章節 134: Starting Fresh l
-- SUNDAY, JULY 31, 2005, SUMMER CAMP --
Amber seemed to realize the name she'd whimpered about a second after I did. Her naked body froze beneath mine, every single muscle tensing at once. I felt her pussy clamp down around my dick, still fully imbedded inside her. And her arms held fast around my back so that I couldn't have pulled away if I tried.
I did actually try to pull my head back. My face had been in the blanket beside her, but I now wanted to look at my girlfriend and ask what was going on. But the instant I tried, her hand went to the back of my head, holding it down. "Ohmigawd..." she gasped in shock, still pressing down on my head. I got the distinct impression that she wasn't yet ready to look at me.
But after a few more seconds, she released my head and I raised it enough to look down at Amber's face. She was still crying, but the expression on her face was anything but joyous. If anything, she looked absolutely terrified. And when her lips curled downward into such a deep frown of shame, for some reason I suddenly felt like some kind of evil rapist.
Can you imagine bedding down with someone you believe to be your true love, only to open your eyes and find yourself being violated by a total stranger?
That's how Amber looked at me, and I couldn't pull myself out of her fast enough. She finally let go of my back and legs, allowing me to withdraw and drop onto my belly beside her. Instantly, I locked eyes with her and raised a hand to brush sweaty bangs away from her forehead. And now that we were no longer coupled, the terrified expression left her face.
But the shame remained. "Oh, Ben. Ohmigawd. I am SO, sooo sorry."
"Shh..." I soothed, my white knight desire to protect her momentarily outweighing the turmoil I felt inside over having my girlfriend call me a different name. My brain was racing a mile a minute, still caught up in my own momentary fantasy that I'd been making love to Dawn. I similarly searched my memory trying to figure out who the hell 'David' was. And at the same time, I tried to focus on soothing Amber.
"I'm sorry," she blubbered, sobbing uncontrollably. Grimacing as if in pain, Amber turned her face away from me and raised her arms over her body as if to cover her nakedness.
Quickly, I grabbed the end of the blanket and wrapped it over her. It hurt to think that my loving girlfriend, who had been such a nymphomaniac over the course of our brief relationship, couldn't bear to be naked in front of me. But I saw enough anguish in Amber's current mental state to let it pass. This was far bigger than mere nudity.
The cycle then repeated itself several times. Amber cried, tried to apologize, and then I told her it was okay and just tried to calm her down. But she wouldn't have it, and after about five minutes of watching her break down, I finally just took a deep breath and said, "Amber, just now, I thought you were Dawn."
That stopped her short. Turning her face to mine, Amber's jaw dropped open and she stared at me with red-rimmed eyes. Her anguish at betraying me was momentarily washed away by anger at being ... used ... But then her anger melted beneath the guilt over her doing the same thing, and the end result was that she just shut up and gawked at me.
"I take it that 'David' is your ex-boyfriend? The one you told Brandi you'd left behind when you came to Stanford?"
Biting her lower lip, Amber hesitated for a moment before giving me a nervous nod.
Grimacing, I screwed up my face and asked, "Have you fantasized about him before while making love to me?"
Immediately, she shook her head vigorously in the negative. But then a guilty look spread across her face, and she admitted, "But there have been moments ... not lovemaking ... when I had to stop and think about how much you remind me of him. Like that thing you did with the waitress and the tip at our anniversary dinner. Or the barista at Starbucks. And even ... uh ... your relationship with your sister."
I nodded. "When you go off on your little space-trips?"
She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "Huh?"
I shook my head. "Nevermind."
Now it was Amber's turn to fix me with an inquisitive glare. "How about you? Fantasize about Dawn a lot?"
I shook my head immediately. "No, this was the first."
"But you said before that I look like her."
"Superficially. You're both tall, beautiful, blue-eyed blondes. Kind of my weakness. But you really do have two completely different faces. Both beautiful, but different."
"Which one of us is prettier?"
"Amber!"
She pouted and looked away.
I rolled onto my back, staring up at the leaves above us. The gentle breeze coming off the creek cooled me down, sucking away not only the excessive July heat but also the anger and tension over our situation. But it didn't take away ALL the tension, and after a minute of silence between us, I asked, "So now what? Was this a momentary lapse for both of us? Was it just one extreme break with reality where we both imagined we were with a past love?"
"Well, the sex WAS quite incredible," Amber sighed. "I don't remember the last time I floated away so completely like that."
"But what does this mean? Am I not over Dawn? Am I just rebounding?"
"Am I not over David? Am I still truly in love with him? Hell, am I rebounding?"
Pinching my lips, I mused on my situation. It felt like an eternity had gone by since Dawn broke up with me and ran away. But in reality, it had barely been more than two months. I remembered reading in a magazine somewhere that a person needed one week for every month they'd been in a relationship to get over it. Technically, Dawn and I had been together for an exact year, so I still needed another two weeks of mourning at least. But then if you considered that I'd spent a lifetime being in love with her ... well ... that meant I wouldn't get over her until I was like fifty or something.
