Chapter 34: Return of the Runaway Lover: Steph

The weather was ideal for a spring Saturday morning, sunny and chilly with the promise of warm temperatures as the day progressed. The weekend looked fabulous from a weather point of view.

Jim returned from his run. No one else in the house seemed to be up when he left and a glance around inside on his return confirmed that was still the case. He prepared his cereal, and carried it outside to a patio table. As he started to sit he heard someone crying; he turned and there was Stephanie sitting in a corner of the patio almost hidden by a large bush. He’d found her in the same place a year earlier, almost to the day, only then she’d left The Circle.

“Steph, what’s wrong?” Jim raced to her and wrapped his arms around her. “Why are you here? Are you OK?”

Stephanie had been gone from The Circle for a year, with almost no communications other than through Sandy to let her and thus the others know that she was all right, and that she’d moved to the east coast. She’d vanished so suddenly that everyone felt a shock and a great loss.

She sobbed, “Nothing and everything. I’m OK, but...” Her voice gave way into a gale of tears.

She cried into his sweaty t-shirt as he sat on the bench beside her, but thankfully ignored his manly odor. She clung to him like a life preserver in a stormy sea. She wore shorts and a t-shirt, and looked cute as a button – ten or more years younger than her actual age of early forties.

After a few minutes, Steph pulled away and red-eyed said, “I’m so sorry – I should have never left.”

“Why? What happened? Are you all right?”

She gasped out, “I’m fine physically, but mentally I’m a high-speed train wreck. I ... I am so full of regrets about leaving. I was wondering whether there is a shred of hope that you and the others might let me back in The Circle. I promise I’ll never leave again. If you don’t want me, I’ll understand. I can just...”

Jim hugged her, kissed her forehead, and interrupted; “It’ll be awkward for a few days, but welcome back. You know the premise of how The Circle interacts with people. Will that do it for you? We will love and care for you, regardless of your circumstances.”

Steph sobbed, “Oh, God, I hope so. I love everyone ... I never stopped loving you, and I missed everyone so much my heart just ached and ached. The longer I was away the worse it got. I felt so bad ... and so stupid for leaving the way I did.”

“What happened to Nick, if I may ask? Where have you been?”

In a halting voice she said, “We went to Boston just after I left; he’s still there. He didn’t want me to do anything but leave and go with him a year ago, and I was so swept up in him I listened to him. I wanted to come back, but he said I shouldn’t, that it would just stir up bad feelings. I believed him, and now I know he wasn’t right. I’ve been so homesick.” Another crying jag took over.

“Well, you’re home right now. Have you eaten anything? Can you stay? What’s the plan?”

Steph shook her head, “I don’t know. I drove most of the night. I cried the whole way from Boston to here. Everything I own is in my car. I got here at six o’clock this morning, but didn’t want to wake anybody. If you don’t want me, I’ll go away somewhere else.”

“Oh, Baby, it’s all right. We want you. It’s going to be just fine.”

Another pair of arms wrapped around Stephanie from behind her, turned her, and hugged her. Sandy kissed her friend and hugged her. The welcome caused Steph to break into wild uncontrollable sobbing that echoed around the patio courtyard. She clung to Sandy as though she were another life raft.

Another pair of feminine arms soon took over from Sandy, as Zoey hugged her old friend, and then Nathan was there, and Alex, and Kyle, and Sheila. Steph just continued to cry and kept repeating, “I’m so sorry. I love you all.”

Lynn eventually got Stephanie to stand, and walked her inside to the kitchen with an arm around her. She got her seated at the counter, washed her face with a hand towel, put a cup of coffee in front of her, and then a bagel slathered with cream cheese. Next to her, of course, was a box of Kleenex and a growing pile of damp tissues. Steph gradually quieted down.

No one in The Circle insisted that she say anything. Those that hadn’t already came by and kissed her to signal their acceptance that she was welcome back with love. Every kiss seemed to precipitate another round of bawling. Those who had already hugged her would just reach out and stroke her back or an arm as they walked by to show their love and acceptance.

Jim hovered nearby, ready to assist. Steph quietly drank the coffee and nibbled at the bagel, something most could remember was her favorite breakfast.

Steph finally started her story to those standing around, “I was just swept away by Nick. I’ve never had such an urge to merge in my life as what happened that night of the party a year ago. I still can’t believe I felt what I did or reacted that way. I just wanted to crawl inside of him and let him do anything to me.”

“Did he treat you badly?”

