author's notes: thank you for the reviews! to be honest, i didn't expect to get any. ;] so this was a very welcomed surprise. and i'm glad the title is enjoyable; it took me a few minutes before i could come up with one, but i thought that was the most suitable. a little tongue-in-cheek, i guess. also, i know this is under the "romance" category, but there is nothing really romantic about this. it was just the only category that i could place it. this isn't a romance story, so much as an "anti-romance" story.

rating: T but will become M later

extra notes: this is where things start to get...i don't want to say sticky because that's not the right word - at least not right now. it's where things start to go downhill and also become a little more graphic. like i said, i'm going to be particularly blunt and unforgiving. and i'm squeamish about these things at times.


A Social Experiment on Being Bad
Chapter Two: The First Trial


Somewhere along the line, they moved and the room shifted and people came and went. Jacklyn hadn't bothered keeping track of everyone and everything that went on. One minute, she was absorbed in Jason and the next she was off talking to someone else. She lost track of Alicia here and there and eventually gave up on even thinking about her. At least she was in good hands unlike Jacklyn, who was flirting with a ticking time bomb of hormones. It entertained her. She'd stick her tongue out at Lucas and then Jason would appear behind her. She'd sit down next to him on the chairs, talking to him one minute and laughing at the people playing beer pong.

Her attention was turned back towards Jason and an older man that she'd steered clear of when she heard Jason say something absurd: "I don't fuck unless the girl sucks."

Without warning, Jacklyn laughed loudly, and he gave her a quick look. The older man gave Jason quite the condescending look and also looked like he was about ready to laugh. "I know you're cocky right now, but you can't keep thinking like that," the older guy told him knowingly. He was in his thirties, so he would know something like that. Jason just kind of blew it off and repeated himself, to which she couldn't help but laugh again. Another quick look was thrown in her direction. "I'm telling you. Women don't hit their sexual peak until they're around thirty-five and it's worth the wait; you keep thinking like that and you're going to be disappointed."

Jacklyn smirked. "He's already going to be disappointed at this rate." She looked him in the face while he gave her a somewhat uncomfortable look and then turned his head away from her hastily while the older man chuckled. Sometimes, people were just too easy to see through.

The room shifted around more as people came in and out, but she'd learned to hold her ground around the same place. Somehow or another, she and Jason had managed to switch chairs. She sat innocently in her chair, her legs crossed appropriately, and talked to her older cousin, talked to Ethan, talked to Alicia, talked to Lucas. She threw a ping pong ball at people whenever it came her way. She grinned and chortled and sipped on her second beer and giggled with Alicia over their little secrets.

"Have you two kissed yet?" Alicia asked.

In response, Jacklyn just shook her head, but couldn't hide the stupid smile off her face.

Words blurred and time blurred and people sat down, got up, sat down again… until Jason sat down in the chair next to her again. She smiled at him in an almost hazy manner. They talked for a few moments until he did something, a signal that she'd been waiting for the entire night. A quick raise of the eyebrows and a roll of his eyes towards the back rooms, a gesture that she couldn't mistake from a mile away. She ran her tongue along her teeth, grinned at him, and put her lips to the edge of her beer can, keeping her eyes trained on him at all times when she said, "I don't think so. You'll so get killed." She just laughed and let her eyes wander from his.

"What? I didn't do anything." Oh, you could almost hear his ego being crushed – either that or his libido. Jacklyn looked away from him and just grinned, beside herself with amusement.

She hid the grin behind her can again. "Sure you didn't. I believe you."

And then he did it again, giving her something of a vague pleading look. A roll of the eyes here, an innocent expression on his face.

This time, she didn't bother hiding the smirk as she stood up, pat him on the knee, laughed, and walked away from him so she could go talk to her cousin, who looked like he wasn't having as much fun as he'd hoped, leaving Jason to just watch her figure go.


