The Ex-Girlfriends Across the Hall

Author's Note: This is third installment in the series, and it follows "The Girlfriends Across the Hall".

* * * * * * * * *

"What in the world do you think you're doing? Do you think Sylvia would EVER let you do that? Why on earth would you do that to me?"

That was not the reply I was expecting. At all. I guess I should back up a bit and explain

My life was pretty near perfect. Well, comparatively so. Having an anxiety disorder that makes many social interactions - especially with women - an ordeal is not easy. Much of what other people get to routinely enjoy in life is off-limits for me. Granted, they are my own self-imposed limits but they are not voluntarily self-imposed, a fact that many who have not experienced anxiety firsthand don't understand. I know there's no danger, I know I'll be alright, I know I have nothing (usually) to be anxious about. Doesn't matter. You can go to therapy to manage it (I do) and take meds to help dampen it (I do) but it doesn't go away and doesn't listen to reason. Telling a person with anxiety to not worry is like telling a person who is pushed off a bridge to not fall; they'd really like to but have no control over it.

But I digress.

Under ordinary circumstances, a guy with my condition would be unable to maintain anything more than a superficial relationship with a woman. I, however, found myself in an unbelievable sexual relationship with not one, not two, but three caring, creative, sensitive, and stunningly gorgeous women.

Sylvia, my first Girlfriend - red hair, warm inviting smile, tender touch, and an amazingly talented mouth. Even as a newbie to the wonders of actual first-person sex I knew she was something special.

Felicia - a short-haired blonde who, for all intents and purposes, took my virginity (if that's measured by penetration rather than oral).

And, Sandy - a long-haired, sun-kissed blonde who know how to touch a man like a virtuoso touches their instrument, with confidence and creativity and loving care.

The things I had experienced with these three were beyond anything I could have ever imagined. And I owe it to the guy who lives across the hall from me - Sly. Sort of. Well, not him directly. OK, YES, him directly but not ...

It's complicated.

Sly is an attractive, friendly, good-natured gay man. Great neighbor, very hospitable. In getting to know him, he shared that he, too, has some pretty severe social anxiety. Unlike mine, his was caused by several physical altercations which capped a lifetime of ridicule and abuse because of his sexuality. There are still people in the world who get off on bigotry and prejudice. Or they're just ignorant assholes. Whatever the reason for Sly's persecution, he involuntarily developed a very unusual coping mechanism. After a particularly traumatic run-in with some physically and verbally abusive bigots, Sly had a massive anxiety attack and passed out. It wasn't Sly who woke up. An alter-ego, Sylvia, had emerged from deep within Sly's psyche.

Further exploration, and a lot of therapy, helped Sly understand that Sylvia was a persona that would take over, so to speak, as a means of protecting Sly while enabling him to enjoy the company of men. Eventually, Sly could summon Sylvia when needed and, on occasion, Sylvia would appear unbidden when Sly needed a safe outlet. Unlike Sly, however, Sylvia is a woman - not a cross-dresser or transgender. Despite the fact that she inhabits Sly's body when she is present, Sylvia views herself and presents herself to the world as a woman; she'd be confused and offended if it was suggested otherwise. Her looks, her mannerisms, her, shall we say, appetites are those of a confident and beautiful woman. As a matter of convenience, she cast herself in the role of Sly's sister who visits or house-sits from time to time.

And somehow, in the process of her explaining Sly's situation to me one evening - an evening where I had been having a glass of wine in Sly's apartment and, after Sly stepped away for a few minutes, Sylvia introduced herself - my anxiety was able to process that I was talking to the same person (although not the same persona, if you follow me) and I was able to conduct normal social interaction with Sylvia. At the same time, because the persona Sylvia was a woman in every way but anatomy, which because she was a woman was never made an issue for my firmly heterosexual brain, I was able to allow myself to be attracted to her, and eventually - who am I kidding, within minutes - accepted a sexual relationship that she generously and enthusiastically offered me.

I told you it's complicated.

I subsequently got to know two more of Sly's relatives: Felicia and Sandy. I got to know them very well. In fact, I adored my three Girlfriends and they seemed rather fond of me too; fond enough to share sexual pleasures I could have never dreamed possible. Plus, I got a nice neighbor and friend in the deal. I couldn't hope for much more than that.

