DISCLAIMER: Geeze, I'm gone eight months with this new chapter, and suddenly the show's creator goes nuts, everything changes about the series, and I have to learn about some new network called The CW run by Les Moonves, who thinks renewing a dead preachy show which ended with three girls knocked up in the same family twice over was better than Everwood? Let your minds ponder that one folks!
OK, I got that out...breathe, breathe...anyways, even though Amy Sherman-Palladino lost her sanity around let's say...December, she somehow still owns the characters of Gilmore Girls, and we still have Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund Polone and Warner Bros. Television also owning them. But you know what, this guy named David Rosenthal? He runs the show now, and whatever his production company is named also owns the show (probably not Heidi Klum+Me=4EVAH! Inc. due to several court orders in New York State's Superior Court), plus you know Les Moonves slips a note by the show these days occasionally from his CBS offices. If one of those notes are 'Paris is boring, take her off', Les, I'm taking you out back, believe it!
Same copyright disclaimers from chapter 12 apply, along with an added NFL reference. All other trademarks within are the property of their respective owners.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey there, you remember me, Nate? Hello? Said I'd have the next chapter out by April, May, June and July? Uhh, obviously that really didn't happen and it's now August. Let's just say that real life sucks, ASP's ruining of the show had me convinced to stop writing for awhile there, credit cards from the past bit my ass and took my inspiration with it (along with my never ever having a loan, I'll be paying a lot for the next three years), I got a little down, and some stuff with the family killed my writing drive for awhile. But now I'm back, and feel free to throw water-filled tennis balls at me next time I take an entire pregnancy gestation period to put out a new chapter.
I'm going to probably have different betas from now on since my original two and my newer one have decided to take their lives offline because of the things in their lives, which I fully understand; thank you Raven and Cinn for all your help to start out with, and hopefully Erin will be back next chapter. For now though, I still have help look over things, and now who I'm convinced is now the #1 Liza fan, Danielle gave me the big spelling/grammar help this time. I would definitely recommend looking up her work on RalSt and ff.net (under UbiquitousMixie on both services). Trust me, her Paris/Rory fics are some of the best out there, and she has a mile-long imagination when it comes to our favorite blonde and her brunette hanger-on. That, and she has such a wonderfully dirty mind ;).
Again to the ff.net readers, please don't bother to read this if you don't like femslash. I'm not changing it to another couple, and no matter how much you plead and beg, there are no plans to bring in Finn. Though I like him and Rory, really, he's the only LDB guy I can handle. But since he's not in the show until season five, he's not going to be here. Feedback is like Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper to me, my current favorite drink. Also the chapter title isn't calling Rory or Paris crazy; it's just the last line of Hank Williams' Monday Night Football theme changed around to create a witty title.
Oh, and Sinclair? Thanks for keeping the CW on Channel 18, I would've hated it if you would've forced it to go on another channel I might not have gotten until next year.
SPOILERS: Closer towards A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving, though none of the episode events are mentioned in this set of chapters.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.

Longing With a Cherry Tomato on Top
By Nate

Chapter Thirteen
All the Crazy Gals Come Out on Monday Night

After eighteen years living the life that I lead, I know after all of this time there are hard truths that I can't change, they're stubborn and won't let go. That I can rebel, but I won't do it for long because what would happen to my grades?! I couldn't let them go.
 
I'm always going to be seen as weaker than I feel outside, no matter how much exercise I do or try to prove that I'm strong without questions. My mistakes will be seen as those of my mother's, a failure for which she should receive the blame rather than me. That I will never figure out how the hit songs of today, no matter how awful and sucky they are, are spoken about as glowing reflections of today's society, no matter that we're on the tenth top 10 hit on the old 'Hey DJ, play that song, that'll save my life' theme.
 
The hardest truth though, is that I can't get into trouble. I just can't, no matter what I do. Sure, I get a stern talking to, some kind of punishment, a warning not to repeat my mistakes, but trouble, I hardly know thee. That outburst I had at being ten minutes late for the Shakespeare test was very small drama, and it worked itself out in the end. I got into that accident with Jess behind the wheel, but things eventually calmed down after I explained it was a squirrel and not him trying to damage the one large thing keeping me bonded to him.
 
OK, there was this one time in eighth grade just before Christmas break. There's this girl, Samantha Petersen, that lived to make my life at Stars Hollow Junior High very trying. Remember after the sex ed talk that everyone started to turn their back on me because my mother isn't supposed to be respected, but reviled? Sam brought it all up to begin with, asking the instructor what should be done if a girl gets pregnant at a young age.
 
"I'm not in the position to answer that," the instructor noted, obviously wanting to toe the line and keep his beliefs neutral, "you'll need to get other guidance."
 
"Like from Rory's mother?" She leered towards me, buried in the loose-leaf materials from the class. "I bet she knows one position...spread eagle!" She laughs, and of course being a popular girl, all the fawning boys and girls who follow her every word join in.
 
"Ms. Petersen, that's enough!!" he cried out, offended. "You will not tease your peers like that, it is unacceptable."
 
"You're right, Mr. Eldridge," she agreed. "I wouldn't tease the product of a tease herself." Everyone in the class makes that sound you hear in the audience after something bad is said on Saved by the Bell, and I had no idea how to respond. I go with my own advice to ignore and continue looking at my work, and eventually both Sam and the instructor move on.
 
Of course, even after classes end and I'm with Lane, the teasing doesn't stop, with Sam and her clique following me around and being general pests. They never brought up the garden shed before that point, but then as I got a couple of books from my locker, the bitchy blonde (who looked nothing like Paris, thank God), decided to tear that wall down.
 
"So Gilmore, how did it feel to live in an outhouse for three years?"
 
"It was a garden shed," I pointed out. "and it was fine."

"Yeah, if you love sleeping with a gardening implement. No matter you're such a loser."
 
"Samantha, quit it--" Lane tried to defend me, but Samantha got even more into my face. She shoved Lane into a locker off to the side and came towards me.
 
"Stay out of this Kim. I'm surprised you're the friend of a mistake." I was stopping myself from doing something I'd regret, and even though I was ready to cry, I held back the tears because I was above this. "Why even bother getting good grades, Gilmore, you know where you'll be in three years: it's family tradition!"
 
"You better stop, Samantha, or I'll tell the principal on you," I threatened.
 
"Oooh, I'm so scared!" She faked being intimidated, then rubbed salve in the wound by humming the Jerry Springer theme right in my ear. "You're gonna find some rich loser with a big dick and a hate for condoms, he's gonna knock you up, and all the A's will mean nothing at all because you'll be a whore..." she then whispered the last four words so that no one could hear them. "...just like your mom."
 
What happened next was something no one expected from me at all, but I was pushed to my limit. Tease me all you want, but don't you ever bring my mother into the conversation, and don't you dare try to reduce her achievements because she had me earlier than expected. I dropped my books into my locker, and then backed into Samantha, making her lose her concentration and bearings for a moment. I slammed my locker shut, took her by the shoulders with strength I never knew I had, and slammed her back right into the lockers, very hard. Her friends watched in shock as I pinned her by the collar of her $30 Liz Claiborne Outlet shirt and gave her the most angry outburst I've ever had, even worse than when I yelled at Paris in the conference room.
 
"First of all, unlike you, I like to keep my legs closed, Petersen, so that rich guy's going to wait a bit before he gets to me." She struggled to get out of my grip, but she wasn't moving. "I also had a fine childhood, and sure I didn't have the huge birthday parties you did, but you know what? I don't need them because my friends actually care about me, and so does my mom, who is the manager at the Inn. She's not a whore, she never has been one, and you know what? She doesn't consider me a mistake. You on the other hand, are a slut, you have no heart, and you get off by teasing people who go to school to actually learn something, not just as a boring version of mall slacking! Don't say another thing to me, Sam, or else next time I slam you against this locker you're going to have a few pretty blue bruises mar that thing you call a face!!"
 
She stared at me, stunned silent by my outburst. Lane looked towards me, proud of my backbone. I had stunned her silent and hopefully made my point quite well enough that it would suffice. I prepared to back off and resume school threat and slur free.
 
Then she tried to get in the last word; big mistake.
 
"Don't worry, I won't bother with you anymore, dyke." She said it under her breath, but it got my attention quite well.
 
"What did you just call me?" I asked, seething. She brought herself closer and said the hated word right back in my face once again.
 
"Come on, you should have a crush by now, Rory, instead you dream of eating out Jane Austen the way you bury yourself in moldy old fiction." It sparked something inside of me. "No one finds book reading attractive except for lesbos like you--"
 
I finally had enough of Samantha's belittling attitude, and to call me a name like that was the final straw. Acting on pure adrenaline and little logic, I felt rage take over my thirteen year-old self, and before I knew it, I pushed her back into the locker one more time, and then felt my right hand rise as I slapped her hard on the cheek, then pushed her down to the ground with my other hand. I felt my face tighten into pure anger and I could hear Sam scream as she crumpled to the ground.
 
"What the fuck?!" She rolled onto her side as she looked at me above her, at first victorious that I had taken out a girl who had teased me for so long. I had defended myself, but much more than that, I defended my mother the best I could. She was crying on the ground, and around me, a crowd of my fellow students gathered around me in a semi-circle in the hall.
 
Then just as I was ready to retort she dare not mess with me anymore, I remembered why I never thought violence the solution to anything.
 
"Rory!"
 
That was the voice of my fourth hour Spanish teacher, Mrs. Halverson. Uh-oh, I thought to myself. What did I just do?! Suddenly I looked down at Sam on the ground, and I started to feel sorry I had slapped her and pushed her to the ground.
 
"What did you just do?" she asked, taking me by the shoulder. "Samantha's lip is cut open and she's crying in pain, what happened?" I explained she was making fun of my mother and calling me names.
 
"That doesn't justify you beating her up," she scolded, as Lane brought herself into the conversation with her worries, mentioning that I was about to get in very deep trouble. Everything hit me right then and there; if I had ignored her like I usually did, Samantha would've eventually backed off. But I let her get to me, and in turn, things, which I thought would've been taken care of by the slap, got a little bad.
 
OK, a lot bad, in truth.
 
For the first time ever, I ended up in the principal's office, and I had to hear as the secretary called Mom at work to discuss what I did. Then I had to talk to him and tell him my side of the story. If I expected sympathy from him, of course I didn't get it because he never gave it to me in the past. I just looked at him with fake attention as he went on with the lecture that violence wasn't the way to solve any kind of problem, and I should've known that from the bad Sunburst videos the teachers occasionally showed us. He even threatened to give me a three-day suspension!
 
"No, you can't do that!!" I cried out; I didn't want my perfect attendance streak to die on such a stupid decision. By the time Mom got to the office, I was an emotional wreck, begging him to not do anything because this was my first incident ever. He went on about his zero-tolerance rules and that I would be suspended, or else.
 
Thankfully Lane told him exactly what Samantha had to say, and then Lorelai...she was disappointed in me for taking the action that I did, but appalled that Principal Meyers was going to suspend me and give Sam a slap on the wrist. "She hasn't done anything in eight years, and you're going to suspend her? Look at my daughter. Does she look like she'll be a Maury regular anytime soon? She's said she's sorry and she even said she'll apologize to the girl she slapped."
 
"Ms. Gilmore--" He tried to interrupt, but my mom stood her ground.
 
"No, my kid is good, my kid has been ignoring this teasing you've done nothing about for the last year, and your response is 'girls will be girls'. You know 'dyke' is an inflammatory word; it should give anyone who says it an automatic two-day suspension. I know if someone called me that in spite I might not be responsible for my actions. Please sir, she reacted, she vented, she's sorry, she's done. Don't suspend Rory, she loves school and she'll hate having to be cooped up at home the next three days."
 
I again apologized, and even though it pained me, promised I would say sorry to Samantha just to get out of trouble. He thought for a moment, as if to probe that I was actually sorry for my misdeeds. My mother begged him one last time to reconsider. He looked at me, and finally...
 
"Rory, four days afterschool detention." I breathed a sigh of relief. "Next time this happens though--"
 
"It won't happen again sir," I assured him, just wanting to move on. After a review of the incident, I was finally free to go home with Mom, who would ground me for a week as I well expected, no TV or music, but even worse, no books that weren't assigned reading. I'm not kidding...she said I couldn't read for fun for the next week; you know how that is to a girl like me?!
 