"It's only been two months," I sighed.
"It's been more than two years for me," Amber sighed as well. "And I still love him. Gawd-fucking-dammit, I still love him."
Grimacing, I looked over at my girlfriend. Taking a deep breath, I looked over at her and asked, "So where does that leave me?"
Her mouth curled down into a frown again, but this time was matched with furrowed eyebrows and soft eyes. "Oh, Ben ... I'm sorry," she moaned apologetically. "I love you. I do!"
But I took a deep breath and thought about my own situation. I thought about DJ from two years ago, after Adrienne had dumped me. I thought about Lynne, and how I'd so desperately clung to her. I wanted to believe this was real, but even I had to admit that eleven days was an awfully short time to go from near-stranger to discussing marriage. "Do you?" I asked critically. "Do you love ME? Or do you love that I remind you of him?"
"Ben..."
I sighed. "You said it yourself: you were immediately more honest and open with me than with any other guy you'd known since coming to Stanford. As much as my ego wants to take credit, you opened up because I reminded you of him. You started falling in love with me because I reminded you of him. And up on the ridge last night, you pretty much said that I was your second chance."
She didn't respond immediately. Biting her lip, she looked supremely guilt-ridden over what she'd done. And whimpering, she began again, "Ben, I'm-"
"You don't need to apologize." I sighed. "I sort of did the same. I think I tried to warn you that I wasn't completely over my ex. I told myself we had to take this slow, to let our relationship build naturally over the time that we shared together. But we didn't take things slow. I let myself see Dawn in you, and you let yourself see ... David ... in me. We both saw what we wanted to see, and we loved what we saw. But it's just an illusion. I'm not him, and you're not her. And if we went any further along this path, someday we'd have figured out that we weren't marrying the person we thought we were."
Amber stewed on that for a long while. So did I. Together, and yet separately, we just stared off at the tree above us, lost in our own thoughts. I wondered where Dawn was right now. I wondered what she was doing. I wondered if she still thought about me.
"So where does this leave us now?" Amber finally asked.
"I don't know." I exhaled slowly, turning things over in my mind. I then turned my head so that we could look at each other. "Certainly, I don't think we can continue believing each other is a second chance at the loved one we've lost. If you keep dreaming that I'll be David 2.0, I'm only going to end up disappointing you and breaking your heart."
Amber sighed, pinching her eyes shut and turning her face upward again. But a moment later, she looked over to me and said, "But I still... like you. I still have butterflies in my stomach when I look at you, a giddy happiness that spreads throughout my whole body. I know you're not David. Really, I do. And in the short time we've been together, I've come to know that you're a wonderful man. I don't want to lose you."
I smiled and reached a hand out, feeling an electric sizzle shoot up my arm when she took it. Amber was gorgeous, and warm and intelligent and funny and sexy and so many wonderful, wonderful things. She wasn't Dawn, but... "I don't want to lose you either."
"So what do we do?"
I took a deep breath and shrugged. "We start fresh, I guess. We have to. As much as I want to just build from our current relationship, I don't think we can truly know how much of the foundation is made up of memories of Dawn and David."
"Start over?"
"Yeah." I nodded. "That way, when we fall in love again, we'll know it's because of each other and not because of Dawn or David."
"Is that even possible?"
"We can try. I want to try."
Amber suddenly sat up then, the blanket falling away from her body. My eyes immediately yo-yoed down to her naked breasts, big, round, and spectacularly firm. But I quickly brought my gaze to her smirking face, even though she jiggled her bosom enticingly. And with a warm smile, she extended a hand. "Hi, I'm Amber. I'm a third-year medical student at Stanford who is already married to her job. I work crazy hours and I don't have a whole lot of personal time. But I like the way you look and if given the choice, I'd prefer to spend that limited personal time fucking your brains out whenever possible. Emotionally, I'm a wreck inside. I've locked away my heart and thrown away the key ever since I abandoned my beloved boyfriend to pursue this dream career. I'm not entirely sure if I can ever really love again without thinking of him. I don't want to get your hopes up thinking that we'll be together forever. But I'm willing to find out what we can be for at least now."
My mind was blown. I couldn't believe she'd just come up with that off the cuff, but taking a deep breath, I took her proffered hand and shook it. "Hi, I'm Ben. I just got my heart broken barely two months ago by the girl I thought was my soulmate, and I know I'm an emotional wreck inside. There's a gaping hole inside me, and I'm desperate to fill it and recapture the intimate closeness I just lost. I'm a romantic at heart, always wanting to see the good in people and perhaps wishfully believe that a relationship can last forever. I want to be in love, and people say I measure every girlfriend I'm with for a ring. But I'm going to try and work on that. I don't want to overpressure you. Maybe our relationship will last forever. But maybe it'll only last for another 11 days. I want to find out. And I want to find out with you. I just have to warn you that you'll probably have to be the one stepping on the brakes now and then to make sure we don't again go off the deep end."
