EVENT: The Return of The Talk

[JD Paerson]

JD slitted his eyes open and looked through his eyelashes at the large boots on the row of chairs in front of him. Then he closed his eyes again and groaned when he heard the familiar voice on his right.

"I'm not here, I'm not here, I'm not here," he repeated to himself under his breath. The last thing he wanted was to have any attention drawn to him. Yet what had happened except that the two loudest and most attention-grabbing people around had plopped down next to him. He sunk down further in his chair.

When Zac whispered in his ear, JD looked sharply at him. "Are you nuts? Don't be an idiot, you can't pull anything. Look who's here." He'd done a careful glance of the staff members, and he recognized Ms. Vasiliev from some of his training sessions. Now he pointed her out to Zac. "Neither of us will be able to run very fast at all. It would be better if you just ditched the plan and those damn balloons before someone gets hurt."

Once he was done scolding the childish Zac he slouched down in his chair again, put his head on the back of the seat and closed his eyes. "Just...leave me alone, all right everyone?"

If he had a needle he'd pop the balloons. Maybe Sidra had some hidden somewhere on her outfit. But he wasn't prepared to go searching. She'd probably think of it herself if she had any pins and could cause trouble. Or she might join in with Zac in whatever he was hoping to do. Whatever happened, he could only hope that he would be left out of it. He had no desire to get into trouble today.

[Jeffrey Dougal]

No, Jeff did not know about sex. He didn't watch porn. He never kissed a girl--on the lips anyway. Why did Jeff need to know what....that's what it looks like? Jeff shifted faintly when the pictures were projected.

Odd. All squished.

A girl shifted next to him a bit uncomfortably and glanced at him and then looked back in front of her and scooted away from him slightly. Jeff bit his lip as he realized what must have just happened. He projected.

His first opinion on what a vagina looks like.

His head slid forward and slapped into his palm with an audible slap.

Wow. Really?

He didn't notice he blushed, but that almost went without saying. Thoughts like that should be his and his alone.

His attention eventually drifted from himself and back towards the images and Sean's voice. The Images, like the penis. Jeff blinked and glanced down at his trousers, a thoughtful look on his face. Well that's not what...he looks like. The girl on his other side suddenly coughed and shot forward, a look of bewilderment on her face. She looked sideways at him, pure disgust on her face. She a few seats away, as did the girl on his other side.

He face palmed again.

[Cole Kessler]

I don't see why I have to come to this thing...... Cole thought to himself as he walked into the room. It was already filling with fellow students and the seminar was ready to begin. Nice work, Cole. You've managed to show up later than everyone else to a function you really didn't wanna go to! He yelled in his mind.

He stayed towards the back of the room searching the few faces he could see nearby for anyone he might've known. He could only see one really, Zac. And from the look of it, Zac was already trying to get on other people's nerves. The goth-looking girl had her feet propped up as he made his way over toward them. He laughed at he sight, not to make fun of her, but because he didn't know those kind of girls liked to show off their skin. JD was acting like a prude, really. Cole didn't know the boy that well, but he'd heard stories from Zac.

He quietly settled in the chair just behind and to the left of the PVC wearing female. He spoke, but merely to Zac, because he didn't really know anyone else, "C'mon, LaRousse, JD said to leave him alone." He said with a chuckle, "And you're wrong, Zac." He told him, "Goth is more like four or five years ago. But she's not really gothic looking to me. Most goths don't like to show that much skin." Cole said as he looked at the shortness of the girls skirt and then back up, "Especially by propping their feet up with such a short skirt on."

He leaned forward, "Tell me something, sweetheart..... Did you borrow that skirt from LaRousse? Looks like somethin' he'd wear when drunk enough."

[Jalen August]

Well this whole thing wasn’t going to be awkward at all. Jalen had entered the auditorium along with every other teenager, and a gulp ensued. Why did they have to put the seniors through this torture? They were in a day and age where any questions could be asked via internet, in privacy and comfort. They didn’t need some old man to tell them of the various parts used in sex – mechanical or otherwise.

Lovely... Jalen thought to herself as the lecture commenced. She wasn’t the only one dressed in simple shorts and a t-shirt. The last thing she wanted was male staring at her after being induced with this sex lecture. This was going to be unpleasant and it was going to suck. The blonde hadn’t brought anything to write with and decided to sit through the lecture and hopefully, zone out. She wanted to graduate, it was the only reason she was here. It was probably the only reason why anyone was here. Why was this mandatory again?