“No. Nothing physical I didn’t agree to. He was into mental games. He started to play me from the start, getting me to agree to leave with him that day, and then even more after we’d been in Boston a month. I got a job – a good one in a law office. Nick had gone there to work for an ad agency.

“He built up a circle of friends, I guess because he’d lived in the area for a while when he went to college. I asked what he wanted for Christmas, and he wanted me to have a threesome with him and one of his friends. We’d done that a lot here – I even met him at a swingers’ party, so it wasn’t a big deal for me, at least the physical part.

“Well, there wasn’t just one other guy, there were three. We went at it like rabbits on New Year’s Eve, and I was the only female bunny around. I was so fucked, but Nick kept telling me he loved me and really appreciated the ‘present’ I’d given him.

“We did it again ... and again ... and then it became a pretty constant thing, a couple of times a week. Nick was insatiable, and I was too, but then his friends just started to come around when he wasn’t there. He’d be playing sports on the weekend, but he’d ask me to ‘entertain’ his friends while he was out.

“I did, but I started to feel worse and worse. I was a sex toy to the other guys, and then I realized I’d been nothing but a sex toy to Nick too, even from the first night we met. We did have great sex, and chemistry and all, but it was all about the sex and not about love. We fucked; we didn’t make love. Twenty-twenty hindsight, I guess.” She shook her head in disbelief.

Lynn hugged Stephanie. “It’s all right, Honey. You’re here now, and we all love you.”

Steph said, “I told Nick I didn’t want any more group sex sessions with his friends, that I was feeling cheap and too slutty. He laughed and said, ‘You are a slut; so don’t stop now. You’re on a roll.’

“I cut them off about six weeks ago – except Nick. I went and got tested a few days ago, and I’m clean. Nick got mad and told me I had to make up my mind; either I was having sex with him and his buddies, or I was somewhere else and he’d get a new bimbo – he called me a bimbo. He gave me a week to think about it, nice guy that he was. I left the next day as soon as he left for work, that was yesterday ... and here I am.”

Lynn said, “No one wants you to do anything you don’t want to do around The Circle. You don’t have to have sex at all, or threesomes, or group, or anything. We will just love you the way you are and the way you want to be loved.”

Steph nodded enthusiastically, “I want all that ... I want the sex, because I know the basis for that here is love, not raw lust and guys just needing me as a cum dumpster. That’s what one guy called me, his cum dumpster. I was so bad and so low, I just accepted that role and even thought it was kind of cute and arousing for a while.”

Steph paused, “I know you’ll all be skittish to have me around, if you even want me around. I can get a room...”

Jim interrupted her, “We want you around. We want you here with us ... with open arms. You’re NOT getting a room somewhere, and dropping by now and then to see us. We want you in the house, and being you again. You can pick up right from where you left off, or change, or ask for whatever you want.”

Tears started to roll down Steph’s face and she choked up a little, “Oh, thank you.” She wrapped her arms around Lynn and buried her face in her shoulder and cried. Lynn patted her back for a while.

Jim swept up Steph and carried her upstairs when the tears stopped. She clung onto him, reminding him of how nice she felt, and how small and light she was. He laid her on his bed, pulled off her shoes, and said, “You’ve been awake too long. You need a nap to get some perspective back on life. You sleep. I’ve got to shower and change, then I’ll leave you for a while.”

Steph nodded. With her head on the pillow, she watched him unabashedly strip away his running clothes, enjoying his buff body with her eyes, and even feeling her body flush with sexual excitement. It had been over a year since she had that privilege, and just his presence and that small intimacy made her feel better.

He was in and out of the shower in five minutes smelling masculine with the scent of his body wash and after-shave. He pulled on some slacks, a golf shirt, and some shoes. He came and kissed her so tenderly that her eyes teared again at the love she felt wash over her. She looked up and kissed him back with some passion, and then he left. Steph was asleep almost as soon as the door closed. The long drive and the past were behind her now; she was home.

A masculine voice whispered, “If you sleep all day, you’ll be awake all night. I came home from work to be with you.”

Steph slowly awoke, feeling Jim’s strong arms around her. Her head rested on a bicep. She rotated and found a pair of lips to kiss. She was in heaven.

Steph whispered back, “I love you.”

“And I love you.”

“Make love to me.”

Jim chuckled, “Hey, I’m naked and you have entirely too many clothes on to make that a possible outcome.”

“Then take them off of me. I’ve wanted you to do that for months, almost since the day I got to Boston. I was such a fool.” She choked up a little.