Hi everyone! I hope you enjoyed the "cross-over episode"... something tells me this won't be the last we see of Jenny and Ben....

Anyway, just to let you know that I'll be away on holiday for the next week, so the story will be taking it's "Mid-Season Break"! I'm already working on the next few chapters, and I can tell you that the story will be taking quite a significant turn in those chapters, which might make the story a bit more interesting. Or not, depending on what aspects of the story you enjoy!


Sparky

Just before I go off, thought I'd post this episode for you :-)

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Chapter 42

He did WHAT?


(Amanda and Danny have been going out now for a bit over 4 months, and it's currently about 2 to 3 weeks before the end of their 3 month contract)


I feel guilty. Very VERY guilty. I was unfaithful to Amanda last night. I mean, it wasn't at all planned, it just 'happened'.

Let me explain...

Friday evening after work, I'd got the bus home, and had gone into the supermarket to grab some bread and milk. As I came out, and started to walk home, another bus stopped at the bus stop, and I saw Janice get off. I'd not actually seen Janice for a couple of weeks, she was clearly busy with her boyfriend, Mike.

"Hi Janice!" I said cheerfully. As she heard my voice she looked towards me.

"Oh, Danny, just the person I need!" she replied, and put her arms around me, and held me. A moment later, I realised that she was starting to sob, and cry.

"What's up, Janice?" I asked her.

"It's Mike... he's..... he... he split up with me!"

"No way, I thought you were getting on really well?"

"Clearly not well enough" she replied between sobs.

"When?"

"He called me this afternoon...". Not good news, but at least he had the decency to actually tell her, rather than just send her a text.

I held her for a couple of minutes. "You going to be ok?"

"Not really, Sonya and Will are away for the weekend, and I'm not really looking forward to going back to an empty house". I understood her feelings completely, I've been there before myself. I started thinking what I could do: I was supposed to be going out to a dinner with Amanda tonight, but I couldn't leave Janice like this. I led Janice to a seat that wasn't far away, and we sat down together. Then I got my phone out, and called Amanda.

"Hi Amanda" I said when she answered. "I have a bit of a problem..."

"Janice?" she replied

"Yeah! News travels fast, how come you know already?"

"Suzannah came up earlier and let me know"

"Oh, right. I just bumped into Janice as I came out of the shops, she's not feeling great.."

"Yeah, I can imagine. Look, don't worry about tonight, good friends are more important than dinners... and no, I'm not being sarcastic. You're good at looking after people, you were there for me when grandpa died, so be there for her tonight!"

"You sure?"

"Yeah, of course I am. I'll call you tomorrow morning, before I come around... something tells me you may need a wake-up call: I know what happens when you and Janice get together!" Ok, I plead guilty, I remember only a few weeks ago drinking down the pub with Janice - she didn't drink half as much as I did, and I ended up passing out on her settee.

"Ok, thanks Amanda. Try and have a nice evening without me...". I turned to Janice: "Looks like I've got official permission to look after you this evening, so how about we start with dinner at my place?"

So, we had dinner at my place, then we went to the pub, and had a couple of drinks, enough to relax us both, but not too much to make us actually drunk. Over the evening, she explained that the relationship between her and Mike had actually started very well, and they seem to work well together. However, she hadn't seen him much over the last week or so: various plausible excuses, all of which sounded ok. They had gone for a drink in the evening on Wednesday, but she'd not heard from him until mid-afternoon today, which is when he, pleasantly and politely, told her she was ditched. He gave no reason, but Janice assumed there must be someone else, which given the circumstances, sounded quite plausible.

Back at my place, we made coffee, and sat next to each other on the settee. I put my arm around Janice, and held her close, to comfort her. The next thing I knew, we were kissing. My tongue had been exploring her mouth, then her tongue explored mine.

"Isn't it time your braces treatment finished?" she asked. I smiled

"It's only been about 6 months so far" I replied. "I was assuming it would need to be 9 to 12 months. Then retainers, of course"

"You really like your braces, don't you. And I'm guessing Amanda must be ok with them too". I'd never explicitly told Janice about Amanda's love of braces, but she had seen us together enough times to realise that Amanda certainly didn't object to them.

"Would you like me to take them out?"

"Please.....". Of course, I should have stopped things there, but I didn't. I removed them and put them down on the coffee table, and we kissed again, without them. Have I ever told you how nice Janice smells? Her natural body smells are quite a turn on, so it wasn't long before my second brain (you know, the one between a guy's legs) kicked in, and we were touching, and my hand found it's way up her skirt, and....

Ok, let me keep it simple: 'we ended up in bed together'. Nothing really new there, we'd done that many times before. Except, on all those occasions neither of us was actually in a relationship. Unlike now.


I was awoken on the Saturday morning by my phone ringing. I opened my eyes, and saw Janice in bed next to me. I leaned across her and grabbed the phone: it was Amanda!

"Hello" I sort of grunted.

"Ah, so you were still asleep! This is your 10 o'clock wakeup call!"

"Thank you, Amanda" I replied

"Well, I was going to say that I'll be over in ten minutes, but I guess you're going to need to have some breakfast and have a shower, so shall I make it 30 minutes?"

