(Author's note: this is the first chapter of, hopefully, many to come. Things are relatively tame in this one, setting the stage for bigger things in the future. I hope you'll enjoy it anyway.)
(Author's note II: this story takes place in the summer of 1993, a time when I myself had not yet been born. Apologies in advance for any historical inaccuracies.)
It was a good time to be Amy Lefebvre.
She had just completed her last exam of grade twelve, officially leaving high school behind her forever. The early summer weather was lovely and temperate, promising great things to come. And her eighteenth birthday was just around the corner. She was a bright, pretty young lady with a lifetime of promise ahead of her.
Indeed, a very good time to be Amy Lefebvre.
She was a short, slight girl, with a gentle face that smiled often and easily. Her naturally brown hair was dyed jet black, and fell to just below her shoulders. Today she wore jeans and a black and white striped t-shirt. She wasn't
quite
a goth, but she was definitely a little goth-ier than the mainstream, quote-unquote "popular" girls. She had all the popularity she wanted, though: a few close friends and a wide circle of acquaintances she was on good terms with. What more do you need, really?
As she made the short walk home from school that Friday afternoon, she was feeling quite satisfied with where her life was at that moment. At the same time, she was positively buzzing with nervous energy thinking of what the days ahead would bring. Her birthday was on Monday; just three days away. She would be legally an adult, with all the rights and privileges that came with it.
She was thinking about how best to exercise those privileges. She'd had a few discussions with her parents recently on that topic, and how she would spend the next weeks depended on what they ended up deciding to do. Things could go a number of ways, and she had plans for how to make the best of every contingency she could think of. These were among the multitude of thoughts that were spinning through her head as she walked through the front door of the house where she'd lived all her life—and found herself unexpectedly face-to-face with her father, Walter Lefebvre.
"Hiya, kiddo!" he said, scooping her up in a tight hug, lifting her petite body fully off the ground in the process. "How'd it go, eh? How's it feel to have made it through high school?"
"Pretty great," she said with a laugh as he set her down again. "What are you doing here? It's only one o'clock. Shouldn't you be at work? I wasn't expecting you back for a few more hours."
"I took a half-day today. There's some errands I need to take care of this afternoon. I was actually headed right back out the door. In fact, you're home earlier than I'd expected, too. I didn't think I'd see you before I got back later."
"Oh, did you want some company? I could come with you," said Amy.
"No, no, no!" said Walt, shaking his head. "There'll be plenty of errands to run in the future. As for right now, you've just wrapped a major chunk of your life, and I think you ought to spend the afternoon relaxing at home. I'd say you've earned it. Play some video games, read some comic books. Bask in the glory of this brief, shining moment that you've got no responsibilities! 'Cause believe me,
that
won't last for long."
"Alright, you make a compelling argument," she said. "Did you have anything planned for dinner? Did you want me to get something started while you're gone?"
"No, no, no!" her father repeated. "No work! This afternoon is for relaxing
only
!"
"Okay, okay, fine," she laughed. "I will devote the rest of the day to being a layabout."
"That's what I want to hear! I'll see ya later, kid." He hugged her once more and then walked out the door. Amy beamed as she watched him go. She loved her father. They got along exceedingly well, which was good news, because for the last two years it had mainly been just the two of them in the house, since her brother Will had gone off to U of M. Their parents had divorced when she was young, and their mother had relocated across the country. They kept up a regular correspondence of phone calls and letters, but rarely actually saw each other in person. Still, she was content with her family situation. She had freedom and privacy, but her dad was always there whenever she needed him.
Deciding that it would be best to keep her mind off of the topics that had occupied her walk home, she took Walt's advice to heart, and spent the next few hours playing video games (she couldn't get enough of
Star Fox
lately) and reading comic books (she'd been unsure about where
Doom Patrol
could go without Grant Morrison, but tentatively approved of the direction this Pollack lady was taking.) Before she knew it, it was after five, and she was hearing her father open the door as he returned from his errands.
"Amy-girl!" he called from across the house. "I've got a real handful of stuff here, do you think you could come give me a hand?"
"Sure thing, Dad!" she answered, and took off down the stairs to go relieve his burdens. She stopped dead in her tracks when she reached the bottom of the staircase and looked up to see half a dozen people standing in the doorway.
"SURPRISE!" they all shouted in unison. "Happy birthday!"
She looked over the crowd in the stunned silence. Her two best friends from school were there, Daisy Choi and Mary Gilder. Her older brother, back home from Winnipeg. And most surprising of all, her mother, Angela, all the way from Newfoundland!
"Wow!" was all she could manage to say as the scene slowly registered. She bounded across the foyer and was immediately enveloped in a group hug.
