More Than Friends Ch. 05

...Does he?

...Isn't that, in essence, what he's saying he did?

She realized her face must have shown some of her thoughts, because Colin sighed and said, "What do you want to hear, Heather?"

"The truth," she said, without thinking.

A faint smile lit his lips. "Yes, but about what? Specifically."

She looked at him, her face a strange mixture of fear and worry. "What you were thinking at the time?"

A grimace, this time. "That's easy, Iwasn't thinking. Or, at least, not with the head that provides complex thought. I saw this thing I wanted, and I didn't give up until I had it."

"What did she say, exactly," she asked.

He felt inward relief. She was looking for a way out for him, and she had asked exactly the right question to give him one. "Well, first she said no," he said. "But then she changed her mind."

Heather blinked. "So... What was the problem? She said Yes."

"Well, later I found out that while she may havesaid yes, shemeant no."

"Well, that's not fair," she said. "You're not telepathic, are you? If someone changes their mind like that..."

"Yes, butthat isn't a fair attitude either," he said. "I've studied this since. There's a common... A myth, an archetype, for a successful seduction. Like, there's a specific script for it. The man wants it, and so does the woman, but she says she doesn't because that's what she's supposed to say. She has to look, you know, chaste and so on. It's the man's job to be persistent and erode her defenses and convince her to admit the truth. In the end, she stops saying no and says yes, and then they have their fun.

"The common scenario for date-rape is identical to that in all respects except one: the woman actuallydoesn't mean yes, and she changes her mind only because persuading him isn't worth the effort. It's an 'All right, if we have to, let's get this over with' reaction. In other words, in both situations, girls aresupposed to resist, and thensupposed to give in. But they don't always like it. And it creates amess."

Heather wasn't sure what to say about that. It was a confusing tangle. "Yeah, but it's not your fault if she sent you mixed signals."

"No, it's not," he said. "But that doesn't change the fact that she was hurt, badly, because of my actions."

"Yes, but... If she's the one who changed her mind..."

"Yes, but it was still a failure on my part," he said, his voice no less iron for its lack of volume. "I want to be the kind of person who can pick up on what isn't being said, and react to it. Just as important, I want to be the kind of person wholistens when a girl says No. And I wasn't.

"I don't care about blame, I don't care who's fault it is. What's important to me is that I be this kind of person. And I wasn't. The fact that she complicated the issue does not change the fact that I failed to do the things I should have."

And who, besides ourselves, can we possibly disappoint more by failing?

Heather was silent for a moment, ingesting all of it. She had always known his values, always known how strongly he adhered to them; and, because he was human, she had always known that he must have failed to stick to them at some point. But she had no idea it had been this... Disastrous.

"Did you guys ever come to... To some sort of peace about it," she asked.

His face fell. "We basically haven't spoken since."

"That's awful," she said, her throat constricting. To walk around with that sort of guilt...

"She made it clear that she didn't want to hear from me, and... Well, I mean, come on. I'd already done her a massive disrespect, how could I do anything else? I wrote her an e-mail apologizing as best I could, and that was that."

"That's awful," she said again.

"Well," he said, a resigned note in his voice. "There's a saying I picked up from a book somewhere: 'Take what you want, and pay for it.' I got what I wanted: an hour or two of oral sex. It wasn't worth the price, but I bought it. And so now I pay."

She hugged him tightly, squeezing her eyes closed against the thought of his guilt. How must it feel, knowing you have unwittingly done things to someone that are the stuff of nightmares? She was suddenly, intensely glad to be female. Later she would look back and wonder what she was thinking; which would be worse, to cause the nightmares or to have to suffer them? But at that moment, she was glad to not be the one who inflicted such suffering.

When she let go, he said, "I guess you're not scared off."

She laid a finger across his lips. "There are people who do bad things on purpose. And then there are people who do bad things accidentally. You fall into the second category. And you feel bad about it. You feelterrible about it. I don't think anyone could ask for a more appropriate punishment."

He nodded. "Yeah. But some might. I don't tell a lot of people, obviously, because they might get scared off."

She nodded. "It's a sore spot." Neither of them had said the word,rape, except for Colin that one time, but it hung over them in the air, coloring their silences, reverberating in its own absence.

