in the 1700s a man named Samuel Johnson was quoted as having said, "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
As David Sullivan grabbed her throat with one hand while threatening her with the Glock with the other, yelling at her to give him the little girls, Liz would have understood that comment. The apparent imminence of her own death concentrated her mind wonderfully. She couldn't retreat...not and let the man have the little girls, and she was helpless to stop him. But as she heard the door click, before she even looked up, she knew that would be Max, and in a way she feared that more than anything.
The whole thing with Max had started as appreciation for what he'd done with the dog, but it had grown so much over the years. First a lark, then a harmless fantasy, then a dream, and now....now in her fear, Liz Parker realized that her love for Max was the most important thing in the world to her. She had no doubt that Max would die to save her, but she also knew with bitter certainty, that she'd prefer her own death to letting that happen.
"Max, go back!" she yelled as she saw the door open. But even as she said it, she knew he wouldn't. Max had never failed in his commitment to her, not for any reason. She wouldn't be able to talk him out of it today either, whatever revelations she may have experienced about her love for him.
David Sullivan heard the alien give the command, but as he turned he saw an Earth boy...twelve or thirteen...who appeared to have the power to resist the aliens commands.
[Perhaps an ally?] the voice told him. [It would even the odds, two against two].
"Don't listen to her," said Sullivan. "She's an alien...from the saucer that crashed here."
Both Liz and David Sullivan were a little perplexed by the words that came from the boy, and the expression on his face.
"Don't I wish....but no...no, she's not...you can trust me on this..."
"You don't understand...It makes voices in your mind. It's stolen my daughters..."
When Max had come in the door and seen the man attacking Liz he would have thought that nothing in this world could stop him from killing the man. Once he heard Liz telling him to go back...caring enough for him that she would ahve rather die herself than let him be at risk, he was sure of it. But the first words from the man had rocked him back on his heels just a little bit. No, he knew they weren't true, but just for a second he had to stop to visualize what it would have meant had they been true. If she had also been an alien, Liz could have accepted him...loved him for himself rather than just for the role he played to disguise what he was. It slowed Max down...just enough for him to be able to hear the what else he'd had to say, and that was enough.
Max looked into David Sullivan's eyes, forcing the connection despite the eight feet separating them, and what he saw....what he saw was chaos. Max saw fear and confusion and misconception, but he also saw a reflection of his own feelings. The man actually thought he was saving those little girls from a fate worse than death...from a couple of aliens. His mind was nothing like the mind of the man who had tried to kidnap Liz, or even the boy at the pool. The man's rationality was lost in a sea of confusion and fantasy. But there was no malice there.
"They aren't aliens," said Max.
[They aren't aliens] came the voice in David Sullivan's head.
"How can you tell?"
"Trust me, I'd know."
[Trust me, I'd know]
"I've known Liz since the third grade," said Max, reaching out his hand slowly toward the gun. He knew he didn't have the power...the understanding...to cure the man. Not yet. Someday, perhaps, but not yet. But he could suppress the fear, suppress the fantasy, at least for a little bit. As his hand touched the man's hand where it grasped the handgrip of the Glock, he pushed his thoughts into Sullivan's mind, pushing away the fantasy, pushing away the fear. The man's hand went limp and Max carefully grasped the pistol with one hand, continuing to hold the other hand in his.
"I...I've lost my wife and daughters," said David Sullivan, the tears starting to fall from his eyes as he started to sob."
"That's OK, Mister," said Liz, taking his other hand softly in hers, her fear and anger at the man already forgotten. "We'll help you find them, won't we Max?"
"Yes," said Max. "We'll find them for you."
"I'll be a son of a bitch," said the sniper.
"Well me too," said Jim Valenti as the three people came out of the room, Max carrying the Glock gingerly in his left hand, with his right hand holding the left hand of the suspect, Liz with her own left hand holding the suspect's right hand. The three were moving slowly, Max and Liz reassuring the guy, but careful to show the SWAT team members that ...whatever the problem with the man may have been, it was over for now.
Three hours later down at the Office, the paperwork was almost finished, David Sullivan was sedated and medicated with antipsychotics, although they'd managed to get through to his wife and daughters and let them talk for awhile, Max, Liz, and Maria had given their depositions and left.
"Well Jim," said the sometimes ... but not today ... sniper, "..what's going to happen?"
"I talked to the DA. Since the Parker girl has no interest in pressing charges and Albright isn't hurt, he really doesn't want to do anything, now that Sullivan is back on his medication. Sullivan's wife and kids will be flying in to El Paso tomorrow and renting a car to come up here and pick him up. The DA said he'd take a plea bargain, as long as Sullivan takes his medication he's a free man. If he stops it, we lock him up...at least long enough to get him medicated."
"That thing with the reporters...it was really a zoo."
"Sure was," said Jim Valenti, " ..but Liz Parker was right. The press seemed to eat up the girl with baseball bat defends second graders from armed psychotic guy angle. And I think she was also right about minimizing Max Evans part in it. As shy as he is, it would have only been painful for him, and Miss DeLuca...she really ate it up, telling the press to list her occupation as future professional singer and all."
"I still think the Evans boy ought to get some reward...maybe a public service medal or something."
"I gotta agree with Liz, it would just make him nervous...wouldn't be any real reward at all. Besides, I'm sure she has a plan to let him know how grateful she is. That'll mean more to him than anything we could do."
It was three hours later, on a rooftop above the Crashdown.
It wasn't a date...sixth graders don't date...but they had to eat somewhere, and the Crashdown did do take-out. This evening it would just be take-up instead. It was a rooftop table for two and the fact that you had to step out a window to get to it didn't really detract from the ambience and did assure there would be no pesky reporters trying to get a story. Music was provided through the CD player on the desk in Liz's room. Tonight someone had selected slow soft instrumentals.
The dinner went well. The hamburgers were cooked to perfection, and the fries seemed particularly delectable tonight...or perhaps it was just the good company. The sundaes were superb.
Afterwards, as the desert night started to cool, she coaxed him to dance, telling him that slow dances were easier than regular dancing, easier than square dances even. If his feet shuffled a little awkwardly, neither seemed to notice, her head nestling softly on his shoulder.
"Thanks, Max," she said, "..for rescuing me again."
"Actually, you seemed to be handling that guy fairly well by yourself."
"Suuurre I was," she said, lifting her face to look in his eyes. Her eyes seemed to hold his there..just mesmerized...much as his had held David Sullivan's eyes in the birthday room. It was a pleasant surprise as her lips softly brushed his in a tentative kiss, both smiling as she looked away quickly and returned her head to his shoulder. The dance would last another ten minutes before Nancy and Diane would appear at the window to announce it was time for Max to go.
But they'd be very lovely minutes.
Falling (AU, M/L Teen) Complete
Moderators: Anniepoo98, Rowedog, ISLANDGIRL5, Itzstacie, truelovepooh, FSU/MSW-94, Hunter, Island Breeze, Forum Moderators
Re: Falling (AU, M/L Teen) 07/17/2008
Last edited by greywolf on Fri Jul 18, 2008 9:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Falling (AU, M/L Teen) 07/12/2008
It was just after noon in the room in the library. These small conference rooms could be reserved as discussion groups or as areas for group projects, and this one had been in continuous use since the library opened at 8AM. It had started as a 'meeting', become a 'discussion', then a 'debate.' Gradually it had become a 'difference,' then a 'dispute,' and right now it was an 'argument'.
What it had actually become was a lover's quarrel, no less so because the issue was simply what to do for the sixth grade science fair, and no less so for the fact that the lovers were only thirteen. They had loved each other for years, and the fact the love had been Platonic made it no less real, nor did the fact that they themselves did not yet realize the depth or breadth of that love - indeed, it would have likely frightened either of them to have actually realized just how great that love was - and most certainly would have petrified either pair of parents. No, it was a strange sort of lover's quarrel, but a lover's quarrel nonetheless - a temporary trauma that once survived would one day become something to laugh about, however disheartening it might seem at the time.
The issue had been relatively straightforward. The overall theme for the Science Fair - a practice one for the real ones that would start in Junior High School - was 'the environment,' which was scarcely limiting at all. But as they were progressing in their science careers, the youg lady was more interested in biology, while the young man was more interested in chemistry and physics. Inevitably they saw some things differently.
There existed in the area a plant - Agave- which was routinely used in the manufacture of tequila. The characteristic taste of good tequila was due to trace amounts of substances called terpenes and terpenoids. The characteristic taste of BAD tequila was due to greater than trace amounts of these substances which imparted a taste much akin to gasoline to the liquor. And it was this plant that the young lady wanted to use to produce a bio-gasoline. If the terpenes and terpenoids could be recovered from the agava that was otherwise going to be used for tequila anyway, some of them could perhaps be polymerized to form a ten carbon chain molecule that could then relatively easily be used to substitute for gasoline, itself a mixture of carbon chains from five to ten atoms in length.
The young man, on the other hand, had been advocating for a project that involved the use of solar power. It was technically much simpler. A 4 x 8 foot sheet of sheet metal would be bent lengthwise to give it a cross section of a parabola. This would reflect light from the sun back onto a blackened copper pipe, heating water which would be circulated to collect the energy of the heated water in a storage container, to show in principle the way such a huge number of such collectors coulg gather solar energy to produce steam, to turn a turbine, and to produce electricity.
Given that these two were only sixth graders, and this was all for practice anyway, this would seem an unlikely excuse for a lover's quarrel, but then most lover's quarrel's are just like that. After almost four hours it was coming to a head...
"Max, You don't understand. If you look at the available solar energy per square meter, even for here in the desert, is only a kilowatt per day per square meter. At best you are going to get 50% efficiency in your collector and when you put it through a steam turbine you'll only get 70% efficiency there and when you turn a generator you will only get 70% there?"
"So...?" (Max is demonstrating his social immaturity here. No adult male would dare say 'So...' in that tone to an adult female he intended ever to see again. But then, Max WAS socially immature)
"SO...," said Liz, her voice both becoming louder and going up part of an octave, "... a nuclear powerplant puts out 600 MEGA Watts. I can do word problems TOO, Max. So in order to produce as much power as the nuclear power plant you need to put out collectors that will cover 2400 thousand square meters - that's 2.4 million square meters, Max."
"So..?" (Max just doubled up here - a real bad move. He might have taken a hint from the use of his name in two consecutive sentences immediately before he spoke. But while Max's socializing was improving under Liz's tutelage, he had a long way to go.)
"So, the desert is the most fragile environment on the entire Earth, Max. Did you know that the damage to the Mojave Desert from Patton's tanks when he was training for WWII STILL hasn't healed? Do you seriously believe if the US public won't permit something clean and environmentally friendly like a nuclear plant to be built, that they are going to permit hundreds and thousands of square meters of pristine desert to be covered by solar collectors, Max? There are dozens of plant and animal species that would be affected. Do you have any idea what the environmental impact statement would be like? Your idea is never going to be practical, Max. Besides... we need portable fuel for transportation, not just electricity."
"Well what about your silly idea?" (A wiser young man would have phrased this differently. As a matter of fact, a wiser young man would have said 'You are probably right,' in a resigned fashion, looked at the young lady with puppy dog eyes, and she'd have given in anyway. Max has a ways to go in his socializing.)
"And WHAT is so silly about MY idea?" asked Liz, the temperature in the small conference room dropping considerably, a fact that unfortunately went unnoticed by Max.
Max felt on very sure ground here. His ability to manipulate molecules gave him an intuitive ability to assess chemical reactions. While Liz knew a lot of science, she hadn't studied any organic chemistry, and Max had. That, together with his intuitive ability, gave him a self-assurance that was probably greater than it should have been, but the real problem was his ineptness at understanding that this was now about far more than just science. Despite his self assurance, he has probably never in his life been in more over his head socially.
"First of all, just distilling the agave mixture to get the terpenes and terpenoids out is going to require as much energy as you are going to get back from the gasoline, even if you could get the gasoline made, which you can't."
"And just why is THAT, Mister know-it-all?" asked Liz, assuming a posture of hands on her hips, right foot forward - the toes tapping softly up and down on the floor. This posture was a 90% scale model of one that her mother would use on rare occasion, when her father had committed an especially severe faux pas. Liz wasn't exactly sure what it meant, she was merely copying her mother. She knew it generally meant that her mother was significantly pissed. Jeff Parker could have told Max EXACTLY what that posture meant, coming from Nancy, not that he would have. It meant:
a. I sincerely hope you enjoyed getting it last time, because ...
b. you sure aren't getting any tonight. and
c. If you expect to get any in the next two weeks, you better promptly apologize and find a way to make this situation right.
Max, of course, was oblivious to the posture. Besides:
a. He'd never gotten any,
b. he damn sure wasn't expecting to get any tonight, and
c. to tell the truth, although he was certainly beginning to admire Liz in THAT WAY, the result in part of the pheromones she had released way back when they were finding that first fossil, he never really expected that Liz would find it acceptable to do THAT with an alien, and he certainly couldn't do THAT with her without telling her he WAS an alien, so it just plain wasn't going to happen.
Nonetheless, Max was currently discovering new frontiers in irritating Liz while being totally oblivious to that fact, and he wasn't stopping now.
"Because, the energy of activation of condensing the isoprene units is so high it takes a catalyst and high temperatures and pressures. That's how they do that in industry, I looked it up, so unless you have a vessel that can hold 2000 pounds per square inch of pressure at 400 degrees Celsius, we can't do that project."
"Well part of the whole idea is that we research it to find a WAY to do it, Maxwell Evans..."
"Which we've been doing for six weeks without success,..." reminded Max - not his brightest move. But Max had his intuitive knack, and his much better understanding of organic chemistry. As if he hadn't already dug himself in deeply enough, he continued, "You are so stubborn Liz. If you would only be reasonable...," which of course was the same as telling her she HAD NOT been reasonable.
"Reasonable? Maybe I should be reasonable and do this with someone else. Maybe I should be reasonable and find a different partner. Maybe I should be reasonable and just not even bother to do this at all - It's only practice anyway... And I am NOT stubborn, I am goal-oriented!"
By this time warning lights were starting to flash in the mind of even a naive young alien-human hybrid. He looked at her eyes starting to glisten with unshed tears and started mentally kicking himself. 'Max, you incredible idiot. You've hurt Liz.' Suddenly the memory of a thousand little kindnesses that she had done for him since the third grade thrust themselves on Max's consciousness. Being right was less important than Liz being happy. His eyes got wide and he stuttered and stammered, not really knowing how to get himself out of the worst mess he'd ever been in socially. He couldn't do this to her, it was just too painful, and the issue was not that important.
Liz looked at his suddenly frightened face, the pain she saw in his eyes tugging at her heartstrings. You knew that he had socialization problems, Liz, ' she told herself. But that didn't stop him from defending you from the dog, taking care of a bully for you, or pulling scorpions off you, or even stopping a rapist from kidnapping you at the risk of his own life. Or from stopping a psychotic with a gun from hurting you..' She couldn't do this to him, it was just too painful, and the issue was NOT that important.
"I'm sorry, Max..."
"I'm sorry, Liz..."
The words came from both mouths simultaneously. That seemed to break the spell. Liz giggled and took his hand. "We'll do it your way this time. Next time we'll do it my way."
Max looked into her eyes, knowing her way wouldn't work, and said, "That's fine Liz, or we can do it your way if you want.." He'd use his powers to make it work, if he had to.
"Your way first, Max. It probably is going to be quicker, and we don't have much time left."