Jalen could feel herself squirm along with the rest of the student body, and she had to admit she was pretty curious as to what everyone else was thinking. Her family had always been there for her and the subject of sex wasn’t any different. They had spoken to her about it, and the rest she figured out on her own. It was best just to not think at all. She had never been and didn’t plan on being sexually active any time soon. If worse came to worse, she could always tune everything out... But then she noticed the teacher with the power to suppress other powers, her idea going straight to hell.

Wishing she had worn a hoodie today, Jalen sunk into her seat, glad no one was really talking near her. She was seated next to someone she didn’t know, and pretended not to notice JD and Zac sitting in front of her. This was not the time to be buddy buddy with anyone. She didn’t feel sorry for the speedster though, he looked so uncomfortable. The blonde was happily staring at the back of JD’s head before she glanced sideways – and there was Cole. Perfect. He was sitting on the other side of the unknown boy and Jalen quickly sat back further into her seat – if that was even possible.

A silent grin crossed her face at Cole’s comment about Zac, and Jalen rubbed at her temples. It was a pain in the ass not to be able to tune everything out that she wanted to. Jalen chose to stare at the pink balloons hovering by Larousse, finding them quite fascinating for the time being.

[Sidra Cotton]

The balloons were hysterical and Sidra half wished she'd thought of it. Regardless, Zac needed to be dropped several pegs. He seemed to think that she should deffer to him in some instances, that money bought everything.

Raising out of her seat and leaning across the boy between them she smiled toothily. "Oh, sweet peach, what's the matter? Gold lame shorts not fit your fat ass any more?" The problem with leaning the way she was fell in the tiny skirt she'd chosen to wore. While she had on stripped boy shorts to match the skirt, the boy behind her was able to get a nice view of a half moon. Not that a little under-cheek was anything compared to the pasties-for-a-shirt, but Sidra had a point to make.

"Poor little rich boy, the world doesn't revolve around you, you know." Reaching up she pulled a pin from one of her hairfalls and twisted it between her fingers. "I'd mind my manners least one of your implants pops."

[Zachary LaRousse]

“N’aww. I don’t think she’s using her powers anyway. I think she’s just there to bluff and all that. You know, scare and discourage those weaklings away. But we’re better than that, right?” Truth be told, the Prince was alarmed when he saw the supposedly future-Mrs. Tonaya. (Walls have ears after all). While he did expect some kind of chaperone, he didn’t expect it to be her. Last time it was Eli; why couldn’t it be someone less…threatening? Like the Math teacher Ms. Kateri. He doubts a storm would do anything good in a closed space like this.

But he can’t let JD, or those who congregated around him within moments, know that. Nope, it would ruin his plan. “If you move fast enough, I doubt she’d notice. Please, please, please?” He tugged on the boy’s sleeve and wiggled his balloons just a bit, not that it would help convince the boy to his side more effectively anyway. “Where’s that guy who helped me mess up those arrogant seniors’ dorm rooms two years ago?” he whispered, remembering that such a scheme was supposedly hush-hush. They never really got caught, mostly because they lacked sufficient evidence to pin them down.

“Oh shush Kess. Dee’s just saying that because his balls haven’t descended yet.” Hopefully taunting would work. He did give him a satisfied grin when Cole joined the whole diss-the-goth movement he initiated, choosing to let the whole skirt thing slide. “If your fangs are supposed to be scary, then you’d better order another set of dentures. They’re disgusting really,” he said, rolling his eyes. “And seriously, if you’re still hung up over not getting Eli to bed, don’t let it out on my balloons. You can always take Cole over there and release some pent up stress. He seems mighty interested in whatever teeth you have under that skirt.”

Sticking his tongue out like the kid that he is, Zac settled himself back to his seat and looked around for Robbie. Where is he anyway? While he did see a blonde seated just behind them, she’s not exactly the one he’s looking for. “Hey Dee, look who’s just beside Cole,” grinned Zac, elbowing the speedster as he ‘subtly’ pointed to Jalen. “You sure she’s taken already?”

[Dr. Sean Neville]

The psychiatrist had scanned the thoughts of the students at the lecture, not probing, but listening acutely lest a student was unfamiliar with the fundamentals. Lo and behold, Chris and Jeff had inexperience in their thoughts; as a result, he put up the slides and began to give the overview of the anatomical differences between cisgendered males and cisgendered females, as well as the stages of arousal and the stages of pregnancy. He spoke in the same language he expected of the students, clinically but not mincing words.

He spoke while Jeff accidentally projected his unfortunate thought about his own anatomy; he felt for the boy, he did, and he resolved to take him aside afterward and give him reassurances. But he wouldn’t do so now, since that would only contribute to his humiliation.