She was just standing around when he came up to her again. His eyes locked onto hers, and she smiled again. She had spent some time wandering around, giggling with Alicia, and teasing the unruly boys that were attempting to play beer pong. She had just tried to make conversation with the only other girl there, but had been brushed off with a noncommittal answer and a somewhat dismissive and dirty look. Rolling her eyes away from the girl and towards the boy, she let her smile turn into something of a cruel smirk. The two of them shared some private joke as the girl wandered away in the kitchen, and he took her place at Jacklyn's side.

"You don't look so bad anymore," Jacklyn teased, and he gave her one of his trademark sheepish looks and shrugged his shoulders, as if he didn't know how to respond to that. There was a comfortable moment of silence between them as she let her eyes wander back to the beer pong game before them.

Jason looked at her for a moment, something indescribable on his face that she tried to read when she looked back at him. It was something that she couldn't understand, and she knew that she probably never would, not until she had as much experience under her belt as he did – if she ever did. "You know, I like a challenge," he finally said.

Jacklyn let out a laugh. "Well, I'm sorry, but I'm probably too big of a challenge for you." Honesty is the best policy, right? And she wasn't going to advertise anything that wasn't on sale. If he thought he could really get her, then he was wrong, and she didn't want him thinking that she was easy as he thought he could make her.

"I'm not talking about you."

You might want to think differently then, she thought. Raising an eyebrow, she glanced at her older cousin and then back at him: "Oh, the challenge – you mean seeing whether or not you can escape getting your ass kicked."

"That's about right." He let out a chuckle himself and she shook her head at him, a grin on his face. So, she wasn't the challenge. He thought she was probably pretty easy for an innocent girl; she knew that he was really easy for a not-so-little whore. "I'll be right back," he told her, touching her on the arm to let her know that he was oh-so truthful, "I have to get the birthday boy laid." And he gave her a playful smirk as she laughed before walking into the kitchen to talk to the self-proclaimed slut that had stomped off into the kitchen.

Jacklyn rolled her eyes and sipped onto her beer, still her second, and watched the beer pong game take place. Boys could be so stupid at times, she'd decided once again. Here he was, trying to pretend that he was a good boy, when he was undoubtedly nothing of the sort. Ethan had been right, and the funny thing was that Jason didn't have a clue that she was onto his little game – that she'd been playing him the entire time. She was playing him playing her playing the game. It was a lovely circle that he didn't even know came full circle. And she rolled her eyes towards Ethan behind Jason's back and winked at Alicia behind Ethan's back and apologized to her older cousin – but in a sense, she was still playing everyone.

Jason made his appearance by her side again. And according to policy, he said the magic words that everyone knew, which surprised her, seeing as how he couldn't have been more obvious about his intentions when he said those words. "I think I'm going out to get some fresh air," he announced to no one in particular, though his eyes were trained on her. "Want to come?"

Jacklyn took another sip of her beer before sitting it down on the table behind her and shrugged her shoulders. "Sure." Ethan shot her a quick, warning look, but she gave him a sturdy look that told him that she could take care of herself. She leaned closer to him. "Don't worry about me. I can protect myself." But I'm not taking the blame if Jason is sorely disappointed tonight, was the underling current of her words as she looked him in the eyes and walked out the door that Jason was holding. Her cousin did not have a happy look on his face, so she waved at him and gave him another apologetic smile that had been an art of hers. The door shut in front of her, which she looked at for a moment, and then she chose her seat on one of the stairs above him, giving him the space that she felt he might need in case someone walked out the door.

"Why's he like that – your cousin?" Jason asked immediately, trying to harp on the one problem that he believed was blocking him from getting exactly what he wanted. His intentions were becoming less and less vague, and the way he looked her at times spoke levels for himself. She might've been really naïve at one point in her life, but she wasn't anymore, that was for sure. "Why's he being so protective?"

"I don't know," Jacklyn admitted, somewhat confused herself. "He's never been like this before." She looked away from and back towards the door, which was still closed. She wondered if her cousin was standing by the door, just waiting to pounce on the two of them if Jason tried anything. The thought amused and irritated her at the same time. She felt a little embarrassed to add, "He's never given two shits about me before now…" as she remembered back to the many times they'd gotten into fights when he'd been drunk or high and he'd tried to hit her. "I guess it's just 'cause Alicia and I are the only girls in the family."

