Chapter 34: The Problem of Being Me

November 1980, Milford, Ohio

On Thursday, I had my usual date with Elyse. We were still just good friends, and I didn’t expect that to change anytime soon.

On Friday, Bethany and I went to dinner at Ponderosa and had steaks and baked potatoes. Once we finished, I paid, and we walked quickly to the car, driving straight to the apartment. We had our clothes off in seconds after closing the door.

“I need you to fuck me silly,” Bethany growled.

I pulled her to me and kissed her hard, our tongues battling each other. I picked her up and laid her on the bed. She spread her legs, and I got between them. I pressed my dick against her labia and slammed into her, driving deep into her depths. I didn’t pause, just pulled back and slammed into her again.

Bethany groaned loudly and wrapped her powerful legs around my butt. She began humping violently in response to every thrust, her pussy squeezing my dick tightly as she brought every muscle to bear. She squeezed me tight with her legs and arms, and her fingernails dug into my back. Bethany’s breasts were crushed between us, with her rock-had nipples trying to bore holes in my chest. It didn’t take long before we were both covered in sweat and gasping for breath.

“Fuck me harder!” Bethany demanded.

I pounded her as hard as I could, slamming into her over and over again. We were lost in our lust for one another, our bodies moving at high speed towards the heights of orgasm. Bethany had her first one a couple of minutes later, her entire body shaking as I thrust deeply into her. Two more orgasms followed within minutes. Bethany never stopped humping against me.

“Fuck me, god damn you!” Bethany gasped.

I was running on sheer willpower due to the exertion, so I let my orgasm overtake me and thrust deeply into her pussy, firing jet after jet of cum into her. Bethany breathed deeply, held her breath, and then her body shook violently and her pussy clamped down hard on my dick. Bethany groaned loudly a few seconds later as her pussy spasmed hard around my dick.

We collapsed together, trying to catch our breath, our sweaty bodies touching along their length. After a moment, I was recovered enough to move to cuddle Bethany. I could tell she had scratched me, but it didn’t feel quite as bad as the other night.

“Bethany, why are we so violent lately?” I asked once her breathing had returned to normal.

“I don’t know. It just seems we need some kind of release. Turn for a minute and let me look at your back.”

I turned to show her.

“It’s not nearly as bad. Just a few light scratches. I tried to be more careful.”

“It’s OK, Sweetheart. I’m fine,” I said.

We lay there silently for a bit.

“There’s something wrong,” I said, “and we need to figure out what it is. I never used to like this and I’m starting to. It seems to revolve around pain, and that really bothers me. The scratches on my back, me spanking you. Am I trying to punish myself for something? Am I trying to punish you for something?”

“For what? You’re open with me and unless you’re hiding something, I can’t think of anything you’ve done that you could be beating yourself up for at this point. Or maybe you haven’t really dealt with your emotions about Annie and Dona? Are you still angry at yourself over them? Or are you still angry with Becky over the baby?”

I thought about it for a few minutes.

“Could it really be guilt doing this to me? I talked to Doctor Mercer about all those things you mentioned, and I thought I had dealt with them.”

“You’ll be dealing with them for your whole life,” she said softly, her hand lightly on my face. “You won’t forget them, nor will they go away. But you know what, that’s a good thing in your case. You learned some hard lessons. The key is not to dwell on it. If you do, it’ll eat you up and destroy you. I learned that with my situation.”

“But what I did and what happened to you aren’t even close!”

I pulled her close to me and kissed her deeply. She sighed and snuggled close.

“No, but I’ve moved past being a rape victim. I’ll never forget that it happened, and it will affect me for the rest of my life. But it doesn’t define who I am, well, at least not since I met you. When I talked to Doctor Mercer about having sex with you before we did it the first time, she was concerned about how the rape would affect my sex life. I remember her worrying a bit about me wanting to degrade myself because I was somehow unclean or unworthy. I had some real issues with viewing myself as sexually desirable instead of as damaged goods.

