Roomers Ch. 04

'Now, Doug, and as hard as you fuckin' like.' Her other hand snaked out and grabbed me, pulling me towards her. Her breath was still fast, her breasts rising and falling, and I tried to kiss them, trying for calm, but she grabbed my hair and forced my head up.

'Don't fuck about, Doug. I said "now". You unnerstand simple requests?' Well, shit. This wasn't what I wanted at all. She wouldn't kiss me, nothing like that. Just dug her fingers into my ass and heaved, head turned away, holding me tight inside her while she writhed and grunted, pushing herself again. Five minutes maybe, and she came again, her body straining upwards, eyes closed, biting her lip so as not to cry out, and I followed her helplessly, not knowing what the fuck was happening. Only time I've ever come and not felt good about it. She relaxed and put her arms round my neck and burst into tears again, hard this time, holding me so as I could hardly breathe.

Hell, I didn't have a fucking clue what to do. I'm saying that some, but there's no other way to explain. It was like I was with a stranger, not Judy; someone I'd never met and didn't like much. After a while she pushed me off her, looked at my face carefully.

'Told ya I love what I see, Doug. Trouble is, I plain don't know what I'm seeing.' She seemed to expect an answer but I didn't have one. She got up and started putting on her clothes, paused, looked at me again. 'Gonna go home with your cum spillin' out of me, Doug, dripping down my thighs and feeling so good, remindin' me what you can give me.' She finished dressing, picked up her bag, left. I didn't hear the car start, knew she was walking. I lay on the bed, my cock leaking the last of my cum, brain spinning. Less than half-an-hour and it seemed like the world had changed.

She didn't call, and when I went up to the dorm next day, her roommate told me she'd gone out early, hadn't said where. She was looking at me pretty unfriendly so I left.

What I did, no idea why, was go round to see Annie. Sundays she sat and smoked out while her dad did the same, lost in his headphones, eyes closed. She'd blown me right in the front room once and he hadn't noticed a thing, just nodding his head, remembering the good times. That day he wasn't there and she let me in, went back upstairs and lay out on the couch again.

'Hi, Doug.' Her voice was slow. Stoned on her skinny ass, I thought, and wondered why I'd bothered. She turned her head and looked at me, examined me with the intensity of the totally gone.

'Trouble with the girlfriend, huh?' I stared at her.

'Jeez, Annie, you're a fuckin' witch. Howd'ya know?' She giggled.

'You're sending out unhappy guy vibes like a skunk in season. Siddown and tell Annie all about it.' Don't know what came over me, tell the truth. One of my private rules is not to talk about stuff like that. But she lay there on the couch, looking at me with big dark eyes, and it came bubbling up and I started telling her, from the time Judy sounded the horn to get my attention, right through to her roommate's nasty comments. When I was through she sat up and started rolling another joint, concentrating hard.

'Ya know why we get on so good, Doug?' I hadn't expected that.

'Whaddya mean?' She took a big hit and gave me the joint.

'We get on real good because I don't love ya. Hell, I'm crazy 'bout ya, but that's where it stops. I been burned before, lovin' guys.' She was wearing a ratty old T-shirt and shorts, both way too big for her. Hell, anything store-bought was too big for her. She was a size zero.

'Annie, you gotta explain better. Whaddya mean, and what the hell's it got to do with anything?' I gave her back the joint and she put it down.

'You're a real nice guy, Doug. You're funny, and thoughtful, and fun to be with, and you're a goddam stallion and you don't mind that I'm a fuckin' bundle of skin and bone, all that stuff. Every time I see you hard for me I'm kinda pleased. But there ain't that much of you. Go down six inches and ya hit something hard, fuckin' impossible to get through. Could be bedrock, could be some kinda shell you built round you to protect some kinda old pain, could be some other kinda secret. Don't matter to me: those first six inches are all I want, them and the other six inches you got too. Twelve inches of fun, total.' She started giggling and I sat and waited and thought about what she'd said. She choked and recovered.

'Ya know, ya never told me your girlfriend's name? Hell, I never asked. We're both cheatin' on people, so what the fuck? Tell me now though. I don't wanna talk about the poor bitch without knowing what she's called.'

'Uh, Judy.' She nodded.

