Jillian was fussing with the radio in the truck, the static it put out matched the static in his head.

He was sure he would have focused more on the hamster spinning on its wheel in his brain, but her face caught his attention. It was blank, but the corners of her lips were turned down a touch.

"Alright?" He slid in, and redirected his attention from the gears when she slid right up next to him and slipped her arm between his body and bicep. Her head found his shoulder, the notch she'd claimed at 9.

"No." Well, he knew that, but he was hoping drawing out why wouldn't be as much like pulling teeth as getting her to divulge things that hurt her.

"What happened?" God, this question could cover at least the last 10 years of her life. He meant tonight.

"If I tell you, promise you will never breathe a word of it again. I don't want to think about it." He knew this was why she didn't even want to say things out loud ever. He didn't think her method worked though, it always came out, her pain, it's truth.

"Did he," he swallowed. This was the question he had been avoiding asking for years, with her dad and her mom's boyfriends and now Will. "Did he hu— did something happen?"

"No," she shook her head. "I hurt him."

"What?"

Her self satisfied tone matched the grin he caught in the red shine of the one stop light in town. Should he be worried?

"Jillian!" Harry pulled over and stopped. He needed to look at her face. What did that mean? "Hurt him how? Why?"

She sighed. "Everything was fine, and he was his normal self at the dance. Like, more interested in his friends yet complimentary, but only on my hair and body and...anyway. But it was like our normal dates and he was sweet, like a candy coating, ya know." He wasn't sure he did, but he nodded. "But then we got to the hotel, and, well, I wanted to hang out, people were already in that first hotel room. They were smoking." They'd talked about that. She liked getting high. "And had a keg." Drunk less so, she had good reason for caution there. Though he never said that, just encouraged her avoidance.

"Okay. Trina and I were in there. I didn't see you."

"Yeah that's cuz he insisted we go to our room first. It took us a while because everybody stopped us to slap him skin." She rolled her big eyes and shook her head. He loved her annoyed face, but annoyed seemed mild for the build up. "I caught a hit or two," She stamped her shoes, like she did when her mom left grade school events early. She usually got on with it then. "We made it to the room, him maneuvering me like I was his truck. He gave a little push in. I barely got to ask if we were changing for the party. I had that little bag of jeans and a sweater, before he started kissing me. Which was nice. He's a good kisser." She shrugged and Harry tried to be as nonchalant as her. "And we've been fooling around a little, but he usually, it was like forceful," She shook her blonde head to cover her face. "anyway, he didn't ask anything and was yanking at the sleeves of my dress I was afraid it was gonna tear. But, he had me backed against the door, luckily."

"Why luckily?"

"It's harder to knee somebody in the jewels if they're on top of you." She smiled like she'd stolen some cream and Harry blinked.

"What happened then?"

"He whined a lot, doubled over like an omelet and called me a tease and said I was trash, and lucky he gave me the time of day." Another eye roll. She was surprisingly relaxed considering it sounded like the kissing was more of an attack to Harry. "And then he started on all the things I hoped he never thought about me, but I know other people think." She hugged him closer. "That he knew I lied about where I lived and that if I didn't sleep with him, he was gonna dump me. But when he started in on you I kicked him again and started out the door to him yelling about us being over."

"And?" Harry knew he was bug eyed, like when he wore coke bottle lenses as a toddler, "what did he say about me." He shook he's head. "Never mind that's not important." He knew she wouldn't tell him anyway. "What happen then."

"He grabbed my foot and told me he loved me, but couldn't wait anymore and he'd have to find 'it' elsewhere. I told him that wasn't a threat, because I was done and kicked him off my leg. I think I caught his face a little." Harry wasn't sure if he should be impressed or scared she was smiling about all this "i'm sure I looked messy, but I needed to get out of there like now. But when I came out, Steve cheered and rushed in to give Will a high five. He must have helped him up. But Will never came out. I heard Steve telling everybody that Will had finally got a piece from my hiding spot all night. So, school's gonna be hell for the next month too."

"That's awful." He held her hand for a moment and waited for her to continue. "Why didn't you come get me?"

"I tried." He cringed. "But when I came to find you, you and Trina looked like you were having fun. So I found somebody with a joint and a quiet place to wait." She shrugged and he felt like he'd eaten ground glass, thinking about her alone. She seemed ok, but Jillian always seemed ok.

"We could have left whenever you wanted."

"I didn't want to ruin your prom night."