She took a deep breath. "I think I can do that. I lost my head a bit with you, feeling the flood of romantic emotions I'd kept buried inside for so long just overwhelmed me a bit. But really, I'm coming from a pattern of uncommitted casual affairs while you're coming off a breakup with a long-term soulmate. Maybe the two of us can meet in the middle."
"I hope so." I nodded.
"So what now?" Amber asked with a shrug.
Involuntarily, my eyes dropped back down to her naked breasts. They were so luscious, so inviting. And as I've said before, not since Adrienne could a woman so instantly inspire lust in me. "We could seal our new relationship with some casual, early-relationship getting-to-know you fucking," I suggested. "Just to get past the deep, soul-tingling lovemaking we just finished a few minutes ago."
Amber smiled, which I took as my cue to lean in and kiss her. But just as the passion of our liplock intensified, she abruptly pulled back and put a hand to my chest. "Not so fast. I'm stepping on the brakes. We need to take this slow, for real this time."
I frowned in disappointment.
Amber just started looking around for her clothes. "C'mon. We should get back."
"You two okay?" Brandi asked as I drove her Camry past the Morris Camp gate and got back on the highway. "You've been awfully quiet ever since you got back from that hike."
I glanced in the rearview mirror, my eyes meeting Amber's for a brief moment. But before I could respond, she exhaled slowly and said, "It was an incredible weekend. That camp of yours is truly magical. But the weekend's over and it's time for Ben and me to get back to reality."
Our eyes met once more in the mirror. And right then, I noticed the difference in Amber's eyes. They used to glow with an inner fire, a light of excitement and passionate love that flared up whenever she looked at me. That fire was gone, replaced by a look that was still quite pretty, but subdued.
I felt my heart sink a bit into my stomach just then. Oh, Amber and I would still try to make this work. We were still quite fond of each other, sexually-compatible, and very much committed to staying boyfriend and girlfriend. But there's a reason people always say that you can't uncross a bridge. Amber and I had pushed our relationship to the limit, to the very edge of proposing marriage for real. But we'd stepped back from that limit upon realizing we were both projecting our lost loves onto each other. And really, there was no returning.
We might be a romantic couple for a long time, to the end of Amber's Medical schooling in two years even. Heck, we could be friends and lovers until we were geriatric old fogeys. But right then and there, I knew that Amber and I would never reach the dizzying heights of passionate love again. Someday, eventually, we would go our separate ways.
But not today.
I glanced back into the mirror, a smile spreading across my face. "Hey honey? What time do you have to be back at work tomorrow?"
"Uh, not until noon. Why?"
I tilted my head and glanced over to Dayna, who was watching us speculatively. "Hey Dayna, the camp may be behind us, but the vacation isn't over yet. How about Amber and I stay with you guys for a night?"
Dayna sat up straight and broke into a wolfish grin. Her eyes ran appreciatively up and down my girlfriend's body in the seat beside her. And she practically buzzed with excitement as she said, "There's something I wanna try."
-- TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, 2005, SUMMER BREAK --
It was just before 7pm when the doorbell rang. I was quickly on my feet and over to the door. And when I opened it, a sigh of relief ran through me.
"Hey there, boyfriend," Amber greeted me, looking tired.
"Hey there, girlfriend." I opened my arms and she immediately stepped into my embrace, hugging me warmly. "Feels like it's been an eternity."
"It has. We've never been apart for this long before," she replied. I'd gone off to work Monday morning, and Amber's shift at the hospital went from 12 to midnight. By agreement, I had not stayed up waiting for her, instead catching up with Lynne and talking to my dear friend about the revelations I'd learned about my own rebounding from Dawn and Amber's lost love David. I'd gone to sleep in my own bed and gone off to work again this morning. And this moment was the first time I was seeing Amber in nearly 36 hours.
She seemed to relish the hug as much as I did. Neither of us wanted to let go, just feeling the cosmic flow of energy pass back and forth between us and lift up our heavy hearts. I had worried just how she would react to seeing me again, wondering whether we could ever recapture a piece of the magic that had brought us together so intimately in such a short amount of time, or if our relationship had truly died.
Thankfully, whatever was between us was closer to the former than the latter. I didn't feel the giddy rush of brand new love where everything she did was magic and I couldn't imagine taking a single future breath without having her nearby; but I did feel the warm affection I'd held for other dear people close to my heart.
Still hugging her, I stroked her spine and pecked her forehead as she buried her face against my neck. "How was work?" I asked. She'd gone back in at 8am and just got off at 6pm today, returning home to change and then come down to have dinner with us.
"Work is work. Nobody died on me today, which is better than I can say for a lot of days."
I grimaced. "Don't you work at the Children's hospital?"
She nodded. "Yes, kids die too, especially the gravely ill ones; and we get a lot of those."
I pinched my lips together. Not exactly a high note to start off the evening. But thankfully, new blood arrived in the form of Kady and Noelle arriving outside the door. I pulled away from Amber and gestured all three girls in. And then Noelle went into the kitchen to help Lynne finish up our dinner.
"Hey there, stud-muffin." Kady fist bumped me. "How was your weekend?"