'OK. Listen, I said I'm not in love with ya. What I am, I'm in like with ya, and there's a helluva difference. Main one, I don't get hurt because I don't got all of ya. But Judy loves ya. Hell, sounds like she's crazy in love. Lemme tell ya what's happened. She's been thinking and she's realized that you're great up to the point where that fuckin' obstacle begins, and then you stop. So she loves what she's sees and starts looking for more, and there's nothin' there and it's burning her up. What she did with ya yesterday, hell, that was her hammerin' on the gates, tryin' ta get you to let her in.' She sat back and picked the joint up, took the last hit off the roach and killed it.

'You sayin' I'm shallow?' She smiled.

'Shit, I ain't got a clue, don't care. You could be deep as the fuckin' Pacific, all I know. But the part you let people see, hell, Doug, that's shallow through and through. You wanna another joint?' No point in refusing. She twisted one up and patted the couch. 'Come sit with me. I guess no-one ever told you that stuff before, right?' I moved over, sat with her, and she pulled my head down to her flat chest and stroked my hair, fed me my share of the joint. The grass did its job and I relaxed some, wondering if she was right about me, if she'd called Judy's feelings accurately. After a while she stirred and her fingers began to play round my ear.

'Whaddya thinking?' I shook my head.

'What you said. I guess I oughta think it through some.' She chuckled, but kindly.

'Poor baby. I met guys like you before. Fall in love with someone like you, everything's so fuckin' good you kinda start thinkin' 'bout settling down, livin' happy ever after, all the dreams. And then you begin to notice that it's always the same stuff over again, like a loop tape. Real nice, real fun, but not goin' anywhere. That's where your poor Judy is.'

'I don't feel like that. Hell, I love the way things are.' She pulled my ear.

'Listen to what you said, Doug. "I love the way things are", you just said. You didn't say "I love where things are going". Bet you never said that in your life.' I didn't answer. After a while her hand slipped away from my face and dragged its way down to my crotch. She squeezed. experimentally. My head was full of grass and my heart was vacuum empty, but that didn't stop my cock stirring. She slipped off the couch, rolled me over and her agile little fingers began undoing my pants. I should have got up but I was stoned and I didn't, and in a little while her lips closed over me, soft against my hardness, and the familiar climb began. The tension in my body began to slide down into my balls while her tongue worked over me, coaxing out all the shit. When I was ready she squeezed and all my pain splashed out into her waiting mouth. She took it, every drop, and swallowed happily, then raised her head, licking her lips, grinning.

'Fuckin' grass always gets me hot, and when you're here too, that's it, outa control. I am for sure glad I'm in like with you though. Doug, I'm leakin' like a fuckin' sieve. You wanna do that stuff with your tongue and then fuck the shit outa me?'

Shameful as hell, but that's exactly what I did. Afterwards, when I was dressed and ready to go she got off the bed, stood on tip-toe, put her arms up and hugged me. She didn't do that usually.

'Don't feel too badly, Doug. I hope it works with her: hope so for you and for her. But think about what you just did too. You truly wanna make it good for her, you gotta open yourself up. You'll hafta change some, Doug, and it'll be a helluva lot of work for you and her both. She sounds like a worker, but I sure don't know 'bout you .Won't screw up the way I feel about you though. Said I was crazy in like with you, remember? Nothin's changed that. But you better tell me if you're gonna stop comin' round. Don't wanna be left hangin' in the breeze ' I walked home real slow, hating myself, wondering if she was right.

When I got to the apartment I switched on the PC and looked at the spreadsheet I'd been avoiding for too long. Dicked about with the values, ran it; put in new variables, ran it again; tried to imagine what Judy wanted, how she felt; thought about what Annie had said; tried a lot of other stuff: the end results jumped about some, but they all said the same thing.

The relationship was fucking doomed unless I truly wanted to get off my ass for real, make plans for our future, think about long-term stuff, start committing: all the shit I avoid real well. And if I didn't do anything Judy was going to hate me and feel guilty about it, and then hate me some more for making her feel guilty... And if I did put the work in, changed, tried to be the guy in her life for definite, the work was going to go on and on for ever. And I had to keep wanting it real bad, or none of it would stay together. There looked to be only one solution.

Shit, what can I say? That was the day of decision, and then some. Shameful, I know, but once I realized that what Annie had said was mostly true, the decision kinda made itself. Judy's senior year, couldn't screw that up for her, work-wise. I may be shallow but I'm not a total shithead. I was the one who'd screwed up, not realizing what I was, not bothering to find out what she was, either. Only thing left was to use the ability, try to make it halfway alright for her. She was going to be hurt even worse if I let things carry on sliding, and I'd feel pretty bad about that. Maybe I owed Annie as well. She'd taken a big risk saying what she said, and I was in like with her too. In like is probably as far as I'll ever go.

