What Good Are You To Anyone?

My compassion and patience had gotten Melissa there, but AA was a stronger crutch than I. Among those who had lived the life she had, she could open up and feel true empathy. She attended meetings unfailingly, but her battle wasn't won easily. Several times over the next few months I was called to come get her at some bar. But on the day that she asked me to remove all the liquor from our apartment, I knew that she had turned the corner.

Last spring Melissa began to work half time in a nearby restaurant. When summer semester started at my college, she enrolled part-time, taking accounting classes. She dropped hints that she would move out of the apartment if I wished. But now I enjoyed her company. I had of course never touched her, although several times she had, in a drunken stupor, offered herself to me in very explicit fashion.

One Sunday last July, Melissa and I decided to picnic at a large lake near the city. We wore our swimsuits beneath our clothes. After eating lunch, we stripped down and walked along the sandy artificial beach. Melissa had been transformed over the past few months. She'd gained fifteen pounds, her skin was tanned and radiant. She filled out her bikini quite nicely in all the right places.

As we walked along, she looked curiously at me in my swim trunks. Then, at long last, the shoe dropped. "Oh, jeez!" she suddenly gasped, her hand to her mouth, "Now I remember where I first saw you, Jeff! It was at one of my step dad's barbeques back when I was in high school! But...but, you were huge! Way overweight, even gross!"

"Yes," I smiled, "I suppose I was."

"And you lost all that weight? Good grief, how did you do it?"

Now was the time to tell her how she had helped me, to explain why I owed her so much. But I said nothing. It was over, what was the point? "A little voice gave me encouragement."

"And I remember talking to you. I thought you were disgusting, and I told you so."

"Yes, you did."

She stared at me in silence. "But didn't you hate me? Why on earth would you want to help me of all people, the way you have over the past eight months?"

"Can't you guess?"

She deliberated for a few seconds. "Yes, I suppose so. After you conquered your demon, you knew what it was like. And that made it easier to understand what I was going through. Is that right?"

"Of course," I replied with a smile. For the first and only time we embraced. Like a father embracing his daughter; like two survivors embracing after the hurricane has finally passed.

CHAPTER 6

A few weeks later Melissa moved into an apartment with a girlfriend, a non-drinker of course. I went back to my pussy hound ways, but somehow it wasn't the same. More and more I just wanted to be with Kristin. But without really saying so, she let me know that, at age 34, her biological clock was ticking loudly. I began to think, could I be her husband and father to her children? The answer was yes.

On a recent Sunday we lay in bed, relaxing after our morning lovemaking. I moved my hands slowly and easily over her ample breasts and down to her full hips, enjoying the silky feel of her. She explored me as well. Our faces were just inches apart, and I gazed into her lustrous blue eyes.

"Hon," she whispered, "do you care for me? I mean, really care?"

"Yes, I do, Kristin. You mean so much to me."

"Well, before we go any further, I need to know about Melissa. I mean, she lived with you most of this year. What's between you two? Is she going to be a problem? You've got to be honest. I'm sorry, but I just can't share you with another woman."

I paused. "Melissa's not a problem at all." Then I told Kristin the whole story, how Melissa had in an odd way helped turn my life around, so that I had no choice but to be there for her. That I had never touched her, nor felt the desire to.

And would you believe it, I could sense Kristin's opinion of me going up like a thermometer on a hot summer day. Any man who would do that, she said with her eyes, must be exceptional. He would make a good husband.

We exchanged several long deep kisses, sealing a covenant as it were. I lay back, looking up at the ceiling. At long last I could fully answer Melissa's question: "What good are you to anyone?"