Story Notes:
Written at sherlockelly's request.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
1. depulcelation
The Schrute family reunion of 1984, held in western Pennsylvania, was of particular importance to one member of the Scranton branch, age sixteen. Family custom had long dictated that, provided at least two degrees of separation existed, Schrutes should marry Schrutes in order to keep the bloodline and the inheritance intact. Given his expectation of inheriting one of the family's prize farms in the near future (Grandmutter was plagued by another family tradition, the famed Schrute Hump), Dwight felt his chances of winning the hand of one of the Kittanning Schrutes, renowned for the firm-breasted, broad-shouldered beauty of their titian-haired women, to be fairly secure.
He drove the family car along route 220, confident its solid Detroit construction could withstand even a head-on collision (although he wasn't so sure about the safety of his mother, sleeping in the passenger seat, but the change of life had left her barren and Dwight Sr.'s early but unsurprising death had left her widowed, and Dwight didn’t think she had much left to live for except As the World Turns and the beet crush in the fall). Mose sat in the back, playing with a pack of matches and whistling the same tune he'd whistled since his parents had died in that horrific carnival accident three years before, leaving their son orphaned and unable (unwilling?) to communicate except through snatches of calliope songs and interpretative mime. Grandmutter slept as well, though nowhere near as peacefully as her daughter-in-law; the regular honking of her snores did, however, provide a nice counterpoint to Mose's whistling.
All in all, Dwight felt pleased with his role as head of the Scranton Schrutes, and as he slid the tire pressure gauge into his pocket, well-protected by an envelope of tanned pig hide (no sense in purchasing an expensive pocket protector when he was capable of making his own), he reflected upon his future bride.
Wanda Schrute was said to be very beautiful, but he worried that she would prove to be too proud to step foot on a beet farm after breathing the heady air of the chain of discount blinds stores owned by her father. Ula Schrute appeared to be an accomplished cook, judging from her contributions to the annual Schrute Family Beet Receets (a mimeographed copy of which he received every December from his Great-Aunt Chloris), but he knew it would take more than a skilled hand in the kitchen to handle life as a beet farmer's wife. It was a thorny problem.
Fortunately, when they arrived at the first Schrute farm at the outskirts of Dutch country (having been moved plank by plank in the 1950s after a misunderstanding with the Amish now lost in the mists of family history), only one of the young women digging the roasting pit for the calf took note of him, brushed her red hair out of her eyes, and smiled, flashing a glint of silver braces and hot-pink rubber bands.
Her hair did not appear to be naturally red, he later had occasion to note, and her breasts were slightly lopsided, one being several inches lower than the other, but he refrained from drawing attention to her defects, thinking she must have some natural embarrassment over failing to inherit the same Schrute qualities as her sisters. Perhaps it explained why he had never heard of a Crystal Schrute; the family might keep her secluded out of shame. He figured it would make winning her hand from her father in the customary mock duel all the easier.
That night he watched her stumble through the traditional dance of greeting, noticing that she also lacked the broad Schrute shoulders and thick Schrute thighs, which might pose a problem in farm labor. Her slight body could prove a blessing, however; wild animals were constantly wandering into the uncovered well and drowning, and Mose would soon be too heavy to lower down in the bucket. Yes, she would do very well, he thought, already imagining her in a white gown, climbing into the freshly-dug grave next to his own.
He contrived a place next to her the following day on the wagon ride, and she did not resist when he reached under the hay to take hold of her hand. He took a kiss from her later, as they stirred the bean-pot together, and by nightfall they were half-dressed in the back of the Chevy, fumbling in the darkness. Without his glasses he could only see the rise and fall of her chest beneath her Prince shirt, and his bare knees stuck to the vinyl of the seat. When they pulled apart to take a breath she stuck her tongue out at him and smiled.
"Do you have a… thing?" she asked.
The box of Trojans in the glove compartment had been purchased surreptitiously months earlier; he knew his father would have insisted that he make prophylactics the traditional way, using sheep intestines, but his father was dead now and Dwight really hated tanning intestines. The flies were a nuisance.