I glanced at Amber with mixed feelings. "It was sort of like going on the most spectacular vacation of your life. You're absolutely thrilled with how wonderful it was, and simultaneously dejected knowing that it's all over."
Kady held a hand over her heart, giving me a stricken look. "Whoa, dude. That's a little too deep for a girl who hasn't gotten her first beer yet."
I chuckled and shook my head, waving her toward the refrigerator. "You know where they are."
Dinner itself was pleasant enough. The food was excellent and the conversation light. Even though it felt like an eternity had just passed, it had only been a few days since we were all together like this. And as far as Kady or Noelle knew, nothing much had changed.
But they still picked up on the different vibe in the room. "So ... Looks like the two young lovers finally settled down," Kady commented, looking speculatively at Amber and me.
I frowned and glanced at my girlfriend. "What do you mean?"
Noelle pointed with her fork. "Amber's eating from her own plate."
Amber looked down as if surprised to find that indeed, she was.
"And you two aren't all over each other body language-wise," Kady pointed out. "You still lean into each other and exchange little smiles when nobody's looking. But it's not nearly as gag-inducing as it used to be."
"Gag-inducing?"
"Ohhh-migawd," Kady drawled like a valley girl. "You two were so cute and fluffy and cuddly and aaaack." She mimed shoving a finger down her own throat.
We blushed and Amber just reached onto the table to pat my hand. "Still decompressing from the trip, I guess."
"I'll bet. Guess you guys must be getting old."
Amber then waggled her eyebrows suggestively. "If you girls want, we can follow you upstairs tonight and show you we old fogeys still know how to have a good time."
Noelle quickly looked down at her plate and pinched her lips. Kady glanced over to her girlfriend and took a deep breath. And all of a sudden, I could feel the tension in the room thicken a hundredfold. I knew Amber's suggestion was all in good fun, but for some reason the girls weren't reacting as such.
"I'm sorry," Amber apologized immediately. "Did I say something wrong?"
"No-no..." Noelle replied right away, giving us a nervous smile. She looked at Kady again, who reached over to her girlfriend and squeezed her hand.
"Guys, uh, Noelle and I did some talking over the weekend," Kady explained nervously. "We've really enjoyed the ... playing around ... the four of us have been doing for the last couple of weeks. But..."
"It's time to stop?" I interjected with a raised eyebrow.
Noelle blushed and Kady nodded, adding, "It's really nothing against you guys. The sex has been... phenomenal."
Noelle finally found her voice as she sat up straight and looked at me. "Ben ... I'm very grateful you've been so gentle with me. But we've talked about this before, and I think my curiosity about straight sex has been satisfied."
"Me too," Kady explained before blushing sheepishly at her girlfriend. "Well, I might've been able to go a couple more times, but the novelty has mostly worn off. You're like a really great vibrator, Ben. The sex feels good and all, but I'm just not attracted to you. And with Noelle ready to stop, so am I."
"What am I, chopped liver?" Amber teased.
"Sorry, chickie," Kady explained and then got a wicked gleam in her eye. "The deal was that if we wanted him, we HAD to take you..."
"Aww..." Amber mock pouted. We all knew Kady was just teasing.
"Seriously," Noelle smiled. "I really enjoyed playing around with you, Amber. More than Ben, actually."
Amber elbowed me in the ribs with a smirk.
"But I love my girlfriend and we've agreed to go back to monogamy," Noelle continued. "We had our fun, but that was it. I'm sorry if we're disappointing you."
Amber and I both independently started shaking our heads. "No, no," Amber said first. "There's no need to apologize. It was fun. We're fine with leaving it at that."
"Ah, Ben?" Lynne then said softly. She'd been so quiet during this whole exchange that I'd nearly forgotten she was here. Fixing me with an apologetic look, she took a deep breath and then sighed, saying, "The same goes for me."
I frowned, furrowing my eyebrows. "You too?"
She nodded slowly, then stared at her plate and got a guilty expression on her face. "It's not that the novelty has worn off or anything. In fact, I spent most of Saturday morning masturbating in my bed hoping you'd come back from your trip sooner than later."
"Aww, honey..." Kady reached over to pat Lynne's hand. "If you wanted relief, I could have come downstairs to give it to you."
Lynne rolled her eyes and Noelle slapped her girlfriend's shoulder. Kady just grinned.
But then Lynne took a deep breath and got serious once again. "I, uh ... I just think that the time is right for us to go back to being just friends. The 'benefits' part has certainly been ... incredible. But you're with Amber now and if I'm going to move on from you, if I'm going to get over the feelings I've been developing for you, the sex part is something we're going to have to stop."
I nodded, disappointed but understanding. "I get it."
Lynne then blushed a brighter pink. And rather sheepishly, she then added, "I, uh. I also kinda met someone."
"Wait, what?" Kady jerked upright in her seat.
"Really?" Noelle leaned forward excitedly.
"How the hell is this the first I'm hearing of this?" Kady complained. "When did you meet him? That trip to San Francisco on Saturday?"
