章節 139: Back to School ll
Dawn led me up to the Master bedroom and closed the door. The soundproofing I'd installed couldn't completely block out the shrillest orgasmic screams or the heavy bass thumps of footsteps on the floorboards, but unless someone parked themself outside with an ear to the door, it was good enough to ensure a private conversation.
Upon entry, Dawn directed me to the chairs in their own alcove in front of the big window. The Master bedroom had always had its own sitting area that looked over the front driveway; we just rarely used it for sitting. The padded chairs were occasionally used for sex, but more often over the past year they were a convenient resting place for my dirty clothes of the day before Dawn put them into the hamper for me.
"First, I should give this back to you," Dawn said once we were both seated, reaching into her purse and pulling out a familiar silver device. It was the tape recorder I'd owned since High School, the very one I'd used over and over again to play back "We're just friends" whenever a nosy classmate asked me about a girl with whom I was suspected of being romantically involved.
When she handed it over to me, I gawked in surprise. "YOU had it? I've been looking for this!" Just two months ago, I had wanted to use it for the exact same purpose concerning Lynne.
Dawn took a deep breath, her eyes downcast as she blushed in shame. "Yeah, I kinda swiped it to do something I'm not very proud of. You remember Professor Rutledge?"
My mouth ran dry and a shiver went down my spine. I recalled that fateful Sunday after Dawn had dumped me. She'd returned to the house to get some of her belongings. But when I noticed that she smelled like sex and confronted her about it, she'd run away crying and driven off, never to be seen again until just last night. "You ... ah ... You got an 'A' in Finance," I stated, feeling old nausea in my stomach.
Dawn blushed and stared at the floor. Taking a deep breath, she nodded and explained, "I'm not proud of what I did."
"You slept with him," I stated quietly.
Dawn jerked her head up, her eyebrows furrowed and a deep frown set into her face. "What? No!"
I blinked quickly in shock. "Wait, what? You didn't?"
She shook her head vehemently, but then blushed in shame and looked away. "I ... uh ... I just blackmailed him."
"But I ... you..." I sputtered. "You smelled like sex. I KNOW that smell. And I smelled his cologne, too!"
Dawn winced, fidgeting with her hands. "I didn't sleep with him," she stated carefully. "I ... I would have, I'm ashamed to say. I don't know what kind of mental state I was in at the time, but I would have ... I would have done anything to fix my grade. My precious GPA was so damn important to me, I would have sacrificed... everything ... to keep it."
Despite her statement that she didn't sleep with him, I wasn't feeling comforted.
"Professor Rutledge is not that kind of predator. He doesn't trade grades for sex. Oh, he's a big time flirt, and he tries to get all the girls to call him 'Henry' outside of class. He's been banging Samantha Hitchcock for what seems like forever, but I get the impression that thing is mutual. I gather he's had a history of sleeping with students and T.A.'s. But he doesn't threaten them."
I blinked quickly, still surprised.
Dawn grimaced. "I seduced HIM. I knew he'd been eyeing me all semester, undressing me with his eyes and all that. So I led him on. We kissed a bit, and I probably got some of his cologne on my clothes. I went into full on vamp-mode, pulling up my skirt and flashing him. I even masturbated while talking dirty about all the things I wanted him to do to me. And I got him confessing that he wanted to fuck me even though he was still my teacher and it was patently against the rules. Caught the whole thing on tape. I was desperate. I made him swear to give me an 'A' or I'd release the tape. He instantly capitulated."
I was still just blinking in shock, barely able to process what she was telling me.
Dawn had moisture in her eyes, and she stared into her own lap with such a look of guilt and anguish that I immediately felt the need to comfort her. But the barrier that had been erected between us over the last three months kept me at bay, and I just stayed where I was, watching her coolly.
"The old Dawn would never have done such a horrid thing, probably why he was so caught off-guard," she said, her voice cracking. "Perfect Dawn would have cared more about her integrity than her stupid GPA. But I wasn't perfect anymore. I was about to fail. And I couldn't handle it."
I was quiet for a long time. Dawn wasn't saying anything further, probably still mentally lashing herself over what she'd done three months ago. So I had time to collect myself before finally saying, "I never asked you to be perfect. I just asked you to be you."
Dawn didn't immediately respond to that statement. She continued to stare into her own hands, moisture evident in her eyes, although she did not start crying. She nodded slowly, agreeing either with what I'd just said or some other statement in her own mind. And after a deep breath, she nodded and looked over at me. "I know."
I furrowed my eyebrows, not quite understanding.
Seeing that I didn't, she took another deep breath and then explained. "I know that you accepted me for who I was, perfect or not. I didn't understand that then; I do now. It's why you offered me all my freedoms. If you really thought I was 'perfect', you wouldn't have felt the need to let me do other things. You would have wanted to keep me just the way I was. But you saw that I wanted more, that I had other cravings. You encouraged me to pursue them, promising to understand and be supportive. You were so incredible second semester, putting up with all my selfish desires and ... carnal ... cravings. Our breakup was not your fault, not in the slightest. It had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me."
I arched an eyebrow. "The 'It's not you; it's me' apology? Really?"
Dawn managed to crack a smile. "In this case, an accurate statement. Even when I went off the deep end, you tried to keep us together. You promised to stay by my side and fix everything. You pleaded for me not to leave you. But I left; I HAD to. I was so filled with self-loathing that I couldn't stand to be around you anymore. I know we spent a lot of years talking about how I was just waiting for you to mature so we could be together, but this time, I truly felt that I was the one who didn't deserve you. How could I deserve you, after what I'd done?"
"I forgive you," I stated evenly, then felt a lump in my throat immediately after I'd said it. The 'forgive' word was a big one. Whether consciously or not, I'd never actually forgiven Dawn for cheating on me. I'd thought about what might happen if she came back and begged my forgiveness, but I never actually decided in my own head that I'd forgiven her.
Now, I did.
Dawn's entire face softened, and she gave me a hopeful look. "Really?"
I took a deep breath and nodded, repeating, "I forgive you. I don't pretend to fully understand what made you decide to do what you did. I can't pretend at all that I'm happy with the way things turned out. But I accept that you regret what happened, and I think that if you had the chance to go back in time and do it all over again, you wouldn't have cheated on me."
"I wouldn't," Dawn stated emphatically, pleading with her eyes for me to understand. I still don't understand our supposed psychic connection. Really, I don't think we can actually read each other's mind or anything. But as I looked into her eyes, I felt that I could hear her voice in my head adding, 'The Dawn you loved would never have done that to you; but I wasn't that Dawn anymore.'
I weighed that thought in my head, the concept that by the time everything fell apart, she was no longer the Dawn I had fallen in love with. Rather, she had become a broken-down version of herself. And the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if I shouldn't have been better, should have seen the signs, so that I could have prevented her deterioration and thus prevented her from ever cheating on me in the first place. It's not that her cheating was my fault. But I couldn't shake the idea that if I had done things differently, we would still be together now.
"You can really forgive me?" she asked quietly.
I nodded.
"Even though I slept with another man?"
I snorted. "I've had 70 female lovers – excuse me – 71. No matter how wild you may have run this past summer, I really don't think you've caught up to me."
Have you?
Dawn blushed and glanced away from me nervously, causing my heart rate to spike a bit. And then with a sheepish grin, she said, "I'm at eight."
I arched an eyebrow and took a deep breath. "Eight in three months? That's not so bad."
"No!" She shook her head vehemently. "Eight total. Ever. Including you."
"Uh..." I frowned and did the math: me, Ryan, Brett and Alan at the blindfold party, Bert, Kenny, and Jaron = seven. "You only slept with one guy this summer?"
"He was a really cute lawyer in D.C. a couple of months ago," Dawn said bashfully. "It was during the road trip, and Gwen had been egging me for weeks to stop my self-loathing and just let myself go for one night."
I blinked in surprise. "But that's it???"
Dawn frowned at me. "Please don't look so shocked."
"I'm sorry," I apologized quickly. "It's just ... the way you left me ... And the way you were spouting biblical shit about being a harlot and a slut."
"What, you thought I'd go bed a random guy every night?"