OK, so it was only a week and I learned my lesson pretty well, and the punishments fit the crime. I got through detention scot-free and I never again saw Samantha anywhere near me. Eventually I got my well-wanted revenge unexpectedly when Samantha's grades took a precipitous decline at the start of her sophomore year when she started to date the JV football center, and guess who didn't take the sex ed advice given in seventh grade?
 
Karma bites, doesn't it Petersen? I thought when I read the birth announcement in the Gazette of 8 pound, 1 ounce Justin Lance Petersen. Two guesses where she got the naming inspiration from. Sure, I wouldn't have wished that fate on her, but if she had concentrated more on her grades than making my life hell, she wouldn't be where she is today, would she?
 
Still, the point of rehashing this event in my life is if I can, I don't want to get into trouble if I can help it. If it were up to me, I'd still be paying for that stupid trip to New York to see Jess on Mom's graduation day. It was stupid, pointless, and worst of all, it blew my perfect attendance streak away, all because my hormones got into a tizzy about a boy like him reading Hemingway. My mind was telling me to stay behind and just worry about Jess later, but no, I needed to get closure. If I'm not thankful for Paris' making me vice president and this summer in Washington where I fell for her hard, I certainly got an earful the next day back when she sat me down in the Franklin office and scolded me for skipping school for a guy.
 
"Gilmore, you're not stupid, why would you do this?" I couldn't explain of course, and after she laid into me for ten minutes with statistics and stories of other Connecticut girls who instead of meeting their beloved, found their end on the banks of the East River, she made it clear that if I ever skipped again I could consider my Franklin position taken by someone 'without her head in the clouds'.
 
"Don't you ever do that again Rory," she said in her worried, yet annoyed tone of voice. "A guy isn't worth losing grade points over, or your mind. Picture me, if I wasn't over Tristan, going down to North Carolina just to make sure he still had me in his mind. First of all, welcome to 135th place academically Paris because I just can't leave, no matter that I can't get past the gate. Second, I'm expelled for not attending school. Third, I get four years in prison for stalking and loitering outside a military reservation. Oh, and my degree? I hope I enjoy the Daniel Kondo's Charlotte Career Institute three flights up from Sung Ho's Palace that I heard about while watching Jenny Jones, and my future job as a medical transcriptionist--"
 
"OK, OK, I get it, I get it. I'll be here everyday, Paris, cross my heart, promise!" The imagery she projected really got to my head, and she was right; if Jess didn't choose me, it wasn't the end of the world.
 
"Thank you." She looked at me, and smiled. "Now let's get to work." And it was all done, in the abrupt way that's a trademark with her. It was also a window into her mindset with me. For even through the competition we had for each other, we kept each other's back and stopped one another from making a bad choice, me with Jess, her with giving up on her campaign with a sad whimper, scared she'd lose. It was back when I was still in a cloud between going with Jess, or trying to push closer to the acidic blonde classmate I now romance. Without each other, we're half of a whole, and through these two years with her, I understand her more for who she is beneath the layers than what she projected.
 
That I'm now seeing these layers close up is something I'm only beginning to treasure as we've gotten together, especially tonight. How tense she gets when she thinks someone is about to find out, and how she feels afraid I'll slip away from her whenever she gets a wrong feeling about us.
 
She certainly had those feelings tonight, and more. Sitting next to her while we watch a movie with Mom, with a somewhat mixed blessing of our relationship that she found out about in a way the three of us never expected, a night spent trying to explain that I'm changing within the space of a month, that I like this girl in a way reserved for a guy, and telling this to my mother, my soulmate, my best friend.
 
Not to take away from my mother's experiences, but tonight? I felt like it was a mirror image of her discovering the strip on the EPT turned pink, confirming my existence to her.
 
Only this time the indicator was my girlfriend, and she turned pink and red and purple...pretty much every embarrassing shade under the sun in her own unique and embarrassing way.
 
Yup, I'm now out to Lorelai, and surprisingly, she thinks it alright. Recalling what led up to all of this should clear the picture up for you on why things ensued the way they did...

"It's time to get with my program, Gilmore."
 
"I won't approve of it, because it was a stupid idea! I will not accept us as a glorified puppet for the administration." I stood my ground in the bathroom with Francie as she chastised me for shooting down her idea to fundraise with teen magazines right in front of everyone. It was a stupid idea when she suggested it, ad it was a stupid idea Wednesday afternoon when she brought it up.
 
"Everyone's bored with chocolates," she tried to reason, "they'd subscribe to a magazine instead."
 
"Yeah, until they find out they're charged full cover price after the discount runs out. Unlike you, who gets bored reading anything with type smaller than twenty points, I read the fine print. You'd have to give them a credit card and they would be free to charge it at the end of the year, and you know where those profits go? Certainly not into the Chilton coffers."

"Rory, you're getting to be a liability," she sneered. "You better approve something of mine in the next three weeks or I will expose you. Or maybe I'll have Beth give you some initiative." Her eyes darted towards the corner, where Beth Kozlowski was making sure no one got into the restroom.
 
"You know what?" I implored. "If the idea isn't completely stupid, I'll approve it. But this time, get ready to sell some chocolates, Jarvis." I looked around, wanting to get the hell out of that bathroom. "Can I go now?"
 
"Whatever." Beth pushed open the door as Francie reminded me what was at stake for being her lackey, and again I had dodged another bullet when it came to her. Thank God she didn't make another homophobic crack this time, but having to face that redhead is wearing my patience thin. Is it wrong that I just want to tell her to be quiet and happy she's even the senior class president? After learning from Paris of the Boston Public-like plot where she gave Tom Hammond a blowjob in order to get the job, I figure everything she learned about politics she learned from her father. His experience with under-the-table politics has spread to his daughter, and it's a pain in my ass right now. It's sad that she holds a grudge with us over the Puffs, and that really was our fault in no way at all. I still remember that night, looking at Paris, reading the disappointment on her face as her attempt to get back into Sharon's good graces by joining the Puffs like she had years earlier, and not being able to.
 
I hate to see her disappointed, or sad, and I know she will be once she finds out that I did this to her. But you know what they say about politics, that it's a dirty business. Hopefully it doesn't become so dirty here that a certain group will be shut out because of homophobia.
 
Just thinking about the last week, I realize that where Paris and I are now in terms of us together has been faster than Dean and I were. There's been an instant connection between us, nothing that had to be built up with awkward meetings in the back corner of my yard away from Mom's eyes. There's a trust between the both of us that we have, and the good thing is that it can be hidden in hand caresses, body brushes, and secret looks within Chilton. I mean the small things about her that I didn't notice before, they're getting my attention, and in the whacked way my brain decodes them, they're secretly sexual to me.
 
The way she types at her Franklin desk for example, looking at the various articles spread through her desk and the LCD screen in PageMaker. She can easily just sit there for an hour looking at the words, occasionally calling over Ms. Peters for a faculty opinion, her tongue slightly pokes out from her mouth as her eyes scan the pieces, pencil braced in her left hand. Her legs draw me in closer to this picture, perched on the bottom of her stool, curved out, the skirt pooling perfectly just above her knees. It gets me every time how beautiful she looks doing such a menial task, my mind wandering towards massaging her stressed back as she wishes her writers all knew how to proofread. It makes me want to break the 'no kissing' rule we set so badly, but I keep in control, for her.
 
God, is it just weird that I want her most when she's doing nothing that involves kissing or caressing? Watching her when she drives, my eyes just scan her as she concentrates on the road ahead of her, the way she's so different around me, less prone to acidic outbursts or criticism. To be fair, she still gives it to me, it's just the phrasing is much more complimentary than her usual 'this needs work, you know how to fix it' kind of phrasing. Somehow I see it leak out with other people, that being with me has balmed her worst tendencies, where even if she loathes Madeline's writing style, she complimented her style of handwriting.
 
Despite all of these things, being with her physically and with nothing between us, she's just amazing. When I actually carried out my thought after our first date to wear the chopsticks from Lady Sing's in my hair the Monday after, she couldn't keep her eyes off of me as we ate at Luke's. I saw it in her gaze, that it took all she had not to do anything untoward to me in such a public setting, my mind concentrated on the food in front of me and the ideas in my head building as I felt her foot against my ankle. The secrecy and pure illicitness of what we've been doing in town, the sense that just outside the town limits, she pulled over into the county park and we proceeded to...well, make out like teenagers, and she undid those chopsticks and played with my hair so wonderfully, her slim fingers against my scalp seductive and alluring, my mind spinning with just how perfect she feels against me. It's such a 180° from Dean, who got it into his head that kissing against the bottom of my jawline was somehow seductive in some way, and pawed at my arms like he was hyperactive. Paris is slow, caring...just in general all-knowing, and willing to learn what makes me tick. She takes her time to know me and what happens with me, and she actually listens when I talk to her, be it face-to-face, on the phone, or in the text form via AIM or through the small spurts of text we exchange through our cell phones.
 
In the meantime, this weekend was long, a double wedding where I had to help Mom out both Saturday and Sunday turning the ballroom at the Inn into the dream days for two separate parties. The fact that Paris wasn't there brought me down a little, but to know that she was stuck in the hell of a DCW event made things easier, in that we were both too busy to come together that weekend. But that didn't mean we were incommunicado, for her observations kept me entertained as the originally sane Sunday bride became a Bridezilla, no thanks to her overbearing mother. About 2pm, I learn the boy who crushes on her a little too much is trying to get to her;
 
Vance just said I had nice legs, then hinted he'd like to open them! Would it be too much to punch him in the eye?
 
Yeah, I can see exactly one of the reasons she finds me attractive; with guys like these in Hartford who wants to be sexual in Hartford society? I came back with a suggestion that she throw a deli tray at him. I learned that's not such a good idea though;
 
I don't want him talking about meat in ANY context, that invites his commentary.
 
We continued to text back and forth whenever I could duck out of the ballroom, and the commentary on her end went from Vance to annoyance at the event, how she was now holding a secret that Viola Frentz was doing one of the drink servers, and Sharon thought she wasn't paying enough attention to details for the event. I tell her about how the wedding barely came off after the bride got a good talking-to from her dad that she do this since he paid a lot of money for the ceremony. During the reception, I texted a description of my purple dress, so she could have something to take her mind off how deadly dull her event was.
 
My surprise when she texted back a description of what she was wearing;
 
Red cocktail dress, hi-heels killing my soles, slinky beige slip and matching lingerie, hair messily done up.
 
I warmed up thinking about her in that classy ensemble, and with my fingers working the keypad quickly, I voiced how I'd rather she'd be dressed;
 
I'd rather it be down hon, with no dress; you have nice feet too ;).
 
A minute later;
 
You'd love my legs in this # Gilmore, I'd say I look better than last week on the date.
 
I smiled and texted back, starting to fall into our own little world.
 
Don't you have a camera on your phone, I need to compare.
 
I didn't know if she'd do it or not, but she was game.
 
Let me get to the cloak room, I can't believe I'm doing this...
 
At that point, Mom calls me into the kitchen to help Sookie and the help bring out the wedding cake, and I have to wait a bit to check my phone again. After watching the couple do the cutting and mashing as everyone cheered, I brought my phone out, and saw the screen showed three picture messages awaiting me. I told Mom I needed the restroom, and after she told me it was OK, I headed for a lonely corner of the lobby that was just out of Michel's sight and opened the first picture.
 
Paris isn't a very good photographer, especially when she has to take a self-portrait of herself and hold the phone out with one arm so that her entire profile can be in the picture. But I wasn't looking for Annie Lebowitz, just a visual of how she looked. The first picture was a regular profile shot of her face, a bunch of coats in the background as she tried to hide from Sharon and the party. She just looked so worn out and annoyed, even though she was smiling, her eyes were tired and I could just sense she'd rather be at the Inn helping me out and talking to me than at that Hartford supper club being a part of an organization she loathed.
 
I scrolled to the second picture, a weirdly taken photo of her legs and her feet, the shoes taken off and off to the side. I saw a bit of the skirt of her dress, and it was looser than the leather skirt, but her legs still looked very sexy. Is there anything she doesn't look good or cute in?
 
I thought she couldn't make me feel any luckier for being her girlfriend as I scrolled to the third picture, which I expected to be of maybe her arms or the back of her head to illustrate the messy bun her hair was in.
 