Somehow Liz found herself standing against him, somehow his arm found its way around her waist, somehow as their chests touched, his lips found their way down towards hers. They were only millimeters away when the librarian opened the door and told them they needed to give up the room because it was scheduled for someone else. They gathered their work and moved on to the Crashdown for root beer floats.
They never did get the kiss in that day - the moment had passed. But somehow they were still closer. Both had learned the most important thing that lovers can learn, that when you truly love someone, their happiness is more important to you than your own.
What it had actually become was a lover's quarrel, no less so because the issue was simply what to do for the sixth grade science fair, and no less so for the fact that the lovers were only thirteen. They had loved each other for years, and the fact the love had been Platonic made it no less real, nor did the fact that they themselves did not yet realize the depth or breadth of that love - indeed, it would have likely frightened either of them to have actually realized just how great that love was - and most certainly would have petrified either pair of parents. No, it was a strange sort of lover's quarrel, but a lover's quarrel nonetheless - a temporary trauma that once survived would one day become something to laugh about, however disheartening it might seem at the time.
The issue had been relatively straightforward. The overall theme for the Science Fair - a practice one for the real ones that would start in Junior High School - was 'the environment,' which was scarcely limiting at all. But as they were progressing in their science careers, the youg lady was more interested in biology, while the young man was more interested in chemistry and physics. Inevitably they saw some things differently.
There existed in the area a plant - Agave- which was routinely used in the manufacture of tequila. The characteristic taste of good tequila was due to trace amounts of substances called terpenes and terpenoids. The characteristic taste of BAD tequila was due to greater than trace amounts of these substances which imparted a taste much akin to gasoline to the liquor. And it was this plant that the young lady wanted to use to produce a bio-gasoline. If the terpenes and terpenoids could be recovered from the agava that was otherwise going to be used for tequila anyway, some of them could perhaps be polymerized to form a ten carbon chain molecule that could then relatively easily be used to substitute for gasoline, itself a mixture of carbon chains from five to ten atoms in length.
The young man, on the other hand, had been advocating for a project that involved the use of solar power. It was technically much simpler. A 4 x 8 foot sheet of sheet metal would be bent lengthwise to give it a cross section of a parabola. This would reflect light from the sun back onto a blackened copper pipe, heating water which would be circulated to collect the energy of the heated water in a storage container, to show in principle the way such a huge number of such collectors coulg gather solar energy to produce steam, to turn a turbine, and to produce electricity.
Given that these two were only sixth graders, and this was all for practice anyway, this would seem an unlikely excuse for a lover's quarrel, but then most lover's quarrel's are just like that. After almost four hours it was coming to a head...
"Max, You don't understand. If you look at the available solar energy per square meter, even for here in the desert, is only a kilowatt per day per square meter. At best you are going to get 50% efficiency in your collector and when you put it through a steam turbine you'll only get 70% efficiency there and when you turn a generator you will only get 70% there?"
"So...?" (Max is demonstrating his social immaturity here. No adult male would dare say 'So...' in that tone to an adult female he intended ever to see again. But then, Max WAS socially immature)
"SO...," said Liz, her voice both becoming louder and going up part of an octave, "... a nuclear powerplant puts out 600 MEGA Watts. I can do word problems TOO, Max. So in order to produce as much power as the nuclear power plant you need to put out collectors that will cover 2400 thousand square meters - that's 2.4 million square meters, Max."
"So..?" (Max just doubled up here - a real bad move. He might have taken a hint from the use of his name in two consecutive sentences immediately before he spoke. But while Max's socializing was improving under Liz's tutelage, he had a long way to go.)
"So, the desert is the most fragile environment on the entire Earth, Max. Did you know that the damage to the Mojave Desert from Patton's tanks when he was training for WWII STILL hasn't healed? Do you seriously believe if the US public won't permit something clean and environmentally friendly like a nuclear plant to be built, that they are going to permit hundreds and thousands of square meters of pristine desert to be covered by solar collectors, Max? There are dozens of plant and animal species that would be affected. Do you have any idea what the environmental impact statement would be like? Your idea is never going to be practical, Max. Besides... we need portable fuel for transportation, not just electricity."
"Well what about your silly idea?" (A wiser young man would have phrased this differently. As a matter of fact, a wiser young man would have said 'You are probably right,' in a resigned fashion, looked at the young lady with puppy dog eyes, and she'd have given in anyway. Max has a ways to go in his socializing.)
"And WHAT is so silly about MY idea?" asked Liz, the temperature in the small conference room dropping considerably, a fact that unfortunately went unnoticed by Max.
Max felt on very sure ground here. His ability to manipulate molecules gave him an intuitive ability to assess chemical reactions. While Liz knew a lot of science, she hadn't studied any organic chemistry, and Max had. That, together with his intuitive ability, gave him a self-assurance that was probably greater than it should have been, but the real problem was his ineptness at understanding that this was now about far more than just science. Despite his self assurance, he has probably never in his life been in more over his head socially.
"First of all, just distilling the agave mixture to get the terpenes and terpenoids out is going to require as much energy as you are going to get back from the gasoline, even if you could get the gasoline made, which you can't."
"And just why is THAT, Mister know-it-all?" asked Liz, assuming a posture of hands on her hips, right foot forward - the toes tapping softly up and down on the floor. This posture was a 90% scale model of one that her mother would use on rare occasion, when her father had committed an especially severe faux pas. Liz wasn't exactly sure what it meant, she was merely copying her mother. She knew it generally meant that her mother was significantly pissed. Jeff Parker could have told Max EXACTLY what that posture meant, coming from Nancy, not that he would have. It meant:
a. I sincerely hope you enjoyed getting it last time, because ...
b. you sure aren't getting any tonight. and
c. If you expect to get any in the next two weeks, you better promptly apologize and find a way to make this situation right.
Max, of course, was oblivious to the posture. Besides:
a. He'd never gotten any,
b. he damn sure wasn't expecting to get any tonight, and
c. to tell the truth, although he was certainly beginning to admire Liz in THAT WAY, the result in part of the pheromones she had released way back when they were finding that first fossil, he never really expected that Liz would find it acceptable to do THAT with an alien, and he certainly couldn't do THAT with her without telling her he WAS an alien, so it just plain wasn't going to happen.
Nonetheless, Max was currently discovering new frontiers in irritating Liz while being totally oblivious to that fact, and he wasn't stopping now.
"Because, the energy of activation of condensing the isoprene units is so high it takes a catalyst and high temperatures and pressures. That's how they do that in industry, I looked it up, so unless you have a vessel that can hold 2000 pounds per square inch of pressure at 400 degrees Celsius, we can't do that project."
"Well part of the whole idea is that we research it to find a WAY to do it, Maxwell Evans..."
"Which we've been doing for six weeks without success,..." reminded Max - not his brightest move. But Max had his intuitive knack, and his much better understanding of organic chemistry. As if he hadn't already dug himself in deeply enough, he continued, "You are so stubborn Liz. If you would only be reasonable...," which of course was the same as telling her she HAD NOT been reasonable.
"Reasonable? Maybe I should be reasonable and do this with someone else. Maybe I should be reasonable and find a different partner. Maybe I should be reasonable and just not even bother to do this at all - It's only practice anyway... And I am NOT stubborn, I am goal-oriented!"
By this time warning lights were starting to flash in the mind of even a naive young alien-human hybrid. He looked at her eyes starting to glisten with unshed tears and started mentally kicking himself. 'Max, you incredible idiot. You've hurt Liz.' Suddenly the memory of a thousand little kindnesses that she had done for him since the third grade thrust themselves on Max's consciousness. Being right was less important than Liz being happy. His eyes got wide and he stuttered and stammered, not really knowing how to get himself out of the worst mess he'd ever been in socially. He couldn't do this to her, it was just too painful, and the issue was not that important.
Liz looked at his suddenly frightened face, the pain she saw in his eyes tugging at her heartstrings. You knew that he had socialization problems, Liz, ' she told herself. But that didn't stop him from defending you from the dog, taking care of a bully for you, or pulling scorpions off you, or even stopping a rapist from kidnapping you at the risk of his own life. Or from stopping a psychotic with a gun from hurting you..' She couldn't do this to him, it was just too painful, and the issue was NOT that important.
"I'm sorry, Max..."
"I'm sorry, Liz..."
The words came from both mouths simultaneously. That seemed to break the spell. Liz giggled and took his hand. "We'll do it your way this time. Next time we'll do it my way."
Max looked into her eyes, knowing her way wouldn't work, and said, "That's fine Liz, or we can do it your way if you want.." He'd use his powers to make it work, if he had to.
"Your way first, Max. It probably is going to be quicker, and we don't have much time left."
Somehow Liz found herself standing against him, somehow his arm found its way around her waist, somehow as their chests touched, his lips found their way down towards hers. They were only millimeters away when the librarian opened the door and told them they needed to give up the room because it was scheduled for someone else. They gathered their work and moved on to the Crashdown for root beer floats.
They never did get the kiss in that day - the moment had passed. But somehow they were still closer. Both had learned the most important thing that lovers can learn, that when you truly love someone, their happiness is more important to you than your own.
Last edited by greywolf on Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:24 am, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Falling (AU, M/L Teen) 07/23/2008
“And the winners of the sixth grade science fair project..” announced Mr. Raff, “ .. are Liz Parker and Max Evans…”
Max watched as Mr. Raff put the blue ribbon on their project, knowing even as he did so that this was a false victory. Max had been in the library researching, and he’d come to the conclusion that Liz was right. Nobody was really going to develop significant commercial solar or wind power. In the ultimate analysis, these methods were no more environmentally friendly than burning coal or natural gas as they were already doing, and both significantly less environmentally friendly than nuclear power.
He’d reviewed many major articles on solar power and buried deep within each was the truth. There were a number of challenges facing use of solar power in the fragile desert environment. Not only were there endangered species of plants and animals, but the environment was even more fragile than the arctic tundra. Even if they were willing to ignore the effect that covering huge areas of desert would have on the local flora and fauna, they still needed to get power from the areas involved to where it was needed, requiring transmission lines. Another huge problem was that the people simply weren’t very close to where the wide open spaces were. That meant that much of the energy would be wasted in resistance in the long lines from where it would be generated to where it would finally be used.
He’d also considered wind power. He’d found that in many of the places where it had been put in place, it too was unpopular due to devastating the local endangered species of birds and, once again, the places where it could be used were just too far from the population, making transmission a problem. People just didn’t want to spend so much to destroy that much of the scenery and kill that many birds for that little benefit. Liz was right. It made more sense to build a nuclear reactor than any of these methods.
But that didn't mean that her way was better - or even that it would work at all. Granted, people weren't going to gripe about growing plants, but the energy costs of distilling out the terpenoIds were way too high to make her plan work either. Even so, Max knew that this 'victory' was not truly a victory, even if it meant they would be able to go up to Albuquerque on Saturday on the bus with the small group of junior high school science students who were going to be displaying their projects at the regional competition.
"Congratulations, Max, Liz," said Mr. Raff, as he handed them the certificates. He turned to their parents and continued, "If you'll just get us those permission slips, my wife and I would be happy to show Max and Liz the sort of competition they'll be facing in a few years."
Nancy looked at her daughter. Liz was awfully young to be 150 miles away from her parents on a weekend field trip with junior high school students, but Max would be with her - that being the case, she supposed it would be alright.
It was five days later that Max and Liz were on the bus enroute to Albuquerque. They'd left Roswell at 10 AM and had brought a picnic lunch, because they were going to be eating lunch at a roadside rest area that was truly in the middle of nowhere. The bus turned off the main highway and proceeded almost five miles into some of the most truly desolate landscape Max or Liz had ever seen. But that was nothing compared to what they found adjacent to the small parking area at the end of the road.
"This, ..," said Mr. Raff, ".. is called the malpais - that's 'badlands' in Spanish. It is the result of alava flow. Most of the terrain in New Mexico is sedimentary rock, formed on the bottom of an ancient ocean. It's mostly a form of sandstone. But here in this area, and in a number of other areas in the state much larger than this one, lava broke through the old ocean bed and left these badlands. The lava is sharp even now - it would quickly cut up the soles of your shoes if you walked on it for very long. Pretty much nothing lives out there but a few plants, a very few rodents and insects, and the snakes that hunt them. Even deer don't wander into the malpais, there's just too little food and too little water. What few large animals do go in usually become food for turkey buzzards and other carrion eaters that can come in for a meal, then fly out. Many of these lava flows have been scarcely explored except by air. It's just too hard to travel on foot."
"Will these areas always be so barren?" asked an older girl.
Mr. Raff deferred to his wife, who had minored in geology...
"No," said Mrs. Raff. "Gradually sandstorms carry some dirt in to the crevices in the rock. Hardy plants that don't require much water establish themselves. The volcanic lava is actually quite rich in minerals the plant kingdome needs, once it starts to get broken down. It just takes a very very long time for tens and hundreds of thousands of heat-cold cycles to start breaking up the lava. Some of these areas, like the big one up at Carrizozo in the Tularosa Basin are less than five thousand years old. That lava has barely changed from the day it first cooled. Other lava fields, like this one, date back almost a half million years. There are some in parts of the state that date back almost five million years. Most people think of desert when they think of New Mexico but in fact, it's a very volcanic state, almost as much so as Hawaii. If we have time tomorrow, before we come home, we'll go by the New Mexico State Museum of Natural History and Science and see their geology exhibit. I also believe that our two youngest students have a couple of great fossils exhibited there."
As they ate their lunches, Max and Liz looked at the lava adjacent to the small rest area. Over the millenia a few small plants had infiltrated into the niches and crevices, but it was mostly barren rock. A couple of the older kids came over and sat next to them.
"So you two found some fossils?"
"Yes," Liz replied. "We actually have one subspecies named after us - Oreodontus Parkerevansei."
"That's sort of cool," said one of the eight grade girls.
"Yeah - I think so,"said Liz.
After lunch they loaded back in the bus, and in two more hours were in Albuquerque.
Max watched as Mr. Raff put the blue ribbon on their project, knowing even as he did so that this was a false victory. Max had been in the library researching, and he’d come to the conclusion that Liz was right. Nobody was really going to develop significant commercial solar or wind power. In the ultimate analysis, these methods were no more environmentally friendly than burning coal or natural gas as they were already doing, and both significantly less environmentally friendly than nuclear power.
He’d reviewed many major articles on solar power and buried deep within each was the truth. There were a number of challenges facing use of solar power in the fragile desert environment. Not only were there endangered species of plants and animals, but the environment was even more fragile than the arctic tundra. Even if they were willing to ignore the effect that covering huge areas of desert would have on the local flora and fauna, they still needed to get power from the areas involved to where it was needed, requiring transmission lines. Another huge problem was that the people simply weren’t very close to where the wide open spaces were. That meant that much of the energy would be wasted in resistance in the long lines from where it would be generated to where it would finally be used.
He’d also considered wind power. He’d found that in many of the places where it had been put in place, it too was unpopular due to devastating the local endangered species of birds and, once again, the places where it could be used were just too far from the population, making transmission a problem. People just didn’t want to spend so much to destroy that much of the scenery and kill that many birds for that little benefit. Liz was right. It made more sense to build a nuclear reactor than any of these methods.
