Awkward, a Love Story Ch. 05

"I think I'm going to be sick."

"I don't think I've used the word alabaster before, but it's fitting. You're very beautiful, you know."

"I'm going to walk out and call the cops if you don't leave."

"I'll leave. Just hear me out. 5 minutes. Okay? 5 minutes, and I'll do whatever you say."

Silence, which I took to be a yes.

"So, do you remember what we did next? I pulled you up so we could kiss. And you were back under the covers. It was sweet and warm and awesome. I remember you very casually tucked me inside of you. Very quietly, firmly. You obviously didn't want to wake your roommate. Very thoughtful. You weren't party to the perv, but we were, for which I apologize."

"Hurry up and finish."

"Now when the sheet covered you, Lily covered herself, even though she could tell you were on me, and I was inside you. We were under the sheets, but it wasn't difficult to size up the situation. Lily started lowering her sheet a bit but would only lower her sheet when I lowered our sheet. So she showed off her breasts when I showed off yours. To cut to the chase, she pulled off her pants and panties, and, within a few minutes, she'd slid her sheet above her hip, from her toes to her tits, showing me her pussy, her fingers in her pussy, her masturbating technique. She was, at least that day, more of a slider, a few fingers up and down, though her movements might have been limited by her need to be even quieter than we were."

"I can't speak."

"Right, I accept that. I think I told you that my regrets develop before sex and after sex, but that while I'm hard, I'm ethically challenged."

"Right, your philosphy."

"So, in order to continue our lovemaking, I let her watch, at least some of it. The whole in and out. You wouldn't remember this detail, but for a while, I held the sheet off your body so that I could see you but she couldn't."

"I'm supposed to say thank you for keeping a sheet on me? I also remember you pulling the sheet completely off me. I remember, because I was worried that Lily would wake up. I'd have been completely exposed. She'd have been able to specifically watch the whole genital back and forth, the whole penetration business."

"I think the sheet slid to the ground. I don't recall doing it. That hadn't been in my plans."

"But you kept pistoning in and out. You didn't stop. And Lily was watching and masturbating."

I nodded. "As far as I know"

"Your stunt was sophomoric, but at least you had the excuse of being a sophomore. But now? You're a grown man. Why go to all this trouble?"

"In a little while, maybe 10 minutes later, you came. By that time, I had a finger up your butt, as I recall, so that I could feel myself inside you. Very erotic, amazing. And you started spasming. I remember it like it was yesterday. Do you know what you did next?"

I think my psychiatrist said, "no," but it was very soft. Hard to tell.

"No particular reason why you should. It's amazing how much we don't remember. Like 99% of everything washes away instantly. But there is a reason that I remember. Because you said you needed to go take a shower, needed to clean up, and so you trotted happily down the hall with your organized shower caddy and a big fluffy towel. And you can probably guess what I did."

A stare.

"Well, I hadn't cum yet. You wouldn't have known that. It would seem to you that I'd cum, but I faked it."

"You faked an orgasm during a one-night stand?"

"To be fair, I didn't fake the 3 am orgasm in which I came in your mouth, and I didn't fake the midnight orgasm in which I came during intercourse after asking, as I recall, whether it was okay for me not to wear a condom, whether you were on the pill. I seem to recall repeating, after I was inside of you, the query as to whether this was okay."

"Such a gentleman."

"I never intended this to be a one-night-stand. I deferred cumming that third time, because I felt desperate."

"Desperate?"

"I'd let your roommate watch you have sex. I'd let her watch my rock-hard, medium-sized teen cock penetrate your sweet pussy, words I use advisedly and with sadness, since she shouldn't have access to such images."

"You're unbelievable. I'm out of here."

She stood.

"And I also couldn't help but think of Caroline and Grace."

She paused.

"What about them?"

"You remember that Grace figured things out with Caroline, and so I knew I needed Grace to be motivated to maintain the secret."

She sat and looked at me.

"David, you didn't?"

We stared at each other.

"Jesus, David. I don't know what to say."

"So I followed you to the door, as you may remember, but you wouldn't know that I locked it after you. When I turned to your roommate, she patted the bed."

"So you fucked Lily while I was in the shower?"

"I declined."

"Why?"

"I'd like to say my high moral standards, but I was mostly concerned I'd catch something. I'm a bit of a germaphobe."

"But you weren't concerned about me having something."

"With you, it would have been worth it. Plus, playing the odds, she seemed much more likely to have picked something up. Lily was the grain alcohol drinker propositioning strangers, while you were busy with your highlighters and your L.L. Bean flannel nightgown. If I were laying the odds on which of you had the STD, which I guess I was, I'd be betting on Lily. But that was secondary. My primary concern was you. I was worried about you."

"Worried?"

"Well, I'd begun to regret the subterfuge."

"Which subterfuge? The one in which you allowed my roommate to watch me get laid? Or the one in which you acted like a student to make yourself seem safe or at least likely to be physically available in the near future? Or at least on campus? Or the one in which you casually left a Duke ID on the table so that I'd think your name was Eric, which is what I called you throughout the night."