"I wouldn't have had a prom night if not for you. And besides, you couldn't ruin my night, any night. I'd rather spend time with you than the twats from our soon to be alma mater."

"What's a twat?"  She giggled.

"Well, it's actually," he shook his head. He never thought about what it meant, or having to explain it. "It's an English word for idiot." He pulled out into non existent traffic.

"That's not true, you're doing that thing with your eye you do when you lie."

"What thing with my eye?"

"Your right eye twitches a tiny bit."

He didn't know that. "Oh, well I'm not lying."

"I am asking the next Englishmen I see ya know."

"Not my da!" He responded quickly.

"See! I knew it didn't mean idiot."

A change of subject was needed. "Home?"

She shook her head like it was the needle on the Richter scale in that educational short about earthquakes. He'd shown her that when he'd been trying to talk her out of California. The change of her mood was as shocking as a tremor.

Now was the time to tell her.

"So—"

"Harry, do you like Trina?"

"What?"

"Did you like going with Trina? You gonna take her out again."  He really hadn't even thought about it, honestly.

"She was nice. We're going bowling next week. But only if you want to come."

"That's not really what I asked."

"No, I, I don't like Trina, not like, like that." The truck came to a stop like their conversation. He didn't know what to say and she was in her head, again.

His house was dark. Harry was surprised. Really. He thought for sure his da would wait up. He did suppose it was 3 AM.

They snuck through the house, like how they used to try to get to and from the cut crystal candy bowl when they were young. He held her hand, and when he would stop, she would crash into his back and muffle her laughter in between his shoulder blades.

He'd quit the jacket. The ruffled shirt she loved was thin enough to feel the heat and moisture of her joy. He wished there was more reasons to stop or a longer distance to his room. He loved how she could laugh after a night when she could very well be crying.

"I'm surprised." His filter turned off as soon as they got to his room."

"About what?" She looked up at him. Jillian was still really close, she took a couple steps to stay in his space.

"That you aren't more upset. About Will and your, well your mom."

Her eyes hardened for a split second. Like she was measuring the distance to a finish line. They cleared them, and she looked at him in a way he couldn't quantify. It was the fraternal twin of her best friend eyes, maybe. "I'm with you. It's hard to feel down when I'm around you. You're my favorite person Harry." She smiled her honest smile then and the next words stole his breath before he thought too much about them. "I love you."

That was the second time she'd said that and not meant what he wanted. He closed his eyes, because he couldn't see the face he adored say the thing he wanted to hear most and not mean it how he needed.

They popped open when he felt her mouth press to his. Her bottom lip slipped just so between his and the pressure she exerted was very different from their mistletoe kiss. When she sucked a little, he heard himself groan.

"Harry," she whispered, all breath and bone. "Will you kiss me back? Don't you want to kiss me?" Just the words felt like a kiss, if he was honest. At least the way he thought kisses felt. He wasn't sure exactly what he was supposed to do.

But he said yes, meant yes, so he said yes. His voice was a rumble, his truck over the railroad tracks. His lips moving gave her all the opportunity to teach him what a kiss could feel like. All the slips and slides and sucks. When she slid her tongue over his bottom lip, his mouth fell open. Then, it slid inside, and if he wasn't sure he groaned earlier, he did now. Felt it in his stomach then reverb in his throat. Jillian moaned and pressed her self to him top to tail. He could feel all sweet, soft, strong parts of her, so he almost missed her hands undoing his top button. The one at his throat. Then her mouth was exploring the white under the frills.

"Jillian, what are you doing?"

"I'm making love to you." She said like she was offering him cup of tea. "Don't you want me to?"

The presence she pressed against in his pants said a very solid yes, but he was confused. She'd just kicked her boyfriend in the balls for the same suggestion hours before. "Yeah, obviously." She giggled and he was weaker for that sound than the fact she'd pulled his shirt off his shoulders and went for his pants. "But, why?" It seemed like a major question, and stupid as it may be to slow this down, he needed to know.

"Why?" She asked him like it was his question that came out of left field, not her advance. She furrowed her brow and tilted her head. She was the color pink.

"Because I love you, and you're the only person I love who loves me back." He wished he could argue that, but all evidence was to the contrary. "Because you've never tried one thing with me that I didn't ask for." She had his pants off his hips. Her hand went to his dick between them, stroked over him like he'd done himself the night before thinking of her in the dress she wore. "And because I want to, want you."

He groaned then and soiled his boxers like nobody had ever touched him. Because nobody ever had. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry." he was reeling, his mind as confused but engaged as when they taught chemical equations last year. "How embarrassing." He hid his head in her shoulder before he thought better of it and tried to turn away.

