Might Have Been Ch. 07

I am laughing as she comes into my arms. My hand enters the pocket of my cargo pants, and I grasp the resonance array.

"I think I'm falling in love with you," I say.

She pulls me closer. "And I, you," she replies.

I flip the switch and jump.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

September 13, 2007

"I hate you!" It's a year and a half later, and a coffee cup hits the wall next to me. It dents the sheet-rock and falls to the floor with a broken handle.

I shout back. "Fuck this. It's my parents' twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. I'm going."

"I'll be alone!"

"If you had gotten off of work like I asked, you would be welcome to come."

"It's my fault now? You're such a coward!" She grabs a handful of magnets off the fridge and throws them at me. I brush them aside, relieved she isn't throwing another coffee cup.

"I told you about this three months ago."

"I can't get off work."

"You didn't try very hard."

"I'll be fired."

"Bullshit." She swaps shifts at her convenience all the time. She engineered this, forcing me to choose between her, and my parents' anniversary. Still, calling her on this is an escalation.

"You're calling me a liar?"

This won't end well. If I stay, it will continue to escalate until she hurts herself. "I'm not doing this. I'm going." I leave, slamming the door behind me. I don't bother to pack. I will pick up clothes and sundries along the way to Minnesota.

I hear her screech through the door behind me. "Coward!"

Guilty as charged. I don't hear from her all weekend. When I return, my DVD collection will be destroyed, but she will be all apologies and kisses. It will be one of the last times we have sex, and the very last time it is any good.

I have spent the last eighteen months learning how to reduce the frequency of her Black Moods. It's done by giving her what she wants -- proving I love her more than anything else -- giving up almost everything else I love. My parents' anniversary is a rare moment of resistance in a life of surrender. The sacrifices are painful, but I make them willingly, not seeing the deeper sacrifice until it is too late. She only gets sexually aroused when she feels the sharp teeth of desperation nipping at her heels. That's when she craves companionship and proof she is alive. The better I am at keeping her calm, the less she wants to have sex. I refuse to deliberately provoke her Moods in order to get laid, so my existence is frustratingly monkish.

In the long run, I can't win.

I jump.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

March 25, 2006

I have my first experience with one of Tasha's "Black Moods". We have been dating three weeks.

She watches a political debate on CNN, and goes off on a rage against the evils of the Bush Administration. It's a minor debate, nothing compared to some of the issues in the past six years, but it sends her into a deep funk. What kind of world do we live in? How can God be so uncaring? She lies in bed all day, brooding and crying, instead of eating and living.

I am the supportive boyfriend. She had warned me about her Moods, and I was mentally prepared. It isn't so bad. I hold her, skipping classes so I can stay with her.

That seems to break the Black. "I need love, Lance."

"You know you have it."

"No, I mean, I need to see love, and then we need to make love."

"What do you mean?"

She is blushing. "Find a porn movie on the Internet. I want to watch that kind of movie with you."

"There's porn on the Internet? Does anyone else know?"

She smiles and her hand brushes my cheek.

"I'll try anything for you," I say with mock reluctance. "What do you want?"

"Something with a woman giving a guy head."

It takes me three minutes to find what she wanted. She is immediately undoing my pants and stroking my cock. When some blonde with impossible tits starts sucking the male lead, Tasha's mouth hits me. She does her damnedest to match every move on the screen. She is able to follow every lick, suck, stroke, and flick of the tongue, only failing when the blonde pulls off an impressive deep throat on nine inches of professional porn star. Tasha gamely tries to mimic the act on my less freakish length, but she gags, and gives up on the fifth attempt, after she accidentally bites me.

The blonde returns to oral techniques that are more in Tasha's repertoire, and Tasha has fun. She pinches the base of my cock when she senses I am about to come, trying and succeeding to keep me lasting as long as the man on screen.

The woman on screen fellates furiously, setting up the money shot. Tasha acts as her surrogate. When I come, she aims my cock at her mouth, but keeps enough distance to guarantee it will be a facial, matching the action on screen.

I explode. A few streams go into her mouth, the rest cover her beautiful face and hair.

She holds my gaze as she cleans her face with her fingers, licking her hands like a cat. When finished, she smiles and escapes to the bathroom.

Her request to watch pornography nags at me. "Despite your love of Henry Miller, I wouldn't expect you to be a fan of hardcore porn," I say when she returns from the bathroom and cuddles in my arms.