But that didn't mean that her way was better - or even that it would work at all. Granted, people weren't going to gripe about growing plants, but the energy costs of distilling out the terpenoIds were way too high to make her plan work either. Even so, Max knew that this 'victory' was not truly a victory, even if it meant they would be able to go up to Albuquerque on Saturday on the bus with the small group of junior high school science students who were going to be displaying their projects at the regional competition.
"Congratulations, Max, Liz," said Mr. Raff, as he handed them the certificates. He turned to their parents and continued, "If you'll just get us those permission slips, my wife and I would be happy to show Max and Liz the sort of competition they'll be facing in a few years."
Nancy looked at her daughter. Liz was awfully young to be 150 miles away from her parents on a weekend field trip with junior high school students, but Max would be with her - that being the case, she supposed it would be alright.
It was five days later that Max and Liz were on the bus enroute to Albuquerque. They'd left Roswell at 10 AM and had brought a picnic lunch, because they were going to be eating lunch at a roadside rest area that was truly in the middle of nowhere. The bus turned off the main highway and proceeded almost five miles into some of the most truly desolate landscape Max or Liz had ever seen. But that was nothing compared to what they found adjacent to the small parking area at the end of the road.
"This, ..," said Mr. Raff, ".. is called the malpais - that's 'badlands' in Spanish. It is the result of alava flow. Most of the terrain in New Mexico is sedimentary rock, formed on the bottom of an ancient ocean. It's mostly a form of sandstone. But here in this area, and in a number of other areas in the state much larger than this one, lava broke through the old ocean bed and left these badlands. The lava is sharp even now - it would quickly cut up the soles of your shoes if you walked on it for very long. Pretty much nothing lives out there but a few plants, a very few rodents and insects, and the snakes that hunt them. Even deer don't wander into the malpais, there's just too little food and too little water. What few large animals do go in usually become food for turkey buzzards and other carrion eaters that can come in for a meal, then fly out. Many of these lava flows have been scarcely explored except by air. It's just too hard to travel on foot."
"Will these areas always be so barren?" asked an older girl.
Mr. Raff deferred to his wife, who had minored in geology...
"No," said Mrs. Raff. "Gradually sandstorms carry some dirt in to the crevices in the rock. Hardy plants that don't require much water establish themselves. The volcanic lava is actually quite rich in minerals the plant kingdome needs, once it starts to get broken down. It just takes a very very long time for tens and hundreds of thousands of heat-cold cycles to start breaking up the lava. Some of these areas, like the big one up at Carrizozo in the Tularosa Basin are less than five thousand years old. That lava has barely changed from the day it first cooled. Other lava fields, like this one, date back almost a half million years. There are some in parts of the state that date back almost five million years. Most people think of desert when they think of New Mexico but in fact, it's a very volcanic state, almost as much so as Hawaii. If we have time tomorrow, before we come home, we'll go by the New Mexico State Museum of Natural History and Science and see their geology exhibit. I also believe that our two youngest students have a couple of great fossils exhibited there."
As they ate their lunches, Max and Liz looked at the lava adjacent to the small rest area. Over the millenia a few small plants had infiltrated into the niches and crevices, but it was mostly barren rock. A couple of the older kids came over and sat next to them.
"So you two found some fossils?"
"Yes," Liz replied. "We actually have one subspecies named after us - Oreodontus Parkerevansei."
"That's sort of cool," said one of the eight grade girls.
"Yeah - I think so,"said Liz.
After lunch they loaded back in the bus, and in two more hours were in Albuquerque.
Re: Falling (AU, M/L Teen) 8/9/2008
The science fair projects were displayed at the university field house in Albuquerque by the time the show opened at 3PM, and for the next four hours the kids from Roswell explained their individual projects to the public and a few interested reporters. The show closed at 7PM, although it would reopen at 8AM the next day for another four hour session. With luck, they could pack up their displays by noon the next day and still have time to visit the museum where they could get a quick glimpse at the fossils that Liz and Max had discovered. But for tonight, it was going to be a late dinner at the local pizza palace, then everyone was going to spend the night in the gym of a local junior high school where Mrs. Raff had once worked as a student teacher and still had a few connections who would let them use the building. There were sleeping bags in the bus for everyone and three folding cots had been brought along for the bus driver and Mr. and Mrs. Raff. The kids would sleep on the padded floor of the gym exercise and tumbling room.
As the seventh and eighth graders - and one pair of sixth graders - swilled rootbeer and ate a truly phenomenal amount of pizza, the two chaperones were sitting at their own table. Janet Raff had only been married for about seven months, but she'd been a junior high school teacher for over two years, and she had a pretty good idea about how kids this age acted. This was a very touchy transitional period in boy-girl relationships and, stereotype or not, kids who did science fair projects did indeed tend to be - well perhaps not geeks, but certainly not on the cutting edge of social maturity within their age-groups. She and her husband both taught junior high science, and he had the outreach program to bring science enrichment programs to the elementary schools as well. Second semester - coming up in about three weeks - they team-taught sexual education and health to the sixth graders as well. So Janet certainly thought she ought to have an idea about how uncomfortable all these kids would be with their budding sexuality, and for the most part she seemed to be correct. Except for the two that she would have thought would have been the least comfortable as a couple. Perhaps both coming from the same school had something to do with it, but even so... Eventually she just had to ask.
"Honey?"
"Yes, dear?" replied Mr. Raff. He was still somewhat of a newlywed and still quite attentive.
"I don't get your two elementary students. All of the older kids seem to be kind of stressed out over the boy-girl thing, gender issues, who is infatuated with whom, and all that. Those two just work quietly together like an old married couple who are really comfortable in their own skins. For all the boy's shyness, he's not a bit self conscious with her - and she acts like he is - well, her personal property, but not in a trophy sort of way to make the other girls envious, but kind of like -well -some immutable law of physics."
"They are an interesting couple, those two."
"Are they boyfriend-girlfriend? In the sixth grade?"
"Well, not that you could really tell, more just good friends, despite the fact that Max almost got suspended for having his hand up under Liz's blouse on a field trip once, it was innocent enough - he was just pulling scorpions off her."
"Well THAT's a new line, James Raff. You never even tried that one on me..."
"No, it was really true, she'd had a nest of them drop on her and he was just helping her, although the old principal pitched a fit over it, but I really do doubt that it was sexual at all. Sometimes I think the young lady may be sending him a few signals but Max there is a little socially backward, even for a sixth grader - I don't think he has really noticed yet. What I think you may be noticing is that Liz has absolute and complete trust in Max. I know, his shyness kind of camouflages the kind of kid he is but Max is - well, he's extraordinarily capable when he needs to be."
"In what way?"
"Do you recall the story a year or two ago about the young girl on the school field trip being kidnapped by the paroled sex offender?"
"Certainly. Who could forget something like that?"
"Well, Liz was that girl, and Max was the boy who dove off a bike to drive the man over the guardrail down into the arroyo. They kept the names out of the paper, but those are the two.. and I guess Max has been protecting her like that almost from the first day they met. It's like she is a trouble magnet and Max is her magic charm that keeps her safe. They have a strange and wonderful relationship - she's helping him overcome his crippling shyness and become a normal human being and he's keeping her safe - and when its just the two of them, they seem to be the most comfortable couple in the world. It's when what they have interfaces with society's expectation for elementary students that things seem to go wrong, although Max's parents are lawyers and they have smoothed out most of the rough spots with the school district. Max and Liz's moms are close too. That helps as well."
"It just doesn't seem normal, what with all the sturm and drang I see in my seventh and eighth grade students for sxth graders to be so comfortable - so trusting - of one another."
"It's kind of strange to everyone, but it apparently works for them - at least for now."
"That's what would scare me if one of them were my kid .. uh... assuming we have kids that is.."
"I honestly don't think anyone is comfortable with it - except maybe for the two of them. You know me, the old romantic, I'd like to think that this'll all work out for them - you know, that forty years from now they'll have been married for thirty-plus years, but the odds are probably against that."
"What would worry me would be that I never see these first loves lasting with any of my students, and it's often the girl who gets hurt," said Janet.
"I can't argue with that experience," said her husband. "... and the closer they are the harder it may be when that happens."
"I may talk to Liz tonight, make sure that she has realistic expectations. I think it's great that they are close, but I'm hoping that Liz isn't expecting more commitment out of that young man than he is able to give..."
'I dunno,' thought James Raff, ' ...throwing yourself over a cliff and taking the other guy with you to protect your girlfriend is a helluva lot of commitment, whatever the age of the guy that does it.'
But being himself a newlywed, all James felt comfortable saying was, "Yes, dear."
It was 10:40 in the gymnasium, the movie was over, and all the students were getting ready for bed. The room had a huge curtain that divided it into boys and girls sections, Janet Raff bunking with the girls while the bus driver and James Raff had their cots in the boys section. Lights-out would be at 11PM. Janet Raff watched Liz walk over to the edge of the curtain separating the two sides of the gym to say goodnight to Max.
"Max, all the guys there seem real nice, and I'll be right through this curtain if you need me - or if I need you, more likely."
"I know that. You were right - this trip is sort of fun, even if I didn't know any of these guys to start with."
"Well, that's not entirely true. Bobby and Ken were at our elementary school last year, and you sort of knew them a little bit then."
"I guess so, but you were right - it has been sort of fun - so far at least."
"And it'll be fun tomorrow, too. But what'll really be fun is next year when we get to do this for real, not just a practice. If we do my Agava project, we'll blow the socks off everybody."
Max smiled and nodded, not willing to risk another argument anymore than James Raff was willing to risk crossing Janet. Y-chromosomes may not be born smart, but they are educable. Perhaps sometime in the next eleven months he could talk her into doing a project that would actually work...
"See you tomorrow," Max said, resisting an urge to hold her hand for a second before letting her go.
"Sweet dreams, Max," she said, resisting an urge to give him a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Uh, Miss Parker... Do you have a minute to talk?" asked Mrs. Raff.
As the seventh and eighth graders - and one pair of sixth graders - swilled rootbeer and ate a truly phenomenal amount of pizza, the two chaperones were sitting at their own table. Janet Raff had only been married for about seven months, but she'd been a junior high school teacher for over two years, and she had a pretty good idea about how kids this age acted. This was a very touchy transitional period in boy-girl relationships and, stereotype or not, kids who did science fair projects did indeed tend to be - well perhaps not geeks, but certainly not on the cutting edge of social maturity within their age-groups. She and her husband both taught junior high science, and he had the outreach program to bring science enrichment programs to the elementary schools as well. Second semester - coming up in about three weeks - they team-taught sexual education and health to the sixth graders as well. So Janet certainly thought she ought to have an idea about how uncomfortable all these kids would be with their budding sexuality, and for the most part she seemed to be correct. Except for the two that she would have thought would have been the least comfortable as a couple. Perhaps both coming from the same school had something to do with it, but even so... Eventually she just had to ask.
"Honey?"
"Yes, dear?" replied Mr. Raff. He was still somewhat of a newlywed and still quite attentive.
"I don't get your two elementary students. All of the older kids seem to be kind of stressed out over the boy-girl thing, gender issues, who is infatuated with whom, and all that. Those two just work quietly together like an old married couple who are really comfortable in their own skins. For all the boy's shyness, he's not a bit self conscious with her - and she acts like he is - well, her personal property, but not in a trophy sort of way to make the other girls envious, but kind of like -well -some immutable law of physics."
"They are an interesting couple, those two."
"Are they boyfriend-girlfriend? In the sixth grade?"
"Well, not that you could really tell, more just good friends, despite the fact that Max almost got suspended for having his hand up under Liz's blouse on a field trip once, it was innocent enough - he was just pulling scorpions off her."
"Well THAT's a new line, James Raff. You never even tried that one on me..."
"No, it was really true, she'd had a nest of them drop on her and he was just helping her, although the old principal pitched a fit over it, but I really do doubt that it was sexual at all. Sometimes I think the young lady may be sending him a few signals but Max there is a little socially backward, even for a sixth grader - I don't think he has really noticed yet. What I think you may be noticing is that Liz has absolute and complete trust in Max. I know, his shyness kind of camouflages the kind of kid he is but Max is - well, he's extraordinarily capable when he needs to be."
"In what way?"
"Do you recall the story a year or two ago about the young girl on the school field trip being kidnapped by the paroled sex offender?"
"Certainly. Who could forget something like that?"
"Well, Liz was that girl, and Max was the boy who dove off a bike to drive the man over the guardrail down into the arroyo. They kept the names out of the paper, but those are the two.. and I guess Max has been protecting her like that almost from the first day they met. It's like she is a trouble magnet and Max is her magic charm that keeps her safe. They have a strange and wonderful relationship - she's helping him overcome his crippling shyness and become a normal human being and he's keeping her safe - and when its just the two of them, they seem to be the most comfortable couple in the world. It's when what they have interfaces with society's expectation for elementary students that things seem to go wrong, although Max's parents are lawyers and they have smoothed out most of the rough spots with the school district. Max and Liz's moms are close too. That helps as well."
"It just doesn't seem normal, what with all the sturm and drang I see in my seventh and eighth grade students for sxth graders to be so comfortable - so trusting - of one another."
"It's kind of strange to everyone, but it apparently works for them - at least for now."
"That's what would scare me if one of them were my kid .. uh... assuming we have kids that is.."
"I honestly don't think anyone is comfortable with it - except maybe for the two of them. You know me, the old romantic, I'd like to think that this'll all work out for them - you know, that forty years from now they'll have been married for thirty-plus years, but the odds are probably against that."
"What would worry me would be that I never see these first loves lasting with any of my students, and it's often the girl who gets hurt," said Janet.
"I can't argue with that experience," said her husband. "... and the closer they are the harder it may be when that happens."
"I may talk to Liz tonight, make sure that she has realistic expectations. I think it's great that they are close, but I'm hoping that Liz isn't expecting more commitment out of that young man than he is able to give..."
'I dunno,' thought James Raff, ' ...throwing yourself over a cliff and taking the other guy with you to protect your girlfriend is a helluva lot of commitment, whatever the age of the guy that does it.'
But being himself a newlywed, all James felt comfortable saying was, "Yes, dear."
It was 10:40 in the gymnasium, the movie was over, and all the students were getting ready for bed. The room had a huge curtain that divided it into boys and girls sections, Janet Raff bunking with the girls while the bus driver and James Raff had their cots in the boys section. Lights-out would be at 11PM. Janet Raff watched Liz walk over to the edge of the curtain separating the two sides of the gym to say goodnight to Max.
"Max, all the guys there seem real nice, and I'll be right through this curtain if you need me - or if I need you, more likely."
"I know that. You were right - this trip is sort of fun, even if I didn't know any of these guys to start with."
"Well, that's not entirely true. Bobby and Ken were at our elementary school last year, and you sort of knew them a little bit then."
"I guess so, but you were right - it has been sort of fun - so far at least."
"And it'll be fun tomorrow, too. But what'll really be fun is next year when we get to do this for real, not just a practice. If we do my Agava project, we'll blow the socks off everybody."
Max smiled and nodded, not willing to risk another argument anymore than James Raff was willing to risk crossing Janet. Y-chromosomes may not be born smart, but they are educable. Perhaps sometime in the next eleven months he could talk her into doing a project that would actually work...
"See you tomorrow," Max said, resisting an urge to hold her hand for a second before letting her go.
"Sweet dreams, Max," she said, resisting an urge to give him a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Uh, Miss Parker... Do you have a minute to talk?" asked Mrs. Raff.
Last edited by greywolf on Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Falling (AU, M/L Teen) 8/11/2008
There was a small coach’s office next to the girl’s locker room, and that’s where they wound up having their talk.
