— General notes: Cannot be picked in conjunction with 'You're still feeling a little bit vulnerable right now'. Basically encourages Taylor to comfort herself by sleeping with women she feels romantic attraction to, such as Madison. Less emotionally harmful on Taylor than 'You're still feeling a little bit vulnerable right now'.
[] Attend Glory Girl's book club again. You seemed to make a little bit of progress last weekend, even if the other girl didn't make any sexual moves towards you. Your headache has faded, so you're pretty sure you're going to be able to start using your powers again. This time, you think, you might make enough process that she'll actually make a move. It shouldn't take much more before Glory Girl is willing to visit you at your house, you think.
— Success chance: 70%
— General results: Increases Victoria's Affection, Lust, Loyalty, and Theatricality by 1. May result in a scene where Victora wears her risque Glory Girl outfit for Taylor's benefit again, and deliberately shows Taylor her panties. Lets Taylor show those snobbish and elitist book club members that even newcomers can contribute something to the club!
— On a success: Increases Victoria's Lust, Loyalty and Theatricality by 1. May allow Taylor to go further by rubbing Victoria through her panties without Victoria stopping her. Note: Will push Victoria's Loyalty high enough that she will be willing to visit Taylor at her house, ostensibly to view Taylor's mother's book collection. Will provide the first opportunity to encourage Victoria to cheat on Dean.
— On a failure: Victoria will enforce her no-touching rule. Poor Taylor.
[] Begin searching for a job. It's likely going to be a frustrating process, and might not result in anything. Even if it does, it's going to eat up a fair chunk of your time. But even if it's not as much money as you could make from stealing from gang members, it's honest money— and it won't result in people who are potentially new or unwilling gang members being punished for having thousands of dollars stolen under their watch.
— Success chance: 40%. Will be available every weekend in future until successful or Taylor decides against getting a regular job.
— On a success: Finds a job, the details of which will be determined on success.
— On a failure: Youth unemployment continues to remain steady.
[] You're going to go to the library and look up information on a specific cape, event or issue in Brockton Bay. [Please write in who or what you would like to look up more information about and how the narrative can justify Taylor desiring to learn this information.]
Spoiler: Stat Gains/Losses
Stat gains:
Madison Clements:
+1 Affection
1.10
> Success chance: 40%.
> Necessary roll: 60. Rolled: 31. Failure.
> Success chance: 70%
> Necessary roll: 30. Rolled: 40. Success.
There's a small part of you that's constantly surprised when you see how happy Madison is to see you. Or maybe it's not a small part of you— you just don't expect people to actually be happy when you turn up on their doorstep.
But you can't deny that she is, even if you wanted to, which you definitely don't. Every time she sees you, her face lights up in a grin, and when you're not in school, she's constantly trying to get close to you. Hugging you, holding your hands, tucking herself against you, kissing you— you're not sure you've spent any time with Madison over the past couple of weeks without one of the two of you touching the other. Not that you're complaining. It's definitely not an unpleasant feeling, having such a cute girl want to press up against you all the time.
It's kind of awkward when Madison opens her door ahead of her younger brother on Saturday morning and immediately lets out a small shriek before leaping forward to hug you, though. You're not complaining, but the kid gives you a weird look, and you have to refrain from poking your tongue out at him.
"Taylor!" Madison exclaims, finally releasing herself from you and slipping her hands up your arms to let you clasp her hands in your won. "Come in, come in. Um, I didn't know you were coming over today."
You're forced to release her left hand when she turns so she can lead you inside, but you maintain a tight grip on her right hand. "I wanted it to be a surprise," you say with a small smile. The grin she gives you in exchange is smaller than the one before, but more tender, too.
"It's a nice surprise," she reassures you. "Um..." She hesitates, but before she can say anything, Rick pokes his head around the corner with an inquisitive look. He gives you a nod and a warm look before he turns to Madison.
"Nice to see you, Taylor," he says. "Come to see Madison? Do you need me to distract Jasmine for a while?"
"Um, no." You flush, both at the implication and because you'd seriously considered it last night. Multiple times. In succession. You flush harder. Madison gives the two of you an inquisitive look before her eyes widen and her own face turns scarlet. "I just wanted to hang out with Madison today," you say.