Abashed, I pointedly stared at the floor.
Dawn sighed heavily, a weary note that made me look back up at her. Shaking her head, she explained, "That's not me. Even at my worst, that's not me. I only slept with Kenny and Bert while I was with you. And the thing with Jaron was ... it was my greatest mistake, but at least I respect him as a man. To sleep with just anybody? It really hurts that you thought for even a second that I was capable of that. I'm not going to defile myself by letting some greasy fuckwit stick his dirty cock into my body just for the sake of going wild and crazy. That's one reason I was so upset with myself for being willing to sleep with Rutledge for a grade. I couldn't believe I'd nearly shamed myself like that, and I still shudder inside to think that I actually stooped to blackmail. I'm better than that."
My jaw was now on the ground.
Shaking her head wryly, Dawn added, "You've ruined me for other men. Even when Mr. D.C. was with me, I couldn't help but think about how he wasn't pushing my buttons the way you know how to. Our breakup had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the pressure I was putting on myself to be perfect – and honestly, the pressure that YOU and everyone else were putting on me, too."
"Oh," I replied lamely.
Instead of continuing on a downward spiral, it seemed that Dawn had hit rock bottom in those days after finals ended and not really gone any further. The paranoid thoughts I'd had in the middle of the night for a few weeks after our breakup now seemed so silly. I'd gone through every worst case scenario: that instead of going shopping with Gwen and Robin, she'd actually been arranging frat parties where she could get gang-banged; that her so-called "cooking class" (cocking class?) was just a farce, an excuse to get her out from under my nose so she could meet up some other boyfriend every Thursday night; or that Gwen had turned out to be a lesbian and Dawn was going to leave me for her new girlfriend.
I didn't want to stay on this train of thought. So quickly, I changed the subject and asked, "So how was the road trip? Other than Mr. D.C. Please don't tell me any more about him."
"I won't." Dawn giggled and shook her head. "The road trip was fun. It's one of those things college kids are supposed to do, I guess. For me, it was more about just getting away from California, away from my life. It was a great distraction, seeing new sights and new towns and meeting new people. You never really think about just how diverse America is, with all the varied ethnic groups and strange cultures. We met Texas cowfolk and New York hipsters. We met middle-American white trash and D.C. politicos. We found small towns where everyone was white and couldn't even comprehend seeing an Asian person. And I'd never seen so many black people in one place as Atlanta, not even in Oakland. It was different."
I nodded. "I'm glad you had a good time. But you still didn't have to leave me."
Dawn looked hurt by the pain in my voice. I hadn't meant to sound as wounded as I did, but the emotion was already out there. She gave me a steady look, taking a deep breath and replying, "Yes, I did."
I shook my head in the negative. "You could have stayed with me. You could have helped me to understand what you were going through, let me try to work things out with you. So you cheated, okay. I didn't understand why. I didn't know what was going through your head. And I didn't even realize that you'd been falling apart for ... well ... How long were you falling apart? Weeks? Months?"
"Does it matter?"
"YES!" I insisted, my voice rising. "Gawd dammit, Dawn. I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I always shared how I was feeling with you. When I was happy, you knew it. When I was sad, you knew it. When I was stressed, you could tell. And when I felt guilty, I told you why. Good, bad, just plain different, whatever. I TOLD you. I communicated with you. But you? You HID things from me."
"I was trying to protect you."
"Yeah, good job with that," I spat sarcastically, waving a hand back and forth to illustrate the divide between us.
Dawn looked hurt. She bit her lip and fidgeted nervously.
"Every single time a girl seriously flirted with me, I told you about it. I didn't want you to suspect I was stepping out on you, or give you any reason to doubt how much I loved you. We talked a lot about monogamy, and you reassured me time and again that you were okay with casual sex as long as I could show you that you were my one and only love. I could have taken your words at face value the very first time you said them, and then just run wild. I could have screwed my way through the entire Tri-Delt Sorority, and then a good chunk of the Chi Omegas just for fun. But I didn't. Time and again, I kept coming back to you, trying to reassure you that however much fun I had with anyone else, you were my anchor, you were my constant. I told you over and over that I would give everyone else up for you, and I made you remind me over and over that we were just having 'fun'."
Dawn just cowered, looking smaller and smaller. She looked like she wanted me to stop ranting at her, but I'd gotten on a roll and I had three months of pent-up frustration to let out.
"But you weren't just having fun for me, were you? YOU wanted to have fun. YOU wanted to cut loose and fly your slut flag after spending years and years cooped up with Ryan. You DID worry that you'd lived too pristine and pure a life compared to mine, and you wanted these other experiences."
"I TOLD you about those. I didn't try to hide them," Dawn suddenly wailed defensively.
"You're right. You didn't. But you didn't tell me everything," I shot back. "I had to figure out for myself that you wanted more and more extreme sex. I don't know if it's because you felt guilty over your cravings, or if you were worried I'd turn you down. But you still hid them from me."
"Because I knew that deep down, you didn't really want to let me!"
"What are you talking about? I gave you the freedom!"
"You gave me WORDS. You told me you would accept me, but I know you. I could read you. We have a connection, Ben, and I could feel your anguish inside. You set me up with Bert, but I could still sense your pain to watch another man pushing his cock into my body. I didn't ask for Jaron because of that ... YOU offered it to me."
"And you took it!"
Dawn whimpered. "If it really hurt you, then why did you offer it?"
"If you thought it really hurt me, why did you take it?"
Dawn didn't have an immediate answer.
I took a deep breath and gave her a steady look. "Yeah, it hurt a little. But I accepted it. Fair is fair, and for ME to complain about my girlfriend having other lovers would be too much hypocrisy for me to stand. Sure, in an idealized fantasy, I could fuck every fucking girl on the planet without ever having to share. But that's not reality. And that wouldn't be fair to you. We talked a lot about self-centeredness. We talked about collective utility. And even putting aside all the mumbo-jumbo philosophy, we talked plainly about how much I wanted to make you happy! Did I really want to share you with Kenny, Bert, or Jaron? Maybe not. But I was happy to let it happen ... for YOU. It was all for you."
Now Dawn started crying. She shuddered and hugged herself, and now I really felt like I needed to comfort her. But I couldn't. Not yet. I wasn't done.
"You never had to apologize to me for the threesomes and moresomes. I was cool with those from the beginning. You don't even have to apologize to me anymore for the cheating. I forgave you. But there's one thing that still bugs the shit out of me. There's one thing I still don't understand. And it's the one thing that makes me just ... well... HATE you right now!"
Dawn's eyes tilted to the sides as she looked up at me in fear. She could hear the wrath in my voice, and she quivered so much I thought she was going to pee in her pants.
That fear stopped me. She looked so helpless, so pitiful, that I couldn't bring myself to yell at her anymore. Shaking my head, I stood up and walked away, heading for the door. But just before I got to it, I turned to the right and walked beside the bed. And when I got to the nightstand, I made a U-turn and started walking back.
Dawn watched me pace around the room a few times, long enough for her initial fear to melt away. It also gave me time to calm my rage, to get my head thinking more clearly again.
Finally, she found her voice. After she managed to stop crying, she looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes and asked, "What's the one thing? What's the one reason you ... hate ... me right now."
I sighed, raising my hands and then dropping them against my sides. "The lack of communication. You didn't communicate with me. We had chances, you and me. We had a million chances to talk to each other, to share what was going through our heads. Even when you left me to spend more time with your close friends and do your own thing, we spent a lot of time together. You could have shared; you could have told me you were feeling over-pressured. But you didn't. You weren't even honest with me about how close you were to failing your Finance class, actually lying to me with some bullshit about keeping me from wasting time trying to learn your material!"
Dawn looked down at the floor, clearly avoiding the intensity of my eyes.
"Every time I worried about our relationship – every time – I told you about it. Chevelle trying to seduce me? Told you. Finding out Kim was falling in love with me? Told you. But you? You were falling to pieces, and you hid it from me. My relationship crumbled, and not just because I was an imperceptive blockhead. You didn't let me IN. We were supposed to be a collective: you and me. But you kept secrets."
"I didn't mean to."