“I notice that you and Max are quite good friends,” said Janet Raff, “How long have you known him?”
“About three and a half years now. We met just before third grade,” said Liz, remembering briefly the sheer terror of holding the little puppy as the huge dog had threatened them both, then feeling the warmth and the fluttery feeling deep within her as she remembered the boy she’d never seen before stepping between her and the threatening animal. Even then she’d somehow known that Max wouldn’t let her be hurt – even before all the other times….
“So are you …friends … or boyfriend-girlfriend?”
“Just friends,” said Liz, absentmindedly fingering a pendant around her neck while she thought back to all the wonderful times she’d had with Max. “My mom and I talked some time ago and decided that Max and I were too young to be boyfriend-girlfriend,” said Liz, remembering back almost six months. ‘But that WAS almost six months ago,’ she thought. ‘We are both older now…’
“I think your mother was wise to tell you that,” replied Janet. “Boys aren’t as mature as girls, and even young men often have problems with commitment. Max seems socially a little less mature than most sixth-graders even. Commitment is very important in any serious male-female relationship. Generally speaking, it’s best not to get involved with someone until they develop the maturity to really commit to that sort of a relationship – until they become someone you can absolutely depend upon to have your best interest at heart. You are perhaps just a little young for that sort of commitment yourself.”
Liz put on her perfect-Miss-Parker face. Mrs. Raff was a teacher and perfect students did not offend teachers, but Liz didn’t like it when anyone talked about Max being socially immature. Most of them – like Mrs. Raff, knew nothing of Max’s background – his being a foundling – and anyone that thought that Max might be unready or unwilling to commit to her was simply ignorant. She was still sometimes haunted by dreams of Max going over the cliff clinging to that man – pulling the man away from her to his death, a death Max might have easily shared. Liz felt that she’d aged an eternity in those few minutes when she hadn’t known Max had survived, and with the experiences she had shared with Max, she had no doubt whatsoever she was mature enough for that sort of commitment herself. In fact, the six months was almost up… Perhaps it was time to start implementing the plan.
“Max has always struggled a little bit dealing with other people,” the perfect-Liz Parker conceded, smiling up at Mrs. Raff. “I suppose he’ll have his trouble when it comes to boy-girl stuff as well.”
“Liz, that’s very perceptive and understanding of you. I’m … well, I guess I’m reassured a lot. I’m glad we had this talk.”
“So am I, Mrs. Raff,” said Liz, now completely genuine. Max likely would have some trouble – the woman was right about that. Max had never lacked in commitment – and neither would she. Max had done anything necessary to see that she was kept safe and protected. In turn, she had helped him with the social stuff. It worked out great for both of them
But if Max was going to have problems with the boyfriend-girlfriend thing – and he probably was – she’d probably better start with that sooner rather than later, to give him time to work things out before they got into any serious dating like the high school kids did.
“Well, this has been a delightful conversation, Liz. Many young ladies just sort of get overtaken by events, without really thinking about what they are getting in to. I’m glad to see that you are different.”
“Yeah, I’ve always thought that you needed to have a plan,” said Liz, still fingering the pendant.
“Well, I’ll let you get to sleep then. I just wanted to be sure you weren’t leaping into something without thinking about it. Good night, Liz.”
Liz smiled. She’d give it a lot of thought – that’s what a plan was – but she figured it was about time to do some leaping.
“Good night, Mrs. Raff…”
“I notice that you and Max are quite good friends,” said Janet Raff, “How long have you known him?”
“About three and a half years now. We met just before third grade,” said Liz, remembering briefly the sheer terror of holding the little puppy as the huge dog had threatened them both, then feeling the warmth and the fluttery feeling deep within her as she remembered the boy she’d never seen before stepping between her and the threatening animal. Even then she’d somehow known that Max wouldn’t let her be hurt – even before all the other times….
“So are you …friends … or boyfriend-girlfriend?”
“Just friends,” said Liz, absentmindedly fingering a pendant around her neck while she thought back to all the wonderful times she’d had with Max. “My mom and I talked some time ago and decided that Max and I were too young to be boyfriend-girlfriend,” said Liz, remembering back almost six months. ‘But that WAS almost six months ago,’ she thought. ‘We are both older now…’
“I think your mother was wise to tell you that,” replied Janet. “Boys aren’t as mature as girls, and even young men often have problems with commitment. Max seems socially a little less mature than most sixth-graders even. Commitment is very important in any serious male-female relationship. Generally speaking, it’s best not to get involved with someone until they develop the maturity to really commit to that sort of a relationship – until they become someone you can absolutely depend upon to have your best interest at heart. You are perhaps just a little young for that sort of commitment yourself.”
Liz put on her perfect-Miss-Parker face. Mrs. Raff was a teacher and perfect students did not offend teachers, but Liz didn’t like it when anyone talked about Max being socially immature. Most of them – like Mrs. Raff, knew nothing of Max’s background – his being a foundling – and anyone that thought that Max might be unready or unwilling to commit to her was simply ignorant. She was still sometimes haunted by dreams of Max going over the cliff clinging to that man – pulling the man away from her to his death, a death Max might have easily shared. Liz felt that she’d aged an eternity in those few minutes when she hadn’t known Max had survived, and with the experiences she had shared with Max, she had no doubt whatsoever she was mature enough for that sort of commitment herself. In fact, the six months was almost up… Perhaps it was time to start implementing the plan.
“Max has always struggled a little bit dealing with other people,” the perfect-Liz Parker conceded, smiling up at Mrs. Raff. “I suppose he’ll have his trouble when it comes to boy-girl stuff as well.”
“Liz, that’s very perceptive and understanding of you. I’m … well, I guess I’m reassured a lot. I’m glad we had this talk.”
“So am I, Mrs. Raff,” said Liz, now completely genuine. Max likely would have some trouble – the woman was right about that. Max had never lacked in commitment – and neither would she. Max had done anything necessary to see that she was kept safe and protected. In turn, she had helped him with the social stuff. It worked out great for both of them
But if Max was going to have problems with the boyfriend-girlfriend thing – and he probably was – she’d probably better start with that sooner rather than later, to give him time to work things out before they got into any serious dating like the high school kids did.
“Well, this has been a delightful conversation, Liz. Many young ladies just sort of get overtaken by events, without really thinking about what they are getting in to. I’m glad to see that you are different.”
“Yeah, I’ve always thought that you needed to have a plan,” said Liz, still fingering the pendant.
“Well, I’ll let you get to sleep then. I just wanted to be sure you weren’t leaping into something without thinking about it. Good night, Liz.”
Liz smiled. She’d give it a lot of thought – that’s what a plan was – but she figured it was about time to do some leaping.
“Good night, Mrs. Raff…”
Re: Falling (AU, M/L Teen) 8/13/2008
A lot of times adults have problems falling asleep when they aren’t in their usual and accustomed sleeping environment. That is seldom a problem for young teenagers at a sleep-over, which for the next eight hours this field trip had essentially become. As any chaperone at a young teen sleepover will tell you, the kids really had no intention of going to sleep at all. They were going to talk and joke with each other, even after lights-out, for most of the night. Of course, in this case there were exceptions.
Max would have thought he’d have had trouble going to sleep, surrounded by strangers, but it didn’t work out that way. Somehow the knowledge that Liz was just on the other side of that curtain – the knowledge that he could be there with her in a few seconds if she needed him – or that she could be there in a few seconds if he needed her – somehow that was the most relaxing thing in the world. It wasn’t fifteen minutes before he was slumbering soundly, despite the background chatter of the other boys.
Liz too had expected to have trouble sleeping, although she did know quite a few of the girls who had been at her elementary school before going on to junior high, but that wasn’t quite the case either. With Mrs. Raff’s inadvertent help, the decision had been made tonight. Liz would start to implement ‘the plan’ tomorrow. Knowing that, and the knowledge that Max was sleeping only ten or twelve feet away behind that curtain, brought a strange unearthly peace and contentment to the perfect Miss Parker. Within ten or fifteen minutes, she was sound asleep, a gentle smile on her lips.
The bulk of the girls gossiped for another hour or so, then one by one drifted off to sleep. For the boys, things were a little less collegial. Young teenage boys tend to interact with each other by telling madding body noises, gross jokes, insulting one another, and – at least – verbally picking on the youngest or most immature boy around, particularly with both the bus driver and Mr. Raff plugged in to the earbuds of CD players to drown out all the young teenager talk.
Teenage boys aren’t really mean, they are simply lacking in empathy. Normally at least some of them would have picked on Max, but he was asleep before they really noticed. That really didn’t stop them from verbally cutting him up though. The fact that he was ‘pussy-whipped’ had not escaped their notice and they certainly weren’t going to admit that they actually envied him that condition. Fifteen year old boys just didn’t do that. But as they started to talk, they discovered things weren’t quite that simple.
“You know, if Parker hears you say something like that,” said Bobby Robertson – one of the boys who had attended Max and Liz’s elementary school before going on to junior high school, “…you may wish you’d never been born.”
“The sixth grade girl?” asked Arnie Brown, of the offending eighth graders doubtfully, “ … I could take her with my right hand tied behind my back – with BOTH hands tied behind my back.”
“It isn’t Parker you have to worry about,” said Ken Graves – yet another student who had once gone to the school in which Liz and Max were currently enrolled, “… it’s what Evans will do to you if you hurt Parker. I saw him break a kids arm once because the kid had hurt her. The guy was a lot older, outweighed him by forty pounds, and Max just went out and broke his arm, right in front of all the teachers on the playground. Then he just walked off like it was no big deal…”
“I don’t believe that,” said another eighth grader. “He doesn’t look so tough. In fact, he looks like a little pussy-whipped wuss…”
“Yeah, well maybe that’s what the guy thought who tried to kidnap Parker – the guy that Evans killed at the arroyo down from the park.”
Roswell was a small town. The newspaper hadn’t printed the names, but everyone had read the story. “That was …THEM?” sputtered the eighth gradee. “Evans took out that guy?? Damn…..”
“No shit, Sherlock,” replied Ken. “Hey, Max is really kind of shy. You can pick on him if you want to, and he probably won’t do anything. But if Parker catches you, she’ll be all over you – and if you hurt her…. Well, let’s just say I wouldn’t recommend that course of action personally. But if you want to try it, will you leave me your steel guitar in your will, Joey, cause I’ve always wanted one?”
The talking would go on for a number of other hours, but long before it stopped, it was more than a consensus – nobody wanted to harass Liz or Max, at least not while they other one was around. They’d settle for just picking on each other tonight.
As for the sixth grade couple tomorrow – well, nobody wanted to be the first to find out just how far Max would go if someone irritated Liz, so it just wasn’t going to happen..
What was more, there was kind of an understanding in what passed for a moral code amongst 14 year-old boys – If nobody was going to pick on one couple (because they were too afraid to do so) it really would be kind of chicken feces to pick on any other. That was a kind of new way of thinking to the boys, but it would indeed be the rule tomorrow. Oh, it wasn’t that all the lust in the junior high school was suddenly going to be released. After all, this group constituted most of the membership of the Science Club, the Chess Club, the Computer Club, and the Academic Challenge Team – hardly the sort of group that was going to be engaging in a free for all orgy. They were, as a group, probably the least socially active kids in school from a boy-girl perspective. But it would be different tomorrow. There would be more seats on the bus that had both a male and a female sitting together than ever before, and – self conscious or not – there would be some long desired informal pairing with members of the opposite sex over lunch tomorrow that, absent Liz and Max’s example, and the new non-harassment policy spurred by respect for what Max might do if anyone hurt Liz’s feelings..
It would all stay low key, but it would still be a noticeable change because the rules themselves had now changed. What went on in Albuquerque would just stay in Albuquerque, as far as the boys were concerned, and at least some of the girls were having similar thoughts.
It was 6:15 AM and Liz had already been up for twenty minutes. She was in the girls shower room of the junior high school in Albuquerque, luxuriating in a long shower. A lot of girls no longer bothered with long hair like she wore, and it was quite a mop to shampoo and dry, particularly when you took morning showers like she did – which was, of course, why she’d gotten up before the other girls and come off to the shower room by herself.
She was standing alone under the shower nozzle, wearing only a pendant on a chain around her neck, her eyes closed and savoring the warmth of the water running down her body. She had shampooed her hair and it had all started when she found herself wishing she’d had someone to help with the big mop of wet hair. That wish had morphed somehow into a fantasy of Max helping her shampoo her hair. She’d been able to hold that fantasy at bay as she combed the conditioner through her hair and rinsed, but now that that was done, she was sort of giving the fantasy free rein.
As the water trickled down over her chest – over her still growing breasts – she thought of his hands touching her. They had once, she remembered, the pain of the stings now a distant and almost forgotten unpleasantness while the touch of those hands a cherished memory that fed her present fantasy. Even then it had seemed wonderful – like the very touch of his hands had extinguished the pain of the scorpion stings, but now –the water trickling down – the thought of his hands moving softly against her body… Liz felt herself flush and felt her nipples start to engorge under the effects of the memory and the fantasy and the ripples of water flowing down her….
“How can you do that?” asked Beverly Clark as she turned on the shower next to Liz and stepped under it?
Liz’s eyes flew open and she looked at the girl next to her. Bev was one of the eighth graders – one of the oldest girls along on the trip. She tried not to sound TOO guilty as she asked, “Do what?”
Even to Liz’s own ears that sounded lame. Beverly had obviously caught her in an erotic fantasy. But apparently Beverly hadn’t noticed that.
“How can you be so – comfortable – with Max like that,” she asked.
“I mean, you two sit together on the bus – talk –eat together. You treat each other like –friends– like he’s …normal.”
“Max IS normal.” said Liz, starting to get angry.”
“Well – yeah, except he’s a – a boy,” said Bev.
Liz’s face suddenly lost its anger and developed a quirky smile. “There are six billion people on Earth and fifty-one percent of all human births are male, Beverly. It’s not like they are aliens off a saucer or something.”
“They sure seem like it sometimes. They have their own rules and their own way of doing things and they notice you when you don’t want to be noticed and they DON’T notice you when you want to be noticed…. But it’s not like that with you and Max. Why is that?”
“I don’t know, but it’s not like things are perfect between me and Max either. I mean, we had a fight once but we made up quick. I just really like Max, I guess.”
“I like Arnie Brown. We have been in three classes together this year. I don’t think he even knows I exist.”
“Well, did you ever partner with him in any of those classes? It would be hard for him not to notice if you did that.”
“But then he might think that I had a crush on him – and what would the other girls think?”
“Well, he’s probably thinking the same thing – if not about you, then about some other girl. You really aren’t going to know unless you try. It’s not like you can just look in to his eyes and get some mental connection and read his mind.”
“Is that how you met Max, being his partner in a school project?”
“Uh, no… In our case, well …we had a mutual interest in dogs I guess you’d say.”
“Uh, Liz … do you ever worry about Max thinking about you …well…sexually.”
“Sometimes,” said Liz, smiling, “but I’m not too worried. I’m sure it will happen eventually…”
“Liz…,” squealed Bev, “…you wouldn’t really want to do …IT…”
“Well not NOW, no…but …well … sometime I would. Right now Max and I are just friends, but the Earth didn’t get those six billion people from people not doing … it. I imagine we all want to find someone someday..”
“Max IS kind of cute … for a younger boy, that is..”
