Doing it All over

Chapter 5

Julie left the house, giving me a quick kiss on the lips and walking out to her car. She told me she would see me tomorrow and then a moment later she was roaring away. I closed the door after she'd gone and walked to the kitchen for a glass of water, glancing at the clock as I did so. A half an hour until Dad got home. Just enough time for a shower.

Though I didn't have to work that day a bathing session was necessary none-the-less. I was wearing only a pair of sweatpants on my body and I knew I had to reek of Julie's musk both from my skin and on my breath. There was no sense giving my Dad anything to raise his eyebrows about.

As I put ice in a glass and filled it with water from the tap, preparing to slake my considerable thirst, my mind was still reeling with the new images of Nina it had produced at the moment of truth earlier. The memory of the powerful orgasm those images had generated was still fresh and in fact the images themselves were still flitting at the forefront of my thoughts, keeping my dick in a semi-erect state.

It was Nina I was thinking about! Nina! What a mind-blower. I felt very weird about this. Nina was my best friend, my companion, my confidant for nearly two years now. Why was I suddenly having sexual thoughts about her? Was it just my teenaged libido in overdrive or was it something else entirely? As I struggled to understand the meaning of these thoughts I found myself thinking of her in more than the sexual way. I thought of all the time we'd spent together, of all the things we'd done. I liked being around her. There really wasn't anything else I'd rather do in fact. Not even sex, my greatest obsession, compared to simply being in the company of her, talking to her, listening to her.

My God, I thought. I wasn't talking about love was I? Though I looked like a teenager and though I'd learned to act like a teenager I was still, under all of that, a thirty-three year old man. Nina was seventeen. And while I'd reluctantly acknowledged the possibility that she might be in love with me, through no fault of my own of course, I'd never even considered, even for an instant, the possibility that I might be in love with her. Sure I loved her as a friend. Sure, even though she was sixteen years younger than I was (although in reality she was nearly a year older than I was) I'd always found her a mature and easy to talk to companion, much easier than my ex-wife had ever dreamed of being, easier in fact than even Tracy. But none of that meant love did it, not romantic love anyway.

I thought of how upset she'd been earlier that day because I'd chosen to accept a ride from Julie. I remembered being baffled by her anger. Why should she be upset because of that, I'd wondered? It had been in all innocence, or so I'd thought then, and we weren't boyfriend and girlfriend anyway, so what right had she to be mad at me? And then I imagined how I would feel if Nina had told me that she was going to be riding to ROP each day with someone like Rick Felone, one of the few other guys that had been in our ROP classroom. I was surprised at the sudden surge of anger and jealously that hit me at the very thought of this.

Jesus, what was happening to me? What was I going to do about it?

Before I had a chance to think too heavily on those questions the doorbell rang. Muttering a curse under my breath at being interrupted while I'd been thinking some deep thoughts, I set down my glass and headed into the living room.

Figuring it was a door to door salesman selling some worthless product or religious fanatics selling something even more worthless I threw open the door prepared to send them away post-haste so I could go up to take my shower and continue my thoughts of Nina to their conclusion. However it was neither on the other side of door. It was Nina.

Her expression was very cool upon her face, very unreadable as she stood on the porch. Her eyes took in my attire and I realized that she couldn't possibly have come at a worse time. What was she doing here anyway? She'd told me that she wasn't coming over.

"Hi Nina." I greeted her with false cheeriness, stepping back a bit to keep her from catching any sort of scent from me. I did this instinctively without even realizing why I was doing it. "Come on in. What are you doing here?"

She made no move to come through the door, she simply stood there. "I came over to apologize for acting so weird today at school." She said. "I thought I'd been out of line, getting upset just because you wanted a ride with Julie."

"That's okay." I told her. "I understand completely. Why don't you come in?"

"I was so upset by what I'd said," She continued, still making no move to come through the door. "That I decided to head over as soon as I got home from school."

My mouth dropped open and a burst of adrenaline flooded me as I realized what she was saying.

"When I got here," She told me. "I saw that you already had company. Julie's car was out front."

"Listen Nina," I started and then immediately faded away. I had no idea what I should say to her. Should I lie and say nothing had happened? I rejected that thought even as it formed. I could hardly deny it. Nina, as I may have mentioned earlier, was not stupid. Julie's car had been out front and I'd answered the door wearing nothing but sweats and smelling like I'd just fucked someone.

"What you do is your business." She told me and I saw that a tear was now running from her left eye. "It's never been any of mine and I've never pretended that it was. You've been screwing everything with a vagina for the last two years and I've never tried to convince myself that you have any feelings for me. To you I'm just Nina."

"No Nina." I protested. "That's not true at all."

"It is." She said. "But do you know what? I've always had feelings for you. Ever since you first started talking to me in the lunchroom I've had strong feelings for you. Over the past two years they've never been returned but I've always had them and I've always hoped that some day…" She sniffed a little, more tears coming down now. "Time and time again I've started to feel like maybe there was some hope. Even though I've heard all of the stories about you, about how you'll screw anyone. Even though girls are always coming up to me and asking about you, trying to get me to introduce them to you, I still had some hope. I kept deluding myself, telling myself that you really were a nice guy. That you really weren't doing all of these things that I was hearing."

"I am a nice guy." I protested. "It's just…"

"Time and time again I would see what you were doing and try to tell myself I wasn't really seeing it. I would try to tell myself that someday…" She took a deep breath. "Anyway, when you told me that Julie and you were just going to ride together I felt, well, jealous, threatened at first. I know we're not going together or anything but still, I feel these things Bill. I can't help it. I've got these fucking feelings for you. But then I thought about it and decided I'd overreacted a little. I told myself that there was no way Bill would ever do anything with an engaged girl. I convinced myself that I'd let my feelings come out a little too much this time." She snorted in disgust. "I was afraid you'd be mad at me. So I came over here to tell you I was sorry about that.