When I saw it though, I couldn't believe it, she was taking a shot of her dress from her neck down, and oh my gosh, did she look amazing. From what I could make out, it was a slim dark red number that fit her so perfectly, from her shoulders to her knees. It flattered her so much, and she looked ravishing.
 
The surprise was that she had an abundance of cleavage bared by the dress, and the positioning of the phone seemed to purposely amplify what she wanted me to focus on. The bodice plunged down just conservatively enough to pass Sharon and DCW's muster, but showed off her breasts in such a wonderful way. The low resolution of the picture also couldn't hide just a hint of beige lace peeking out from her cleavage, and I was taken aback at how sexy she was, but not only that, how she made it clear I should think about her only from even a half-hour away.
 
I smiled, looking at the pictures of her again, and wondering how she was thinking of me while she was creating them. She knows me way too well, for when I saw there was text to go with the last picture below it.
 
Call it a bonus; I know you don't say anything, but I see where your eyes wander.
 
Par
 
You know I think of myself as the innocent one, right? Then how come I'm so transparent when it comes to her?! I shook my head reading that and responded back to her, my shoulder feeling Michel's icy and impatient stare from the desk. I don't need him to say anything to know that my heavy texting is bothering him, and that I need to move on.
 
I do, into the hallway between the lobby and the ballroom, where I decide to heat Paris up like I was at that point.
 
You got me, but that's not the only place I wander. I'll dress light in bed tonight thanks to that picture ;).
 
Ror
 
I send, and I know I need to slow down sending texts because out of plan they're 10¢. Still it's so worth it to see the boringness melt away with her words.
 
But if I know Paris, she is the true queen of the one-up, the ability to end something on her terms and thoughts known. I head back into the ballroom as the bride's friends try to go for the bouquet, and I feel the phone vibrate one last time. I take the phone out, and read what Paris has sent me...
 
I won't dress for bed...at all. It's coming off when I get home, before a soothing bubble bath in my private tub.
 
Wish you were there with me,
Par
 
My jaw dropped at her audacity, and I know that she's sitting there at her DCW party, nodding her head and telling herself she got me. Did she ever! For the rest of the night, my mind was filled with that image of the dress and slip pooling down from her torso and down to her ankles, as that body slides into the bathtub, and I can hear her hiss as the hot water touches her toes then relaxes her...
 
Immediately I was looking for an opportunity to get my own one-up on her, in a big way. She might be my girlfriend, but there was no way I was going to let her keep all the control in this. That, and the itch I have for her is becoming less emotional, and much more physical. I picture her hands all over in my mind now, wishing those slim fingers were there, unhooking my bra, caressing my cheek, her hands drifting down my waist and around to my front, where they bury against my curls...
 
Geeze, sorry about that, my mind wanders off a little sometimes when it comes to her plus a state of nudity! I place most blame on the Chilton skirts and the fact she was in knee-high socks this morning due to cold weather. She knows how to push the right buttons, that's for sure.
 
Okay, we're moving on now before I have to stop to catch my breath...

I found her sitting at her Franklin desk, somewhat stressed after everyone has left the offices. She wasn't looking over paper work, and I could tell her mind was somewhere else. I pulled up a chair from one of the other desks and asked her what was going on.
 
She smiled at me, assuring me it has nothing to do with family. "It's really nothing, just going back over a dream I had last night." I brush my hand against hers and ask if it was anything good.
 
"I would like to say it involved you and I, but no, it wasn't. Just me in front of the admissions director at Harvard blowing my interview like someone who blew the first question on Millionaire, and went home with nothing." She shook her head. "I know, I have like three weeks before, but you know me..."

"You want to be ready months before, and what's happening now took your focus off a little." Her voice sounded as if she was denying herself pleasure for the sake of her dream school. "There's nothing wrong with that, sometimes taking your mind off things is good."
 
"But I feel weak, I just want everything to be perfect."
 
"It will be though, you're prepared for everything."
 
"So why does it seem like in my head, I'm not prepared?" She got up from her seat, and started gathering her messenger bag. "I feel like I need a rehearsal of some kind, just something keeps me in the game." Paris feels the nucleus of an idea build...while I start to sense another opportunity to seduce her.
 
OK, so I'd have to do academic things to get things going, but it would work well. I'd get some time alone with her, but at the same time build my Harvard chances further. She asked if I wouldn't mind helping her with question lines, and I couldn't help but be excited and willing to help her with it. I kept myself under control as we discussed the specifics of what she was going to do, but somehow I think the both of us knew that we'd be doing more than Harvard questioning tonight.
 
We stopped at the Manor so that she could change, and I wandered her room as she did just that, feeling a little disappointment that she's not comfortable enough to change in front of me, even with my begging and pleading for her to wear something thin and flattering. She has a good excuse though, a large walk-in closet and her own bathroom to shield herself.
 
 I wondered what she would come out in as I checked my email on her computer, finding nothing but a few spams from financial aid places wanting to offer me forty years of debt in exchange for four years education. For some reason I also ended up with an inane forward from Dean's friend Kyle with a bunch of bad blonde jokes, and I quickly hit 'delete' on the stupid email. I still see Dean lately around town, but he's been very distant, nowhere near the diner at all and if we happen to see each other in the square I don't even look at him. There's no point to it, since he accused me of cheating on someone I wasn't interested in at all. I never thought it would be so easy to drop two years of history in the snap of a finger to go after what I wanted.
 
I heard the door open as I confirmed I wanted to trash the forward, and swiveled in the chair to remember why Dean was no more. I look at Paris in her basic sweater and an old pair of Calvins, and I know for once, she's trying to be casual with me, taking the interview practice seriously, but still wanting to be alluring. Her look gets my attention, and I yearned to get close to her.
 
It's surprising to hear her voice as I kissed her on top of her forehead, and then beckoned her on tiptoe so I could be mouth-to-mouth to her, complimenting her wonderful hair. Paris tries to keep me focused on the reason she's changing, but the only thing in my mind is how nice she tastes. I kiss her, hearing her try to complain, but it's coming out not at all how she wants to. I shock her by insinuating a dream that's reoccurred of her in the broom closet with me, but she doesn't want to bite, instead suggesting an elevator for a mid-school tryst.
 
Gah, she's so unconventional, I think to myself as I respond I'm not that much of a fan of elevator sex, though not using those words exactly. There's just something about the way we flirt that gets to me, it's not what I ever expected from someone like her. She's shy, yet when I get suggestive, she's more than willing to bite, and we leave the Manor unconsciously touching and brushing each other's hands, the both of us in our world, insulated from everyone else.
 
That continues as we get to my house, and for once I'm thankful that Lorelai isn't there to distract me from doing things I might reconsider otherwise. Paris seems at ease without her there too, and she decides to help set up things while I go into my room and change out of my uniform. This time though, it takes longer than usual, because what I would usually wear doesn't lure Paris in.
 
I mean I wanted her to be at ease, of course, but at the same time, her eyes fully on me, concentrating on not only the questions, but perusing my form. I decide not to minimize on her behalf, and change into an old Harvard t-shirt I picked up from the Army that seems to be from the early 80's (and also a good luck charm), and low-rise jeans I usually consider for a late summer date.
 
But this isn't a date, my conscience tried to remind me, you're just studying. I could use that excuse to throw on some old sweatpants, but I won't, because Paris' eyes are meant to be on me, I want her to think about what I'm wearing when she goes to bed later in the evening, and think about her trying to get those things off in a dirty dream...
 
Oh my God, I really am turning into my mom! I never thought like that around Dean, but with Par I have no limits! But it seems to be worth it, so against my normal idea of 'after school wear', I came out of the bedroom in that, though with my tank top still on beneath because it of the odd behavior of our old oil furnace downstairs before winter really kicked in, I didn't want to end up freezing from the heat not kicking in at the wrong time.
 
Not that I really needed it, eyeing up Paris throughout the night seemed to keep me above 98.6°, especially when I got a certain view trailing behind her. I love her breasts, but I'm finding a growing appreciation for her butt...
 
Right, tangent again, I have to stop doing that, you know how I see her already. Again, turning into my mom...
 
She smiled at me, telling me I looked nice, but went right to work on me, asking the questions I prepared within a notebook I've been using to keep track of my interview process, which I practice over the phone with Mrs. or Mr. Springsteen once every two weeks, just to make sure I'm on track. I know it isn't the same without someone directly in front of me trying to get a feel of who I was. My ad-libbing has needed some work, so I try to put the rehearsed answers out of my head and go right from memory for each question. Each inquiry becomes tougher and Paris moderates me to male sure I answer with speed and precision, not just perfect word choice…or something along those lines. When she asks what I think of singular-sex classes in public schools, I struggle and pause for an answer, and she's right on me.
 
"Gilmore, if you want to regard yourself as who you think you are, you need a faster answer," she tells me. "The AD's going to see that indecision and think you're really not thinking of public school, you're just thinking 'what would Chilton do'."
 
"But I do try to think of it that way--"
 
She sits down, holding out her index finger to make a point. "Look, I understand you moved to Chilton because you felt suffocated at Hicksville High over there, but you can't let that leech into what you say. Ignore your freshman year, ignore that one month before you landed in the plaid. If you're a fresh-faced girl going in there with no preconceptions, how are you going to answer? Are you going to think a math class without the distraction of Pacey over there in the corner giving you the flirt eye picks up grades? Meanwhile over in English Literature, you want to know if losing out that feminine touch will affect Craig's ability to relate to the works of Jane Austen."
 
Paris gives me a guiding point, to not think of my experience, instead that of someone going in with a like for public school. I think about it in this theoretical person's view, and I think about it for a minute as she gives me another question to practice on. She then comes back to it, and the coaching is perfect. I state that while I'm not opposed to the same-sex classes, that it might not be the best course for everyone, that the views of both sexes are needed, but that if a student felt comfortable with their own sex, they should be able to have that option. "Still, home ec and other domestic arts classes should remain co-ed," I disclaimed, "there's no excuse for boys to shy out of them."
 
Laughing, Paris stated an un-ADlike point of why that should be. "They can hold a fire extinguisher a lot better than I can."
 
"Personal experience?"
 
"I swear, those crepes would've been fine if they hadn't caught fire." She shakes her head, admitting one of her few classroom failures. "I didn't know the class was taught in Imperial measurements; I'm a thinker--with the Metric system all the way, and I fractioned out the oil in the pan in milliliters instead of cups, I read it wrong. You know how it is, the intelligent have so much they have no need for cooking lessons!"
 
"Thankfully we have the luxury of fire alarms and 911 in addition," I said back in response. "Ah, but we don't have to worry about that with an admissions director, do we? All we need to do once we get into Harvard is scan a card in a reader, and there's food, we love food, right?"
 
"As long as we both don't make the meal, my version of cooking grows actual hair." I remember why I'm practicing for this, and why I never want to take a cooking class, because Harvard is more important. Having idle conversation to relax us, keep our nerves from flaring up. I know that we're wanting to be together, but it has to be at the back of our mind when we're thinking academically.
 
She keeps asking, and I keep answering. I get into a good pattern where I don't miss a beat, it's almost to the point where she's Barbara Walters trying to throw me into a crying jag and get me off my game, but it isn't working, I'm staying strong. Financial questions, ethical quandaries, opinionated statements, they're all there for me to try to answer back, and my mother's genes when it comes to lightning fast responses are something I'm thankful for. Left and right, Paris is impressed with my responses, and I don't miss a beat, using my body language to make points as well as I do with my words. I'm a wealth of facts and information, shooting down any negatives into positives. Paris just watches me, amazed, her compliments giving my heart flutters. She compares me to that fast-talking guy that was on the Pee Wee show and the ads for Micro Machines, and I have to pause to think do I really talk that fast now? It's true I listen to the WPM tapes more to speed up my speech, but it's also to carry on the candor and speed with Paris if we're in the middle of a debate. I try to pay attention more to what she says, and it seems to really help me out.
 
I also take into account that my future in journalism is predicated on speed, whether it be chasing a disgraced congressman or try to write down a rambling statement from an extremist. Without this practice now I'll struggle to catch up, and I don't want to be left behind in a position I like well enough, but not stuck in for the rest of my life. Speed is good, speed is wonderful, it's always needed.
 