I was daydreaming about the unlikeliness and improbability of it all, as I sat on the edge of my bed, watching the head of my cock wrapped in Sylvia's luscious red lips. She had deviated from her usual technique. She held my cockhead tightly in her mouth, applying more suction than I thought was possible. The tip of her tongue was trying to penetrate my peehole, massaging just inside, and basically driving me crazy. One hand was tugging my balls, while the other was pressing hard against my taint. It was a precision executed blowjob. Designed to drive me to near madness without quite pushing me over the edge.

She was holding me right at the edge of cumming. Every time my glans would start to flare, she'd reduce the suction, just enough to hold me off. I could see in her eyes that she was getting off on toying with me. I was groaning, and whimpering, and near begging for relief. Sylvia released me from her lips for just a moment and said, "Cum for me, baby." And then she took me all the way into her mouth and I exploded directly down her throat, her hand pushing every drop out my prostate and into her tummy.

I don't know how she was able to breathe, but she held me deep in her mouth for what seemed like hours. At last, she slowly released my quickly softening cock, licked up and down a couple of times to make sure she hadn't missed a drop of me, and then playfully nibbled the tip. She probably could have bitten the whole thing off - I was too blissed to care. "Tell that whore Felicia she isn't the only one who can deep-throat a cock. Just because I don't usually do it, doesn't mean I can't."

"I'll relay the message," I said with a nervous laugh. She stayed for a glass of wine, and we chatted idly about nothing of substance. She thanked me for the wine, kissed me tenderly, and then headed back across the hall to Sly's apartment.

That was my life.

And then Dixie showed up. When I first saw her, I couldn't believe she was one of Sly's relatives. She was very tall, wearing boots with what looked like five-inch heels. Her hair was jet black, straight to her shoulders. Her skin was pale, and her lips were fire engine red. Her black skirt and leather jacket were OK for wearing in public, but just barely. When I saw her emerge from my apartment building, my first thought was that one of the girls (or maybe guys, who's to say?) from Sly's theater arts staff had come by to drop something off. She strode confidently up the street, turned the corner, and was gone.

It wasn't until later, when I heard a knock at my door and opened it to find this raven-haired domme-looking woman standing outside Sly's open door, that I began to piece things together. "You're Chris," she said, not a question. "Sly tells me you could help me." She turned around and walked into Sly's apartment. I guessed I was supposed to follow so I stuck my head in the door. "In here!" I heard shouted from the bedroom. I walked in to find the woman sitting on Sly's bed. "These boots aren't going to take themselves off." She held up a leg. "And don't scuff the polish."

This was new. All of Sly's relatives had been, up 'til now, sweet, feminine, friendly and (to varying degrees) polite. This one was rather demanding, bordering on rude. I can't say I was enjoying my thirty seconds or so of knowing her.

"Hey! The boot." She pointed to her outstretched leg with a finger that ended in what could only be described as a long black fingernail that resembled a claw. Creepy. And, yes, she had just crossed the border into rude. And I didn't know how to react. The Girlfriends had always been, well, friendly. I loved the fact that I could converse and interact with them normally, not subject to my typical anxiety. This one was anything but friendly. My comfort level plummeted. I wanted to bolt out of the room but couldn't get up the nerve. I stood paralyzed. She waggled her finger again, pointing at the boot.

I found myself leaning in and placing a hand on the tip and the heel of her boot. I tugged, and then again, and the boot slipped off, exposing a black seamed stocking. I repeated the procedure for the second boot. "Finally," she said, with a little more exasperation than I would have liked. I placed the second boot neatly next to the first. "Do you like my stockings?" she asked, wiggling her toes at me. To be honest, I didn't have a strong feeling one way or the other.

"Rub my foot, Chris." This was getting worse by the second. "C'mon." She jabbed her foot toward me and I dumbly took it in my hand. "That's it. Now massage it. These feet have been stuck in those boots all day and they need some TLC." Having never given a foot massage - or any other kind of massage, really - I had no idea what I was doing, a fact not lost on the woman whose foot I was lamely fondling. "You are not pleasing my foot, Chris, and that means you are not pleasing me. Massage it like you love it." I did not love her foot. Feet aren't my thing; no offense to anyone who is into feet, they're just not a turn on for me.

