I’m excited to see what we come up with as a forum for this story.

I vote B.

I think it must be B.

(Well, it should be A really, but I think B will have the chance of a better story !)

I think A, then there is a whole afternoon before they can finally meet

I vote for A.

My vote is A

A and B are both similar,

I beg to disagree 

I lay back on my bed and relaxed, savouring the experience of having a pair of retainers in my mouth.

That's why I had voted A earlier. Even after thoroughly cleaning those things... The thought of putting something in my mouth that somebody else already had in theirs, gives me a very strong case of the heebie jeebies. To the point that I - if I were Hanna - might throw those retainers away, had I to suspect that Chris had played with them.

Just my 2 Cents though

BTW: I vote A vor chapter 3.

My thing is this is a story, and my goal is to make it entertaining. In real life, I would agree with you silver moon if it were in real life, that is absolutely disgusting. But this is a story and nothing bad comes from it, at least where things stand right now.

And he did not thoroughly clean them, he rinsed them, which is even worse.

I did say that he used a brush to brush them, which is a bit more than just a rinse, and probably did 98% the job of had he used toothpaste as well. I suppose I could have spelt out that he would have cleaned them again after trying them in.

(It says to me that you've never had kids... baby drops a dummy while you're out. You pick it up, wipe it, then shove it in your own mouth to 'clean' it, then return it to baby to stop the crying (the alternative is FAR worse!!). I'm a great believe in "a bit of dirt is good for you".. helps you build up a resistance to all the crap around us. And strangely, I'm not dead yet....)

Back to the story: If Chris had elected to call straight away, thus with the possibility of a meet-up after work, I suspect he might have just locked himself in the toilet for 10 minutes in the afternoon to take a look at / try in the braces, although maybe wouldn't have "savoured the experience" in quite the same way    So A & B would have ended up being pretty similar.

As for today's options: (a) is clearly the safer & more PC option; but (b) and (c) could lead to a much more interesting story! (Hmm, maybe I need to continue that "Braces Murder Mystery" story!!!)

Thank you all for voting, commenting, and getting involved!

I agree on A.

By the way: very nice to create a story this way!

I’ll go with A too. Love the idea for this story!

I think b or c they've got the most possibility for Chris and Hannah to chat and get to know each other

I like your thinking, and I think that's why I included them.

I also realise that I made a mistake: the label inside the retainer case says "JP", but her name is Hannah: I can think of three ways out: (a) go back and change Hannah's name; (b) go back and change the initials in the case; (c) work out an explanation for why the label doesn't match her name! This time you guys don't get to choose :-)

Thank you all for getting involved.

The 'style' of the story is making it a different story for me to write in two ways: (1) I am having to get to a point in the story where I can offer 2 or 3 possibilities; (2) I can't write much ahead, as I don't know which way you guys will steer the story. Time to start on Chapter 3!

Here's a little idea to correct the mistake the retainer case belonged to Hannahs sister Jayne Paula to start with  how about that?

You have chosen option (a): suggest meeting in the park the following lunchtime

----


Chapter 3


"Ah, ok..." said Chris.

"Tell you what though, why don't we just meet at the park tomorrow lunchtime..." suggested Hannah, "Actually, no, I have a better idea, do you know the big white 'Berlin Smith' building, on the north side of the park... so on the corner of Cumberland Place and London Road?"

"Yes, I think so..."

"There's a small monument on the wall, dedicated to the musicians on the Titanic: meet there? I can't imagine anyone else would be waiting there."

"Yeah, ok, that sounds fine. What time?"

"Well, I could be there for about 12:35, could you make that?"

"Can you make it at say twenty-to, so I've got time to grab some lunch?"

"Don't worry about lunch, I was thinking maybe I should treat you, to thank you for returning my retainers."

"It's ok, you don't have to..."

"I know I don't have to, but I'd like to...."

"Ok then." said Chris. He had quickly decided that this was an argument he couldn't win, so decided to give in! The worst that could happen was that he ended up having lunch with a really boring and ugly girl, and he could cope with that. "Hey, before you go, you say your name is Hannah, yet the label in the case says 'JB' - why's that then?"

"I'll tell you tomorrow. Hey, I just realised... I don't know YOUR name..."

"Oh, sorry, I'm Chris..."

