Paragraphs Of Power November Winner!

Congratulations to Jean Gill with her entry JAILBAIT!

This months contest was very close indeed, with only one vote separating the winner from second place. My thanks to all the folks that entered. Jean Gill will have a work of her choice promoted on this site throughout the month of December.

Jean Gill .... Jean is a Welsh writer and photographer living in the south of France with a big white dog, a Nikon D700 and a man. 
 www.jeangill.com 
www.istockphoto.com/
jeangill www.lulu.com/jeangill

                                                                     Books by Jean Gill...

Her winning entry is below for your reading enjoyment.

  Jailbait

On Monday before Maths, Chloe asked me how far I’d gone in the five Fs. I gave the knowing smile I’ve been practising in the mirror and said, ‘What’s it to you?’ then I turned my back on her but I don’t think she was fooled. I could feel her eyes drilling through my sweatshirt the whole time Mr Phillips bla-blaed about probability and GCSEs. Fifteen must be the worst year of your life. I hope so, anyway. Fifteen, the sixth F.

            As soon as I got home, I googled to find out what Chloe was on about. The five Fs of life ‘Faith, Fitness, Family, Friends and Finance’ didn’t sound like Chloe. Nor did the five Fs of fatherhood. As always, you could rely on Facebook; ‘Found, Felt, Fingered, Fucked, Forgotten’. Good question, Chloe. How far have I got?

My friend Sue went all the way at Christmas and got pregnant. We mitched Games to talk about it and she told me what colour eyes and hair the baby was going to have. She told me sex made you feel closer to another human being than anything else in the world. So I guess she reached the fourth F. Then she wasn’t in class one day and I saw her with her parents, coming out the Head’s Office. She was crying and never looked at anything, as if she couldn’t see.

She was back in school a week later, pale and quiet. She avoided me. I wasn’t the only one who knew or guessed. All us girls know that the Head is keen on abortion. Dead keen. I don’t see what it has to do with her anyway – it’s not as if it happened in a classroom, or even at break -  but the parents seem to think her opinion matters. Perhaps Sue is on the fifth F now. She talks to other people but not to me. I suppose I know too much. Perhaps she sees the colour of a baby’s hair or eyes when she looks at me. I’m never going to have an abortion and no-one can make me.

Last night, I couldn’t sleep. I put my pillow between my thighs and squeezed. I imagined it was a man. Not a boy, a man. I don’t like boys in that way. They snigger at sex words and they don’t live in their own bodies, as if their legs, arms and other bits act without them having any control. Are there five different Fs for boys? Does it have to be five so you can count them on your fingers? Do they only apply to girls so thick they have to count on their fingers? Not to girls in top Maths set with Mr Phillips. He’s a real man.

So how far have I got? The usual collection of kiss dares and beery fumbles at parties. When I say I don’t like boys, I know what I’m talking about. And Chloe says boys brag. Some of my friends are waiting till they’re sixteen but that seems a bit chicken. A boy writes in your birthday card,

‘When cherries are red, they’re ready for plucking

When girls are sixteen, they ready for f******.’

And then he gives you an f and six stars in an alley. That’s not what I want. I don’t want to wait, I don’t want a boy and I don’t want any Fs. I want to make it different.

It’s Monday again, the same lesson that Chloe annoyed me in last week. Symmetry, I tell myself. I’m going to do Maths A level.  I take my book out to the teacher’s desk while everyone is working on a problem. He should be proud of me. I look him over, calculating the probability, down to the last decimal place. He smiles at me.

Mr Phillips, says, ‘What can I do for you, Janine?’
*****
Please note there will be no Paragraphs Of Power contest for the month of December!
The contest will return in January along with another exciting promotional contest that I will be featuring Bi-Monthly. I wish all my readers a Safe , Happy and Joyous Christmas.