The Bubblegum Fairy and the Bad Boy

He hated the way she popped her bubblegum. He probably would never have noticed her if it wasn't for that particularly annoying sound coming out of her mouth.

Actually, when he really thought about it, unless they were moans of pleasure, any other noise coming out of a girl's mouth were generally quite annoying. He couldn't bear inane chitchat. He couldn't bear disgruntled nagging. He couldn't bear polite curiosity or the ploy of flirting.

In fact, he wasn't a fan of talking, full stop. He didn't need it. It just wasn't necessary. If he couldn't get his needs across with five words or less, then it was just too much effort. And he supposed he could be extremely grateful that he could easily get into a girl's pants with a heated stare and a quirk of the lips. Nobody could put the blame on him if Hamilton High School girls were just that easy. They were all Daddy's little girls with the trust funds and the ponies, saying please and thank you, while seeking him out in the dark of night, searching to tangle with the forbidden.

But he didn't mind playing the Bad Boy for them. After all, it wasn't hard. He was from the wrong side of the tracks, he had the motorcycle and the leather jacket, he smoked and he drank and he fucked around with all the girls that had boyfriends and all the young wives that had older husbands, all because he just didn't have anything better to do.

He wished he could find the energy to have a better ambition than that, but with his father being an alcoholic and his mother being completely out of the picture, he figured his boundaries were already set as far as they were going to go, so he might as well just enjoy what life sent his way instead of foolishly setting his sights too high.

And at eighteen, he was well on his way to being the alcoholic that his future promised him, which was why, with his raging hangover from the previous night and having gotten into a fight which left him with a touchy black eye and a pounding headache, the popping and clicking from the blonde sitting to his left, was not appreciated. As if English wasn't unbearable enough already.

He couldn't put a name to her face. He couldn't say she'd actually ever appeared on his radar in any way, shape or form before. And by his radar, he meant his penis. What could he say? A girl never really made much of an impact on him unless he'd dallied with them in some devious act of fornication.

So if it weren't for the continuous popping and clicking from her mouth, he probably would never have noticed her. He probably wouldn't have looked twice at her.

But he was looking now. She was blonde, but then, so was seventy percent of the girls at their school. Except, unlike the rest of the blondes, instead of having the latest hairstyle, this girl looked like she rarely ever brushed her hair. It was done up in two plaited ponytails, either side of her head, haphazardly arranged so that neither was symmetrical, and both contained pieces that had fallen out of the plaits into lone ringlets. And upon closer inspection, which he did very discreetly, he thought he might have seen a few multicoloured feathers and flowers or leaves in the mass, as if she had crashed into a peacock on the way to school.

She wore thick, black-framed glasses and he couldn't see the colour of her eyes, but what he did happen to notice, quite abruptly, was her mouth. Perhaps it was the ways she was continuously chewing and popping, or perhaps it was the way she pouted them whenever she turned her head up in thought, but whatever it was, he was absolutely riveted to her lips.

He was a big fan of a girl's mouth, which was kind of ironic because he rarely ever liked what came out of it, but he was definitely an avid admirer of the perfect pair of lips, which evidently, this girl had.

How had he never noticed before? They were a delicious looking red, plump with the perfect pout. Upon the judgement of her profile, she had the perfect mouth made just for sex. He was kind of dreading seeing her front on and possibly being disappointed. If her hair was any indication of her looks as a whole, then there was no hope in hell that she would be the sexy vixen her mouth was promising. And if her personality were as odious as the clicking noise her gum was producing, then he'd have to kiss that mouth goodbye. Figuratively. Because that noise grated on his headache like an electric drill, digging into his skull until he was ready to make her choke on it.

Yeah, the perfect mouth or not, it really needed to stop making that obnoxious sound.

"You know, that's really annoying." He grunted finally, giving her the intimidating glare he was so well known for.

She turned to him with a half-dazed look on her face, as if unsure whether or not someone had actually spoken to her, and upon seeing his daunting expression she released a melodic giggle, along with an equally eloquent, "Huh?"

Great. She was a giggler - another annoying sound from a girl's mouth to tick off the list. It was a shame really, that with such sinful lips and all it managed to do was aggravate him. He supposed he could put those dirty little fantasies with that beautiful pout to rest.

"You're popping is doing my head in."

She giggled inanely again, completely unmoved by his glare or the threatening tone to his voice. "My what-ing?"

He almost let out a growl. "Popping. Your gum? It's annoying. Please stop."

Her eyes, green he now noticed, cleared with understanding and of course, she giggled again, as if laughing through her sentences was just the natural way she spoke. "Oh. Right. Sorry bout that."

He sighed and looked away from her towards their teacher whose back was turned to them as she wrote a long list of things he was never going to get around to reading. He sent a lazy glance around the room and noticed almost every other student was either zoned out or enraptured in mini conversations with those beside them. Their teacher wasn't really known for her discipline so they always managed to get away with it.

He heard the scrape of a chair and desk against wood before he felt a soft thump from beside him, and then the start of a discussion he hadn't realised he'd initiated.

"It's just that," the Blonde began, totally unaware of his disinterest, "I had my braces pulled out yesterday and I'm absolutely brace-free for the first time in seven years. See."

And with as little warning as that, she poked her face in front of him and opened her mouth wide for a few seconds before closing it on a grin. "Neat, huh?"

He stared at her as if she were crazy… probably because she was, and replied, "What?"

"You have no idea how liberating it is not to have a metal brace clamped to each individual tooth." She rambled, running her tongue along the front of her teeth and then leaning her elbow on his desk as she rested her head on her hand and stared at him curiously. "Have you ever had braces?"

He was too bemused to answer. This girl had just shoved her desk into his, completely invaded his personal space and forced him into this whacked conversation while she stared intently at his mouth and he was expected to participate?

"Well have you?" She reiterated, her eyes wide and inquisitive.

"No."

She nodded. "You're lucky. Can I see?" And then she lifted her right hand to his mouth and pried his lips open with her fingers, pushing her face closer to his in efforts to see better. And then she nodded. "Oh. You have lovely teeth."

He jerked his head away and stared in disbelief. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Her eyes rounded in surprise as she gasped. Then she bit her lip and whispered, "You said a swear word."