Well, not always needed as we'll find out later. I expect Paris to keep up the pace as I go through with reversing the roles and interviewing her, but she doesn't seem to have herself within the full mindset. I know she's probably abandoned a mind-numbing night with Sharon to rehearse with me, and that guilt stops her from being into everything. However the distraction that is I in the role of the interviewer is something I keep in mind. I'm dressed to impress, and she's thinking of that as I go with each question. I involuntarily go into a pose where I hold the card in my right hand, and then I wrap my left arm across my chest, lining up right along the bottom of my bustline. The decal making up the faded block HARVARD letters lined right up with where the line of my cleavage ended, and I could feel her eyes struggling to stay at face level as she gazed at my tall form, trying to contemplate that indeed, I was hers to do with what she might. I tried to keep my arms straight down, not get into that position, but after I'd ask the question and she'd struggle through, my arm was back in that same position, defining what I had inside that shirt.
 
I did my best to try to be a neutral bystander to her, but that fire that defines Paris...it wasn't within her. She seemed to be lost in distractions as I read off each card in her straight script. I'd wait a bit and she'd end up with an answer that sounded weak for her. I felt for her so much, seeing her shoulders hunch and eyebrows furrow with each new frustration that came to her with all the answers. The setting of the kitchen table was just fine, but the tension in the air was drawing pressure against her, affecting her game to the point that she was weighing too much down on herself, falling behind on her usually accurate answers.
 
Apologizing for her demeanor, I watch her turn from confident and into Don Music, complete with "No, no, no, that's not what I meant," though for her brain's sake she held off banging her head against the table. My poor girlfriend was stressed out, and part of it came from hiding that we were together. It was a rarity to see Paris this way, but she's a human just like me. Even she has a bad day once in awhile.

I kept going over questions with her until she drew an almost complete blank, going with a response that in her words would be just enough to get Louise in without sexual aid. It was unacceptable to her, and I found myself wanting her to do her best, even in a fake situation.
 
"I don't mean to be frustrating you, Gilmore," she said neutrally to me, not realizing her word choice. "Here I suggest a good idea and I don't carry it out to well."
 
"Hey, you're not frustrating me at all," I responded, trying to hide the fact that I was holding back so much from standing behind her so I could slide my hand up and down her back to give her some relaxation. Another thought of asking her to strip off the shirt and what was under it was being pushed by my devil of an inner vixen, along with how she was looking playing with her tongue in her mouth. "It was great, but maybe it just wasn't the night for you to go over things."
 
"That could be it," Paris admitted, her hand pushing hair from in front of her forehead. "I think I need to lay down, or else have a couple Motrins." Asking her if she was all right, she shook her head.
 
"Would you mind if lay on the couch while we continued?" She had a good idea, for us to debate and ask in the living room, but I felt myself stir at the idea of her tiring on the sofa. She hates it, but I love the idea...at least the shameless ogling part of the equation.
 
Then again, my mind noted, what would happen at the end of the questioning and there she is, laying on there, all ready to let you play with her? Mom's still out at the Inn, but if she walks in that might be suspicious.
 
What was I doing to myself? Paris had made it clear tonight was business only, and I was trying to find an excuse to change it to pleasure. Looking at her tired and stressed, I knew she didn't want to be on that couch if she could help it, her back couldn't take it. That left one other option to go with, but I wasn't sure I should go with it.
 
I mean she's seen my bedroom before, it's not a big deal, it's my room, I have nothing to hide. But to have her lay on my bed as I interview her...it troubles me that I could invite her in my room under circumstances most innocent, then there go the hormones into the wacky dance that they've done around her lately.
 
I felt on edge as I shot down the couch and suggested that she come into my room and lay on the bed as I went over her questions; this was certainly the first time I was playing the aggressor in a relationship, at least in my own house. The Gilmore dating rules never really went to the situation of studying with another girl, so I had to go off the book with how to compose myself around Paris as we went further on into the night. I didn't want to lead her on, yet if she was open to more than studying, I wanted her to know that I'd be OK with her, at least after everything was done.
 
Unsaid, I headed into my bedroom, leaving her in a position where she had to follow and lay down on the bed. It worked well, and though she expressed some doubts, once her head hit the pillow beneath my made bed, I think I made a good case for her de-stressing in there. She flopped onto the mattress, then spread out with a notebook and pencil to the side, propping her head on her hand and watching as I made her comfortable by giving her a pep talk to get herself back into the lines of questioning.
 
It was a night and day difference; once I started with the questions again, her grey matter sparked and the fluid brought back the impassioned Paris I knew would blow away the AD during the interview. By the fifth question her hyperfocus was back and she took only moments to respond to each query presented to her, no matter how complex that it might be. Relaxing her head had the desired effect, and moving from the harsh fluorescent lighting of the kitchen and into the calmer and dim illumination of my room really helped. It helped that we both knew the offices in administration also had the same kind of lighting, so it brought her into her comfort zone once again. Her only problem, mentioned with a laugh? "I feel like I'm gonna nod off any minute here." She smiled, and I shook my head.
 
"I guess I'll just have to pinch you awake again." I made a motion with my hands, and watched her shut her eyes, sighing.

"Just watch where you put those fingers, Ror." Her voice was a whisper, and her monotone had that hush that always got to me so badly. So she isn't completely into the questions, I thought, deciding to goad further.

"Who said I was going to do it in a place where you might want it?" I disclaimed with a bit of mischief and a laugh.
 
"Like you'd just go for the wrist, I know you, you want my full concentration, and you seem to always get it in a certain place." She was saying all that in her studious voice. "Just a reminder, if we win a debate, don't go near there."
 
I just looked at her, amazed that in her dry voice, she was trying to get me off-track even through her flirting. I couldn't help but look at her the way she was, feeling so relaxed and carefree in my sight. The session has new life to it with her laying on the bed...not to mention the mind track that's been thinking of her as something else besides a classmate.
 
Her eyes are closed as she answers what I ask, and I looked down from the index cards looking at her figures, which for the life of me, is one of the beautiful things I've ever laid my eyes on. She can hide it all she wants, but Paris has me hypnotized, from the way her hair lays along the pillow, to how her feet are crossed together in slimming jeans that highlight just how much her long legs truly make her figure something to stick in my mind. I have to hold in my mind that I'm not even processing her answer, but instead I'm daydreaming that we're having a night alone, where I tell her not to worry about bedclothes and she just lays down wearing nothing but a thin shirt and creamy silk underwear, the way I've dreamed about often when my mind is alone and undisturbed.
 
Adjusting often, Paris pulled at her sweater, trying to hide what she was wearing beneath it from me. My mind wandered more as I helped her with each question, the mystery of what was beneath the wool getting into my head. I found walking around the room to be another distraction as I created a nude mental picture of her in my head, staying serious on the outside but wanting to just slide against her on that bed, toss the question cards around the room and have a little fun with her. Her smile as she touches on a point about Mother Teresa and sainthood, she describes the woman as a trailblazer to the less fortunate, and all I can think is this is foreplay, that's what it is. She gets me into a debate about the question though I agree with her, and we bounce our arguments back and forth, Paris not losing one single step as every counterpoint hits her cerebellum at the exact moment it's needed. There's a spark between us as I ask her seven more questions to finish off the practice session, never a sense of boredom coming in, or anything stopping us. No love/hate one-upping, or her trying to force her talking points through, it's just Paris using her persuasive and combative personality to tell that stuffed shirt up in Cambridge "Yeah, you took Natalie Portman, so she wrote a few good scientific papers that got published. You know what though, Harvard is in by blood, it's in my genes, it's what I live for. You take me and I'll be the best damn student you've ever taught, my full attention is on you, all the time, period."
 
OK, maybe not all of her attention, I still want a little. But you get the picture...
 
After we finished the questions, Paris let out relief that she had let me pick her brain, and was well prepared for all that was going on, refreshed and renewed. She sat up on the bed and we were both thankful that all was well with that. But I had a feeling she was holding something back because her posture was still tight and imposing, still weighted down upon her.
 
It was like she wasn't supposed to be here, that she took the respite of escaping the Manor Sharon-free, but because of that she would have to deal with the lady and her imposing questions later on. Looking worn, I could see in her eyes she felt again like a disappointment because instead of staying on the straight line she had come to know so well, Paris's detour into my heart was keeping her from straying too far off the path. Leading her into reassurance, I tried to get Paris to admit what weighed down on her. It took a bit (as it always does with her exoskeleton-like inner thoughts), but she admitted to me that she thought Sharon would be disappointed in her for missing a not-so-important benefit where Sharon would meet up with her beau from Uncasville once again.
 
There was also fear in her voice that by not going to that event, Harvard would end up messed up because she missed an opportunity to meet up with an important contact who just happened to be there.
 
She really doesn't know when to quit, I thought, appalled that Paris would think this way. Parties were meant to be fun, not work, but Mrs. Gellar does all she can to turn even my girl's most fun moments into chores, I could just see her be the type to stop Par from having a slumber party because it would shake up home value, or God forbid, have a party she wants because that odious woman would want to make it all about her.
 
"How would it jeopardize Harvard?" I asked, seriously. "It's one night, you see these people all of the time."
 
"Louise lost a few points with Vassar because she accidentally sent IM transcripts listing it as her safety to her college coach." She started raising her voice. "I can't make any kind of impression that might make Harvard think I'm slacking off."
 
"For one cocktail party?" She nods.
 
"I'm a disappointment, I know this, okay? I excel at the schoolwork and extracurriculars, but my social skills resemble Gallant on a good day, I'm a complete wreck at social situations."
 
"Hey, I am too," I noted, taking her hand into mine. "You know how silly I found the debutante thing? It was ridiculous, cheesy and over the top, yet I did it because hey, it works its way into the transcript and Harvard knows that I have proper table manners. Would I do it again? Probably not, but it certainly wouldn't change any admissions officer's mind about getting me in if I did it or not. They look at character for these things, hon, not how many alum and faculty you impress with anecdotes and obscure facts."
 
"So I probably shouldn't tell my AD that the founder of Victoria's Secret committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge and that inspires me?" Paris off-handed darkly. I smiled a little, shook my head and recomposed.
 
"Maybe if you're applying for the necrology department, otherwise I wouldn't." I continued on. "Paris, how many summers have you sacrificed on behalf of organizations that need your help? The hours you've spent in service clubs, volunteering nothing but your time and effort and for nothing more than a thank you at the end? There's so much time you've given up for Chilton to make things better for students, not to mention what you've had your father and your grandparents do at the Free Library, create a reading room devoted to the state's Jewish history, because not only did you want all your study materials categorized in one place, but you wanted to make sure everyone else could find them too. It was a simple idea when you suggested it seven years ago, and no one gives you credit for it because you didn't want to take it."
 
"But Ror--" She tried to speak, but once a Gilmore starts talking, she doesn't finish until her point is made. It's in my blood.
 
"While everyone else is talking about helping, you're actually doing something about it, there are seven families in Hartford right now with a roof over their head because you didn't want to be a camp counselor in the summer. You saved your father from paying so much more to Sharon, thanks to you finding ways within the divorce settlement to force her to give money needed by charities more than her Prada collection. Every day you walk into that school and you don't leave until you feel you've done something right, and you write opinion pieces that challenge the 'norm', expanding viewpoints and changing people's minds towards the right direction. You don't think Democrat or Republican, you think you, you think us, you think everyone. As long as an idea isn't stupid, you take it." I couldn't believe how many targets I was hitting, but what I was saying was striking the right chords within Paris. "You have a caring heart, a kind heart. You never think about legacies and traditions, you just want to make things better, and I admire that in you." I wrapped my thumb around her index finger, trying to finish my point. "Now if that Harvard guy is there, at that party, I know he isn't thinking 'where is that Paris, why is she slacking off this event?' He knows you're working on being the best woman to have Gellar blood, and that you're here, bettering yourself, proud of everything that you've ever done, and that you don't need to be there to be accepted by him. He'll look at your file and he already knows for sure, that you care, even if you don't show it or boast, you do care."

Listing a few more things that I admired about her, I finished the argument that there is no way that a cocktail party will determine her future, because it should be known that by not going, Paris is busying herself with work rather than inane topics. That she needed to relax, that she's the girl I look up to the most at how to be within society, and beneath all she uses to hide herself, I see her, and only her.
 
"You really believe that of me?" She asked, trying to make sense of things as I moved to start rubbing at her back. I nodded, trying to bring her into a sense of security.
 
"Well you are a girl who treasures her milk chocolate, right?" I hinted at the little stash of candy bars she keeps in a computer drawer in her room, her favorite indulgence solid Godiva chocolate, which just happens to go well with red wine.
 