"That sounds better to me.... see you soon!".

Sh*t, sh*t and triple shi*t! By this point, Janice was waking up.

"That was Amanda, she'll be here in 30 minutes!" I told her, "so you'd better be gone by then..."

"It seems to me more likely that I would have spent the night on your settee, and might still be here...."

"Good call, in which case we need to make it look like that. Do you want to have a shower? I'll tidy up the bedroom, untidy the settee, then make us some breakfast"

"Yeah, ok....". I gave Janice a towel, and she went to the bathroom. I tidied the bed, then grabbed a blanket and spare pillow I had and put it on the settee. I spotted my braces on the table, so grabbed them, and put them in my mouth. (Yes, that would have been hard to explain if Amanda had seen them there!)

Next, in the kitchen, I got the coffee on, and got some bread out, ready to make toast. By this time, Janice was out the shower, and after drying herself off, she used some of Amanda's deodorant spray, and got dressed. I left her to continue making breakfast, and got into the shower myself. I had just got out of the shower, and was drying myself, when the doorbell rang.

"Don't worry" said Janice, "I'll get it, it will be Amanda".

Luckily, Amanda believed our story that Janice had slept on the settee, but that doesn't stop me from feeling very, very guilty about what happened.

Very much enjoyed it, thank you! And I hope you're having a good break :-)

I am indeed enjoying my holiday... We have come to Devon, just had the day out in Teignmouth and Dawlish. Had a lovely cream tea yesterday too!

Whilst I've not been writing, I've had a chance to think about the story...

Oh no!

Chapter 45

Wow, you're so ugly!


By the time I woke up the next morning, I had 3 matches, so I sent off 'hello' messages to them all. I exchanged a few more messages with two of them through the day, but nothing ever came of them. Janice had told me to expect that, it probably happens for a ton of reasons... probably they are chatting with someone else, and enjoying it more, or maybe hooked up with someone.

The third one didn't respond till after I got home, and she asked if I'd like to go round to her place and.... well, I'll leave you to guess that bit!

I got a message from another girl whilst I was eating my dinner: it was hard to work out what she actually looked like, because the 2 pics showed her in what I'll call 'baggy clothes': she certainly didn't look fat, but was she skinny or maybe a little chubby? Her face in the pics was a bit small to see a huge amount of detail, but it looked fairly cute. Through the evening we get chatting, then it's time for bed. Oh, her name was Rachel, and she was 23, so a couple of years younger than me.

I got a message over lunchtime the following day, then that evening we were chatting again. She said she currently worked in tele-sales, which she didn't really like all that much, but at least she had a job. From the language she used when messaging, it was clear she was reasonably intelligent. I also found, without getting her full address, that she lived a couple of miles away from me, but her office was several miles away.

By mid evening, we had started to become quite friendly, so I gave her my phone number, and very soon after, my phone rang.

"Hi Danny, it's Rachel" she said. Her voice sounded very nice, and I could easily believe that she coped well in her telesales role.

"Hi Rachel!" I replied.

Now, I've watched plenty of episodes of Catfish to know that you can fake pictures, and even ugly girls can have nice voices: I had already decided that if any girl strung me along for more than a couple of days without letting me see her in one way or another, then I'd not waste any time with her. I suspect Rachel also knew that.

"So, we gonna do a video call, let me see you?". She was a little suprised by my request, and said she wasn't in a suitable state to do a video chat. So not right now.

"Tell you what, would you like to meet up for a drink, tomorrow night?" she suggested. Well, that would certainly sort out any issues, assuming she turned up.

"Ok, where would you like to meet?". She had already said she had a car, and she knew that I don't.

"Do you have any pubs near you, that are pleasant, but not too noisy, so we can actually chat?"

"Hang on a moment..." I said

"Oh, what you doing?"

"I know a pub, but I want to make sure it's not Karaoke night, or open mic night or similar....  just give me a moment....". I had opened my laptop, and was quickly searching. "Ah good, should be ok... so, how about the King James Arms?" I gave her the address and postcode. "From what I remember seeing when I've been there, you should be able to park pretty close. There's a post box almost opposite, I'll wait there for you".

We agreed to meet at 8:00, to give us enough time to have some dinner, and get ready, and for us to actually get there - it was a 10 to 15 minute walk for me.

We chatted on the phone for a while longer, then we both decided it was time to go.

I dropped Janice a quick message - on the dating app, just for fun - to tell her I had a date the following evening. I got a reply 10 minutes later: "Oh, goody! Hope it goes ok.... watch out for princesses that turn into toads :-) "

I was actually a couple of minutes late, but it seems that Rachel was a couple of minutes early, and was standing by the postbox. I took a look at her as I approached. I had expected her to be 'dressed up', but I don't think I was really ready for what I saw. Let's make it simple, and go from the top down. She was a couple of inches shorter than me, I'm 5ft 8in tall, but also take off 4 inches for her high-heels, I'd guess she was something like 5ft 2 ins. Her dark hair was in a ponytail that sprouted out the top of her head (oh, ok, so slightly to the back). Thin eyebows, no doubt plucked, with an obvious black covering to them. Eyelash extensions glued on, loads of mascara. Fake tan, plenty of make up, and fairly bold lip-gloss. I'm sure some guys would like that, but not me.