“In a way, it was like Tracey’s belief that no guy would ever want her. I was afraid that no guy would ever want me because I had been raped and gotten pregnant and had an abortion. But you never looked at me as damaged goods. You taught me that I was a sexy, desirable girl. You prove it every time you make love with me. You have no idea how much it meant to me when you told me that you felt that you were my first. At first I couldn’t see how you could say that given what had happened, but then I realized that you really, truly believed it. That you, deep in your heart, were sure that what Josh did to me had nothing to do with sex.”

Bethany propped herself up on her elbow so she could see my face and continued talking.

“Maybe we’re both punishing ourselves for our past transgressions. I’m sure your mom would agree that we’re terrible sinners and our depravity knows no bounds. I suspect your friend Kara would say the same thing, though who knows at this point because she’s struggling with the same things we are. Except for Melanie’s parents, none of our parents are comfortable with our sex lives. Society says it’s wrong. The churches any of us go to say it’s wrong. We live in a world where society, and especially our parents and teachers and church leaders, all tell us to grow up and act like adults, but when we do, they freak out.

“So maybe that’s the problem. We feel guilty, not because we think what we’re doing is wrong, but because so many other people think that of us! Sure, we’ve made some mistakes, some really big ones. But you know what? We’ve also dealt with them. Think about it. When you’ve had problems, you’ve tried to solve them. You got professional help. Yes, you’ve been out of control a few times, but you recognized it and tried to fix it. Yes, you hurt some people, but I don’t know that it could have been avoided. You do your best to love people, and to care for them and to be there for them. Maybe I feel guilty because I still think, deep down inside, that I’m not worthy of a guy like you.”

She kissed me softly and hugged me tight.

“Bethany, I actually think you deserve better. I think you deserve a guy who is fully devoted to you. In fact, that’s what you told me you wanted a couple of years ago when we made love the first time. I don’t think you deserve a guy who screws pretty much any girl in sight. It’s me that doesn’t deserve a girl like you — one that is so devoted to me.”

Bethany sat up and turned to look at me.

“Listen to yourself! Is that you talking? Or is it your mom?” she said harshly.

“My mom? What are you talking about?”

“Your mom has you so beat down that deep down, subconsciously, you don’t think that you’re good enough for anyone! That makes total sense. Did you talk to Doctor Mercer about it?”

“Not directly. We talked about my relationship with my mom, but didn’t make much progress. Otherwise, though, she said she thought I was doing pretty well.”

“I bet you didn’t tell her everything. You held back stuff from her for whatever reason. Maybe you thought you were protecting me or some other girl, or maybe you were trying to hide your relationship with your sister. Or some combination of those things. Let me ask you this — Why do you have sex?”

“That depends on the girl, Bethany. Sometimes it’s just for fun. Sometimes it’s for love. Sometimes it’s for comfort.”

“And what was Tracey? You insisted it wasn’t a pity fuck. Was that for fun? For comfort? For love?”

“None of those, actually. It was simply the right thing to do for her. It’s what she needed.”

“Think carefully,” her eyes narrowing. “Who else, in the entire school, could do that for her? Who would even fucking notice her?”

“Well, from what she says, nobody,” I said.

“So, what options did she have? That girl might well have ended up a lonely, unmarried woman with no self-esteem and no friends. Now? Have you seen her? You helped her the same way you helped me. Yes, we had different problems, but you helped us. But you’re hung up about it. You’re hung up about sex and all the things that have happened because of sex. You feel guilty. That’s what’s bugging you about Kara. That you’ll feel guilty even if she walks up to you and demands you screw her silly.”

“She’s not going to do that.”

“Yes, she is, and you know it! And it’s tearing you up. When she comes up to you on December 1st and says that she wants that kiss, what she’ll really be saying is ‘I want you to fuck me silly!’. You know it. She knows it. And it’s driving you nuts! It’s one in a long list of things that are eating at you. You put on a good front, but, in the end, you’re torn up by Becky, Annie, Dona, Jennifer, Kara, and me. You’re struggling with Joyce and Elyse as well. And let’s not even discuss Stephanie. Your mom has messed you up, Steve. I finally realized just how much when I saw the two of you argue.

