Chapter 26: Anna

February 1978

I was an emotional wreck. I had hoped to sort things out. Instead, they had become ever more complicated. Was life really like this? If it was, I didn’t know if I could handle it. I added four pages to my journal trying to work out my feelings, my relationships, and my options. Once again, I had more questions than answers.

I looked at the clock and saw that it was almost 10:00pm. I had been home for about 90 minutes, all of which I spent writing in my journal. I needed to talk to Jennifer, even if only briefly. I knew she would be up, and I knew her parents would not object to the call. My mom would. I wasn’t supposed to make calls after 9:00pm. I didn’t care.

I dialed Jennifer’s number. She answered immediately and I wondered if she had been sitting by the phone.

“Hi, Jennifer,” I said as evenly as I could.

“Hi, Steve. Did you have sex with her?”

Well, she wasn’t wasting any time.

“No. I didn’t. I’ll explain everything when I see you. I just had to hear your voice and tell you I love you.”

“I love you too, Steve.”

We said goodbye and hung up. At least now I thought I could sleep. I was right.

Monday was one of those rare days when my alarm went off before I was out of bed. I wasn’t surprised. The weekend had been so emotional that I was spent. I hadn’t done any reading and now I was behind. I hadn’t studied Spanish and Melanie was going to kick my butt. If this kept up, my grades were going to suffer. And I was going to suffer.

The problem was, I didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. I didn’t know how to resolve the complex situation. For all the claimed maturity that Melanie, Jennifer, and Becky’s parents said I had, I was still, as Stephanie put it, a dumb boy.

The one thing I absolutely had to do was get control of my life back from all of the girls who seemed to have me in zugzwang. Unlike chess, there ought to be infinite moves and a way to escape without making a bad move. The more I thought about it, though, the less I wanted to escape.

Who would want to escape all the available sex? No guy in his right mind. Perhaps that was it. I wasn’t in my right mind. Or I was, and nobody else was, and what everyone else in the world thought was off-kilter. As I kept trying to do the right thing, people were amazed. Maybe life really was that simple. Just do the right thing.

Too bad it wasn’t easy to know what the right thing to do was. My entire struggle with the situation with Becky summed it up nicely. I ended up doing the right thing, but only after I had agreed to do the wrong thing! But, and this really confused me, I could only do the right thing after I did the wrong thing first. I was going to drive myself crazy.

On Monday I asked Jennifer to have lunch with me away from the rest of the gang so we could talk a bit.

“Why did you ask me if I had sex with her?”

“I didn’t think you would call me otherwise. I thought you were calling me to tell me you had sex with her and we were through.”

“What?! Jennifer, I don’t understand!”

“I know you don’t. Maybe boys aren’t supposed to understand. I’m afraid I’m going to lose you to her. And lose you as a friend.”

“Why would you think that? I said it wasn’t going to happen!”

“Because you love her. And she loves you.”

“Yes, and I love you and you love me.”

“I know. As I said, boys probably aren’t supposed to understand. So you didn’t have sex. Did you work things out?”

Did I work things out? I wanted to scream: ‘No, I didn’t work things out. They are worse than they were before!’ But I managed to remain calm, at least on the outside.

“Yes and no. She made it very, very clear that she wants to make love with me. And she says it’s on whatever terms I want. No demands. She says she’s been in love with me since she first saw me at the chess meet.”

Jennifer’s eyes opened wide, “What?!”

“Yes. She invited me over the day after Thanksgiving because she wanted to have sex with me. But she ended up being afraid. Same for New Year’s. She came into my room to have sex with me, but still scared. She wasn’t thinking straight at that point, willing to risk getting pregnant and all. She went on the Pill as of January 2nd. It’s been a month and so she asked me to make love to her yesterday. In fact, she pleaded. And I almost did.”

“At her house? With her parents there?”

“Uhm, Jennifer, didn’t we do stuff with your mom around?”