He spoke while Christina deliberately projected her thoughts of all manner of sexual acts between all manner of people because she knew that he was scanning. If he hadn’t been a telepath for forty-plus years and if he wasn’t a two-decade veteran of this lecture, then he might have grown distracted. But he didn’t. He also didn’t find it in the least bit amusing, although it was expected; this lecture brought out the worst in the students. But at least Vincent wasn’t here, and Horus had already fallen asleep.

He spoke while Sidra sat there with her cohorts, wearing an outfit that violated every dress code the telepath had ever known. She was trying to get a rise out of him, but he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction; beginning with the fact that he’d seen worse in the minds of his teachers and fellow students when he was fourteen and as a result, nothing got to him in this realm, and ending with the fact that he didn’t respond to psychic torment, ever; it simply wasn’t possible to get to him that way. He did give her points for originality, since the outfit was not in her usual wardrobe (in fact, in a sense perhaps it was flattering that she invested such time, money, and energy in trying to get a rise out of him), but he wouldn’t encourage her further.

He spoke while Zac’s pink balloons bobbed up in down, which he could see from the corner of his eye. He spoke while JD, Zac, and Sidra began to talk amongst themselves. And he sent a thought to Anya to watch them, just in case a situation arose. He didn’t want disruptions.

And that conversation only got louder, as the psychiatrist finished with his lecture on the fundamentals. As he put away those charts and prepared for the next part of the lecture, he looked over at the group and spoke into the microphone, “If you’ve decided to use this seminar as an opportunity to try to make dates, then perhaps you’d like to pay attention during this next demonstration?”

With that, he took out a reusable plastic water bottle from his prop chest and held it up so that everyone could it, before setting the bottle down on the table. With that, opened a prophylactic and prepared to unroll it.

[Cole Kessler]

Cole tried not to look at Sidra's waistline when she leaned forward, but the sight beckoned him. He only glanced at it once, twice, alright, maybe a third time. He'd hoped no one had watched his eyes, but apparently Zac had caught him.

Cole laughed as Zac insinuated Cole had an interest in Sidra. It wasn't that he didn't, but she didn't need to know that. Regardless, Cole spoke up, "While I wouldn't object to said stress release, I don't think this is the place for it. You'd just love to see that wouldn't you, LaRousse?" Whoops, Cole had just confirmed what Zac had announced. 'Sometimes, LaRousse, I really hate you.....' He said to himself. Cole had been calling him by his last name alot lately. Mainly because he had a friend named Zac back home. This way, Cole could differentiate between the two.

He looked to his side and saw the lushious blonde hair of another friend of his, "Nice of you to join us, Jalen." He said before hearing Zac's words, "LaRousse, I'd be careful what I say if I were you. Need I remind you of that day in the lounge?" Cole asked him. It was a brief flashback, but a snicker escaped Cole's breath as he remembered Jalen using her power on Zac. It was funny to watch, though Cole had stopped her before she really hurt him.

Then while half-listening to Doctor N, Cole couldn't help but hear what Sidra siad to Zac herself. He laughed as his hand covered his mouth to keep it quiet. It was funny that everyone else just had to insult Zac, all Cole did was try and match Rich Boy's attitude with his own. Oh he really could get noticed by blurting something out to the professor, but Cole kept silent.............., for now.

[Henry Ballo]

Why was he here? This was a question that kept occurring to Henry. He was sitting in the back, as far back as humanly possible, trying to pretend that he wasn’t there and that the world was not this horrible. It wasn’t that this topic was unfamiliar to him. He’d had...okay, he’d had experience. That was what had gotten him kicked out of his first dorm room in the first place. Besides, his father and stepmother had never been exactly shy about their affairs. So yes, Henry was extremely well acquainted with the mechanics and basic general principles of se…

…stuff.

But that didn’t mean he liked being here. And it didn’t help that all the other students seemed to think of this as a game. One of the students—LaRousse?—seemed to be have a rather interesting pair of balloons. And someone else—possibly one of his roommates—was broadcasting his thoughts. And of course Dr. Neville had to go through the mechanics of every single situation…

Damn it. Why had he agreed to come to this? Why had he even thought this might be a good idea? It wasn’t like he was required. Due to his shaky grasp over his powers and his rather interesting educational history, he wasn’t even technically required to be here. But someone or another had talked him into it—or perhaps he’d just hoped that if he did it now he wouldn’t have to attend during senior year. And now he was here, in the very back, keeping his thoughts in Tswana so the kind doctor wouldn’t pick up on them, hot with embarrassment as he watched Sean pull out a…and put it on a…

His hand came up to cover his eyes. Thank God he didn’t know where Estelle or Robbie were. He wasn’t sure he could handle this with company.