"You didn't think I'd miss my girl's big day, did you?" said Angela.
"Wow, this is incredible!" said Amy, rather muffled by the crowd of people wrapped around her.
***
The evening went by in a blur of laughter. Her father had ordered a lasagna (one of her favourite meals) and picked up a delicious cake. She caught up with her mother, who she hadn't seen since the March Break. And she cheered with Daisy and Mary about the end of their high school careers and the beginning of the next chapter of their lives.
Finally, the party began to wind down. Her friends gave her one last hug and returned to their own homes, and Will cleared up all the dishes and began to wash them in the kitchen sink (living on his own had really done wonders for his work ethic regarding chores, Amy reflected.) Finding herself sitting at the kitchen table with just her parents, Amy felt supremely satisfied with how the day had gone. She couldn't imagine how things could get much better. And then, somehow, they did.
"So," said Walt, "there's a few more surprises we need to talk about."
"Oh?" said Amy, raising an eyebrow. She wondered where this was going.
"Well," he continued, "you'd talked before about wanting a taste of independence for your birthday. To see what it was like to live your life without your ol' Dad looking over your shoulder. And with this being your eighteenth, I think that's a perfectly reasonable request. So, this weekend, jam in as much family visit time as you can, because come Monday, everyone's going home. Will will be returning to Winnipeg, your mother will be flying back to St. John's... and I'll be going with her. I've always wanted to see the East Coast. I've taken the next two weeks off work. I'll spend a week in Newfoundland, then rent a car and spend the next week working my home.
"You'll be the woman of the house," he went on, "free to do as you please. No curfews, no supervision. Just you, and the newfound freedom of adulthood. Now, my original plan was to send
you
to Newfoundland. And if you'd prefer that, which I'd understand, I'll happily give you my ticket and tell work that I'm cancelling my vacation. But when we talked before, you seemed
really
interested in just... getting a taste of adult life here. Seemed a little odd to me, but who am I to judge?
"So," he concluded, "what do you say?"
Amy once again found herself at a loss for words. This was truly everything she could have hoped for. Not what most people in her situation would have asked for, but her dad had listened, like he always did. He really was the best.
"Two weeks alone here sounds incredible," she said. "I love you guys."
"I'm sorry that this means we'll be leaving on your actual birthday," Angela said, frowning a little. "Unfortunately, that was really the only day we could get the flight we needed."
"Don't worry about it!" said Amy. "Really. Everyone being here tonight was all the birthday celebration I could ask for from you guys." She got up, walked across the table, and hugged each of them in turn.
As she lay in bed that night, she found herself unable to sleep for the longest time. She just lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, her face split by an enormous grin. Next week would be a birthday week to remember. She'd make sure of it. She planned on welcoming eighteen with a bang.
***
The weekend was the most pleasant she could remember in a long time, but all the same she found herself almost unable to contain her excitement as her family piled into her brother's car early Monday morning. Will was driving their parents into Winnipeg, where they'd catch their plane; Walter was leaving his car at home, for Amy to use during the next two weeks.
She waved at the car as it drove off, continuing to stare after it for a long time after it had turned the corner. Slowly, the situation began to sink in: as of today, she was eighteen years old. An adult. A woman. And for the next two weeks, she was living alone, with the house all to herself, and no one around to make sure she behaved.
Which was good, because she hoped to misbehave quite a bit in that time.
Finally, she turned to go back into the house, and as she did so she allowed her mind turn fully, for the first time, to the topic that was of greatest interest to her now that she was eighteen:
sex
.
Daisy and Mary and many of her other female friends would have plenty to share on the subject, she knew. Stories of their encounters with various boys, comparisons of who was better, who knew how to please a woman, who had no idea what they were doing. All stories that weren't much use to Amy, to be honest. Because, you see, she didn't like boys.
She liked
men
.
While her classmates swooned over boys at school—athletes, theatre kids, brains, however their tastes ran—Amy found herself unable to muster any interest in any of them. She'd been out on a few dates in her time, had some fun, but ultimately none of the boys in her age group had sparked much desire in her. No, her tastes ran older. Quite a bit older, in fact.
While it wasn't unusual for other girls to have their eyes on university guys, or even those a little older, in their mid-to-late twenties, Amy still found those to be a little too boyish. No, in her opinion, a man didn't start to get
truly
attractive until he hit thirty. And they often just got better from there. It had been that way for as long as she could remember. Indeed, she had had a crush on her now-well-into-middle-age next door neighbour for most of her life.
(More about him later.)
She had always felt a little weird about her taste in men. A little embarrassed. A little
gross