"Mean to or not, you did." I took a deep breath. "Why Jaron? You slept with him behind my back. You cheated on me. Why him? Was it just because he's big and strong and handsome and he's got this massive schlong hanging down between his legs?"
Dawn winced. "Mostly."
"Were you attracted to him from the beginning?"
Dawn closed her eyes. "More or less."
"Did you ever fantasize about him?"
Dawn winced. "Maybe."
"Well you never told me!" I snarled, feeling the anger rising up in me again. "You HID that from me!"
"I was trying to protect you!"
"Protect me how? Convincing your boyfriend that you 'no longer have any curiosities about what it might be like to be with another man'? Huh?"
Dawn whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut.
"You know, I believed that one. You kept telling it to me over and over again. I wonder if you were trying to convince me or convince yourself."
Dawn turned her head further away.
"I would have been okay with it, you know. Everyone is allowed to fantasize. I certainly look at a hot chick and wonder what she looks like naked. I would have been fine with you doing the same. I've told you again and again: I accept Dawn Evans in all her myriad shapes and forms. You don't need to be perfect. You never did. I would have been perfectly happy with an imperfect Dawn who loved me to pieces and had a few flaws here and there. But you made yourself out to be this pristine angel, and when you set expectations that high – for both of us – there's no room for anything but disappointment."
"I never meant..." Her voice trailed off. I'm not sure she even had a clue how she wanted to finish that sentence.
Shaking my head, I continued to pace back and forth in front of the sitting area. "I could accept the threesomes and triple-penetrations. I could learn to forgive the cheating. But I couldn't handle the lying. I couldn't handle that when you made a mistake, instead of staying with me and giving me the chance to work it out with you, you disappeared and ran away. I asked you... begged you ... not to leave me. To stay and let us work it out. But you abandoned me. You didn't stay and communicate. You just packed up, ran away, and left me sobbing on the floor wondering what the hell had just happened."
Dawn cowered again, apologizing, "I'm sorry."
"Do you know what I've been through this past summer? Do you know how emotionally shattered I was for weeks after you left?"
She shook her head. "Do YOU know how I felt after?"
"NO!" I yelled immediately, louder than even before. I marched over to her, jabbing my finger in her face. "THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT! I DON'T KNOW! HOW COULD I? WHEN I WANTED TO KNOW, I WENT OVER TO YOUR HOUSE AND FOUND OUT YOU'D DRIVEN CLEAR ACROSS THE FUCKING COUNTRY!!!"
With a creak, the door opened. Wide-eyed, Brooke and DJ poked their heads inside. They scanned the room, possibly just to make sure I hadn't just murdered Dawn. And finding that we were both upright and breathing, they quickly pulled back and shut the door.
The momentary interruption put the brakes on my rant. I stopped pacing, just breathing heavily as I worked to calm myself down. With my chest rising and falling dramatically, I bit my lip and shook my head slowly while staring at the supposed love of my life with a world of pain behind my eyes. And feeling more hurt than angry, I shrugged and stated bitterly, "For all I knew, you were off on that road trip slutting your way across the country. For all I knew, you were hopped up on those illegal narcotics you spouted off about, taking strange cocks into your body and getting hosed down with stinky cum."
A fire went off behind Dawn's irises as she narrowed her eyes, stiffened her spine, and snorted, "No fucking way. I'm better than that."
"Well what the fuck was I supposed to think after the way you left me? Huh?"
The fire in her eyes immediately went out. Dawn bit her lip and averted her eyes. I continued staring her down, and she continued avoiding my gaze. We both went silent, neither of us speaking for what felt like at least five minutes. But after a while, she rather sullenly looked back at me and shook her head as if sadly disappointed in me. It was clear that while she'd heard my words, and perhaps even accepted them, there was still a part of her that felt she'd done the right thing in walking away. I think she understood how hurt I was that she'd up and disappeared, but the simple fact was that I didn't really know what she'd been going through the past three months, so I couldn't truly understand how hurt she might be feeling as well.
But at length, she didn't try to explain. She just seemed to shrink, and after a deep breath, and said quietly, "I'm sorry."
I sighed and thought back to everything we'd lost. We were once each other's soulmate. But now? Now we were just exes, wallowing in past pain, both of us wanting nothing more than to feel better again.
"I'm sorry," she repeated, since I hadn't replied to her previous apology. "What I did to you was wrong, and I can see now that the pain you felt was only compounded by my leaving you and not communicating. I'm sorry for making you worry about me. I have to admit that I had a few ... urges ... these past few months. It's not that I really thought I could get a sexual high any better than with you, or that drugs would make my pain go away. I think I just wanted to punish myself, to take that idea of a "perfect Dawn" and see it so thoroughly destroyed that no one would ever try to hold me to that standard ever again. But I was with Gwen and Robin for the entire road trip, and they would never let me do something that crazy. And once I got home, Mom was watching me like a hawk and Dayna kept checking in on me. I know Dad would have locked me in my room if I ever came home smelling like sex or drugs."
I allowed myself a faint smile. Thank goodness for family.
Dawn sighed heavily. "I'm sorry I never talked to you, or let you talk to me. But I did it because I felt it was the only thing I could do. I did cheat on you – there's no getting around that one. I committed perhaps the gravest sin imaginable in a relationship: betrayal. And for that, I couldn't bear to see you, or even hear your voice."
I pinched my lips, nodding and letting her speak. I felt that I'd done enough ranting already.
"I'm not worthy of you, Ben. I'm not going to put you up on a pedestal and claim that you're perfect or anything. But I truly believe that in this case, you are blameless. I know you, know that you're going to beat yourself up over the things you could have done differently that might have prevented all this from happening. I know you're going to flagellate yourself for not seeing the signs and realizing what was going on. Please don't. I meant what I said before. This has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me."
I gave her a pained look, hearing her words not to blame myself but not sure that I really could.
"I've taken a lot of time ... a LOT of time ... trying to figure out who I really want to be. I spent my whole life trying to be ... perfect. Everybody loves perfection. Everybody wants perfection. I felt like I could be that perfect. I didn't cut corners. I followed the rules. I studied. I worked hard. And I always considered my friends and lovers ahead of myself. Perfect meant not thinking selfishly. Perfect meant pleasing my parents. Perfect meant being with you, marrying you, and giving our families shared grandchildren. Perfect meant getting straight-A's. Perfect meant letting my boyfriend act out his sexual urges while remaining pristine and loyal myself. Perfect meant dedicating my time to YOUR happiness, being the perfect girlfriend so that I could grow up to be your perfect wife."
I heard all these wonderful things, and my heart sank as I realized these were all the things Dawn could NOT be. She couldn't be "perfect". No one could. And in that moment, I realized that choosing to no longer try and be "perfect" also meant no longer trying to be with me.
"Perfect Dawn is gone now, lost in a haze of sinful lust with a very nice guy who wasn't my boyfriend. All that's left is ... me. And I'm not sure who she is just yet."
"You're still Dawn. And I've told you from the beginning that I accept Dawn Evans in whatever myriad shapes and forms she may take." Right then I knew that I wanted her back. Before, I hadn't been so sure. Talking to Amber as recently as two nights ago, I debated with myself whether or not I would take her back if that's what she wanted. Now I knew. I WOULD.
She managed a faint smile at my words. But it was a sad smile as she shook her head and replied, "But even if you're willing to accept me, I can't go back to you."
My heart sank all the way down.
"In fact, I'm not even coming back here."
My spine stiffened and I jerked upright. "Wait, what?"
Dawn took a deep breath, and then she dropped the hammer. "I'm taking a leave of absence. I'm not returning to Berkeley for the Fall semester."
"You can't!"
"It's done. I put in the paperwork weeks ago."
"Then re-enroll! There's still time, still classes that have openings!"
She shook her head. "I just need to get away from here for a while – away from you – away from a lot of things."
"That's what you just did! Wasn't that the point of the road trip?"
"It wasn't enough."
"And you just spent two more months avoiding me!"
