Risk

"You," I admitted.

"No, not me, never."

"Yes, you, most definitely you." Then I laughed and took off my glasses and put them back on. "Yes, definitely you. No one else around. Had my eyes checked last month." I lied.

"Liar."

"Well, then, last year anyway," I laughed. I had been caught.

"You don't know me."

"That's because you haven't told me."

"I'm afraid to I think. You are the exact opposite of every other man I've ever met, and it scares me."

"You think I'm not afraid too? Susan really hurt me when she left. I never thought I'd get over it, never thought I'd risk being hurt again and yet, here I am, taking another risk."

"You're brave. I've been wounded too many times." I almost thought she would cry but she didn't. Half thought I would too for that matter. "A snack?" she suggested. "I'm getting hungry."

Inside the cafeteria, I treated to a couple of sandwiches and we sat down at a table.

"Third of four girls," she explained sitting down at a table. "All more beautiful and all spoiled rotten."

"Impossible that any could be more beautiful than you."

"They are, trust me. I was the ugly duckling and I rebelled big time. You'd hate me if I told you everything I've done. Sometimes I hate myself."

"You shouldn't." There was an awkward silence. Somehow I managed to reach out and hold her hand on the table.

We managed to finish eating and made our way outside, heading back to the bikes.

"When I caught you looking at me earlier, what were you seeing?"

"A beautiful young woman," I smiled.

"That's not what I meant."

"You'll laugh, or think I'm strange or sick."

"Is that what Susan said?"

"Far worse, far, far worse. She left."

"Please tell me. I won't laugh, I promise."

"I have a rubber fetish," said quietly. There, I had admitted it and risked all. Better now I supposed than invest more and lose it all later. Should have told Susan sooner. "I imagined you in a rubber suit, head to toe. Susan freaked. Couldn't handle it at all."

She said nothing for half a moment. "And you'd think I'd look sexy like that?"

"Yes, you would, very much so I think."

"Tied up in bondage or am I doing the tying up?"

"No, neither one, not my thing, just dressed up in rubber." I just could not believe I was having this conversation with her. It was scary and exciting and my cock was getting uncomfortable but I reminded myself where I was and managed to avoid an embarrassment though there was no one else close by.

"And you, what about you, dressed up as well?"

"Of course," I admitted.

"I've never done that," she admitted after a moment's pause. "To be honest there aren't too many things I haven't done. Don't worry. I'm not too shocked, well maybe a little bit anyway. Just didn't see it in you though. Thought you were a bit straight laced, too much the gentleman."

"I am at times I guess but I see nothing wrong with being a gentleman."

"No, there isn't. It's just that I'm not used to it."

"Well you'll have to get used to it if we continue because that's one thing about myself I refuse to change."

We unlocked our bikes and she was quiet as we left the Gardens and headed east to yet another bike trail. Once on it she slowed down and came up beside me.

"Thank you for telling me about the rubber. I'm glad you did, really. I'm going to make you a promise, and I rarely make them anymore but I will for you. When we're ready, when we are both ready, we will both get dressed up and spend a wonderful time together."

I thought I was going to cry. It was all I could do not to and she saw me and paused. I just could not believe what I was hearing yet I could tell she meant it, or at least I hoped she did.

"It will not happen today though or even next weekend. I need you to be patient with me. I've had some problems and I just need you to help me get over them."

"What can I do?"

"Like I said, be patient and keep telling me you think I'm beautiful."

"That's easy," I laughed. "You are so I don't have to lie."

She smiled again as we stopped at a cross street. "I like you Ralph, I really do. Didn't think I would but I do. Didn't think you were my type but then I haven't chosen well in the past so what do I know anyway?"

We moved on.

"So, what's next?" I asked. "Weather sounds too cold next weekend."

"How about a regular date?"

"Dinner and a movie?"

"Works for me," she replied.

"Can I call you?"

"No phone," she replied again as we stopped at a cross street.

I reached into my fanny pack and pulled out my cell phone. "Now you do. I hardly ever use it. I'll pay for it, don't worry."

