Chapter 79: A Basket Case

December, 1984, Chicago, Illinois

I was stirred awake by knuckles rapping hard against my door. I blinked several times and squinted to see the clock across the room. I'd been asleep for nearly three hours. I dropped my head back onto the pillow and sighed.

"I was sleeping!" I rasped.

"I don't give a fuck what you were doing, Steve Adams! Open this door right the fuck now!" a stern voice said.

That was Bethany's voice! But she was in Madison!

"Bethany?" I croaked.

"Yes, you idiot! Open the damned door!" she said firmly, with anger and annoyance in her voice.

I got out of bed and opened the door to find Bethany with Elyse, Kara, and Sofia standing behind her in the hallway.

"What are you doing here?" I sighed.

"Take him, girls!" Bethany said.

"What?" I said, protesting as four pairs of hands grasped me and began pulling me forward.

"Just shut up and do as you're told!" Bethany said.

"How about you all leave me alone and let me go back to sleep?" I said sternly, my voice trembling with anger.

"No chance! Right now, you're going to the sauna. And then you are going to tell us exactly what happened. All of it."

"What happened was I came home from school, wasn't hungry, and went to bed. Apparently, you all freaked out over this."

"Uh-huh," Elyse said. "Explain to me why Penny came to talk to me when I arrived home today. Go on, I'm sure you know why."

I sighed, "You know, I'm not a machine."

"We know," Kara said. "That's why we knew something was terribly wrong. Now come downstairs with us."

I sighed, "Fine."

The girls led me to the basement and all four of them stood arms-crossed while I undressed and went into the pre-heated sauna. There was plenty of steam and I sat down on the towel that was on the bench, leaned back and closed my eyes. I really didn't feel like talking, mostly because I wasn't sure what was bothering me. I was surprised when none of the girls came into the sauna with me, so I just tried my best to relax.

I couldn't judge for sure, but it felt like about ten minutes later when I heard the door of the sauna open, then shut. I opened my eyes to see Bethany, who sat on a towel next to me.

"Don't you have exams to study for?" I asked.

"Of course. But don't you think you might be a bit more important than my exams?" she said gently.

"No, actually, I don't," I replied. "I know how important your degree is to you."

"And yet, here I am. What's bothering you so much that you locked yourself in your room without eating? And what the hell happened with Penny that has Elyse and Kara so freaked out?"

I sighed, "I couldn't, uh, perform."

Bethany started laughing, "If I drove all the way down here from Madison simply because you're depressed that you couldn't get it up, I am going to turn around, go home, and never come back!"

"Fuck you, Bethany!" I growled in anger.

"Oh, that's right, I forgot," Bethany said, rolling her eyes. "The fragile male ego. You can fuck 10,000 times and make girls scream with pleasure, but can't get it up just once and your life is ruined? Men!" she huffed.

"Go fuck yourself," I growled.

"Well, at least you're talking. That's more than the others got out of you. What happened? I can't believe that you're in this mood because your dick betrayed you. In fact, you have such good control of that thing, I can't imagine that it did. And that means you didn't WANT to have sex with Penny. Come on. Spill!"

"Can you just leave me alone, please?" I asked, my voice showing how annoyed I was at not being left alone.

"No, I can't. You, of all people, should understand that. What the fuck is eating you?"

I sighed. She wasn't going to give in, and that meant I had to figure out what was bothering me. I just wasn't sure.

"I don't know," I said. "I'm trying to figure it out, and the four of you won't leave me be."

"Tell me what's been going on, Steve. Something has turned you into a basket case and we need to get to the bottom of it, or YOU'LL fail your finals. And I know how much that would hurt. Or is it your goal to prove your mom right?"

"You bitch!" I growled angrily. "Of all the low-down, evil, and out-of-line things to say, that's about the lowest." My voice rose to a scream, Get the fuck out of here!"

"That touched a nerve, I see. Works every time! Now talk!"

I started laughing. She'd done it again. She'd got me so upset and frustrated that I had to do what she said.

"OK! OK! You win! But you have to admit, it's getting harder to frustrate me or piss me off enough to get me to do what you want."

"I have other tricks up my sleeve, Mr. Adams. Start at the beginning."

I sighed again and tried to figure out where to start. Given I didn't know for sure, I began telling her about the cheating scandal and how it had developed. It took about fifteen minutes to get up to the point where I'd testified and had Julia talk Charlie into testifying.