"I'll try not to avoid you. I'll call; we'll talk. But I still have to go. I have to find myself again. I have to figure out who I want to be. Perfect Dawn wanted to go into business, in part to be with you. I don't know that I would have chosen it as my major if I hadn't gotten to share all those classes with you. I'm not Perfect Dawn anymore. I've got to figure out what career I really want for myself."
"You're a fucking Senior! You've already gotten so many credits toward your major!"
She shrugged. "Worst case, it takes me five years to graduate. And I WILL graduate. Whatever form of Dawn I become, I still want my degree."
"Five years plus a leave of absence! That's six years!"
Dawn smiled. "Maybe DJ and I will graduate together. It's not the end of the world."
My jaw dropped, and I shook my head in disbelief. Dawn leaving? Dawn not at Berkeley with me the coming year? All of a sudden, I didn't care about the cheating or the abandonment or the communication problems we'd had the past several months. None of them mattered. Anything was better than being apart from her for an entire year, if not longer. I'd just fucking gotten her back, and suddenly, for all I knew we would NEVER be together again.
"Dawn, NO!" I pleaded.
"I have to do this."
"No you don't!" I protested. "Don't do this to me; not again. You just got done apologizing for hurting me and for then compounding that pain by disappearing on me. You can't do it again!!!"
She shook her head. "This isn't about disappearing on you anymore. This has everything to do with me taking the time I need to fix myself."
"Stay here. Stay with me. Let me help you!" I pleaded before Amber suddenly popped into the front of my mind. "I met someone in the last few months. She went through the same kind of thing you are. She thinks she's all messed up and doesn't deserve the guy she really loves."
My voice trailed off as I realized what direction I was going. Dawn waited for me to continue, and when I didn't, she led me by asking, "And... ?"
My heart sank. "And ... uh ... she's staying here for another year, vowing to fix herself before going back to him."
Dawn just blinked at me and canted her head to the side, giving me a 'well, duh' look. "Then you understand."
I didn't understand. "Women..." I scowled. "You both frustrate the hell out of me."
Dawn shrugged as if that wasn't her problem. "The arrangements are all complete. I leave tomorrow."
"Leave? Leave where? You're leaving home?"
She nodded. "I can't stay with my parents. It's too close to here, too close to you. And really, part of setting off to find myself includes leaving Mom and Dad. There are too many things in the Bay Area that tie me to my past. I have to let them go."
"Dawn, this is your family."
She laughed. "I'm not emancipating myself or anything. My family will always be my family. They'll still be here when I get back. And I still have my cell phone and email and all that. I'm not joining the Peace Corps and flying off to Mali."
"Where ARE you going?"
Dawn smiled. "I'm going to work at Morris Camp, actually. Mom told me they were advertising for some extra ranch hands. And when I called and told them my name, they signed me up immediately."
My jaw dropped. Instantly, I was transported back in time to when Amber and I were up on the ridge, talking about leaving our lives behind and becoming Morris Camp ranch hands. It seemed like such an idyllic existence, but completely unreal. And now Dawn was actually doing it.
Dawn then stood up, walking over to me. I still stood there in shock, completely stunned that she was up and leaving Berkeley behind. She reached to me with her right hand, trailing her fingertips along my cheek. As she did so, the cuff of her long-sleeved shirt dropped a few inches down her forearm. And as the pastel blue material fell away, I caught sight of something silver in the corner of my eye.
Immediately, my left hand whipped up to seize Dawn's arm. She smiled as I stepped back and gawked at her wrist. And if I was stunned before, I was absolutely floored now to see her wearing a cheap silver bracelet with the words 'Ben Forever' stenciled into the side.
"I still love you, my Ben," Dawn stated softly. "I'm truly sorry that it has to be this way, but this is something I've decided I need to do for myself. Just know that no matter what form of Dawn Evans returns from this little sabbatical, she will always be an Evans, she will always be a part of this family, and one way or another, she will always love you."
Dawn leaned in and kissed my cheek just then. My unmoving fingers remained outstretched where they had gripped her wrist, even though she pulled her arm out of my grasp. Shell-shocked into absolute stillness, I remained frozen where I stood. And as Dawn stepped away, she turned and circled around so that she stood immediately behind me.
Gently, she kissed the back of my neck.
And then she was gone.
Within the confines of my room, I heard a car door closing in the driveway. I went to the window when I heard an engine start, and looked down to find that Dawn was already inside her beat-up Malibu. I couldn't see her face, and never saw it as she backed out onto the street and then drove off. And I remained at the window until her car was out of sight.
I stared down that road for a long while. Other cars came and went, but I wasn't looking at them. In my mind's eye, I watched Dawn make the set of turns to bring her onto the freeway. And I watched the rear end of the car get smaller and smaller as it headed northward for the horizon.
Good luck, I wished silently. Find yourself, and then come home.
I don't know how long I remained at that window, staring off down the street. I probably could have stayed there for hours, lost to my own thoughts. But a vibration followed by a cute little pop ditty shook me from my reverie:
// Drench yourself in words unspoken, Live your life with arms wide open
// Today is where your book begins, The rest is still unwritten.
I blinked and looked down at my pocket. The song was off Natasha Bedingfield's new album, some yet-undiscovered track that hadn't been made a radio single just yet. Amber loved the song for some reason, and she'd coaxed me into making it my ringtone for whenever she called me. Hearing it now reminded me of her, and I resolved that no matter where our lives would take us, we would stay friends.
But it was a different old friend calling me. I arched an eyebrow in surprise when I saw Megan Kwan's name across the display, and I quickly opened the phone. "Hey, this is a surprise," I remarked.
"I thought you should hear the good news."
"Good news?"
Megan giggled on the other end of the line. "Guess what?"
I was still bone-tired, mentally and emotionally exhausted after everything I'd been through. Having just watched the love of my life get in her car and drive away, more or less telling me that I wouldn't see her for the next year or so, I wasn't in the mood to play guessing games. Rather cranky, I just sighed, "What?"
"Daniel and Elaine eloped!" Megan cheered, the energy in her voice buoying my heavy heart. "Can you believe it? They just up and got married!"
My jaw was on the floor. I turned away from the window and half-bent over in shock. "Seriously?"
"Dead serious! Elaine called me right after. She said Daniel came to her house and told her that he just couldn't imagine going another day in his life without her by his side. He dragged her out right in front of her parents, stuck her in the car and told her they were getting married that instant. They drove straight to the Santa Ana courthouse and did it. They're on the road to Vegas right now to celebrate!"
I whistled in amazement, and the two of us chatted for a few more minutes about how great it was that our friends had found each other once again. But then Megan made a comment about wanting to tell other people the good news, and I let her go so that she could make the other calls.
I stared at my phone for a minute or so, thinking about Daniel and Elaine. I wondered if Daniel had gotten to skydive. I wondered if Elaine had explored the possibilities of being with someone else. And I wondered if they'd both stayed abstinent and gotten married still as each other's one and only. Perhaps their eight months apart would end up being just a minor speed bump in their road to eternal happiness. Perhaps being apart and taking a walk on the other side had taught them how special their original relationship really was. Perhaps calling off the wedding would turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to them.
Who knew? Their future was still unwritten. But the pair had twenty-one YEARS of foundation to build from. And that already had counted for something.
Putting my phone back into my pocket, I took a deep breath and turned away from the window. Dawn was now long gone, but I knew she would be back.
I just... felt it.
Brooke and DJ wanted to pepper me with questions about the conversation I'd had with Dawn. Given their intimate knowledge of what had been said, I gathered that they'd been eavesdropping from the very beginning. Plus, Dawn had stopped and talked to them about her leave of absence and going to work at Morris Camp before she'd driven off. But they still wanted to know how I felt about everything and discuss their own opinions as well.
I was tired of talking.
Between the long conversations with Amber on Thursday, work and the visit to the Evanses on Friday, and now that emotionally-draining meeting with Dawn, I was just over the whole verbal communication thing. So I left the girls, grabbing my car keys and explaining that I just needed some fresh air. I told them I would be back in a bit, walked out the door, and then drove away without having any idea where I was going.
I couldn't go back to Stanford. Lynne might be able to lend me a sympathetic ear, but I felt like I'd put her through enough emotional anguish this summer. School started tomorrow for me, and it was time to get myself back into gear. Best to let Lynne resume her own life.