Even when they are rubbing my crotch, which is what she started doing.

"I'm Dixie. I assume one of my pathetic relatives told you all about me." They hadn't. I nodded "no." "What? Bitches!" She crooked a finger at me; she wanted me closer. She shimmed back on to the bed a little, so her legs comfortably dangled off the edge. She raised both feet and began tracing up and down the inside of each thigh. "Well, no matter. Let me show you how a real woman should be treated."

That broke my momentary paralysis. A "real woman." I knew real women. Women like Sylvia, and Felicia, and Sandy. I knew very well what a real woman would do. And, as far as I was concerned, what this Dixie was doing was absolutely not what a real woman would do. Without saying a word, I turned around and walked out. I heard, "Hey, where do you think ..." before I closed Sly's door and then mine. I grabbed a beer and sat on my living room couch. The whole encounter took less than two minutes, but it felt like an eternity. Part of me hoped that standing up for myself - or what passes for it for me! - sent her a clear message that I had no interest in spending any time with her. But part of me was worried that in offending Dixie I had also offended the rest of the Girlfriends. Or Sly.

Was it a package deal? If - and let's pretend here that this was even possible - I met a girl, got into a relationship and was smitten with almost everything about her, but found one facet of her unpleasant, would that be grounds for total rejection? Or would it be more appropriate to communicate with her, tell her what rubbed me the wrong way, and overlook it for the good of the budding relationship? If that was an appropriate analogy, had I just rejected the Girlfriends as a group because I rejected one of them who I didn't immediately like?

I sat and pondered this while consuming two additional beers. When a knock came at the door, I was startled. A momentary pang of fear enveloped me. Was it Dixie? Was she pissed? Or worse, was she hurt? Could I fake not being home or make like I'm taking a shower? Confident that even if Dixie was angry she couldn't actually kick down my door, I tip-toed down the hall and looked through my peephole. I was relived to see Sylvia standing outside. Feeling immediately relieved, I opened the door. My relief was short-lived.

Sylvia had been crying. She still looked lovely, but her eyes were red and puffy, and little smears of mascara were following in the path of her teardrops. Without making eye contact she asked, "Can I come in?" I stood aside, and she walked past me and sat down on the couch. She absent-mindedly picked up the bottle of beer I had been drinking and took a long sip, completely draining it. She looked at the empty bottle and put it on the table.

I grabbed two more beers form the fridge, sat down next to Sylvia and placed one in front of each of us. I had absolutely no idea what to do next. Do I comfort her? But what if she didn't need comforting and she was crying because she was furious at how I treated Dixie? What if she had come to say goodbye because I rejected one of her family? I was managing to work myself into a full-on anxiety situation.

"I'm sorry, Chris," she said, still without looking up at me. I still had no clue what the right thing to say or do was. "I know what happened with Dixie." Oh crap, I thought. I really blew it, didn't I?

"She really blew it, didn't she?" Huh, what? "I never ever thought she'd barge in on you, on us, like that. But she did. And now ..." Her voice trailed off.

"And now?" I asked.

"Oh god, Chris." She started sobbing. "You must hate me. You must hate all of us. We never warned you about her, never told you anything. You were probably being your normal gentlemanly self and she stomped in like, well, like a monster and mistreated you and now she's ruined everything, and ..." That was as far as she got before the crying took over.

OK, I thought to myself, it doesn't sound like it's ME who's in trouble. That's a relief. I guess my assessment of Dixie's rudeness was spot-on. Cool.

But.

Sylvia said, "she's ruined everything." What does THAT mean? And is everything ruined? Even if it was Dixie who was inappropriate, if my reaction to her caused me to mess up what amounted to my version of paradise, it may as well have been me who had been in the wrong.

But.

She also said, "You must hate us." My engineer brain kicked in. If her assertion that everything is ruined is predicated on her assumption that I must hate her, which is false, then perhaps the assertion could still be proven not true. I caught myself trying to map a decision tree in my head. My engineer brain gets in the way more often than you'd think. Or probably just as much as you think.

