This piece contains subject matter that may make some people uncomfortable. If you are easily disturbed or offended by the actions of fictional characters, please read no further!
This story takes place during "Is It Fall Yet?"
Allison opened the door to her room and was pleasantly surprised. Jane Lane was sitting on the floor, leafing through her portfolio of pastels. When Jane noticed her walk in, she looked up guiltily and closed the book.
"Hi, Jane," Allison said.
"Uh, hi," Jane said, standing up, "I hope you don't mind I let myself in."
"Not at all. To what do I owe the pleasure?" Allison walked up to Jane, genuinely curious. After their last encounter in her room, she honestly didn't expect Jane to ever come back in here.
Jane looked around nervously, not really meeting Allison's eyes. "Um, well, like I said before, I was thinking about what you said. About you not hitting on straight girls."
"I know, but there's a first time for everything, right?" Allison said amicably.
"Yeah, there is always a first time, isn't there?" Jane said sheepishly.
Allison's eyes widened as she smirked. Was Jane saying what she thought she was saying? "Does this have anything to do with that girl who spent the night in your room?"
"Sort of."
"Should I be jealous?" Allison couldn't resist the question. She knew Jane disapproved of her going out with Daniel.
"Of course not," Jane said quickly. Looking away from Allison, she added, "I mean, Daria is straight. But without meaning to, she did make me realize a few things about myself while she was here."
"Oh, really," Allison said, interested, "and are these the same things I tried to get you to realize?"
"Kinda. Yeah," Jane replied in a small voice.
"Great," Allison said, delighted. She reached out a hand, and Jane backed away from it as if she had received an electric shock.
Jane looked down, ashamed. "Sorry," she mumbled.
"Hey, it's okay," Allison said, retracting her arm. "You've never been with a girl before, right? It's natural for you to be nervous."
"Thanks," Jane said, looking back up with a slight smile. "Um, I was wondering, um, just because this is so new and all..."
"We can go as slow as you want, Jane. Anything you like."
"Good... um, good," Jane said, obviously working up her courage. "Would you... would you pose for me?"
Allison blinked in surprise, but grinned broadly. "Sure," she readily agreed. "I suppose by "pose", you mean..." Instead of finishing her sentence, she hooked a finger under her tank top and pulled it down off one shoulder.
"Yeah," Jane said timidly, looking down at the floor again. "Do you have any wine?" she asked quickly, turning around.
"Yeah. There's a bottle on the shelf right there." Allison would have pointed at the shelf, but due to Jane's cute timidness, she was now facing it. "Help yourself"
"Thanks," Jane said, busying herself with the bottle and glass. When she turned back around, she could only stare.
Allison was now standing there completely naked.
Allison put her hands behind her back and leaned forward slightly. "So," she said, using her most sultry voice, "how do you want me?"
Jane gulped, and took a large swig from her glass. "Uh...," she finally managed to say.
"To pose, Jane," Allison finished, amused at her double entendre. "Where would you like me to sit?"
"Oh," Jane almost exclaimed. Setting her glass down, she grabbed Allison by the hand and led her across the room. Several cushions were laying on the floor, pushed together to form a small bed of sorts.
The sudden physical contact did not pass unnoticed by Allison. Bowing to wisdom, she chose not to comment, and instead observed the area Jane had set up. Jane had apparently been a little busy while Allison was out. The floor was free of clutter around the cushions, which had been set up underneath the largest window to provide lighting. All in all, Allison approved of Jane's artistic sense.
"Just lay down, here," Jane said, guiding Allison down onto the cushions.
"Yuck, this cushion is all moist," Allison exclaimed, nearly jerking up out of Jane's hands.
"I know how it feels," Jane whispered into Allison's ear. "Now, don't move," Jane said, getting up and walking to a nearby stool.
Allison was a statue. The artist's mantra to the model was completely unnecessary at the art colony, but Allison wasn't about to admonish Jane. She was absolutely thrilled at this development, and didn't want to risk anything that might ruin the moment again. She privately vowed to improve her housekeeping, but she really didn't care what she was lying on. She was looking forward to a mutual shower afterwards.