The act itself was awkward and sweaty, his head bumping the window and her knees digging into his sides, but it was pleasurable enough and he liked the little sounds she made, and the very curious way she tensed up around him at one point before releasing with a gasp. He would have to ask her about that later.
"You aren't promised to anyone, are you?" he asked her afterwards.
"Uh, no."
"Then I'll challenge your father tomorrow morning," he said. "He's wiry, but I've been practicing with the quarterstaff all summer."
"Huh?"
"The duel," he said, patiently. "For your hand."
"You Schrutes are so weird," she said, rolling her eyes. "First the calf and the welcoming dance, then the beet carving…"
"What are you talking about?" he demanded. "Have you no pride in your heritage?"
"No, I'm not a freak like you."
His mouth dropped open. "But – "
"Wait, did you think I was your cousin or something?"
"You're not?"
"No, I live next door to Ula and Wanda. Ew, you guys really are freaks!"
Dwight sat still, stunned, as Crystal gathered up her clothes, shimmying into her tight jeans with difficulty.
"I can't believe you thought I was your cousin. That's disgusting."
"Schrutes should marry Schrutes," Dwight said faintly. "It's the custom."
"Yeah, only because no one else would want a big weirdo like you. God."
Crystal snapped the last button on her jeans, jammed on her jelly shoes, and wrenched the door open. "You'd better not tell anyone about this."
Dwight just shook his head.
The following day he made a half-hearted overture to Ula Schrute, praising her beet casserole, but it didn't feel right. His heart and his virtue had been stolen by a beautiful stranger, and nothing would ever be the same again.
2. going all the way
If Jim had known in high school that getting girls was all about a certain way of asking them, in kind of a carefree, joking way followed by a big grin and direct eye contact, high school would have been very different.
Once he figured it out, early in his freshman year of college, he ended up doing it all the time, practicing on girls he wasn't even really interested in just to see if he could. The pockets of his jeans were filled with receipts and torn envelopes, names and numbers written in neat, feminine handwriting and sometimes punctuated with kisses and smiley faces. Most of the time he didn't even call them; it was just nice to know that he could walk up to the redhead getting double French roast at the student union coffeehouse, make conversation about the band pins she had on her messenger bag, and walk away with "Mandy" written on a napkin above her dorm room number.
The next hurdle was dating, and he worked that out too before long. A cheap movie at the campus theater, tickets to the football game, or an opening at the art department's little museum (usually boring student work that he didn't even like, but it was free and sometimes they had cheese and crackers, and it made him look smart). A coffee date follow-up, downtown where they could browse the record shops, and then back to his room or hers.
He kept hitting a snag at the last part, though. Inevitably Mandy or Trish or Laura would let him kiss her and maybe put a hand under her shirt, but at some point, like they were all on the same schedule (did they sync this stuff like their periods?) Christina or Jamie or Hailey would giggle, squirm away, and tell him how much homework she had. If they were at his place, she'd gather up her college sweatshirt and her backpack, and if they were at hers, she'd look at him pointedly until he left, jamming his hands into his pockets.
He took a lot of cold showers, until he met Hannah.
Playing ball on the official school team seemed like a lot of hassle and travel, and he knew by now he wasn't going anywhere professionally, but he still missed it. The yellow flyer advertising intramural sports outside the dining commons seemed like the perfect answer, and when he first saw Hannah, blasting FIGHT ON STATE on her trumpet from the bleachers, she seemed perfect too.
The official marching band was too much hassle and travel, she explained over burgers, but she missed playing for a team. She didn't miss the stupid hats, she added, and winked. Her eyes were blue and her long lashes were blonde like her hair, and she had freckles on her nose. She squeezed his hand under the table.
She squeezed more than that under the bleachers, reaching with one slim hand beneath the waistband of his blue shorts during halftime, playing with him until he was worried he was going to make a noise, or stain his shorts, or both. She always stopped in time, though, and he'd jog around a bit and drink some Gatorade until he calmed down enough to play.