"And you told the truth the whole way?" Bethany asked. "And you're telling me the truth now?"

"Yes, of course. Why would you think otherwise?"

"Because Elyse is concerned that you might not be, and that's what eating at you. Look me in the eye right now and tell me that you were completely truthful and that you aren't hiding behind Bert, Charlie, or Callie."

I turned and looked her straight in the eyes.

Without blinking, I said, "Yes, Bethany. I'm telling the truth and I am not throwing anyone under the bus to protect myself."

"Good. Now, keep going. I don't think I've fully hit on it yet. I have some suspicions, but I need to hear everything."

I told her about the conversations with Scott both in the classroom and during my performance review and then about the problem with Penny the previous night, and finally about how I felt all day Friday, leading to her driving nearly three hours to arrive at my house just before 10:00pm.

"Jesus," she breathed. "Your ego is even more fragile than I thought."

"Huh? Are you back to the sex thing?" I asked.

"Yes and no. That was a symptom, not a cause. Both the department head, Doctor Bauer, I think you said his name was, and your professor and boss, Scott, questioned your integrity. And rightly so, I might add. And that, for someone like you who prides themself on integrity and usually is the model for everyone in that regard, was a cut to the quick. Scott could have told you that you were a lousy programmer and it wouldn't have hurt nearly as badly!

"Suddenly, you aren't sure you can trust yourself. Suddenly, you can't be sure of your own integrity. Yes, you've messed up in that regard before, but not like this. Not when your personal and professional reputations are on the line with people for whom you have tremendous respect and whose approval you need. The punishment they meted out, and the reprimands were all designed to hurt you in the worst possible way. Those men are no fools, Steve. They did this for your own good."

"My own good?" I questioned.

"Yes, your own good. Up until now, your mistakes could be pretty easily covered up, smoothed over, and forgotten. At worst, you might lose a friend or two. In the real world, you might lose everything. Who is going to want to do business with someone who exercises poor judgment? Sure, you might get away with it once. But twice? No chance. You'll lose your customers or your job. If this had been some kind of corporate embezzlement scam, you'd be out on your butt because the company couldn't take the risk to THEIR reputation.

"What Doctor Bauer and Scott are trying to teach you is that you don't get many second chances and you absolutely don't get any third chances. Oh sure, somebody might get lucky, but do you want to pin your future on dumb luck? I sure don't. And if I discover that you are pinning your future on luck, we're through. Oh, I'll be your friend, but I'm not signing up in advance for THAT disaster. And I guarantee you that neither will Jennifer, Sofia, nor Elyse. Kara might, because of her need to be with you, but she'd jump off a bridge for you right now, so I wouldn't consider her sticking around as a win.

"The question you have to ask yourself is whether or not you're going to listen to your mentors. I am willing to bet that they knew exactly what would happen. It's a test of your character. If they find it lacking, then they'll know that they made a mistake and, if you'll pardon the expression, bet on the wrong horse. You have to look deep inside yourself and decide if you can accept their criticism and move forward. If you can't, you might as well tell them and then go get a job flipping burgers at McDonald's, because you'll never succeed at anything other than a rote, menial job.

"On the other hand, if you can take to heart their constructive, and, from my perspective, accurate, criticism of your behavior and learn from your mistakes, you'll validate their faith in you. And they do have faith in you, Steve. They asked you to help catch the person responsible for this, and they trusted you to do it in a way that wouldn't implicate them. Think about what that means! They trusted you even after you made your grave error."

"I guess all of that is true," I allowed. "I couldn't figure out what was bothering me, but you seem to have gotten right to it."

"First of all, I've known you since eighth grade and I'm your closest friend. Second, I've read a good chunk of your journals. Third, I'm a semester away from graduating with honors in psychology. Fourth, and finally, it's an outsider's perspective. You're too close to what happened and that limits your view. It's why you've always had some girl acting as your confidante and advisor. It's been me, Sofia, Elyse, and now a combination because we're all here. I think Anala and Jackie should probably be on the list as well. Why didn't you talk to one of us?"

"Because I let myself get into one of my moods," I said.

