Chapter 64: Further Negotiations

Saturday, December 14, 1985

We all slept late, of course. Given how last night had gone, it just made sense. Everyone was up by late morning, though, and we had a lively conversation during brunch.

Paige hoped we would get a huge settlement from the police department, and everyone else agreed.

I thought about it, then said, “I think, unless this is life-changing money, we should turn it down. Or, maybe better, donate it back to the police department.”

“Why?” Jas said.

Angie was already nodding along, though.

“Because money doesn’t get us a lot,” I said. “Sure, for most college students, some four- or five-digit settlement would be ‘life-changing.’ They would get some big vacation and a cool stereo or whatever. We don’t care. Villanova was ‘life-changing.’ However, Cammie’s going to be doing business in the College Station area for many years. Having the police and mayor on her side is much more life-changing.”

Cammie said, “So ... I don’t have as much money...”

She waved off people, trying to reassure her.

“I know — it’s just a matter of time, and I’m way better off than I was. We’ll see how much it is, but ... yeah. Them fucking with Camel’s properties would suck way more than even, say, $10,000 would be nice.”

“We could travel a lot of places with $10,000,” Mel said, clearly playing devil’s advocate.

“Sure, but all we need is Code Compliance deciding the sewer system is fucked up. We would be out $10k on that one thing. I’m not saying they would do that. The last thing they’ll want is to make trouble. What I am saying is, probably we can negotiate something where we’re not getting as much grief over stuff. That will pay off, especially if we build the sort of business we want, where we’re actually building homes and apartments.”

“I’m good with it,” Mel said. “The thing is ... we all know, or think we know, that eventually money is going to be there. And you already have a valuable credential. Heck, we can borrow some and travel. I bet we could negotiate a zero-interest loan.”

Cammie opened her mouth, then stopped.

“You know...” she said, after a second. “I would’ve shot that down until really recently. Like ... it’s still mooching. Except, it really isn’t, not anymore. Which ... is seriously amazing. I mean ... Girlfriend’s right. I do have a credential, and I am making money. Right now! It’s not, ‘Well, in a couple of years, the degree will pay off.’ Or all of the other things. It’s ... yeah. There’s already actual money there. And...”

She almost misted up a bit, then said, “If we’re right ... this whole thing, as sucky as it was, might mean I’m really, truly, finally free! No more stupid harassment, no more dumb cards, no more ... anything. Done! It’s not like every problem in my life is over, but ... all I ever wanted was to be free. It was just so damn scary! All of you made it less scary, but ... if everything goes completely to hell, you have parents. I have a black hole where they used to be.”

“If everything goes completely to hell, you have family,” Angie said. “And you always will.”

This time Cammie sniffled, then sniffled again. Then the tears started flowing for real.

“I know,” she said through the tears. “I really do! And ... I know there’s no ‘debt’ or anything. But I’ll be grateful for each of you every day, for the rest of my life. I love you, all of you, so much!”

“Me most,” Mel said, grinning a bit.

“You totally most!” Cammie said, giggling and hugging Mel.

After we’d quieted down, Cammie said, “There’s one thing we really need.”

“What’s that?” Mel said.

“The arrests have to go away. Poof, like they never happened. Just having an arrest record could screw up my real estate license, and it gets worse from there.”

“On the list,” I said. “I agree. A professor I once knew said everyone should be willing to get arrested for a good cause, and I agree, but this won’t look like that. It’s gotta go. If they won’t expunge it, we’ll sue the hell out of them. But they will.”

“Glad you’re confident!” Cammie said. “Though ... yeah. I am, too.”

We all agreed to avoid mentioning this to the parents. There were a lot of witnesses, and it might get out, but they would worry much more than they should. They would get it, and we might need to explain the whole thing over Christmas break, but trying to do it over the phone would be a mess.

Once the police discussion was concluded, we spent some time on the phone catching up. There would be some studying this weekend, but everyone agreed to put it off until tomorrow. Today was for relaxation.

Well, and dates, at least for Jas and me. She was seeing Monique, and they had decided to take the basement guest room. That left our room for Darla and me. She might not even want to come here — there was still the possibility of housemates teasing her — but I thought she might be past that now. After all, she had told most of them the intimate details, and she knew the others were going to hear, too.

I had little agenda. Tonight wouldn’t be a major jump, or at least I didn’t think it would. Just making sure of the new level of our relationship would be good for both of us.

There were some major jumps planned, but they would wait for January. Darla could stand a month of wondering just when she would find me claiming her ass. Or, perhaps, introducing her to a woman’s touch. Or ... to touching a woman.