"When I got here and saw Julie's car out front it suddenly came home to me. Everything that I'd always heard about you was true. All of the times I'd convinced myself that people were just talking about you, all of the times I saw with my own eyes what you were doing and convinced myself it was something else, all of that just fell apart when I saw her car. You really are an asshole Bill, and the worst kind. You're an asshole that can pretend not to be one."

"Nina," I said, "Let me explain…"

"There's nothing to explain." She said. "I've got to get away from you. I've got to stay away from you, do you understand? You're not good for me and you give me too many bad feelings. I just came up here to let you know that you're going to have to find another way to get to school." Tears were now running freely down her cheeks and her voice was breaking as she held off sobs.

"Nina, let's talk about this." I said.

"No." She cried, turning away from me. "Goodbye Bill." She started down the walk.

"Nina!" I yelled, starting after her.

"Leave me alone." She sobbed. "Just stay away from me here, now, and forever. Don't call me anymore, don't talk to me anymore. Please."

She continued down the walkway and turned left at the sidewalk, heading for home. Less than ten seconds later she was out of my sight. But she wasn't out of my mind.

Despite what she'd said to me I tried to call her several times that day. I needed to talk to her, to tell her that I wasn't really an asshole. I needed to try to get her to change her mind. Each time her mother answered the phone and told me that Nina was not there. Her mother's voice, which usually lit up when she was talking to me, was emotionless and flat, with no hint of the previous warmth that had been in it. Finally she told me that her daughter did not wish to speak to me and asked that I refrain from calling anymore. I put down the phone feeling defeated.

The next morning Dad saw me bundling up and preparing to walk to school. He gave me a puzzled look.

"Isn't Nina coming to pick you up today?" He asked.

"No." I told him. "She's kind of, well, mad at me. She's not going to give me a ride anymore."

"You guys broke up?" He asked, his voice soft with sympathy.

"She was never my girlfriend Dad." I told him, irritated. "She's just mad at me and doesn't want to give me a ride anymore."

He stared levelly at me. "Bill." He told me. "I hate to tell you this but Nina WAS your girlfriend, whether you realized it or not."

I shook my head. "No Dad." I said. "We were just friends. We never…, well you know?"

"Is that what you think a girlfriend is?" He asked. "Someone to, 'you know' with? You and Nina might not have ever done that with each other but you were boyfriend and girlfriend all the same. You liked being around each other, you liked to talk together. You were friends. You loved each other.

Isn't friendship the most important part of a relationship, any relationship? Why do people disregard such things?"

Had it been so obvious that even my Dad had seen it? How could I have not seen it all this time? And how could fate have been so cruel to allow me to realize it on the very day, at the very minute that it's destruction was being engineered.

"I don't know Dad." I said with complete honesty. "Maybe they're just assholes."

He gave me a meaningful look. "Maybe they are." He replied. "And maybe they need to take a good look at what is making them an asshole, don't you think? Maybe they can change that little something?"

I gave him a sharp look. What was he saying? What did he know? Was he talking about my social activities? Surely he didn't know about that did he? But then I'd assumed Nina hadn't known about that either, an assumption that, now that it had been proven wrong, seemed painfully naive. Was my assumption that Dad or even, I shuddered, Mom, didn't know as flawed as that about Nina?

Dad had hidden his face back behind the paper, offering me no more insights into what he was thinking. Troubled, I picked up my backpack and headed out the door. I wasn't surprised to find that it was raining as I headed, on foot, to school. It was that kind of day.

My attempts to talk to Nina at school were met with stony silence. By the time lunch came around I knew better than to even try anymore. As I ate my lunch in the lunchroom I looked over to where Nina sat and dread covered me like a blanket. She was sitting alone at a table, eating from her tray, a book open before her. Just like she'd been doing the first day I'd approached her. Just like it.

Julie picked me up once more for ROP. As we drove to the hospital together I was disquieted by the freeness of her affection towards me. She would put her hand on my leg as we talked, or brush my hair from my eyes for me. Once she even kissed her finger and put it to my lips gently. She told me how great of a time she'd had yesterday.

"Do you think maybe we could study together again after school?" She asked brightly.

"Uh…, not today." I told her. "I have to work." In truth I could have easily arranged a little meeting before work but I simply wasn't up to it. I'd never felt less like having sex in my life.

She pouted a little. "Well maybe next week." She said. "I really need to bone up on certain things."

As we worked side by side I noticed again how much she went out of her way to bump into me or to rub her breasts against my shoulder. Since I was quieter than usual she decided to talk more than usual. I winced when she mentioned her fiance.

"Sometimes I wonder if I really made the right decision when I said I'd marry him." She told me.

I looked over at her, perhaps a little sharper than I'd intended to. "What do you mean?"

"Well," She beamed, her eyes shining. "I'm still young, ain't I? Maybe he's not the right one. Maybe I just jumped because he was the first one to ask.

There's lots of other guys out there that might be, uh, better, isn't there?"

I quite simply didn't know what to say to her.

When I came home from work that night my Mom was sitting on the couch watching television and working on some sort of project for work. I gave her a perfunctory greeting and started to head for my room.

"Bill?" She asked, "Are you doing okay?"

I stopped, turning towards her. "Sure Mom." I answered. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Dad told me about you and Nina breaking up." She said. "I just wanted to know how you were handling it."

I didn't even bother explaining to her that Nina and I hadn't had a relationship to break up from. By now it was starting to sound like a lie even to me. "I'm okay Mom." I assured her. "It'll work out."

"I certainly hope so." She told me sympathetically. "I really like her a lot you know. I thought you two made a cute couple."

I smiled weakly.

"I'm not trying to tell you how to run your life or anything Bill." She said. "But I think you had a good thing with her. If I were you, I'd do whatever I had to to get her back. Sincerely."

"Thanks Mom." I muttered, unsure what I was thanking her for. Why in the hell hadn't anyone told me this stuff a month ago, or a year ago, or even twenty-four hours ago?