“You don’t want to be free of her. You want her approval. I have news for you, Steve Adams, you will NEVER get it. Never. The harder you try to get it, the more fucked up your life becomes. If you don’t fix this and you make love with your sister, you’ll tear yourself apart. I don’t want to be around to see it, but I will, of course, because I love you, but it’s going to be ugly. Very ugly. All because of your mom.”

I sat up to face Bethany.

“I do not give a FUCK what my mom thinks!” I snarled angrily. “I do not care. She can go straight to hell. I don’t need her approval! What the fuck, Bethany?”

“You are trying to get your sister’s approval as a substitute. It won’t work. Having sex with her is at least partly about keeping her approval. That isn’t going to fix a damn thing. It’s going to make it worse. I once told you that if your relationship with Stephanie fell apart, it would destroy you. I’m sure of that now.”

I was red in the face from anger and took a couple of deep breaths to try to calm myself.

“Did you listen to what I said to my mom?” I asked in frustration. “Did that sound like I wanted approval? No! I was telling her how it was and telling her to deal with it.”

Bethany took both of my hands and looked me in the eyes.

“That’s what you tell yourself. That’s how you cope. But deep down, in a place you don’t want to look for fear of what you’ll find, you want her to approve of you and to see you as you see yourself. She’s not going to, and until you give up on that, you won’t be able to become the person you want to be or the person I need you to be. You’ll marry a girl your mom approves of. Some virginal, conservative girl who is extremely religious and has the same exact hang-ups that your mom does about sex. And you’ll cheat on her because of that.”

I was trying hard to contain my temper, but I was slowly losing the battle.

“Bethany, what the fuck are you talking about?! None of you are like that. Not Jennifer, not you, not Karin, not Elyse, and not Joyce. I don’t want a girl like you described! You aren’t making any sense.”

“Yes, I am. You’ll wreck every one of those relationships, including ours. And you know what? You’ll wreck them on purpose. You will find a way to wreck them because you need your mom’s approval and she won’t give it. You won’t marry any of the girls she calls ‘sluts’ and that’s ALL of us. It’ll even include Kara once you two have your fling.”

“Bullshit!”

“You don’t have to listen to me. But if you won’t, well, I don’t know what to do. I can’t sit idly by and watch you destroy yourself while we pretend everything is OK.”

She let go of my hands and got up from the bed and went to the bathroom. I got up to follow her and found that she had locked the door. I heard the shower running, so I went back to sit on the bed and wait for her. I was sure that she was wrong, but she wasn’t listening to me. I certainly didn’t want our relationship to end.

I heard the water stop and Bethany came out with a towel wrapped around her, which I found odd. She picked up her purple bra and panties and turned to go back to the bathroom.

“Bethany?” I said softly.

She ignored me and went into the bathroom again, closing the door. A moment later, she came out with her underwear on and started putting on the rest of her clothes.

“Bethany, what is going on?”

“You’re taking me home. Just get dressed.”

“What the fuck?!” I growled, my temper flaring. “You psychoanalyze me and when I disagree with your bullshit conclusions, we’re done? You break up with me? Is that what’s happening here?”

“Until you’re ready to listen to me and work on the problem, yes. I’ll be your friend, I’ll talk to you. I’m not like Jennifer that way, but I can’t continue like this.”

“So, you’re wrecking our relationship to keep me from wrecking it?” I shrieked. “What the fuck?!”

“No, I’m ending it now before we both get hurt even worse. Get dressed.”

I just barely bit off my reply of ‘Fuck you, Bethany!’ I got out of bed and took a quick shower. I kept thinking about what she said, but I just couldn’t see it. I dried off, and unlike Bethany, I walked out of the bathroom naked to dress. Bethany was sitting on the couch and didn’t even look up. When I finished dressing, Bethany got up and walked out of the apartment. I followed her, locking the door behind me. We got in the car and I headed towards Bethany’s house.