Darla didn’t hint idly. She might say ‘Not interested,’ but that wasn’t a ‘no’ and she knew it wasn’t a ‘no.’ There was something there, and we would see what it was.

I doubted much would come of it. I might be very wrong about that, though.

I wasn’t sure if it was a lapse of good taste or a desire to go see a sex comedy now that she was actually having sex, but Darla wanted to see ‘Once Bitten’ tonight. She wouldn’t know who he was, and I couldn’t mention it, but it was Jim Carrey’s first role. It would be fun to see it in a timely manner this time.

Once we figured that out, the conversation shifted to last night. Darla apparently had much the same reaction as Jas: initially scared, but then turned on. We hardly needed the movie to get fired up for tonight, but it wouldn’t hurt, and Darla really wasn’t ready for a ‘date’ to mean dinner and bed with nothing in between.

We flirted through dinner at a pizza place and on the way to the movie, then settled in. There were some nominally scary moments, but mostly it was stylish and funny. Very little depth, but it did wind up with two people screwing in a coffin, something Darla apparently found equally funny and appalling.

When we left, she said, “Well, that ... don’t say it! ... sucked.”

“Vampires do su-”

“I said not to say it!”

We both laughed. That joke would have worked all throughout debate, and it was still good now.

She took my hand and walked to the car. I turned suddenly, sweeping her into my arms, held her, then whispered, “And I know someone else who sucks. Don’t I, Little Red?”

She blushed quite a bit, but nodded.

“Anytime my Wolf desires.”

I looked around the parking lot and said, “Anytime?”

That turned her still redder.

After a second or two, she gulped and said, “I’ll stand by what I said, my Wolf. You’re in charge.”

“Good girl,” I said. “Very good girl.”

She shivered all over.

“Tell me how that makes you feel. Standing by it, I mean.”

She gulped.

“Nervous. Embarrassed. Um ... hot. Curious.”

I gave her ponytail a little tug, which made her shudder, but then moved my hand to stroke her hair.

“Okay. We ... might need a word for this ... but for now, I’ll just say ... this is Steve asking Darla, not the Wolf talking to Little Red. Are you ... Darla ... comfortable with the idea of something like what we’re alluding to?”

She blushed again.

“Um. So. If it was ... like ... crouched next to a car? No. Hidden? Mayyyyybe. In the car? Um ... kinda? Probably? It’s a range. Some of it ... some of it really is hot. Part of why it’s hot is seeing myself as the sort of girl who would do that. It’s ... a few months ago I would have had names for that sort of girl. I kinda get it now, and I like it, and ... that’s me, that’s not Little Red. Little Red trusts her Wolf to keep her out of danger, no matter what, and ... if you told Little Red to crouch down next to a car and ... do that ... it’s ... pretty sure not gonna result in a cry for Grandma. Partly, though, because she’s 50/50 on thinking you would tug her back up to her feet, pat her on the head, and tell her she’s a good girl for being willing.”

“Could happen,” I said, leading her toward the car. “Either. The pat on the head, or the tug on your ponytail to get you unzipping me.”

She blushed and giggled.

“I would. I think ... it’s not something I want to do. It’s something I want to ... be a possibility.”

“I get it,” I said, helping her into the car.

Once I got in, and had us going, she held my hand and said, “I think it’s fair to say that I want some of the possibilities to happen. Meaning things Darla doesn’t want to do. Doesn’t not want to do, exactly, but ... things that push me, that I wouldn’t just do. It’s ... we’re still chasing, maybe. The rules are just different. I still want a Wolf. Really, I still need a Wolf.”

“And you have one,” I said. “Thanks! That ... matters. I really ... I like the idea of surprising you with things that ... well. The common phrase would be ‘good girls don’t,’ but the Wolf would say that good girls do.”

She shivered again.

“Damn!” she said. “I like that. The Wolf’s ‘good girl’ is a bad girl. But she’s also not, because ... well. The normal way, I guess, is marriage, but it’s more ... a good girl — the classic kind — wants a commitment. A Wolf and a Little Red making promises to each other is a commitment. Not the kind that makes pastors or parents happy, but it is.”

“I might say ‘naughty’ instead of ‘bad.’ It has more of the right connotations.”

“Oh! I like that, too! I mean ... this is all ... you know. It works when it’s the two of us. I’ll still smack you if you hit me with ‘good girl’ in a class where someone else can hear.”

I grinned and said, “Unless it’s only Jas. Or Angie. Or Paige. Or...”

“Hrmph! Fine. Any of them being there would probably make it hotter.”