Likewise, I couldn't go to Amber. I had just spent the majority of Thursday night discussing Dawn, and what girl wouldn't want to hear the update now that I'd actually spoken with my ex-girlfriend? But I didn't trust myself in my current state. The woman I used to think of as my soulmate had just told me she was leaving for the next year or so. Even though I consciously accepted her decision and held out hope for the future, I didn't know what kind of mental state I was in. If Amber once again pulled that little stunt of opening her towel and pleading for me to put our pasts behind us so we could become lovers once again, I wouldn't be able to resist. I didn't necessarily think she'd do that to me, but I was very vulnerable right now.
Without really thinking about it, I wound up heading southbound on 880. My high school biology professor used to tell us that our brains were smarter than we were. It was a way of saying that instinct often served us better than coherent thought, since instinct wasn't clouded by self-doubt or hesitation. More than once I'd found myself driving on auto-pilot and finding myself right where I needed to be, and that was the case today.
Bert's mom met me at the door asking if I'd eaten lunch yet while wonderful scents wafted into my nose from the kitchen. Bert himself met me with an Xbox controller that quite literally had my name on it.
Right where I needed to be.
Brooke predictably called me an hour after I left, just wanting to make sure that I wasn't face-down in a ditch somewhere. She complained that I'd told them I would be "back in a bit", and I edumacated my little sister on the definition of "a bit" being rather undefined.
Still, I returned home in time for dinner, having cleared my head through therapeutic button-mashing. Oh, Bert had asked why I was in such a weird mood ("a Zen state" as he put it), and I explained about Dawn. Being a guy, he took the news in stride, asked a few questions just to make sure he had the facts right, and then shrugged and resumed our video game.
Brooke and DJ of course were rather more probing, but they didn't get much more out of me than Bert had. I basically had no idea how I was going to handle Dawn's absence, answering only that I'd take each day as it came. I had no idea what I was going to do with my romantic future, answering that I was neither going to seek out a new girlfriend nor actively avoid the possibility. And indeed, I had absolutely zero plans of any kind, other than to show up for class on Monday and keep taking classes until I got my degree.
I went out for more "fresh air" after dinner. Brooke and DJ let me go without argument, not even trying to extract a promised time for my return. I did my "adrift" thing, just meandering around the campus and then North Berkeley, walking to nowhere, letting my mind spin and spin and spin. Like a piece of debris left on the ocean currents, I simply went wherever fate took me.
And at some point, just as I was walking down a familiar section of Arch Street, something Amber had once said to me popped into my head: Sometimes destiny happens, whether you believe in it or not.
While I was still pondering that, a voice called out to me. "Ben?"
I stopped walking and turned to the voice. Standing on the front porch of her house, Chevelle Morrison gave me a funny look. I blinked in surprise to see my old project team member and classmate. Wearing a scoop-necked peasant shirt without a bra, a flowing skirt, and wearing an eclectic mix of beads and other homemade jewelry, the dirty-blonde hippie chick flashed me a wide grin as she stepped off her porch and came down the walkway.
When she arrived at the front gate of her white picket fence, I greeted lamely, "Oh ... hey..."
"What are you doing here?" she asked, stopping on the other side of the gate.
"Uh, just going for a walk," I replied, gesturing ahead of me further north.
Chevelle looked in the direction I was gesturing and smirked. "Nothing that way but quiet residential neighborhood."
I smiled. "Sounds perfect."
"But all the action on a Saturday night is that way." She pointed west toward Shattuck and the other main streets.
I shook my head. "It's been a weird day – kind of a weird week, actually. I've just been wandering, alone with my thoughts."
Chevelle nodded, not even really hearing me as her eyes had gone vacant. But then turning to me with a sudden brightness like a light bulb had just gone off in her head, she asked, "Hey, you busy right now?"
"Uh, right now?" I stammered.
She grinned and jerked a thumb down the street. "I'm going to this party. Last big celebration before classes start on Monday, you know? Wanna come?"
I arched an eyebrow, pondering the idea for about a second. But then popping both eyebrows and shrugging, I replied, "Why not?"
"OHHHWAAAUUGGHAAAAAHHHH!!!"
Bent over on all fours, Chevelle threw her head back, throwing long locks of dirty-blonde hair in every direction as my cock unrelentingly burrowed inch after inch up her tight asshole. Her long fingernails scrabbled at the bedsheets, bunching up the fabric in her hands with a desperate fierceness that mirrored the tension of every other muscle throughout her body. But despite her instinctive attempts to clamp down on me and prevent any further penetration of her most private hole, she was helpless beneath my ceaseless forward pressure.
"See how big my cock feels up your ass?" I growled almost menacingly. Only when my pelvic bone finally hit her buttcheeks did I finally let go of the hippie chick's hips. Even then, I only let go with my right hand so that I could give the poor girl two healthy spanks while my left hand snaked around her waist to resume fingering her protruding clit.
Chevelle didn't answer, just breathing shallowly as she simultaneously tried to recover from the intensity of the last climax I'd given her and the somewhat unexpected violation of her nether hole. Her grip on the bedsheets relaxed as she got used to the feeling, but then she tightened her hands once again when I started pumping.
"Oh, God ... Oh, God..." Chevelle whimpered, dropping her head back down to hang between her shoulder blades as I began rocking her body back and forth with my rhythmic thrusts in and out of her ass.
I leaned forward over her naked back, using my right hand to hook a finger in Chevelle's mouth and turn her face toward me. I watched her green eyes fluttering as she tried to absorb the sensations I was causing in her, only adding to them as I raised my left hand to cup and fondle her swaying breast. "Which god are you pleading to?" I asked, whispering in her ear. "You've told me about a variety of them tonight, from Gaia to Kukulcan to various spirit deities."
She didn't reply except to moan, her eyes continuing to flutter as I traced the center of her ribcage between her breasts with my left middle finger before cupping my hand and squeezing her entire boob.
I grinned, not really expecting a response. Chevelle was too far gone into the orgasmic state, a plane of almost zombie-like semi-consciousness where nothing existed but the physical pleasure. After a pleasant evening of flirting, drinking, and smoking pot, my ex-teammate had taken me into an available bedroom with an unfortunate misconception of what I was going to do to her. After all, she was still under the impression that the Big Ben reputation was just hype. And I'd just spent the past hour correcting her of that mistaken belief.
I hadn't held back. The memory of my one great failure as a lover had stuck in my craw like a popcorn kernel wedged into an unfortunate corner of my teeth for the past eight months. And I promised myself I wouldn't settle for anything less than a limp, drooling, wreck of a young woman passed out from sexual ecstasy and waking up to wonder what truck had just run her over.
Chevelle's first orgasm came at minute 3. Her second came at minute 5. Over the course of the past hour, I'd shown her that the greatest tantric sex had nothing on me. We fucked in a variety of positions, some borrowed from the Kama Sutra and some just invented by me on the fly. I ate her out. I fucked her against the wall. And I hooked her knees over the closet pole, fucking her face while I chewed on her clit until the damn wooden dowel snapped in half, collapsing Chevelle along with some dude's clothes into a mess on the floor.
While I'd taken the time to get my own pleasure, spooging her cunt full of cum around minute 20 and pulling out of her pussy to nut a load down her throat somewhere around minute 37, I'd gone out of my way to ensure Chevelle got at least a six-to-one ratio of orgasms compared to me. By the time she got her eighteenth climax, fucking doggy-style on the bed while I tickled the nerve clusters near her ribs and shoved two lubricated fingers up her ass, I figured it was time for the grand finale and switched holes while she was still in the throes of orgasm.
Now, I pushed myself upright, raising both of my hands into the air while continuing to fuck in and out of the hot coed's anal chute with just hip undulations. I reviewed my plan of attack in my head, mentally laying out the process step-by-step as if it were a convoluted bank heist and the goal to render Chevelle unconscious rather than to escape with undeserved loot (actually, the two ideas were pretty similar). And after interlacing my fingers and then turning my palms outward to stretch them, I held my hands up, working out the kinks in each knuckle before I set to work.
