There are absolutely no characters under the age of 18. All sexual acts take place between adults over the age of 18 years.
Jack and Phoebe 11
Click!
"Pip Pip Pip, Good morning, it is seven am on Thursday the 28th of September, and you're listening to BBC Radio Four, the headlines today are."
Slap!
Jack rolled out of bed and grabbed his towel. He showered, uneventfully, dressed and went downstairs for breakfast. Maggie was sitting at the kitchen table picking at a slice of toast and staring out of the window.
"Morning Maggie!" he said, in his usual chipper tone.
Maggie ignored him and continued staring.
"Okay," he added, "morning Mum!"
"Morning Dear," replied his mother, "you sound like you had a good night's sleep!"
"I did, thanks!" he replied, "slept like a baby!"
He laughed and picked up a slice of toast, covered it in too much Marmite and then, toast in mouth, headed for the front door.
"Bye Dear!" his mother shouted after him, "have a good day!"
He waved his hand in the general direction of his mother and then closed the front door behind himself. He arrived at the bus stop and five minutes later his bus arrived. Very soon he found himself standing at the front door of the Harrington family home. He rang the doorbell and Phoebe answered and ushered him inside.
"It's just us here," she said, her tone flatter than he was used to, "we have some time before we have to be at school, let's sit down."
Jack was confused, Phoebe was not behaving in the manner he was used to when they found that they had the house to themselves. He looked at her and noticed that she had done the buttons on her blouse up wrong, she'd skipped the button just under the collar button and so it hung wrongly. Her tie was crooked and the thin end hung lower than the thick. Her hair was definitely not in her usual impeccable style, it appeared to be on the verge of escaping her hairband and Jack was not entirely sure she'd brushed it at all. Jack felt a wave of anxiety overtake the happy contentment he had felt since waking up, he suddenly felt like something terrible was about to happen to them.
Phoebe directed Jack to the sofa and sat beside him, she took his hand, pulled it into her lap and sandwiched it between her hands.
"Jack, we need to talk," she began, "I've been up all night thinking about what happened yesterday."
Jack was confused, he had no idea what she was talking about. He racked his brain for something he might have said or done that could have upset her, but he came up blank. He felt his heart start to race, he knew what she was about to say.
"I'm sorry!" he blurted out, desperate to get ahead of whatever she was about to say, "I'm sorry!"
Phoebe looked at him, taken by surprise by his outburst, thoroughly confused by it and as a result lost her train of thought. She looked at him, saw the way his eyes were wide, and felt his pulse in his hand racing. Phoebe leaned across and kissed his cheek gently.
"It's nothing you've done, Jack," she said with a small smile, "it's my fault."
Jack's fear was not assuaged, and his grip on Phoebe's hand tightened involuntarily.
"I don't care what you've done, Phebes," Jack pleaded, "it doesn't matter to me! Anything you've done, we can fix - I can fix!"
"It's not like that Jack," she replied, kissing his hand, "I lied to you yesterday. I did catch up with Aria at lunch, I spoke to her and she said some things."
"What did she say?" asked Jack, confused as to how any of this mattered.
"She demanded I do something, something strange."
"Oh?"
"She demanded that I kneel down and kiss her feet."
"That's weird."
"I know, I was thoroughly confused by it, and left her before it got any weirder."
"Why did she want you to do that?"
"I don't know, but..." Phoebe looked away from Jack, her eyes downcast, fixed on the floor in front of the sofa, "I, um, I think, I think I wanted to do it."
Phoebe pulled her hands away from Jack's and covered her face.
"I don't know what has happened to me, but when she demanded that I kneel in front of her, I hesitated for a fraction of a second before refusing. I remembered what we did, how thrilling it was on Saturday, when you and Stephanie tied me to the bed and how overwhelming it had been to give control over to you two and for a second I wanted to feel that way again."
"We can always do stuff like that again, just the two of us or with Stephanie, or I suppose just you and Stephanie, if that's what you'd like," he replied quickly, "I just want you to be happy Phebes."
"I know Jack," she said, her face still buried in her hands, "but, there was a difference between you and Stephanie and how you two made me feel and Aria and how she made me feel."
"I don't understand," Jack put his arm around her shoulders and steered her head towards his chest, pulling her in close, "how did it feel different?"
"I know that with you or Steph, you'd never push me to do something I don't want to do. I trust you both to look out for me," she explained, "with her, I imagine she'd force me to do the things you wouldn't dream of and she wouldn't care about my complaints, and that feels very different and dangerous, and that makes it even more exciting for me."
"So, are you going to go to her?" asked Jack, still very confused by these revelations.
"No!" replied Phoebe, instantly, "oh my god, no!"
"So why?" he asked.
"Because I couldn't get her out of my head last night and I needed to explain it to someone who would listen," she explained, "someone who wouldn't judge me, and the only people I know like that are you and Stephanie."
Jack pulled her in tight and held her.
"What can I do?" he asked, "how can I help you?"
"I'm not sure," she replied, her head buried in Jack's chest, "I just don't know!"
Phoebe's tears were soaking his shirt front, he could feel her hot breath on his chest and all he could think to do was pull her in tight and lightly run his hand up and down her back, trying his best to comfort her. He checked his watch and saw that they had missed the morning reg bell.
"I hate to do this," he began, "but we need to get to school, Phebes."
She didn't say anything, but she pulled away and looked up at him with teary eyes and nodded.
**
Maggie left the house much later than Jack, having spent ages just playing with her breakfast as she went over the incidents of the day before. Her sides ached where Aria had directed her blows; but she was relieved that the bruising was not as bad as she had thought it would be. When she had checked in the mirror, she had just found two light purplish marks, about the size of her fist. Whilst the strike to her left side had been exceptionally painful, it was the punch to her right side that had worried her most. She had never experienced pain like that before, pain so intense that she almost lost consciousness, could not catch her breath and her legs had just given up meaning she could not stop herself falling down. She had had flashbacks of the corner of the coffee table flashing past her head several times during the night, each time the corner got closer and closer to hitting her.
She walked to the bus stop, her head bowed, not in any sort of hurry, knowing that getting there just preceded arriving at school, and being at school made an encounter with Aria almost a certainty. She had not been frightened of Aria before even though she had heard all the stories, those weird rumours about her and the things she supposedly got up to. She had always considered all that to be gossip spread by the school's losers, the boys who obviously watched too much porn and had no idea of what girls actually wanted, liked or even how they acted. Of course, she had heard Jack talk about how Aria was treating Phoebe, but it had just sounded like standard bullying behaviour, horrible to be sure, but not anything beyond what you would expect from a stereotypical mean girl at school. However, until yesterday, she had not personally witnessed Aria actually doing anything, but now, having seen the photos of Tom that Aria had shown her and having been on the receiving end of a beating at her hands, it was suddenly becoming apparent that those loser boys might not have been working entirely from their fevered, porn-soaked imaginations. The idea that there might be some truth to some of the gossip was terrifying, some of the rumours were horrific. She was actually scared, now.
She reached the bus stop and found Tom sitting on the bench staring off in the opposite direction, listening to his phone with a pair of headphones; he jumped slightly when she shook his shoulder.