"I hope you haven't had any experiences in this field," he said.

"Well," she said, not meeting his eyes.

She outlined the situation with Trent, giving him her thoughts on the matter. "I don't really blame him. It's not that I'm defending him, it's just... Well, what's the point? He did what he did. It could've gone better, it could've gone worse. I don't think he was aware of what he was doing and saying and hearing. I think that if he had been, he would have stopped. And I think he deserves credit for wanting to, you know, show me a good time." She sighed. "I used to be a little angry at him--you know, it was the first time anyone ever touched me down there, and... Shouldn't it have been under better circumstances? But eventually I realized there was no point in being angry. He was well-intentioned, in his way; things just didn't work out as well as they could have."

"Wow," he said. "Wish Selena would take lessons from you."

"I..." She hesitated now, feeling vulnerable. Well, shewas in his arms, in his bed, and shewas naked. He had made this admission to her in exactly that vulnerable state. Evenmore vulnerable: he had certain sensitive parts between his legs that she could have smashed, had that been her inclination. Yet he had gone on. Her respect for his bravery rose several notches.

"Well... I guess you don't think badly of me, then," she said.

He shook his head. "You didn't of me, it'd be damned hypocritical if I did of you. And if you aren't angry at him for mistreating him, who am I to be angry? And besides, if I was going to dislike him because he, you know, touched you down there, I'd have to be angry witheveryone who's done that." He shook his head again, an ingenious smile spreading across his features. "There's just no future in being angry."

She giggled and nuzzled his face with his nose. "That's why I like you."

He held her tightly.

"I guess it's okay to you that I'm not perfect," she said.

"Have you ever seenGood Will Hunting? There's a line in there, I think it's Robin Williams: 'It's not a question of whether she's perfect, it's whether she's perfect foryou.'"

She smiled up at him, feeling her heart lift. It was a sweet thing to say. "And what do you think?"

He looked at her for a moment, and then answered, completely honestly: "Well, aside from the impossibility of actually knowinganything, I'd say you're perfect for me."

She smiled.

"Of course," he continued, "things change. Things always do. That's why I try not to make blanket statements like this, because the day will probably come when I have to eat my words. So I guess there's this sort of undefined temporal limit on the statement. But--"

She was laughing. "Wait, undefined temporarywhat? You sound like Star Trek."

He grinned. "Learned technobabble from Geordi La Forge with the best of 'em."

"Well, explain it in plain English, please." She stuck out her tongue at him, grinning.

"Okay, well. When I say, 'You're perfect for me,' it's kind of like a coupon: there's an expiration date. Temporal means time, you know what a limit is, thus a temporal limit: a time limit. The thing is, I don't know when that expiration date is. It's undefined. So, when I say, 'You're perfect for me,' that statement will be true only until a certain point in time."

"When's that?" she asked.

"The day we break up," he said.

She shivered a little. Hopefully that day would be a long way off. How could he be so... Accepting? "Maybe we won't break up."

"Well, I'd like that, Heather," he said, his voice tender. "I do love you. I've been the happiest man alive since we got together. But... You know that relationships don't always work out."

He was right, of course. Even people deeply in love had broken up before. If she and Colin did, they wouldn't be the first. "So we can't hope?" she asked.

"Nowthat's ridiculous. Ofcourse we hope. I knowI won't stop. It would be such a... Well, wouldn't it be cool to be one of those fairy-tale situations where childhood sweethearts get married? And if someone gave me the choice of who was going tobe my childhood sweetheart, it'd have to be you. Hands down. But that doesn't mean I should ignore reality."

"Isn't that hard," she asked. "Like, being hopeful in one hand and then--"

"Heehee. Shitting in the other?"

"What?"

"It's a saying I've heard. 'Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one gets full the fastest.'"

"God. That's... Descriptive."

"It is. That's what makes it a good saying."

"Anyway. As I was saying. Isn't it hard, balancing hope and practicality like that?" She didn't know the extent of his hopes and dreams, but she knew his practicality--it was strong and intense. He kept himself grounded in reality. It was part of why she admired him.