Below her neck: medium to large boobs, accentuated by a push-up bra, and a low cut top. Her skirt was pretty short, with dark tights (or maybe stockings) on her legs.... which would have been a lot better if she hadn't been slightly chubby. I'm not saying fat, because she wasn't, but she had an extra couple of inches around her waist. And her legs.

On her arms, I noticed she had a couple of tattoos: I'm still undecided about tattoos. These were reasonably small, so not taking over her arms, and looked quite fresh, so yeah, I think I was ok with what she had, but much more and I wouldn't have been. Also on her arms, on her wrist, she had a load of bracelets, and a couple of rings on her fingers.

So, what a dilemma: a girl who seemed to be fairly intelligent, and that I seemed to enjoy chatting with, with a body that did absolutely nothing for me!

"Hi, I guess you're Rachel?" I said when I got to her.

"Yes, so you're Danny. Hi Danny!" In the same way I'd been looking at her as I walked up, I think she had been eyeing me up too... I wonder what she thought about me.

"Any problems parking?" I asked as we started to walk over to the pub.

"No, real easy, I'm just over there" she said, pointing to her car. "What would you like to drink" she asked me when we got inside. It was a pleasant surprise for the lady to offer to buy the first drinks, but why not?

I took a look at the pumps, and selected a pint of real ale, she had half a pint of lager. As we sat down, I tried hard to ignore what my eyes saw, and remember the girl I had chatted to on the phone. We chatted about various things, but not about what we thought about each other's appearance. I asked what her day at work had been like, and told her about mine. Finally, our glasses were nearly empty, and it was time to either go home, or get another one.

"So, Rachel, it's time to get another drink. The question is whether we actually want a second drink, or whether either of us wants to escape!". Luckily Rachel understood what I meant, and smiled. She turned the question back on me.

"What do YOU want to do?" she asked.

"Well... how do I put this without upsetting you? I am thoroughly enjoying chatting with you, but to be honest, I don't actually find you attractive, and don't fancy you at all. But if you'd like to stay and chat, I'd be veryy happy to stay too. What do YOU want to do?" As I said that, she chuckled.

"Funnily enough, I was thinking exactly the same: I don't fancy you either, but sitting and chatting with you, having a drink, is much nicer than sitting alone at home. So, go get us some more drinks, then I think we need to be honest about why we don't fancy each other.... you never know, it might improve our chances in the future!".

I went and got us the drinks, then sat down.

"Ok, why don't you start... let's do it bit by bit. Start with general body..."

"Hmm... well, you're a little overweight. To be honest, that's not a major issue for me, but I suspect you'd look a lot better if you could lose some of it. Next one... I'm really not into girls with big boobs... I don't know why, I'm just not. I'm guessing you're wearing a push-up bra, to make your boobs look more obvious, and your dress doesn't exactly cover them....". I was expecting her to glare daggers at me, but she was quite calm.

"You're absolutely right about my weight, and I'd love to lose some, but it's not easy... I have actually managed to lose a bit recently. As for the size of my boobs... not a lot I can do about that, and yeah, ok, I do like to advertise them, a lot of guys like that... sadly not you! So what about you then?... I mean, you're a bit on the scrawny side, no six pack, or nothing even like it! Wimpy looking hands and fingers!" By now, you'd think we'd both be getting very upset with each other, but in fact we were both smiling. "Ok, so up to your face and head. What's that mop of hair on your head? Much too long for me, I like guys with short spiky hair! And your ears stick out a little. And as for the metal on your teeth - what self-respecting guy in his mid-20's wears braces? Ok, so maybe the braces on your teeth aren't actually that bad, but it is a bit odd! Your turn...."

"You're probably going to hate this next bit..."

"Yeah, I think I already worked that out, go on, I can take it..... this is actually fun, slagging each other off on their looks!"

"Your hair.... I'm sorry, I just hate ponytails like that...."

"Fair call, but tell you what, let me put it down, and see what you think...". She undid the ponytail, and let her hair down - yeah, it wasn't that much better. "I'm trying to grow it a bit, so the ponytail seems to keep it vaguely tidy. Go on, I have a feeling you don't like my makeup either..."

"Sorry, but yes... I bet you pluck your eyebrows, don't you? Thin eyebows are so unnatural. And whilst I like a girl in a delicate amount of mascara and eye-liner, yours IS a bit on the heavy side... so is the rest of your makeup to be honest. I do like that small piercing in your lip though! As for your fake tan.... I'd better say no more!"

"I guess you're not too keen on my clothes either, are you? To be honest, your dress sense isn't all that great. Jeans? A polo shirt? And that naff jacket? They just don't go together, either from a style perspective, or a colour perspective! Go on, tell me how bad my clothes are!"