"Well, Chris, thank you VERY much for getting in touch with me, I was worrying that I was going to have to pay a load more money to get them replaced. So, I'll see you tomorrow lunchtime - and please remember to bring my retainers with you!"

"I will, don't worry! See you tomorrow! Bye."

Having ended the call, Chris sat and thought for a moment. So, Hannah was definitely NOT a schoolgirl, but how old was she then? From the sound of her voice, and the way she spoke, he was guessing she was maybe between 20 and 30. The fact that she had obviously just had braces - and now had retainers - meant that she was someone trying to positively improve her appearance, whether it be for herself or for others. He also reckoned she wasn't some sort of 'dumb bimbo', but seemed to have reasonable intelligence.

Chris went to his laptop, and looked on Google maps: he knew that there were a load of big buildings along Cumberland place, the road to the north of the park, and he vaguely remembered there was a white building. Ah, yes, there it was, at 50.910413 N, 1.405175 W, and when he zoomed in, the 'Titanic Musician's Memorial' and 'Stone tablet honouring 8 heroic musicians' showed on the map. He shifted to Street View, and saw the big white building - yes, now he saw it, he remembered it. Then he zoomed in, and saw the white marble tablet set into a small red brick wall. A couple of clicks later, and he was on a website at https://dereferer.me/?https://www.titanic.memorial/post/memorial/titanic+musicians+memorial+tablet+southampton/ , which gave the story.

----

Luckily there were no IT panics today, so I was able to get to the meeting place in plenty of time. I was reading the wording on the monument when I heard a voice behind me. "Hi, are you Chris?" she asked.

I turned around, and got my first view of Hannah, the girl who used to have braces, but now wore retainers (when she didn't lose them!). "Hi, Hannah, yeah, I'm Chris, nice to meet you!".

So, how would I describe my first impressions of Hannah? To be honest, three words summarised it well: 'a cute nerd'.

Ok, so she's about the same height as me, and I'm 5ft 6ins tall. I'd put her age at somewhere between 19 and 23. She wears glasses, with black plastic frames, and underneath I could spot her rather bushier than normal eyebrows: I suspect most girls would have plucked them to make them a bit thinner, but Hanna was 'au naturel'. Long brown hair (with a hint of redness in there), gathered in two plaited pony-tails held with white elastics about an inch from their ends... but slightly 'messy' at the same time. Her face had a few freckles, along with a touch of acne on her two cheeks. If she wore any makeup, then it was very minimal, and her fingernails were cut close and untouched too.

In terms of her clothes, she wore a white shirt with a collar - probably a ladies-cut version of a typical men's shirt - and on top she had a sleeveless cardigan. Below that was a dark blue tartan skirt down to her knees, followed by long socks, and a pair of very practical black shoes. I could easily imagine that, in the winter, she wore a beanie hat.

When she smiled, I could see her lovely straight teeth, and tried very hard to imagine what she must have looked like when she had braces, as that would have completed the 'nerd look' perfectly! Whilst I'd never see that (unless she ever showed me a picture), I did hope that I might get to see her with her retainers in.

Oh, and I forgot to describe her underlying body shape... well, a pleasant looking chest (I would guess around a 'C' cup), but she's not skinny, she is very slightly 'podgy'. Not really fat, but she had a 'few extra pounds' on her.

So, my big question was whether she really WAS a nerd, or whether she had spent a lot of time putting the look - a very good fake look if this were the case - together?

Having said all of this, I'll admit that, in a strange way, I actually found her attractive: I think it was her smile that did it for me. Not just a smile with her lips, it was a lovely 'whole of face' smile.

I put my hand into my pocket, pulling out the pink retainer case. "Yours, I believe?" I said, offering it to her.

"Thank you so much!" she replied, taking it from me. She opened it briefly to check the contents, and smiled, then put it into her handbag. "It's an interesting memorial, isn't it? Not the sort of thing you'd expect to find in a place like this!"

"No, I knew this building was here, you can see it from the park, but I never actually came as far as here before. Quite a strange place for it."

"Apparently it's a replica, the original was inside an older building that used to be here. Anyway, lunch! What would you like? There's quite a choice around here... we could go to the Wetherspoons, have a proper pub lunch. Or there's a couple of simple cafes, that do cheap cooked lunches. Or we could just sit in a place that does sandwiches. To be honest, I'm ok with any of those."


Ah, another decision to be made:

(a) Pub lunch?
(b) Café cooked light lunch?
(c  Sandwiches and a coffee?