Jane pulled the stool over to the middle of the floor, right by the crumpled heap that was Allison's recent outfit. After taking another big drink from her wine glass, she perched on the stool with a pad and pencil and started sketching.
"Hey, can I get some of that?" Allison asked, referring to the wine.
"Sure," Jane said, looking up from the pad. She got up and went back over to the shelf. "I already poured you one. Here." Jane brought the glass over and set it next to the cushions. Before resuming her seat on the stool, she stopped to refill her own glass.
Allison was smiling as she took a sip of the Merlot, but inside she was grinning from ear to ear. Jane was trying to get herself tipsy in order to go through with this, but it was all a control issue. Jane wanted to be in charge. That was fine with Allison. She didn't care who was on top, so long as two people were involved.
"What was it like," Jane asked, resuming her sketching, "um, what was your first time like?"
Allison wasn't surprised by the question. "You mean, what was my first time like with a girl?"
Jane nodded without looking up.
"It was a lot of fun." Jane was probably looking for more details, but it was an honest answer.
"Yeah, but," Jane paused, trying to form the question, "how did you decide you wanted to?"
"How does sex ever happen, Jane? One thing led to another, we realized we desired each other, and we had sex."
Jane sketched for a few minutes without saying anything. "I know you're bi," she said finally, "but when you were having sex with her, did you, I don't know, feel gay?"
Allison chuckled at this. "I was sleeping with another girl, Jane. Of course I felt gay. Afterwards, when I realized the way I felt about men hadn't changed, I knew I was bi. Not that it really matters, they're all just labels anyway." Allison hoped this was helping, but the way Jane was knocking back the wine, it probably didn't matter.
Jane got up to refill her glass again. Over her shoulder, she said, "Well, yeah, they're labels. But sexual orientation is a big chunk of a person's identity. Weren't you confused or nervous at all?"
Allison thought about this. "Maybe a little. At first. But I was doing what I wanted. It was very freeing, really."
"So she didn't try to seduce you?" Jane asked with a cocked eyebrow, resuming her seat.
Allison didn't mind the dig at her first botched encounter with Jane. "No. Like I said, it was a mutual thing."
"So, how can you tell. When someone else is gay or bi, I mean." Jane resumed sketching once again.
Now Allison cocked an eyebrow. "Someone else?"
"Okay, me. What made you think I was... your type?"
"Oh, a couple different things. You were smart, and funny, and pretty. You let me buy you dinner, you let me get you drunk," Allison gave a pronounced nod to the glass making a return trip from Jane's lips, "and you came back to my room to look at my pastels."
Jane gave Allison a brief, searching look. "No, I mean, that's all the stuff that attracted you to me. What did I do to make you think I was attracted to you?"
That brought Allison up short. "Well, you put up with all of that, and um, wanted to hang out with me. And I think I'm pretty overt," she trailed off. She really didn't want to come out and say it.
"Hey, I can understand you hitting on me, I have legs," Jane said, finishing her current glass with a small laugh at her joke. "But when I said I was shtraight, why didn't you stop?"
Allison eyed Jane suspiciously. She didn't like where this conversation was going. Jane was looking at her expectantly, a lopsided grin on her face. She was obviously pretty toasted already. "Well, sometimes a girl doesn't know what she wants," Allison said, hoping it didn't sound too lame, but figuring Jane was finding everything amusing at this point.
"And you don't take 'doesn't know' for an answer, huh?" Jane said with a giggle, but frowned when she noticed her glass was empty.
"Hey, if a girl takes some convincing to help make up her mind, then so be it."
"Make up her mind?" Jane wasn't looking at Allison, she was trying to set her glass down carefully on the floor, without getting off the stool and without tipping the glass over. "I kept telling you I wasn't interested, and you kept pushing."
"Jane I didn't care if you were straight or not, so long as we wound up having sex."
"But," Jane said grinning and obviously having fun with the argument, "you knew that by pressing me on the issue I'd have to question every fundamental truth I had about myself. You deliberately tried to get me confused and vulnerable just to have sex with me, right?"
