Jen: The story so far.

< b_lover> everyones going to be there tonight, jeno.  too bad your such a mommys girl.  were going to be out after 10.
< jenouflex> fuck my mom, i do what i want.  tell me where and when.  ill see u there.
< leathermartini> good girl, jeno.  mabe i should bring u a pacifier and a blankie for nighttime?
< b_lover> catacombs at 11.  wear something hot.
< jenouflex> if thats all u got for me to suck on, leather, mebbe u should.
< jenouflex> something hot? u sure u can handle it?
< leathermartini> o, think your a woman now, jeno?  
< leathermartini> little girl’s shouldnt make promises they cant keep.
< b_lover> i can handle anything u got jeno.
< jenouflex> well see tonite b wont we?
< jenoufles> o shit, g2g.  see u tonite.
* jenouflex (jenouflex@a-woman-scorned.is.yourhell.net) Quit (Connection reset by peer)

Jen powered off the computer without bothering to shut it down, inwardly wincing at the abruptly-terminated hum of the processor fan as she grabbed a random book from her bag and flipped it open in front of her, dropping onto her bed. So much for cracking that bank database. I’m going to have to start over. “No, Mom, I’m not on the friggin’ computer again.” Stupid piece of shit, hardly worth having a processor fan on it. What the fuck age does she think we live in? “I’m doing my homework.” “Don’t swear, Jennifer,” came her grandmother’s sweet, perfectly modulated voice in response. “It’s not becoming of a lady.” "I'm not swearing, Grandma!" There was a mumble from downstairs, probably her mother responding, and then the sharper sound of her grandmother’s unintelligible answer. Well, fuck. If she wasn’t going to come upstairs and check, I could’ve— Her thoughts were cut short as her mother did indeed poke her head in through the door. “Jenny, your grandmother’s only going to be here for a few days. Won’t you at least come downstairs and do your homework? Be social, dear. Humour her.” “Humour her? Mom, she’s a fu-” Jen broke off. “She’s a freakin’ relic! What does she think this is, eighteen-hundred?” The protest, more for the sake of appearances than anything, was made as she gathered up her bag and her books. “All she’s going to do is lecture me on how I look and how I should take my earrings out and wear dresses and talk like some sort of—” “—of decent human being, instead of whining like a spoiled girl?” Her mother shook her head, the wooden beads at the ends of her braids clicking together, sounding disturbingly like a snakes’ rattle. “I wish you would take your piercings out; it’s not good for your chi to have metal stuck every which way in your body. No wonder you’re unstable.” One beringed hand waved Jen toward the stairs. I’m not fucking unstable. You are, you pothead freak. How come I wound up at the bottom of the reject mother bin? “I’m not unstable. I’m moody. I’m a freakin’ teenager.” Jen descended the stairs at a noisy clunk, making sure each fall of her combat boots hit the squeakiest part of the boards. She could hear her grandmother’s lecture begin even before she made it to the front room. The sitting room. “Madeline, I don’t know where I went wrong with you, but it’s clear I failed to teach you even the most basic responsibilities of motherhood. Letting poor Jennifer run around like a hoyden, dressed in such a scandalous fashion. And those metal things all over her body…” “They’re called studs, Grandma.” Jen cut in. Amalthea shuddered. “Such a tasteless word. They use that for breeding horses, you know, not for things that a young lady should be wearing. And where did you find those shoes? Didn’t your mother teach you anything?” Jen flopped into the couch, dropped her booted feet on the armrest, and pulled her math book out of her bookbag. She taught me how to smoke pot and drop acid, neither of which has ever done me any good. I don’t see why she thinks her mind is so fucking liberated. “I like my boots, Grandma. They’re comfortable and functional.” And that said, she opened a notebook and began doing her homework in earnest, blocking out the sound of her grandmother’s continuing soliloquy with the soothing regularity of calculus. Eleven. Do the trains run that late? Mom’ll be sure to wake up if I take the car. Fuck, how do I get from Greenwich village to Catacombs? And what am I going to wear?