Of course I was deluding myself because they had. Tracy in the most direct way, although I'd refused to hear her, Mom and Dad in more indirect ways. How many times had they referred to Nina as my girlfriend, either to me or when talking about her to someone else? And how many times had I reproached them for this, angrily even on occasion? Too many to count.

"Well that's my motherly advice for the day." She said. "If you're feeling down maybe this will help." She picked up an envelope from the table and handed it to me. On the front I recognized my sister's handwriting.

"From Tracy?" I asked. Since leaving for California Tracy had not exactly been an open line of communication. Two phone calls, one of which had just been to tell us she'd arrived safely, and this one letter. Since she lived in the dorms it was almost impossible to get hold of her.

"Yes." Mom nodded. "And about time too. I swear, you send them to college and they forget you exist."

I opened the envelope and sat down on the couch, pulling the single handwritten sheet of paper out and unfolding it.

Dear Mom, Dad, and Bill, it started. It was mostly to let us know she was alive and well and doing fine. She chattered on about how much she was enjoying her classes and the California weather, how much she liked living in the dorms, about her job at the campus book store which would help supplement her living expenses. And then towards the end she told us that she'd met a boy and had been dating him fairly frequently. His name was Darren Maxwell.

Darren Maxwell. I'd never heard that name before in my life, before or after recycling. But for some reason that name gave me a twinge of fear. I continued to read her decidedly unfeminine handwriting, becoming more nervous in a much more identifiable way. He was a junior at the school attending on a baseball scholarship. A baseball player. He was a sports figure, just like the guy who had been scheduled to cause her death. It should have felt stupid that I was worrying about her just because she was dating a baseball player but it didn't. It made me very uncomfortable. I found myself wondering what kind of car he drove and if he liked to drink at parties.

Troubled, I put the letter back into the envelope and put it back on the table.

"What's the matter Bill?" Mom asked me. "You look kind of pale."

"Nothing Mom." I said, standing up. "I think I'm gonna hit the rack."

I was halfway up the stairs when it hit me. I realized why Darren Maxwell's name bothered me so much. He had the same initials as David Mitchell. The same amount of syllables in his name. I wondered if they looked alike. I wondered if I was just being paranoid, if the initials and the sports history were just a meaningless coincidence. Every time I started to convince myself that paranoia was all it was I would think about Beirut and about Nina sitting alone in the cafeteria, reading a book before she went off, alone, to medical school.

"Jesus, this is creepy." I muttered.

I lay in bed but it was a long time before I got to sleep.

I tried to call Nina twice over the weekend. The first time her mother not so politely told me that Nina did not wish to speak to me. The second time her Dad told me he would call the cops if I called there again. On Monday at school I tried to talk to her in class.

"I told you to leave me alone." She said quietly but coldly, in a voice that did not promise the opening of negotiations.

I left her alone.

Julie picked me up once again, for what I planned to be the last time. Though I wanted a job at central supply as much as anyone, I could not ride to work with her anymore. I didn't know if I was ever going to be able to bring Nina around again but it certainly wouldn't help for her to see me driving off every afternoon with Julie. I planned to tell her on the way to the hospital that this would be the last ride. But before I could, she blindsided me.

She was bubbly and exuberant as I climbed into the car and she roared off with much more enthusiasm than she usually displayed.

"You're in a happy mood today." I commented, trying to think of an opening, or closing line.

"Yep." She bubbled happily. "I sure am. You know why?"

"Why?" I asked.

"Look." She said, and waggled her left hand before my face.

I blinked in confusion, not following her. "Your hand." I said dryly. "What about it?"

"Notice anything missing?" She smiled, waggling her fingers.

And suddenly I did. The diamond engagement ring that she'd been so proud of, that she'd annoyed the living shit out of every member of the class with, was no longer on her ring finger. "Your ring." I said hollowly, knowing what the significance of it's absence had to be.

"Yep." She nodded, dropping the hand into my lap, very near my crotch. "I'm free. Absolutely free. I gave it back to him on Saturday night and told him I didn't want to marry him or see him anymore."

I took a deep breath. "Why did you do that?" I asked slowly.

"Because I don't want to see him anymore." She told me. She gave my leg a squeeze. "I've found someone else."

She'd found someone else? Oh shit. "And who might that be?" I braced myself.

She gave me a look that conveyed the message that she thought I was teasing her. "You, you hoser." She smiled. "What we experienced the other night was just, just incredible, wasn't it? I knew right then we had something special going. Didn't you just feel the electricity?"

"Oh God." I couldn't help but mutter. Could this week get any worse?

"Hey," She said, "Are your parents gone? I was thinking maybe we could cut ROP today and go over to your place." Her hand trailed upward until it was firmly in my crotch. "Spend the afternoon together?"

Slowly, patiently, I picked up her hand from my lap and put it back in hers.

"Julie." I started, and then was unable to think of anything to say.

"What?" She said, confused by my rejection of her hand and the serious tone of my voice.

I looked at the ceiling of the car for a moment, trying to think. Why the hell was she doing this to me? Didn't she understand THE RULES? She was supposed to enjoy our session and leave it at that. She wasn't supposed to break up with her fucking fiance because of it. She wasn't supposed to be feeling electricity or any of that romance novel crap. I had no experience with this sort of thing.

"Sweetie," She said, concerned. "What's wrong?"

Sweetie? Oh Christ. This was getting way out of hand.

"Look Julie." I said patiently. "I'm not your sweetie. I'm just Bill. Bill from class. We had a little fun together the other day, something we probably shouldn't have done, but I never meant for it to go any further than that. I never meant for you to break up with your fiance over it."

Her face turned deadly serious. "What are you saying?" She asked.

What was I saying? Hadn't I just said it? "What I'm saying," I told her carefully. "Is that I am not looking for a relationship with you. We just had a day of fun together."

"You don't want to go out with me?" She whispered, her tone conveying danger just under the surface.

"No." I said. "What happened between us just kind of happened. I didn't intend for it to go any further than that. Can't we just be friends?"