"Sorry, just not what I'd expect a girl I'm with to wear. Far too low at the top, and far to high at the bottom, showing off much too much of your over-sized boobs! I can understand you wearing it out to a club, to try and lure in some unsuspecting guy who's into that sort of thing, but tonight you're actually with a guy, so you should be a bit more.... well, 'demure'"

"You really don't like the way I look, do you? Surely there's something more than my piercing - which is actually fake by the way - that you actually LIKE about me?"

"Well, I do like the tattoos.... I'm hoping they are temporary ones. But you've not gone too mad with those. They look pretty recent. Oh, let me have a proper look at your hands...." She held out her hands for me to look at. The nails were, I assumed, stick-on ones, but weren't stupidly long, and they were dark blue, which actually looked nice. "mmm, I like your hands and nails"

"Why thank you! Something about me that you like at last! I was actually doing the tattoo last night, that's why I couldn't video chat with you! As for the nails, you probably don't want to see my real nails"

"Oooh, you don't bite them really short do you?" I asked. She nodded, and I grimaced a bit. Girls with really short bitten nails really do not look good!

The good thing about all of this is that we were actually enjoying ourselves, and to be honest, it was actually interesting to find out my 'shortcomings' from the perspective of someone who didn't fancy me!

After we finished our second drinks, we decided it was time to go home.

"Would you like a lift? I'm guessing that you walked all the way here" asked Rachel

"Yeah, that would be nice, thanks, it's not actually all that far in a car....". I got into her car, it was a small Peugeot, second or third hand, but there's nothing wrong with that. I gave her directions to my place.

"Pull up near that lamp post I said, pointing to the left", which she did. "You're welcome to come in for a coffee, up to you..."

"No, I don't think so. Look Danny, whilst we don't seem to fancy each other, I'd still like to chat with you sometime, I have enjoyed our conversations...."

"Yeah, ok...."

@ retained: oh, there's PLENTY of places to go from here.... let's explore a few ideas, shall we?

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Chapter 46

Let's P-A-R-T-Y-!


Janice came around and had dinner with me: nothing special, but it's hardly any more effort to cook for 2 as 1, and that's one of the reasons we often get together. Of course, she wanted to hear all about my evening with Rachel went, so I told her how we berated each other.

"Did she mention your braces at all?"

"Yeah, she did... something like 'what self-respecting guy in his 20's wears braces?'". Janice laughed.

"And you're still on talking terms?"

"Yeah, that's the silly thing. We hate how each other looks, but as people, we actually get on well." I showed her the message I got from her that morning: 'Hi Danny, thanks for last night: even though it didn't work out, I really had a lot of fun, so not a wasted evening. Keep in touch, Rachel xx"

"So, you had any luck with any guys from the app yet?" I asked her

"I'm chatting with a couple of guys, might meet one of them sometime for a drink". Just then, my doorbell rang, so I went downstairs, and opened the front door. I vaguely recognised the guy at the door.

"Hi... Danny isn't it? Look, I'm Raymond, from 2 doors down" he explained, pointing towards his house. "We're all having a party on Saturday evening, and rather than annoy you with the noise, we thought you might prefer to just come along."

It had been a while since I'd gone to a party, so the idea appealed. Besides, you never know your luck.... "Hey, that sounds like fun. Bring some booze I guess?"

"Yeah. Bring your girlfriend too. Starting something like 8 or 9...."

"OK, thanks.... see you on Saturday then!"

"So what was that about then?" asked Janice when I got back upstairs.

"They're having a party a couple of houses down, on Saturday. Come with me if you like". Maybe I should explain that where I live is in a row of reasonably sized, but fairly old houses. Some have been split into individual flats, like where I am, but many are still a single house, shared by a group of friends... which I assumed is what the place having the party would be. It would be interesting to see what these houses are supposed to look like when they haven't been hacked into flats.

"If I don't have a date, I will...".

On Saturday, Janice didn't have a date, so she came around my place again for dinner. Around 7:30 we head the music start - I guessed they were getting the place ready, and decided to test out the music setup. We didn't want to get there too early, so went around at about 8:30. The front door was closed - I'm guessing they didn't want gate-crashers - so I knocked on the door, which was opened moments later.

"Hi there, I'm Danny from 2 doors down, this is my friend Janice. Raymond told us to come over... and I come bearing gifts..." I said, holding up the box with 10 cans of beer in

"Oh, hi there Danny, Janice, come on in! As ever, booze is in the kitchen, so's Raymond, I think...". So, whilst our house has a second door that goes straight to the stairs (which are all boarded in), this house had a hallway with the stairs off to the side, and a corridor through to the kitchen, at the back. On the way, we could see the lounge-dining room, originally two rooms, now joined into one large room, which is where part of the party was happening.

The first person I recognised in the kitchen was Raymond

"Hi Raymond"

"Oh, hi Danny, good to see you. This your girlfriend I'm guessing?"

"This is Janice... she a good friend, and is a girl, but not actually my girlfriend",

"Oh, well nice to meet you too, Janice" said Raymond, quickly eyeing her up.

"I have beer" I explained.

"Oh, great, put it over there with the rest, grab one for yourselves, then let me introduce you to a few people." I put the box of beers on the table, grabbed a couple for me and Janice, then followed Raymond, who introduced a few people. It was quite early, and the party was still very quiet, but before long, a few more arrived.