In retrospect, I can understand why the people outside did what they did. After all, once I really started to work on Chevelle, the sounds she made DID seem pretty terrifying.
"DON'T!" she screamed several times.
"STOP!" came after them, but with enough of a delay that an outside observer might not link the two.
"YOU'RE KILLING ME!" sounded rather dramatic.
"HURTS SO BAD!" likewise was rather ominous.
"PLEASE!" by itself was pretty neutral, but thrown in with the rest could be considered negative.
Throw in a few ear-piercing shrieks that would be right at home in a Wes Craven horror movie, and you have a soundtrack that I guess invited a couple of guys outside to quite literally break down the door. And finally, Chevelle's last wailing "NOOOOOO!!!!" more or less brought in the cavalry.
"ARGH!" I groaned as I slammed my hips forward one final time and let loose with a fire hydrant spray of cum into Chevelle's bowels, joining her in orgasm. She threw her head back, eyes shut and squeezing out twin rows of tears to roll down her cheeks as she howled in mixed pain and ecstasy. With her eyes shut, she didn't even see the crowd of six people who abruptly tumbled into the room when the door lock finally failed. Three guys and three girls gawked at the pair of us still coupled together on the bed, Chevelle shaking in obvious orgasm while my crotch remained attached to her ass. I was sure my body's elevation suspiciously indicated exactly in which of her holes I was currently buried.
Too consumed with my own ejaculation, I just stared at the would-be rescuers dumbly while continuing to pump wave after wave of spunk up the poor hippie chick's rectum. The fingernails of my right hand pinched harshly on her right nipple while my left hand automatically strummed her abused clit. And Chevelle continued to quake and quiver until her body decided that enough was enough and began its slow collapse to the bed.
Just as her cheek landed on the mattress, my own heavy weight dropping down across her back, Chevelle opened her eyes. When I asked her about it later, she claimed not to remember anyone coming in the room. But I distinctly recall the way she smirked at the six onlookers with a shit-eating grin before mumbling, "It's true..." And only then did she pass out.
Drunk on the lustful power-trip, I threw my own shit-eating grin to the crowd. After a few seconds to gather my strength, I did a push-up, gingerly extracting my cock from Chevelle's vulgarly-stretched anus. And then sitting back on my heels while the sweat visibly steamed off my head and shoulders, I shrugged and explained, "I'm Big Ben. The fuck did you expect?"
-- SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 2005, SUMMER BREAK --
I felt something tickle my balls; and with a start, I jerked awake.
"Mmph!" somebody groaned; and as I sat up, I realized I'd just shoved my dick an inch into a girl's throat. She took it like a trouper, gagging only slightly and keeping her head down, breathing heavily through her nose until I pulled back. And then she resumed rhythmically pumping my shaft in her hands and sucking on the mushroom head as if I'd never interrupted her.
My eyes fluttered for a brief second, giving me just enough time to see the sunny blonde-haired head bobbing up and down in my lap. I lay my head back down on the pillow, re-closing my eyes. And with a sigh of happiness, I settled my hand onto DJ's head. "Morning, kiddo."
She giggled around a mouthful of cock, sucking on me extra hard.
I felt someone shift beside me, the head rotating against the fabric of the pillow. I automatically turned my own head to meet them, and I opened my eyes to see my cute sister's sweet face.
"Snarfin' jepsum?" Brooke asked me drowsily, not even conscious. Smacking her lips, her half-lidded eyes closed as she rolled her nose into the crook of my shoulder and promptly went back to sleep. I just grinned and stroked her spine while letting my head fall back against the pillow, closing my eyes and wallowing in the pleasure of a hot blonde lavishing oral love upon my cock.
Eventually, DJ's expert fellatio brought me off, causing me to spurt a thick load of creamy spunk into her mouth. When I was done, she gaped her mouth open to show me the collected pool, trying not to laugh, although she giggled through her nose. And after gulping it all down, she gave me a deeply-satisfied grin.
I had a pretty satisfied grin myself. Reaching my arm out to her, I invited DJ to cuddle up against my other side. She rolled her eyes to see Brooke still out cold and snoring a bit, but then she rather cutely turned those crystal clear blue irises up to look at me. "Can I get one of those every morning?" I asked happily, still riding the pleasant post-ejaculate buzz.
"Sure," DJ giggled. "But you're gonna have to let me move in here with you."
Instinctively, I smiled and started nodding. But then I thought about Dawn ... and Lynne ... and Amber ... Hadn't I rebounded enough already? It was one thing to not want to be alone. It was quite another to just keep latching onto whichever willing female tried to accommodate me.
"Just kidding, just kidding," DJ said quickly when she realized I was taking her seriously. But there was a flash of something in her eyes that told me she wasn't entirely joking. In any case, she averted her gaze and just hugged herself to my side, running her hand beneath my shirt to rub my belly.
The three of us lay together for a couple more minutes. I'd returned home last night to find that both Brooke and DJ had set up shop in my bedroom, dressed in their pajamas and already beneath the sheets of my bed. After sending me to the bathroom for a shower, they beckoned me to sleep between them. And we'd spent the night more or less in the same positions we found ourselves in now.
But DJ now rolled herself out of bed, stretching out and then hopping off to walk out of the room. The movement on the mattress seemed to wake Brooke, who rose up to give me a quick peck on the lips before groaning and rolling to the opposite edge of the bed, parking her heels on the bedframe and yawning out a big stretch. Then she too left to change clothes in her own bedroom.
I took a deep breath and stretched myself out across the king-sized bed, my arms and legs going out to the far corners without any female bodies impeding my way. And I thought about the point at which I now found my life.
I no longer had a girlfriend, and with Brooke's and DJ's boyfriends returning to campus today I couldn't expect to have a cuddle partner every night. It wasn't the end of the world to sleep alone, but it was something I'd have to get used to again.
The first classes of my Senior Year started tomorrow morning. And for the first time since arriving at Berkeley's campus, I would be walking up the hill to Cheit Hall without Dawn by my side.
I wasn't yet sure how I was going to occupy my free time. Bert would probably leave his Xbox here again, and we could spend a few afternoons destroying virtual bad guys. But he would still be taking the BART back home to Fremont each evening, and with a girlfriend across the bay at Stanford, I wasn't even sure how much free time he would want to waste on me.
Rolling myself out of bed, I went into the bathroom to go through my usual morning routine. Still clad in my pajamas, I came back to my room and sat down at the desk while opening my laptop computer. It had become a morning routine to check my email even before changing clothes, but as I opened up my mail account, I was startled to find that I actually had ZERO new messages.
Really, I didn't even have spam. It was a random Sunday morning before school had even started, but it was still a sobering thought that nobody had bothered to send me a message. I sighed and realized that this was just one more illustration of the point to which my life had come.
My future was a blank slate. Girlfriend? Nope. Close friends? Just Bert. My social calendar? Empty. Even the new Tri-Delt Pledge Mistress was an unknown, a Senior girl named Annette that I didn't know very well at all. My entire life was starting over completely from scratch.
Well, maybe not completely.
I dressed and went downstairs to find that DJ and Brooke had already started breakfast. As I took in their cheery faces and flirtatious innuendoes, I couldn't help but smile. No matter what, I would always have my family.
It was lunchtime, and I was alone once again. Brooke and DJ had made plans to visit DJ's parents and then meet up with their now-sophomore friends at Vivian Wang's house. And while they felt bad about "abandoning" me, I'd insisted that they go ahead. I felt like nuking a microwavable pizza anyway.
I was zoning out in front of the TV, not really thinking about much of anything when my phone started going off in my pocket. As usual, the ringtone reminded me of Amber, but when I looked at the display, I saw that it was Kady calling me.
"Hey. What's up?" I greeted, muting the television.
"Hey Ben," Kady said in the most subdued voice I'd ever heard from her. "Uh ... How's it going?"
My eyebrows furrowed and I frowned at her tone. "Uh, I'm fine. What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong per se..." she began, taking a deep breath. "It's kind of a matter of perspective. After all, what's really tragic to one person might be considered funny to someone else."
Now I was really confused. "Kady, what's going on?"
