Chapter 62: A Fumbled Invitation

Thursday, December 12, 1985

Cepheid Variable again saved the day. They were offering ‘The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T’ tonight, and Amy loved the idea. I had seen it, but I was pretty sure I could convincingly pretend ignorance.

It might well have been the strangest Dr. Seuss film of all, but I remembered it being a lot of fun. Watching it with Amy should be even more fun. Every time we were together, a few more pieces came together. Still similar to Jess in that way, but Jess had, by and large, been who she was all the way through until learning some things changed her path. Amy, though, was changing quickly, under the influence of the new and previously unexplored catalysis a relationship with a boy brought on in her.

Good changes, ones we would enjoy.

I went with my usual slightly conservative but complementary outfit for dates with Amethyst, picking a gray shirt, black pants, and dark shoes. There was a new difference, though. I’d managed to find some purple socks and a purple belt. Hopefully, she would like them.

I drove over to the Commons, left the car in the lot, then headed up to her floor in Mosher. When she answered the door, Amy was dressed nearly the same way as she had been for our last two dates.

“Hi!” she said, grinning a bit as her eyes took in the belt (and maybe the socks). She stepped out and hugged me.

“Hello!” I said, hugging her right back, with a bit more of a squeeze than I would use for most girls.

She made a soft moaning sound, letting me hold her for a bit. I let her go before it became odd. She gave me a big smile as we separated.

This time, I talked very briefly to her roommate Meg. It felt like it was time to really introduce ourselves. Meg was nowhere near as close to Amy as Kay was to Claire, or even as Louise was to Darla, but she was still curious about the guy her roommate was seeing.

Or I think she was, anyway. We didn’t talk long.

Amy and I held hands on the walk to the MSC, talking about classes and holiday plans while walking and picking out our meals. She would be at home for some of the time, but she and her parents were visiting relatives in Missouri for about a week and a half including Christmas and New Year’s. It sounded like something she actually liked, which slightly surprised me. It turned out that she thought her relatives were ‘fine,’ but loved bundling up and going for walks in the snow and cold. Her collar and cuffs were banned for the entire trip, but her parents were resigned to them at home. She would likely wear a choker and maybe some thick bracelets so she wouldn’t feel their absence as much.

I told her about some of our plans, including that I intended to propose to Jasmine. That had been a worry, but she seemed to love the idea and was very happy for us. To her, Jas and I were ‘together.’ One step further together changed nothing for her. Jas shared, and that was that.

Toward the end of dinner, she said, “I have been practicing a little. It is ... you know ... the ... sides of me. You may think of them as Amethyst and Amy, perhaps.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple, but ... yes,” I said. “I try to remember that you are both, and neither, and more than either or even both.”

“That is ... a surprisingly astute way to put it. Though I shouldn’t find it surprising,” she said. “Amy is me. Amethyst is also me. Amy is the name my parents gave me, while Amethyst is the name I gave myself. But, if there is an Amy, she is the ‘me’ most people see. The one who smiles and uses what I think are ‘regular vocal expressions’...”

I could practically hear the quotes.

“And so forth. Amethyst is more ... the default me. But she is also a subset of ... me.”

I nodded.

“‘Dating Amy’ is ... well. An awkward name,” she said, then laughed. It was a perfectly normal-sounding laugh, and I couldn’t help but join her.

“But ... well. Last time, I realized some things sound bizarre if I don’t try to make them ... average-sounding. Putting emotion into words doesn’t come naturally to me, but ... emotionless words sound ... disinterested, when one is actually overwhelmed by emotions.”

“I knew what you meant,” I said.

“Oh, I know,” she said, nodding. “That was clear. I want to try this, though. It ... I think it will help me, not just you. It’s ... self-reinforcing. If I convey excitement, I also hear it, and it ... resonates.”

“For me ... be yourself,” I said. “That’s being yourself, so it’s great. My point is more ... I want to date Amethyst, Amy, both, or whoever you want to be. I don’t want to say, ‘This is the version of you I want to date.’ That’s your call.”