By 10 o'clock, the place was getting quite full. Janice was over in one corner, being chatted up by a couple of guys (she's not stupid!), and I had been chatting to a guy near the front door. My Beer can had been emptied a few minutes before, so it was time to go to the kitchen to grab another. In the kitchen, I could see a group of three, two girls and a guy, had just arrived: they still had their coats on.

"Hi guys.... coats seem to be going upstairs - hey, why don't I take them for you?" I asked, trying to be nice.

"Thanks..." said one of the girls, and they passed the coats over to me. From the way they were behaving, I got the feeling that the guy and one of the girls were a couple, and that their friend was single. I quickly took their coats upstairs: I could see that one of the bedrooms had it's light on, and the coats were being put on the bed.

So, I still needed a beer, so went back to the kitchen, where the 3 newcomers were. I had to push past the single girl to get it.

"Hi, I'm Danny by the way, I live a couple of doors down" I said, introducing myself. The girl was actually a relatively plain girl, with freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her hair was slightly 'bouncy, going over her shoulders, with a curly sort of fringe. her eyebrows looked normally medium, neither too thick nor too thin. A touch of mascara and eye makeup.

"Hi Danny, I'm Sandra" she said. I did a bit of a double-take: did I just see a glint of something in her mouth? Clearly I needed to talk to her more, and look at her in a bit more detail. As she reached her hand to get a drink, I could see that her fingers, and more specifically her fingernails looked natural, with the ends of her nails being maybe 5mm beyond her fingers - so neither stupidly short, now stupidly long, but quite attractive, and well maintained. I could see a couple of rings on her left had (nothing on the 3rd finger!). As she reached out her other hand to get a plastic cup, I could see another ring on one of the fingers of her right hand.

"You live around here too?" I asked, trying to start a conversation. She turned a bit more towards me, which let me look at her a bit more. So, about 3 inches shorter than me (but I couldn't yet see what shoes she had on). Pleasantly shaped body, probably a B to C cup, and not obviously fat. In the side of her nose she had a small nose ring. She was wearing a purple tank-top with jeans, and I could see a couple of tattoos on her left shoulder. A fairly normal but plain girl, who I would score as a 5 or a 6.

"No, we're over in Finsbury Park, but Jim - that's the guy you saw a moment ago - knows a couple of the people here. We all share a house". The best bit of her talking to me was that I could confirm that she did indeed have braces! Which of course pushed her score up to be a 7 or an 8!

I knew I'd have plenty of time to talk to her again later, and of course, with me also having braces (ok, so they are fakes, but that doesn't really matter, only an expert would realise) it gave me a good topic to chat to her about, so I decided to leave her for the moment, so it didn't look quite so obvious I was wanting to chat her up.

"I'm gonna go see how my friend is getting on, see you around..." I replied, leaving the kitchen, and going back to the main room where I knew where Janice would be. She was still being chatted up by the same two guys, who I don't think realised that we had come to the party together, so I decided to have a little fun.

"Hi there, beautiful!" I said with a slight wink as I got to her, hoping she would pick up on what I was intending.

"Hello handsome, to you too!" she replied, flirting back at me.

"So who's these handsome gents you're chatting up then?"

"This is Pete, and that's Jamie"

"Hi guys, I'm Danny, I live a couple of doors away. You guys local too?"

"We just discovered that we don't actually live far from Janice, so about 10 minutes away. You know each other?" asked Pete

"Our paths have crossed occasionally" I understated. There was no reason for them to have any idea about the true relationship between us. Besides, I didn't really want to mess up her chances with either of them! I left them, and wandered around for a bit, finally stopping to have a nice chat with Raymond, the guy who invited us. It turned out that he did something not that much different from what I did. My beer can was empty, so I excused myself, and went back to the kitchen, where I found Sandra, looking a bit bored, so having got my beer, I went over to her. I guess now was the time.

"Hi again, Sandra, you still out here, keeping the booze company?" I said jokingly

"Yeah, it's a bit quieter here too!" she said with a smile. A smile that let me see that not only did she have nice metal brackets top and bottom, but I could see elastics on the sides of her mouth. Mmm, nice....

"Maybe I can persuade you to come and have a dance with me... although I should explain that the best I can do is just waggle a few bits of me around, vaguely in time to the music!". We went into the lounge, where the music was: it was a bit louder there, but the lighting was rather less harsh. I'm not sure who was looking after the music, or even what it's source was, but after a couple of dancing tracks, the music slowed a bit. I looked straight at Sandra, and asked her "Would you like a slow dance?". The reason for asking was simply because I would be able to get a bit closer to her, and talk loudly into her ear.

"So, how long you had your braces for?" I asked her. For most people (by which I mean people without braces), that would be a strange opening line, but from someone else with braces, it was a very reasonable question.... and I'd certainly made sure she had seen my braces!

"Oh, just over 2 months now. What about you?" she replied

"Um, must be about 7 months now" I replied. That was actually 100% true, as it was something like 7 months ago when I was in Asia, and that 'when I got my braces'! "I probably won't be wearing them much longer though": no longer being with Amanda meant that trying to explain my fakes away could become difficult, but retainers would not have that problem, so my plan was to 'visit the ortho and get them removed' fairly soon.