He smiles at that. "Good," he says. "Lunch will be at one today, girls."
"Okay," Madison says in a strangled squeak.
It's cute that Madison won't look at you for the next few minutes as she leads you up to her bedroom, but you grow tired of not being able to see her face pretty quickly. Once you're up there and settled on her bed, you gently push her down and lie half on top of her, slipping your hand up her shirt to draw small circles on her stomach. With your other hand, you reach up and gently lift her chin, forcing her to look at you. It's adorable how flustered she looks, but you only allow yourself to press a single kiss against her jaw before you speak.
"Hey," you murmur. She just whimpers, so you draw your hand beneath her shirt a little higher and kiss her jaw again. "Come on, Madison," you say reassuringly. "It's not that embarassing."
"Yes it is," she mumbles, but she does finally stop fidgeting, letting her hands fall to her side. You take the opportunity to actually pull her shirt up, revealing her bra-clad breasts, and press another kiss to her jaw.
"It's not," you say gently. "It's just sex, Madison. You didn't think we were going to just mess around forever, did you? Unless-" Oh, god, you'd never actually asked Madison whether she wanted to have sex with you, you'd just assumed. What if she didn't? What if this was as far as she was willing-
"No!" Madison's eyes widen, and she grabs your hands from where they were tightly clutching her shirt, gently rubbing them until your grip loosened and she can pull your hands down to rest on her breasts instead. "No," she says more delicately, "I definitely do want to— to have s— sex with you, Taylor." Her face reddens even more noticeably as she stammers over the words, probably not helped by the way you begin softly squeezing her breasts as she talks. "I just d— didn't think Dad would know," she finishes meekly.
Oh.
Well, that's more understandable.
You lean back in, pressing a kiss against her jawline. "He knows about us," you murmur. "I don't know what your Mom knows, but your Dad gave us permission. I didn't want to sneak around your parents' back. That would make it hard to have a relationship with you."
Her eyes darken, and she chews her lip briefly. You don't fail to notice her nipples hardening when she finally opens her mouth and admits, "I kind of thought you were going to steal me away from them. I had a whole fantasy about it. I imagined like you'd take me and— and have sex with me until I couldn't think of anything else, and then-"
You lean up and kiss her, cutting off the flow of words. You're not sure how much longer you can resist taking her here and now if she keeps talking like that.
"I considered it," you say lowly, "but I don't want to steal you away, Madison. I told you already, I want a relationship with you."
Her gaze softens, becoming less heated and more warm. She nibbles at her lips for a moment before leaning up to press a kiss against your neck.
"Good," she murmurs, then returns to lay down submissively beneath you.
"Good," you mimic her. "Now, Maddie, take off your bra and we'll go hang out with your family a bit."
She gives you a small, amused smile, but follows your orders without hesitation, removing first her shirt, then her black, silky bra. You try not to stare at her breasts, although you can't help but lean down and bite her nipples quickly, drawing a shivering gasp from her before she puts her shirt back on. You can see her hard nipples poking through it, but so long as she doesn't cross her arms or pull her shirt down, they're not prominent enough to draw attention.
You don't have any real plans with what you want to do with her today— you hadn't even planned on getting her to strip her bra, it was just an impulsive decision— so you leave it up to Madison to decide what you're going to do this morning. She hems and haws for a moment, seeming to gravitate towards the small TV in her room for a moment before shaking her head, taking your hand and leading you out to her little brother's room.
You haven't really spoken to Madison's little brother— Terry— before. He'd been around the last time you'd been over, and Madison had told you about him, but you've only ever seen the kid from a distance. She seems to be close to him, though, at least from what she's said— she doesn't understand his hobbies or anything, but she's described him as having an infectiously cheerful attitude.
What your girl hadn't described was the way her brother doted on her. From the moment you stepped into his room, he was babbling away, describing what he was doing in this latest game and how he was doing in school and how he'd been making up this story with his best friend Fred and his other best friend Daniel and also his other best friend Julie and isn't it the best story in the wholest of the world, Madison, it's so cool!
