Tame Chapter 1

Thursday, after school, I went over to Dan’s house again for our lessons. We were sitting in the basement on the couch and I had explained to Dan the basic chivalry, kind gestures that he should perform when in the presence of women, like holding a door open for them and stuff like that. We had taken a break and I seized the opportunity to show Dan the second note I had found in my locker yesterday.

I was half expecting to find another one today, but to my relief there wasn’t one. I think whoever was putting these in my locker had realized that they had gotten their point across to me and that it was time to start saving trees.

I had been debating over whether or not to show the note to Dan because I had been deeply offended by the way he reacted when he found the note I had on Tuesday. He had promised never to tease me in such a way again so I decided to show him the new note.

I wanted to talk to someone about this since he was the only other person who knew about it. I doubted that he would go against his promise and so I felt confident enough to confide in him about the second note.

“If I find one more note,” I said as Dan read the second one. “I’m going to start making a scarp book.”

“Someone is either really trying to warn you or they’re trying to intimidate you.” Dan said as he handed the paper back to me. “I really think this is some kind of prank. I heard Mr. Richwood is a good person.”

“Yeah, I think maybe it’s a prank too, but I don’t know why I’m the only one getting these notes. Well, I think I’m the only one. So what do you think I should do about it?”

“First off, who do you think would put these in your locker?”

The first name that came to my mind was Heather Drysdale, but I didn’t dare blurt this out to Dan. He really liked Heather and she was the reason we were having these lessons in the first place. I was trying to help him build up his confidence so he could talk to her. If I told him about Heather’s plot to tame Mr. Richwood’s heart then that would just hurt him deeply. I decided to very vague of who the culprit might be.

“There’s these girls I think might be responsible.”

“Here’s what you should do. You should find papers they’ve written on and compare their signature to the ones on the notes. Then if they match you can ask them directly about it.”

“Wow, that’s really a good idea,” I said grinning. “I’ll totally try that out.”

Dan had asked me earlier if I wanted to stay over for dinner. I didn’t hesitate when I agreed to have dinner with him and his family. I knew my mother would be working and I didn’t feel much like eating the same cold food at home from the refrigerator. I thought it would be nice to have dinner with his family.

Earlier today at school, I had found about five of the students who were skilled in Art and told them about me and Mr. Richwood’s Real Art Club idea. They agreed that it would be better for us to have our own private club. Mr. Richwood and I decided at lunch that our first meeting would be every Friday, except for tomorrow since it was such short notice. I was really looking forward to this.

“Okay Dan, tomorrow we’ll test everything that I’ve taught you this week. Do you think you’re ready?”

“Yes, but…” Dan looked at his hands for a moment and the continued. “…I just think there’s still one more thing I have to accomplish.”

“What is it?” I asked curiously. “Everything I’ve taught you is basic common sense.”

Dan fiddle with his fingers for a moment and then turned to look me in the eyes.

“What about…kissing?”

This took me by complete surprise causing my eyebrows to raise above their original position. I didn’t know what it was that Dan expected me to teach him about kissing. I never kissed anyone except for my mother. I never even had a boyfriend so I was just as clueless in that compartment as he was. Any advice I could give him would have to be based off knowledge gained from books and movies.

“I can’t help you there Dan. I’ve never kissed anyone before.”

“Well,” he asked quietly. “Can I practice with you?”

This caused me to cringe. An image of Dan kissing me with drool running out of his mouth flashed through my mind. This disturbing image caused me to beginning slowly scooting away from him.

“Practice? With me? No way!” I said sounding outraged. “Go and practice on your hand or even your sister’s old Barbie Dolls because there’s no way I’m going to let my first kiss from a boy come from you.”

I couldn’t believe how calmly Dan was acting. He appeared to as though this was no big deal.

“It won’t work on a doll, Amanda. I need like a real person.” he then sighed and added. “Look, I’m not going to sit there and make out with you. It won’t even be a real kiss. It’ll be like a quick peck on the lips.”

“I don’t care if it’s a peck on the cheek,” I said moving a little more away from him. “There’s no way I’m going to let you kiss me.”

“Please Amanda,” Dan begged. “I’ve never kissed anyone before. I need to practice or else I’ll look like a fool. It won’t even be a real kiss, just a peck.”