"Oh, you're lucky, I'll have mine for something like 18 months"

"Do I see some elastics in your mouth?"

"You're pretty observant, yes, I do"

"What they like - I've never needed them?". I was trying to be as truthful as I could, whilst at the same time being vague, about my braces. I was doing well so far! We talked a little more about braces, mostly hers, then I moved our conversation on to other things, like music, where we came from, even work. She seemed to be quite willing to chat, and we were getting on pretty well. The slow music stopped, and the faster stuff started again, which rather stopped us chatting.

"Come on" she said (or should I say shouted) "let's go somewhere quieter". We went into the kitchen (grabbing some more drinks as we passed), and I saw the back door was open: of course, they would have a garden, wouldn't they? Being on the top floor, I didn't have access to the garden, only the flat below did. But this was a 'normal' house.

There were two others already out in the garden. They had put a few lights outside so you could see, plus they'd put all the dining chairs (as well as the table) and a few other chairs out there, so we found a couple next to each other and sat down, and continued talking. As we talked, I realised that I could see the back of my flat from the garden.

"Hey, see up there.... two houses over... that's my place" I commented, pointing up to my windows.

"What, the whole house?"

"No, it's been split into 2 flats, mine is the upstairs one". We talked briefly about it, then moved on to other things. In the background, I heard the music slow down again. "Fancy going in for another dance" I suggested.

"We could just dance out here, we're all alone at the moment"

"Ok..." we stood up, and I put my hands on her waist. She put her arms around my shoulders, and we started dancing. My head was next to hers, and I could smell her delicate perfume. She nuzzled her head into my shoulder, my neck, and I could feel her kiss my neck. Things were looking good. I moved my hands upwards, onto her back, gently rubbing her. She pushed her body closer to mine. Then she pulled her head back, away from my shoulder. I took the hint, and did the same. We looked into each others eyes for a bit, then she put her lips onto mine. Before I knew it, our tongues were touching, and they played together gently for a few moments.

It goes without saying that, as a normal warm-blooded male, I was quite enjoying this. I gently pushed her tongue back into her mouth, and was finally rewarded by the feel of my tongue touching the metal of her braces. I kept my tongue at the front of her mouth, gently running over her top teeth, and top braces, then moved down to feel her lowers, finally pulling my tongue back: the whole action had taken but a few seconds, but felt rather good.

A moment later, she slipped her tongue past our lips, and ran it over my braces... the way she did so hinted that she'd probably never kissed anyone else with braces before. One of her hands moved behind my head, and she ran her fingers through my hair. I took this as permission to let my hands wander too... through her hair (which was actually rather nice).

"I have a suggestion..." I said as I 'came up for air'. "Why don't we continue this round my place? It'll be more comfortable, plus we won't get interrupted!"

"Ok then..." she replied, "lead the way!". I took her through the house, and out the front door. Then the massive 20 metre walk to my front door, then up the stairs. Once in the lounge, she grabbed me again, and we started kissing again, but this time, because we knew there was no one else around, she was a little less inhibited. It was a lovely feeling kissing a girl with real braces. Before long, we ended up in the bedroom, on the bed. The kissing moved from just the lips to other parts of the body. Many (actually, all) items of clothing got removed, and there was much heavy breathing.

Having 'had our daily exercise', I was lying on my back, and Sandra was on her side, and kissing me (on my lips, and inside my mouth).

"I'm intrigued" she started, "you have what looks like headgear over there, and have braces that seem to be just like mine.... but what's the removeable bits for?"

"What do you mean" I replied, trying to act all innocent. The reality of it was that I was actually starting to panic. I'd completely forgotten that I'd left my headgear out, although that wasn't the main problem. The problem was that she had realised that my brackets, or something else in my mouth, was different from hers. Of course, we all know why I have plastic removable bits: they hold the brackets in my mouth! But how the hell was I going to explain this away?

I think that was the exact time that I realised that I needed to stop wearing my fake brackets: on Monday, I would be 'visiting my ortho' to have my braces removed, and would start wearing my Hawleys. Fake brackets were fine when the other person knew about them, and even better if they actually liked them. But on occasions like now, having fake braces was not such a great idea. Hawleys would be ok, but not fake brackets.

I guess I could have told her some lie, but then she'd probably want to have a look, or ask me to take them out. So I decided to just tell her the truth, and hope she'd understand. How wrong could I have been?

"Well...." I said. "Um, it because these aren't real braces...."

"What do you mean, 'not real braces'?"

"Well, you see, I have a bit of a thing for braces. I like seeing them on other people, and I always wanted to have them myself, and the only way I could do that was by getting fake braces" I told her. "I guess you might say I have a bit of a braces fetish!"

Well, the look she gave me was the most dirty look I've seen for a while. "Braces fetish? You are a weirdo! A complete weirdo!" She paused for a moment, then continued. "I bet you're one of those guys with a collection of pictures of kids, although yours will all have braces! You dirty bastard! Shit, did you just get me into bed simply because I have braces? You sicko!"