"Henry Miller is not porn!" It's become a running joke, and she isn't as mad as she pretends.

"I would have taken you for more of an Anais Nin fan."

She waves toward one of her bookshelves. "I have Delta of Venus over there somewhere. Have you read it?"

"Some. I think straight porn is more honest, Henry Miller excepted."

"There is nothing honest about porn." Her kisses are hot and wet on my neck.

"I mean it isn't pretending to be something it's not. Sex is too powerful. It overwhelms everything else. Delta of Venus is porn aspiring to be art, but it fails. Her mysterious sponsor kept begging her to leave out the poetry. 'Concentrate on the sex', he kept telling her. He knew what it really was."

"Lance, I didn't know you were such a prude. I'm going to enjoy corrupting you." There is laughter in her voice as her hand touches my cock, and she strokes me back to hardness.

"It's prudery to prefer porn to porn-lite?"

"Fine, you aren't a prude. You're a sex-segregationist -- trying to confine sex to porn, but you can't keep sex down. It always rises." The work of her hands turns her words into a pun.

"I just think that when writers focus on sex, it distracts from the art, or the story."

"Sex can be integral to the art or the story. Most stories are about being human. Don't you think sex is an important part of the human experience?"

"Too important."

Tasha grins. "Let's prove it." She swings astride my hips and impales herself on me -- rewarding me for banishing her Black Mood.

When we finish, I jump.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

June 20, 2007

A year in the future, I am emptying the leavings from my electric razor, when I notice little blue caplets dumped in the bathroom trash. "Tasha, did you throw away your Zoloft?"

She doesn't answer.

I track her down. She is sitting on the couch working on a Sudoku puzzle.

"Tasha, why did you throw away your Zoloft?"

"I didn't like the way it made me feel."

"What was wrong?"

"I felt sick. I didn't feel like me."

"The doctor said it takes awhile for it to fully kick in. You need to control your Moods."

"I don't like it."

"We can try something else -- Prozac, or there are new drugs."

"Fuck it. I'll deal with my Moods my own way."

"Tasha..."

"Fuck off."

It was our first and last attempt at better living through chemistry.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

May 13, 2006

It's almost three months into our relationship, and I am learning fast, but I can't make all of her Black Moods go away. This one has lasted three days. The pressure grew too much on the second day, and I snapped at her. She stormed away, and I stayed by myself to calm down, until I heard her cry in pain. Sprinting to the bathroom -- the source of her cries -- I found her using her bathtub razor to slash at her wrists. She hadn't cut deep yet, and I was able to contain the damage with gauze and medical tape.

I ditch classes because she says she might kill herself if left alone. She cries, wails, sulks, and sleeps. On the third day she complains about not having any good clothes for the spring.

"We can buy some."

"I can't afford it."

What? Her dad is loaded, and pays for every dime of school, plus $2000 a month in living expenses, which easily covers her swanky apartment. He even gave her his Lexus when he upgraded to a Mercedes. Knowing this, I say nothing. I have already learned I can't argue with Tasha when she is in a Mood, or it makes things worse. I am exhausted from dealing with her for three days, and just want her better. A shopping trip sounds like it might be the cure. "It's on me."

"Lance, I couldn't." Already, I know her well enough to tell it's a token protest.

"I would like to buy something nice for you. Let's go."

She chooses a downtown boutique, and is skeptically appraising a blue sundress that is far skimpier than her usual tastes, when I hear a sharp intake of her breath. "Oh God," she says.

"What?"

"It's him. Sean -- the asshole who dumped me after Valentine's Day."

A scruffy, teddy bear of a man is standing in front of the store, patiently attending the plain-looking woman next to him as she admires a dress on one of the mannequins in the store window. He doesn't see Tasha.

She had settled for that? He had dumped her?

The man's companion opened the door to the store.

"I can't deal with him right now," Tasha says, grabbing the sundress in size two, and walking briskly toward the changing room. I follow and wait outside her door.

I watch her ex and his new girlfriend enter the store. They are having a conversation. I can't hear the details, and don't want to, but the woman's nasal voice is like a chorus of castrati mice trying to ice skate on a chalkboard.

A minute later, Tasha purrs from behind the door, "Lance, come here and help me."