But Lynne just stared right at me. "I, uh..." she began nervously again. "I really hope you're okay with this."
I blinked. "Lynne, we're just friends. I have absolutely no hold preventing you from going out and meeting a new guy."
"It's not that. It's the specific guy."
"Huh?"
Lynne blushed even pinker. "It's, uh ... It's Bert. Your friend Bert? Pecan pie... "
My jaw landed on the dining table.
"It was a total fluke meeting. My big sister came to town for work on Friday, and she stayed over an extra night to see me. I went up to visit her on Saturday in San Francisco and we were at Ghirardelli Square getting chocolate and toasted almond ice cream when Bert found me. He was there with his parents and little sister and we just sorta got to talking."
"Oh my gawd..." I drawled in amazement that this was happening.
"He, uh ... He asked for my number before we separated. Then he called me Sunday night. We talked until like 2am."
"Oh my gawd..." I repeated. But the initial shock was wearing off and as I looked at Lynne, I realized she was still feeling really guilty about this. Instantly, I smiled broadly and reached over to touch her arm. "Lynne ... I'm really happy for you. Bert is a great guy."
"Yeah," she sighed, curling her shoulders inward and tittering cutely. "I think so, too."
"Didja sleep with him?" Kady suddenly asked.
"Kady!" Noelle admonished harshly.
"Of course not. He went back home after San Francisco and I went with my sister. "We still haven't even gone out on a date."
"C'mon..." I shook my head. "Give the kids some time."
"Kids?" Lynne drawled. "I'm older than you."
"Yeah, well Bert's not. His birthday isn't until October."
Kady put in, "I guess you already know what to get for his birthday, then."
"Kady!" Noelle barked again, but giggled nonetheless.
All five of us laughed for a good long minute.
But when things quieted down, I took a deep breath. "So that's it, huh? I go from being able to bang any hot chick at this table anytime I want to being left with just one."
Amber kicked my shin beneath the table and scolded, "And if you want to continue with your 'just one', I'd better hear an improved attitude."
I chuckled and rubbed my girlfriend's hand. "On the contrary, I was starting to get worn out having to satisfy all of you. Now, Amber's just going to have to deal with four times the workload."
"Poor me," she sighed dramatically, although the devilish grin on her face belied her words.
Laughing, I gestured across the girls and said, "Seriously, it's fine. I'm glad we're all able to stay friends about this, even if we're never again lovers for the rest of our lives."
"Oh, I don't know about 'the rest of our lives'," Kady then said quietly, a new wicked gleam in her eye as she stared right at me. "My first assfucking was pretty intense. I'm not saying today, and I'm not saying tomorrow, but ... well ... I just might want you to do that to me again someday."
I glanced at Amber and we both shared a smirk. I just shrugged and flashed Kady an impish grin, replying, "Anytime."
"Fuckme, fuckme, fuck my slutty asshole!"
Amber's body locked up and her ass clamped down while her orgasm swept through her. Her butt muscles squeezed me so tight that I couldn't continue my steady pumping, instead just keeping my cock buried at full depth within her vise-like grip. But even though her ass remained relatively still, the rest of her torso shook and shuddered as the climax took over.
"Oh, fuuuuuck," Amber groaned as her moment passed. Her arms slowly buckled beneath her and she lay her cheek down on the mattress, her knees still keeping her butt up in the air and skewered on my prick.
Feeling her anal muscles relaxing, I got a new grip on her hips and slow-dicked her from behind. I didn't go too fast, letting my girlfriend enjoy the afterglow of her orgasm. But after spending a few seconds with my eyes closed to concentrate on the exquisitely tight sensations emanating from my prick, I opened my eyes again and drank in the intoxicating sight of a gorgeous blonde bombshell bent over with my dick nearly 8 inches up her rectum.
Between the view and the feelings, it didn't take me long to pump my way to ejaculation. She hummed, willingly taking each thrust and even rocking her hips back to meet me. And after another minute, I groaned and poured my hot spunk deep into her bowels.
Now letting her knees spread out to the sides, Amber's body lowered flat against the mattress with my body atop hers and my dick still up her butt. She was a puddle of jello, not a single tense muscle in her body. She was drooling, covered in sweat, and leaking semen from both of her nether orifices.
"Mmm, we still got it in the bedroom department, honey," she sighed in deep satisfaction.
I groaned and closed my eyes, pushing my face down into the mattress beside her head. "Yes, we do."
Spineless, the pair of us just lay there for what felt like an hour. Somewhere along the way, my cock shriveled up and slipped from Amber's stretched anus. I shifted off her body to lie beside her, one leg thrown over her hip and an arm around her back. Silently, we cuddled until our bodies cooled down and the orgasmic ecstasy evaporated. But still, neither of us moved and neither of us spoke, not wanting to initiate the next step that we both knew to be necessary.
I'd told Amber she'd have to be the one to put the brakes on our relationship, but tonight I was the one stepping up and saying, "I should probably go."
"I don't want you to," she replied quietly. "Last night felt like the loneliest of my life."