"Friends?" She nearly spat. "It sounds to me like you think I'm some sort of slut."

"No, no!" I protested. "That's not…"

"You take me over to your place and fuck me and you just want to end it like that? That's how guys treat sluts!"

"But…"

"I'm not no fuckin slut!" She screamed at me. "Did you think I was one? Did you think you were just gonna fuck me and then we'd forget about it the next day? How could you think that? I'm a Catholic Goddamit. I go to fucking church! Nobody treats me like a fuckin slut!"

"You're not a slut Julie." I protested. "All I was trying to say…"

She suddenly slammed on the brakes, bringing her car to a screeching, smoking halt in the middle of one of Spokane's major arteries. I heard the screech of other brakes behind us as several cars nearly rear-ended her.

"Julie, Jesus, what are…"

"Get the fuck out of my car you asshole!" She screamed at me. "Get your fuckin ass out NOW! I don't ever want to see your fucked-up, lying face again!"

"Let's talk about…"

"GET OUT!" She screamed and I saw murder in her eyes.

I unsnapped my seatbelt, opened the door, and got out. Before I could close the door she peeled away, ripping it out of my hand, leaving me standing in the middle of the street in one of the worst neighborhoods in town. I looked around uncomfortably at the angry faces of the motorists whose progress I was impeding and I hurried to the curb.

"I think I could have handled that better." I muttered to myself.

I took a quick look around me, trying to figure out what I was going to do next. I was in front of a liquor store and three blacks were hanging out in front of it. They were in their early twenties or late teens and looked like gang members based on their garb. They were smoking cigarettes and drinking from forty-ounce cans of beer. They eyed me with amusement.

"Homey," One of them said to me sympathetically. "That was one pissed off bitch."

"Yep." Another agreed. "I heard her rap all the way over here. I was you Homey, I'd stay away from that shit."

"Sure thing." The other one put in. "Bitch done dropped your ass off in the hood. You'd a been good as dead she'd a done that shit at night. Lucky for you it's day, you only half as good as dead 'round here now."

They all laughed at that, shaking their heads at my predicament. I felt no fear from them. I'd worked for years in 'the hood' and had gotten good at reading the intentions of the inhabitants of it. Their jostling of me was for their own amusement. They meant me no harm. However, there were others around that would mean me some harm if I encountered them. I was no longer in possession of the safety my uniform provided or the portable radio that I'd once carried here that could summon every cop within five square miles in less than two minutes. I was in a delicate situation.

"Yeah." I said to them. "I do seem to be out of my element here, don't I?"

This cracked them up again. "You ain't shittin." One of them said.

"The bus stop around here somewhere?" I asked.

"Right here Homey." One answered. "Should be comin round in about twenty minutes."

"Hope you can make it that long." The one that had made the crack about the hood commented.

I looked around again, not seeing anything that offered comfort to me. The street was lined with liquor stores, cheap motels, and the occasional sub-human apartment complex. There were alleys between each of the buildings that undoubtedly contained all manner of thug of all races and creeds. This was not a place to take a little stroll. I turned back to the three-man comedy team.

"Gentlemen," I said. "I propose a business deal."

"Say what?" The apparent leader of the trio asked me.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a ten-dollar bill, my weekly ration from my paycheck. I silently gave thanks that I'd increased it to ten after starting work in the hospital. "Take this ten." I said, "And take it into the liquor store there. Buy me one of those forties you're drinking, since I can use a drink about now, and give me back a buck for the bus. You guys keep the rest for yourself in exchange for keeping me from getting killed before the bus gets here."

They all stared at me for a moment, a trio of THE LOOK. Finally the leader spoke.

"And what's to stop us," He asked. "From just takin the dime and sendin your ass the fuck out of here?"

I shrugged. "Absolutely nothing." I answered.

It took them a moment but they finally started laughing. The leader, shaking his head and grinning, plucked the ten out of my fingers and headed into the store. He returned a minute later handing me a frosty, forty-ounce can of King Cobra and a dollar bill.

"You know somethin Homey?" He asked me as I cracked open the beer and took a huge swallow. "You're all right. You the most fun we had around here in a fuckin week."

And so I made it safely out of the worst area that Spokane had to offer. I boarded the bus, buzzing pleasantly from the beer that I'd just slammed into my system, gave my business partners a wave goodbye, and found myself a seat. I thought it prudent to avoid going to the hospital that day, giving Julie twenty-four hours to cool down. Since I was not accustomed to riding the bus and since I did not have any more money to spare I simply sat in my seat until the bus I was on passed near my home. It took nearly two hours and by the time I got off my bladder felt as if it was going to burst. I ran the five blocks to my house, fumbled with the key, and dashed full speed to the bathroom.

It was a fitting end to the school day I supposed.

When I came home from work that night Mom was once again sitting on the couch and watching television.

"Hi Bill." She greeted. "Feeling better today?"

"Much." I lied, putting on a cheery face.

"Have you talked to Nina?" She asked delicately.

"She won't talk to me." I answered. "But life goes on, doesn't it?"

"What did you guys fight about anyway?" She asked.

"It's kinda personal Mom." I explained. "But don't worry. I'm coping."

She gave me a sideways smile. As I started up the stairs she suddenly called me back.

"I almost forgot." She told me. "Anita called and asked if you could put up her storm windows this week sometime when she gets home. Winter's coming soon you know."

"Sure." I answered. There had been a time, about a week ago, when the news that Anita had called, asking me to do something for her would have caused a stir in my nether regions. But now, nothing. Sex was still the furthest thing from my mind. "I'll do it tomorrow afternoon."

She beamed at me. "It so sweet of you Bill." She commented. "Helping Anita out even with your busy schedule. You're turning out all right."

"I hope so." I said as I headed upstairs, realizing that for the first time in forever I was looking at a trip to Anita's as a chore.