Jason looked slightly miffed. "Well, he shouldn't be like that."

Rolling her eyes again, Jacklyn explained a little something: "He's got some anger issues, so I'd stay clear of him and watch yourself."

"I don't know why he's acting like that. Ethan and I – we're good guys."

It took almost everything in Jacklyn not to burst out into laughter. The one person who had first warned her about how Jason wasn't a good guy at all was Ethan, and here was Jason saying that the two of them were the good guys here. He made it sound as if everyone else besides them were complete douchebags, but he was the jackass, oh yes. And he was just what Jacklyn wanted. After all, she'd never realized just how attracted she was to those types until her first boyfriend, and now it was time to dip into it again, fall back into the role of the good girl being corrupted by the bad boy, who said that he was a good one. She just nodded her head, agreeing with him, saying how good that was.

"Is that why you're hitting on me?" he suddenly asked. "To piss him off?"

Jacklyn blinked at him, looking almost genuinely surprised at his words. How was she supposed to respond to that? No, she wasn't using him to piss off her cousin, but she was using him to get something else that she wanted. She began to feel the horror of awkwardness creeping onto her again, and she did her best to fight it off. "No, I don't need to do that to piss him off," she decided to say. She hoped to God that she wasn't blushing. "I don't…really… I can't hit on anyone for the life of me…"

He was looking at her closely when there was a noise and the both of them looked ahead of them, seeing two guys coming from the back porch and walking into the hallway. She recognized them as two people that she'd also seen before and that had been at the party. "What up?" she asked cheekily, as if nothing was going on at all and this was just an innocent conversation with no underlining tones or heated expectance. They didn't say anything, having not heard her, so she feigned being offended. "Oh, no answer? No 'what's up' back? I see how you are."

The two guys looked at them, one of them looking mildly put out by what he saw in front of him and the other looking, well, high. "You high?" Jason asked, something of a laugh behind his voice.

The disappointed looking one shook his head while the other one laughed.

"You, my friend," Jacklyn laughed, "are toasted."

"Completely," he said, letting out a laugh. His eyes were heavy-lidded and he seemed to be moving in slow motion.

They managed to get inside the apartment again, leaving the two in complete silence on the staircases. Something between them had been interrupted, but he'd be damned if he didn't get to continue on with it. "Come here." He pat the step closer to him, and she sighed, moving herself there. "So why are you hitting on me then?"

You might as well ask if I want to have sex on the staircase. Jacklyn smiled. "You're cute – really cute." She reached a hand out to him and ruffled his hair, somewhat teasingly, feeling just how soft it was. She'd done it before, but she couldn't help but want to do it again. It really was the perfect hair, the type of hair that gave away how big of a jerk the guy could really be. And, of course, she fell for it every time. This time, however, she was using it to her own advantage.

He said something that she didn't quite catch, and she thought to ask him, when he pulled her a little closer. Oh. She closed the gap between them easily and, with his head leaning back against the wall, she pressed her lips against his, testing the waters between them. It was like treading in shark-infested water, she noted, salty and bitter and just dangerous enough to be terribly fun. It was nothing deep and reminded her of the last kiss she'd had months ago in October. It reminded her how good it felt, how wonderful it felt to have physical contact, and it was nothing short of a little less brief than the last one she'd had. She had more time on her hands, so to speak, perhaps too much.

Once she pulled away, she bit her lip, as if shy and sheepish herself, and she made sure that her face was just pink enough to look innocent. God, he thought he had her completely with that one kiss. He couldn't help but pull her towards him again for another quick kiss before asking, "Do you think they can see through the peephole?"

Jacklyn allowed a small laugh to tumble out of her mouth as she gave the door that same sheepish look. "I certainly hope not."