Frankly, you're a little overwhelmed by the kid's enthusiasm and energy. You blink rapidly as you try to keep up with the stream of words coming out of his mouth for a moment. Madison just nods along, half-listening with the practiced ear of someone long used to taking in this kind of babble.
"Terry," she interrupts him when he finally pauses to take a breath. He stops crawling around on the floor, where he was looking for a picture he said he'd drawn of the characters of his story, and looks up at her with an expectant look. "I wanted you to meet Taylor. She's a... special friend of mine. Say hello to her, okay?"
All of his enthusiasm seems to drain out of him at once, and he retreats shyly into himself. For a moment, your heart pangs, although you're not sure why. He looks out from behind a curtain of curly brown hair and says shyly, "Hi, Taylor, I am Terry! I am six years old!" His mouth curls up in an awkward, toothy grin as he says it. It sounds like he's rehearsed that sentence several times before.
"Six years old?" You try to make yourself look exaggeratedly surprised, but you're not sure it works. "No way, you seem way older than that!" He giggles happily at that. Encouraged, you continue, kneeling down so you can extend the hand that isn't still holding tightly onto Madison's to him and look him in the eyes. "I'm only fifteen. Do you know how old that is?"
He nods seriously, holding up his hands and poking out his tongue in concentration. "Yeah, yeah! That's... five and plus ten!" He holds up first one hand with all five fingers out, then both hands with all ten fingers out, looking very pleased with himself.
Beside you, Madison coos and pats his forehead. "Very good, Terry," she praises him. His grin somehow grows wider. "Now weren't you going to show us your game?"
"Oh yeah!" He looks shocked that he'd forgotten. "Go sit down, Madison! And you can sit down too, Taylor," he adds, eyeing you and nodding with childlike approval. "You can watch me too, but you hafta be quiet, okay? The monsters can hear you when you talk." With a serious nod at both of you, he scurries over to the cabinet at the far end of his bedroom and begins rooting through a small collection of books and plastic covers sitting atop it.
Having gained Terry's approval, you feel confident enough to take the reigns again. Madison allows you to lead her over to her brother's head, where you sit and gesture for her to lay beside you. She does so, leaning her head on your lap.
For the next few hours, you and Madison watch Terry play various games on his consoles. For all his warnings about the monsters hearing you when you talk, he shouts loudly whenever something happens or he gets a little scared. You suspect that if the game actually could recognize when people were speaking, Terry's cries would act like a beacon for everything on the screen.
Eventually, one o'clock rolls around. You're tempted to stay for lunch and continue spending some more time with your girl, but when you wander downstairs, it's to find her mother glaring at you from the table for a moment before she conceals it behind a strained smile.
Ah. Yes, you remember now. Her mother doesn't approve of your relationship with Madison. Well, that's really too bad— you're not interested in catering to anyone except Madison. Still, you already know that her mother's approval does matter to Madison, and you don't want to get in the way of her family— not when it means so much to her.
Madison follows you to the door, pouting at you. "You could stay," she protests. "Mom's just being a bitch right now." You're actually a little surprised to hear her using such strong language to refer to one of her own parents.
You shake your head, then lean down to kiss her on the mouth, and again on the nose. "No, no," you murmur, "I don't want to cause any issues between you and your mother. Go have your lunch. I'll see you on Monday."
Her pout doesn't fade until you kiss it away, though. In the end, it's actually difficult to drag yourself away from her. You know it's for the best, though.
Besides, you conclude, you can always just deal with Jasmine later. You're hesitant to use your powers on Madison any more, but her mother is a different issue. Madison may be tentatively willing to allow you to see other women while you're with her, but there's no way in hell you're going to cause her that level of pain by playing with her mother's emotions like that.
Instead, you spend the rest of the day wandering around the Boardwalk, casually poking around the storefronts for anyone looking for high school workers.
It's difficult going, unfortunately. You're only fifteen, so you're still covered under child labour laws. No more than four hours work on a weekday, and no working before seven in the morning or after seven at night; even your weekend hours are restricted. Most places that are willing to hire teenagers still prefer to wait until they're sixteen or seventeen, both so they can actually work passable hours and for the less stringent restrictions in the kinds of hazardous work they're allowed to do.