Judy found me the Monday morning, saying sorry, she didn't know what had come over her, hadn't meant to be so mean, looking at me nervous, wondering what she'd done. Made her cut a class, took her into the park, we talked a while. Annie was right. Judy said it a different way, not so direct, but I knew what was behind the words. She looked so unhappy, dam' near made me cry. I told her I heard what she said, that I was going to work on myself, and our future, and my grades, that I wanted her to concentrate on the end of her college career, ace her tests, do it right. Said I wasn't going be the one shafted her life. She remembered the first time I said that and it got a small smile out of her. She told me we'd talk it through over the summer, decide what we were going to do. I said sure, that's the best plan, guess I need to do some thinking. She kissed me, and it was almost like before. She went off looking twenty thousand times happier and I bit the fucking bullet and started.

I guess people wondered what the hell was happening. Gary noticed, but he said nothing. Smart guy. Judy couldn't help but notice, and she seemed pretty happy about it. I was out of bed early, working out like a maniac, studying, hitting class, back down to the gym, into the library. Easter break to end of semester I was a goddam hive of activity. Nights, I concentrated so hard on what I wanted, forcing myself to want it for real, I felt like I was going to get a nosebleed from the effort. Like the summer before Patty Dukes, except this time I knew what I was doing. Jesus, how I hated it, you have no idea. I'll never work that hard again, ever. Wasn't even for me. But somehow, it had to be done.

My grades soared, I put on twenty pounds of muscle, had to go buy new clothes. Judy was working like crazy too, buried in her psychology books. Said I was inspiring her, kissed me a lot. She came up with the idea that we drop everything one day a week: quality time for us, she called it. So we spent Sundays at the apartment, in bed mostly. It was like our first summer, almost, she said, and her face got kinda soft when she said that. Definitely no BJ's though, and I didn't push. I just made sure she didn't feel the cold wind of fall that was blowing through my head. Rest of the time we worked. She worked on her future career and I worked on cutting my heart out. Went and saw Annie, told her I'd done my thinking and was working on a solution, and would it be OK if I didn't come see her till after the end of semester. She smiled and said sure, take the time you need, I ain't going anywhere. I nearly cried with gratitude.

And it worked. Four days before the end of semester, her with all her exams aced, no more shit left to do, me with straight A's for the first time ever, I was in the gym. Shit, I was benching more than two hundred pounds by then, only time in my life I been in that much shape. I was into the third set of reps, focused on the iron and how I wanted Judy to be happy, and it arrived. Her image in my head, clear as a bell, smiling through tears, and there was a small nuclear explosion between my ears and I passed out.

I was cold and stiff, still standing in my big bay window, feeling heavy and useless. Three beers today so far. Another one would be good. I fetched it and put some Lou Reed on. Gloomy bastard: suited my mood.

The beer was gone and Lou had finished moaning when the front door bell rang: my bell, not the roomers'. I got up, went to the bay window, peered out. There was a small figure hopping about on the porch in the dark, loaded with stuff. I went to open the door.

'Ellen?' She pushed past me, scattering parcels as she went.

'Doug, I don't piss right now I'm gonna wet myself.' She disappeared and I picked stuff up. It seemed to be food and wine mostly, so I took it into the kitchen and was looking at it when the toilet flushed and she reappeared. Only a small girl, but solid, and she launched and clung, arms and legs wrapped round me, kissing every part of me she could reach.

'You are the sweetest man I know, Doug Taylor, and I'm gonna fix you a meal and give you plenty of wine, and we'll do one small joint and then I'm gonna bop you till your teeth rattle.' Well, shit. That's one way of lightening a guy's mood.

Turned out that Rosie had tracked her down that afternoon, said hello, nice to meet you, told her everything, given her the papers and all for the car, change of ownership signed and dated, handed her the keys, kissed her, and said goodbye and God bless you. Seemed she also said it had been my idea, that I'd worked hard at persuading her, told her it was part of God's plan; so here was Ellen and her groceries and her fucking toothbrush, come to say 'thank you'.

'How come we haven't seen each other for months?' she asked when the food was mostly gone and we were relaxing with the second bottle. I shrugged.