“And, for me, that’s ... very unexpected,” she said. “In a very good way, but ... it is...”

She hesitated, then said, “Would you mind if I told my parents I was seeing someone? No details. I will tell them no details, and they will respect it. Although, given how confused I make them, I am honestly not sure if telling them I’m dating an almost engaged man whose girlfriend knows all about me and is unexpectedly also becoming my friend will even bother them. It would have, once, but they seem as likely as not to merely shrug and say, ‘That’s happy news, dear. We hope you have a wonderful time with it.’”

“I’m fine with whatever you want to tell them,” I said. “I’m me, and I’m comfortable being me. My parents don’t know that I see other girls, or at least not much of it, and it’s going to be a really awkward conversation, but...”

“But it is not their business, and ... in the end ... they will still love you.”

“Definitely! They’re handling ... no, that’s wrong. They embraced the idea of Angie marrying a girl. My having an open relationship is very likely to be minor by comparison.”

She laughed softly.

“That makes sense. I imagine it would be a shock for most parents.”

“It was, but they’ve been unexpectedly wonderful.”

“I’m very glad,” she said. Then she added, “The reason is: they will be relieved. I feel certain that they’ve always imagined me alone. And I might still be. Oh, perhaps with some cats. That does not seem like a bad thing, and I don’t imagine I will settle down with you — simply because you are settling down with Jasmine — but, if I can date one person, perhaps I can date another. Or, perhaps, I’ll be back to planning my quiet house with cats, but I’ll know what there is out there and it will be a decision, not a default.”

“Cats are nice.”

“Cats are both prickly and soft,” she said, then wiggled a studded bracelet. “They do what they want. I relate to them.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “We’ve been very happy to add Tony and Cleo to our household.”

“Tony and Cleo?” she asked.

“Oh! I may not have mentioned them. We have two cats. I’m sure they were put away when you were over. We don’t want them to get out.”

“I would enjoy meeting them,” she said, eyes sparkling a bit. “It was ... loud ... when I went there before, and I didn’t know many of the people. One or the other would be fine, but it was a bit ... overwhelming. And emotional, with you well again.”

“I’m sorry I worried you, honey,” I said.

“I am not!” she said. “For one thing, you didn’t choose to have your appendix rupture. But ... it’s more than that. I say I am happy that someone has not died, and ... I am. I am very happy. But I do not expect them to die. That is rare. You ... might have. And you did not. That ... matters. We are all going to die one day. It is what it is to be alive. To be human. We are alive; we die. I believe we are not done, but we die. Worrying was hard, but seeing you healthy is a reminder of how precious life is and to not squander it by not truly living. If I am wrong about what comes next, one day I will be not living. There is no reason to not be living before that day comes.”

“That ... is, honestly, amazingly cool,” I said, nodding. “It’s a perspective I really like. And, for the record — and not just to humor you — I also believe we are not done just because we die.”

She nodded, and said, “I was sure you believed me, honestly, about Cindy. That she had told me she would be fine. And ... you said you believed in there being more, though not what most religions teach.”

“There are many stories of reincarnation out there. Some of them seem ... well, they’re persuasive enough to have me questioning things. Odd things like that. And stories like yours, with Cindy. Or near-death experiences where the person relates things they could not have known or seen. Once or twice might be the brain misfiring and causing a lucky guess or two, but there are too many.”

“That ... fits. We are kindred spirits that way.”

Then she looked at her watch and said, “We should go. I would not want to miss Doctor Seuss!”

“Me, neither!” I said.

“So, neither of us has seen this,” she said, holding hands.

“No. It looks interesting.”

“I have been a fan since I was very little. The wordplay. The way sounds collide and juxtapose. The nonsense words that still have meaning. All of it. And, then, the Grinch. And the Sneeches. So on, and so forth. The way good things can sometimes be bad, and bad things can sometimes be good.”

“I agree,” I said. “I’ve always been a fan, too. It’ll be interesting to see how it translates to live action.”

She nodded eagerly.