Back in her single room she didn't stop, and he learned how to please her too, licking the tips of her small breasts and farther down, under the skirts she wore even in winter. Hannah was taller than the two girls he'd dated in high school, tall enough to leave marks on his neck with her teeth and leap onto his back, wrapping her long arms and legs around him and demanding he carry her to the dining hall for dinner. The guys on his hall thought she was more than a little crazy but she was cute, with her pigtails and backtalk, and she was a sophomore and none of them was even dating a freshman.
He'd always assumed she wasn't a virgin, but the night they found themselves naked and totally on the edge, she got shy and looked at the ceiling, her eyes half-closed and her pale cheeks going pink, and told him she hadn't gone that far yet. After that he slowed down, confused and waiting for her take the lead as always, and on their two-month anniversary in March he opened her door to find her naked on the bed and a box of condoms on the dresser.
She laughed at his expression, and she laughed when he fumbled with the condom, eventually reaching out to do it for him with her nimble musician's fingers. She settled back on the bed, still smiling, and held her breath for most of the three minutes it took for him to get all the way inside.
"OK?" he asked, struggling for breath himself.
She nodded against his shoulder, and pulled at his hips. He groaned and began to move.
It was always a good memory in later years; her yellow hair spread across the pillow, her eyes closed and her pink mouth falling open, the soft give of her breasts beneath him, the heat and tightness as he thrust into her, almost too much sensation. He was awkward at first, figuring out what to do. She wasn’t silent for long, because she never was, and when he came it was to her gasping his name in his ear.
Afterwards he went down on her, tasting the salt-sweet of her arousal mixed with the bitter latex of the condom, and resolved to do that first next time. She laughed as she came down, still shivering, and they laid in bed together for a long time before getting up to order pizza.
They had sex three more times before spring break, each time getting a little better at it. When they came back he was eager and she was distant, telling him she had to start prepping for spring trials in the practice rooms if she wanted to stay in the music program. He didn't see her for almost a week straight, and when he finally cornered her at the mailboxes one Saturday afternoon she wouldn't meet his eyes.
It was a saxophonist, a junior who was probably the best in the program, who was already looking at graduate programs in New York and had the most amazing fingering she'd ever seen. She told him all that as they walked back to the dorms, booted feet crunching through the early spring snow, as if he cared. By the time they got to her building there were tears in her eyes and he could feel his fists clenched at his sides.
"I'm sorry," she said, simply, and leaned in to kiss his cheek, because she was tall enough to do that.
He felt shitty for about a month, and then he slept with two of the girls on his hall, right before the semester ended, just to see if he could.
3. to know (in the biblical sense)
Later Angela would tell people that she had expected him to propose that night. She told her younger sister, the one she still talked to, that he'd taken her out to dinner and opened doors for her and listened to her talk about the incompetent way the youth ministry's bake sale was being handled, and that he'd smiled at her sweetly over the table, his hand just barely resting on hers. She told her ex-roommate that his kisses were always very respectful, and that lately he'd been talking about wanting to get a better job and maybe buying a home instead of renting, and once she'd caught him looking at a wedding gown in a window display as they walked by. The gown was disgusting, strapless and sheer and covered in decadent sequins, but any woman knew that meant something.
If she ever went to confession (which she didn't, because it was blasphemous to think that some man could be a stand-in for God and absolve her sins, although she had to admit it would be nice to have God talk back to her once in a while instead of making her guess), she would have said that it happened like this:
She'd been dating Frank for nine months and he was her fourth boyfriend since high school, and he didn't go to church with her very often but when he did he was quiet and paid attention and didn't yawn or fidget, and he put his dishes in the dishwasher and knew which of her cats to pet and which to leave alone, and his job as an insurance agent was good enough and his close-trimmed beard and nice brown eyes were good enough and she was starting to worry that if she didn't do more than let him caress her breasts while they watched Touched by an Angel in the evenings he was going to leave her, and she liked being alone, really, and if that was God's plan for her she was just fine with it but it would be nicer if she had someone to talk to besides the cats.