I knew the feeling. After spending every single night with Dawn in my arms, I'd hated having to sleep alone for those couple of months. Getting together with Amber had filled me with such relief, and I was loathe to return to a single life. But it was exactly because I still wanted Amber's close intimacy as a replacement for losing Dawn's that I should leave. "Didn't we agree that we need to take a step back and let our relationship develop naturally from the ground up?"
"We did. But ... One night won't really kill us, will it?" Amber turned her face to mine, pleading with her eyes.
I didn't need any further convincing. "Of course not." And then I leaned in to softly kiss her lips.
So I didn't go to my own bed downstairs that night. And I didn't go back to my own bed the whole rest of the week, either.
-- FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 2005, SUMMER BREAK --
"We're not doing a very good job of this 'starting fresh' thing," Amber sighed as she pulled her lips away from mine and turned her face away. That just gave me an opportunity to kiss her neck, nuzzling my nose against her ear before rising higher to nip at her lobe with my lips.
I didn't bother to respond, enjoying myself too much. Our corner booth in the darkened restaurant seemed made for clandestine makeout sessions.
She continued, "We're supposed to be getting back to the 'Dating' phase of a relationship, doing all the getting-to-know-you things that we skipped." She sighed when I started sucking on her neck again. But a second later, she grabbed my head and pulled me away. I tried to return to kissing her, but Amber just held my cheeks and twisted my head left and right until I finally locked eyes with her.
"Ben, I'm serious," she pouted.
I sighed and shrugged. "The point of dating is to develop a comfortable familiarity with the other person so that we can build a bond of trust and intimacy. We already have that."
"Because I see so much of David in you."
I shook my head. "That may have gotten you to drop your defenses in the beginning, but I think you trust ME now. Don't you?"
"I do." She took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay, maybe there's no going back to the Dating phase. If nothing else, I've already met your parents and your sisters and been let in on this really intimate secret about who the twins' father really is and ... Okay, I guess we're really well into the Relationship phase already."
"Always have been."
"Hey, you were the one who said you wanted to try starting fresh."
I shrugged. "Do you love me?"
Amber blinked. Her face went through a riot of emotions: warm happiness, sweet love, doubt, frustration, and finally confused indecision. "I ... I think so. But again, how can I be sure that's not me projecting David?"
I thought about it for a second. "What are my sisters' names?"
"Uh, Brandi, Brooke, Eden, and Emma. Oh, and Adrienne."
"And David's sister?"
"Danielle."
"Just the one?"
"Uh-huh."
"Is Danielle at all like my sisters?"
"Uh, not really. For one thing, Danielle's a lesbian."
"Oh, well there's that." I took a deep breath. "Now keep thinking about my sisters. Think about the time you spent with them at camp. Now look at me again. Still remind you of David?"
Amber blinked. "Uh ... maybe not as much."
"And do you love me?"
She gave me a half-smile. "I certainly like you a helluva lot."
"Well, it's a start. Maybe there really isn't any going back and starting fresh. Our relationship is what it has become up to this point. I certainly don't want to sleep alone at night."
"Neither do I."
"At least we're both upfront that we each left a piece of our heart with someone else. Maybe that will never change, or maybe it will change, but only with time. But we need to get it firmly implanted in your head that I'm NOT David, and I need to understand that you're not Dawn."
"It seems so obvious. It should be so easy."
"And yet, it's not. But you're right about one thing: you've gotten to know my family a bit. Maybe that's the key. The more you get to know me as ME, and not as your David-replacement, the easier it'll be."
Amber looked skeptical. But she shrugged and nodded. "I guess that makes sense."
"And it goes both ways. I need to get to know more about you as YOU. It's just too bad that your family and closest friends are all out of state."
Amber giggled. "Maybe I should have E-Beth fly out to visit us. I'm sure she'd love to make your acquaintance."
I arched an eyebrow. "Surely in the last two years you've picked up a couple of friends nearby."
"My social life for the last two years has been limited to short-term affairs and getting drinks with co-workers, remember?"
"Well, maybe you can let me tag along the next time you go out for drinks with co-workers."
Amber frowned. "Not likely. The group I spend most of my time with is very ... insular. No boyfriends or husbands. The girls just want to bitch about work without any outsiders."
"You're not making this easy. I'm trying to see 'Amber' in her natural environment, so I can help myself see you being YOU."
She started giggling. "I'm not so sure you want to see me in my 'natural' environment. Before you, I was ... well, let's just say I got into a fair amount of trouble."
"Mmm, sounds exciting," I hummed.
"No-no. My past is truly history, at least where it comes to this. There's a lot of stuff I've put behind me, people who weren't very good for me that are better left forgotten. I'm not in that scene anymore."
"You realize you're doing nothing but piquing my curiosity. C'mon, the whole reason we went to camp in the first place was because you wanted to meet the other people in my life who are important to me."
"I do. And we're still doing that. Tomorrow, Lynne's bringing her new boyfriend by the apartment, right? And he's your best friend at school."