Jillian caught his shoulders. She laughed, but not at him. "No, it's ok. Now you can make love to me a little." She pressed a breathy kiss to his lips and licked into his mouth. He returned her motions and brought his tongue into play. She gasped a little into it when he tried to follow her lead, to play. "That feels good Harry. Will you kiss my neck?" He tried to do the things she'd done to him. He thought he might be a quick study at this too when the feline purrs she let out woke his dick up again. He was moving down to the boundary her dress created when she turned around abruptly.

"Oh, sorry. Did I do something wrong?" He thought he'd figured out how to do something right.

"No, no, it's good. Just, I love that. You just need to take off my dress. So you can, um, my nipples."

"Fuck." He said and laid his head on her shoulders while she giggled.

"Not yet, in a little while. Go on Harry. Take it off. Touch my neck like you did in the shop." She leaned her head over and he kissed the pretty pink tinged flesh there until it was red and undid her zipper.

He'd known she was beautiful, but the chrysalis shedding of the dress falling from her body, revealing all of her to him, transformed him too. Into a man.

He'd thought he was one, wanted the responsibilities of one, to take care of this woman, but he wasn't one, until she turned to him and the moonlight turned her skin silver and her nipples pewter. He felt like a golden band.

Out of curiousity, he ran a finger around the pink tip and pulled it back abruptly when she jolted and gasped. "Sorry!"

"Oh no, do it again. Please." Her head lolled back and he used one hand to draw the shrinking circle around her nipple again. He used the other to catch her neck where it was weakening and pulled her to him. He needed her mouth against him again. His hand found the overflowing flesh beyond her nipple and they both shivered. He caressed her until he was holding her up.

"Harry, sit on the bed." He'd sit on a cliff if she asked. He knew she didn't know everything, but she certainly seemed to have more hands on knowledge than him. Though he knew the mechanics, his dad had given him books, plural, at 10. He'd wanked to a few images at 12, then Jillian after long nights at 13, this was a wet dream come true. But still, "how do you know," he trailed off, "all this stuff?"

She sat astride him and smiled when she felt him hard against her again. "See, no problems," And they were kissing again and she was rubbing against him and he had her tits in his hands again, and oh god.

He'd said that out loud.

"Here." She climbed up him and rested her hands on his shoulders so her breast were at mouth level. He looked up after he'd gotten dizzy looking at her perfection so he wouldn't fall to the floor. "I, I don't know a lot. But I know you." She rubbed the soft yielding flesh over his face. His mouth watered. "And I know what I do. You can maybe do more. Kiss them, maybe suck too." She suggested and then the soft flesh ripened against his tongue, sweet like summer strawberries and he was sucking to try to get the sugar.

"Oh Harry!" And she was riding him and he was afraid he was gonna come again. He clutched her hips and stopped her.

"I can't." He shook his head. What the fuck? He'd never, god, this was. And she said she loved him. He could come thinking about it. He'd better not think about it. "It's too good."

"Ok, ok. Will you touch me?"

"I am." He didn't really follow.

"No, will you touch me.....there." She held his shoulders and leaned back.

"I don't, I don't know how."

"I'll tell you." She leaned back and drew his hand down the soft lines of her belly to her crux. She slide two of his fingers down to a well of wetness, her opening, wetting his fingers with her dew, and then up to the hard knot and inch or so above. "Rub there, like this." She moved his fingers in circles until he didn't need help anymore and he watched her face while her mouth fell open and she panted. She was squirming hard and he had to wrap an arm around her and clutch her other hip for fear she would fall. "Ah, ah, ah, Harry!" She shook out and he felt wetness trickle over his knuckles.

"Wow." His chest moved heavily up and down.

"Yeah, Wow." She slid his fingers through her wetness again and pressed one long digit into her opening. He slid it in and the thought of it around his dick. "Jilly!"

Uh oh- she hated that. Except, her moan said she didn't. She moved up and down his finger until his hand was sodden, asked for "two!" Breathlessly after a bit. He added the third without being told.

He was bewitched, bothered, and beholden when she got off his lap and his fingers. He would have followed her anywhere, to Gomorrah and beyond.

"Cmon Harry. She sat on the edge of the mattress, the little twin bed they'd shared many times, and pulled his boxers off. He stepped out of them and she wiped him off before throwing them somewhere behind him. She reclined on the bed and turned the hand she held up, so their fingers slotted together.