“Max is taken, Beverly…”
“Well, THAT’s a little obvious, Liz. So ...would you help me get to know Arnie better? You seem more experienced at this boy-girl stuff than the rest of us.”
“OK. But right now I’d better get out of the shower and get to drying my hair, or I’m going to miss breakfast.”
“Wait a few minutes and I’ll be done. I’ll let you use my blow-dryer – it was my very first science fair project. My dad helped me with it – he’s an electrical engineer. If the GCFI doesn’t pop, it’ll have you dry in about three minutes – daddy says I could inflate hot air balloons with it…”
In fifteen minutes, both girls were dressed and on their way to pack their gear and put it back on the bus.
The breakfast that morning was about as basic as dinner had been the night before, and pretty much the same food groups. Dinner had been a choice of plain cheese pizza (consumed almost exclusively by several of the young ladies), combination pizzas (consumed by the rest of the young ladies and many of the young men), and pepperoni pizzas (consumed mainly by the males). This morning it was breakfast sandwiches – English muffin with scrambled egg, cheese and bacon, English muffin with scrambled egg, cheese and sausage, or English muffin with scrambled egg, cheese and, … well, cheese. These were put together by student volunteers in the kitchen of the junior high cafeteria.
Had the chaperones been more perceptive, and in all fairness Mr. and Mrs. Raff were doing their best to make sure that no one chopped off their fingers or grossly violated any health department food service regulations, they might have noticed a change in the seating from what had been the case at the pizza palace for the previous meal.. The tables were not now universally mixed-sex, but the huge majority of them had at least token integration of the genders, a far cry from the, boys over here, girls over there, Liz and Max in the corner, situation which had existed only one meal earlier. But the chaperones DID notice the sudden increase in male-female seating assignments when the school bus loaded, and they found themselves watching these new friendships carefully because it was so unexpected… and by doing so, they totally missed the drama that was going on with the only couple that they were really expecting to sit as a couple because they had ridden all the way from Roswell that way yesterday.
Neither Max nor Liz were particularly large and the school bus seats were more than ample for two sixth graders to sit together side by side. Sometimes three of the elementary school kids would find themselves seated together, if the bus was near full.
Max had ridden on the bus next to Liz the whole way from Roswell without feeling the least bit cramped and it took him a little while to figure out why the seat suddenly seemed so crowded. Liz was sort of taking her half out of the middle. It wasn’t really uncomfortable… actually the fluttery feeling it caused in him was quite pleasant. That itself was what was frightening him just a little – that and the thought that Liz might think he was trying to purposely invade her private space for his own enjoyment. He pulled back toward the aisle as far as he could, hanging one buttock off the seat altogether, suspending it in the air over the aisle.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Max,” said Liz, pulling back about eighteen inches toward the window. “I didn’t mean to crowd you,” she lied, waiting until he moved a foot toward her and got comfortable to slowly ooze six inches back toward him. She was making a mental note as she did so to make sure he got the outside seat next time – that way he’d have nowhere to go without actually going out the window.
This ten minute ride to the fieldhouse was just sort of a test hop – the ride back to Roswell tonight would be over three hours, much of that in the dark and, if Liz Parker had her way, most of that cuddled up against Max Evans.
Max wasn’t sure why he was so aware of Liz’s presence. The perfume she was wearing might be part of it – that plus the fact that her body never completely left contact with his. He wasn’t sure why he found being this close to her so … stimulating, I mean it wasn’t like he’d never touched her before, hell he’d once pulled scorpions off her breasts…
Oh god, that was a thought I didn’t need, he told himself as he felt the start of an involuntary reaction of part of his anatomy. ‘I mean…’ she’s human and I’m not,’ he told himself, trying to push the memory of the feel of her soft breasts out of his mind. ‘It’s not like she would ever be interested in an alien – not like THAT.’
From two seats back Beverly – seated next to Arnie Brown who was going through pretty much the same reactions as Max was, minus the alien angst – looked forward and saw Max blushing deeply.
‘Way to go, Liz…’ she thought, wondering if she might find the nerve to get a little more physical with Arnie on the way home herself. It was almost as if the sixth grader had heard her as she turned around in the seat to look back at her – incidentally rubbing her chest across Max’s side as she turned. Liz smiled at Beverly. Somehow she doubted the boys were going to be singing 400 choruses of 99 bottles of beer on the wall on the trip home, like they had coming to Albuquerque. She turned back to face the front, just managing to keep from chuckling about Max’s all-too transparent attempt to conceal what was happening between them.
And somewhere between the junior high where they had spent the night and the University of New Mexico fieldhouse where the science fair was being held, the work that the pheromones had started over six months ago was finally completed. Max and Liz had bonded. Of course, neither had any intention of acting on that bond anytime soon, particularly Max. He was still in denial that Liz could ever feel that way about him at all – at least, not if she knew what he was.
The science fair ended in the early afternoon. After that they went to lunch – the same basic food groups, cheese – meat – carbohydrate, this time as tacos and nachos. There was about an hour and fifty minute delay as the bus full of Roswell students went to the museum and toured the place, paying particular attention to the paleontology exhibit which gratefully acknowledged the contributions of their two most junior members – then it was back on the bus, headed south toward Roswell.
The action – or lack of it – in the back seat was interpreted differently by the chaperones – now with other students who had somehow started to form into couples to concern them, than it was by the bulk of the students. To the chaperones, Max being in the rearmost window seat with Liz first leaning against him and – as the darkness came and the long day took its toll – falling asleep cuddled against him, with Max falling asleep cuddled against her was sort of ‘cute’ in an innocent and non-threatening sort of way. The other students, themselves in the throes of hormone-raging puberty knew that it was far more than that.
It was an indication that Liz either had such complete and absolute trust in her boyfriend that she was certain that his hands wouldn’t wander and take advantage of her as she lay unconscious in the darkness, or such deep feeling for him that she didn’t find the possibility of that happening anything to be concerned about. Either way the girls and boys sort of envied the young couple – at least those who weren’t too busy trying to find a similar situation to notice.
But it was a different group that made it back to Roswell than the one that had left it, particularly in the case of one Liz Parker, who had decided that she was going to take her destiny in her own hands and make it happen.
The naiveté of the young is both a wonderful and a terrible thing. The next five weeks would be the most wonderful weeks that the thirteen year-old girl had ever known. Not only was her destiny decided, but it was a wonderful destiny – a destiny to be shared with someone she loved as much as she knew he loved her – a love that meant more to her than life itself.
It was that very naiveté that would make the coming time so painful, as life demonstrated to young Liz that the gods sometimes take umbrage with mere mortals deciding they can determine their futures, however much they might plan. Or perhaps what was about to happen would have nothing to do with intervention by the gods, but rather by something not of this world that Liz herself was not yet aware of. Indeed, perhaps if Liz had known about the unearthly origins of her chosen, she could have even come up with a plan to manage that. But Liz was unaware of that, and unaware of the fact that Max was still so paranoid of anyone ever finding out that he still concealed it even from those he had come to love very much, his parents, and a thirteen year-old girl by the name of Liz Parker.
Still, those five weeks were a wonderful time in Liz’s young life. For other sixth graders, it might well have been a disaster. It wasn’t anything that Liz said to Max, but the body language had changed – the attitude had changed. Everything about Liz reflected an attitude of oneness with Max.
Had it been a different sixth grade girl, she might have felt compelled to show Max off to her female friends – to demonstrate that she owned him, perhaps to demonstrate to herself that he was hers, body as well as soul. But how she appeared in the social status of her female friends had never been an issue with Liz. She knew that Max loved her – loved her more than life itself. That was enough. And she knew that she was his – that the future was already written, a future that would have her by the side of her soulmate as long as they both lived. Such is the folly of the thinking of mere mortals.
Had it been a different sixth grade boy, it also might have been a disaster. But Max did love Liz, and that love really was unchanged by the change in her body language or the tacit assumption by Liz that they were a couple, and always would be. Some sixth grade boys would have taken advantage of the signals that were emanating from Liz – taken advantage to press the limits about just how much they could get from the perfect Miss Parker. But Max’s relationship with Liz had never really been about sex – at least not until the last six months as the pheromones had started to work on him. Long before that time, he had bonded with her – bonded as much as he could bring himself to bond with any human… and there was the problem, the one that would ultimately break them up. It was that he cared for her totally – not just romantically, and certainly not just physically, that would eventually lead to their undoing. No, Max’s sexual attraction to Liz would be part of the problem that would break them up, but not because he would exploit her. In fact, it would be just the opposite.
Three weeks after the trip to Albuquerque, the second semester started – the semester that sixth graders took Sex Education instead of Health. Liz’s newfound happiness would survive only the first two weeks of that class.
“This is sixth grade Living Science class,” said James Raff. Sex Education had been around for a long time – becoming pretty much universal in public education by the 1960s. Living Science was the current politically correct term for it in Roswell New Mexico.
“You all know me. My wife Janet and I will be team-teaching this class, one hour per day for the next semester, with a little help from some of the parents from the PTSA” The later was the Parent-teacher-student association, the current politically correct name for the old PTA.
“My husband and I will be teaching a number of things in this class,” said Janet Raff. “We both want to emphasize that there will be a free and open dialogue in this class, involving not just social concepts that are important, but certain aspects of normal human physiology as well. As sixth graders, you are fast approaching adulthood and will soon be making adult decisions about adult topics. We expect you to conduct yourselves like adults during the presentations given in this class.”
“In particular,” said Mr. Raff, the students eyes going back and forth between the two teachers in the front of the room much as the audience of a tennis match follows the ball, “… we will be using anatomically correct terms for various parts of the human anatomy that normally are either not spoken in public at all, or are described in vulgar street language or slang. We will be using such terms as ‘penis,’ ‘vagina,’ and ‘intercourse’ or ‘coitus’. This, I would like to emphasize, is an educational curriculum and needs to be treated seriously. It is intended to inform and educate, not to be titillating, and any crudity or undue levity will be cause for disciplinary action up to and including both detention and suspension. Is that clearly understood?”
One would think that Mr. Raff would have to be kidding, given the circumstances. Boys take a whole lot of civilizing, and at the sixth grade level most of them haven’t had near enough. Not finding words like that titillating? Hell, sixth grade boys find the word ‘titillating’ titillating. But the approved lesson plan said that was what he should say, so that’s what he said. In theory, it was the right thing to say.
In fact, the whole concept of sexual education was based upon theories that were a little hard to prove or disprove. Ostensibly, society’s interest in giving sex education to the kids was for the societal good – to prevent unwanted pregnancies, decrease illegitimacy, decrease sexually transmitted diseases, etc. A rigorous analysis of its effectiveness had never really been done. Clearly, as additional resources were increasingly devoted to the teaching of sexual education, all three of these metrics actually worsened – an issue seized upon by those with an economic or philosophical bias towards the teaching of sex ed to demand – and get – even more resources for teaching sex ed. That isn’t to say that sex ed caused these things to go up – correlation not necessarily being an indication of causality, something that everyone should understand, but few do. Perhaps things actually would have been worse without the sex ed, perhaps better, the tragedy was that no one bothered to look. But then, let’s not digress…
After looking sternly at the students and receiving appropriate serious head nods from all of the girls and those few of the boys who could spare the effort to nod after suppressing the chuckling that they really wanted to do, Mr. Raff continued on.
“OK, we have found out that it works best if we split into boy-girl couples for this class, and that the homework be done jointly by the two. We have sixteen girls and sixteen boys in this class. Anyone male and female who want to volunteer to pair up, let me know now. The rest will be paired girl-boy by drawing names out of a hat. So… any questions … or volunteers?”
There were thirty-one students in the class who would have probably rather been boiled in oil than to put themselves on center stage by raising their hand. The remaining student’s hand shot up – to no one’s great surprise.
“Max and I will pair up,” said Liz, holding her hand high, and only slightly waving it.
“Uh, Miss Parker … you need to discuss that with your intended co-volunteer, and get his concurrence,” said Mrs. Raff.
“It’s OK with you, isn’t it Max?” asked Liz, turning her head to face him.
To none of his fellow student’s great surprise, Max nodded his head and said, “Uh-huh.” In doing so he confirmed the strong suspicions of the three boys (out of the fifteen other boys in his class) who had not already made up their minds that Maxwell Evans was indeed pussy-whipped – the lucky bastard.
“Any other volunteer couples?” asked Mr. Raff. The silence became deafening. For the next five minutes the remaining thirty students were involved in a lottery that would determine, among other things, who would be assisting whom in putting a latex condom on a banana a week later.
Max would have thought he’d have had trouble going to sleep, surrounded by strangers, but it didn’t work out that way. Somehow the knowledge that Liz was just on the other side of that curtain – the knowledge that he could be there with her in a few seconds if she needed him – or that she could be there in a few seconds if he needed her – somehow that was the most relaxing thing in the world. It wasn’t fifteen minutes before he was slumbering soundly, despite the background chatter of the other boys.
Liz too had expected to have trouble sleeping, although she did know quite a few of the girls who had been at her elementary school before going on to junior high, but that wasn’t quite the case either. With Mrs. Raff’s inadvertent help, the decision had been made tonight. Liz would start to implement ‘the plan’ tomorrow. Knowing that, and the knowledge that Max was sleeping only ten or twelve feet away behind that curtain, brought a strange unearthly peace and contentment to the perfect Miss Parker. Within ten or fifteen minutes, she was sound asleep, a gentle smile on her lips.
The bulk of the girls gossiped for another hour or so, then one by one drifted off to sleep. For the boys, things were a little less collegial. Young teenage boys tend to interact with each other by telling madding body noises, gross jokes, insulting one another, and – at least – verbally picking on the youngest or most immature boy around, particularly with both the bus driver and Mr. Raff plugged in to the earbuds of CD players to drown out all the young teenager talk.
Teenage boys aren’t really mean, they are simply lacking in empathy. Normally at least some of them would have picked on Max, but he was asleep before they really noticed. That really didn’t stop them from verbally cutting him up though. The fact that he was ‘pussy-whipped’ had not escaped their notice and they certainly weren’t going to admit that they actually envied him that condition. Fifteen year old boys just didn’t do that. But as they started to talk, they discovered things weren’t quite that simple.
“You know, if Parker hears you say something like that,” said Bobby Robertson – one of the boys who had attended Max and Liz’s elementary school before going on to junior high school, “…you may wish you’d never been born.”
“The sixth grade girl?” asked Arnie Brown, of the offending eighth graders doubtfully, “ … I could take her with my right hand tied behind my back – with BOTH hands tied behind my back.”
“It isn’t Parker you have to worry about,” said Ken Graves – yet another student who had once gone to the school in which Liz and Max were currently enrolled, “… it’s what Evans will do to you if you hurt Parker. I saw him break a kids arm once because the kid had hurt her. The guy was a lot older, outweighed him by forty pounds, and Max just went out and broke his arm, right in front of all the teachers on the playground. Then he just walked off like it was no big deal…”
“I don’t believe that,” said another eighth grader. “He doesn’t look so tough. In fact, he looks like a little pussy-whipped wuss…”
“Yeah, well maybe that’s what the guy thought who tried to kidnap Parker – the guy that Evans killed at the arroyo down from the park.”
Roswell was a small town. The newspaper hadn’t printed the names, but everyone had read the story. “That was …THEM?” sputtered the eighth gradee. “Evans took out that guy?? Damn…..”