"Sharon says it gives me pimples," she admitted with bitterness. "What are you leading to?"
 
"Just that it would've been a personal defeat to see magazine subscription forms rather than pallets of Nestle in the supply closet, I was thinking about you offended by Francie's idea."
 
"You have no idea, it was outrageous what she suggested. Food is meant to raise funds, magazines are meant to be hung up on walls, yellowed and then forgotten. I can't enjoy pinups, that's an insult to my intelligence. Chocolate gives you a spark and ideas, it's what runs newsrooms around the world when the coffee pot's not working!"
 
I was starting to find the perfect place to start the distraction that I wanted, what I planned in saying yes to getting Par here. I wanted to study, but there was nothing to study but her now. There was a want to see her in her most unguarded state, and with Mom not about to interfere, I wanted to take advantage of the time I could get with her. No matter that I was inwardly scolding myself for trying to move a study meeting towards something else, but I couldn't help my attraction. A weekend away from her just makes Paris all that much more wanting.
 
I lowered my eyes, letting them wash over her, and I could still sense that despite the pep talk, she was still wound up from other factors, be they stress or desire. I could feel her look me over, her gaze again stuck on the freckling of my arms. She was trying to push herself away from the kind of things she wants to do. She's distracted, ready to go...
 
"You can't forget Francie goes for Page Six if she ever reads a paper, she doesn't take the world seriously," I noted as I pushed closer to Par, and then moved myself behind her so I could have unencumbered access to her back. Still talking, I got all where I needed to. "Trust me, she might think she's smart now, hon, but in the real world, she's going to be unprepared, and that's the best thing that can happen to her. I just look at her ten years from now and she's still a petty bitch who's never gotten her way. While the both of us..." It's time, I thought, spreading my fingers out and softly whispering as I lay my fingertips atop of those small, defined shoulders of hers, hidden beneath the heavy wool of her sweater and what I think are bra straps. "We'll both be respected."
 
The reaction I wanted was there as I started to rub her sore body, a mix of shock and want. She couldn't even think of a reaction to my answer as she was surprised that I was drawing her in with my fingers. She was fighting to keep in control, but I knew I'd easily overcome that. She softly calls out my name in a hushed voice, and I explain she deserves a massage. Tentatively, she gives in...
 
My mind spins as I take in her soft scent, her shampoo mixing with a bit of cinnamon body spray she applied along her neck; Paris is so plain, yet beautiful. I moved my hands higher to take in more of her shoulders, and she gave up resistance to me doing this to her. I'm amazed that she lets me do this for her, be it in a private place such as my bedroom, or in the public setting of Mr. Mercurio's classroom. I take it as a trust that I'm the only one allowed to calm her down with touch rather than words, that she doesn't mind me easing the pain that she usually keeps hidden in her life from everyone else.
 
I rubbed both of her shoulders slowly in a circle pattern, feeling the tension within them quickly fade as I help calm her down from having to stress over Sharon. Paris is open to everything and I know she loves what I was doing to her. At the same time, I knew there would be a place to get her even more open with me, since I knew her sweater was probably itching her as I worked my hands faster to soothe her. Yeah, come on, this is going to get things interesting, I prodded to myself. I stared at her neck, veiled by her hair a bit, so slender and wanting.
 
Slowly I moved myself closer and closer to her, trying to heat her up, make her just a smidge uncomfortable. Who would've thought, me trying to find an excuse to disrobe my lover? I was wound up and wanting of Paris, the way she tortured me with the cameraphone pics and the insinuations she leaves in passed notes about dreams from the last few nights, including a mention of her wanting up my skirt in the middle of Life Sciences. Paris knew how to push my buttons, but now, even more in order to get me to do things unlike me in the days before my attraction to her.
 
With a little more effort, and a thankful kick-in from the temperamental boiler downstairs, I soon had Paris asking me if she could dispose of the sweater. It took all that I had not to smile at the idea of having almost unencumbered access to her upper body. I had to wonder if she was wearing a shirt beneath for modesty's sake.
 
Imagine my surprise when she said that she sort of had a shirt on, and then took off the sweater. My eyes were on her midsection as she slipped off the dark red shirt, and instead of some kind of undershirt barely shielding from view a bra peeking out from beneath, she wore a pink silk camisole. Static cling made it stick to the sweater a little, giving me another view of her belly as she tried to straighten out the undershirt. My breath deepened as everything went into slow motion, watching her disrobe getting to me as her face was shielded, allowing me to watch her take off the sweater without her self-image getting in the way.
 
You are amazing, I complimented silently, seeing Paris in what was her lowest form of casual dress getting within my mind and flaring my libido higher. She looked so understated, yet beautiful, her hair a bit of a mess and the camisole draping loose across her torso, flaring in just at her bustline where she needed it, but otherwise the undershirt left little to the imagination. Her shoulders were now fully exposed, and I could see where her shoulder blades met the clavicles, causing me to gasp about how beneath all her layers, indeed there was a body ready for ravishing. Her necklace dipped low, the six-sided star pointing down towards deep cleavage more spaced out without the usual support of her bra squeezing her breasts into a small space. Obviously the camisole was loose on purpose, with Par having to immediately go for both straps to prop them back onto her shoulders as they fell down her arms.
 
Definitely, I was flush and goosebumped looking her over, trying not to stare but unable to help it. She was distracted complaining about being itchy, letting me get back behind her without an acknowledgement. I palmed my hands across her back and restarted the massage, nothing stopping me from taking things further. She's so soft as I knead her trouble spots, little bits of moles and marks here and there across her sun-kissed skin.
 
"You have such a nice back, Paris," I complimented as I happened to hit the spot I knew her bag and bra straps always were laid upon (the indentation of her bra and the adjustment piece still a little red where it was); I took the heel of my hand and worked it up and down vigorously, making her vibrate in her seat. Her breathing relaxed and the stress started to melt away.
 
"Right there...move your hand down a little on the right, I have an itch right about..." She navigated me towards to where the irritation was, just along her spinal column. "...almost there, average...temperate, a little warm..." Lower and lower with my right hand, my nails scraping until she reacted with a gasp. "...oh, that's just the right spot, right there. Ohhh yeah." I started scratching slowly, drawing her relaxed as I tackled the itchy spot flaring out a little red. She audibly voiced her appreciation, wondering how she got by all of these years without someone helping her out with something as simple as an itch, at least without having to pay a professional at her spa. She looked so relaxed as I continued to give her this simple therapy, her voice hushed down to a low octave to tell me she didn't mind my making things deeper.
 
I alternated a full massage with scratching her back, following her every command and wish to cure what ailed her. Paris was so willing and open to do all of this with me, and to hear her pleasurably state how much she loved this put a smile on my face that the effort I took to woo her was being rewarded so much with such intimate gestures as this one. She would look back occasionally to make sure I wasn't getting any kind of funny ideas, but I'd look back at her innocently in return. Again, like a game between us, me trying to push further, her holding back. I rubbed my hands all along her back in a vigorous manner, trying to hold back from the one thing that was clear in my mind, that she was without a bra, and God, I just wanted to drive her crazy, the way she looked on my bed so carefree, yet beguiling.
 
My heart kept a fast and steady pace as I kept playing along her back, the sight of her flesh getting to me so much. Truthfully I was somewhat tense and nervous, surprised with how much my mind was drifting off the original track of her visit to my house. Don't forget, this is an educational visit only! My mind tried keeping me on a clean track...
 
...But Paris' neck was leading me somewhere else altogether. I parted the hair on each side so I get at it for a rubdown, and looking down from where her gold necklace chain hung and then down her spine, where it drifted beneath her shirt, oh my God. I stopped and just stared, trying to wrap my mind around this heavy attraction and pull I felt for her. There was just a want to seduce her, to draw her in; she just looked like the very definition of desire, no matter how plain she might look to everyone else.
 
I also missed her so much over the weekend, it was like a piece of me was with her while she couldn't see me. I thought internally about the ramifications of drifting her towards making out, wondering if it was worth the trouble to do it. She looked so kissable, yet I didn't know if she was thinking of things beyond the fact we were girlfriend and girlfriend. I found a doubt in my mind that she's not open to exploring with me beyond what I had with Dean, that she protects herself from doing more than she wants to for the sake of my innocence.
 
Trust me, I can understand that, I didn't get here in the first place without the loss of my mother's innocence (that and Dad's reluctance to wear a condom; like I needed that sealed in my head when I first asked where I came from!). I've also been the one watching with her as various couples impede our access to our lockers, reveling in each other instead of grabbing their books. She's never going to be a public romantic, nor is she into the entire ideal of romance as a whole. But I know that Paris is still a romantic no matter her allusions, she loves spending time with me, and how much she puts in to be the kind of girl she is in front of only me, one willing to share all she thinks about without having it dismissed as a pipe dream or 'girls don't do that'.
 
Paris isn't a girl; she's a woman with fight in her. But at the same time, she has a softer side she also brings out when needed. I look at both sides, and see a amazing woman in one small, blonde package. And in turn, I want to just show her how much I yearn for her in my life.
 
Aw, to heck with it, I determined internally. The worst she can say is no! I was going to go for it...be the aggressive one and show her what's been on my mind all night beyond getting my Harvard interview tailor-made. There was no way Paris was leaving this house not knowing that even I have sex on my mind every single moment I look at her.
 
"Rory, why did you stop?" she asked breathlessly as I slid my hand into hers, and then smirking, kicked off my sneakers with the help of the bed, straddling behind her. God, I hope she wasn't looking at my heart-filled socks!

How the hell I do it, I never know, but I was able to play femme fatale with my shaky voice. "Stop?" I brushed my face along the back of her head, the tone of my voice calming and wanting. "I'm not stopping...just pushing things along." I softly planted my lips along the back of her neck, her fragrance overwhelming my senses.
 
"Stop...we have to concentrate," she argued rather futilely, "I can't be doing this right now." Coughing she tries to get back into game mode, but I stop her by dragging short kisses along the periphery of her neck.
 
"No more homework, and I'm bored." I pushed myself closer to her, deepening the kisses along her neck and scraping my teeth against the nape of her neck. "I also want to do more of this."

"I do also," she acknowledged, "but what about Lorelai?" A justified worry that I needed to help her overcome. It cooled things down a little to be reminded of Mom, but I wanted Paris to be as comfortable as could be. Her breath was deep, her voice laced with want and need for us to come together.
 
I gave her a look and a smirk, sliding off the bed and reminding her off all the cleanup still to be done at the Inn. I headed over to the door to shut it, my full attention focused on her and a building case of nerves. We had done this before, but the sense that she was in my house instead of the safeness of a floor and three rooms between her and Sharon at the Manor was giving her some trepidation. A buffer needed to be created that showed I cared for her so much, that I wanted her without anything getting in the way.
 
"There, the door's shut. My shade is drawn, and I don't own a webcam." I tried my best to play seductive, watching Paris, through her eyes, look so turned on. "Nothing but you and I here." I looked her over, my mouth watering from how she looked. An errant strap from her camisole kept sliding off from her shoulder, her hair down and a little bit of the upper part of her breasts exposed thanks to the angle of the shirt. I command her to lay down, soothing her with my voice that she looks so sexy outside of the plaid and any of her normal clothes. I was catching her off-guard, and she knew it.
 
I put a hand into hers and slide onto the bed, positioning myself above her. This is so new to her, something unknown, being the prey rather than the predator. She feels nervous, trying to hide her body from my view even with all of my compliments. She tries to tuck the camisole back in, but I stop her, asking her to still and let me do what I want. Her breath deepens, and her chest rises, the top flattering her breasts so well. Her eyes close, a silent signal that she'll comply. I move my free hand to prop up her head, and then I bring myself closer slowly, basking in the feel of her body against mine. So full, wanting, beautiful.
 
We both come together and kiss, slowly and full of want. Soft lips against mine, her smell in my mind, a slight taste of vanilla, I'm fargone and wanting of her. I instigate the buss further, trying to bring her into the mood, softly working my way around her lips and along her cheeks. I play with her stomach, brushing my hand against it, wandering around the soft olive skin that only I for sure know, and then along her back. So beautiful...
 