A nice quiet place where they can talk, B.

I think B.

I'm going to vote for A but only because I spe d a lot of time in pubs!

Chapter 4

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You have chosen option (b): Cafe cooked lunch

----

<Hannah>

Dammit! I've lost my retainers already! I wouldn't mind, but I've only had them just under 3 weeks, and I was almost used to wearing them. I last had them when I took them out at lunchtime: I had gone to the park, I had sat on a park bench, when I took them out, put them into their retainer case, then dropped them into my bag. Well, that's what I THOUGHT had happened. But when I got back to work after lunch, they weren't in my bag. After work, I went back to where I was sitting, looking around as I walked, and had a look around on the way to the park too, but could see nothing.

It actually feels strange not having anything on my teeth after so long in braces. As a young teen, my teeth were a bit of a mess, my teeth were not in a nice curve like most other kids, plus my top teeth stuck out.

I first got braces when I was about 14: I'd been on the waiting list for about a year before I got them. It was a big plastic thing called an activator, plastic in the roof of my mouth, which continued down inside and over my lower teeth too, then plastic over my lower teeth, holding my jaw a bit forward. There was a wire over my top teeth, very similar to what I have on my retainers. In the top it had what they called an 'expansion screw', which I had to turn every week. In total, I wore that thing for something like 9 months. 9 months of finding it hard to talk. 9 months of people taking the P*ss.

After that, I had metal brackets: at least they were deemed to be a bit more 'normal', and life became a bit more bearable. The original plan was to have those for 18 months to 2 years, but Covid got in the way: I ended up having them for over three years! Initially, when Covid came in, I didn't have an appointment for most of six months because of the lock-down. Then I wasn't able to see the ortho for maybe a couple of months at a time.

I finally got them off 3 weeks ago, and got my retainers.

Which I've managed to lose already!

I stood there looking at my new smile in the mirror: my teeth actually look pretty awesome now, I just need to fix the rest of me, if that's possible! I started wearing contact lenses about two or three months ago, which I think has helped, although I find some days my eyes don't seem to be 'in the mood', so I just wear my glasses, it's no biggie. I've had glasses since I was about 12, so it's nice to finally not have to wear them all the time.

I'm not yet sure what to do with my hair, so for the moment I just either tie it back, or sometimes - if I'm in the mood - I'll plait it into one or two ponytails. However I do it, I try to make it just cover my ears, to hide my hearing aids: I've had those for as long as I can remember. I'm not completely deaf, but it seems I have a genetic issue of some sort, which means my hearing isn't as good as most people's. I used to have big ones that go behind my ears: I still have those as a back-up, but mum & dad treated me to some nice in-ear ones when I turned 18, which aren't quite as obvious.

I had just finished making my dinner, and was about to serve it up when my phone rang: it wasn't a number that I knew, but I answered it.

Hello, who is this?" I asked.

"Oh, hello, you don't know me, my name is Chris. I believe you might have lost a pink retainer case with some retainers inside..." he replied.

Oh, thank goodness for that, I thought.! It turns out that they probably just fell out of my bag, as he'd found them next to the bench I'd sat on

"Ah, yes, that would make sense... you're right, I did stop there for my lunch. "I explained. "Oh, I'm Hannah by the way"

His name was Chris, and we arranged to meet at lunchtime the next day, next to the park, where there was an old memorial.

As I walked there I was feeling a little nervous for several reasons. First of all, I was meeting someone I know absolutely nothing about. Next, he's a guy, and from his voice he sounded to be fairly young, probably only a bit older than me... and I'm not great around guys. It's strange, I was fairly ok on the phone to him, but meeting in person is different. The last thing is that when I went to put my contacts in this morning, my eyes felt a bit 'itchy, so I had to wear my glasses... I feel a lot more confident in my contacts.

He was already there when I got to where we agreed to meet. He was about my height, had short dark hair, clean shaven, and dressed 'smart casual': new-ish jeans, a t-shirt, and a lightweight coat on top.

"Hi, are you Chris?" I asked nervously.

"Hi, Hannah, yeah, I'm Chris, nice to meet you!". He put his hand into his pocket, and pulled out my pink retainer case.

"Yours, I believe?". His gentle voice had a pleasant calming effect on me.