"I can't. I like to pay my own way, besides, you need to know I don't like you for your money. I get the feeling that you probably make more in a month than I make in a year or two." More like three or four I guessed but did not say.

"Please, I don't mind, really."

"Then you will have to call me, won't you?" she smiled and took the phone.

"I guess I will. When's a good time?"

"Mondays or Fridays after six. Tuesday and Thursday I've got night school," and then she paused and added, "and Wednesday I've got AA."

It wasn't quite what I expected and I guess it showed. It could have been worse. "You need to know that," she added.

That was why she hadn't taken the beer the other day at my house, though I knew there could have been anyone of a number of reasons. I wasn't partial to beer myself but I had a few friends, seldom seen, who did. It was more for them.

"Sorry," she added then took off again down the street.

"Nothing to be sorry for."

"Clean and sober now for five years, six months and say about ten days. No relapses either."

"Very good," then caught up with her. "I rarely drink myself so that's really OK with me. Would it help if I got rid of the beer in the fridge before you come over next, assuming you are coming over."

"Made the promise, didn't I?" she laughed. "Honestly, it would help. Sometimes I am awfully tempted. It really isn't easy some days."

"Anything I can do to help?"

"You already have," she smiled. "Just continue to be a gentleman and be patient with me."

My house was on the way and I mentioned the battery charger for the cell phone was there. "Stop in for a moment?" I asked.

"OK, but it's getting chilly and I'd like to head back home."

"I can drive."

"No, I can ride but you can ride with me if you want."

I did so and after a quick stop, she had the battery charger and my home number and we were on our way again.

I rode all the way back to Rogers Park with her, along the Evanston Lake front, down into Chicago and onto the gritty side streets that inhabit the area. There was a little too much traffic for my liking and I was glad I had a flag stuck onto my relatively low bike. It helped to make me just slightly more visible.

On the way there, she opened up to me a little more and told me she worked as a secretary at a big company in the Loop, taking the EL everyday down and back. She had no car but really didn't need one there anyway. She could always borrow or rent when she needed one. If it wasn't a great life, it was better than before. Two nights a week there was school. "I'm getting a degree in accounting," she explained. "Don't want to be a receptionist all my life."

I understood that.

"Please call me say Monday evening and then again Friday."

"I will," I promised. Indeed, I would. I had shared a secret with her and been rewarded by learning one of her own. It was a risk I had taken and it had paid off. She had not laughed, not stormed out of my life. It was actually pretty good for once. I had the nagging suspicion though that she was not done with her secrets, not done at all.

Part Three

We made our plans during the week for Saturday night, dinner and a movie. She picked the restaurant, nothing too spicy, and I picked the movie, nothing too macho.

The weekend after that it was a Saturday afternoon at the Art Institute. We took the EL and spent a lazy afternoon wandering around downtown Chicago, just being together.

Between the two dates and several phone calls, she began to open up to me and quite honestly, I began falling in love with her.

In some ways, we were quite opposite of each other. I pretty much lived in the here and now and in the past while she was always looking forward. I had few goals in life but that was all she talked about, never the past.

On that first date, she told me she wanted to bicycle across the country. There are groups that run tours and she wanted to go with them, camp out and ride sixty miles a day for ninety days. At first, I thought the idea completely insane. I had just started riding myself and the idea of doing that many miles was beyond belief. By the end of the evening I was convinced that I wanted to go with her.

She had other plans too, of where she wanted to travel, things she wanted to see and do and, unlike so many other people who have dreams, she had plans on how to do achieve them. She really had one foot in the clouds and one firmly on the ground. She would work hard, save her money, make sacrifices, and enjoy. She never talked though, about her past and rarely about her present.

Me, I was just the opposite. I had few plans beyond the next stock market rally or getting to know her. How could I? I already had more than enough money to buy all the toys a man could want. Making money was more a game or a way of keeping score now, a way to pass the time, rather than an outright goal. If I wasn't a millionaire by thirty, I was certainly close enough that it was in sight. I was a drift.