He was sweet that night, but no more so than usual, and he seemed surprised when she kissed him back instead of just letting him kiss her. She felt like the worst kind of brazen hussy when she moved his hands to the buttons of her blouse, and then he began to undo them, hesitant, shooting her wary looks like he was afraid she might slap him at any second. Which wasn't fair; she'd only done that once and that was months ago.
When she told him they should move to the bedroom, he looked even more surprised, and when she told him there was a box of condoms in the nightstand, under the Country Home magazines, his mouth fell open in honest shock.
He moved quick enough when she told him a second time, and once the lights were off and they were under the covers and there was all that skin, warm and bare, and Frank's mouth was hot and wet on her neck, she started to get a little nervous. There was so much of him, muscular and bigger than her, and it was different from kissing him on the couch at the end of the night. She looked away when he put on the condom, feeling her breath speeding up, feeling herself sweat, her heart pounding, and it was just like riding in her uncle's convertible when she was fourteen, too fast and too scary and doing terrible things to her hair.
But Frank was kind, as he whispered her name and settled between her legs, going slow like the day he taught her how to fish, and that had been messy and frightening too, and she clutched his shoulders hard, her heart in her throat, as he pushed into her.
Even if she went to confession she might not tell the next part, because it wasn't in the Bible but she was fairly certain that women weren't supposed to enjoy intercourse because of God and babies and Eve. She didn't know if that applied to intercourse with condoms or if that only compounded the problem, but she did know that intercourse felt far, far too good to be something that was allowed.
Afterwards, when Frank was lying on her with his head on her pink rosebud pillow, breathing hard and smiling at her, and she was still in shock from the feeling that had overtaken her body, pleasure and a kind of dizzy abandonment, it was like she wasn't herself anymore, not Angela Noelle Martin, but some thoughtless, godless woman who cared about things like pleasure and men whispering her name. He kissed her hair and pulled away, then went to flush the condom and get them glasses of cranberry juice from the fridge.
Later she would tell people that he went home right after, that he made it clear he only wanted one thing and he'd gotten that from her, and the women at her church would nod and look at each other and keep believing what they'd always believed, that men were pigs, and her sister (the younger one, the one who knew better than to compete in the same beauty pageants as Angela and certainly knew better than to win them) got angry and bought ice cream and stayed with Angela all weekend, promising to introduce her to a nice guy from work. But only God and her cats and Frank knew that she'd sent him home and not answered his calls for a week and cried every time her answering machine picked up, and her evenings were lonely and her nights were lonely and the cats didn't rub her feet or get things off the highest shelves, but it was better than feeling like a stranger to herself.
4. teenage love song
After junior prom, they didn't talk about it again for a while. Pam felt a funny mixture of disappointment and relief, plus a crazy giggly feeling that rose up whenever she thought about that night, Roy so drunk he couldn't even work the zipper on his tuxedo pants or the buttons on her dress, and then the whole fiasco with the condoms. Going through an entire six-pack of Trojans without getting it right had to be some kind of sign that it wasn't meant to be that night.
She didn't tell anybody, but in a way she was glad – prom had been kind of sucky, since the fundraising committee hadn't sold enough magazines and they had to have it in the basement of the Marriott, where the dance floor was too small and the dinner was cold by the time everybody got their plates. Some other girl had her same dress, which ruined her pleasure in the yards of yellow taffeta and tulle, and Roy had been more interested in sneaking out to drink with his friends than in dancing with her. Even her corsage had been the wrong color, teal-dyed carnations, and she wasn't really sorry that the memory of her first time wouldn't be tied to junior prom.
That summer was better, though, now that Roy had his brother's old truck, and they'd go for long drives when he got off work at the quarry, Dr. Pepper bottles between their knees and her CD player plugged in with an adapter to the truck's tape player. He didn't mind when she played her girly music, and even though he made fun of the Jewel album she'd borrowed from her cousin, she couldn't help but notice that he knew all the words.