"Thank you so much!" I replied, so happy to have my retainers back again: I checked them, then put them into my handbag - I knew we would be eating, so it seemed pointless to put them in. Besides, it wasn't the sort of place I'd actually want to put them in!

We talked briefly about the memorial.

I had promised Chris some lunch, as a simple way of thanking him for returning my retainers. "So, lunch! What would you like? There's quite a choice around here... we could go to the Wetherspoons, have a proper pub lunch. Or there's a couple of simple cafes, that do cheap cooked lunches. Or we could just sit in a place that does sandwiches. To be honest, I'm ok with any of those."

"Oh, a pub lunch sounds nice, but far too heavy, so how about we go for the cafe option?" he replied.

"In that case, follow me..." Having actually met Chris, I was feeling a lot less nervous as I led him to a nice cafe I'd had lunch in a few times. They had a fixed menu, but they also had one or two 'specials', things like lasagne, or shepherds pie, freshly made that day: tasty and at a good price.

The place was already busy, but there was still a couple of empty tables, so we sat at the one in the window. I took a look at today's specials: Shepherds pie and spaghetti.

"What's their specials like?" asked Chris.

"Oh, well worth going for."

"You know," he said, "I sometimes wish I could create a two-minute poll, and get everyone else out there to choose what I should eat: select A for the Shepherds pie, B for the Spaghetti, or C to have something from the normal menu!".

I smiled: it was nice to meet someone who didn't take life too seriously. "Well I'll be voting A for me, because I had the spaghetti last time I was here!"

I have a suggestion for all the people who would like to try writing a story but don't know what to write about. If a few people were to take the options Sparky isn't doing and write a short chapter using the unused options, we would have a real reader-guided story.

The challenge I propose is to have one story for each of the unused options, written by someone other than Sparky, and have the chapter end as a conclusion to the option.

I would say C

Then Hannah can remember (and talk about) the food that she couldn't eat when she had braces....

Tell the story-wanderer to stay in his own story for a whlie.

Sorry for the lack of updates on this story, but I had a week of work, then I was away on holiday for a week.

And whilst I got inspired by Dianne, I'm currently trying to work out where Chris and Hannah are headed... I'm certainly not wanting them to get into a normal boy/girl relationship, that would be too obvious and very boring. I kinda know their next step, just need to think ahead a bit more...

Chapter 7

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You have chosen option (null): no option has been selected

----

"Don't they do something a bit stronger?" I asked.

"Well.... I guess there's always the 'Old Joe's'" said Jewelled Princess. As she said this, many faces turned to look at us, as if to say 'No, don't do it!'.

"Yeah, I'll have a double of Old Joe's!" I replied. The barman nervously poured my drink, and JP paid for it. I picked it up and took a sip of it.

"Hey, go careful, that stuff is strong!" said Jewelled Princess. "So, have you bought any weapons or anything yet?"

"No, I did go to the shop and have a look around, but decided that you might have a few suggestions about what might be good for me."

"Good idea! Yeah, we can go to the shop later... had a play of the game yet yet?"

"I went to the Tutorial Dungeon, to get a bit more familiar with the controls.."

"Another good idea, took me a bit to get used to some of the strange moves, but if you like, I can sort-of tutor you."

"Oh, ok, that would be nice... although I'm not sure I'm wanting to really get to know the game."

"Oh, you should, it's fun!" I could hear a sort of 'please' in her voice as she said it.

"But why would you want to teach me, rather than go out fighting yourself?"

"I guess coz it's something different to do. It gets a bit boring after a while, just doing the same sort of stuff, in the hope that eventually your skill level goes up a tiny bit, or you get a new weapon, and you neet a new monster."

She was right: I felt the same after playing a game for a while with the same people, it did get a bit boring. So you'd maybe start with a new team, or find a new game. I was still fine with playing Fortnite: whilst I started playing 'Battle Royale', I now tended to play 'Save the world'. A couple of players I knew enjoyed creating stuff in 'creative', and I'd joined them to play, but the idea of creating a world wasn't my thing, I enjoyed playing. Ok, I enjoyed shooting!

"So, you chose to be a female thief then: any particular reason?"

"Well, I'm normally a male fighter, with a big gun, so thought it might be fun to try out something new. So, yeah, I'm a girl, what do you think?"

"You look quite cute, but still very basic, we need to change your appearance a bit. So what subclass did you choose?"

"I randomly went for 'Kunoichi', is that gonna be ok?"