Paris starts getting into it, sliding more against me and wrapping her arms across the small of my back, pushing me closer. I pull her hair a little, the feeling of the silky locks in my hand giving me a calming sense despite all of the heat between us. Before I know it, we're not only involved in a deep kiss, but closely positioned. My experiences with Dean tell me this is the time to bring things more to a boil. My body is tight and wanting, my light weight against Paris' smaller form just perfect for what I wanted to do. I slid my left thigh against her, looking to get comfortable. Of course this meant her right leg was pressed right against a certain part which I've been taught to protect like the Crown Jewels.
 
Both of us are nervous about this. I mean, two weeks with each other and we're already doing this? I didn't move into this phase with Dean until last February. Still, God, I wanted it, my center feeling tight and wanting to be filled, yet I knew I'm not ready.
 
You are, my vixen asserted, but there was no way Paris was at all. I might have the experience, but I had to tread carefully around her, the last thing I want is to do something wrong and have her curse me out for going to far. I heard her concern clearly as she asked what I was doing.
 
"Nothing you don't want, I just want you to relax."
 
"Rory, I don't mind this at all. I'm just...you know, this isn't the time yet."
 
I brushed my fingers through her hair and gave her a soft kiss of reassurance. "I'm not going to rub, don't worry, just feel you against me, this is all I need." The other hand was along the waistband of her jeans, flirting with the waistband of her underwear. I was dizzy with want for her. "How's this?" I brought her into another kiss, this time much more aggressive and wanting of her. She pushed even closer to me, and asked for more than that. She wanted me to touch all over her back, along her neck as we kissed, even to the point where I felt her grab me and then in a surprising move, let me move it to palm against her butt. Reason is gone with the both of us and now we were just moving along to each other's urges, the chance of anyone interrupting us seeming to fall away with each new minute of making out. Her voice, hoarse with want, my body so tight, the tank top I wore beneath my shirt tightened against my chest, my lip gloss seems to be ruined and our hands wander ever lower, right up to the point where she has both her hands on each side of my ass and is looking up at me, not only laughing and with a wide toothy smile, but her demeanor had totally 180'ed from nervous and unsure and back to how she usually was...except this time in a good way.
 
"Gilmore, you shouldn't be having all the fun," she husked, gathering all the strength she could to push me down onto the bed. "You're driving me crazy...those jeans should be a lot more loose than they are!"
 
Smirking, I made her try to eat her words. "Hey, I can't help it, I love tight jeans. Unless..." then in my best little-girl voice. "...you want them loose for another purpose?"
 
She bit her lip, trying to hold back the urge to hasten things further. "You haven't been talking to Louise, have you?" I shook my head no as she rolled me onto the bed and became the one on top.
 
"I love having an overactive imagination, blame that." With the new positioning, my eyes had a new viewpoint of my girlfriend which worked to fire me up further. Paris was above me, and the loose camisole dangled down clumsily, those two straps holding it to her shoulders not doing much to keep it reined in. God, it took all I had to keep my full focus on her face, filled with desire. Still I looked, and though my hands were nowhere near her chest, I felt like a glance gave me a mental feel for her physical topography that was quite good enough for me.
 
Oh man, I wanted her...my mind was wandering off the holding off path, and towards bringing things further. My hands were now at her sides, just above the top, and we were brought closer together into a kiss that was just full of so much want. I felt so much for her, my heart feeling so close to the blonde girl from all the talking and physical emotions we've shared over the last month. That we're at this point is such a small personal victory for me, and my mind is so confident of things going well, that nothing can stop us now. That I wanted more, even though it didn't seem to be time yet, and that Paris was also going in that direction.
 
Yes, I was confident, cavalier, and might I say, though it's a term girls rarely use with each other...cocky that I was going to get my way and move things further.
 
But as Paris pushed her leg closer, about to ask my permission to take things to second base territory, I head some background noise that I attributed to the boiler downstairs, ignoring it and continuing on. The sounds pick up, but I'm too buried in my lust to acknowledge it, Paris' breath shielding it as she pushes closer within my grasp and I feel like I start to lose control of my emotions.
 
The overload, her above me, her sexual want coursing through me...it was just building so much. I was never at this point before in a relationship, but to feel the power, the want between us, how much both of us were just beholden to each other rather than anyone else, I wasn't thinking of anything else, much less anyone else.
 
Nothing is stopping me, I thought as I looked up at that blonde and my mind blinded to everything else, I was about to give the signal to take things further, softly stating I wanted more...
 
The noise then picked up, and before I knew it, I found my eyes shifting over as I heard my mom walk into the kitchen, and then the worst possible fears that I had start to make themselves known. All of a sudden my heart tightened, I was kissing Paris deeply, and she was in the most undeniable position possible as I watched in shock, the doorknob twisting, and then the door as it opened.
 
Oh my God, was the only thought in my mind as I heard Lorelai say something vague about Paris being here and if we wanted pizza, and then I moved my attention towards her as Paris continued to kiss me, for a moment unaware that the worst way we could possibly come out was beginning to occur. I was pale white, my eyes meeting Mom's as she tried to finish her sentence.
 
Paris then turned around, hearing Mom's voice and pushing me to the bed in what seemed to be a protective move. Both of us looked at her, and within my grasp I could feel Paris' pulse speed up, her heartbeat seeming to get a scared push as she realized Rory's mom is here...in the room...I'm kissing her and it looks like much worse.
 
That time I got home after the Formal at 5am to my mom railing against me ever being with Dean again? Quickly forgotten as the most mortifying moment of my life, that was small potatoes compared to seeing Paris atop of me. She repeated the 'Oh my God', staying still in front of the door as Paris didn't do anything for a reaction. Like a deer in the highlights, her emotions were stunted, and as I scooted myself out from under her, Lorelai and her stared at each other, both of them trying to figure out what to do next.
 
Surprisingly, Paris didn't run away, or lose her emotions like she does when in a situation like this, she stayed calm and even, not denying what was happening between us, but not incriminating herself further.
 
However, Mom was a different story, immediately going with an off-color crack that we were...sating our hunger as it were, I'm not going to say it! I still had Paris' taste in my mouth and I wasn't thinking straight, but still I was offended by how she tried to dismiss the seriousness of the situation with such a joke. I had to find out why she was home early. I wasn't expecting her for another hour.
 
Of course she hired a cleaning crew after everything overwhelmed the Inn staff, I should've known that from all the damned rice and confetti thrown in the ballroom over the last two days! Seriously, newlyweds should look into laser shows, they're much more fun, cheaper and better for the environment!
 
I wasn't prepared for what was next, Mom giving Paris a 'big hello'. What? Huh? Why is my mom talking to Paris that way, I couldn't understand why at all. I thought she was crazy.
 
Then my attention drifted down Paris' shoulder, where instead of a strap, there was nothing but flesh. And as I propped myself back up on the bed, I could see her side in profile...
 
...Then remember that in the rush to heat things up, I had pushed down that strap and then with my blood-dizzied mind clouded, brushed my hand along her side, eliciting a moan from her as my palm brushed across her right breast, then over her nipple. I hadn't even looked at it at all, the stimulation of touch all that was needed for me to be turned on. She didn't say a word and I didn't worry about it, at least until the moment I had to watch in embarrassment as my mother tried to clue in Par that she was showing off.
 
Mind you while all of this is happening, where I should feel so mortified about being caught, instead my mind is lusting for more contact with Paris and I'm turned on by being discovered mid-kiss by Lorelai, my breasts swelling and tight, along with dampness between my legs. No way I'm letting anyone know this, so I tried to block the thoughts out that Paris in my bedroom at that moment, caught in the moment, human and vulnerable, looked beautiful in my eyes. Especially with her shirt down, my gaze wavering from full attention and occasionally glancing down towards that profile view of her exposed breast, tender and soft and so close to me.
 
Yet I was shaking as my mom's voice took on a tone not really used all that much. Her sarcasm was on high alert and she tried to her best to hide behind her words how she really was feeling, going with vague statements and tossing Paris my robe to cover her modesty.
 
Disappointment. That word describes how she looked as I held Paris' hand, trying to explain to my mom what's happened with Paris and I without inflaming emotions. My words were small and simple. I looked at Paris as she asked how in the heck we ended up together, instead of a guy of hers or someone she'd accept. I had to hold back how I felt, going with neutrality so Paris wouldn't be attacked. Just the way her body was and the way she was looking at Lorelai with so much fear, this was a different girl...she was scared for her life, unable to say anything to defend herself.
 
Almost like her mom taught her to be defensive when it came to her academics, but when it came to real life, she was supposed to cower and comply, no matter what her heart screamed. Paris, instead of coming out right away to say she was my girl and she would fight for me, she wanted to leave, flee away as Lorelai asked for an explanation for why she was on top of me in an intimate way.
 
She's denying herself happiness, I thought, watching her try to gather herself together, ready to flee my house before Mom could get an explanation. I knew it was probably a minimizing move designed to keep me out of trouble, to deny our relationship.
 
There's nothing to deny though, I like Paris, period. I like her as my girlfriend, and there's nothing, not even Mom's past, that can change that fact. I'm prepared to fight for her, and at that moment, training was over. There was no way I could keep a secret anymore, especially about someone that I felt so strongly about.
 
The ring is in the middle of Yankee Stadium, and the bell for the first round just went off. Time to fight for my love.
 
I grasped Paris by the wrist, and threw a 'honey' right at her to stun her still, you couldn't get a more perfect term of affection than that in order to come out. Then I just said it like I was in an impromptu debate towards my mom; Paris is my girlfriend and I'm not going to deny it anymore in front of Lorelai.
 
The word struck my mom unexpectedly, the way I said it not at all in the realm of the Ellen/Big Pete definition. She repeated the word, trying to confirm it true.
 
"For the last two weeks, one day, and four hours, that's what she's been to me." I threw back the time we've spent so far together, and that just stunned both women; Paris with how much I was sticking to this, Mom shocked as hell that I was being so cavalier. Repeating her timeline of the Sunday two weeks before, she was stunned to think that the dance marathon was just foreplay to sealing the relationship deal.
 
It led her to Dean of course, and wondering why I wasn't with him anymore. How I was so calm, I don't know, but I explained how things were going downhill on a fast clip since my arrival into Bradley in early August.
 
"It's built over the months, the attraction to her, and it became so overwhelming, an obsession to know how she really felt for me. It started out as just a thought, and then...it just grew larger, until we got into that room together. Seeing her every day as just herself rather than the Gellarbot 5.0 (another one of her dumb Paris nicknames), it got to me, and eventually that friendliness I had for her grew into a strong attraction." I felt like I was defending Paris to the fullest, but I hope she was finding it heartening for me to keep her from attacks by my mother.
 
I felt my voice waver with each answer to her question, trying to wear me out from what I was thinking and seeing things her way. What got to me so much though is that Mom wasn't comfortable using 'the word'. She tried to dance her way around it with vague terms, thinking by not vocalizing it, she could avoid me confessing to be one.
 
Christ, I'm a lesbian, mom, just fucking say it. Les-bi-an, L-E-S-B-I-A-N...oh God, don't even think I'm bisexual! My inner monologue listened to Mom talk, and I was seething because she wouldn't bite on the term. She sees things in black and white, or in her viewpoint, pink and purple, as it were, too broadly and never touching her. Her pregnancy all these years later might be something she laughs about often, but those first years of my life were tough, and they still are. Glossing over the issue doesn't make it that much easier; terms like 'girl-liker' and 'lady friend' still taste the same as lesbian and gay.
 
Finally I just said it, not wanting to be categorized by it, but not denying the fact I'm a lesbian. No need to dance around it, my mom needs honesty, I'm going to give it to her, no matter what. The worst has happened and all I could hope for was that she wouldn't take drastic steps against me. My emotions started to be lost as I described in frank terms how much Paris meant to me, that her unique personality drew me in, and that no matter how much I fought the feelings, no matter what I did to deny myself, it led me to one thing, that I was hot for the bitter little rich girl sitting next to me in that bed right now. There wasn't anything Lorelai could do about it, and for once I wasn't going to sit down, shut up, and do whatever she wanted me to do.
 
I swear to God I meant that, I was willing to give up Harvard, my home, my community, everything for Paris. Mom wasn't going to win, deny me, do anything to jeopardize what we had. My words made that clear, and it stunned Lorelai silent as she tried to attack on another front.
 
I tightened my grip of Paris' hand, cluing her in that since attacking me hadn't worked, she'd make Paris lose her temper and prove that my heart didn't belong to her. That she was a control freak only thinking of those four numbers making up her GPA, that she didn't have a heart. When my mom gets mad, she gets mad, and I know what she attacks first with her verbal skills. Paris' character was about to get taken down undeservingly to try to end this situation.
 