I enjoyed those first two dates and the phone calls but I had plans the following Saturday. My brother, sister and I now had a new family tradition, a family get together followed by a visit to the cemetery where our mother is. She would be welcome of course. My older brother Dan, who had played football, gotten a full scholarship to Northwestern and played uneventfully in the pros for a few years before becoming a dentist, would be coming over after the homecoming game in Evanston, a stone's throw from my house. He and his wife and two children would stop by after the game. I didn't care for football myself so I rarely went, but he did. My sister, Julia, and her husband and kids would also show up and then we would all go and spend a few minutes at the grave site, then come back to my place for some burgers. It had seemed like a good idea to all of us three years earlier and it stuck. Holidays would be for the other families.

My brother had helped me through college, though I went to the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle Campus and not Northwestern, but it had been affordable and I had come out of my shell and done quite well, landing a job as a stock broker where after four years I had made enough to quit helping people make money and instead, make money on my own. I owed my brother and had helped him out a bit when the San Diego Chargers finally let him go. By then, though he had a wife and two children and had gotten his degree and really didn't need my help anymore than I needed his.

"Actually, if you don't mind, I'd really like to use the Internet at your house," she explained as we made our plans. "My roommate and I only have dial up and it's tough just finding time at the library. The big problem is, I've got a major project due and I've fallen a little bit behind."

"Then I'll pick you up and let you work and you can join us for dinner."

I picked up Carol in the morning and set her up with one of my many computers and a printer, relaxed and allowed her to work. It wasn't easy as I did enjoy being with her.

Dan and Maggie showed after the game. It was Maggie who had tried the most to help me after Susan left. "Why won't you tell me what really happened?" she had asked more than once.

"It didn't work out," was all I would say and she knew there was more to it than that. As close as we were, I just couldn't begin to explain my rubber fetish to her.

Dan looked in the fridge, expecting to find a beer and seemed disappointed in not finding one. "Carol doesn't drink," I merely explained. There was no need to know she was in AA.

Carol soon came down and joined us. "Finished my project," she beamed. "Thanks."

I thought she looked delightful, even if she was just wearing jeans and blouse, no make up (not that I could ever really tell about these things.) She seemed quite happy that afternoon.

My sister Julia came by a little while later. I explained to Carol about what had become a new family tradition. "We're going to see our mother," I offered. "You don't have to come along if you don't want" but she did.

We piled into two cars and took off and twenty minutes later, we were there, at a cemetery. "Three years ago, from breast cancer," I explained. It was a quiet few moments and honestly, a few tears were shed. She had worked two jobs to help us survive and this had been her reward. It had not been fair at all. Still, she had lived long enough to see my brother play professional football, my sister to become a nurse and be happily married and me to make a lot of money. She hadn't met Susan and would never meet Carol. It just wasn't fair at all.

Somehow I suspected that Dan and Maggie had conspired together to get Carol to ride with them while I rode with Julia. Perhaps Maggie and Carol were conspiring against me, I mused then hoped they would all get along.

Back at my place we relaxed and chatted a bit and then Julia's husband showed up with her two teen-aged sons. They had both had football games that afternoon and Julia's husband Mark had been drafted into driving them in from Naperville for our annual get together.

It was some time after that that Maggie found me and asked, "where is that wonderful lady friend of yours?"

"I hadn't noticed she was missing."

"I'm afraid I may have said something wrong but I'm honestly not sure what it could be. I was saying how wonderful my kids were and I turned around the next thing I knew she was gone. I hope there's nothing wrong. I mean, she really is just such a wonderful woman, so much nicer than Susan."

I was delighted she liked Carol but concerned now. "Watch the burgers for me, will you?" I went inside and found her in the den. It looked as if she had been crying, or trying very hard not to.

"Is something wrong?" I know, it was a stupid thing to say. Obviously there was.

"This seems so normal, so middle class," she half began.

"Yes, it is."

"You and your brother and sister all get along. You actually care about each other."

"We're family. Our mother gave us that. We've always been that way, looking out for each other, helping, caring, even when we've disagreed. Is it really that strange?"

"Yes," she stood up and tried to hide a tear. "I never had that, never was a part of that."

"You can be a part of it now."

"I can't."

"Yes, you can. All you have to do is just go out and enjoy. They like you, they all like you."