"Ah, right, not so many of them around... your armour is only cloth, so doesn't give you so much defence, but your attacking skills will be greater. Your specialties will be projectiles and fire magic."

We chatted together for a while, without me actually mentioning Hanna's online braces, but finally I couldn't ignore it any more. A message came up on the screen, saying 'the alcohol is starting to affect your vision!' JP's braces seemed to get shinier, prompting me to finally ask: "So, you seem to have some substantial braces: is that what you actually had for your treatment then?"

I heard a slight giggle from Hannah. "I was wondering when you'd mention them. Yeah, I had headgear for a bit, but not quite as much as my character. And the straps were plain blue. I decided to have a bit of fun with it for my character!"

At lunch, whilst Hannah had mentioned her appliances, and then having braces, she's not said anything about having headgear: I guessed she had found having headgear to be a bit embarrassing. But in that case, why go overboard in the game? "So, the game lets you make custom stuff then?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's generally based on an existing item, so inherits it's properties. So you get a lot of people customising things like shields, swords, or clothing. My headgear is deemed to be a sort of hat, my braces are a form of 'makeup'."

"It actually looks pretty good. Is it expensive to do customisations like that?"

"Not particularly cheap, but not over expensive... but it did take a lot of work to get the coins to pay for it. I started with just the braces."

"So what are you then? Some sort of fighter, I'm guessing?" I decided it would be better to not go on too much about the braces and headgear, it might 'weird her out'.

"Close, I'm a 'Female Slayer', specifically a 'Vagabond', although I actually started as a 'Gunner'. I decided pretty quickly I didn't enjoy that, but understood enough to choose to be a 'Slayer' instead, so created a new character."

"Doesn't your strange 'hat' make you stick out a bit?"

Again, she laughed. "Yes, but now I'm a pretty strong character, it often works to my advantage. It's also good at 'breaking the ice' when I meet a character I don't know. There's actually four other characters that have braces like this... it's a good way to earn a few coins, letting others copy your equipment!"

We chatted a bit more: she didn't seem too shy talking about her 'hat', so I probed further. "So how bad WERE your teeth before you got your braces then? Your real ones, that is?"

"Oh, I had bunny teeth: my top front teeth were quite big, and stuck out way too far. Also my other teeth were a bit crooked. So they gave me an activaror appliance, to help my lower jaw get bigger. At the same time, they needed to make my top teeth go back a bit, so I had to wear a headgear with the activator. Oh, yeah, it also had a screw in it, to make my teeth wider." Her description made sense: an expander would help create space for her top teeth, as would moving them back slightly with the headgear. Then the effect of enlarging her lower jaw would create more space for her lower teeth too.

Back in the game, I took another sip of my drink, and the NPC sat next to us said "Hey, take it slowly, that stuff is strong.. and I mean STRONG!"

"I bet you didn't like that?" I asked Hannah / JP.

"No, I didn't, although looking back, on balance I think it was all probably worth it. But having to wear headgear made it so much harder for me to go out: I mean, there was no way I was going to wear that headgear out the house, even to a friend's place, but I needed to wear it enough to move my teeth."

"You didn't fancy having to wear it to school then?" I asked, jokingly.

"You're kidding me, I'm sure of it!"

"Yeah, I was! Hey, you don't mind me asking about your braces, do you?"

"No, they were part of my teens, part of me, part of who I am now... Hey, you ever had braces?"

"No," I replied truthfully. I left out the bit: 'but I wish I DID'. "But there were several kids in my class that did. One of my friends even had headgear, but obviously never wore it to school" I lied. One of my mates did have braces: he had a removeable followed by brackets, but never any headgear, but I wanted to 'relax' Hannah, so she might be a bit more willing to talking about her braces. And it was a lie I felt ok with, there was no way she could ever find out if it was true or not.

"Hey," I continued, "you said you had brackets: so which was better, the appliance or the brackets?"



(Ah, a good place to pause for another quick poll: (a) for the activator, (b) for the brackets, or (c) for the headgear! And please feel free to explain your choice!)



[4088/41]

B - She had some form of braces for about five years, which is a bit longer than most treatments last, at least in North America. She seems to be comfortable talking about her braces and her character has them in the game, where they are quite noticeable. It seems to me there may be a bit of enjoyment associated with her braces.

If I was writing the story, I would have them go down the rabbit hole, both in the game and in real life.