He shook his head. "No, not really. I just... I don't mix them up. Yeah, I hope. I hope a lot. But I don't let that become part of my life. It's... You know, it's off to one side. Kind of like my fantasy life."

She giggled. "You have one?"

"You better believe it, hon. If you judged by that, I haven't been a virgin foryears. But... I keep 'em separate. Like, if I'm fantasizing about having sex with somebody, I set up the situation so that it's contrary to reality. It really is a fantasy, because it never could happen, or it depends on things happening that never will. I try to make it asunrealistic as possible." He gave a small smile. "Like, back in eighth grade, I felt I could fantasize about you at will because in order for any of it to come true, you'd have to, you know,move back. Or at least contact me again." For her two years away, communication between her and Colin and Adam had abruptly shut off to nothing.

"Did you ever?"

"Oh? Actually, no, not really. I only really started thinking about it in eighth grade, and by then there was someone else to occupy my attention."

"Who?"

"Little chipper blonde girl by the name of Amanda. It took me until right at the end of the year to admit I liked her, and by that time she had already taken up with someone else. And it was more physical than anything else. We did hang out later, just the two of us, and we didn't get along very well. Not like we argued or anything, but we didn't connect either."

"So... What was the hinge on which your fantasies about Amanda revolved?"

He gave her a sardonic look. "That she'd start going out with me."

Heather giggled.

"Why do you care about my fantasy life anyway?" he asked, grinning.

"Well, you never know what you might discover," she said, teasing. "And so tell me, Colin, what was the magic ingredient in your fantasies aboutme?"

The smile faded off his face for a moment as he thought. He felt uncomfortable. "Well... Mostly that you'd, you know, stop running with the popular crowd and go back to the way you were before. And that you'd notice me."

"Basically what happened, then," she said quietly.

He nodded.

She wondered, momentarily, if this was a sign of some sort. Of what? That they were meant for each other? That Colin could see the future? That she had turned into the kind of person he wanted to be involved with? That last was obvious. Why else would they be involved now? She wasn't sure what to make of it.

"Well, dreams do come true, I guess," she said, forcing levity into her voice that she did not feel.

He frowned. She could get nothing past him. "What's wrong? Why so sad?"

"I dunno," she said honestly. "Give me a minute to work it out."

They fell silent as she sorted through her emotions.

"Colin," she said, "it's not really that I'm back to the way I was before. It wasn't abefore thing. I've always been this way."

He said nothing, listening, waiting for her to continue.

"Don't think of my... The popularity thing wasn't like a phase or anything. It's part of who I am. Ido like those kinds of things--you know, the boy bands and the designer clothes and all that stuff. It's kind of in a recession right now, but... That's part of me. Don't think that I've left it behind. I've just... Put it off to the side for a moment."

He nodded. "That works."

She blinked at him, tilted her head. "So? Reactions?"

He shrugged. "Adam's into that stuff too. I don't have a problem with him being that way. Don't see why I should have a problem with you."

She felt the vague dread melting away.

He smiled. "And don't worry, I retreat into shallowness too sometimes."

"Hey," she said, "it's notnecessarily shallowness, it's just... Not-as-deep-ness."

He grinned and kissed her. "Fine, conceded."

"So, have we got everything figured out now," she asked him. "We've been talking for like an hour, and there's still other things I want to do."

"Things or people," he asked ingeniously.

"You never get tired of that pun, do you," she said, shaking her head with an amused smile.

"Sorry, it's my dad's fault. He loves bad puns."

She pre-empted any further conversation by kissing him, letting their tongues tease, running her hands over his back, through his hair. "That's enough talking," she said when they finished. "We'll have plenty of time for that later. But we don't have a lot of timenow. So no more talking."

He gave her a saucy grin. "The Mad Talker, that's me. Can't make me stop talking. I talk as much as a... As an... Uh. I need a comparison."

"As someone who loves to hear the sound of his voice," she offered, grinning.

He stuck her tongue out at her, and so, as if it were the most obvious thing to do in the world, she kissed it. And finally he relented, and kissed her back. And for a while there was no more talk, as they kissed, lips on lips, bodies pressing together, their hands roaming each other's skin.