She is wearing the dress, I discover to my delight after closing the door behind me, and it brings out a fierce heat in her eyes. The skirt is far shorter than I have ever seen her wear. It flares out from her hips, but barely extends past her panties. The dress is sleeveless, exposing the smooth olive skin of her arms, and the neckline plunges almost to her navel. If she had a bigger bust, it would look obscene, but on her petite frame it's just daring and sexy. She turns to display the back. It is mostly free of fabric, except at the very top and bottom. She can't be wearing a bra.

Tasha watches my reaction in the mirror. "What do you think?"

"You look gorgeous, of course, but it's more risque than you usually wear. I like it, but do you?"

"It makes me feel sexy."

"You are sexy. Um... isn't that skirt going to fly up every time you turn around? You will be flashing your panties with every stiff breeze."

Her reflection has a wanton smile. "No I won't. I took them off. Take a look." She raises her hands and presses them against the wall, and spreads her legs -- posing as if expecting a frisk by the police.

I step behind her, and probe under the skirt, feeling the bare flesh of her ass. She presses back into my hand.

"What do you think? Will you buy it for me?" She presses back further into my crotch, and rubs herself against the new hardness she finds there.

"How much is it?"

"$400."

Fuck!

There is panic in Tasha's eyes -- she saw me flinch at the price. I am being tested, I know. The last three days have been a nightmare. She needs re-assurance from me, and I need her Mood to end. "If it will make you happy, Tasha, of course I'll buy it. It's magnificent on you."

She leans back to whisper huskily in my ear. "Take me, right here, from behind."

I can hear other shoppers in the neighboring stalls, but that only enhances the thrill. I unzip my pants, flip the back of her skirt, and slide inside her.

Tasha's hand pushes back from the wall to leverage me in deep, while her other hand reaches behind to pull my head forward to kiss her ravenous lips.

Matching her hunger, I reach inside her dress to cup both of her breasts, trapping each nipple between fingers, allowing me to pinch and caress them at the same time.

Her lips open wide and I feel her teeth scrape my chin as she moans and thrusts back against me. I hear the low whisper again. "Oh, my sweet man. I'm so hot right now. Just fuck me. Fuck me like you own me."

She bends over further. She can no longer whisper in my ear, but I have a better angle, and I see her face in the mirror, rapt with lust. She mouths her words to my eyes: fuck me, fuck me.

Embracing her hips, I pull her forward, pressing my thumbs into the soft flesh of her ass. I increase the tempo, skewering her from behind.

She starts to tremble and opens her mouth in a wide "O", and closes her eyes. I have never met a girl who comes so often, and so hard. Her face in climax is the most beautiful thing in the world, and I follow her into incandescence.

She emits one sharp cry of pleasure.

We hear a voice. "Hey, are you okay?" I recognize the nasal tone.

Tasha is quick on her feet. "I'm fine, I just caught my tit in a zipper."

"Ouch, I've done that." The woman leaves.

Tasha gives me a long, lingering kiss. She then changes, and heads to the counter to purchase the dress. Tasha ignores her ex-boyfriend as he waits for his own companion outside the dressing room, but I notice him start with recognition when he sees her. We make eye contact, and he gives me a sad smile. When this first happened, I saw his look as one of regret for the amazing woman he let escape -- but now I knew it to be pity.

I buy her the dress. She never wears it again. I once asked her why, and she said it was too short, and she was self-conscious wearing it in public. I asked why she didn't return it if she wasn't going to wear it.

"It was a gift from you," Tasha says. "That makes it special."

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

January 7, 2007

Two for the Road is showing on Turner Classic Movies. It was one of the few post-war romantic movies I liked, with a clever story structure, cross-cutting between scenes of the same couple at different periods in their relationship. I had tried watching it with Tasha once, but she found it depressing. I thought it was one of the best love stories ever put on film.

Tasha walks into our apartment, in tears. We have been dating almost a year. She has just been fired from her job at Macy's. The sick days and her volatility have hurt her. They kept her on for the Holiday season, then let her go. Her cries are interminable. I hold her all night long on the floor of our new apartment, and call in sick the next day.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

June 10, 2006

"You're leaving me." We are finishing dinner at her kitchen table, four months into our relationship.