“Good point!” she said with a nervous laugh.

“But they weren’t there. They had gone out to give Becky room to do what she convinced them she was bound and determined to do. She took me to her room, stripped for me, and then I turned her down. Again.”

“You did that? You refused?”

“Jennifer, she was standing naked in front of me and I made her put her clothes back on. She was shaking like a leaf she was so afraid. It was the right decision, too. I’m sure of it.”

“So now what?”

“Now I continue to have dinner at her house on Sundays. But sex is, well, down the road a piece at a minimum. She wants it pretty badly. To be honest, I want her. But it wouldn’t be right or fair to her. Or to you. Or to me.”

“So where are we with us?”

“Same place as before, I hope. Though with some public affection if you still want. I’m OK with that. You know I plan to see Anna on Friday, Becky on Sunday, Joyce in a couple of weeks, and Michelle during Spring break. You know about Birgit. Tell me if you are OK with all of this.”

“I’m OK for now. I think you forgot Mary in your list.” She giggled. “And Kellie. Let’s take it one step at a time. Just talk to me. Just be my friend. Just love me.”

“I can do that.”

“As for sex, I will want you again. It was so intense, I want to experience it again. But it doesn’t have to be today, or even this week. When the time is right.”

I got the sense she was delaying until I figured things out with Becky. Perhaps in her mind, one time could somehow be chalked up to an experiment that had gone both right and horribly wrong. But a second time? After our talk, it would be difficult to pretend then.

“I want to be clear. You’re OK if I see Mary. You know what’s going to happen there. And you’re OK if I see the others, and what might happen?”

“I told you what I wanted when we made love. I know I’ve changed how I feel, but it’s not fair to you. I’m OK with it now. If I decide I’m not OK with it, I promise I’ll tell you and I promise we will talk it through and figure out what to do.

“Jennifer, you’re amazing. I love you.”

“And I love you too, Steve.”

We rejoined the rest of the gang. I was stewing in my own thoughts. I ignored Kellie’s flirting. I ignored the chess conversation. I was lost in my own thoughts. Was it right for me to be with other girls? Should I just drop it and be exclusive with Jennifer? Or Becky? And what about Birgit. I was making myself crazy.

In the end, I decided that I had already made plans, and I’d keep them. I’d take each thing as it came along and deal with it. And decide what to do next. I’d keep my journal and review it. Most importantly, I’d try to talk to Melanie and Jennie.

I went through the rest of the day Monday lost in thoughts. I did manage to get the homework assignments. I’d have a lot of catching up to do since I hadn’t done any reading over the weekend. Fortunately, my grades were good enough that one lost weekend wouldn’t mess them up.

Melanie immediately knew something was up.

As soon as we said goodbye to Pete, she said “Something’s bothering you. What’s up?”

We talked on the short walk to her house. I told her everything about Saturday with Jennifer and Sunday with Becky. About how she and Jennie had been right about so many things. About how I was making a mess of things. She stopped me.

“Are you? Really? Making a mess of things? Or are you just following your heart and doing what you know to be right.”

It was time to get the thing that had been bothering me out on the table.

“Is it doing the right thing to have sex with all these girls, to be in love with some of them, to hurt them because I can’t commit to them? Sometimes I feel like I’m just causing everyone pain.”

She sat back in her chair. “Stephen Adams, you are not causing anyone pain intentionally. You have, perhaps, the purest motives of anyone I know. You want to do the right thing. You follow your heart. And you use that logical mind that you have. Of all the guys I know, Pete included, you follow your dick the least. Oh sure, you take the opportunity for sex when it presents itself, but you never do it without thinking about it. About what it could mean, about where it might lead. I don’t know for sure what your thought process was with Jennie, but did you just jump right into her bed or did you think about it?”

“Well, I thought about it, yes. So did she. In fact, she forced it by sending me out to complete the yard work after she made it clear that it was possible to have sex with her.”