"I heard it's easier this way." Heard where? He would have asked, but the moonlight showed him parts of her he'd only just touched and Stole his tongue. She spread her thighs. There seemed to be nowhere else for him to go but between them.

He'd thought she felt hot through his boxers. He was burning up pressed against her wetness now. God, he might actually catch on fire.

"Um?" He asked and she shrugged before reaching down between them and pointing his tip down where his fingers had lately been. He pushed, but only felt resistance and none of the wetness from before.

He got a hand around himself and looked between them. "Fuck." He said again. He had no idea where his manners were. Maybe manners didn't belong in the bedroom. The problem seemed to be the fleshy lips around where he needed to be. "Um can you, can you open it up?"

"Yeah, I think so." She reached down and he said "oh my god" when he saw the dark pink within. Who knew that's how pretty She could be? He pressed forward. This time, there was resistance, but the warmth enveloped his tip and then gave over the ridge making a little popping sound. "Oh my god!" His vocabulary had also left him. He cried out and stopped.

Jillian squirmed beneath him, and the tips of her breast rubbed his chest, and could you close your eyes to sensation? "No, no, don't stop." She wrapped her legs around him and pushed with her heels until he came to a resting place.

"Fuck, holy fuck Jilly."

She squirmed again, smiled.

"You ok? Hurt?"

"No, not, not really, it's just a lot of pressure." She winced a bit. "Can you move."

He knew he could, but he wasn't sure what would happen if he did. "You're sure?" Though it seemed late to ask, already all the way interlocked with her. "I love you, Jillian." He swore.

"Me too, it shouldn't be anybody but you. I can only be me with you." She pushed on his hips with her heels a bit and moved her hips away. And he was sure this was everything. It couldn't be anybody but her. Ever.

He pulled back and thrust in, and then was overcome by the feeling and kept pushing and pulling until it was coming again.

"Oh god Jilly!" The feeling, god the feeling. Nothing had ever felt better in his life than this.

"Harry!" She sighed and wrapped her arms tighter, legs too. He knew he was being louder than he ought to be, but he couldn't stop. Then his vision whited out, way worse than the blur without his glasses. When he shuddered to a stop he simply collapsed on her, into her.

He lay there until he realized how heavy he must be and felt damp on his neck where her face was buried. He was so sweaty. Poor Jilly.

"Sorry, I'm so big." He lay on his side next to her and curled an arm around her midriff.

"Well, I don't have much to compare you to, but I'd say you're alright." And she made that sweet sound that was home to him.

He blushed, which was strange to happen now. His hand was moving lazily over her soft tummy skin and he was so happy. They were together. "Love you Jilly." He murmured as he drifted off without his own permission.

He vaguely remembered her kissing his forehead and her hair a halo in blue morning light.

"What time's it?" He mumbled.

"Early, still. I need the bathroom. Go back to sleep."

"Ok." He rolled into his pillow. The late night and dreams coming true made his eyes and body heavy.

He woke up to blazing sun, and thought he should be warm. But even his tiny bed was cold without her presence.

She wasn't making tea in the kitchen, or at the Dairy Barn that evening. 

Sandra was pissed she'd missed her shift.

He wondered if he'd hurt her, or something. Maybe he'd said he loved her too many times. He'd not thought to keep a balance sheet. Did he say it more than her?

When he still hadn't seen her by Monday morning at school, and heard all the talk in gym about her going all the way with Will, he was worried. She known the rumor mill would be turning her to dust. Maybe she was just avoiding it. But they were so close to the end. A couple weeks was all. He was so worried.

For her, not just for the grief he'd feel as he got his heart's desire to lose it so soon. He finally did what had to be done and left school at lunch. He'd never ditched, but it didn't matter now.

He drove out to her house, and saw that semi familiar car again.

Dick answered the door.

"Um, is Jillian home?"

The man screwed up his grimy brow, and even at this time he reeked of beer, from last night or the hours since breakfast. "Nah, she took off. Took her mom's stash and suitcase. Little bitch." He scratched his rounded belly. "We figured she's with you."

"No, um no sir, she's not with me." Where was she?

"Too bad, must be that rich kid, Will then. Ain't that just like a woman?" His smile was sharp around the edges, and wide to his canine teeth.

The comment was meant to cut him. He was already aching too much to notice.

Harry knew she wasn't with Will.

He might have nodded, or mumbled on his way back to the truck.

It wasn't until he got home he let himself really think it.

Jillian was gone.