"They don't know who I am or what I've done. I don't even like myself some days."

"It doesn't matter." I paused and risked it all. "I love you," I said for the first time. "I really mean it. I love you."

"You won't."

"I will."

"I have a son, Ryan's age." It came out unexpected but not entirely. "My sister has sole custody. He doesn't even know who I am. I don't even have visitation rights. Think about that for a moment will you," she blurted.

"I still love you," I said.

"You just want me in rubber."

"Not true for a minute, on my honor, as a gentleman, it's not true." I had no idea what to say. I hadn't been all that good with Susan either to tell the truth.

"Come back outside," I almost pleaded.

"I will and afterwards I will tell you the truth and then leave you."

I was determined not to let that happen.

My mind raced as I thought how she could lose custody of her son, then concluded it probably wasn't all that hard. I knew she had problems with alcohol and perhaps drugs. It didn't take much to figure it out really as I made my way back outside.

"How is she?" asked Maggie.

"Be out in a minute. Trust me on this one."

She was out on the deck a few steps behind me and acted as if nothing had happened. I let her sit down with Maggie a short time later and left them alone while they talked. Maggie was that type of person, the family confidant. Every family should have one and Maggie was ours. She had certainly helped when Susan left and even before. It might seem strange but even though she was an attractive woman, I had always seen her more as a friend than anything else, and not just because she was my brother's wife. Just something about her that made me feel comfortable around her and able to tell her things I couldn't tell anyone else, though I'd not told her about the rubber. I never could do that.

The kids played in the yard. I burned some burgers and we all ate too much and laughed a bit in the chilly fall air until it was time for everyone to head back home, everyone except Carol.

She helped clean up and then we were both quiet. I followed her in the living room and sat down on the couch beside her.

"Time for the truth," she announced. "How many women have you had sex with?" she began.

"Just two, Susan and another who almost doesn't count. Neither of us knew what we were doing really."

"I've lost track," she began. "I wanted to be popular, I wanted to be liked. I wanted to have fun like everyone else and most of all, I think I wanted to be loved. I confused sex and drugs and alcohol with all of that. A lot of young women do. We look at ourselves in the mirror and compare what we think we see with what's in magazines and TV and some of us end up doing very stupid things and when our parents are blind, it gets out of control. I got out of control, really out of control."

She paused and I thought better of saying anything. "I partied almost constantly, drank and did almost everything and slept with almost anyone. Flunked out of high school." She shook her head. "Got pregnant at eighteen. I have no idea who the father is, none at all. It could be anyone of a dozen I may have slept with. My parents were furious. I thought about an abortion but they made my life such a hell that I couldn't. After I gave birth, I went out and partied again for an entire week. I came back home to find out that they had changed the locks on the doors. I was no longer welcome there. I couldn't see my own son and to be honest, they were right. I was an unfit mother. I signed some papers and turned him over to my sister." She cried a moment.

"It was two more years before I crashed and came to my senses. I actually got pregnant again and this time, I did have an abortion. I think somewhere in there I was actually sober for a couple of weeks and it just seemed so strange but I went back to drinking.

"I OD'd one day and ended up in the hospital. I thought about killing myself right then and there but somehow, I decided against it. I guess I just bottomed out. I joined AA, got sobered up, got my G.E.D. and actually found a job. Met my roommate in AA, you know. We help each other and it was OK at first but now she has a boyfriend. He's a good guy but it's tough having him around and listening to them have sex.

"I was such a whore, such a slut," she sobbed. She stood up to leave.

"Please stay. Please."

"How can you want me? Want me so you can fuck some rubber toy?" she snapped. "Is that it? Get what Susan wouldn't give you because you now know I'm a slut or because no one else will have you and your short cock."

"If you think for one minute that this is what it's all about, you are badly mistaken and I have done a horrible job of explaining myself to you. You are an amazing young woman." She started to speak and I waved her off. "Hear me out, please. You had some problems and solved them. You've beaten drugs and booze and sex and survived and even flourished. You've become an intelligent, witty, charming woman and you still have dreams! Think of that and listen to what you've told me in the past. You have dreams. Even I don't have those."