Her blue eyes were intense with anger as her teeth clenched, and she got into a defensive position, pointing right away at my girl and slinging an accusation worthy of Boston Public but definitely not Chilton Prep, that she wanted in my pants to distract me from my assignments, a way to get that gold sash around her neck on graduation day proclaiming her top of the class.
 
Like she'd ever do that! Remembering that she lost her drive after her County Day competitor dumbed himself down, I knew right away it wasn't Paris. Yes, she used affairs of the heart to throw me off when it came to Tristan, but never for grade points, only for activity positions. Paris would never stoop that low to get her revenge on me, and she's regretted everything she's done to me in non-love matters, especially the Max thing and the fight over the non-existent PJ Harvey date.
 
Paris tried to defend herself, but Lorelai has better skills in ad-lib debate, moving her focus towards me and trying to turn it around as not in my best interest. Sorry, this isn't children's court anymore, I take my best interest! Mom wasn't going to win if I had anything to do with it. Firm as I could, I shut her up, and then showed why I considered public speaking one of my most important subjects.
 
"Why should I listen, Rory? There's nothing that's going to change my mind about this. She's using you. Paris is a wolf in sheep's clothing, don't you know her character?"
 
"I'd like to think so, I kiss the girl every damned day!" I gritted out. "How the hell do you think you can say you know her, Mom? Can you really say that when you've seen her in the last two years, what, nineteen hours combined? I mean God, I spend at least ten hours a day with her, five days a week, it never changes, and then spent almost 24/7 with her between June and August, in a small little dorm room with a crappy AC and a lovely view of what is truly the dullest federal building in all of the District of Columbia! She's a soap junkie, she could tell you every plot development from The Guiding Light since June of 1989, her hair color preference is Clairol, she can't go to bed without a glass of apple juice at her bedside. Her favorite cartoon is Garfield because of how it makes fun of the dumbing down of television yet throws in educational lessons subtly. She prefers her news via the internet or C-SPAN, she just wants facts, not talking heads."
 
I continued on, trying to prove that Paris was scared to go into this in the first place. "She's also such an introvert she didn't realize she had a date until two minutes later, and then when she did, it was panic city for her! She went out with this guy Jamie, nice boy, Princeton man, high GPA, dreams of taking a high profile job with a think tank when he's out. All I could think though, while she was out, was how jealous I was of that guy, how I hoped the date was a miserable failure. When she said it was, I was giddy and that's when I knew that I had a chance at her." Of course this startled Paris, but I knew she was glad that Jamie and she didn't work.
 
"Moment I get home and I see Dean, I'm already bored with him. He didn't read any of my books over the summer and the first thing he shows me is some El Camino he and Todd rebuilt over the summer, like I'm impressed by an ugly car with a truck bed in the back! I tell him I miss him and want to spend time alone...'Rory, my sister's home, she'll be able to hear.' So go to my house....'What if your mom walks in?' That may have been cute two years ago, but I want more, I want someone interesting..." I dart my gaze towards Paris. "I want her, and there wasn't a thought in my mind telling me that it could be wrong. If she thought of me that way, she wasn't going to say a word because Sharon makes Grandma look like mother of the year. I know Par, she was scared to even bring it up. Worse, the way I am, the way I've been raised, it placed a shield in front of me that her being interested in me should never be revealed."
 
I then confessed that it was all me. "She did nothing but respond in kind, Mom, that's all she did. It took me three months and so much to get her to know how I felt about her, and if she was the same, that I wasn't going to run away from her. I didn't have one second thought about how Dean would feel because there wasn't anything there anymore, all I felt was for her, nothing else mattered. I got involved in gym for one day just to share close contact with her, it was shallow but I attained my goal. We've shared a hate for War & Peace that gets us both riled up, and to be next to her in class makes things in it so much easier to stomach. She did nothing but have a crush on me; Paris was too scared to act on her feelings, so to hear from me after the dance marathon that I like her too, it was a validation of what we both share, that even though we didn't do much except hidden flirting and subtle touches, there was something there to explore." My voice was now strong and unyielding, Mom knowing that if she'd interrupt I'd just hammer down her newest futile point.
 
Settling myself down, I knew I had to finish strong. "Look, I know this is a surprise to you, that you're feeling so off, that you don't know what to say, Mom, and I'm sorry about all of this. But it was hard for me to come to terms that I like Paris, and I wanted to kiss her, maybe more. This can't be easy for you, but it certainly isn't for me, nor is it for her." I looked up at my mom, playing with Paris' hand as I tried to make her sympathize with the both of us. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you to begin with or ask what you thought about the idea of this. But I was scared, and I knew you'd have misgivings about Paris being my crush."
 
"I'm not objecting to it," she said, her voice tight with hidden anger. "Kiddo, I'm just trying to figure out why Paris? Why a girl?"
 
"Because you can't help who you're attracted to." I looked up at her, struggling to put what I felt into words. "I can't explain it, it's just...right." Then with all the reserve I had, I decided to make it all the more real for Mom to picture. "Last week, she took me up to Massachusetts, and just hearing about all she did to plan what she thought was the perfect date and how excited she was to bring me out, it heartened me. She put so much into everything, and though there were some parts that didn't work, we both had fun, and we just talked and talked all through it, both of us talking about things we were both interested in, there wasn't a boring moment. Paris treated me good, and we found plenty of time to build things up further. I mean, she might look like she's firm and unwavering, but she's really a softie." I stared crying. "She wanted the night to be special, and it really was, Mom, honestly; I felt so much more after it, that she's much more for me than just being that thorn in my side. She was so sweet, and I wish you'd see that side that I do. she isn't just who I ranted to you about over the last couple years now. Paris is wonderful, and I'm not going to give her up easily, and I mean that."
 
Paris brought her gaze towards mine, and our eyes met as Mom watched us. Her emotions were even, and much calmer than moments before, her face taking on a serene look, mouth with a little smile, and her eyes slitted. It was if she was trying to tell me without words. 'Thank you for being my girlfriend. I feel more confident about this.' She didn't say anything, only squeezing my hand as Mom paced a small part of the room, trying to gather her thoughts.
 
"Mom," I noted softly. "I'm still your daughter, your Rory, nothing has changed about me at all. I'm just even more multifaceted abnormal that previously thought." That past description of me would hopefully clear her mind and make it easier to understand. I'm still that same girl with Harvard dreams and wishes for a correspondence in Tel Aviv, and the dream of going to Fez one day. Nothing has changed except who has my heart.
 
After what seemed to be an indeterminate pause, Mom finally asked to speak to me alone, theorizing that she could learn more about us separate than together, that we would focus on ourselves in conversations rather than speak in one voice, as a couple. That, and hiding my lesbian crush for at least a few months was something she had to get to the bottom of. I could just hope that things were calm and even, that I wasn't about to be shipped on a bus up to Boston for Dad to take care of me...
 
Don't even bring your mind to worst case!! My conscience chimed in. She just has to see things your way, you're her world. Right now her world might be thrown off, but she'll balance things out slowly, just stay calm, hope for the best and don't let any kind of anger she has get to you, it's not personal. Yeah, thinking positive had to be the way to go into this as I got up from my bed, pulling my hand from Paris at the last possible moment as she watched, white with fear as we were pulled apart for talks in separate rooms, hopeful she'd be leaving this house still with me, and not with word I was reenrolled at Stars Hollow High effective immediately.
 
Both of us were scared, fearful for the worst, but I could see with Paris that she was also hoping for the best. As I left my bedroom, watching Paris try to get her camisole strap back up, I thought about how much I was starting to love her, that after two weeks the butterflies were still there, and I wouldn't know what to do if I would lose her.
 
I hope you know no matter what happens, that I love you, Paris. I'm not ready to tell that to you out loud, but you need to know that, even if it's only in my mind. Don't lose faith in how much trust I have with you. I looked at her one last time heading into the kitchen, then turned around, already feeling an emptiness from not looking at her.
 
In the living room, I sat down on the couch, draping the throw blanket over me, and wishing that Mom would only have a fast talk with me and understand where I was coming from.
 
But unlike the Donna Reed Show, something like my coming out of the closet couldn't be dealt with in a four-minute scene within Act Three...

Mom sat down on the chair across from me, still wearing her power suit from work, and she looked unsure for the first time since she debated whether to accept Mr. Medina's flower-filled proposal or not. And there I was in front of her, feeling like complete scum for hiding my sexuality from her view, worse than coming back from Brooklyn after the trip to see Jess. We were mother and daughter together, but we might as well have been on different sides of the ocean. She was still filled with the shock of catching Paris, and my mind was still filled with that 'what the fuck' stare with the girl's weight on top of me.
 
How can my mom be so calm like this, to talk things over instead of tossing around vases and dishware? I can't understand why she's not going off on me about something I now know I shouldn't have done. It doesn't matter that I'm eighteen, for I'm still under her roof with her own rules, what few of them there were.
 
What do you do, however, when the rule is 'No unsupervised girls in your bedroom', and you never even considered it for your book? That had to be what my mom was thinking.
 
I have to admit to myself that I never fully considered what would happen when the coming out moment happened with Mom. I had an idea, which I shared with Paris, but it was probably something sugar-coated and more optimistic than reality. I know my mom, and when it comes to relationships of the same sexes in her life, her reaction has been somewhat acceptance, yet with some reservations. For example, Michel keeps his life purposefully ambiguous, but she still makes the occasional 'You have a hot guy tonight, don't you Frenchie?' joke his way, which he's never responded to. The night manager of the Inn, Tobin, is fully out and she's never really said anything about him, except he seems to regard some of the...let's say 'cuter men' with wake-up calls that have more energy to them than usual.
 
Let's not even get into how she regards media; she's completely shallow on that front. Two hot guys intimate and she's giggling like a schoolgirl over it. But a normal couple, there's times where she can be a bit offensive. She also makes fun of girl-on-girl kissing in movies sometimes, and though she accepts lesbian couples with open arms on the outside and has never used any gay slurs, I get the sense she's not as comfortable with it, judging from her turning her head at kissing scenes in movies.
 
I haven't been able to see her real reaction to a regular lesbian couple, as we only have three in the entire town, along with some single girls, and they usually regard the town more as a bedroom community than their town, they've moved out here for the sole reason of having a refuge from real life prejudices. I've never brought up the question at all when we talk (because asking that to my mom? Yuck!), so this is a whole new world for her. I sit across from her, feeling somewhat ashamed for hiding everything from her. She eyes me up, my arms crossed across my chest, my hair still mussed up from what just happened. There's also a dull ache in my stomach, arising from a combination of lust still within me, and the anxiety of Mom about to yell at me.
 
There was also a fear that she was going to get out the Chilton directory, hand over the phone, and ask me to call Sharon over so I could let her know I was making out with her daughter, and also happened to be her girlfriend. I had to stay strong, however; there wasn't any room to cry and break down. I had to explain things calmly, rationally, make her see it as a normal point of view, that this wasn't anyone's decision but mine.
 
It was odd to watch her speechless, trying to come up with a good opening line to start things off. This was a blindside to her from what it seemed, the very idea that I would be gay unexpected.
 
Finally, she got things started on a nervous note. "So...Paris." She sighed, trying to make sure it was real. "Paris Gellar."
 
I nodded silently.
 
"Miss 'I'll make this school a living hell for you'...you were kissing her, in your bedroom."

"Yes." I was feeling petrified with my one word answers. For once, my mother, the champion of speed talking couldn't find the words to respond or argue. She sat there for a minute in the chair, trying to figure out where to go with her mom talk. She wasn't ever expecting this, I could tell. Springing a pregnancy on her, that I know she'd be ready for, but this was never a possibility. I could see it, that she never had thought I could be a lesbian, because I didn't have the 'warning signs' most media tell parents to look out for. I had some popularity at school, was outgoing in the community, and I sure wasn't developing a secret want for flannel shirts or rambling folk music. Not that those things are bad, mind you, I respect them both, but I feel fine in my current skin.
 
"I can't believe it, you and Paris." She shook her head. "I thought you were going to be with Dean for years and years, and all of the sudden, you're here telling me that you've fallen for someone who doesn't have something that Dean has."
 
"I was going to tell you--" quickly, I was interrupted.
 