Clearly unsatisfied with her answer, he stood up from his spot on the stairs and walked up to the front door. "Let's go outside," he suggested, pushing the door open slightly to look outside of it.

A snort interrupted his so-called good train of thought and she leaned back against the stairs, folding her arms across her chest and looking up at him upside in complete disbelief. "Are you kidding me? It's storming outside."

He didn't say anything in response, but did look as if he felt somewhat foolish. He looked up the stairs to the second floor and then back down at her, then back to the stairs. It was easy to see what he wanted, but she didn't budge from her spot on the stairs and just raised her eyebrows at him. In reply, he raised his eyebrows at her and started up the stairs. Up the ante, so to speak. Letting out a bothersome sigh, she pulled herself off the stairs and traipsed up them to follow him. This was normally when she would say no, like she had the first party she'd gone to, but she didn't want to this time. She didn't want to miss out on the fun this time; she'd worked for it this time, and she wasn't too surprised to find out how easy it was to get to this point either.

And so, when she stood on the same step as him, she let him put his hands on her, and she let him pull her closer to him. She put one hand on his face as their lips crashed together messily, magnetically, somewhat frantically. She wanted to say that it was electric, but she just couldn't put a word on what it felt like as every muscle in her body tensed up suddenly. She idly thought of how badly he seemed to want this and so much more as the two of them kissed. She closed her eyes, according to policy, and just imagined what it looked like in her head. She'd never been in a position like this before – never even done anything like this before – but she didn't want him thinking that. As the two of them kissed, she would pull away slightly, nibbling on his bottom lip, and would them full on kiss him again, hard and feisty. She slid her hand down his chest and felt heart speed up underneath the palm of her hand.

It looked as if reading too much had come in handy for once.

A sudden noise from the first floor startled the two of them into stopping, and she had to put a hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing. He looked as if he might jump out of his socks as he stepped away from her slightly, so she turned around and leaned over the railing, looking down on the first floor. There was nothing there. Someone must've bumped into the door while playing a hardcore game of beer pong or thrown a ping pong ball at the wall like he'd done earlier that night.

"Come on," he whispered, pulling her attention back towards him as he stepped completely onto the first floor. She followed him, but when he made a move to further separate the two of them from the apartment room, she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back. She didn't have to say anything for him to know what she was telling him: no. He tried pulling her in another direction again, but she didn't budge, so he was forced to stay on the second floor. All seemed to quiet down anyways, and she felt him relaxing again.

This time, she didn't wait for him to completely feel at ease before she leaned into him and kissed him. Time to be brave. If she was treading in shark-infested waters, it was time to dive down under the water and start swimming with the sharks. She put her hands on him, and she let them wander, though she never quite lost track of them as if they had their own minds, as if unable to separate her so-called "carnal urges" with her mind. It wasn't like she could just let go of herself, unlike him; he couldn't seem to find enough of her there to satisfy his new tastes.

She felt his tongue push its way into her mouth, and this time, she didn't fight it or panic. The last (and first) time this had happened, she hadn't known what to do, and she'd essentially panicked. It was a fun story to tell everyone, but it probably hadn't been as much fun for the guy who'd thought that she would enjoy having his tongue being shoved down her throat. This guy now, Jason, oh, he was an experienced one, alright. Ethan had been right when he'd said that Jason had been with a lot of girls. She let him do it though and this time, found something for her own tongue to do. Last time, she had panicked about how she hadn't known what to do with her own tongue, as funny as that sounded, and most people laughed, as if she was telling the punch line of a joke, and she would laugh too, earnestly amused by it.

She knew what to do now though, and she just allowed her body to fall into the flow of what was going on between them. Her tongue slid against his, and she thought of how ridiculous this was. Who'd ever invented French kissing had to be off their rocker, seeing as how tongues were a little gross. She let him have his field day though as she clinically thought of what was transpiring at the moment. His hands on her, his mouth on her, his tongue basically in her, his body pressed against hers – this was about as far as she'd ever gone with a boy, and she just couldn't get herself as excited as she'd thought that she could. Sure, she enjoyed it a lot, but…

Getting lost in the heat of the moment was not something that she could do. It seemed as if her difficulty in getting excited affected her everywhere. Now that was an interesting side effect.