“I...” she said, then hesitated. After a second, she squeezed my hand and said, “It is still quite unexpected to be able to share this with a man on a date. All of it. The man, the date, the sharing. It was not part of my hopes, really. I like it very much.”

“I’m glad, and I’m greatly enjoying it, too. And ... it’s unexpected for me, too, but sometimes those are the best things.”

“Sometimes they are,” she agreed, nodding quickly.

We settled in and chatted about other Dr. Seuss stories for a while, then quieted when the movie began.

My memories said that ‘The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T’ was a strange movie, and indeed it was. It had been a serious flop when it came out, and initial reviews were dismal. Yet, it was slowly being reevaluated even today. Thirty years later still, newly published critical reviews had been much more positive.

Perhaps it was merely ahead of its time. The 1950s was not a time of surrealism in mainstream American entertainment, and this was a very surreal movie.

Amy was mesmerized, and that was more than reason enough to see it again (and for the first time).

As we left, and her fingers found mine, she said, in a surprisingly playful tone of voice, “After watching so many fingers playing pianos, this seems ... surreal.”

I chuckled and nodded.

“That was an unusual movie, and ... I feel as if I have some authority on the unusual,” she said.

I chuckled again, and said, “Good one! And, I agree. It was. I liked it, but I can see why many people didn’t.”

“I can, too. It is not simple, nor is it light. It is dark and surreal. Scary in places. These are all things I like, but ... many people do not. It is...”

She paused, nodded to herself, then said, “It is not that I ... I can ... I do like many simple, lighthearted movies. Some people ... many goth people, for instance ... think one must only like complicated, dark, and depressing things. Fun is fun! Say... ‘Back to the Future’, since you mentioned it before. Though ... there are moments that are dark and depressing, and there is darkness lurking in places where most will only see light.”

“I saw that, too.”

“I like films with that dichotomy. ‘Star Wars’, for instance. Dark and light, literally and figuratively. Light wins, but Dark is not vanquished, and the underlying story suggests that neither dark nor light can ever ‘win.’ Both together are required. Even the first movie suggests it, but the second is so much stronger.”

“Oh, I agree,” I said. “Sometimes you just want the good guys to win, of course. But reality is seldom that simple. Take a step back and look at ‘The Grinch’. On the surface, the Grinch is simply a grump, and he ends up transformed by the power of goodness. But there are questions. Was the Grinch simply misinterpreting, or was there always a mix of goodness and not-so-goodness in the Whos? The commercialism, the overconsumption. Did he have a point?”

She dropped my hand to clap hers twice, then took it again.

“Yes!” she said. “Some people will see that, but many will not. And there is much to complain about in how we celebrate Christmas, but some complain too much. There is goodness in the holidays, no matter what one believes about Jesus. Family. Sharing. Celebration. Grinches are wrong for attacking too much, but those who only see the good are missing something, too.”

“I think this is why movie dates work. For me, at least.”

“Oh?”

“The conversations. Simply watching a movie is passive. We can’t talk. We can hold hands, snuggle, and share the experience that way. But the conversations afterward can be wonderful,” I said.

“They can be!”

“Or the opposite. We saw a beautiful old movie last year — ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’. It’s dated in places, and not all of it is good, but there is so much going on. But one of the people we went with saw only ‘men behaving badly.’ For her, that was the gist of it. That’s fine, but it didn’t fit with her date, and they stopped dating.”

“He preferred to behave badly?” she said, clearly joking.

“She preferred to see men as more nuanced,” I said.

“Ah! Most interesting.”

We crossed the little bridge, but this time its magic did not stop us. Perhaps it knew we should be elsewhere.

We chatted on about movies and such until we reached my car. I paused, and said, “Are you interested in a drive, Miss Finch?”

She shook her head and said, “Can we go back to my dorm room?”

I was surprised, but not unhappy. It was late, she might be tired, and the movie hadn’t exactly been sexy. She didn’t seem upset at all.

We walked past several rows of cars before she stopped abruptly, then groaned and rolled her eyes. Neither was usual for Amy. Or Amethyst. Either one.