[Sidra Cotton]

Continuing to ignore Cole, he was baiting her after all and she couldn't expect a mundane to know what it was to be goth, Sidra poked her pin into a balloon. The balloon’s structure gave before it popped, the explosion of stretchy material and noise that went with it was more than satisfying. It would also serve the dual purpose of drawing more attention to what she was wearing. Pasties and ‘all’.

"Oops. So sorry."

Even as she spoke, she felt a tug behind her, and before she could say anything else, she was off her feet, over the seat, and in some guy's lap.

Stuck.

And with other metaly things coming at them. Up went her hands to block her face, and up went her molecular hardness. It'd still hurt when things hit, but it wouldn't be ultimately damaging.

"Let GO," she hissed at the male beneath her. He, of course, wasn't actually holding onto her, and much to misfortune the steel boning in her corset was susceptible to magnetism. Not a thing she would have thought to test before now.

[Jemima Rennal]

Unfortunately for Jemima, she was a bit too close to Zac and his fricking balloons that were blocking her view of the genitals and completely ruining her note taking. The human sexual system was FASCINATING and if it weren't for the fact she religiously attended every year, someone would probably think she was surprised by things. She wasn't. She knew about vaginas and penises, and the production of various fluids. She was interested in more of the biology side than the physical side, but, how could she concentrate when Zac kept waffling on about some bullshit to Sidra, who was dressed like a hooker sugarplum fairy.

Frowning - she could cope with Sidra, since everyone had their different fashion sense and who was she to argue - her outfit wasn't exactly common, and she didn't care. Individuality was always nice. But Zac was just being loud, annoying and generally the biggest pain in the ass ever, so she did what any girl would do when faced by a smug jerk. She took off one of her heels and smacked him squarely over the back of the head.

"Will you SHUT the hell up LaDouche?" She growled, notebook open in her lap. "You are the biggest gaping void of stretched sphincter I have EVER had to sit near." She huffed, then shuffled two chairs down, grateful to be free of the balloons and that droning voice grating into her nerves and drowning Sean's words out. She wanted to learn! Was that so hard to imagine? Rubbing her nose, Jem linked arms with Spencer and gave her a smile, then went back to writing down words to do with the sexual reproduction.

Oh, what do you know, the condoms were coming out.

She sat forward in her seat and chuckled quietly, tucking her hair behind her ear. Okay this bit wasn't quite so important (in her opinion, she already knew the birds and the bees from the previous years) but after this were the questions! And the exciting images of the viruses that unprotected sex brought. How fascinating.

[Robbie Wilkes]

Robbie was unsurprisingly excited for the sex ed talk, not to find out the ugly truth about bumping uglies but rather to enjoy the horrified expressions on everybody's faces when things start to...happen.

Well technically, everybody was already horrified. He was surprised they hadn't all already crumbled into dust out of horror. Especially JD, who couldn't sink any lower into his seat than he already had.

"Sidra! Hi! I didn't know you were coming!" Of course, Robbie and Sidra weren't the best of friends, God knows, they weren't even acquaintances save that unfortunate day they were both at the doctor's office at the same time nursing the worst case of the ills. He was also unaware of the goth's scariness so he just plowed on through with his introductions with everybody.

Even Dr. Neville.

"Hi Dr. Neville! You're doing a good job! Work that condom!" Robbie stepped on a lot of feet to get to Zac and JD but even that didn't stop him from giving a holler and thumbs up to Dr. Neville.

When he finally got to his seat, he laughed loudly at Zac's inflated boobs. "You brought it! Hey JD! Sit up straight, dude! You're gonna have a posture problem if you slouch like that!" He chattered excitedly, completely ignoring the fact that he was disrupting the talk.

[JD Paerson]

JD glanced sharply over at Zac when he mentioned the prank from a few years ago. "Mind not thinking about that when there's a freakin' telepath in the room?" he hissed.

If Zac thought taunts were going to convince him that he should help out, he should really know better by now. JD had grown able to withstand all of Zac's various attacks on his masculinity. It actually was almost a confidence booster. Zac rarely had to put down people who he didn't see as some kind of threat. Since JD was the one who got insulted the most, well.

He was glad to see Sidra was standing up for herself, less glad to have her lie across him. The view of her "shirt" wasn't the most pleasant in the world. Not that whatever was underneath the mess was necessarily ugly, but he had something against seeing something akin to a decomposing corpse being used as clothing.