"I'm talking about letting Lily watch. It was such a gross violation, and I knew I needed to shut her up, because I'd never want to embarrass or hurt you."

"You can say that with a straight face?"

"So, I followed you to the door, kissed you goodbye even though all you were going to do was take a shower, and then turned to Lily, who was staring at me and my big erection."

"Your medium-sized erection."

"Ha. Look, I realize this is a lot of news, but I'm impressed that you can keep your sense of humor."

"I'm kidding?"

A look out the window.

"I'll be discrete. I stood there. Lily gave me a quick blowjob. No love, no affection. Rough, both as in her tongue, which was kinda bristly, whereas yours was so soft, and rough as in how I treated her. I kinda fucked her face, which isn't my norm but seemed to be what she wanted, plus we had very little time. Plus, I knew that this was a bad thing to do, that it was bad for me to have let your roommate watch us, to have encouraged it, to have exposed you. I knew I'd done a bad thing, and so I punished her throat for maybe 5 minutes. Unfairly, of course, since all she'd done was wake up and get aroused, but I was angry at myself and her and California and the whole situation. I should add that I don't think she saw it as traditional punishment, since she didn't complain. She seemed to like it. She made appreciative noises. After I'd cum, I sat next to her. She had tears in her eyes. As I said, I'd been rough, and she hadn't taken off the makeup from the night before, so she was a raccoon mess. And I could smell you and me on her breath. I kissed her forehead and I made her promise to keep it a secret. That the voyeur stuff and the blowjob were between her and me, that she could tell no one. And she promised."

"What happened to your code of honor? You just betrayed your promise by telling me."

"Well, I'd made one exception."

"What's that?"

"That we could talk about it with our therapists, but nobody else. Lily agreed and pretended to go to sleep while I got on my clothes."

"Oh, so you can tell me this, because I was your therapist until 20 minutee ago."

"See. I knew you'd fire me. For that, you owe me $50."

"You owe me a lot more. Do you have any idea? I mean, if my roommate saw me blowing you, that's momentarily embarrassing. Worst case? Absolute worst case? She tells some people I blew some guy after the Carolina game. And you know what they'd do?"

I shook my head.

"They'd do nothing. They'd shrug. We're a basketball school, and we'd just crushed our rival. Half of them hooked up with somebody after that game, and the other half wished they had. To my friends, the incident would have been notable only by the fact that Ms. Prim hooked up."

"Okay."

"By the way. Spoiler alert. The same holds true for you and all your precious memories."

"What do you mean?"

"You fucked Caroline. From what you say, any guy would have, given the chance. I bet you another $50 that you could have slipped your medium-sized dick past the bikini bottoms on the car ride home from the beach, without the elaborate discussion in the attic. Caroline would have thought it fun, even if she felt a little guilty later. Maybe it would have been repeated, maybe not, but the sex didn't need to come with the super-complicated lifetime committment. Even your parents had affairs. How could they have judged you for hook-ups?"

Silence.

"Y'know, my mom was a hippy and a haphazard driver, but she didn't have affairs. She didn't know my dad was married when she got pregnant with me. That was a surprise. Criticize my lack of moral fiber, personality issues, neuroses, whatever. Take all the pot shots you want now that you've fired me. But leave her out of this."

"Fine. Oh, by the way, you didn't screw Gemma in spite of the school rules but because of them. Not just the boundary violations that you love so much, but because you could justify 2 weeks as being about the right amount of time that you're capable of holding down a 24/7 relationship."

"Ouch."

"God. Why can't you just get out of here?"

"Only too happy to leave, but I'm getting to the crucial part."

"And the rest of all this was what?"

"The set-up. The crucial part was that I walked you outside, which was on purpose since I didn't want your roommate to interfere with this aspect of our intimacy. It was, like, really early. Nobody was awake. Do you remember?"

"You said you loved me, David, that you'd love me forever, and for some strange reason, it felt genuine. I believed you. And then you kissed me and disappeared, with your fake name and fake ID."

"I specifically told you that I was going to disappear, but that I'd return. I emphasized that I'd have to leave, take a break, but I'd eventually explain my absence, and that I'd hope you would eventually take me back."

"I honestly thought you were trying to be mysterious and that you'd be back for lunch. Care to give me the backstory on Eric?"

"He was a freshman who had decided to transfer to Colorado but hadn't told anyone. He was already out there, skiing, but since he hadn't told his parents about this plan, he needed cash. His long-term plan was to just omit his Duke attendance from his cv. I rented his ID for the weekend. Cost me $500, but it included his meal plan, dorm room, and the game. A buddy of mine from high school set it up."

"All of this explanation is supposed to bring us closer?"

"I thought it would be a few months, after I knew about the paternity issue, after I figured out the estate problems, after I got my shit together."

"It's been almost 20 years. You think you've got your shit together?"