“Wait!” she said, looking somewhere between embarrassed and panicked.

“Yes?” I said.

“I ... said that ... what I said ... totally wrong.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

She stepped closer, turning to face me, and brought her arms up around my neck.

“I practiced that, then just ... failed.”

“I still don’t understand,” I said.

“It was supposed to be...” she said.

Then her voice changed a bit, her expression softened a touch, and she leaned in, adding a little more pressure to the hug.

“Maybe we could go back to my dorm room?” she said. She seemed to be trying to follow the rhythms of a woman in a romantic comedy. Perhaps she’d practiced, but she was not a very good actress as of yet.

I knew what she was trying to do, and that was what mattered. But, if you put this scene in an actual rom-com, it would get laughter, and this was very much not a laughing moment.

“I would love to go back to your dorm room,” I said, smiling.

“I failed badly at that, didn’t I?” she said as we joined hands again and started walking, her face more than a little red.

“No. No, you didn’t.”

“I am sure I did,” she said. “It came out all wrong.”

“For you to have failed badly, I would either have to not know what you really meant, or I would have to have found it unattractive. I know what you meant, Amethyst, and the whole thing was quite endearing. Now, the first time you said it ... yes, you failed badly.”

She snorted at that, but then stopped.

“You found it ... endearing?”

“Oh, very much so.”

She blinked a few times, then stepped closer.

“That is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me, I think.”

“I’m glad, then. You deserve to have nice things said to you.”

She made a weird noise, somewhere between a sigh and a growl, put her arms right back around my neck, and kissed me quite eagerly. A moan escaped her as my arms wrapped around her and hugged.

After we broke the kiss, she said, “I am so glad you ... liked that. Like me. Want to come back to my room with me.”

“I am very glad you like me and want me to come back to your room. Amy, from a male perspective, just remember: the guy is always the lucky one in any relationship.”

She bit her lip thoughtfully, cocked her head, and considered it. After a second, she said, “I must be an exception to the rule. I am certain that I am the lucky one.”

“We can both be the lucky ones. That’s allowed. Heck, that’s the best outcome. But no matter how much both people are lucky, the guy is still always the lucky one.”

“That ... makes ... no logical sense...” she said. Then she stopped, looked at me, and said, “But it isn’t intended to. It makes emotional sense to you. Yes?”

“Yes, very much so.”

“I will think about it. And ask some girls. Because ... things that make emotional sense to other people often do not for me until I think about them. The other part, though — about both of us being lucky — that makes both logical and emotional sense.”

“We’ll go with that, then,” I said. “Happily so.”

She shifted back to my side, and we kept walking.

Looking up at me, she said, “I asked my roommate if she would do me the favor of ‘needing to step out for a couple of hours’ if I arrived at home with you, so ... that is what I very much hope will happen.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” I said.

She considered that a bit. Then her eyes widened a bit.

“I think ... you are saying that most girls would not admit they set things up to be alone with a man.”

“Pretty much that, yes.”

She shrugged. “I am not like most girls. And you would realize I must have done so. Otherwise, why would I invite you back, if Meg would be there?”

“Maybe you wanted to talk?”

“We will certainly talk!” she said. “But, no. I ... you are not ‘most men,’ and I am not ‘most girls.’ There are rules about being ‘forward’ and ... there are simply so many rules. I could follow them, but you want me to be me, and ... I seem to be forward.”

“Many of those rules are silly and stupid,” I said. “But, yes. I’m unusual. Not everyone would think that. It might intimidate them, or it might ... overencourage them...”

“You mean because a forward girl might have fewer inhibitions?” she said.

“That’s pretty much it.”

She shrugged.

“I do not even know what inhibitions I have. Maybe we will find out together.”

“I would very much enjoy that.”

“Even if the inhibitions get in the way?” she said, in a weird half-teasing, half-legitimate-question sort of way.

“Even if. The point, for me, isn’t to get as far as we can as fast as we can. The point is to get to know each other and enjoy being together.”

She sighed.

