Chapter 3

“I was born to love you
with every single beat of my heart.
Yes, I was born to take care of you
every single day of my life.”
-Queen, “I Was Born to Love You”

(This chapter takes place the afternoon and evening leading up to “A Conversation Amongst Equals.”)

A few hours later, Troy and Julie sat on Propappou’s bed, going through almost a century’s worth of clothing and tossing it into one of four boxes marked “keep,” “donate,” “trash,” and “Helen.” Troy picked up a bright red smoking jacket and debated between keep and Helen before tossing it into the keep box. He thought he heard a thump as it hit the inside of the box, but was distracted by the sad look on Julie’s face.

“You ok, Mistress,” he asked with concern. She fought back a tear and sniffed before replying.

“Yeah, Master. I’m more concerned about whether you’re ok. I just remembered that you, me, and him had to do this for your parents and this is the second time for you.”

“Fourth, remember? I helped Helen when she had to do this with her mom’s stuff, then we both helped with her dad’s.”

“Oh yeah. Guess I forgot cause hers went so quickly. ‘Throw it all in the trash, right next to his fucking corpse.’” Julie thought for another second. “Shit, we’re getting good at this.”

“Damn,” Troy said with a yawn as a pair of hound’s-tooth pants went into donate. “I hope not. I don’t want this to be my fallback if the doctorate doesn’t work out.” Julie saw him yawn and did it herself.

“Dammit, Troilus, why’ve you gotta go making me tired?”

“I got up at midnight to get you from the airport. Guess your parents’ coffee is wearing off.” Julie blinked a bit, then tossed a fedora into the keep box.

“Yeah, I didn’t get much sleep on the plane either. Someone...” She smiled and stretched before continuing. “A flight attendant caught my eye; had to Do What We Do to the entire first class section to make them ignore us. What about you? Seen anyone since you got back?”

Troy blinked, looked over at the fedora, and decided to trust Julie’s judgment.

“Been caught up in all this. One of the realtors was really hot, though. She looked kinda like Helen but older; got her number. Hey, speaking of real estate and stuff, you’re moving to Seattle too, right? Wanna get a place?”

“Sure,” Julie replied instantly. “Figure it’d be a good place for an artist to get a start. I’ve also been thinking of maybe a graphic design business.” Troy yawned again.

“Cool. I could probably help get that set up. After that nap, though, definitely.” Troy stood up and took off his shirt. He spotted a copy of The Anabasis in the original Ancient Greek and tossed it into the Helen box. Julie removed her top as well and walked over to her suitcase.

“Sounds good. I’m going to want that shower before anything else, though.”

Troy dropped his pants and picked up his clothes, heading upstairs to the parents’ old bedroom that was now his. He stopped and picked up Julie’s suitcase and she followed him upstairs, unhooking her bra as they walked.

“Well, you know where it is,” he said as he left the case in front of the bathroom door. Julie removed her bra and started to enter the bathroom, then stopped and turned to Troy’s back as he grabbed the doorknob for the bedroom.

“Hey, just thinking: back at the airport, what was that kiss about?” Troy turned with half-closed eyes, barely registering his best friend’s naked breasts as he thought.

“Hmm? Oh, I dunno. Caught up in the moment, I guess. Just really happy to see you again, Sunflower.”

Julie smiled and unconsciously stroked her hair at hearing the old special name he’d given her.

“Thanks. I’m happy to see you too, Math Boy. You go rest.”

Troy smiled too as they both went into the separate rooms. It was just after noon and the June heat made him not feel like getting under the covers. He dropped his shirt and pants at the foot of the bed and crawled up to the pillow. As he lay flat on his back and closed his eyes, his last thought before falling asleep was “Did her nipples get hard just at the end there?”

Julie stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself. By the time she’d blow-dried her hair, the invigoration of the hot water pouring down on her had already surrendered to her 20 hours of consciousness. She half-sleepwalked into the hallway, remembering that her change of clothes was still in the suitcase outside the bathroom door.

As she bent down to pick it up, she was hit by the stillness of the house; a house that was just as much her home as the one next to it. Gone were the sounds of bouzouki music playing from the bedroom downstairs, the conversations coming from Troy’s mother and hers in the kitchen, the clacking of billiard balls or the bells and whistles of the pinball machine and their fathers and Propappou talking downstairs. The only sound in the house now was the steady inhale and exhale of Troy’s breathing coming from the open bedroom door.

She looked out into the living room at the couches arranged around the television, remembering them with the cushions removed to form the castle of Princess Mesmera and the mighty dragon that she fended off with her imaginary hypnosis powers, long before she’d acquired the ability to really do so. Memories of sitting too close to that TV on the floor and sipping Propappou’s cocoa as they repeatedly rewound the Mind Maidens episode of Super Friends, poring over numerous books with “Hypnosis” and “Suggestion” in the titles, or sneaking into the kitchen late at night with Troy to create the first Cookie-Bar Sundae Rainbow Explosion. Laying on that floor in sleeping bags and not sleeping at all, practicing things she and Troy had learned from their books or talking about the cool secret tunnel they planned to dig between their two houses. Sometimes hiding Helen from her parents and playing Barbies with her while Troy tried to get G.I. Joe in on the action, or showing her the books they’d read.