“I thought I was helping you talk to Heather, not kiss her. Why do you even need to know about kissing this early?”

“I just want to know what it’s like Amanda, please?”

I watched Dan with an appalled look on my face. I didn’t want to kiss him and I was certain that there was no argument he could make that would allow me to give in to him. He continued to beg and I slowly found my thoughts shifting in his favor. He said it would be a peck on the lips and nothing more.

I began to think of it as a kiss a child would give their grandparents. As much as I was against it, I agreed to do it, but first there were a few conditions he had to comply with. The first one involved sanitation.

I made Dan go to the bathroom and I had to watch him brush his teeth twice and gargle with mouth wash for ten full minutes.

Dan complained the entire time, insisting that this was unnecessary, but I told him that if he even wanted to come close to touching my lips I had to make sure he was clean. He brushed his teeth quickly then moved on to the gargling part. Within two minutes of gargling he came close to spitting the burning mouth wash out, but I covered his mouth telling him he had to keep it in there for at least ten minutes.

It hilarious to watch him running around like he was on fire to avoid spitting the mouth wash out. I was following after him laughing, pointing, and enjoy myself the entire time. Eventually he manage to maintain a ten minute time span of holding in the mouth wash.

We then returned to the basement to perform this one time only practice kiss. First we were standing in front of the couch, but decided to sit down and do it because Dan was a few inches taller than me. Once comfortable on the couch I stared at him.

“Just a peck, right?” I asked to insure that this was what we both agreed on.

“Of course, now close your eyes.”

I closed my eyes, preparing for this peck on the lips. I cringed and made a disgusted look on my face that revealed I had no real consent in the deliverance of this smooch. I was waiting for Dan, but instead of his peck I heard his voice.

“Oh come on Amanda. Why do you have to look so appalled? How am I suppose to do this if you look like that?”

“Well,” I said opening my eyes. “Look who I have to get pecked on the lips by. How am I supposed to look?”

“Just close your eyes and pretend that I’m Mr. Richwood.”

I felt like smacking him for mentioning Mr. Richwood in a sensitive situation such as this one, but decided that since I showed him the second note I had now invited the Art teacher into our conversations.

I closed my eyes and began to really concentrate. I imagined that I was sitting on the couch with Mr. Richwood. He was dressed in his causal way, leaning closely toward me the way I could feel Dan doing. In my mind, I had created an image of him that was so clear I could feel my heart tremble as if he really were here with me.

I felt Dan learned forward and plant a peck on my lips. It was that simple, but before I could react a second later I felt his lips press into mine as he delivered me an actual, real kiss. My eyes shot open alarmed by the situation, only to find that he was actually kissing me. It was one of those real kisses that you see in the movies.

My first reaction was to slap him which is what I did. He pulled away from me and I jumped to my feet, now yelling at him.

“You jerk!”

I began wiping my mouth with the back of hand. Despite the fact that Dan was the one who had kissed me, he appeared to be far more stunned that I was about what he had done. He touched his lips and began to apologize repeatedly, but I wouldn’t let him speak.

“What is your problem?!”

I began spitting on his carpet, trying to get his salvia out of my mouth. I didn’t care how impolite I was being because he had violated that rule of etiquettes when he gave me a real kiss without my consent.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” Dan rose to his feet, preparing to approach me, but I took several steps away from him. He said, “I don’t know what came over me. I’m sorry.”

“Why?!” I was far more disgusted than I was angry. “I didn’t want my first kiss to be given to me by you, Dan Mebay.”

There was this startled look in Dan’s eyes that made me feel a small amount of guilt for causing it to surface. He began to repeatedly apologize for what he had done.

“Apologizing isn’t going to help,” I said as I picked up a pillow off one of the couches. “Maybe this will!”

I began throwing pillows off the couch at him. Dan held his hands up to protect him, then he quickly beginning to realize that I had forgiven him. I wasn’t happy about my first kiss coming form him, but I didn’t feel right about holding it against him.

I chased Dan around the basement throwing pillows at him and he grabbed a few to throw at me. The basement became a battlefield as we became soldiers in a war, hiding behind furnisher and using anything we could to throw at the enemy. It was a lot of fun.

We had completely destroyed his parents basement and had to work together to clean it up.