"Well, yeah," Allison replied, relieved that Jane was so amused by this topic. "Of course, when you put it like that, it sounds kind of mean-"
"Glad you agree," Jane interrupted, in a tight, serious tone. In one fluid motion, she hopped off the stool, scooped up Allison's pile of clothes, and raced out of the room. "Thanks for the kool-aid," she yelled as she pulled the door closed behind her.
Allison lay there, completely stunned. She tried to figure out what just happened, but didn't come up with many answers. Apparently, Jane was still mad about their date. After a while, she peeled herself up off the sticky cushion and looked for something to wear.
She didn't find anything. All of her clothing was gone. The sheets were missing from her bed as well. There weren't any towels or so much as a rag in the room she could cover herself with.
Remembering what Jane had said on her way out the door, she checked out the wine bottle Jane had been pouring from. Sure enough, Jane had been drinking kool-aid the entire time she was there. Jane must have poured out a glass of wine when she emptied the bottle, just in case Allison asked for one.
The sketch Jane had been making lay next to the stool where she had dropped it. It was very nicely done. Jane had truly captured Allison, right down to the matching tattoos on each arm. Instead of the cushions, though, she was lying on a giant mousetrap. The trap had just been sprung, and the bar was in mid-arc, on its way to crash down on her.
Allison really had to give Jane a lot of credit. She had been beautifully duped. Jane had come in earlier and cleared out all of Allison's clothes. She had doctored the wine bottle so Allison would be lulled into a false sense of security. All Jane had to do was wait for Allison to come in, trick her out of her clothes, and wait for an opportune moment to take off with them.
As beautiful a set-up as it was, she knew there was one thing that Jane hadn't counted on.
Allison finally caught up with Jane in the cafeteria. It was the last place she thought to check, which was probably the exact reason Jane had chosen to wait there.
"That was a mighty high school trick you played," Allison said, walking up to the table, still completely naked. "I guess you didn't stop to think that at an art colony we wouldn't be restrained by society's nudity taboo."
"Gosh, what was I thinking?" Jane asked sardonically.
"Was this supposed to prove something, Jane?"
"No, I just felt like teaching you a lesson."
"A lesson? God, everything is such a big deal to you isn't it? Just because I was looking for a little fun, you decided to steal my clothes?"
"You manipulate, lie, and deliberately hurt people so you can have your fun," Jane said indignantly. "You deserve this."
"I deserve to let people see me naked? Big deal, most everyone here already has."
"Tell me, this was the last building you looked for me, wasn't it?"
"Yeah," Allison agreed, not sure what Jane was getting at.
"So you marched through all the other buildings and classes like that? Pretty much everyone saw you?"
"Yeah, but like I said, I don't care about that."
"Oh, well," Jane said resignedly, "I tried for humiliation. Guess I'll have to console myself by remaining an outcast."
"Yeah, I doubt anyone will warm up to you after this."
"Your clothes and everything are still in your room. You actually have a lot of storage space in the loft area."
"There's a loft?"
"Trust me."
Allison shrugged. "I'll see you around, Jane."
Allison turned and walked away. Jane did her best to stifle her giggle, but she wasn't entirely successful. Soaking the ink into that cushion with the lettered template hadn't been easy, but the effort was entirely worth it. Jane had figured that Allison wouldn't have any problem wandering around nude. So for the past hour, Allison had been walking around showing everyone all of her tattoos. Including the new one emblazoned across her back, which she was still blissfully unaware of.
A tattoo which read : I HAVE THE MORALS OF AN ALLEY CAT.
Jane enjoyed her final two weeks at the art colony immensely.
THE END
There you go. My third foray into the Daria fan fiction community. Please send me feedback at Renfield@meerkatmeade.com.
Disclaimer: Daria and all related characters were created by Glenn Eichler and Susie Lewis and are trademarks of MTV Networks, Inc., a division of VIACOM international, Inc. All rights reserved by trademark holders U. S. National and International Law and Convention.
"Seeing Things Through" is a work of fiction produced solely for fun, and is not meant to be distributed for profit. It may be distributed to Daria fans everywhere, provided the author's name and e-mail address are left intact.