He pulled his lips away from hers, and she felt the immediate desire to have them back there. It felt ridiculous and messy, but it was something that she had begun to enjoy. In her mind's eye, she tried to make it look like what they were doing was something pretty, something out of a movie, but all she could manage to piece together was a scene out of one of those D-movies that no one wants to see. It wasn't pretty; it was like bits and pieces of every shitty kissing scene put together to be made into one. It was something terrible; it was something exhilarating, like something so carnal and dirty and something so very terribly unsexy. Their mouths just mashed together to be short of romantic or needy. It was devoid of anything special.

And so he kissed down her neck, sucking on the kiss there, and she opened her eyes to focus on where she was. Her hands were somewhere on his chest and on his back, and she thought of how pathetically not-unique this was. Just two teenagers making out in a shoddy apartment complex. It made it sound so dirt cheap, and she enjoyed every second of it, not so much the sucking on her neck. If he made a visible hickey, he was going to be forced to answer a lot of questions, and she fought the urge to laugh again. Instead, she just fixed her eyes on the rather pretty Christmas wreath on the door they were standing diagonal from. He sucked and bit and moved his lips up and down her neck, his hand pulling down on her head further and further so he could feast on fresher skin, and she counted the red bows on the wreath.

(There were five neatly tied red bows.)

He pulled his mouth away from her skin, essentially pulling away from her for a moment, and she gave him a look that suggested utter intoxication in the moment. She didn't say anything about the thoughts on her mind – that her lips and skin felt wet underneath his lips, how he could be such a sloppy drunk, how there were five really pretty red bows on the Christmas wreath behind him that reminded her of the wreaths she made as a young, naïve girl with her step-mother. Instead, she let him decipher the thoughts he thought she had on her mind: she allowed some sort of lust pool in her eyes, calculating just how much was enough, and let him believe that she earnestly mirrored his desires. She tilted her head slightly, and he pressed his lips against hers again, letting them match up once more.

Oh, use me use me use me.

When he pulled away, she was snapped back into the moment of what was really going on and stopped moving. She looked up at him and carefully wiped her lips, figuring that licking them would just make things worse. She let a mischievous smirk come onto her face as she looked him in the eyes where a mixture of surprise and heavy excitement seemed to weigh down upon him. True to what was going on between them, she acted out of breath and kept her eyes locked on his. "You think we should go back inside?"

"Yeah," she simply said, nodding her head, her voice breathy and light. She pulled away from him completely so that she could fix her hair (though it had looked like an utter mess before) and then fixed the loose shirt she was wearing. It was Alicia's shirt and, funnily enough, she noted that it had been the shirt she'd been wearing when she'd originally met Jason weeks ago. He wouldn't know or even remember, so she didn't even bother bringing it up, as if there was something actually significant between them. There wasn't a point to it.

They went down the stairs and then knocked on the door so that they could be let back inside. Ethan gave her a something that looked like a demanding look, questioning what the two of them had been doing. Jacklyn gave him a bored look and a shrug of the shoulders, allowing him to decipher that in whatever way he wanted. Perhaps she misled him on purpose into thinking that nothing had happened, but when he looked away and she connected eyes with Alicia, she grinned, and Alicia held in a laugh. Jason, on the other hand, couldn't seem to control himself any longer the moment that he'd actually tasted what he could have, and she felt somewhat proud in having that kind of power.

It wasn't intoxicating so much as entertaining.


end notes: once again, thank you for reading. i have most of chapter three written already, and i'll either post it tomorrow or thursday. the way i figure, i'll finish most of the next chapter before i post the one before it. that way i won't get too behind or stop posting as regularly. and yes, things will get more uncomfortable and more "mature," even though this is quite possibly one of the most immature things ever.