He gave her the CD for her birthday, wrapped in paper from Sam Goody, and she smiled and let him kiss all down her neck and push his hands under her tank top, although her parents were right downstairs. They'd been taking things slow again since prom, circling around each other like they did last year when things were new, and she'd kind of liked that, getting a little breathing room. She didn't want to plan again this time, because it had felt so weird and awkward waiting in the hotel room for Roy to get out of the bathroom and come join her on the bed, like they were being more grown-up than they really were, but it was hard to know how to just let it happen.
"Pam," he said, really low, his mouth on her bare shoulder and his fingers slipping beneath the underwire of her bra. Her heart started racing and her mouth got dry, the edge of now looming up in front of them. He pushed forward just a little, leaning with his whole body, and she let herself fall back on the rainbow-colored afghan her grandma had crocheted for her years ago. Roy lay down beside her and she could feel his heart hammering against hers.
She kissed him with her eyes closed, letting him undo her bra, letting him trail his fingers underneath it, letting him undo the top button of her shorts. The door slammed downstairs, and the garage door rumbled beneath them as her dad started up the minivan. She knew her parents were doing the Saturday grocery shopping at Costco, and she knew that she wasn't really supposed to be alone in her room with Roy, but she'd turned seventeen that morning and he felt so good under her hands, his shoulders warm and broad, his mouth so eager on her bare breast.
"Roy," she whispered, when he eased down the zipper on her shorts. She hated to do it, because everything felt hazy and delicate as a soap bubble, like one word would ruin it, but she had to know. "Do you – "
"I brought something," he said, and she looked at him until he pulled his wallet out of his shorts pocket. Her cheeks flamed then and she bit her lip, wondering how long he'd planned this.
"That's – I mean," she said, halting, still blushing. "OK. But – do you love me?"
He blinked at her, like she'd asked him to solve an algebra problem, and then he smiled, slow and wide, the way that always made her heart jump. "Yeah. Of course."
She smiled back, feeling like a fire was burning in her now, keeping her warm and safe, like whole flights of soap bubbles were dancing in the July sunlight to the music playing on the stereo. "Me too," she said quietly, and put her arms around him as he bent to kiss her again.
Her shorts were off soon, and her underwear, and then Roy was undressed and putting on a condom with no problems, like he'd practiced a hundred times, which he probably had. The thought made her smile again, even when he started to push inside and it started to hurt. It got better soon, and she thought, breathless, that she would never forget his face above her, his eyes closed and his mouth open, tanned and handsome and everything she wanted in the world.
"This should be our song," he whispered in her ear later, when they were lying still together. "It's pretty."
It wasn’t her favorite song on the album, and it was kind of a sad song, about people being broken up and missing each other, but she didn't say that. It was just nice to have a song.
5. deflowered
"Yeah, I went hunting once. Shot the deer in the leg. Had to kill it with a shovel. Took about an hour. Why do you ask?"
"No, that was, uh, actually the only hunting trip Jeff ever took me on. First and last. A mo – momen – monu – a very special occasion."
"No... I'm pretty sure Jeff enjoyed the part with the deer. At least he… didn't stop laughing. For the rest of the day. And he told people. Uh, everyone in the hotel bar. And he called some of his friends. And my mother."
"What was the problem? Well, there was a….mix-up with the room service. I got something that Jeff…ordered. He, uh, was not pleased. No."
"Oh, just… your ordinary… uh…" inaudible whisper
"Ahem. I'm sorry?"
"Of course I let her in. She said she was room service. And she did provide… service. She did not lie about that."
"Well, someone had to pay her. And it turned out she didn't take credit cards."
"I'm not really comfortable… red. About a 36C. And a tattoo of a sailor on her inner thigh."
"Uh, no, Jeff did not mention this to my mother. Actually, he offered me a lot of money not to tell her either."
"Oh, it was, you know…. a while ago. About ten years. Maybe twelve. It's hard to remember."
"Kandy. With a K. She said her kids picked it out for her. I guess they just really liked candy."
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