She sighed and I heard muffled sounds of someone else talking in the background. But then Kady took her hand off the phone and came back to the line. With one more deep breath, Kady explained, "I don't know how to tell you this ... Noelle's pregnant."
My heart stopped for a full second. Wait, what? Noelle? Pregnant? WTF? Impossible. Impossible, right? "Uh..." I stammered. "E-excuse me?"
"Fuckin' A!" Kady suddenly squealed, that effervescent tone back in her voice. "I TOTALLY had you!"
I blinked rapidly, my jaw dropping in utter shock. With eyes WIDE open, I gawked and looked around the living room, wondering if there was a hidden camera around somewhere just waiting to capture my absolutely shocked expression. But as sudden relief and wrath simultaneously surged into my brain, I grabbed the phone and held the damn thing out in front of my face, yelling, "GAWD DAMMIT, KADY! THAT'S NOT SOMETHING YOU FUCKING JOKE ABOUT!!!"
"Hahahahahahahahaha..." she was braying like an over-excited donkey.
"KADY!!!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she apologized, sounding anything but apologetic. Still laughing, but fighting to calm herself, she sighed and added, "Amber wanted to talk to you. I just had the sudden urge to try that and see how you reacted."
"UGHHH!!!" I put both hands atop my head, eyes bugging out as I just stared at the wall in utter disbelief that she actually went and pulled that stunt.
But taking a deep breath, I managed to at least begin to calm myself. And checking my phone's display to make sure I hadn't accidentally hung up on her, I once again put the receiver to my ear. "I'm gonna get you back for that one," I growled. "Maybe it would be appropriate if I knocked YOU up."
"Come and get me, big boy," Kady teased.
"Ugh," I sighed again.
"Anyway, here's Amber."
I heard the phone being passed off, and then my ex-girlfriend was on the line. "Sorry about that. I didn't know that's what she was going to say. I shouldn't have let her do that to you – not exactly the way to put you in the sharing mood."
"It's alright. Not your fault. What's that about a sharing mood?"
"Oh. Well, I wanted to call and see how you were doing. You talked to Dawn yesterday?"
I arched an eyebrow and sank deeper into the couch. "How'd you know about that?"
"Dayna told me."
"And how did Dayna... ?" I rolled my eyes, remembering that Brooke and DJ had been home. "Nevermind."
"So how'd it go?"
"It went pretty well, all things considering. I found out my paranoias were a lot worse than reality."
"They usually are. So things weren't as bad as you'd feared?"
"Not even close. Dawn didn't sleep with Rutledge. She wasn't slutting her way across the country. Really, she was just filled with self-loathing and avoiding me out of her own guilt."
Amber didn't reply right away. But after a few seconds, she replied, "I can relate."
I let that slide. "I also sort of realized what upset me the most."
"Which was what?"
"The lack of communication. The not telling me what was bothering her throughout our relationship and then just up and disappearing on me after it fell apart. Seriously, how does a girl just NOT talk to the man she loves?"
Amber went silent again. "Sometimes, avoidance is all she CAN do."
"Bullshit."
"It's what I do."
"What do you mean?"
She sighed. "I haven't talked to David since we broke up. He knows where I am. E-Beth fills him in every now and again. But we've never spoken, or emailed, or anything. He's sent me a few messages and even a snail mail or two, especially on my birthday. But I can't bring myself to respond."
"For fuck's sake, why?"
"Just ... because..."
I sighed and collected myself, thinking for the umpteenth time just how much Amber reminded me of Dawn sometimes. They weren't the same person, and had radically different personalities. If anything, Amber acted more like pre-lesbian Adrienne than Dawn. But the parallels that had shown up between her relationship with David and my relationship with Dawn just couldn't be ignored.
"How can you do that to him? Why do you not contact him? We've been over this before. You love him, and you want to go back to him. But even though you love him so much, you're NOT going back to him yet. You're finishing this third year of medical school instead of packing your bags this very moment and going home."
Amber didn't answer me right away. I didn't press her, either. I just remained on the phone, waiting her out. Eventually, she spoke. But even then, it wasn't what I was expecting. "Hang on a sec. I'm calling you back."
I frowned. "What?"
Just then, the call from Kady's phone ended. But before I could really ponder that, I got an incoming call from Amber's cell phone instead.
When I picked up the line, I heard the rustling of wind as Amber appeared to be walking from Kady's apartment back into her own. A second later, I heard a door close and then Amber sighed. "I'm not ready," she stated without preamble.
"What the hell does 'ready' mean?"
"There are a million reasons why I can't go back to David yet."
"Name one."
"Because I'm still in love with you."
That silenced me, and I hung my head as I tried to work my brain around the feelings I had for her.
"We broke up only a week ago. I need time to get over you," Amber explained. "The fact is: if you came over here right now and gave me one of those soul-searching kisses you do so well, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from flopping onto my back, spreading my legs, and begging you to fucking pound me."
I suddenly had the urge to go for a drive.
"But you can't do that. Please don't do that. We both know I really love him, and it's going to be hard enough to remain abstinent for the next year or so."
"Abstinent?"
"Of course. Well, I might have a few girls like Chloe keep me company. But no more dicks. I belong to David now. My heart is already with him, and so should my body. I'm vulnerable to you, but we both know I really want to be with him."
"Then why put yourself through this? Fly home. Get him to pound you."
"I wish I could. But I don't deserve him yet."
"According to what criteria?"
"Mine. I still have enough self-respect to value my own opinion. And I know that I don't respect myself enough to consider myself worthy of him."
"Why don't you let him decide if you're worthy. If he's anything like me, he'll take you back no matter what."
"He IS like you. I'd like to think that he would take me back." Amber took a deep breath. "But I wouldn't respect myself for running back to him and letting him accept me like that."
"Why NOT?"
"Because ... He deserves better."
"Ugh." I felt like we were talking in circles again.
"I know why you're asking me this. You're less interested in why I'm avoiding David than looking for an answer about Dawn. What's going on?"
I took a deep breath. "She's leaving me."
"Leaving?"
"Dawn ... she's leaving me again. Took a leave of absence from school. Going to be a ranch hand at Morris Camp for the foreseeable future, can you believe it?"
"Seriously?"
I nodded before realizing I had to verbally respond, "Yes."
"Wow..."
"I want to know why she's doing it. You say you've avoided David for two years now. Well, I've had Dawn avoiding me for three months, and it just KILLS me inside. You KNOW it's gotta be killing him, too. If he cares for you even HALF of what I care for Dawn, having you completely shut him out is the worst thing you could be doing to him. How can you do it?"
Amber went quiet again.
I fidgeted on my end of the phone, wondering when she was going to answer, or even IF she was going to answer. The longer I waited, the antsier I got. And I was just about to screw this phone conversation and get in my car to drive over and do this in person when she finally responded.
"This is my penance," she said. "This is my prison."
"Excuse me?"
"Breaking and entering, grand theft auto, first degree murder: these are all horrible things that land a person in jail. They don't hand out terms for breaking someone's heart. But it's a crime just the same."
"No it's not."
"Sure it is. I caused him pain. If I go back to him and have him take me back when I haven't served my sentence, I'll feel like I cheated the system. I broke his heart to pursue my dream. I deserve to suffer for what I did to him."
"That doesn't make any sense. Do you think he'd want you to suffer?"
"Probably not. He's a sweet guy, just like you."
"Exactly. And I've forgiven Dawn."
"And David would probably forgive me. But even so, I can't go back. Every day with him I would know that I didn't deserve to be with him. The guilt would EAT at me from the inside, poisoning our new relationship. You have to understand: when I avoid the man I love the most, it has everything to do with me and NOTHING to do with him."
I groaned and exhaled wearily. Having heard that argument time and again from Dawn yesterday, I couldn't help but feel annoyed to hear it from Amber as well. It was the most fucked-up piece of logic I'd ever known. But when I stopped to think about it, now analyzed in a relationship that was not my own, I had to admit that it made a certain kind of sense.