I sensed no thawing of feelings from Nina the next day so I did not attempt to talk to her. At lunch she sat alone again at her table. Mike joined me at mine, pointing at her.

"Why's she sitting over there?" He asked, not bothering to finish chewing his food first.

"She's pissed off at me." I told him.

"How come?"

"It's personal." I answered.

He stared at me for a moment and then, in the way of Mike, dismissed the subject. "You ridin' the bus today?"

"Yep." I answered, wondering if he was going to start questioning me about Julie now.

Instead he gave me a sour look. "I'll be with you." He said.

"Yeah?" I asked. "How come?"

"Bug's broke." He told me. "The fuckin oil pump took a shit on me. Have to wait till my dad gets paid again before I can get it fixed."

I commiserated with him for a minute and then our talk turned to other subjects. After lunch we boarded the bus and found seats together. Nina, not even looking at us, found a seat by herself near the front.

My stop came before his so I bid him farewell and exited through the door along with the other ROP members assigned to the trauma center. As I headed for the main doors I saw Julie's car parked in the parking lot. I felt my nerves tense up as I anticipated having to work with her. After all, we worked with scalpels and other sharp instruments.

But as it turned out my fears were groundless. She had already talked to the supervisor apparently and had requested a change of work partner for personal reasons. My new partner was Brett Jackson, one of the other guys in the class. Julie was working with another girl in a section across the room from me. Brett asked a few questions regarding the transfer but I gave him no answers. Eventually he gave up. Julie and I stayed far apart and she did not try to cut my heart out with an unsterile scalpel. It seemed that particular crisis was passed.

When I rode home that day Nina sat away from me once more. But I also noticed the fact that Mike was not on the bus. He should have been picked up before me. Where was he? Had he found another ride home? For some reason his absence filled me with the same sense of dread I'd felt when I read Tracy's letter. When the bus dropped me off at school and Nina hopped into her Mom's car and I started home, the sensation was still with me. What had happened to Mike?

In the old days, before I'd become Anita's lover, she'd always had me over to do whatever work she required done in the afternoon shortly after I came home from school. Since the first time we were intimate with each other however it became a rule that we planned my work in the late afternoon, timed so that she could feed me dinner and then put her kids to bed in time for us to retire to her bedroom, the confines of which I knew as well as my own. As I headed over at five o'clock that day I still felt like sex was the last thing in the world I wanted to participate in. I also knew that Anita would be expecting it. Beyond that my mind refused to consider anything.

She gave me a saucy smile for greeting, a smile I knew meant that she was exceedingly horny and in need of my talents. I sighed and went to work.

By the time the sun dipped below the horizon I had all of her storm windows up (knowing in the back of my mind that I would soon be required to put up Mom and Dad's storm windows too). I entered the house to let her know I was done, intending to tell her that I was going to skip dinner that night and just head home. But as I made my way to the kitchen I smelled the familiar aroma of her burgundy beef stroganoff, a dish that she knew was one of my favorites and that she often prepared for me. I also knew that quite a bit of preparation time went into the construction of this meal and I found myself without the heart to turn it down. Besides, I rationalized, Mom, knowing I would be eating at Anita's would have prepared only enough dinner for Dad and herself.

"Do you want to take a shower before dinner?" She asked me as she started the finishing touches on her meal.

"Sure." I nodded, without enthusiasm.

As I scrubbed myself in her shower, washing the sweat of my exertions down her drain I heard the click of the shower door behind me followed by a rush of cold air against my wet skin. Startled, I turned around to see Anita, completely naked, stepping into the shower with me.

"Anita?" I said, alarmed as she shut the door and pushed her body into mine.

"What are you doing?"

She grinned. "I'm feeling a little dirty tonight." She told me, running her hands over my soapy chest.

"But the kids." I protested. "They're still awake."

"They're watching TV." She said, grabbing the bar of soap from my hand. "Don't worry about them."

She began sliding the bar of soap over my wet skin, running it up and down between my lower abdomen and my shoulders, leaving white, foamy streaks on my flesh. Her large breasts were touching my arm as she did this, pushing their weight into me.

"Anita." I started again. "This is a bad idea."

"A bad idea?" She asked, letting the bar slide down onto my thighs and across my balls.

"Yes." I nodded. "We shouldn't…"

"Why don't you let me," She said, dropping the soap to the ground. "Decide what is and isn't a bad idea."

"But…"

"Oh dear." She said with mock concern. "I've dropped the soap. Perhaps I should go retrieve it."

"Anita…" I began again but she wasn't listening. She slowly dropped to her knees on the floor of the shower and took my wilted cock into her mouth.

"Anitaaaaa…" I pleaded, trying to resist her.

It was useless. Anita knew how to suck a cock. Though I'd sworn only minutes before that sex was the last thing on my mind it took only a moment of her teasing, sucking mouth slurping at my meat before I started to stiffen.

"Mmmmmm." She moaned, pulling her mouth free for an instant. "I LOVE to feel it get hard in my mouth." She dove back down on me.

She sucked me until I was as hard as a diamond and resting my arm on the top of the shower to keep from falling down. She then began to move her head up and down, sucking and licking and jacking with her hands. Water ran across her face as she sucked, adding it's own tickles to the experience. Just as my hips started to gyrate back and forth, she pulled her mouth from me and stood up, trailing her tongue up my body as she went. She licked across my nipples, onto my neck, and finally to my mouth where she plunged her tongue inside.

Libido is both the gift and the curse of the young. She had succeeded in driving thoughts of Nina and Beirut and Tracy and Mike from my head. She'd succeeded in transferring control of me to the other head. I put my arms around her and pulled her soft body to mine, letting my hands drop down to her ass cheeks which I began squeezing.

She broke the kiss and stood back a little, out of the spray of the warm water. She reached into her shower caddy and removed a bottle of baby oil. It was the baby oil I knew, that was responsible for the silky, sensuous softness of her skin. She put it on herself every time she bathed. I'd watched her do it plenty of times.

"Here." She said throatily, handing me the bottle. "Put it on me."