"No, I'm not. I would love for you to come with me." I have been accepted into the Physics program at Columbia, Michigan, and Stanford. I decided on Columbia. Stanford is a better school, but not by much -- plus I have more contacts at Columbia, I received a better financial package, and had loved New York City the previous summer.

"I can't move to New York. I just started a new job."

"You can easily get a similar job in New York." She took a job as a manager-in-training at Macy's. It's just above minimum wage. She barely graduated -- her health problems resulted in too many missed classes, ditched exams, and incomplete work. She has struck out on getting jobs in her field -- clinical psychology.

"I made a commitment to them. I can't just break it at the end of the summer."

"It's a retail job, Tasha."

"I didn't know you were a snob."

"I'm not, but retail jobs are a dime a dozen. You can get another one just like it anywhere in the country, probably at the same chain."

"My friends are here." The only friend I have seen is Diane, the neighbor who has only been over twice.

"You can make new friends."

"Lance, you know how I am. I need stability in my life to keep the Moods at bay. The more things change around me, the worse it gets." This is true, but it isn't the real reason. By now, I have figured out the pattern, where I am boxed into choosing between Tasha and something else I want. If I choose her, it re-assures her, convincing her I won't leave. That calms her anxieties and makes her Moods less frequent. She wants one more sacrifice, but this is too big. I can't give up grad school. It's my life.

"Tasha, you know my dreams."

"You told me it was to be with me."

"I would love that. Move to New York with me."

"I need you."

"I need you, too."

"You're the best thing to ever happen to me," she says.

"As you are to me."

"No, I'm not. I know how difficult I can be. But you're so good to me."

"I try."

"Let me show you how good you are to me. Let me be good to you." Her eyes smolder as she slips under the kitchen table. I shortly feel her hands on my crotch, and I push the chair back to give her access.

She pulls my pants down, and takes me in her mouth. When I come, she swallows every drop. A voice travels up from under the tablecloth. "Thanks for dessert."

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

November 17, 2006

It's five months later, and it's the worst Black Mood I ever experienced.

Her father has decided she isn't showing enough ambition, and she needs some tough love to get her life back on track -- he has cut her off. She can no longer afford the apartment, and won't be able to maintain her expensive habits of clothes and jewelry. I don't care about the money directly, but I fear she will expect me to maintain her lifestyle. My job doesn't pay nearly enough.

The Mood lasts a week. I call in sick for two of them, but I haven't worked at the lab long enough to have much leave. The other three days, I hide all the pills and knives, and leave her alone in the dark, because she shrieks when I turn on the light. I don't believe in God, but I pray anyway.

When it's finally over, I walk out the front door, hike a few blocks, and sit on a bench in a park.

I break character. At this moment I am myself, not the me of five years ago.

Taking a deep breath, I pull out the resonance array.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

I have been surfing quantum foam, bouncing back and forth in time, using the array to see Tasha at her best and worst. I had another reason as well -- I had been a coward for six years, avoiding conflict. No longer.

Shying away from the beauty of Tasha would have been a sin against my conscience. I had loved her justly, and she did not deserve to be demonized. Shying away from the horror of Tasha would have been a sin against my soul, allowing me to rationalize a continued miserable existence with her.

I had just spent several weeks of subjective time with her, and hadn't changed a single important decision. It was merely preparation for my ultimate fantasy. I had re-lived my choices with six Might-Have-Beens: Amy, Courtney, Amber, Sidney, Irina, and Crystal. None had gone the way I expected -- I hadn't found an alternate universe where I was with a better woman, or discovered any secrets that would allow me to bring back the Tasha from the first few months of our relationship. Instead, I had remembered who I had once been, and realized what I had become.

There was one more decision I wanted to explore. It would only be in this universe, and I would leave for home after. But I wanted this. I wanted one last sex fantasy.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

It had been in August of 2006. I had packed for New York and had loaded my 1998 Civic. I was ready to leave. I only had one task remaining: convincing Tasha to come with me -- or failing that, to say goodbye.

I was praying she would come with me. Our conversations had never grown less interesting than our first one had been. We laughed our way through an all-night Charlie Chaplin film festival, and tolerated the smoke to hear blues acts at Buddy Guy's. We traded book recommendations, and then debated the merits of the other's choice. Tasha read from Delta of Venus while I sipped thimblefuls of champagne from the indent of her navel. She had been right that the book was much better with a naked woman lying beneath me.