Let's say Dawn wanted to be with me. Let's say she wanted to marry me tomorrow, start having kids, and raise our family until "Happily Ever After". She wouldn't be able to do it, not yet. She wasn't ready. Three months ago she cheated on me. She'd spent her whole life trying to be "Perfect Dawn", and after finally realizing that such perfection wasn't possible, her sense of identity had fallen apart. She couldn't be with me because she didn't know who "she" was anymore. And even if she did, she couldn't truly be with me until she found a way to ease her sense of guilt over what she'd done.
She just wasn't ready.
"But even if that explains why you can't be together," I reasoned. "That doesn't explain the complete lack of communication."
Amber sighed. "Because it would hurt me too much to talk to him. Let me explain it to you this way: I'm not coming to visit you."
"Huh?"
"I want you back, Ben. Right now, after only a few days since we were so madly in love and so undeniably happy together, I miss the crap out of you. I was absolutely THRILLED when you showed up on Thursday to talk to me, even though nothing happened between us. But I'm not going to come visit you. And I sincerely hope that you don't come visit me."
"What?" I sputtered. "Why?"
"Because it would hurt too much. It's easier to deal with the pain of being apart from you when I don't see you every day. I focus on my work and my studies and keep myself occupied. Out of sight, out of mind – at least as much as I can manage. I still lie awake at night thinking about you, thinking about what we could have been together. I masturbate sometimes, fantasizing about the glorious orgasms we've given each other. And I've cried myself to sleep every night, none more so than that Thursday night when you visited and then left me. Having you in my living room, I wanted so much to bring you back into my bedroom and just cuddle, even if we didn't make love. And it hurt so badly to see you walk away."
"I'm ... sorry..." I apologized, not sure that I'd done anything wrong but feeling like it was the right thing to say.
Amber took a deep breath. "I don't like that pain. And to see David, or even just hear David's voice would destroy me inside, don't you see? I know I don't deserve him yet, not until I've dealt with this guilt over leaving him in the first place. I know that to be with him now, while I'm still in love with you, would not be fair to him. So I'm caught between a rock and a hard place, unable to be with him and unable to bear the sound of his voice. I'm stuck. And I'm pretty sure that's where Dawn is right now."
I suppose that made sense. Dawn was so completely torn up with guilt over betraying me that she couldn't stand to be around me. She figured I would just slap a band-aid over her indiscretions and promise both forgiveness and acceptance. But to be forgiven by me was meaningless until she could forgive herself. And until she forgave herself, she wouldn't be ready to come back to me.
Maybe that wasn't logical. But human emotions are rarely logical.
Human emotions suck big hairy donkey balls.
I closed my eyes and let my head loll across the top of the backrest. Still keeping the phone pressed to my ear, I sighed and replied, "I think I understand."
"That's good. For her sake, that's good."
"So you think you're going to both stop loving me and be able to forgive yourself in the next year?"
Amber sighed. "I have to. For him ... for US ... I have to."
I exhaled. "I wish I could know that your situation really is a parallel to Dawn's. David doesn't know that you're fixing yourself with the intention of going back. If I were in his place, it would be really reassuring to know all I had to do was hold on a little longer for you to return to me. But I don't even know if Dawn really loves me. I don't even know if she really wants to return to me."
"Think of it this way: If she didn't care that much about you, why did she work so hard to avoid you? If Dawn ever gets indifferent, then you start to worry. But based on everything you've told me, I don't think that's the case."
"Ben Forever," I stated softly.
"What was that?"
I smiled and thought of those last moments before Dawn left, when she kissed the back of my neck. "Dawn's had this bracelet since we were teenagers. It has 'Ben Forever' stenciled across the side. And she was wearing it before she left."
I could actually hear Amber smile. "Then I think you're going to be okay."
I'm going to be okay.
I'm going to be okay.
I'm going to be okay.
"Amber, thanks for calling," I said.
"I was happy to. Now you'll have to excuse me while I curl up in a ball and cry about how you don't love me the way you used to anymore."
"Amber," I sighed.
"It's okay. I'll be okay. It's for the best, right?"
I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, reminding myself that she belonged with David. "Right."
But now for the real question: Did I truly belong with Dawn?
I didn't know. And really, I wouldn't be able to know. For the next academic year at least, Dawn wasn't going to be at Berkeley with me.
My future was a blank slate.
It was after 10pm when I crawled into bed. The hour wasn't so late for your typical college student, but with no girlfriend and no friends around to hang out with, I might as well get some rest before starting classes in the morning.
As I reached out to turn off the table lamp, I caught sight of the framed photographs on the nightstand. There were two of them, both taken of this house's roommates sitting together on the front porch. The first was from my freshman year: Dayna, Brandi, Adrienne, Dawn, and me. At the time, I was dating Adrienne and Dawn was with Ryan, but Dawn was seated in front of me with my arms wrapped around her shoulders as if we were the couple that belonged together. The second photograph was a smaller print of the one in the hall, showing DJ, Brooke, Kim, Dawn, and I in a similar pose. Once again, I had my arms wrapped around Dawn, this time AS her actual boyfriend.
I sighed and felt a tug of loneliness pulling at my heart. I'd seen her just yesterday, only to watch her drive away less than an hour later. I had loved her with every fiber of my being, and her absence had left a painful void inside me that cried out for someone ... anyone ... to fill it.
I'd tried already. I'd tried with Lynne, and then again with Amber. I knew I'd try again and again while Dawn spent her "sabbatical" at that magical world we called camp. Maybe I'd realize that Dawn wasn't actually my soulmate. Maybe I'd realize that Allie Sanders was right, that we had several "compatible souls", and I would find one of them instead. Or maybe Dawn was my soulmate, and it was simply a matter of time until she returned to me, the way Amber planned to return to David.
I didn't know.
It sure would be nice to know.
But I wasn't going to find out right now.
Sighing, I reached again for the light switch. But just before I hit it, my bedroom door opened and a little sprite in a baggy T-shirt entered, followed by a skinny, busty blonde wearing a rather more seductive babydoll nightie. Wordlessly, Brooke hopped up onto the bed, her smile dazzling in the moonlight. And as she slid herself beneath my covers, DJ circled the bed to crawl in from the other side.
Brooke propped her head up on one elbow, smirking at me as DJ took hold of my head and rotated it around so that she could kiss me. I felt a wave of passion flowing like cosmic energy from the blonde's mouth to mine, using her tongue as a conduit as she gave me one of her patented supervolcanic kisses. And as DJ pressed me onto my back and got up onto her knees so that she could continue her downward kissing pressure, my little sister slid a hand along my belly and into my pajamas to begin stroking my growing shaft.
DJ then moved herself higher, inviting me to lift up the hem of her nightie before she lowered her swollen tits to my face. I kissed and suckled as happy as a newborn baby, and then groaned as Brooke took my cock into her mouth.
But my little sister didn't suck me for long. After bobbing up and down a few times, leaking out a ton of saliva to get me really wet, she kissed her way up my body and then took hold of my chin to turn my face toward her. DJ moved out of the way, tossing her nightie onto the floor as she did so. And then I closed my eyes and tilted my head to meet Brooke's sweet, tender kiss.
I groaned again when I felt hot, wet warmth surrounding my prick. Pulling away from Brooke's kiss, I turned to find DJ squatting over me, slowly lowering herself onto my upright shaft. She cooed at the penetration, giving me a delighted smile as inch after inch of my turgid cock slowly stretched her vaginal walls. And with a smile of my own, I looked to both girls and said, "Thanks for being here for me."
Brooke shrugged and grinned. "We're family."
DJ sighed as she hit rock bottom, closing her eyes with her lower lip quivering. "And how I love this family."
Brooke giggled, reaching out to fondle one of DJ's nipples.
Just then, the door cracked open with a squeak. Gasping, DJ whipped her head around and desperately clawed back for the blankets to cover herself. Brooke squealed and slid beneath the covers as well.
Adrienne poked her head around the corner and grinned. Our gorgeous, supermodel-famous adoptive sister was wearing some of the world's finest lingerie with one special addition: a black leather collar stitched "Tiger's Pet", complete with D-ring and a leather leash. "This a private party? Or is there room for one more?"
Today is where my book begins; the rest is still unwritten.
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票