"Okay." I agreed, popping open the cap.

"Be sure to rub it in good."

I turned the bottle upside down and dumped a large quantity over the top of her breasts. The clear oil ran over them, between them, and around the sides of them, spilling onto her belly. I set the bottle down and put my hands on her, starting at the top and rubbing the oil into her skin. My hands and fingers glided over her breasts, squishing them in and out of my grasp, making them slippery and almost frictionless. Her nipples stood out proudly and I took a moment to give each one a quick suck, tasting the bitterness of the oil on my tongue as my hands continued to her stomach.

When her entire belly and flank were slippery I grabbed the bottle once more and then went to my knees before her. Her swollen, dripping pussy was right before my eyes but I ignored it for the time being dumping some oil on each of her upper thighs. I began to massage her legs, starting at the top and working my way down to her feet, rubbing and caressing them until they were as slippery as her torso.

I then dumped some oil into the palm of my hand and cupped her pussy, squishing the oil into her lips. She sighed as I touched her there and I began to rub the oil in, feeling her lips swell further, feeling her slick clit rubbing against me. I slid two fingers into her body. They penetrated the slick passage with ease. Her experienced muscles gripped at me. I began to plunge the fingers in and out while I leaned forward and took her slippery, rigid clit into my mouth and began sucking it.

"Ohhhhh." Anita moaned, her hands coming to the back of my head.

When she came, her legs trembled so badly that I feared she was going to fall on me. Somehow she kept her balance, riding through the tremors I gave her.

I stood up, my dick straining out before me, with the intention of sinking into that slippery channel and taking her standing up while her oil slickened body slid against mine. But Anita had other plans.

"I still need oil on my back." She told me.

Dutifully I picked up the bottle while she turned herself around. I poured a quantity onto her shoulder blades and it tracked a course down towards her ass. I massaged the oil into her skin, working my way lower once more until my hand was probing between the cheeks of her ass. I dumped more oil, getting her good and slippery in the valley, running my hand in and out. Anita really liked it when her ass was played with and I could hear her heavy breathing as I paid her attention there.

She stepped backward a step and bent over, exposing her crotch and ass to me.

"You know what I want." She breathed, her hand going up to her pussy where it began to rub.

"I think I do." I told her, pouring a little more oil into my hands and then dropping the bottle to the floor.

I put my oily hands back between her ass cheeks and touched the bud of her anus with my index finger. I pushed forward and the digit slid into her back passage, lubing the way as her hot tunnel squeezed me. I probed in and out for a minute and then added a second finger. Anita moaned her approval.

"C'mon!" She commanded. "Do it!"

I pulled my fingers from her and grasped my cock in one hand. With the other hand I spread her slippery cheeks apart. I moved forward, putting the head against her slick asshole. I probed forward once, feeling the orifice grip at me and then I pushed into her, sliding deep into her ass in one fluid motion.

"Yessssss!" Anita groaned and I had to agree with her. Her passage was tight and slick.

I dropped my hands to her hips and began to move in and out of her, feeling her gripping and releasing, hearing her excited moans over the patter of the water. Her hand began to move faster between her legs and her hips began to move backward against me as I moved forward.

She came again and the erratic spasming of her ass around my cock brought my own orgasm forward. With Anita giving me obscene encouragement, I blasted my load deep into her bowels.

After coming she quickly rinsed herself off and got out of the shower, leaving me to give myself another once-over with the soap, particularly in my crotch. As I cleaned my body I gave silent thanks for Anita. She'd given me just what I needed and I felt better, calmer than I had before coming over. I was pleased to find that I had come quite nicely without having to think of Nina at all. In fact she'd hardly entered my mind.

Dinner was up to it's usual standards, which was excellent, and by the time it was over and the kids were in bed I was ready for another session. So was Anita. We went to her bedroom and spent about an hour pleasuring each other in the conventional fashion.

After this, as we were lying together on her bed, sweat drying on our bodies, my seed dribbling from between her thighs and puddling on her comforter I stared at the ceiling, letting my thoughts flow. Beside me, Anita was in a semi-stupor, drifting towards a full-fledged sleep. She often drifted off after we were done, leaving me to shower and find my way out alone. I'd always taken this as a sign that I'd done a good job.

I thought of Anita, thinking back on our relationship together since that first time I'd come over pleading for her help with a girlfriend problem, engineering her seduction of me. Since then we'd never gone a week without finding ourselves in each other's arms, in each other's body. As far as physical pleasure went she still remained the best. I wondered if, when she met the man she would marry, she would constantly compare him to me? Or would she maybe teach him some of my techniques? This thought actually amused me, making me chuckle for perhaps the first time during that miserable week. Anita teaching her new boyfriend and future husband some of the things she'd learned from a teenager.

I yawned and stretched, preparing to hop out of her bed and head for the shower when a thought from left field suddenly struck me. I froze in mid-stretch, coming fully awake, turning me head and looking at my bed-partner that was just about to give in to the final submersion of sleep.

Anita was already supposed to be dating the man that would marry her! She was supposed to have met him before Tracy graduated from high school. I remembered that clearly from my previous life. He'd been at her side at Tracy's funeral! By the time I went off to college she was supposed to have married him and moved away. But she was doing none of that. She had no boyfriend. The closest thing she had was… me.

What had happened? Why hadn't she started dating him? Why wasn't she falling into her previous pattern as Beirut and Nina were doing? I tried as hard as I could to rationalize a reason for the absence of the boyfriend but only one explanation held water. I had interfered with that by starting a relationship of my own with her.

What had been his name? I thought, trying to remember back over a considerable span of years. Something with a J in it was all I could come up with at first. The name danced for a while on the tip of my tongue until finally I was able to snag it. The last name continued to elude me but a first name was all I needed.

"Anita?" I said, shaking her gently until her eyes opened a little. She stared up at me blearily.

"Whu?" She grumbled.

"Do you know anybody named Jack?" I asked her.