“No shit, Sherlock,” replied Ken. “Hey, Max is really kind of shy. You can pick on him if you want to, and he probably won’t do anything. But if Parker catches you, she’ll be all over you – and if you hurt her…. Well, let’s just say I wouldn’t recommend that course of action personally. But if you want to try it, will you leave me your steel guitar in your will, Joey, cause I’ve always wanted one?”
The talking would go on for a number of other hours, but long before it stopped, it was more than a consensus – nobody wanted to harass Liz or Max, at least not while they other one was around. They’d settle for just picking on each other tonight.
As for the sixth grade couple tomorrow – well, nobody wanted to be the first to find out just how far Max would go if someone irritated Liz, so it just wasn’t going to happen..
What was more, there was kind of an understanding in what passed for a moral code amongst 14 year-old boys – If nobody was going to pick on one couple (because they were too afraid to do so) it really would be kind of chicken feces to pick on any other. That was a kind of new way of thinking to the boys, but it would indeed be the rule tomorrow. Oh, it wasn’t that all the lust in the junior high school was suddenly going to be released. After all, this group constituted most of the membership of the Science Club, the Chess Club, the Computer Club, and the Academic Challenge Team – hardly the sort of group that was going to be engaging in a free for all orgy. They were, as a group, probably the least socially active kids in school from a boy-girl perspective. But it would be different tomorrow. There would be more seats on the bus that had both a male and a female sitting together than ever before, and – self conscious or not – there would be some long desired informal pairing with members of the opposite sex over lunch tomorrow that, absent Liz and Max’s example, and the new non-harassment policy spurred by respect for what Max might do if anyone hurt Liz’s feelings..
It would all stay low key, but it would still be a noticeable change because the rules themselves had now changed. What went on in Albuquerque would just stay in Albuquerque, as far as the boys were concerned, and at least some of the girls were having similar thoughts.
It was 6:15 AM and Liz had already been up for twenty minutes. She was in the girls shower room of the junior high school in Albuquerque, luxuriating in a long shower. A lot of girls no longer bothered with long hair like she wore, and it was quite a mop to shampoo and dry, particularly when you took morning showers like she did – which was, of course, why she’d gotten up before the other girls and come off to the shower room by herself.
She was standing alone under the shower nozzle, wearing only a pendant on a chain around her neck, her eyes closed and savoring the warmth of the water running down her body. She had shampooed her hair and it had all started when she found herself wishing she’d had someone to help with the big mop of wet hair. That wish had morphed somehow into a fantasy of Max helping her shampoo her hair. She’d been able to hold that fantasy at bay as she combed the conditioner through her hair and rinsed, but now that that was done, she was sort of giving the fantasy free rein.
As the water trickled down over her chest – over her still growing breasts – she thought of his hands touching her. They had once, she remembered, the pain of the stings now a distant and almost forgotten unpleasantness while the touch of those hands a cherished memory that fed her present fantasy. Even then it had seemed wonderful – like the very touch of his hands had extinguished the pain of the scorpion stings, but now –the water trickling down – the thought of his hands moving softly against her body… Liz felt herself flush and felt her nipples start to engorge under the effects of the memory and the fantasy and the ripples of water flowing down her….
“How can you do that?” asked Beverly Clark as she turned on the shower next to Liz and stepped under it?
Liz’s eyes flew open and she looked at the girl next to her. Bev was one of the eighth graders – one of the oldest girls along on the trip. She tried not to sound TOO guilty as she asked, “Do what?”
Even to Liz’s own ears that sounded lame. Beverly had obviously caught her in an erotic fantasy. But apparently Beverly hadn’t noticed that.
“How can you be so – comfortable – with Max like that,” she asked.
“I mean, you two sit together on the bus – talk –eat together. You treat each other like –friends– like he’s …normal.”
“Max IS normal.” said Liz, starting to get angry.”
“Well – yeah, except he’s a – a boy,” said Bev.
Liz’s face suddenly lost its anger and developed a quirky smile. “There are six billion people on Earth and fifty-one percent of all human births are male, Beverly. It’s not like they are aliens off a saucer or something.”
“They sure seem like it sometimes. They have their own rules and their own way of doing things and they notice you when you don’t want to be noticed and they DON’T notice you when you want to be noticed…. But it’s not like that with you and Max. Why is that?”
“I don’t know, but it’s not like things are perfect between me and Max either. I mean, we had a fight once but we made up quick. I just really like Max, I guess.”
“I like Arnie Brown. We have been in three classes together this year. I don’t think he even knows I exist.”
“Well, did you ever partner with him in any of those classes? It would be hard for him not to notice if you did that.”
“But then he might think that I had a crush on him – and what would the other girls think?”
“Well, he’s probably thinking the same thing – if not about you, then about some other girl. You really aren’t going to know unless you try. It’s not like you can just look in to his eyes and get some mental connection and read his mind.”
“Is that how you met Max, being his partner in a school project?”
“Uh, no… In our case, well …we had a mutual interest in dogs I guess you’d say.”
“Uh, Liz … do you ever worry about Max thinking about you …well…sexually.”
“Sometimes,” said Liz, smiling, “but I’m not too worried. I’m sure it will happen eventually…”
“Liz…,” squealed Bev, “…you wouldn’t really want to do …IT…”
“Well not NOW, no…but …well … sometime I would. Right now Max and I are just friends, but the Earth didn’t get those six billion people from people not doing … it. I imagine we all want to find someone someday..”
“Max IS kind of cute … for a younger boy, that is..”
“Max is taken, Beverly…”
“Well, THAT’s a little obvious, Liz. So ...would you help me get to know Arnie better? You seem more experienced at this boy-girl stuff than the rest of us.”
“OK. But right now I’d better get out of the shower and get to drying my hair, or I’m going to miss breakfast.”
“Wait a few minutes and I’ll be done. I’ll let you use my blow-dryer – it was my very first science fair project. My dad helped me with it – he’s an electrical engineer. If the GCFI doesn’t pop, it’ll have you dry in about three minutes – daddy says I could inflate hot air balloons with it…”
In fifteen minutes, both girls were dressed and on their way to pack their gear and put it back on the bus.
The breakfast that morning was about as basic as dinner had been the night before, and pretty much the same food groups. Dinner had been a choice of plain cheese pizza (consumed almost exclusively by several of the young ladies), combination pizzas (consumed by the rest of the young ladies and many of the young men), and pepperoni pizzas (consumed mainly by the males). This morning it was breakfast sandwiches – English muffin with scrambled egg, cheese and bacon, English muffin with scrambled egg, cheese and sausage, or English muffin with scrambled egg, cheese and, … well, cheese. These were put together by student volunteers in the kitchen of the junior high cafeteria.
Had the chaperones been more perceptive, and in all fairness Mr. and Mrs. Raff were doing their best to make sure that no one chopped off their fingers or grossly violated any health department food service regulations, they might have noticed a change in the seating from what had been the case at the pizza palace for the previous meal.. The tables were not now universally mixed-sex, but the huge majority of them had at least token integration of the genders, a far cry from the, boys over here, girls over there, Liz and Max in the corner, situation which had existed only one meal earlier. But the chaperones DID notice the sudden increase in male-female seating assignments when the school bus loaded, and they found themselves watching these new friendships carefully because it was so unexpected… and by doing so, they totally missed the drama that was going on with the only couple that they were really expecting to sit as a couple because they had ridden all the way from Roswell that way yesterday.
Neither Max nor Liz were particularly large and the school bus seats were more than ample for two sixth graders to sit together side by side. Sometimes three of the elementary school kids would find themselves seated together, if the bus was near full.
Max had ridden on the bus next to Liz the whole way from Roswell without feeling the least bit cramped and it took him a little while to figure out why the seat suddenly seemed so crowded. Liz was sort of taking her half out of the middle. It wasn’t really uncomfortable… actually the fluttery feeling it caused in him was quite pleasant. That itself was what was frightening him just a little – that and the thought that Liz might think he was trying to purposely invade her private space for his own enjoyment. He pulled back toward the aisle as far as he could, hanging one buttock off the seat altogether, suspending it in the air over the aisle.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Max,” said Liz, pulling back about eighteen inches toward the window. “I didn’t mean to crowd you,” she lied, waiting until he moved a foot toward her and got comfortable to slowly ooze six inches back toward him. She was making a mental note as she did so to make sure he got the outside seat next time – that way he’d have nowhere to go without actually going out the window.
This ten minute ride to the fieldhouse was just sort of a test hop – the ride back to Roswell tonight would be over three hours, much of that in the dark and, if Liz Parker had her way, most of that cuddled up against Max Evans.
Max wasn’t sure why he was so aware of Liz’s presence. The perfume she was wearing might be part of it – that plus the fact that her body never completely left contact with his. He wasn’t sure why he found being this close to her so … stimulating, I mean it wasn’t like he’d never touched her before, hell he’d once pulled scorpions off her breasts…
Oh god, that was a thought I didn’t need, he told himself as he felt the start of an involuntary reaction of part of his anatomy. ‘I mean…’ she’s human and I’m not,’ he told himself, trying to push the memory of the feel of her soft breasts out of his mind. ‘It’s not like she would ever be interested in an alien – not like THAT.’
From two seats back Beverly – seated next to Arnie Brown who was going through pretty much the same reactions as Max was, minus the alien angst – looked forward and saw Max blushing deeply.
‘Way to go, Liz…’ she thought, wondering if she might find the nerve to get a little more physical with Arnie on the way home herself. It was almost as if the sixth grader had heard her as she turned around in the seat to look back at her – incidentally rubbing her chest across Max’s side as she turned. Liz smiled at Beverly. Somehow she doubted the boys were going to be singing 400 choruses of 99 bottles of beer on the wall on the trip home, like they had coming to Albuquerque. She turned back to face the front, just managing to keep from chuckling about Max’s all-too transparent attempt to conceal what was happening between them.
And somewhere between the junior high where they had spent the night and the University of New Mexico fieldhouse where the science fair was being held, the work that the pheromones had started over six months ago was finally completed. Max and Liz had bonded. Of course, neither had any intention of acting on that bond anytime soon, particularly Max. He was still in denial that Liz could ever feel that way about him at all – at least, not if she knew what he was.
The science fair ended in the early afternoon. After that they went to lunch – the same basic food groups, cheese – meat – carbohydrate, this time as tacos and nachos. There was about an hour and fifty minute delay as the bus full of Roswell students went to the museum and toured the place, paying particular attention to the paleontology exhibit which gratefully acknowledged the contributions of their two most junior members – then it was back on the bus, headed south toward Roswell.
The action – or lack of it – in the back seat was interpreted differently by the chaperones – now with other students who had somehow started to form into couples to concern them, than it was by the bulk of the students. To the chaperones, Max being in the rearmost window seat with Liz first leaning against him and – as the darkness came and the long day took its toll – falling asleep cuddled against him, with Max falling asleep cuddled against her was sort of ‘cute’ in an innocent and non-threatening sort of way. The other students, themselves in the throes of hormone-raging puberty knew that it was far more than that.
It was an indication that Liz either had such complete and absolute trust in her boyfriend that she was certain that his hands wouldn’t wander and take advantage of her as she lay unconscious in the darkness, or such deep feeling for him that she didn’t find the possibility of that happening anything to be concerned about. Either way the girls and boys sort of envied the young couple – at least those who weren’t too busy trying to find a similar situation to notice.
But it was a different group that made it back to Roswell than the one that had left it, particularly in the case of one Liz Parker, who had decided that she was going to take her destiny in her own hands and make it happen.
The naiveté of the young is both a wonderful and a terrible thing. The next five weeks would be the most wonderful weeks that the thirteen year-old girl had ever known. Not only was her destiny decided, but it was a wonderful destiny – a destiny to be shared with someone she loved as much as she knew he loved her – a love that meant more to her than life itself.
It was that very naiveté that would make the coming time so painful, as life demonstrated to young Liz that the gods sometimes take umbrage with mere mortals deciding they can determine their futures, however much they might plan. Or perhaps what was about to happen would have nothing to do with intervention by the gods, but rather by something not of this world that Liz herself was not yet aware of. Indeed, perhaps if Liz had known about the unearthly origins of her chosen, she could have even come up with a plan to manage that. But Liz was unaware of that, and unaware of the fact that Max was still so paranoid of anyone ever finding out that he still concealed it even from those he had come to love very much, his parents, and a thirteen year-old girl by the name of Liz Parker.
Still, those five weeks were a wonderful time in Liz’s young life. For other sixth graders, it might well have been a disaster. It wasn’t anything that Liz said to Max, but the body language had changed – the attitude had changed. Everything about Liz reflected an attitude of oneness with Max.
Had it been a different sixth grade girl, she might have felt compelled to show Max off to her female friends – to demonstrate that she owned him, perhaps to demonstrate to herself that he was hers, body as well as soul. But how she appeared in the social status of her female friends had never been an issue with Liz. She knew that Max loved her – loved her more than life itself. That was enough. And she knew that she was his – that the future was already written, a future that would have her by the side of her soulmate as long as they both lived. Such is the folly of the thinking of mere mortals.
Had it been a different sixth grade boy, it also might have been a disaster. But Max did love Liz, and that love really was unchanged by the change in her body language or the tacit assumption by Liz that they were a couple, and always would be. Some sixth grade boys would have taken advantage of the signals that were emanating from Liz – taken advantage to press the limits about just how much they could get from the perfect Miss Parker. But Max’s relationship with Liz had never really been about sex – at least not until the last six months as the pheromones had started to work on him. Long before that time, he had bonded with her – bonded as much as he could bring himself to bond with any human… and there was the problem, the one that would ultimately break them up. It was that he cared for her totally – not just romantically, and certainly not just physically, that would eventually lead to their undoing. No, Max’s sexual attraction to Liz would be part of the problem that would break them up, but not because he would exploit her. In fact, it would be just the opposite.
Three weeks after the trip to Albuquerque, the second semester started – the semester that sixth graders took Sex Education instead of Health. Liz’s newfound happiness would survive only the first two weeks of that class.
“This is sixth grade Living Science class,” said James Raff. Sex Education had been around for a long time – becoming pretty much universal in public education by the 1960s. Living Science was the current politically correct term for it in Roswell New Mexico.
“You all know me. My wife Janet and I will be team-teaching this class, one hour per day for the next semester, with a little help from some of the parents from the PTSA” The later was the Parent-teacher-student association, the current politically correct name for the old PTA.
“My husband and I will be teaching a number of things in this class,” said Janet Raff. “We both want to emphasize that there will be a free and open dialogue in this class, involving not just social concepts that are important, but certain aspects of normal human physiology as well. As sixth graders, you are fast approaching adulthood and will soon be making adult decisions about adult topics. We expect you to conduct yourselves like adults during the presentations given in this class.”
“In particular,” said Mr. Raff, the students eyes going back and forth between the two teachers in the front of the room much as the audience of a tennis match follows the ball, “… we will be using anatomically correct terms for various parts of the human anatomy that normally are either not spoken in public at all, or are described in vulgar street language or slang. We will be using such terms as ‘penis,’ ‘vagina,’ and ‘intercourse’ or ‘coitus’. This, I would like to emphasize, is an educational curriculum and needs to be treated seriously. It is intended to inform and educate, not to be titillating, and any crudity or undue levity will be cause for disciplinary action up to and including both detention and suspension. Is that clearly understood?”