"It wasn't JUST because of your braces...." I tried to explain, but she wasn't listening to me. She was straight out of the bed, she put on the minimum needed clothes, grabbed the rest, and was going down my stairs no more than 20 seconds later. I heard the front door slam behind her!

I decided NOT to go back to the party....

Chapter 47

The day after the night before


"So, I saw you leave the party with that girl last night..." said Janice the next day, "so how did it go? Gonna see her again?" Janice had just arrived at my place to have Sunday lunch with me.

"I don't think so..."

"Oh, that doesn't sound good, what happened?"

"Come in the kitchen, and while I make us a coffee I'll explain". I filled the kettle with water, put it on, then started to explain what had happened the night before. By the time I got to where Sandra said "...did you just get me into bed simply because I have braces?" Janice was actually laughing. To be honest, looking back at it, it WAS funny!

"Yes, I don't think you'll be seeing her again, will you? Especially if she sees you first!"

"So what about you... last I saw, you were chatting up those two hunks.... Pete and someone, wasn't it?"

"They were nice, but I didn't really fancy either of them. However, I DID meet a guy called Simon a bit later, and we DID hook-up."

"That likely to progress?"

"Nah, just a another one-nighter. Tell you what, meeting all these guys makes me realise what a thoroughly good guy you are". She put her arms around me, and hugged me. "It's just a shame we can't actually make us work for more than a few days at a time" she said, referring to when we tried living together, and only managed to make it work for a little over a week.

Just before eating lunch, I decided to remove my braces: it would make actually eating a lot simpler, plus I wouldn't need to clean my food-filled braces either. And Janice knew about my braces, so it didn't matter.

"So, sadly, I think my main braces treatment is over" I commented as I removed them, "I'll 'get my brackets off', probably after work on Monday, and start wearing my retainers 24/7". I knew that Janice had no real interest in my braces, but it was useful for her to know what was going on.

"It's gonna be strange not seeing you with all that metalwork on your teeth"

"Bah, you're not really interested in my braces, so you won't care! But it's gonna be odd not feeling the brackets, although the amount of plastic inside my mouth won't change that much. I'll have to put on a bit of a lithp for a few days, won't I?"

"Hey, let's have a look and see if there's anyone new on the Dating App...." suggested Janice. We started looking at her possibilities. "Ooooh, he looks nice..." she said, and we took a look at his profile.

"Well, if he matches his profile, he sounds good" I commented. "But I think there might be a queue for him.....". Janice swiped up on him straight away.

"Ok, let's see who there is for you.... no... no... oh, take a look at that one" she suggested with a slight grin

"Why?"

"Just look at her picture..." she said. I opened her picture up.

"Oh, wow, YES! what AMAZING teeth!" I replied, "And I doubt there'll be a long list of guys fancying her" I added. Maybe I should explain that the pictures showed a quite cute girl, with long dark hair, relatively plain (as in 'not wearing huge amounts of war paint'), but the thing that had attracted Janice's attention was her noticebly protruding top teeth sitting over her lower lip. The question was, was it protruding top teeth, or a receding lower jaw? Or maybe a bit of both?

She had a couple of other pictures, one was slightly from the side, and her lips were slightly open, and it looked to me that it was protruding top teeth. Mmmm, those teeth would look good with some braces on them!

What the heck! I mean, what's the worst that can happen if I swipe right... we talk, and no more? More likely I'll persuade her to meet up, and I can take a proper look at her.

So, I swiped right on her. I thought for a moment about how the app process felt from her side. Now, Janice is both good looking and photogenic, so she is very likely to get plenty of likes. But what's it like for a plainer girl? Swipe right on loads of guys, and hope one of them also likes you? (which is what we guys have to do!!!)

Chapter 49

She's so cute!


I got a call from Niki late Saturday morning, saying she and her mum would be going to town after lunch...

"So how about meeting by the clock tower at about 2.30 to 3.00?" she suggested

"Ok, that's fine, I can be in town, so if you give me a call about 10 minutes before you get there...." I replied

"Sure, I can do that....". we chatted for a couple of minutes, she seemed to be fairly excited about meeting me.

I was a tiny bit worried about the fact that she was coming to town with her mum. That could actually mean several things.... the most obvious was that she still lived at home. The next was that, although she had left home, she was still close to her family - and absolutely nothing wrong with that. I just hoped that she didn't actually bring her mum along, that would just be terrible!!

I got into town a bit after 2pm, and did the small amount of shopping I needed to do. I got a message: '3:45 at clocktower, see you there!'

I got there at 2:40, and she was already there too, which was useful as it meant I could take a proper look at her as I approached her. She was dressed quite simply, but it looked good on her. She is a few inches shorter than me, so something like 5ft 4ins or so. A slim petite figure: I would put her boobs at a large A or a small B, which suited her shape well. her long hair was clipped back with clips with plastic flowers on, allowing me to see her face clearly.

She turned and saw me, and as she recognised me, she smiled at me. And when I say smile, I don't mean one of those very artificial grins, I could see the smile in her whole face, and it made her look very pretty.