"Bert? Yeah." I sighed. "At this point, he's kind of my only friend."
Amber frowned. "Charismatic, sexy guy like you?"
I sighed. "Hard to make friends when every guy around you worries you're going to seduce their girlfriend."
"Ah."
"So you've met my family, and now you're going to meet Bert. When's it my turn to find out more about the people closest to you?"
Amber stared off into the distance, her eyes unfocusing once again. But she quickly came back to me and sighed. "One thing at a time, okay?"
There was such a note of pleading in her voice that I just couldn't press her. So I sighed and nodded. "Okay."
-- SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 2005, SUMMER BREAK --
"Pecan pie..."
"No, no. Pecan pieee."
"Pecan piiie."
Bert and Lynne just cracked up into a giggle fit, ending with wrapping their arms around each other's back and grinning at us like idiots. The pair of them had just finished explaining to Amber how they'd first met, at that house party Dayna and Brandi had arranged at the very beginning of my freshman year.
"You know, there's something else about that night I'll never forget," Bert said once he got his voice back. "When I first met you, I just thought you were an ordinary guy with a hot girlfriend. But then I got into that house and it was wham: hot chick, wham: hot chick, wham: hot chick. I had no idea then that you were such a babe magnet. And ... well ... here you are again..."
Amber blushed as Bert gestured dramatically to her. She elbowed me in the ribs and asked, "Who were the girls?"
I shrugged. "My roommates: Brandi, Dayna, Adrienne."
"Oh, and that Felicia. Nom, nom, nom."
Lynne slapped her boyfriend's chest. "Pervert."
"Pervert for you," he drawled, running his eyes rather obviously up and down the comely brunette's body, also sliding his hand up and down her back.
She laughed and blushed pink all the way to her ears. Then looking over at me, Lynne remarked, "There's something else I remember about that night. You were covered in bruises."
Amber picked her head up in alarm. "Bruises?"
"It's nothing," I assured her.
Lynne gave me a look. SHE remembered just how I'd gotten the bruises. But when I waved her off, she shrugged and continued. "Anyway, I asked Ben about the bruises and you know what he told me?"
Bert laughed and stated, "Quote: 'My girlfriend is kind of wild in the sack.'"
I blushed. Lynne tilted her head back, scratching at an empty patch of skin on her neck and mumbling, "Guess the same is true today."
I blushed even deeper, raising one hand to cover the hickey Amber had left on my neck just this morning. "Can we please stop talking about any girls I might have been with right in front of my girlfriend?"
"No, no," Amber interrupted. "This is great. Half the point of meeting up with your friends is for me to get to know you and your history a little better."
I rolled my eyes and drawled sarcastically, "You mean the way you've been opening up to me?"
Amber pursed her lips and pouted. I immediately wished I could retract the comment. Instead, I settled for gesturing across the couch. "Well, Lynne you know. And now you're meeting the infamous Bert. Hope his antics aren't dragging down your opinion of me."
My girlfriend just smiled and patted my arm.
"So you guys have been going around, getting to know each other's friends?" Bert inquired. "That sounds like a good idea, actually."
"Who've you guys met up with so far?" Lynne asked.
"Well, I brought her up to camp to meet my family, so that's a big one."
"She met Adrienne yet?"
I sighed. "No, actually. Adrienne's been crazy-busy and hasn't even come back to California for a couple of months. New girlfriend in New York."
"Ah." Lynne nodded. "Well I'm glad to know A.D. hasn't come back to town and not visited me. I swear I haven't seen that girl in forever."
Bert chuckled. "Get in line, sweetie. Word on the Net is that everyone and their best friend want to meet her."
I gestured over to Bert. "Have you brought Lynne home to meet the 'rents? Or vice versa?"
"Dude, it's been less than a week." Bert rolled his eyes. "Gimme a minute to breathe, will ya?"
"Technically, I already met his family at Ghirardelli's," Lynne offered.
"But they know you're dating now, right?"
Bert nodded. "Of course. But I think we've got a few months before they start demanding I bring her home for the formal interview."
"You mean interrogation," I laughed.
"Shh! Don't scare her!" Bert stage whispered.
Lynne laughed.
"Actually, I'm more afraid of my formal interrogation," Bert sighed. "My last one with Robin's parents didn't go so well."
Lynne giggled and patted her boyfriend's knee. "Well don't worry about my parents just yet. For one thing, they're in Orange County. For another, you're not even going to get that far if you don't pass the 'friends-test'."
Bert looked at her dumbly and pointed at me and Amber.
"Oh, Ben and Amber don't count. These guys are pushovers. Maybe I should go upstairs and bring down Kady and Noelle. Those two will really work you over."
Bert's eyes waggled with innuendo. "Work me over, huh? Didn't you say those two were lesbians?"
Lynne slapped Bert's shoulder. "Not that kind of 'work over'."
Everyone laughed, and I waved a finger between the two of them. "HOW long have you two been together? Because you're sparring like an old married couple."