One would think that Mr. Raff would have to be kidding, given the circumstances. Boys take a whole lot of civilizing, and at the sixth grade level most of them haven’t had near enough. Not finding words like that titillating? Hell, sixth grade boys find the word ‘titillating’ titillating. But the approved lesson plan said that was what he should say, so that’s what he said. In theory, it was the right thing to say.
In fact, the whole concept of sexual education was based upon theories that were a little hard to prove or disprove. Ostensibly, society’s interest in giving sex education to the kids was for the societal good – to prevent unwanted pregnancies, decrease illegitimacy, decrease sexually transmitted diseases, etc. A rigorous analysis of its effectiveness had never really been done. Clearly, as additional resources were increasingly devoted to the teaching of sexual education, all three of these metrics actually worsened – an issue seized upon by those with an economic or philosophical bias towards the teaching of sex ed to demand – and get – even more resources for teaching sex ed. That isn’t to say that sex ed caused these things to go up – correlation not necessarily being an indication of causality, something that everyone should understand, but few do. Perhaps things actually would have been worse without the sex ed, perhaps better, the tragedy was that no one bothered to look. But then, let’s not digress…
After looking sternly at the students and receiving appropriate serious head nods from all of the girls and those few of the boys who could spare the effort to nod after suppressing the chuckling that they really wanted to do, Mr. Raff continued on.
“OK, we have found out that it works best if we split into boy-girl couples for this class, and that the homework be done jointly by the two. We have sixteen girls and sixteen boys in this class. Anyone male and female who want to volunteer to pair up, let me know now. The rest will be paired girl-boy by drawing names out of a hat. So… any questions … or volunteers?”
There were thirty-one students in the class who would have probably rather been boiled in oil than to put themselves on center stage by raising their hand. The remaining student’s hand shot up – to no one’s great surprise.
“Max and I will pair up,” said Liz, holding her hand high, and only slightly waving it.
“Uh, Miss Parker … you need to discuss that with your intended co-volunteer, and get his concurrence,” said Mrs. Raff.
“It’s OK with you, isn’t it Max?” asked Liz, turning her head to face him.
To none of his fellow student’s great surprise, Max nodded his head and said, “Uh-huh.” In doing so he confirmed the strong suspicions of the three boys (out of the fifteen other boys in his class) who had not already made up their minds that Maxwell Evans was indeed pussy-whipped – the lucky bastard.
“Any other volunteer couples?” asked Mr. Raff. The silence became deafening. For the next five minutes the remaining thirty students were involved in a lottery that would determine, among other things, who would be assisting whom in putting a latex condom on a banana a week later.
Re: Falling (AU, M/L Teen) 8/13/2008
It was three weeks into the next semester as Max Evans sat at his desk finishing his reading for the night in the “Life Science” textbook. It was a chapter on anatomy and physiology, in this case of the female human, but somehow it held more than just academic interest for him.
“Light’s out time, Max," said his parents from the open doorway. He quickly closed his text and hugged them both, accepting his mothers kiss in an embarrassed fashion realizing that she wasn’t really exactly the human that he wished were in his bedroom kissing him goodnight right now. But as he got in the bed and laid staring up at the slowly moving fan above his head – watching it go around in the dim light reflected up onto the ceiling from the moonbeams pouring through his open window – his thoughts moved into a bittersweet fantasy of he and Liz surrounded by their families, Liz beautiful in a white dress, Max wearing the sort of formal wear that he actually hated to wear, but looking happy anyway. The couple walked to a limousine and were driven away to a fancy motel where he carried her across the threshold. Liz would reach back behind her to unhook the dress and it would start to fall away – and Max would shake his head.
‘It isn’t going to happen,’ he told himself. ‘I couldn’t do that to her – not let her know – and if I did let her know, there’s no way she’d want to be with someone that is so – different. Don’t even THINK about getting your hopes up, Max. It’s only a book and it only applies to humans – and you aren’t a human.’
Emotionally, Max still wasn’t very mature. He couldn’t understand the concept of symmetry in emotions – that if he was attracted to Liz despite their differences, she might nonetheless be attracted to him despite those same differences. But he was only a sixth-grader, and sixth-graders have a lot to learn about such things – especially one as immature as Max. Still, ‘What doesn't kill us makes us stronger,’ according to Friedrich Nietzsche. The pain he would experience in the coming year would nearly kill Max, but it would also make him stronger.
But despite Max’s denials, the dream tonight would die hard. He would lay in the darkness for two hours before he went to sleep, looking up at that fan, but seeing instead the face of his beloved Liz, allowing the white dress to fall from her beauty while looking at him with the eyes of love.... It was only a dream ... and a daydream at that. But it was all he had -- and Max knew it was all he would ever have.
In her bedroom across town, Liz was also finishing her homework for the night. She was a gifted student intellectually, but you don’t become ‘the Perfect Miss Parker’ from merely meeting the expectations of your teachers, you do that by exceeding them. She had stopped by the library today for some supplementary reading material. There had been a big book in the adult non-fiction area on called Human Anatomy and Physiology, and she had checked it out to read through the chapters that paralleled their Life Science reading. She was just finishing up on that – reading a final entry before going to bed.
A cold shiver went through Liz as she read through those words, although she couldn’t really understand why. It was, after all, only a book. She brushed her teeth and went to bed, her eyes never leaving the fan spinning slowly above her bed. Eventually she drifted off to sleep.
Liz had experienced the dream before, although she’d never remembered it upon awakening. Repressed memories sometimes express themselves that way. It was the first horror of a sequence, and only an unexpected outcome of an even greater horror had let her hold on to her sanity at all. But the memory was locked away in her subconscious mind, and reading the book had liberated it enough to allow it to torment her dreams.
She was back at the picnic grounds, and she had gone in to the parking lot to get something for her mother. The car seemed to come out of nowhere and the man had his hands upon her before she knew what was happening. His strong hard hands threw her into the seat beside him, and a backhanded slap stopped her scream and turned it quickly into quiet sobs. She cringed in terror from him, pulling as far to the side of the passenger seat as she could, struggling against a locked passenger door that had been rigged so it could not be unlocked except by the release button under the driver’s left elbow.
A man in his late thirties does not kidnap a ten year old simply for sex – he can get that from a prostitute for a few hundred dollars in any major city – a few hundred pesos in any of the Mexican border towns. No, those who prey on children want more than sex – they want innocence. They want to take that innocence – to defile it. They want to see terror in their victim, and the more helpless the victim, the more terror there is, and there are few victims more helpless than a ten year old girl who has been kidnapped by a child rapist.
He needed to escape the scene to rape Liz, but the terror started at once. First the backhand to quiet her screams, and as the violence reduced her to quiet sobs he reached to his pants and exposed himself to her.
Liz had seen penises before – on her male infant cousins when she helped her aunt change their diapers or bathe them. She had gotten one short glimpse of the penis of a drunk who was peeing on the brick wall in back of the Crashdown one night as she took trash out to the dumpster, but she had never seen an erect male penis before – and certainlu never had an adult male look her in the eye and tell her what he would soon do to her.
He explained to her graphically what he would do – what orifices he would penetrate – what things he would force her to do to him. If she had never heard some of the crude terms he used – it mattered little. She was an intelligent girl, if a terrified one, and she could interpolate from the context what the terms meant, and what pain and terror she would experience. Perhaps there is something in just being female that permits even a young and naïve girl like Liz to understand just how terror and pain lurked behind the filthy words the man used, and as she tried vainly to unlock the passenger door – wanting to die rather than to have that happen to her – the man’s face took on a gloating smile. He told her that her fear only made what was coming sweeter for him.
At the bottom of the hill, he pulled the car over to the guardrail by the arroyo, and pulled her out the passenger door, pulling her toward the trunk to lock her inside. She fought blindly – a small ten year-old girl against a grown man, her struggles seemed to only excite him further. She wanted to die – she wanted to force him, to kill her there – cleanly – to die on her feet and undefiled, but she was too weak – too scared – to terrified to even slow his efforts. She became paralyzed with fear – unable to think – no longer even a human being, just prey, waiting for the predator’s strike.
Suddenly there was an explosion as the body launched itself from the bicycle. At first she was too numb to understand what had happened as the man went careening over the guard rail, knowing only that she was free – that she could escape. There was a brief moment of joy before her mind could really register what weight had been clinging to the man’s face and shoulders – what price she had paid for her deliverance. Then the pain and the guilt struck. Then – only then – did she realize what she had lost. Then – only then – did she realize that she would have rather been defiled by the man – rather that she’d been killed by him, than to see Max die.
She fell to her knees and collapsed back on her buttocks – catatonic with guilt when her mother found her. All she could think about was that Max had died, and that she had been glad. Only when she heard them bring Max up the arroyo – only when she knew he was alive, did she start to recover. By that time most of what had happened in the car had been repressed. She had been kidnapped, Max had saved her – that was all she remembered.
Liz woke suddenly from the nightmare – almost in a panic attack. She was hyperventilating, and her body stank of sweat and fear under her nightgown. She couldn’t remember the dream – only that it had been horrible. She reached for the pendant on the chain between her breasts and held it before her like a talisman warding off evil spells. Surprisingly, it seemed to help. She kissed it and held it close against her bosom – and drifted back into a dreamless sleep.
“Light’s out time, Max," said his parents from the open doorway. He quickly closed his text and hugged them both, accepting his mothers kiss in an embarrassed fashion realizing that she wasn’t really exactly the human that he wished were in his bedroom kissing him goodnight right now. But as he got in the bed and laid staring up at the slowly moving fan above his head – watching it go around in the dim light reflected up onto the ceiling from the moonbeams pouring through his open window – his thoughts moved into a bittersweet fantasy of he and Liz surrounded by their families, Liz beautiful in a white dress, Max wearing the sort of formal wear that he actually hated to wear, but looking happy anyway. The couple walked to a limousine and were driven away to a fancy motel where he carried her across the threshold. Liz would reach back behind her to unhook the dress and it would start to fall away – and Max would shake his head.
‘It isn’t going to happen,’ he told himself. ‘I couldn’t do that to her – not let her know – and if I did let her know, there’s no way she’d want to be with someone that is so – different. Don’t even THINK about getting your hopes up, Max. It’s only a book and it only applies to humans – and you aren’t a human.’
Emotionally, Max still wasn’t very mature. He couldn’t understand the concept of symmetry in emotions – that if he was attracted to Liz despite their differences, she might nonetheless be attracted to him despite those same differences. But he was only a sixth-grader, and sixth-graders have a lot to learn about such things – especially one as immature as Max. Still, ‘What doesn't kill us makes us stronger,’ according to Friedrich Nietzsche. The pain he would experience in the coming year would nearly kill Max, but it would also make him stronger.
But despite Max’s denials, the dream tonight would die hard. He would lay in the darkness for two hours before he went to sleep, looking up at that fan, but seeing instead the face of his beloved Liz, allowing the white dress to fall from her beauty while looking at him with the eyes of love.... It was only a dream ... and a daydream at that. But it was all he had -- and Max knew it was all he would ever have.
In her bedroom across town, Liz was also finishing her homework for the night. She was a gifted student intellectually, but you don’t become ‘the Perfect Miss Parker’ from merely meeting the expectations of your teachers, you do that by exceeding them. She had stopped by the library today for some supplementary reading material. There had been a big book in the adult non-fiction area on called Human Anatomy and Physiology, and she had checked it out to read through the chapters that paralleled their Life Science reading. She was just finishing up on that – reading a final entry before going to bed.
- The Bartholin’s and Skene’s glands are secondary sexual organs that supply lubrication to the female vagina during coitus. They are innervated by the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system and respond to emotional and physical stimulation to produce moisture and lubricants to ease the entry of the penis into the vagina. They may additionally be important in pheromone production.
During the initial act of intercourse, tearing of the virginal hymen – even in women who have used tampons which tend to stretch that ring, may be painful, despite the lubrication produced by these glands. The use of surgical lubricant or other commercially available vaginal lubricants may be advisable in this case, as it is for older women who may cease to produce adequate amounts of lubricant after menopause. Even without this, however, lubrication is generally adequate to permit coitus without excessive discomfort although rarely tearing and bleeding are sufficient to require medical intervention.
The latter is frequently the case, however, in cases of sexual assault. With sexual assault, the individual does not get parasympathetic stimulation and instead gets sympathetic stimulation of the autonomic nervous system leading to a failure of the Bartholin’s and Skene’s glands to perform their usual function and instead the assault victim will tend to get a contraction of the vaginal wall called vaginismus which actually narrows it’s diameter. Forced penetration in this condition frequently leads to painful tearing of the vaginal mucosa and even the smooth muscle wall of the vagina, causing extreme dyspareunia, oftentimes requiring surgical correction after the assault.
The severe mental and physical trauma sustained in such individuals may lead to recurrent vaginismus and dyspareunia, even with subsequent attempts at voluntary coitus.
A cold shiver went through Liz as she read through those words, although she couldn’t really understand why. It was, after all, only a book. She brushed her teeth and went to bed, her eyes never leaving the fan spinning slowly above her bed. Eventually she drifted off to sleep.
Liz had experienced the dream before, although she’d never remembered it upon awakening. Repressed memories sometimes express themselves that way. It was the first horror of a sequence, and only an unexpected outcome of an even greater horror had let her hold on to her sanity at all. But the memory was locked away in her subconscious mind, and reading the book had liberated it enough to allow it to torment her dreams.
She was back at the picnic grounds, and she had gone in to the parking lot to get something for her mother. The car seemed to come out of nowhere and the man had his hands upon her before she knew what was happening. His strong hard hands threw her into the seat beside him, and a backhanded slap stopped her scream and turned it quickly into quiet sobs. She cringed in terror from him, pulling as far to the side of the passenger seat as she could, struggling against a locked passenger door that had been rigged so it could not be unlocked except by the release button under the driver’s left elbow.
A man in his late thirties does not kidnap a ten year old simply for sex – he can get that from a prostitute for a few hundred dollars in any major city – a few hundred pesos in any of the Mexican border towns. No, those who prey on children want more than sex – they want innocence. They want to take that innocence – to defile it. They want to see terror in their victim, and the more helpless the victim, the more terror there is, and there are few victims more helpless than a ten year old girl who has been kidnapped by a child rapist.
He needed to escape the scene to rape Liz, but the terror started at once. First the backhand to quiet her screams, and as the violence reduced her to quiet sobs he reached to his pants and exposed himself to her.
Liz had seen penises before – on her male infant cousins when she helped her aunt change their diapers or bathe them. She had gotten one short glimpse of the penis of a drunk who was peeing on the brick wall in back of the Crashdown one night as she took trash out to the dumpster, but she had never seen an erect male penis before – and certainlu never had an adult male look her in the eye and tell her what he would soon do to her.
He explained to her graphically what he would do – what orifices he would penetrate – what things he would force her to do to him. If she had never heard some of the crude terms he used – it mattered little. She was an intelligent girl, if a terrified one, and she could interpolate from the context what the terms meant, and what pain and terror she would experience. Perhaps there is something in just being female that permits even a young and naïve girl like Liz to understand just how terror and pain lurked behind the filthy words the man used, and as she tried vainly to unlock the passenger door – wanting to die rather than to have that happen to her – the man’s face took on a gloating smile. He told her that her fear only made what was coming sweeter for him.
At the bottom of the hill, he pulled the car over to the guardrail by the arroyo, and pulled her out the passenger door, pulling her toward the trunk to lock her inside. She fought blindly – a small ten year-old girl against a grown man, her struggles seemed to only excite him further. She wanted to die – she wanted to force him, to kill her there – cleanly – to die on her feet and undefiled, but she was too weak – too scared – to terrified to even slow his efforts. She became paralyzed with fear – unable to think – no longer even a human being, just prey, waiting for the predator’s strike.