“We agree on that. This is ... well. Like you said, it’s a relationship, not a game. But it’s also a bit of a game. It has rules, and one of them is that ‘good girl’ is ... somewhere between flirting and outright sexual. It’s not for random ears. A lot of things aren’t.”

She sighed and nodded.

“Yeah. And I really like it that way. Plus ... I know you wouldn’t push it. I trust you to guide things.”

“It’s new to me, you know.”

“I do,” she said, smiling. “But you do it really well. This is all much better than I dared hope for. Even if we’d gotten to where we could do the same things, it wouldn’t have given me what this has. It’s bigger than not being a virgin. It’s ... I have this whole framework now for what a relationship that works for me might look like. I want ... kinda ... the whole package. The commitment, the ring, all that, but also swept off my feet and overwhelmed. I mean, Mister Right has to be able to do that, but once he does, some of this is setting up a thing where I go from being the ‘me’ that’s nice-girl, polite, upstanding Darla to a ‘me’ that’s running on emotions and lust with just a tug on my hair or a word. It can’t be that easy, not to maintain it, but ... it’s a start.”

“Someone who’s really Mister Right will put in the work to maintain it. If they don’t, teach them or find a better one.”

She giggled.

“You have it easy there. No one moves on from you and feels like they found ‘a better one.’”

“Eh,” I said. “Sue, I think. Sheila. They both count. Amit is much more Sheila’s dream guy than I was. Gene is the guy Sue needs, not me. I would have been wrong for either of them.”

She nodded slowly.

“That’s true. I know that. More Sue than Sheila, but ... yeah. And I know you could’ve had Sue.”

“Nah. I could’ve had her for a bit. Eventually, Sue has to be number one. That’s who she is. Gene can be second to her. I probably couldn’t, not really. After a while, we would wind up at odds.”

“I guess I don’t know her that well,” Darla said. “She’s very cool, and ... I mean, even for me — ‘cuz I know I’m really smart — she’s scary smart.”

“She and Connie might well have been the only two real candidates for valedictorian, even if Sue was never in the running officially because of transferring to Memorial and missing her freshman year. I’m not sure there wasn’t a smarter person at Memorial, but...”

“Well, you, for one.”

I laughed a bit, then said, “No. Connie has me beat easily. Seriously! We’re both up there, but ... yeah, no.”

“Who, then?” she said.

Then she realized the answer. “Jessica.”

“God gifted her with a lot,” I said. “I think she might be smarter than she is pretty.”

“That’s ... a pretty amazing compliment.”

“She hid it just enough. I think it was very conscious. She had to be ‘just one of the girls’ for the cheerleaders, all while kicking ass and getting National Merit. I think that’s going to be one of her edges for a long time. People are going to think they can take advantage of her and only realize who won the negotiation in hindsight. Plus, she knows how to not just appear as but actually be ‘just one of the girls’ with the people she’s working with.”

“And you’re not with her because she needs to be in control,” Darla said.

“That, and I fell deeply in love with Jasmine first. And also because I want us to pick a place and mostly live there and have our family there. I fully expect Jess to live in three or four places every year.”

“This is cool,” she said. “It’s a different side of people I think I know.”

“And, shortly, we’ll see a different side of a girl I thought I knew.”

She giggled.

“Every side you want to see! I belong to my Wolf, after all.”

“You’re comfortable going to the house?”

It was late to ask. We were only a few blocks away.

“I’m embarrassed, but not badly. And ... well...”

“The Wolf can tell you to keep your head up high and be proud about coming over to be fucked and toyed with.”

She shuddered all over, squeezing my hand.

“Dammit!” she said. “You knew what that was going to do to me.”

“Tell me?”

“Make my panties all squishy, for one!”

“I hope you brought a spare,” I said. “Because I don’t plan on giving you the ones you’re wearing back.”

“Dammit!”

I parked in the driveway next to Angie’s car (which might as well just be called Cammie’s car at this point), got out, and helped Darla out, then got her overnight bag from the back, carrying it. She didn’t fight me on it this time.

We walked around to the front, where I opened the door and led her in. Angie, Paige, and Mel were in the living room working on something or other when we came in, and they all waved and said hi. Angie let me know that Jas and Monique were already downstairs.

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” I said. “Knock if the insulation lets us down.”

Darla turned red at that.

“Will do!” Paige said. “Have fun!”

“I ... um ... plan to,” Darla said.

Angie said, “You go, girl!”

Mel said, “Knock his socks off!”

Darla stayed red, but grinned. I led her into the bedroom, switching from holding her hand to holding her ponytail as I did. She shuddered, then shivered at the cheers from the others.

Once inside, I tugged her around, then kissed her.

“Happy little tamed tomboy?” I said.