She broke off for a second, reached over his shoulder and rattled the box of condoms they had bought last night... All those ages ago. Most of them were still there. "Kind of a waste of money, weren't they?"

"Well, we could still use them," he offered.

"Hmm." She grinned at him seductively. "Would youlike to use them?"

Instead of responding in kind, he said, "Actually, that'd probably be a good idea. Love doesn't equal safe sex."

"Well, there's always The Pill."

"Yeah, but what if it doesn't work? What if it works, you know, five times out of six or something? Well, we've done it six times. If it's the right part of your cycle..."

"All right," she said, "we'll go for it. Too bad, though," she said, putting on a pout. "I was really looking forward to the feeling of your hot cum filling my pussy."

His eyebrows jumped and she felt his cock jump precipitously against her stomach.

She giggled. "Looks like someoneelse likes the idea."

He took a deep breath. "Yeah, someone does. But he also loves you, and even if you enjoy it when I come inside you, it's not worth inflicting a risk of pregnancy on you."

"What's all thisI stuff," she asked, a malicious grin on her face. "We're talking about that namelesshe person."

He rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue. "He."

"In any case, it's not like we haven't risked it already."

He flushed a little, but grinned self-deprecatingly. "Okay, so I'm stupid. But nonetheless. Fine, if you want a working reason, I want to make this last."

"You win withthat one," she said, grinning. "Strap that thing on, Tiger."

He got one and handed it to her. She burrowed beneath the covers; it was dim down there, and warm. His cock stuck up at her, begging for attention, and she reached out with lovingly ran her tongue across its surface area. She heard a muffled moan from above and the words: "That's not a condom."

She giggled. "Silly." She slid the rubber over his length and then came back up to kiss him. "All done. Ready?"

"Areyou ready," he asked.

"Is that important," she asked him, beaming.

"What sort of prick do you think Iam," he asked, rolling his eyes and grinning. "Lie down." He guided her onto her back and moved so that he lay beside her.

His hand slid over her body, roaming freely over her breasts, her stomach, her navel, her hips, her thighs, and he kissed her, his mouth open, drawing her into him. His hand slid across her breast and then rubbed against the nipple, and she pushed up against him as lightning lines of pleasure arced through her. He felt her nipple harden, perking up for attention. She moaned into his open mouth.

He transferred from her mouth to her breast, kissing in meandering lines between them, pushing the covers back to expose them. Meanwhile his hand caressed her flat stomach, spending time to tickle her navel, and then brushed across her mound and her trimmed pubic hair. She opened her thighs to his touch. He cupped his hand at her groin, found her already wet and wanting his touch.

With a sudden movement, she reached out and pushed the covers back, then flung her body out from under them, leaving herself exposed and him behind. Grinning, he emulated her and came back to her body, his tongue leaving damp trails across her breasts, his hand pressing into her mound, one of his fingers pressing against the bottom of her ass cleft. The heel of his hand was right on top of her clitoris, and she moaned at the pressure, pushing herself up to him. The smell of her sex began to fill the air, musky and arousing.

His fingers began their deft manipulations as his hand moved up and down over her slit, paying special attention to that hard, yearning bud at the top of her cleft. But when she felt him begin to slide inside her, she took his hand away. "No," she said, "only one thing goes in there." And she reached for his cock.

At her guidance, he moved to cover her, and she positioned his white-clad manhood at the entrance to her depths. In a single smooth movement, he slid inside her, feeling the indescribable warmth of her velvet embrace. She felt him open her up all at once, his member sliding into her womanhood, filling her passage and crevices, the tip just brushing her cervix, and she purred and pressed up to him. She wrapped her legs around his hips, knowing he loved them there, and smiled up to him and kissed him.

Supporting himself on his elbows, he began to move within her, and she rocked her hips in time with his motion, reaching up to take him. She ran her hands over his back, his buttocks, his hips, his flanks. She pulled him back down to kiss him as his cock moved inside her, sliding in and out, leaving her and opening her again. She loved the feel of him. The latex dulled things somewhat, but it didn't change the feeling of him being inside her, spreading her pussy lips, opening up her pussy until she felt engorged and satiated and that she couldn't take any more. She marvelled. She had had bigger than he, but she had never felt this... Penetrated.