Suddenly there was an explosion as the body launched itself from the bicycle. At first she was too numb to understand what had happened as the man went careening over the guard rail, knowing only that she was free – that she could escape. There was a brief moment of joy before her mind could really register what weight had been clinging to the man’s face and shoulders – what price she had paid for her deliverance. Then the pain and the guilt struck. Then – only then – did she realize what she had lost. Then – only then – did she realize that she would have rather been defiled by the man – rather that she’d been killed by him, than to see Max die.
She fell to her knees and collapsed back on her buttocks – catatonic with guilt when her mother found her. All she could think about was that Max had died, and that she had been glad. Only when she heard them bring Max up the arroyo – only when she knew he was alive, did she start to recover. By that time most of what had happened in the car had been repressed. She had been kidnapped, Max had saved her – that was all she remembered.
Liz woke suddenly from the nightmare – almost in a panic attack. She was hyperventilating, and her body stank of sweat and fear under her nightgown. She couldn’t remember the dream – only that it had been horrible. She reached for the pendant on the chain between her breasts and held it before her like a talisman warding off evil spells. Surprisingly, it seemed to help. She kissed it and held it close against her bosom – and drifted back into a dreamless sleep.
Re: Falling (AU, M/L Teen) 9/07/2008
It was 1:02 the next afternoon and Liz Parker was beginning to realize just how big a mistake she had made as she stood at the front table, Max beside and slightly behind her. It had seemed routine enough – part of the ‘Perfect Miss Parker’ persona was to excel at class participation, and when Mr. Raff had asked for a couple to volunteer for a demonstration, her hand had shot up instantly, hoping to beat the others to volunteer.
It was only after Mr. Raff had selected her that she noticed that no other hands were raised – only after she and Max had walked to the front of the room down aisles lined with students who were desperately trying to pretend that they were somewhere else that she saw what they had already seen before she and Max arrived from the lunch room only seconds before the class bell. Only then did she see the items laid on the front table – a small bag of bananas and a number of small foil envelopes with the outline of something circular within them.
As she realized what the demonstration would entail, Liz thought that nothing could be more embarrassing than what she had volunteered to demonstrate – that absolutely NOTHING could be more humiliating. As she heard the door open in the back of the room, looked back and saw her mother and Diane Evans entering, she realized she had been wrong. Even before she heard Mrs. Raff’s words, she knew it was going to get worse – much worse.
“Today we have two of the mothers of students in the class, Mrs. Diane Evans, and Mrs. Nancy Parker, who will be joing us to give a short presentation of their own to the class. So class … please welcome Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Parker.”
“Hello Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Parker,” the chorus rang out. Liz’s face flushed with embarrassment.
‘Oh Lord,’ she thought, ‘…this is going to embarrass Max so badly… Why on Earth did I ever volunteer us?’
"Alright, Miss Parker," said Mr. Raff, taking her hand and placing a banana in it, while giving the foil condom pack to Max, ".. the two of you are to demonstrate - on this banana - the appropriate way to apply a condom..."
It was only after Mr. Raff had selected her that she noticed that no other hands were raised – only after she and Max had walked to the front of the room down aisles lined with students who were desperately trying to pretend that they were somewhere else that she saw what they had already seen before she and Max arrived from the lunch room only seconds before the class bell. Only then did she see the items laid on the front table – a small bag of bananas and a number of small foil envelopes with the outline of something circular within them.
As she realized what the demonstration would entail, Liz thought that nothing could be more embarrassing than what she had volunteered to demonstrate – that absolutely NOTHING could be more humiliating. As she heard the door open in the back of the room, looked back and saw her mother and Diane Evans entering, she realized she had been wrong. Even before she heard Mrs. Raff’s words, she knew it was going to get worse – much worse.
“Today we have two of the mothers of students in the class, Mrs. Diane Evans, and Mrs. Nancy Parker, who will be joing us to give a short presentation of their own to the class. So class … please welcome Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Parker.”
“Hello Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Parker,” the chorus rang out. Liz’s face flushed with embarrassment.
‘Oh Lord,’ she thought, ‘…this is going to embarrass Max so badly… Why on Earth did I ever volunteer us?’
"Alright, Miss Parker," said Mr. Raff, taking her hand and placing a banana in it, while giving the foil condom pack to Max, ".. the two of you are to demonstrate - on this banana - the appropriate way to apply a condom..."
Re: Falling (AU, M/L Teen) 9/09/2008
As they walked to the front of the room, Max’s eyes came to rest upon the items on the table, and he instantly started to feel sympathy for Liz. Her eagerness to get her hand up first had certainly gotten her in to trouble this time. This was going to embarrass her greatly. It was going to embarrass her – not him – Max knew, although he really didn’t think about why that was. That’s just what he felt.
The reality was that Max wasn’t going to feel embarrassment because unlike Liz – he couldn’t really envision himself ever actually doing what the material on the table was meant to represent. It wasn’t that he wasn’t attracted to Liz – his dreams of her in the wedding dress – and getting out of the wedding dress – attested to that. It was simply that he never really believed he could be accepted by human beings – not even his parents as their son – if they actually knew what he was, not even by Liz as a simple friend – and certainly not by Liz in THAT way.
No, this was pretty much all academic to Max as he stood beside her – at least until Mr. Raff handed her the banana and handed him the foil package. That’s when it really started getting weird.
Mr. Raff was not a threatening person, but as he placed the banana in her hand the long repressed memory leaped into Liz’s mind. At that moment her mind was suddenly back in the front seat of the car careening down the road from the picnic area. The man had grabbed her hand after exposing himself, and pulled it over where it touched his aroused member, laughing at her fear – telling her graphically what would soon be happening to her, her fear feeding his own sick desires. She had recoiled in horror against the locked door, hoping somehow she could open it – fling herself from the car, even if it killed her. Suddenly all those memories – repressed no longer – came flooding back, standing there in front of her classmates, the two teachers, and the two parents. The banana fell from her hand onto the table.
The reality was that Max wasn’t going to feel embarrassment because unlike Liz – he couldn’t really envision himself ever actually doing what the material on the table was meant to represent. It wasn’t that he wasn’t attracted to Liz – his dreams of her in the wedding dress – and getting out of the wedding dress – attested to that. It was simply that he never really believed he could be accepted by human beings – not even his parents as their son – if they actually knew what he was, not even by Liz as a simple friend – and certainly not by Liz in THAT way.
No, this was pretty much all academic to Max as he stood beside her – at least until Mr. Raff handed her the banana and handed him the foil package. That’s when it really started getting weird.
Mr. Raff was not a threatening person, but as he placed the banana in her hand the long repressed memory leaped into Liz’s mind. At that moment her mind was suddenly back in the front seat of the car careening down the road from the picnic area. The man had grabbed her hand after exposing himself, and pulled it over where it touched his aroused member, laughing at her fear – telling her graphically what would soon be happening to her, her fear feeding his own sick desires. She had recoiled in horror against the locked door, hoping somehow she could open it – fling herself from the car, even if it killed her. Suddenly all those memories – repressed no longer – came flooding back, standing there in front of her classmates, the two teachers, and the two parents. The banana fell from her hand onto the table.
Re: Falling (AU, M/L Teen) 9/10/2008
It happened the moment that Mr. Raff lifted Liz’s hand to place the banana in to it. Even without a Connection, it seemed like Max could feel the fear radiate from Liz – no, not fear – a feral terror that went beyond what he’d ever seen from her – beyond the terror when she’d been threatened the dog – beyond the terror when she was being stung by the scorpions. Max felt himself drawing power into himself without even thinking, his autonomic nervous system somehow adjusting to the pattern of hers – willing to reveal what he was to protect her – if only he could tell what was threatening her so much. He looked around the room as she seemed frozen there, her hand slightly shaking. Thirty-four sets of eyes were watching them, but Max still couldn’t see the threat.
From the moment Mr. Raff’s hand had touched her – from the moment those memories had sprung into her consciousness – there had been a battle going on for the soul of Liz Parker. Sex isn’t the reason that grown men rape children. Oh, it may be a part of the reason, but it is only a small part. Sadism – power– control – all of these things and more play in to the sick dynamic of their actions. The destruction of innocence had been the man’s intention, and the fact that little Max had stopped the man from physically damaging Liz did not mean that she had escaped unscathed.
The man had been convicted for this crime before, but that is not to say he’d been caught or convicted each time he’d done it. Rapists typically left dozens of victims in their wake for each conviction, and it had been no different with the man who had abducted Liz. He’d started immediately on the mental assault on the young girl, not even waiting until he could safely make his escape. That was part of the process – part of the way he terrorized them to set the stage for his sadistic desecration of her innocence. He’d done that with many others. He was in fact seldom caught, relative to his offenses, he planned these abductions carefully, and like on so many of the other occasions, he would not have been caught this time but for Max’s actions – and while this man would prey on no more young girls, the damage he had already done lived on in those of his victims who had survived – even in a victim named Elizabeth Parker on whom the man had not lived long enough to finish his physical assault.
Liz’s reading of the text – her dream – the very nature of today’s demonstration, and the coincidence of Mr. Raff placing an object in her hand in much the same manner the child rapist had placed her hand upon him – all of these things combined to start the process that lead inexorably to the panic attack building in her.
The autonomic (or involuntary) nervous system has two branches. One is the sympathetic nervous system which moderates what has been called the “fight or flight” response. Activation of this system prepares the body for defending itself, increasing heart rate and cardiac output, respiratory rate, causing sphincters to tighten and skeletal muscles to prepare for retreat or battle. The other is the parasympathetic nervous system, which is known as the “feed and breed” response. It activates the smooth muscle of the body, the various glands of the body, and slows the heart rate. The parasympathetic system calms the body, digests food, and causes sexual arousal.
Symptoms of a panic attack are due to over-activation of the sympathetic nervous system, particularly in a circumstance where the victim can neither fight, but neither can she escape. The memory of that terrible ride down the mountain from the park was the main stimulus – a fearful memory she had never had time to deal with. Her first overtly sexual situation had been a frightening assault on a helpless ten year old, and that alone was bad enough, but the sexual context inherent in the demonstration was adding to the suddenly revealed memories, threatening her very sanity.
Liz was three days in to her period, and wearing a sanitary pad because she had never been comfortable with the use of a tampon, despite Maria’s telling her how superior they were. Oh, she had tried tampons, but could never successfully insert one due to pain. In fact, that too was due to her psychological trauma – the very thought of introducing the applicator had activated the fear in her subconscious mind, causing the muscles of her vagina to contract and cause vaginismus. Yes, her attacker was dead, but the damage he had done psychologically was still with her – and perhaps always would be for as the textbook had said, these conditions were sometimes permanent.
Liz’s body was shaking as she looked at the banana where it had fallen on the table. The thing was huge – wider and longer than any tampon inserter. As she saw it there on the table the words of the man echoed in her head – the threats – the obscene things he would do to her – the tearing – the pain – the degradation he had promised her. That was all she could think of as she stood there hyperventilating.
When the hand touched her she thought it was his hand – the rapists hand – and she thought she was going insane.
As Liz dropped the banana Max felt her terror. Even without a Connection, he could feel the terror within her, see her start to shake – start to hyperventilate. He didn’t understand what was hurting her and he looked around desperately for whatever was threatening her, willing to use his alien powers to protect her, even if that exposed what he was – but there was nothing there – no physical threat at all. Max reached for her left wrist – the same wrist the child rapist had grabbed when he had her in the car. As he took it he felt her fear explode.
“Liz…,” Max asked, “…. what’s wrong?”
From the moment Mr. Raff’s hand had touched her – from the moment those memories had sprung into her consciousness – there had been a battle going on for the soul of Liz Parker. Sex isn’t the reason that grown men rape children. Oh, it may be a part of the reason, but it is only a small part. Sadism – power– control – all of these things and more play in to the sick dynamic of their actions. The destruction of innocence had been the man’s intention, and the fact that little Max had stopped the man from physically damaging Liz did not mean that she had escaped unscathed.
The man had been convicted for this crime before, but that is not to say he’d been caught or convicted each time he’d done it. Rapists typically left dozens of victims in their wake for each conviction, and it had been no different with the man who had abducted Liz. He’d started immediately on the mental assault on the young girl, not even waiting until he could safely make his escape. That was part of the process – part of the way he terrorized them to set the stage for his sadistic desecration of her innocence. He’d done that with many others. He was in fact seldom caught, relative to his offenses, he planned these abductions carefully, and like on so many of the other occasions, he would not have been caught this time but for Max’s actions – and while this man would prey on no more young girls, the damage he had already done lived on in those of his victims who had survived – even in a victim named Elizabeth Parker on whom the man had not lived long enough to finish his physical assault.
Liz’s reading of the text – her dream – the very nature of today’s demonstration, and the coincidence of Mr. Raff placing an object in her hand in much the same manner the child rapist had placed her hand upon him – all of these things combined to start the process that lead inexorably to the panic attack building in her.
The autonomic (or involuntary) nervous system has two branches. One is the sympathetic nervous system which moderates what has been called the “fight or flight” response. Activation of this system prepares the body for defending itself, increasing heart rate and cardiac output, respiratory rate, causing sphincters to tighten and skeletal muscles to prepare for retreat or battle. The other is the parasympathetic nervous system, which is known as the “feed and breed” response. It activates the smooth muscle of the body, the various glands of the body, and slows the heart rate. The parasympathetic system calms the body, digests food, and causes sexual arousal.
Symptoms of a panic attack are due to over-activation of the sympathetic nervous system, particularly in a circumstance where the victim can neither fight, but neither can she escape. The memory of that terrible ride down the mountain from the park was the main stimulus – a fearful memory she had never had time to deal with. Her first overtly sexual situation had been a frightening assault on a helpless ten year old, and that alone was bad enough, but the sexual context inherent in the demonstration was adding to the suddenly revealed memories, threatening her very sanity.
Liz was three days in to her period, and wearing a sanitary pad because she had never been comfortable with the use of a tampon, despite Maria’s telling her how superior they were. Oh, she had tried tampons, but could never successfully insert one due to pain. In fact, that too was due to her psychological trauma – the very thought of introducing the applicator had activated the fear in her subconscious mind, causing the muscles of her vagina to contract and cause vaginismus. Yes, her attacker was dead, but the damage he had done psychologically was still with her – and perhaps always would be for as the textbook had said, these conditions were sometimes permanent.
Liz’s body was shaking as she looked at the banana where it had fallen on the table. The thing was huge – wider and longer than any tampon inserter. As she saw it there on the table the words of the man echoed in her head – the threats – the obscene things he would do to her – the tearing – the pain – the degradation he had promised her. That was all she could think of as she stood there hyperventilating.
When the hand touched her she thought it was his hand – the rapists hand – and she thought she was going insane.
As Liz dropped the banana Max felt her terror. Even without a Connection, he could feel the terror within her, see her start to shake – start to hyperventilate. He didn’t understand what was hurting her and he looked around desperately for whatever was threatening her, willing to use his alien powers to protect her, even if that exposed what he was – but there was nothing there – no physical threat at all. Max reached for her left wrist – the same wrist the child rapist had grabbed when he had her in the car. As he took it he felt her fear explode.
“Liz…,” Max asked, “…. what’s wrong?”