“That is ... very good. I like that very much.”

“I’m glad.”

When we reached her room, she moved into my arms for a putative (but, most likely, not actual) good night kiss. After that, she opened her door.

Meg looked up from the papers she was working on, scribbled a few things, and then said, “Hi, Amy! Hi, Steve!”

“Hi, Meg,” Amy said.

“Hello,” I said.

“Good date?” Meg asked.

“Very good. The movie was quite entertaining, and the company was better,” Amy said.

Meg smiled and said, “I’m glad. So ... I had some friends call and I have to go out for a few hours.”

“That’s fine,” Amy said. “I’ll see you when you return.”

“Have fun!” Meg said. “Good to see you, Steve!”

She left, closing the door behind her.

“That was awkward,” Amy said, giving a little snort. “I think she is amused at the idea of me having a man who will come back to my room with me. Also somewhat baffled that the man is someone she would be attracted to.”

I reminded myself that, just as my friends had once said there was no limit to what might come out of my mouth, Amy was much the same.

“You got all of that from just now?” I said.

She snorted a little again and said, “No. She asked about you. Not in a predatory way, but it was clear, from little things she said, that she found you attractive. I believe she expected anyone I might be interested in to have these...”

She waved a wrist cuff in the air.

“ ... and colored hair. And wear black, and so forth.”

“I, for one, am glad you have a broader range of interests.”

She snorted again, saying, “My interest range was, formerly, ‘people who are interested in me and not awful to be around.’ The surprising part is that you are the opposite of awful, not merely not awful.”

“I’m glad about that!” I said.

She took a deep breath, started to say something, then stopped.

Then she tried again, and stopped just as quickly.

“Amethyst,” I said. “You can say whatever you want. I’m not going to be judging you on it, if you’re thinking of being ‘forward’ or ‘pushy’ or ... whatever other word you might think.”

“I am... ‘slutty’ might apply, perhaps. Along with ‘forward.’”

“‘Slutty,’ as a putdown, I particularly do not like.”

She giggled — something she wasn’t good at, but she was improving — and said, “What would it be if not a putdown?”

“Playful. Leaning into words like that defangs them.”

She bit her lip, then nodded. “So, if I said, ‘Ooh, I want to be slutty with you!’ that would ... defang it?”

“It would,” I said, surprised that she’d actually made that sound the way I thought she had wanted it to sound.

“That’s not ... yet ... the meaning I wanted. Let us ... let us start out ... where I meant to. Which is: we have seen all of each other, but it was in a cramped space in somewhat poor light. I have never seen all of a man in good lighting. And no one has ever seen all of me in good lighting. I ... would like to change that, if you would.”

“I would,” I said. “Who first? Or, together?”

She bit her lip and said, “You? If you would be willing?”

“I would,” I said. “Would you like to ... do the honors?”

She blushed at that, then considered it.

“Actually ... yes. That sounds good!”

It was endearing watching her struggle with expressions and vocal tones. She had a plan, and she was following it, but it was like watching an actor learn a new role. There were many missteps along the way.

She stepped over and started to remove my shirt. Her hands spent a considerable amount of time on my skin, enough to make it clear this wasn’t just about seeing me. My pants followed, with an awkward moment when she realized my shoes should have gone before that. As she took them off and tossed them to the side, my socks got a grin.

Again, my legs, hips, and ass got a reasonable amount of attention from her hands along the way. All of this had my cock quite interested.

“So...” she said, then half-knelt and slowly dragged my underwear off.

“I repeat what I said before,” she said. “It is lovely. You are lovely, but it in particular is.”

“And I will repeat that I can’t see that.”

She nodded a bit.

“Purely on aesthetics, I approve of women. Smooth, curvy, less hair, all of that. But there is something ... there are many somethings ... to men. Strength, for one thing. A feeling of solidity. Of safety. The paradox — at least, with you, or with any man I think I would want to be with — of you needing to be, almost by definition, an aggressor, a taker, your body needing to intrude into someone else’s, but yet the feeling that you will use your strength for protection, not intrusion.”