Then getting older and watching Troy and Helen snuggle on one couch while she’d lay on the other and they’d watch The Goonies again. Bringing her current boyfriend over to sit with Troy’s current girlfriend as they talked. Being told that a teenage boy and a teenage girl were too old to have sleepovers anymore and not understanding quite why because it was just her best pal Troy. Holding him and crying right along with him the night his parents died.

She walked into the bedroom, the suitcase and her clothes now forgotten, and looked at Troy sleeping. She sat down on the bed, towel still wrapped around her, and watched his chest rise and fall rhythmically. Her eyes trailed down to his underwear, and she saw the bulge inside. He didn’t have an erection, but the beginnings of one, as if he’d been thinking about something sexy as he’d fallen asleep. She’d seen his penis before, needing to use the bathroom while he was in the shower or walking in on him and another girl when they had their apartment together, but she’d never really thought about it before. Even through the underwear, it was a nice one.

An image of Troy running a produce stand filled her vision, and she found herself asking if she could have the last banana. He told her there had always been a special one here just for her if she just reached out and took it. Then her eyes opened, and she realized that she was at the level of tired where she’d close her eyes for a second and immediately begin dreaming.

Julie was too tired to get up, and retrieving her clothes and getting dressed only to come back here and pass out felt like too much effort. With the towel still wrapped around her, she laid down on the bed with him and snuggled into the position that she’d curled up with him in since she was old enough to operate the front doorknobs of their two houses by herself. Without waking, Troy turned over to face her and his arm wrapped around her. Gazing at his sleeping face and wanting to reach out and touch it, but not doing so for fear of waking him up, she closed her eyes and immediately fell asleep too.

Troy became aware through the sleep fog that he had his arms around someone. His eyes opened slightly, and in the dim blueness of the sun’s rays being muted by the curtains, he saw brownness before him. His gaze moved slightly downward, toward his feet, and the brownness gave way to yellowness. A couple inches more, and the yellowness became sleeping Julieness beside him.

Troy smiled. Waking up with an unconscious woman in his arms was a familiar experience, but something always felt “off” about it; like they’d been doing it wrong and he couldn’t explain or convey exactly how that was the case. The sight of the girl he’d woken up holding more times in his life than any other was always a welcome one. Julie just “got” how to curl up with him in a way other women never could.

He leaned his head in a little closer, careful not to bump into hers, closed his eyes again, and inhaled the scent of her freshly shampooed hair, and beneath that, a scent he hadn’t smelled in far too long; her scent. He’d never really considered anything to compare it to, because it was just Julie’s Scent to him, and any other would have to be compared to it instead of the other way around. His eyes opened, and he could see from this angle now that the towel she’d wrapped herself in before crawling into bed with him had slipped and exposed her breasts.

He looked at them. He’d seen them many times before, the first real breasts he’d ever seen, and the ones he’d seen right before laying down for his nap, however long ago that was; but he’d never seriously looked at them like this before. Never really admired the curves of them, how her aureole, pink and a bit taller than they were wide, took on an almost teardrop shape from this angle; the dime-sized nipples slightly poking out from them. They were amazing to him. He was tempted to reach out and touch them before remembering whose they were.

Troy became aware of the fabric of his underwear becoming more constricting as his still sleep-muddled train of thought told him that she probably wasn’t wearing any panties under the towel either. The sensation between his legs was goading him to lift up the bottom of the towel and take a look, but he mentally reminded it that this was Julie and it wasn’t happening. The sensation tried to plead the case that even her parents wanted something to happen between them, and he reiterated that even so, it certainly wouldn’t be while Julie was unconscious.

As he pulled the top of the towel back up to cover them, his hand brushed against the soft flesh of the side of her breast, and he saw her nipple stiffen as she inhaled a bit more sharply than she had been. As he returned his hand to her back and closed his eyes again, he thought he heard a tiny “love you, Troy” on her exhale and detected another faint feminine scent before fading back into sleep, the feeling in his underwear seeming to tell them that this discussion wasn’t over.

Julie woke and sat up on the bed, the towel she’d had wrapped around her slipping off with the motion. The blue of the afternoon sun through the curtains had given way to darkness. She had a brief moment of panic at not knowing how long they’d been asleep and uncertainty if it was the same day or not. She turned to wake Troy when she remembered that she’d left her watch and phone in the bathroom, and they’d tell her the time more easily. As she got up, the shifting weight on the bed caused Troy to stir, and he caught a brief glimpse of bare flesh as she rounded the corner into the hall. He remembered who’d been sleeping next to him and became concerned.

“Mistress, you ok,” Troy called into the hallway.