter open in another tab.
Here’s the link, Cass, for your convenience: http://www.talesofmu.com/story/book03/65
@Twilla
She’s the result of a sleepless night and swimming vision, plus a dash of name-confusion. =P
I even quoted @ the wrong person earlier. Sorry 12, meant 13.
“You can dance if you want to,”
Okay, so now I have that Men Without Hats song in my head. Did that happen to anyone else?
Hg
Everybody look at your hands!
“No offense to anybody named Temperance but I believe a girl with that name would be wanting a nickname more than a girl named Beth.”
Otoh, someone with a very common name may wish to have a nickname to distinguish herself. I actually went to college with a “Violet”. Her real name was just as common as “Beth” is, and there were several other girls with that name.
Also, I love that this story has the same title/subtitle as the original
I got a bit of a laugh at Jamie’s including Violet in his fantasies, since she’s going to be poking around in there anyway. Makes me wonder what her response will be….
Also, while he and Missy may have “broken up,” she’s still Marlot’s roommate and thus will not be leaving the story anytime soon, methinks.
So, it’s over, and thank goodness for that. Missy continues to show her odiousness even to the end. And Jamie thinks Ian looks pretty hot. XD No wonder he’s disappointed later on, what with Ian’s behaviour towards him.
Is that “Temperance”
As in being moderate
Or as in Tarot?
“Don’t Ask” results in
Some unintended “special
Consideration”
Missy appears to
Have some rather serious
Elf esteem issues
Ahh the first dance of the year… It wasn’t until yesterday actually that I put it together that this dance and the first one Ian and Mackenzie went to was the same one. Interesting to note an outside observer’s opinion of it all though. Especially his thoughts on both Mackenzie and Ian.
@Hydrargentium
Darn you! You beat me to it! I was going to ask if AE was trying to tell us Missy could leave her friends behind.
Ooh thanks everyone, I had completely forgotten about that dance. That makes a lot more sense.
“I believe a girl with that name would be wanting a nickname more than a girl named Beth.”
For what it’s worth [likely not much], Beth is a nickname.
Okay, who else thinks Jamie and Violet should/are going to get together? I anxiously await Violet’s reaction to Jamie’s thoughts during his *ahem* shower-time recreation. And who else wants to see the showdown when Iason tries his crap with Violet?
Also: *starts a conga line* He got rid of Missy! He got rid of Missy! Thank you, AE! Missy was getting to the point that I actually stopped reading for most of a week because she annoyed me so much. Thank you.
I have to say that exchance is frighteningly similar to my last relationship… So kudos on accuracy points, maybe minus a few on dredging up bad memories.
“For what it’s worth [likely not much], Beth is a nickname.”
I know a girl who is named “Beth”, and it is *not* short for “Elizabeth.”
A lot of people assume my name is short for something else. Nearly everyone else with my name *is* using it as a nickname, which is really annoying :/
*joins Conga line* ding-dong the bimbo’s gone!
Ugh, seriously though, how much longer was he going to put up with that? He didn’t have any trouble putting his foot down with Iason(well, ok, yeah he had problems in the getting foo’ to listen… but he didn’t hesitate to call him on unappropriate behavior.)
And on the nicknames… I know a Rich, not short for Richard. And a Becca, not short for Rebecca. My vote is she’s Beth and goes by Violet because it’s interesting and her parents name for her is not.
In my family Violet is one of those names that is passed down. So I don’t really find it that interesting. Also… I have this fear that Missy isn’t gone, and that instead she is one of those girls who gives people
“chances”.
“…And what do you know, I happen to have that very chapter open in another tab. Here’s the link, Cass, for your convenience: http://www.talesofmu.com/story/book03/65”
So MToMU39=TOMU65. Applying some math, that means the two will be at the same time a little past TOMU600, which should come out not too far from January 1, 2010. Subject to all the whims of the plot, which can flick a year away for either story.
“I know a girl who is named “Beth”, and it is *not* short for “Elizabeth.”
A lot of people assume my name is short for something else. Nearly everyone else with my name *is* using it as a nickname, which is really annoying ”
Which means the odds are pretty high that our “Beth” is “Elizabeth”. We can’t be sure of course, but those betting on Beth should demand odds.
I think it’s quite likely that Violet is Beth, because Temperance isn’t boring to start with, although if people were gonna cut it to “Temp” well… thats not so cool lol. But i’d rather it was Temperance because i think that names awesome.
It just occured to me… Because it could be one or the other and there is no indication (excluding speculation) AE could easily make the choice based on what the comments lean towards…
Also, stoked Missy’s gone. Now jaime can get a real (awesome) girlfriend, like Kira or Iolana (If she doesnt eat him) or Violet! Or even a regular girl.
@46 Or he could stay with Iason.
@46 Davorien Or Temperance could go by Tempy, which is the nickname the family of Dr. Temperance Brennan from Bones uses. Of course, her more famous nickname is ‘Bones.’
@ 47 Squeeks: Iason said he can have girlfriends… He can have both! Plus Iasons creepy-ish. And needs some straightning out of attitudeness…
@ 48 Chrinos: Well… I didn’t know that… lol. People can cut names weirdly to make names tho, i get ‘Dav’ ‘Davo’ and occasionally ‘Davor’ …although the last one might just be because they read to the end of my name and arent sure how to pronounce it. XD