"Huh?" She said, waking up a little more now.

"Jack." I repeated. "Do you know anyone named Jack?"

"My ex-father-in-law's name is Jack." She said. "Do you mean him?"

"No." I shook my head. "Any other ones?"

She thought for a second. "Well there's Jack Valentine at work." She said.

Bingo! Once she told me the last name it came back to me. Her future married name was supposed to be Anita Valentine.

"Why would you ask that?" She wanted to know.

"Tell me about Jack Valentine." I prodded her.

She gave me a puzzled look for a second but, like Tracy and Nina, she was well used to the occasional strange question or statement from me. "He transferred to my department about a year ago." She finally said. "He's divorced and kind of good looking. He asked me out a few times last year but finally he gave up when I kept turning him down. He's dating some tramp from accounting now. Word has it their relationship isn't going so well."

"Why," I asked cautiously, "Did you turn him down when he asked you out?"

She looked at me strangely and then smiled. "Why would I want to go out with some pinhead when I got you?" She asked. "You take care of ALL my needs. Well, most of them anyway."

"Anita," I said, thinking as quickly as I could about how I was going to phrase this. If I'd learned nothing else from my experience with Julie it was to treat a woman during a conversation like this as you would an unexploded bomb. "Don't you think that, well, maybe you should occasionally go out with guys your own age?"

"Why?" She asked softly.

Why? "Uh…, well, you know, because you might want to uh, develop a relationship with a man and maybe, you know, get married again someday."

"I would like to get married again someday." She told me, scooting a little closer to me. "And I DO have a relationship with a guy going. You."

"But Anita." I said. "I'm only seventeen years old. I'm in high school. I'll be going off to college next year."

"I know." She nodded, slapping playfully at me with her hand. "And once you're eighteen years old we won't have to keep our relationship a secret anymore. We'll be free."

"Free?" I said, looking at her like a rabbit in a set of headlights.

"Yes." She nodded. "I figure I can go with you wherever you go to college. I can get a job practically anywhere with my skills. We can rent a house while you get your degree. The only hard thing is going to be telling your parents about us." She shook her head sadly while I stared with my mouth agape. "That's certainly not going to be fun."

"No," I muttered slowly, numbly. "It wouldn't be fun at all, would it?"

She leaned over and kissed my nose with a quick peck. "But don't worry." She assured me. "It'll work out. Love will find a way. Why don't you go take your shower now? You don't want to make your parents suspicious do you?"

"No." I said. "That wouldn't do at all."

I was deeply troubled once again as I walked home and headed upstairs that evening. I brushed by my mother before she had a chance to get a good look at my face and see my emotions there. As I crawled under my covers and shut off my light I found myself actually grateful for my fight with Julie. It was thoughts of her that had kept me from telling Anita then and there that I had no intention of marrying her or having her follow me to college. In fact I never intended to sleep with her again. But I had to think carefully first about how I was going to break that news to her. It was clear that I was in the process of screwing up her life but good. Instinctive moves to correct this action might not necessarily be the best ones. The situation would need to be reflected upon first.

As I was reflecting I fell asleep. When I woke up a whole new day was beginning.

I half expected Mike to show up at my house in order to walk to school with me since his car was broken. When he didn't, I figured that one of his parents must have given him a ride. I didn't see him during the classroom portion of the day at all but that was hardly unusual. During lunch period, when I still didn't see him I was forced to conclude that he wasn't there. The conclusion was confirmed when I boarded the bus for ROP and he wasn't there either.

Where was he? I wondered worriedly. Was he sick? Had he maybe taken ill during his shift the previous day? Although that nicely explained why he hadn't been on the bus yesterday or today it didn't ring true. I had a premonition of more disaster brewing. A premonition that turned out to be correct.

Mike was supposed to come over to my house for a study session after school and when he didn't show up I called his house, noting that my hands were trembling a little as I dialed. He answered the phone on the second ring.

"Mike?" I asked. "What's up?"

"Nothin'." He told me sourly.

"Where were you today?" I asked him. "Didn't see you in school or at ROP."

There was a long pause. Finally he said, "I got in trouble yesterday dude."

My heart started hammering in my chest as I heard his words. I forced myself to ask, "What kind of trouble?"

"The captain at the station caught me smoking a joint out behind the apparatus bay."

"What?" I asked slowly. "You were smoking a joint there?"

"Yeah." He answered. "I usually smoked them in the car on the way to the station but I didn't have my car. Figures he'd come out to have a smoke just when I was trying to take a few hits."

"And what happened?" I asked next.

"I got suspended for a week." He told me. "I also got kicked out of ROP. They're gonna give me three classes to replace it."

"Mike, Jesus." I said, unable to think of anything else.

"It's cool." He told me. "I didn't really like hangin out at the fuckin fire station anyway. And the captain was an asshole. Anyway I had a meeting with the counselor and my parents today and she said I should give the independent study a try."

"You're not gonna do it are you?" I asked quickly.

"Yeah." He told me. "I am. Fuck going to class for six hours every day."

"Mike." I told him. "This isn't the end. You can still stay in school and graduate next year. You can still get on with the fire department after you graduate. You just have to tell them in the interview that you were a dumb kid and that…"

"Fuck that." Mike said angrily. "I'm going into independent study. We sent in the application today. Should be approved by next week."

"Mike," I pleaded, "We're almost halfway through the school year! You'll be done before you know it! Just hang in there for another few…"

"Fuck it!" He repeated. "I'm staying in that fuckin shithole any longer than I have to. I shoulda gone into independent study in the first place. I'd a been done by now.

"But…"

"I gotta go." He said. "I'll see you around."

With a click he hung up the phone. Slowly I replaced mine in the holder.

I sat for the longest time, trying to think my way through all of the crap that had suddenly come down in the last week but I couldn't. There was too much of it and it was cluttering up my mind. I would no sooner start to think about one aspect when another would push it's way forward, demanding my attention.