"Yes, you did. I thought that those were gone and that you'd moved past trying to withdraw from the world. You should have learned that lesson fully from the incident with Kara. That's what had Elyse worried. Kara and Sofia really didn't know how withdrawn you were then. And actually, Elyse didn't really either. But she talked at length to Jackie about it back when it happened. You can't just pull into yourself that way. Do you want to end up like Kara was after her breakdown? Hospitalized and simply going through the motions of life?"

"That's not going to happen," I said.

"Oh no? What would have happened if your friends hadn't more or less forcibly dragged you out of that state you were in after Kara walked out on you? Hmm? Would you have even bothered going to class? Would you have even cared about anything? I wonder."

"Me not go to class? Come on!"

"You were there today, but like a zombie, according to Kara. Tell me one thing that was said in any of your classes. Just one."

I sighed, "I can't."

"So you were physically there, but you weren't there. The next time you're in a funk, Mister, you had damned well better talk to someone about it. Elyse was going to do it, but the girls decided to call me for advice first. When I offered to come, they were quite happy. But you scared them, Steve. You have to stop doing that. You absolutely have to quit withdrawing like you do. It's OK to have some alone time — we all need that. And what you did last Summer was a milder version of what you just did."

"Not having sex as much?"

"Yes. That's not you. It wasn't you. Heck, even Sofia, who wants you to dial it back from '11', understands the situation."

I chuckled, "Spinal Tap. I guess my sexual activity does go to '11', doesn't it!"

"Yes!" she laughed. "Can I ask you about Callie?"

I sighed and nodded, "Sure. What do you want to know?"

"Why her? I mean, it's not as if you're lacking female companionship. And it's not as if there aren't other underclassmen girls that would enjoy your attention."

"She played me, Bethany. Start to finish. It was all an act. She's only a Sophomore, so she started this during her Freshman year, apparently, and by the time I met her in May, she was already up to her eyeballs in it. Dave introduced me as Doctor Bauer's star pupil, and that warned her who I was. She more or less avoided me, though she managed to sell a copy of an exam to Charlie, and tried to sell them to Bert and Kara. I think at some point, she became spooked.

"She was already blackmailing Bert with the rape threat, and I'm guessing she decided that I would provide cover, or a bigger target. If she could get me involved, or have some way to point a finger at me, she might be able to get out of it. If I'd slept with her, she had all kinds of possibilities; including saying I forced her to have sex with me in exchange for not turning her in after I'd framed her. I'm sure you can think of other ways as well; I certainly can.

"Anyway, she played the shy virgin, and dropped all kinds of hints to Elyse about wanting me but being afraid. I fell for it like a complete sucker, and danced with her. She kissed me on the cheek and ran from the room, I foolishly followed her and one thing led to another. Kara saved me by telling Elyse that Callie was lying about being involved. They stormed in and put a stop to things, and that led to the hearing and my review."

"You were played for sure," Bethany said, shaking her head. "You are a sucker for the shy, virginal girls who want worldly experience. It's something you need to be careful about in the future. Can I ask you about Charlie?"

"Sure," I said.

"She lied to you and yet you're willing to go out on a limb for her. Why?"

"She made a dumb mistake. I've made plenty. Yes, she lied to me and that broke trust, but I know all about that, don't I?"

Bethany smiled, "Yes, you do. The original Triumvirate was formed because of lack of trust."

"And the situation with Joyce. And other stuff. Anyway, Charlie is an excellent programmer. Overall, I think that she's a good kid. She made a huge mistake and I've been forgiven for big mistakes before. I don't want to see her expelled or even suspended. She's failed her math class, and she's on academic probation. Both of those will show on her permanent record, along with any discipline handed out by the committee."

"And when they ask you about being intimate with her?"

"That already happened with the committee investigating the cheating. I declined to answer and said they could ask her if they thought it was appropriate. I just told them that we dated for several months."

"It'll depend on whether or not there's a female on the committee that they can convince to ask her. A guy asking her would be inappropriate enough that she might win a legal proceeding against the university."

"Say what?!" I asked in surprise...

"Think about it. If they try to pin a scarlet A on her chest, what happens? Seriously, a woman can ask her, but not a man. I doubt they do. They will ask about dating, and that may well mean that your testimony is discounted."

"I know. On the other hand, she did turn herself in, and she gave evidence against Callie. I'm going to talk about the great job she did in Scott's class and the fact that she got an A, and how she pulled her weight, and so on. I want it to end up as a letter of reprimand, and nothing more. That will hurt, but it won't wreck her life the way being expelled would."