I placed my arm around her shoulder. She involuntarily flinched, which caused me to spasmodically pull my arm back. Nice start. Perhaps something less invasive. I leaned in toward her and said softly, "I don't hate you." Her head slowly turned and for the first time since she walked in she was looking directly at me. "I don't hate you," I repeated.

"You ... you don't?"

"Why would I hate you?"

"Because of her."

"That makes no sense. Why would I hate you because of her?" I realized as I said it that this was perilous and uncharted territory for me and, possibly, for her. Or should I say them. Piecing together what I knew from what Sly and the Girlfriends told me, their whole intertwined existence depended on the independence and autonomy of each persona, at least psychologically. Sure, if one of them got hit by a bus, they'd all cease to exist but to each of them individually that was not the case. They were each real people. They understood their relationship to Sly as alter-ego and safe-harbor. They didn't cohabitate in Sly's body, they time-shared. Or, at least that's what I'd assumed based on what they'd told me, directly and indirectly. Implying that any of them - Sly or one of the Girlfriends - were the same being would corrupt the foundation on which Sly's internal ecosystem was based.

So, holding Sylvia accountable for Dixie's actions might shatter the delicate balance.

"Sylvia, you did nothing wrong. To me, or to anyone else," I explained.

"But, I didn't stop her. I couldn't stop her."

Well, that was interesting. Was Sylvia aware of how Dixie was behaving as it happened? If so, then the whole rules of engagement among the Girlfriends that I thought I had worked out might be wrong. Were the Girlfriend always conscious, but only one was in control at a time? They knew pretty much everything about each other, but I had assumed that there was some kind of offline sync among them once Sly reemerged. But maybe not. Maybe they were always plugged into what was going on, but there was a protocol for who was "on-line" at any time. Or maybe it wasn't a protocol so much as a collaborative decision. Or maybe it was just all-out war for dominance. I didn't know, and I had no idea how I could find out.

And what was Sly's place in this. Was he a willing passenger? Sylvia, the original Girlfriend, emerged unbidden, a fabrication born of Sly's subconscious need for safety and sexual desire. Sylvia told me that Sly could slip her on and off, so to speak, as needed. But were there still times when Sylvia - or any of them - would simply emerge, either unbeknownst to Sly or possibly even against his will?

Part of me wanted to just drop the whole subject, tell Sylvia not to worry, and get back to my recently blissful, if slightly implausible, life. But if there was something darker going on, something that Sly either wasn't telling me or wasn't aware of, I'd be a pretty lousy friend if I didn't try to learn more. And, much to my surprise, I was enjoying being a friend.

"Why do you think you could have stopped her?"

There was a long pause. A momentary look of confusion crossed her face. "I ... I don't know. I just feel like I should have. She ... You ..." Her voice trailed off.

"Tell me. It's OK"

"She wasn't supposed to be with you. She went out, to meet someone, and when it didn't work out she came home and turned to you. You were never meant to meet her."

"Why not?"

"You're not her type. And judging by your reaction, she's definitely not yours either."

"If I'm not her type, why did she come on to me?"

She turned her head away. Tears were pouring out of her beautiful eyes. "Because she wanted someone and didn't want to let go until she had him. That's all any of us want. We need to be special. We need to be desired. We need to ... feel."

Well, this got weird pretty quickly. From what Sylvia described, the Girlfriends come forward and take control to engage in what amounts to a conjugal visit from prison. And, since their whole reason for being is to experience affection, excitement, and satisfying physical contact without fear of prejudice or abuse, it must be agonizing if they can't have their needs met.

"How did she ...? I mean, how do you ...?" I was struggling to ask the right question. "What made Dixie visit today?"

"She saw an opportunity to be with someone, someone who appreciates her special, well, appetites."

"OK, but didn't you want to be with someone today?"

She looked puzzled. "No. If I had, I would have come to visit you or one of my other friends."

I was going to probe a bit on just how she decides to come to visit, but "my other friends" stopped me in my tracks. "I didn't realize you had other friends."

She looked at me like I had two heads. "Well, of course I do. Shouldn't I?"

It was a fair question, but I wasn't feeling very fair-minded at that instant. "I dunno, I was hoping that I was your only, you know, boyfriend." I could feel the muscles in my chest tensing up and my voice was catching in my throat. I was suddenly careening toward full-on anxiety, but I was feeling hurt as well. But just for a second.