"When Rory, why would you hide this from me?" Lorelai was stressed, her voice showing that. "Kiddo, I thought we could tell each other everything, from crushes to shoe sizes, you know we've always had an open thing going on here."
 
"We were going to have a movie night in two weeks and reveal ourselves then," I confessed, trying to hold it off. "I just wanted you to be in a position where we were all comfortable, not...well, catching her on my bed."
 
With that, she twisted the knife of trust a bit deep, "Something you would've never done with Dean. I mean he was the perfect gentleman. You two are barely out of week two and already you're heading towards second base. Is there something missing here?"
 
"Dean and Paris are two different people, Mom," I noted, "he wouldn't have done that because as you said, he was a gentleman. This has nothing to do with how I fast I want things to go."
 
"I just don't want you to be seeing her for the wrong reasons," Mom argued, "you shouldn't be using her to circumvent--"
 
Damn it, she was trying to assert the 'lesbian to get some' excuse with me; I couldn't let her do that! "Circumvent what?" I said through clenched teeth. "Oh my God, you can't seriously believe my wanting a girl is an excuse to get some without...you know, I'm not trying to do that."
 
"I know, I know," she panicked, "I just have to completely rule it out, there's no need to panic. I'm not saying you're that way, but...God." She stopped for a moment, trying to focus her thoughts on what she needed to. "I definitely need to bring my mother's intuition in for a check up though. I thought you and Paris were getting closer and there were things I noticed, but I ruled them out right away."

"What are you talking about? " How could she notice, I left no bread crumbs behind to suggest to her earlier that we were a couple. "I thought...I thought you didn't know anything about us."
 
"Rory, I'm your mother, it's within me to worry about everything, no matter how small or trivial." She smiled at me. "I noticed how odd it was that you broke up with Dean this time. First time it was over him saying 'I love you', and this time Jess helping you with Dwight's garden is worse than that?"
 
I tried to defend myself. "He was jealous about me being Jess's friend."
 
"He always was, kiddo, even with Jess hooking up with Mustang Sally; you knew that, I knew that, Luke knew that, it was an established fact. Lame criteria to break up with him compared to him jealous over the basket auction and almost knocking him out last winter."
 
Thinking about it, I knew no matter what I did, she was right. It was a bad standard to consider something small like that a breakup-able offense. Then again there was still plenty of ammunition to the fire.
 
However, it would reveal things I tried to usually keep hidden, ashamed to even assert control over my sexuality. Hesitating, I stared at her, trying to find the perfect way to phrase things, while at the same time thinking of a way to say it without asserting the reason I became a lesbian was solely out of sexual frustration.
 
"It just wasn't that," I said softly. "Far from his jealousy or anything that he caused, there was more."
 
"Like what?"
 
"To put it simply, Mom...he was a gentleman." How very Scarlet of me to phrase it that way. Bemused, she couldn't wrap herself around the hidden meaning, so I filled in the blank. "Look, he was good, kind, perfect, that wasn't the problem. The major thing for me was we were at a standstill in other..." I stuck out my tongue and tried to say it innocently. "...certain areas."

Did that get her a little shocked. "Oh geeze, you don't mean..."
 
"I don't mean that far, really," I disclaimed. "But I just mean in the usual 'making out like teenagers' kind of way." I then explained to her that Dean was fine, but to go through a change in my mind as far as sexuality had me curious to do things at seventeen that I would eschew a year before, heavy petting, deep kissing, groping and the like. How Dean didn't get the clues and would argue with me that it wasn't time to go that far, that he wouldn't ruin our relationship just to do something like ask how he dreams about me, and how he never bit. Last year as my feelings for Paris came to light, to block them out I tried to amplify how dirty I thought of my boyfriend to overwhelm them. I didn't use colorful language, keeping everything neutral, but I admitted going into my room sometimes, trying to call him on the cell or get him over IM to fuel my imaginary fire. I'd start a conversation with a hard flirt, and after twenty minutes of futility and his thoughts that he had a log program placed on his computer (are you kidding, his parents don't even know how to write a Word document!), I'd end it and go back to being innocent, my sexual needs bottled up for a long time. All the making out over the months ended at the bra line, never higher. That I tried to see myself with Jess as a panacea with my needs, but right after that play kiss, the first time I saw Paris without Tristan, her longtime ball and chain, that she was relaxed and more easygoing with the one thing keeping us from true friendship so, so many miles away and not to come back.

Where I thought it was going to be hard to explain everything about my attraction to Paris, the words came very easily in reality. "I found it abnormal to think of her that way at first, and I wasn't going to say anything about it at all, because what if it was just a silly phase for me?" Mom nodded. "But these thoughts, they wouldn't stay dormant and let me be who I thought I was. Once I saw past her persona, I started to see her as much more than she presents herself as, that underneath her hard demeanor, she's kind, willing to help, if not with homework of course, to make someone else's life better. I look at her, just another girl obsessed with grades, and started to see beyond that, her drive being one of the things that I admire, and that I wanted to replicate within myself." Brushing a stray hair, I continue on. "She's passionate and devoted to everything, and I saw that in every day of debate prep we did, and then the actual competition which I'd watch her at the lectern, and her eyes never even wandered down to her script. We competed in Bridgeport and she was asked by a stage manager for the competing school if she'd like her script fed into teleprompter display software." Like a fangirl for her, I sighed. "She turned him down and compared their team to the Today show. 'I'm no fucking Katie Couric; you see me perky and teethy? No? I thought not. Your team members might have aspirations of taking over for Chuck Scarborough at WNBC, but if you expect me to read my speech off an idiot box, you're dead wrong. We'll read it from heart, and we will win, end of argument.'"
 
"You both won that, right?"
 
I rolled my eyes. "Cleaned the floor with them." Of course, that was just a small step to realize Paris=cute. It took someone else to make me realize who I wanted.
 
Yes, the day Dad and Sherrie watched our debate with Hillside, that's when it all changed, and I can pinpoint the exact moment my feelings for Paris went from friendly to sexual. When I turned her down to celebrate the victory due to having to get to know Dad's new girlfriend, watching her walk down the hall, furious in anger as she whipped down the corridor upset that she was denied my company for the evening. The way she asked me, the hope she had, how it was crushed by the reality of my situation.
 
"Instead of being annoyed by Paris though, I was more annoyed by Sherrie," I admitted. "I was looking forward to celebrating a well-earned win, and as I watched her whip down that hallway, that's when I realized something, that I was feeling more than empathy for her." I stared at my hands as I admitted to Mom how I really felt. "I was turned on by her anger."
 
"Turned on? By Paris throwing a hissy fit?" I nodded. "Usually the caveman act has you running."
 
"Not this time, I was thinking about her all night, getting to know Sherrie was the last thing on my mind--" That's when I got the held up hand from mom, the TMI signal to stop things before I got into the freaky territory.
 
"OK, I'm just going to assume things I don't need to hear about happened after that." All I did to answer her assumption was nod my head, because there was no way she had to find out more than that...no need to share my fantasy life.
 
From there, things turned serious as we got to May and how I was trying to shield myself from the conflicted feelings I had for my classmate, that I shouldn't feel the way I do. Admitting to Lorelai that I knew Jess took my Dean bracelet and that it was the easiest assumption that I could make, and that I really didn't feel like it was a big deal, that her and Dean pushed me into a panic to search around for it all over. I couldn't understand how I was drawing more into Paris' words as our study hours started to add up, that I was looking at her physical features more, finding them much to my liking. Hiding all that behind the wall that was my 'crush' on Jess, my last-chance gasp at trying to confirm my attraction to the opposite sex.
 
Explaining as I asked her not to interrupt (I was feeling emotional and didn't want to lose focus and then fall into a crying jag), how I felt touched to be her VP candidate and that I wanted to make up the lost time our friendship lost over our first summer. Her devotion got to me, the little things she did and said, that she didn't want to lose, she would do anything good for someone's vote. After a while the speech I gave fellow students to make it known Paris was the best candidate was no longer hollow, that the words started to have meaning.

We then come to the day of the wedding, minutes after I kiss Jess, which doesn't surprise my mom as I admit to it ("I had a feeling," she confided). After hearing from her that Dad wasn't going to be back with her and I told her I was going to DC, sitting near the pond, watching the water. My mind is shocked to find nothing sparked when I kissed Jess on impulse. All I could hear instead, is that beautiful female voice in my ears, saying she had the election sealed, and that I should be ready to leave for a Capital Summer.
 
Nothing I could feel at all with Jess. Instead, I think of myself next to Paris as the results are read to confirm the election, and how triumphant we feel hearing the results in our favor. We smile at each other, and then before I can take it back, my imagination has Paris and I, eye to eye, looking at each other. "Thank you, Rory," she says, as she brings herself near me. "You're welcome," I say back...
 
And then she kisses me, the exact way Jess did minutes before. Except this time, I feel this dream buss more physically and spiritually, it's so much more powerful. It's only a dream, something I think would never happen. Her soft hair in my hands, her hands on the small of my back. Just like Jess.
 
Except it was Paris, someone I shouldn't have felt that way about. I explained my insecurities over the summer and fall about developing my attraction for her, how having her only six feet away and listening to her sleep talking dreams and found them cute instead of earplug-worthy, that being with her only for two months, away from the distractions of the boys and Stars Hollow made it easier for me to determine that pursuing something with her was for the best.
 
"What if she would've gone out with a boy, would you have accepted it?" Mom wondered. That got me laughing as I remembered back to Jamie and all that happened with him.
 
"She did and all I wanted to do was hope he made her pay for a dinner at McDonald's," I joked. "But I could tell she was going through the motions with that guy, she didn't even feel any kind of attraction to him really. He was nice and that was appealing, but she never was looking for a relationship with him, and I was so thankful the date didn't work out. She didn't even know she had a date with him until I made it clear to her." That memory made me gleeful that I was the only one whom she really got excited about datewise.
 
"So you pretty much used that guy as a guidepoint about how to go further with her?" Mom was starting to calm down and understand everything and see that that this wasn't inspired by some random thought or a sociology experiment where we tried to understand what was behind the mind of the stars of Girls Gone Wild commercials.
 
"It really helped me out and told me that I just might have a chance to just maybe get to her. I knew it was risky and if I didn't approach things just right, friendship between us would never be an option again." I frowned, sighing. "But I had to try, I have to take risks, like I did when I went to Chilton in the first place. If I wouldn't have done it, I would go the rest of my life wondering what might have been."
 
I was truthful about everything, being vocal about how I wanted Paris and all I did on purpose the last three months to assure that she would be mine. Going on and on about her, surprising Lorelai with all the little things she didn't know about Par, how much her crap mother had almost insured she would forever be a loner, it was all laid out there on the table, bare. I was still scared of the small possibility that I'd be forced to break up with her, but my fears started to melt away as I continued on and made sure that it was known I was gay for the right reasons, not to get a good grade by distracting her or silly experimentation, that this was serious. I didn't even make any jokes or witty remarks, not feeling it the right time to regard anything between us as a joke yet.
 
A half-hour later, and with everything out in the open (including the fact Miss Patty knew), I had bared my heart out to my mom, who listened to why I was with Paris seriously. She made the occasional 'Ice Queen' remark, but I stopped her each time. All I could hope for is that she was happy for me, no matter who I loved. I was on that couch, my mouth dried from explanations, my stomach in a knot from so much nervousness. Downcast, I tried not to think the worst, but had it in mind just in case. We looked at each other firmly, as I felt like a disappointment, while Mom was searching for where her 'little Rory' went all of the sudden. Her jacket was opened, and she was thinking about everything that I just said.
 
Please don't hate me Mom, I monologue, I never meant to hurt you, but I just want to be happy. I like her, and she likes me, we've had fun together and we both work well mutually. I know you're not a bigot, and I just want you to feel that Paris is a good woman, she's not going to break my heart or abuse my trust, I know it, she's not going to be possessive over me. She stayed silent for a moment, looking me over, and I saw realization in Mom's eyes.
 
That I had crossed a threshold in my life. Instead of doing what was expected by the town, her, and my grandparents, I had gone on my own, proving that with my turning eighteen a month ago, I can be strong, think for myself, and fall for who I wanted to. Pressure wasn't going to stop me from keeping what I wanted.
 
But I knew she had her fears, too. "Are you sure you're prepared for this, kiddo?"

"Mom, I know what I'm doing," I said conf