Lynne giggled, making eyes at her new boyfriend. But then with a sigh, she turned back to us and asked, "So who else are you meeting? I have to admit, I'm curious about Ben's other friends, too. Haven't really met any of them other than Bert here."
"You guys are the first." Amber arched an eyebrow at me. "So who else are we going to visit?"
I shrugged, looking at Bert. "Uh, if you think about it ... you're it, dude."
He laughed. "No way, Mr. Popular."
"I'm serious. After losing Dawn, there's really no one else I can say is a real friend. Sure, I've got a lot of acquaintances-"
"And a LOT of conquests," Bert snarked with a smile.
I sighed. "That's kind of the problem."
"Some problem."
"No, I'm serious. In High School, I had a crew of kids I'd known since fifth grade, well before I ever became a sex god." I gestured over to Lynne, who gave me a shrug and a smile. "But in college, I got the Big Ben reputation right away. Guys don't want to be friends with me because they worry that I'll take all the girls. And girls ... well..."
"The sex part gets in the way?" Lynne offered.
"Yeah." I nodded. "That's a 'When Harry Met Sally' reference, isn't it?"
Bert shot me a look. "You actually know?"
I rolled my eyes. "Megan loved the movie. But she's long gone. Story of my life so far. I make some casual friends here and there, but in the end, they go their way and I'm just ... It's just me..."
My voice trailed off. For a second, everyone actually looked sorry for me. Hell, I felt kind of sorry for myself. Dawn had left me, and Gwen and Robin went with her. The Tri-Delts were only fuck-buddies. Dayna's and Brandi's older friends had graduated. Sasha was just a teammate. Chevelle was long gone. I had the Stanford girls, but in a few weeks, Lynne, Kady, and Noelle would be back to their circle of friends while I headed across the bay to Berkeley. Sighing, I picked up my glass of water and started drinking rather than try to say anything.
Bert got a funny look on his face. And in a quiet voice, he asked, "When was the last time you talked to Kim?"
I was in the middle of drinking and choked on the water. With that reaction, everyone turned to stare at me. And Amber in particular asked quietly, "Who's Kim?"
"Uh," I sputtered for a moment. "She was the fifth roommate in our house. She was also on the project team with Bert, Dawn, and me."
Bert didn't say anything verbal, but the way he looked at me clearly indicated more. I shot him a look and he quickly backed up, averting his eyes.
Amber looked over at Lynne. "Do you know Kim?"
Lynne shook her head in the negative. "I don't remember a Kim from that first party."
Amber stared down Bert, as if he would suddenly explain. But then my girlfriend fixed me with an intense stare. "Something you want to share?"
I sighed. "Like you don't have things from your past you're not proud of?"
Amber grimaced at that, and I instantly felt bad. Sitting up straight, I set my glass back down on the coffee table and looked over to Bert. "Have you seen her lately?"
He nodded. "We've kept in touch the past few months. She's really hurt, you know. You broke her heart."
I sighed, rubbing my face. I was suddenly aware that all three of the others in the room were staring at me pretty intently. Taking a deep breath, I weighed my desire to protect Kim's privacy against the need to be open and honest with my girlfriend. Even if Amber wasn't 100% forthcoming about her past, that didn't mean I needed to keep secrets from her. And shaking my head, I finally picked my head up and explained, "Bert said it best: I broke her heart."
"How?" Amber asked quietly.
"I actually had two girlfriends for most of the last semester. Dawn, you know. She broke up with me. End of that story. But Kim ... Kim was really sweet. She was really dedicated to me."
"She would have jumped off a cliff for you," Bert commented.
I felt a tightness in my heart at his words, but couldn't deny them. "Yeah ... Well, when Dawn dumped me, I got really, really torn up. I always cared about Kim, but I didn't love her the same way she was in love with me. And just when she was trying to comfort me after losing Dawn, I dumped her and told her to go back home. I pushed her away, and I haven't seen her since."
Everyone went quiet for a long time.
Amber reached over and squeezed my hand. And taking a deep breath, she said, "Well it's settled then. We're going to visit Kim."
I shook my head. "No, not yet."
"What?" Amber pulled her hand away from mine in surprise.
I pinched my lips together and gave my girlfriend a serious look. "You've met my family. You've met my best friend. I still have yet to meet anybody from your life."
Amber gave me a pained look. "I'm not trying to hide people from you. It's just that ... there are... issues with the people in my past. These things are deeply personal."
I nodded. "And this thing with Kim is pretty personal, too. I'm willing to share that. These personal issues are the things that make us who we are, and if we're going to be together in the long run, you do deserve to understand them. But this has got to work both ways. I'll take you to see Kim, but you've got to let me meet some of these people from your past as well."
Amber sighed, sagging against the backrest. But she then picked her head up and said, "You know what? Fine. I'm going to call up a friend from the 'old days'. I haven't seen her in a few months, and we're due to catch up. You keep wondering who I spent time with before you? Really, she's it."
I exhaled in relief and let out a smile. Finally, we were getting somewhere. "Sounds great. Let's give her a call."
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