"Listen, Eve, we have three options. We could continue in therapy. You'd be in the clear ethically, since you hadn't known about our relationship when we started treatment."

"One word from you, and I'm embarrassed, or worse. I could lose my ability to work."

"I am extremely good at keeping secrets."

"You're good at keeping secrets? You can't keep your fucking mouth shut about anything. You've told me all sorts of secrets about all sorts of people. They'd all be mortified. You revealed things about Violet and Gemma that would get you fired in a heart beat. You know that, right? It wouldn't be complicated, especially if they saw a pattern. You freely tossed out your password, your ultra secret password for your precious ultra-tech life, for God sakes. I can't think of any secret that you haven't freely told me over the past few months. You're terrible at secrets."

"I trust you."

"I can easily imagine your talking to your next therapist, which you certainly need, and you'll start talking about what your previous psychiatrist sounds like when she has an orgasm."

"That would be a sort of whoosh, a sort of controlled meditative explosion, but measured. No whistling or yelping, but those noises might be dated by now. Or maybe you were trying to be quiet since Lily was a few feet away."

"Just shut up. You are the worst secret keeper I've ever met. And you could totally screw me."

"I would never do that. I should add that while I have been ruthlessly honest with you, I haven't been entirely transparent."

"What do you mean?"

"Those names I gave? All fake. I'm not from southern California, and there is no Caroline, Gemma, Grace, or whoever. All fake."

"You've got to be kidding."

"Let me clarify. All true, but the names and geography were changed. Kinda like Eric's fake ID. I was just as real as Eric. I could just as easily gone to Duke or Carolina as Harvard. Those places are full of guys like me.... By the way, at least you could smile."

"Smile? You've got be kidding. Neither place is full of people like you. I've never met anybody like you."

"Okay. First the small penis accusation, then the conclusion that I'm the weirdest person in multiple states."

"I didn't say smallest or weirdest. You're just the person most drawn to fucking taboos. As in literally fucking them. It's your fetish. Why not pick something normal, like feet or furries?"

"Well, first off, I'd say I came to an excellent therapist to work on exactly that. And then I'd add that I don't repeat myself. I take great pride in fucking up in different ways each time, though maybe the theme's the same."

"What's your end game on this, David? What can you possibly hope to get from all of this?"

"I'd like to date you."

"To date me?"

"Whole shebang. Dinner, movies, holding hands, fucking. I'd like to hear you cum. Get an update on your body. I often sat here wondering what you looked like naked as an adult rather than a college student."

"Gosh. You know how to make a girl feel special."

"I'd like to watch you grow old. The usual."

I think I saw her smile, though maybe she was sneering.

"By the way," I continued, "if you were really motivated, private investigators could connect the dots with what you know. I did go to high school, obviously, just not in southern California. That information is available. That would locate Caroline, or at least put her into a driving radius, and there would only be so many pageant winners who had to give up their title that year. You could figure it all out, but it's not like I handed out damaging info on my loved ones without giving them some cover."

"One of the many differences between us is that you might try to figure it out, but I wouldn't waste my time."

"Fair enough."

"I need to go take a shower. This is all so creepy. By the way, you could have just called me for a date 6 months ago. I'd have gone. I'd have been curious."

"But I wouldnt have had all this time to explain myself. It would have been an hour, and then it'd be routine superficiality. This way was better."

"Really? This way was better?"

"Here's my suggestion."

"You don't get to make a suggestion."

"I suggest you think about it. I love you. We're both available. You know the worst things I've ever done, as well as the lengths I've gone to correct those mistakes. I don't repeat myself. I've done a literature review. You could legitimately date me. Obviously, there are a range of perspectives, but let's average them. Dinner, 4 months from tonight? I made a reservation."

"Your time is up. Our sessions are over."

I dropped the info on my chair and made my way to the door.

"David, I want to show you one thing."

I stood as she made her way to her desk. From a drawer, she pulled an envelope, and from that envelope, she withdrew a 5x7 photo. She looked at it for a moment and handed it to me. A young woman was lying in a tangle of sheets. It was night, and so the photo was shadowy. The black-and-white photo was hyper-focused on the woman's genitalia, so that the slit was emphasized, as was a thatch of dark pubic hair, but the photo stretched up the abdomen, past the breasts, and to a lovely face that featured a late adolescent woman, asleep, with an impish smile on her lips. Another twin bed was framed in the background, blurry, but a bare leg seemed to be emerging from the sheets.

I was shocked.

"How did you get this?

I looked at exactly the same impish smile on a somewhat older woman.

"You've been very honest with me, David, but you didn't mention that you also took photos."

I looked back and forth between the photo and the woman. I'd taken this photo. I'd developed and printed it myself. I'd locked it away. This was not possible.

"Eve, I don't understand."

"Let's go for a drive. Do you have plans for the rest of the day?

"Yeah. Full schedule."

"Cancel. Say you're sick. You're going to be spending the day with your doctor."