____________

That night at dinner I met Mr. and Mrs. Mebay for the first time. For dinner we were having a meal that Mrs. Mebay had ordered from a catering company. Kimberly told me that their mother never cooked and that any time they had dinner it was always someone else’s hard cooked meal that they were devouring.

Mrs. Mebay had long, curly dark hair that resembled vines that were hanging from her head. She really long hands and dressed in this elegant style that reminded me of the nineteen fifties. I thought it was odd how she wore long white gloves that stretched to her elbows.

Mr. Mebay sat on the opposite end of the table from his wife. I was under the impression that the distance they were separated from at the table was similar to how distant they were from each other in their relationship.

Mr. Mebay was a tall man who wore thick cube shaped glasses. I thought he was pretty quiet for a Defense Attorney, who are known to be verbal, due to their position in court. The entire time I was at their home for dinner I never once heard his voice. He stared down at his place, not looking up to meet the eyes of anyone at the table.

His silence wasn’t a problem because Mrs. Mebay spoke so much it compensated for his silence. I thought they were an oddly paired couple. Kimberly sat closer toward her father, wearing ear plugs in her ears. The music she was listening to was so loud that I was expecting her ear drums to burst any minute. I sat in a chair close to Dan.

Mrs. Mebay spent a majority of the dinner rambling on about non-sense that no one was really interested in. She only addressed me a few times.

“So Amanda, what does your mother do for a living?”

“She has a lot of jobs,” I began stirring the peas on my plate with my spoon. “She’s a cashier, waitress, and a custodian. It usually depends on what day of the week it is.”

“Really?” Mrs. Mebay grinned and a glassy look filled her eyes. “I once encountered the worst cashier at the store. He was this middle-age man that was going bald. His body was like a beach ball. He struggled with the register for nearly five minutes until I had to call the supervisor.”

“Uh, why did you call the supervisor?” I asked politely to show that I was listening.

“Well, because he obviously didn’t know what he was doing. I mean, I shouldn’t have to wait five minutes because he doesn’t know how to do his job. That’s why I was standing right there in front of him with a smile on my face when the supervisor fired him. People shouldn’t have jobs that they can’t do. It turns out I wasn’t the first person to complain. He was crying and saying that he needed the job to put his kids in school. You know, the typical garbage that no one really cares about. I say, write it in a letter and mail it to ‘Who gives a crap Avenue?’.”

I didn’t like the idea of Mrs. Mebay having a man fired because she had to wait a few extra minutes. I didn’t voice my opinion though because it wasn’t in my nature to be rude and point out other’s flaws. I knew that if wanted to be allowed back over here I had to be polite.

Mrs. Mebay went on and on about another encounter with a cashier. Dan looked slightly uncomfortable and embarrassed by his mother’s endless rambling.

_____

When dinner was over, Dan announced that he had to drive me home and his parents gave him permission to do so, or his mother did. It was already dark outside as Dan drove me home along the pitch, black streets.

“Sorry about my family…that’s usually how dinner is.”

“I don’t mind it,” I was silent for a moment and then continued. “It’s better than having dinner alone at home. Oh yeah and about that kiss,” I said after I suddenly remembered it. “You better not try that again, or else next time I won’t let you off.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Dan said as he made a turn down a street. “You’re not that great of a kisser anyway.”

I flashed a menacing glare toward Dan in the dark that I knew he probably couldn’t see, but could feel due to the nature of how quickly I had turned my head toward him.

“What’s that suppose to mean?”

“Well, I had to do all the work. A kiss is suppose to be two people working together, not one Amanda.”

“It wasn’t even suppose to be kiss!” I reminded him. “I was suppose to be a peck on the lips, remember? But no, you got greedy and had to go in for the full thing.”

Dan laughed at this and began shaking his head.

“You’re so funny Amanda.”

“Well, I’m not trying to be. Listen, tomorrow we’re going to try out everything I taught you on Heather, except for the kissing part. You should do it at lunch.”

“Fine,” he said sounding distant.

Once Dan pulled up to my driveway, I thanked him and then climbed out of the car. Dan waited until I entered my house before driving off to return home. I closed the door behind me and touched my lips as I recalled the way Dan had kissed me.

If that was how a kiss is suppose to feel, then maybe if Mr. Richwood kissed me I would feel like flying. I felt butterflies in my stomach just thinking about it.