Polly Andry Rides Again

Polly Andry Rides Again

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Synopsis: Jeffy, Joey, or Jamie? Quinn can’t make up her mind which boy she wants to be with, so she picks . . . all of them.

Author's Notes: This story began as a joke PPMB message I posted in December 2004 in response to something Richard Lobinske said in response to something Kara Wild said, but for the life of me I can’t figure out how what either of them said inspired this tale, which became a full-fledged story for a PPMB Iron Chef contest by Prince Charon in October 2005. Prince Charon postulated that a “character is given a bit of relationship advice: ‘Treat everyone you love as if they, or you, might die tomorrow, because anyone can get hit by a bus, or struck by lightning, or any of a zillion other deadly things, and then it would be to late.’ And so this story appeared. Enjoy!

Acknowledgements: Thanks, Kara and Richard and Prince Charon!

Daria frowned as she tried to focus on her book. She was comfortable enough lying on her bed, but the unwelcome voices from downstairs continued to intrude on her concentration. It was a bad way to start her last weekend at home before college, and things appeared to be going downhill.

“But Mom, it’s okay! We’re in love!”

“This isn’t love, Quinn! It’s an abomination!”

“Muuuh-ooom, this has nothing do to with those snowmen! This is a people relationship!”

“You and three boys at once is not a relationship, young lady! It’s an orgy!”

“Call it what you want, but Jeffy, Joey, and Jeremy really love me!”

“Jamie. My name is J—”

“Shut up! Listen to me, Mom!”

“Quinn, I am not letting you and your stud harem sleep together in this house!”

“Mom, you can’t stop us! Our love is pure and will not be denied!”

“Wow, Quinn, that’s so beautif—”

“Shut up, Jeffy! Mom, give us a break!”

“I’ll give you a break! I’ll give you so many breaks, you’ll be in the hospital in traction for a year!”

“But Mom, what if like my guardian angel thinks it’s time to summon me to my eternal award or whatever but I haven’t yet tasted the sweet nectar of erotical passion or drunk deep from the highball glass of . . . of . . .um . . .”

“Sensual pleasure.”

“Shut up, Joey! I can do this without your help! Sensual pleasure, Mom!”

“The answer is no, Quinn! No, no, big N little O exclamation mark, no!”

“What about the garage? We can sleep in the SUV and—”

“What part of ‘I’m locking you in the basement until you’re thirty’ do you not understand? No! I’m not letting you sleep with these hormone-crazed, jail-bound chimpanzees anywhere in this house, and you can’t go in the garage anyway because your father locked himself in there when I told him Rita and Amy were coming over to talk some sense into you!”

“Then we’ll go somewhere else and bite the fruit of forbidden . . . uh, fruit! We’ll bite the forbidden fruit until the sensual pleasures run down our chins!”

“Ohmigod, I can’t stand it! My house, Quinn!”

“Mine! My parents have a king-size waterbed!”

“Hot tub! We have an indoor—”

“Shut up!”
“SHUT UP ALL OF YOU! QUINN, NO!”

“Oh, I knew you’d be all right-wing about it! Daria said you wouldn’t understand!”

Daria flinched. She peered over the top of her book at her closed bedroom door.

“Daria?” Her mother’s voice had a dangerous edge. “What’s Daria got to do with this?”

“Well, see, we were talking ‘cause she and I talk more now than we used to and we’re almost kinda like sisters even though we are sisters and she said I should treat everyone that I love or like liked or just liked or kind of liked or maybe a little liked like we all might get run over by a bus or train or something, even if we’re not as close to the train tracks as we could be, because if we got hit by lightning, it would be too late!”

“What?”

“Muuuh-ooom! You know, it’s like hippies, okay? How you and Dad always said that you said, ‘Live for today, don’t worry about tomorrow,’ before we were born, and Daria said we should think about that that because if I like fell off a cliff or something, like if we were camping on a mountaintop and I was trying to dry my nails but they wouldn’t dry because of the altitude and I was standing by a cliff waving my hands like this and the rocks gave way and I fell and Jeffy, Joey, and Jimmy—”

“Jamie. It’s—”

“Shut up! If they weren’t around to grab me and save me, then I would die a virgin and never know the bliss of intimate relations like you told me about when I was eleven even though it sort of grossed me out that a guy would ever want to do that or that I would ever want to let a guy do that, and I sort of wished for a long time you hadn’t told me about the stunt car driver or the rock band you used to follow around or how you got initiated into the commune, and I was so grossed out I promised myself I would never even slow dance with anyone until the fifth date, but then after talking with Daria I thought, wow, maybe having three guys at once like I think you did with that rock band isn’t gross after all, and what if like one day the raspberry vinaigrette in the school cafeteria went bad and I got sick but not gross sick, just beautiful sick like in the movies, and everyone at school came to visit me and they all cried, even Sandi and she cried the hardest and the Fashion Club was forced to disband and the school had a huge fundraiser to buy a new kidney or something for me but I passed away even though the handsomest doctor in the world was at my side and wept for me while he held my hand, I would still be a virgin, and I thought, eww, who wants that? I mean, why wait? So I looked around and Jeffy, Joey, and Jamie happened to be there when I was looking around and I said, ‘You guys want to get laid?’ and they all looked at me and at the exact same moment they all said—”

“DARIA!”

Daria winced and tried to hide behind her book. Angry feet stamped up the stairs, and the bedroom door banged open a moment later to reveal a towering, smoldering, rage-consumed presence filling the doorway.

“Daria Marie Morgendorffer, what did you do?” roared her mother.

With a sigh, Daria dog-eared the page she was reading and closed her book. “Found me,” she said blandly. “Am I ‘it’?”

“What did you tell your sister to cause her to turn into a brainless slut?”

“I don’t think I should answer that,” said Daria with a sigh. “At least, not in the way I’d like to.”

“Tell her about Polly Andry, Daria!” cried Quinn from downstairs. “The lady who had lots of husbands! Tell Mom about her!”

“What?” shouted their mother.

Daria believed she could see live steam rising from her mother’s head and shoulders. This little prank isn’t turning out well, she thought. “What Quinn means,” she began cautiously, “is that she and I were talking about, uh, different ways that different people get married in different cultures, and how some cultures—”

“Daria, show Mom how you figured out that three net incomes plus my income if I get a job as a neck model would make the four of us millionaires by the time we were twenty-five!”

“Uh—”

“Were you telling your sister that she should have sex with three boys at once?”

“Um, not—”

“Show Mom that website you showed me that shows how you can do it with three guys, Daria! Show her! I bet it’s just like you were with that rock band, Mom!”

“QUINN!”

“Oh, fudge, I’m tired of waiting. Everybody to the hot tub at Jamal’s house!”

“All right!”

“Yeee-haaaw!”

“Jamal, yeah, that’s my name!”

Daria’s mother whirled and ran for the stairs. “Quinn! You’re grounded until the next Ice Age! Come back here! Quinn!”

Once it was quiet again, Daria took the time to pack a few things and head for Jane’s house, even though Jane was at that art colony in Ashfield again and only her brother Trent was around. Which was the whole point. And while she was there with Trent, Daria planned to call up Ted and Tom and have them come over, too. They always had before. Every single time.

Live for today, don’t worry about tomorrow. Daria nodded. As a guiding philosophy for life, it made a lot of sense. Funny that she and Quinn would pick it up just like their mother had. It must run in the family. Daria thought of the weekend to come, and she smiled.

And shivered.

Original: 10/29/05

FINIS