'Shit, Ellen, I kinda missed you over the summer, but when you didn't come back to the house and I heard you didn't have enough money to make the rent, I didn't know what to do. I mean, the rent's what I live on, and I didn't wanna fight with you...'

'And it woulda made me feel like I hadta put out in exchange for a cut rate, and you weren't gonna say "come live with me and be my love", that's for sure.' There was laughter in her voice. 'Doug, you are real fun to be with, but you're for sure the most selfish guy I've ever met. Kinda lazy too. I wouldn't live with you if you were the last man on God's green earth. You'd drive me outa my tree in about three weeks. Problem is, you're right about stuff sometimes: special deal rent woulda killed being friends.' She jerked her head at me. 'Go sit on the couch, get comfortable. I'll deal with the dishes.

I did as I was told. Closed the blinds, turned the gas grate on low, just for effect, looked for some music that wouldn't make me cry. When she came back with tea and a mean looking twist about as fat as my little finger I was stretched on the couch with the History of the Frontier.

'You are a bear for reading,' she said as she put the stuff down on the coffee table. 'How come you never did doctoral work?'

'Because of that last word. I decided a long time ago I wasn't gonna work unless I had to. Worked two years after I quit college, hated it, made my money and quit again. Don't plan to start either. I'm kinda comfortable the way I am.' She nudged me with her knee.

'Well I ain't comfortable. Scrooch along and lemme sit sown.' She settled herself and lit the joint, took a hit and made a face. 'This ain't the best stuff in the world, but it was all I could get. Made it fat just to use the stuff up, tell the truth.' She handed it to me and I took a polite hit.

'You shouldn'ta gone to so much trouble, Ellen. Rosie was tellin' me about God callin' her an' everything, and I was pissed that she was walking and leaving me with an empty room and a hole in my pocket. Security deposit don't cover four months rent. Then she said about her car and I mentioned you, and she went flyin' off saying ten Hail Mary's.' She looked at me, and then stroked my cheek.

'You thought of me though, even though we ain't spoken for months, right?'

'I think about you regular, Ellen. Just didn't know how to break the ice.'

'I love the car already and I'm gonna call it Doug and not tell anyone why.' Did I say she was sometimes a weird girl?

'Ellen, please don't do that. I gotta rep to maintain and everything.' She giggled a little. The grass was hitting her.

'Maybe I'll call it Douggie-Wuggie when I'm feeling lovin.' How 'bout that, Douggie-Wuggie?'

'You do it when I'm around, I'll put you over my knee and paddle you.' Grass was getting to me too, and I started laughing too. I realized that the mood of earlier was gone; scarcely a shadow left. Hell, old memories are just that. What I had on my couch right now was real. Hundred and thirty pounds of compact girl, short dark hair, not chubby, but definitely ripe, filling her clothes nicely, and she was looking at me with that something in her eyes that means you're gonna get lucky. She got up from the couch and checked that the blinds were tight closed, then went and turned the deadbolt on the door. As she came back she was stripping her T-shirt over her head, plump little tits straining out of her bra. She tossed the T-shirt and started on the jeans. Bra and panties went even quicker. She was too worked up to remember her socks, and stood there, looking so cute and silly that I thought I was going to burst. Sweet, soft curves, nothing excessive, kinda body you can get lost in real easy. She watched me looking at her, then put her arms out and did a little shimmy. Made everything dance.

'You're gonna hafta do some of the work here too, Doug. I mean it's a ninety-eight Toyota, not a Rolls-Royce, you can't expect me to do everything. I got my needs too, and I've kinda missed that stuff you do with your tongue. But I'm gonna say thank you first, and I'm probably gonna carry on comin' round to say thank you once in a while. You good with that?' I nodded happily, and started getting naked too..

Maybe I'll write down about how I quit college and made my money, I mean, I got this far, and taking out memories and looking at them is OK once in a while, long as you put them away afterwards. Not right now though.

Think about this though. I start dreaming about Miss second floor back and how I'd like to treat her, go to the gym some, start reading a little more seriously; while that's simmering I think a little more about Ellen and how good her mouth is and how she needs a car. Shake the mix from September to April, and one day something lights the fuse. Result? I lose four months rent, Ellen gets a car, and I'm about to get the first BJ of the season any minute. Don't know about Susan yet. This talent seems to work ass-backward and I've learned not to push too hard. Kinda backfires when I do.