"Hi, Niki, nice to actually meet you!" I said in greeting

"Hi, Danny..." she said a bit hesitantly - I could tell that she was rather nervous.

Now that I was closer, I could see her face better. She had makeup on, but not a huge amount, but the style was rather simple, and looked a bit inexperienced, as if she didn't usually wear makeup, but apart from that, it looked quite nice.

For me, the best thing was seeing her protruding teeth, which were covered in a layer of clear plastic: her braces. I couldn't yet see her lower teeth though.

"So, is there anywhere in particular you'd like to go for a coffee?" I asked

"Not especially, no"

"Ok, well there's a place I know, not one of the chains, which is nice... let go there". I held my hand towards her, and after a moment, she understood what I was doing, and let me take her hand: I was hoping that by doing so might relax her a bit. I lead her along the road, and down a street to the left. One nice thing about the place we went was that it was table service, which is so much nicer than having to queue, then go to a table.

"So, would you like tea or coffee?" I asked her.

"Oh, coffee please.... umm, a Cappuccino I think"

"Ok, how about a cake or maybe a scone to go with it?"

"Hmm, it's tempting, but I'm not really hungry enough"

"How about we share something? A scone maybe?"

"Yes, ok....". I waved my hand in the air, the 'waiter' came over, and I ordered two coffees, and a scone to share.

"So, what is it that you actually do... at work I mean?" I asked Niki

"I work in the accounts department, I'm the junior there, so I get to do stuff like opening the post, and filing stuff"

"Do you enjoy it there?"

"Actually, I do, I'm learning a lot. And they are nice people to work with. Didn't you say you do IT support work?"

"Not quite IT support.. I do technical support for the manufacturing products we design and make, so I'm often helping customers with their questions. I also do some training for our customers too: I was over in Asia a few months ago training one of our new customers". We talked a bit more about what we did, and then the drinks and scone arrived.

Of course, whilst I could have drunk coffee with my retainers in if I had wanted to (ok, yeah, officially you're supposed to take them out whenever you drink, but I can tell you that nothing happens to your retainer if you drink hot coffee!), but there was food to be eaten, so I pulled out my retainers box, and in front of Niki, I removed my retainers. That in itself was a good feeling, but it reminded Niki that she too needed to take off her clear aligners too.

"Ah, yes, I guess I need to take mine out too, don't I? I've never actually done it in public before..." said Niki, clearly feeling a bit awkward. I think, if I hadn't just taken mine out, she would have excused herself, and gone to the toilet to take hers out, but now felt she couldn't.

She opened her bag, and took out the round case that said 'Grin Direct' on the top. She opened the case, then opened her mouth, reaching towards the back, and pulled down on her top aligner, at the same time giving me a lovely view of her top teeth, with lovely gaps between the front teeth. Clearly she was still getting used to them, as it took her a couple of attempts to get them out. Next was her lower aligner: she tipped her head down, and put her fingers by her lower molars, at the same time giving me my first clear look at her lower teeth. Her lower crooked teeth, with spaces in a couple of places.

As she closed the case, I could see her face was a little pink with embarrassment.

"Don't worry about it" I commented. "People really don't care as much as you might think!"

As we started drinking our coffees, and eating the scone, I told her a bit about myself, and my family, then encouraged her to tell me about hers. Yes, she did still live at home, but her parents were encouraging her to be a bit more independent. As part of that, she paid them some rent, but she also made a point of occasionally going out for dinner with friends. I could tell she wasn't really used to chatting to people she didn't know (ok, so I really mean 'new boyfriends'!), and I had to prompte her a bit.

Of course, as we talked, I looked at her, mainly because I found her protruding teeth to be quite fascinating: I'd never actually dated a girl with teeth like that!

"So" I said, as I took my last mouthful of coffee, "have you had enough of me, or would you like to come with me for a walk in the park, and chat a bit more?"

"A walk in the park sounds nice" she replied with a lovely smile.

"Ok, tell you what, why don't you go to the loo to clean your teeth and put your braces back in, and I'll pay for this". Oh, yes, I still loved being able to say 'braces' in public!. So I paid for the coffees, and a few minutes later she returned.

"Ok, you have another chance to escape if you want to, as I now need to go to the gents to rinse my mouth out, and put my retainers back in!". Unsurprisingly, she was still there when I returned.

In the park, we walked a bit, then sat down for a while. Finally, she said it was time for her call her mum, who was going to come and collect her - I explained that, if I had a car, I would have happily taken her home. So we stood up, and I took her hands, and pulled her to me, and gave her a gentle kiss on her lips. Whilst there were no tongues involved, I could feel her protruding teeth, covered by her aligners, on my lips.


Back home an hour or so later, I thought back to the afternoon with Niki. She's a very cute girl, pleasantly attractive, with a nicely proportioned body. Once she relaxed, I could tell that she was actually quite bright, as she spoke well, and about things that some people would have no idea about. But the big takeaway was how inexperienced she was with dating, guys, dressing up and that sort of thing. Whilst she hadn't actually said so, I suspected that she'd never actually had a proper boyfriend before. I was clearly going to have to take things rather slowly... certainly a lot more slowly than I had with Sandra!