Glancing briefly over his shoulder, he saw Jalen sitting there, someone else who appeared to be pretending that this whole situation wasn't occurring. As if sitting through this wasn't bad enough. As if sitting through this with Zac sitting next to him with a giant pair of balloons while trying to get him to pull a prank wasn't enough. Now, of course, he had to suffer all this while the only person in the school who seemed to like him and not treat him like a welcome mat was audience to everything. He gave Jalen a weak, very weak smile, then turned around again and hunched his shoulders, dropping his head down and staring at his clenched hands.

Finally, Robbie had been right about something. There really was absolutely no way JD could sink lower in his chair without ending up on the floor.

It was because of this that he missed the physical assault on LaRousse, but there was no way to miss Robbie making his way through the auditorium. At this point JD slapped his hand over his face. At least Sidra was no longer on top of him. He purposely ignored Robbie's comment about good posture and instead just began muttering to himself again.

"I'm not here, I'm not here, I'm not here," he said under his breath. After a few moments, though, he recognized that there was no way for him to ignore this any longer. So, with a heavy sigh, he looked over at Zac. "Fine," he said. "I'm in." If you can't beat 'em...

[Jalen August]

Jalen ignored Zac’s comment about her to JD, who looked over his shoulder at her. The blonde raised her eyebrows at her friend and gave him an apologetic smile at the same time. That’s what happens when you’re friendly with Larousse she thought to herself, looking back to the screen. Cole said hi to her but she pretended not to notice – if e couldn’t see how uncomfortable this whole thing made her, that was his problem.

Close enough to hear the two, ahem three, boys were up to something, Jalen raised an eyebrow in curiosity. Were they that stupid to try a prank in a room with a telepath and a power suppressor? Hello, Sean was probably up there right now listening to their plans while he spoke about... condoms... The blonde raised her eyebrows and glanced around her as a few students got ready to write down whatever wisdom came out of their teacher’s mouth. She looked back at JD – was he really that stupid to do what Zac had planned, whatever that was?

Must’ve been the pressure.

Head in her hand, Jalen looked down at the ground and tried not to hear what Sean was saying about condoms, etcetera. It was strange not to be going along with everyone else’s antics. There seemed to be four groups in the room today. 1) Those who actually wanted to learn. 2) Those who would rather die than be seen here. 3) Students who were a little too eager to be here. 4) People who could really care less. A hint of a smile crossed the girl’s face, labelling herself as someone who would rather become one with the chair she was sitting on, and not listen to becoming one with another human being.

[Zachary LaRousse]

And so, in one way or another, Zac has once again managed to steal some (if not all) of Dr. Neville’s spotlight. Not exactly a good thing, considering the nefarious plans he has in store for the said event, but to the boy who lives by his ego, every stolen attention is a good thing.

Sidra sprawling all over JD’s lap made the mimic laugh so hard, so much that he didn’t really care about what she said about his so-called ‘implants’. He was just about to say something about her being insecure of his ‘implants’ though when a sudden image of a penis, very much unlike what Dr. Neville was showing, appeared in his head, disorienting him for a good second or two. It wasn’t much, but the short time allowed Sidra to pop one of his ‘boobs’ without much resistance, causing a loud ‘Pop!’ to resonate throughout the auditorium.

“Bitch!” he growled, but he tried to keep it down; heaven knows Dr. Neville and Ms. Vasiliev won’t think twice about throwing out troublemakers. And besides, her suddenly being drawn a row behind was good enough in his eyes.

He did grab Jem’s notebook and tore a page from it (possibly the one where she was writing all her notes on) and crumpled it to a ball, making sure to hit the Asian guy not far from him. “Keep your thoughts to yourself Dougal! Nobody likes a short dick!”

His face visibly brightened at the sight of his favorite blonde though, opening his arms and happily squeezing Robbie. “Well duh. It wouldn’t be the same without it.” He was thinking of letting the weather manipulator have the balloons, but considering how much he’s assigned to him already, he couldn’t risk Robbie being distracted by the balloons and forgetting what he needs to do.

Zac took the condom-use demonstration as the perfect time to start his ‘ingenious’ plan. “Come on Dee,” he nudged the boy with his elbow, urging him to get off his seat, “Robbie, you know what to do. JD’ll pick you up after your first task and we’ll meet backstage. Good?”

With a nod, he finally stood up, giving Jem and Jalen a haughty wink as he went out of the auditorium, releasing the balloon and pushing it just slightly to obscure more students’ view, if only temporarily.

Fingers crossed his plan would work without a hitch.