I went upstairs to my room and opened up my nightstand drawer. I looked in the cutout section of my bible and found what I needed. I took it out and pocketed it carefully. When Dad got home I asked him if I could use his car for a few hours. He handed me the keys and asked if I would be home for dinner.

"Probably not." I told him, heading out the door.

I drove to the park near the falls; the location of many a kegger. No keggers were going on at the moment since it was daytime and no families were picnicking at the moment since it was October and the weather wasn't quite up for such things. I locked up Dad's car and walked to a trail that led down to the river near the top of the falls. I began hiking.

Twenty minutes later I was standing less than a hundred yards from where the water arced over the cliff. The roar of the falls was very loud and a fine mist from below drifted through the air, blown by the prevailing winds. I found myself a comfortable spot and sat down. I then reached into my pocket and pulled out the half joint that I'd extricated from my bible.

I'd noticed long before I'd been recycled that a little marijuana helped me think deeply about things. It helped keep my thoughts from being sidetracked into something else. Though I was aware of the irony of what I was doing, using the very substance that had brought Mike down in order to help come up with a solution to his problem, as well as the many others that I'd set in motion, I took out a lighter and lit the joint. As I smoked I stared at the falls, watching the water cascade over the edge to its collision with the lower river. The sight was mesmerizing, the sound nothing but white noise. By the time I'd finished the roach my mind was clear and I began trying to think things through.

Patterns. That was what it came down to. There were two separate time lines I was dealing with. What had happened in my first trip from 1982 to 1999 and what was happening in my second trip. When I'd first come over it had seemed so simple. Everything was new, everything was fresh. I had not really believed at all that I would have to worry about the way things had turned out in my first life. But now, after all the things that had happened, I was seeing definite patterns between the two time lines. Though some things had changed I was seeing a definite tendency for things, people especially, to drift into the patterns that had apparently been set for them. As for who or what had set those patterns, I knew not and I cared not. I was only concerned with the question of whether or not the patterns were tendencies or absolute.

Mike. In my previous life he'd gone to independent study and dropped out of school. He'd joined the Air Force a few years later and the few times I heard from him after that he'd seemed to like his job as missile technician in Wyoming. However he was discovered to have marijuana in his system after a random drug test and given a choice between an Article 15 or a dishonorable discharge without criminal complaint, he chose the discharge. In this time line I'd successfully steered him off of that path at it's beginning and onto a different one, that of a firefighter. I'd kept him in high school longer than he had been previously and I'd honestly thought that I'd changed his destiny. But then he was caught using marijuana at the fire station. He was thrown out of ROP and was now planning to re-enter independent study. He'd steered himself right back into the other path with only two days worth of effort. Was he now committed to that path? Was there no way for me to steer him back again? Was it pointless to even try?

Nina. In her previous life she'd been taunted and ignored throughout her school years, eventually turning into a bitter, though highly educated person. It would be readily apparent to every person that dealt with her on a regular basis in my first life that she suffered from a raging inferiority complex. She was driven by the desire to appear smarter, better, faster, more competent, more everything, than everyone else around her. She was driven by this desire because deep inside she would always be the butt of everyone's jokes and would always feel she was inferior to everyone. The facade she would put up to convince herself and others to the contrary would often be brutal to those it touched. But in this timeline I'd steered her off of that path. I'd befriended her and, with the help of others, showed her that she really was a good person. For the longest time it seemed she could not fall into her original pattern. And then yours truly, in my idiocy, jerked her heart out of her chest and stomped on it. Now she was back to eating alone in the cafeteria, back to being uncommunicative with everyone. She was on her way to college and medical school next year. In the nineties would she show up in the emergency room in Spokane once again with the same chip on her shoulder, the same attitude? Although the trip took a different pathway than before it sure seemed to me she was heading for the same place.

Tracy. This was the problem that concerned me more than anything else. In the previous time line a football player named David Mitchell had gotten drunk one night and driven my sister into the Spokane River, killing her. I'd prevented that from occurring, true enough, but it was disquieting to me that the Camero had STILL crashed into the river, that Lisa Sanchez had STILL been killed in the accident, and that Barbie Langston, who had taken Tracy's place in the car, had NOT been killed. And now Tracy was dating a baseball player named Darren Maxwell. Was it coincidence that he had the same initials? Was fate simply waiting for another chance to claim Tracy, who's demise was already written in some celestial book somewhere? If so, was there anything I could do about it? Was there anything she could do about it?

And that brought me to the troubling problem of Anita. She, for a change of pace, had deviated way off of the path that she'd taken before. She had not gone out with the man that she was going to marry in the previous time line and had instead fallen in love with me after I'd initiated an affair with her. She called her intended a pinhead in fact. Why was Anita different? Or was she?

I stared at the falls and ran all these things through my mind, one by one. Mike, Anita, Tracy, Myself, Beirut, trying to determine if there were any absolutes, any hard, fast rules to this thing. I stayed there for a long time, staring and thinking, thinking and staring, watching the water rush by in the river.

Was fate, I wondered, like that river? A liquid stream rushing along towards a fixed destination. All of the billions of drops of water in that river were destined to end up, eventually, in the ocean. You could take a few drops out and move them back upstream a few feet or a few miles but they would still end up passing by the same point again, they would still end up in the ocean. A few drops would occasionally splash out of the stream for a while, seeming to free themselves of the current but they would eventually be brought right back into the flow. That was their destiny. That was their fate.

But was it possible for a few drops to occasionally escape that river, to find a new path? Sometimes it was. They could be taken away clinging to the bathing suit of a child or scooped up by a motorist whose vehicle had overheated and deposited into a radiator. They could be lapped away from the river by a deer or a coyote or a bear or even a stray dog. Though most of the drops were fated to continue on their way to the Pacific Ocean; it was possible for some to escape, wasn't it?

When I finally left I was soaked from the mist, shivering, probably on the verge of hypothermia, and I had a bitch of a headache.

But I felt better all the same.